First, I want to thank Vector for trying to add a little spark here, and for inspiring this post.  I actually enjoy differences of opinion being aired out here, as long as they're done without malice and with intelligent debate.

But while I agree with many of Vector's points, I disagree with his conclusions... the state of porn, pornstar escorts and this board is more of a sociological phenomena than anything else... In the six years since I've discovered the hobby of PSEs, many things have changed.  

Back then, there was a progression that many of the pornstars made.  They did porn to establish themselves as feature dancers which was where the money was.  When they got older and the younger pornstars hit the feature circut, they moved into escorting to make their money.  So it was; pornstar, feature dancer, escort in that order.

Then a change happened... house dancers began to see that if they did porn, THEY could become the big money features (Both Devon and Gina Lynn started ou as house dancers at a club in Reading PA called Al's Diamond Cabaret and were "discovered" I belive by Jenna J.).  So the progression became house dancer, pornstar, feature dancer, escort.

Then ANOTHER chage happened.  There were SO many pornstar feature dancers that they became devalued on the dance circut, while at the same time many clubs realized that hiring hotter house dancers and eliminating pornstar features was a more profitable way to go.  Lots of clubs that regularly booked pornstar feature dancers have stopped the practice entirely.

At the same time, because of the relatively low cost of producing gonzo, dozens and dozens of new production companies and websites sprang up, and to be competitive they began to get more and more extreme.

At that point, glamour and beauty became secondary to how wild a girl was willing to get on film.  An average looking girl (and to be honest, in many cases some below average) who would do ass-to-mouth, ass-to-pussy, fisting, bukakke, double vag/ double anal was more in demand that a super-hot babe who'd only do straight boy/girl girl/girl.

Now, add all that to the fact that in the last five years porn has become chic and almost mainstream.  Now you can get XXX videos on pay-per-view in hotels and on-demand on your home cable system... so more and more girls see it as a viable career choice.  It's lost a lot of it's stigma.

So to summerize - Glamour has become secondary, A LOT more girls (many of them average looking at best) are doing porn, and pornstar feature dancers aren't making the kind of money they used to.

The result?  Lot's of new adult talent are skipping the dance circut and going directly to escorting, which is MUCH more lucrative than actually making movies.

Now, regarding the agencies...

When I got started in this "hobby", there were basically four agencies that specialized in PSEs... Adult Star Fantasy who had a dozen or so well known pornstars available along with a VIP section of UTR pornstars... E2K who had more girls than ASF available publicly but didn't have an extensive VIP section, Body Miracle, who originally specialized almost exclusively in mega-busty ladies like Minka and Kayla Kleevage, and Nici's Girls, which was a member's only agency dealing mostly with UTR models along with a select few big name UTR pornstars.

So naturally the boards like TER and "that other one" dealt with those girls - well known porn STARS who we put on pedestals and fantasized about...  And I was like a kid in a candy shop. I was getting to meet girls I had spent hours jerki... uh, I mean watching have sex on film.

But now, with so many new pornstars going directly to escorting, the agencies are going for quantity over quality.  E2K was the first one to blur the definition of a PSE, but now look at BM or Sophie's Dream Girls, et. al.  There's dozens of girls on their sites who've NEVER done a single porn flick, along with dozens of gonzo girls who've only done websites or extreme porn.

Conversely, the "big name" girls who used to feature prominently on E2K, BM and/or ASF see that these gonzo girls are getting $1500/hr., so they're going UTR knowing that by avoiding the "see a girl one time for an hour to add a notch to my belt" type of hobbyist and appealing to the high roller instead will allow them to command absurd rates.

But by doing so, they've eliminated themselves from being discussed on boards like this...

So what you're left with is ISOs for girls like Anna from Bang Bros.  Not that there's anything wrong with that...

The fact is that this board is a simple reflection of the adult industry in general.  The gonzo production companies, the myriad of XXX websites, and the PSE agencies.  

Hey, if you look at my reviews, you'll see that I haven't really seen a "new" PSE in over a year.  I think my last review was of Ava Devine.  To be honest, I've always had a thing for the classic pornstars, and I've seen all the ones I've fantasized about who were available.  

But given the state of the adult industry today, girls like Anna from Bang Bros. DOES qualify as a pornstar, regardless of what you're personal opinion of her is.

What seperates the "good old days" of this board from the current state isn't the physical apprearance of the PSEs... it's the fact that these days the board is dominated by ISOs, "does she or doesn't she" posts and "I made so-and-so cum 25 times", when in the past there was some interesting exchanges of ideas, information and opinions.  The available girls are who they are... you might not think that they're good looking or worth the money, but there are a lot of guys here who think they are... and these ladies, like it or not, are what drive this forum.  

Ed,

As always when you really sit down and write its a great to read. I find it interesting how you break it down.

I am wondering if the PSE market place is going to change like the adult DVD markets are and drastically at that. I know that every company except probbly DP has seen a 25% or higher lose in sales this yr of DVD product.  We are going to see alot of old main stay companies either being bought out or completely closing there doors.

If all indications are right RLD few other gonzo companies are on its way out and they are a major reason that porn took this diviation in how business has been and was done. Meaning the explosion in Gonzo product.

As we sell to retail stores we hear more and more that with 350 new releases plus a month ( might be a week) that the customer is buying less and renting less. Its the same girls being package differently every time. So in turn buyers are buying less product and more unique stuff and new girl product.

Feature are also making a huge comeback. Most of the bigger budgets and the better looking girl stuff with scripts is coming back. Pirates proved that along with a few other titles.

Which comes to why the net is booming again its alot of fresh faces and alot more fetish material that no distributor wants to touch for fear of the FBI at your door. Plus you cant get strung along by a store that cant pay there bills cause they have alot of crap product that fills there stores that they cant get rid of. Stores are falling by the way side at a dramatic rate also.

Also dont forget I think it was 2 could of been 3 yrs ago now when Jenna lost the contest of fan favorite to Bi-sexual Britni.. I might have the contest name wrong. But regardless she beat Jenna by a good margin. At the time Britni was a huge gonzo girl...

I dont think today there is any girl that could be Jenna as a fan favorite.. for several reasons there is no fan favorite that sticks out among the 6000 working girls. Second no one gets the exposure that Jenna does. Third there are so many girls and so many different girls that would get votes that it would wash out the poll. There is no queen of gonzo like Bi Sexual Brini was at the time.

I am waiting to see a huge correction in what talent is paid per scene. I think this is right around the corner as everyone cuts costs. Talent is going to have to bite the bullet also. Thus more girls will come above the radar to earn or equal there porn income.

All in All like Ed said this is a changing business.. There is a type for every fan out there and soon there will be a ton more.

Very insightful post.  I will just add that I see porn and the PSE as 2 very different things.  For example, there are certain porn stars who perform anal in nearly every video they've ever shot, but don't offer it in their escort sessions.  There are also those who've never done porn but claim to offer a "porn star experience".  So which is it--a porn star who won't do what she does on film or an escort whose never performed on camera but will do anything?  The definition of porn star and PSE has certainly become blurred in the last couple of years.  And due to that blurring the PSE has lost much of it's mystique.  This forum as it is now reflects that.

Interesting analysis. I wish jackpoint were around to weigh in. Awwww...the good 'ol days.

Be careful what you write and post publicly. One day you might just be plagiarized for a doctoral thesis!

Brilliant stuff. Thanks for taking the time out to share your perceptions.

Eddie,

Just wanted to write and say thanks for taking the time to write such a long, but well thought out and brilliant post.  

To add a little bit, the porn industry is a business, not unlike any other industry in a lot of ways.   Costs and pricing are always driven by supply and demand, and is almost always effected by new and better technologies.  

In the case of porn, there has been an explosive growth over the past 5 or 10 years.  No industry, even one as appealing as porn ( Note: I LOVE PORN! LOL) can sustain growth like that.  There will inevitably at some point always be a slow down or market change.  

The internet has definetly changed the industry.  With computers getting better and faster, and home internet connections reaching ridiculous speeds, the sales of DVDs and rentals will surely continue to decrease.  But even companies like Vivid are increasingly expanding their websites and have more and more available for immediate download.  So, although many companies may continue to see drops in dvd sales, the increases may come in other areas.

I think one of the major issues that the porn industry has to face is the increasing amount of free porn preview clips and pictures online.  It's very possible to go onto 2 or 3 websites and download 50 free clips, and just watch a few, one right after the other and get to business, without spending a dime.  I think that inevitably, that will cost the porn industry more than anything else.  Unfortunately, because it's the porn industry, there will probably never be any kind of legislation against pirating porn, like there is with the motion picture industry.  

You are absolutely right though, in that there are many more girls doing porn than before.  And many of them are just average, if not below average looking.   Personally, I'd rather watch someone super-hot doing a plain jane b/g scene than some skank doing a double anal.  I mean, if I don't find the girl attractive, I could care less what she does on film.  

Just my 2 cents.

Jason

"But now, with so many new pornstars going directly to escorting, the agencies are going for quantity over quality.  E2K was the first one to blur the definition of a PSE, but now look at BM or Sophie's Dream Girls, et. al.  There's dozens of girls on their sites who've NEVER done a single porn flick, along with dozens of gonzo girls who've only done websites or extreme porn."

I don't think it's fair to lump all of us in this statement. Just like Nici's Girls before us, we at Bella Models maintain extremely high standards for the girls that we represent. Many of the girls you will find on other agency websites have been turned down by Bella Models. We have always opted for quality over quantity and we go out of our way to recruit the hottest stars rather than waiting for them to find us which means we get them when they are still on top!

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I know this is probably a little off topic, however, I just wanted to speak up for the man who enjoys the "average looking girl" who gets really nasty and extreme in her scenes.  Thats my preference.  The beautiful starlet who is pretty mild in her scenes does not cut it for me, personally; although I must admit, I am a big fan of the golden age in porn.  

As far as the analysis goes, it seems to be acurate in my opinion, but again, I am the one who loves the avergage looking gonzo girl of today's porn.  Take care.

Pardon my ignorance but what exactly is gonzo? No hold's barred, anything goes?

Gonzo encompasses a lot of different kinds of porn... but it developed primarily from the fact that when porn switched from shot on film to shot on video, it became a lot cheaper to produce.  Anyone with a video camera could become a porn producer/director.  But that also meant that all aspects of production values began to decrease... porn started being shot in hotel rooms, there were no costumes or make-up artists, the lighting was haphazard at best.  Films that use to cost $50,000 or more to produce were being shot for 1/10th of that.  

The second thing that happened was that as more and more of these cheap productions were being shot and released and internet porn came into it's own, the pie was getting divided into smaller and smaller pieces so the gonzo companies had to come up with ways to attract a larger audience, and that meant shooting more "extreme" type of content.  So it became a "one-upmanship" kind of game... one company would do double penetration, the next company would do double anal, the next company would do double anal, ass to mouth, cum swapping, and on and on.

During the height of the Clinton era, when the adult industry was being left for the most part alone, you had the rise of fisting videos, bj's until the girl puked videos, bukakke videos, etc.

Hence the rise, and definition of, "gonzo".

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Thanks, I'd alway's wondered what the hell it meant. I guess it's more about the freak show than the woman or sex, evidently regular sex just doesn't cut it anymore. It amaze's me that they get so many women and girl's to do some of the shit that they do.

I believe the term "gonzo" was first coined by or referred to Hunter S. Thompson to describe his freeform, shoot-from-the-hip, no preperation stream-of-conscienceness style of journalism.

Early gonzo was similar in that it was shot quickly with no real scripts and a "point and shoot" style.  

Let me also say that not all gonzo is bad; People like John Stagliano and John Leslie were both pioneers of the genre; unfortunately most gonzo doesn't come close to meeting the standards they set.

Many of the girls who do anal in their videos don't particularly enjoy it, but the pressure of the industry makes it tough for them not to... SO much content today includes anal almost as a given, if a girl isn't willing to do it she loses a lot of job opportunities.

As to the term PSE, originally it was coined to refer to a Porn Star Escort, but non-pornstar providers co-opted the term and changed it to Porn Star Experience as a way of describing their style of service.

So in the purest sense of the definition, a PSE can only refer to a pornstar who escorts regardless of the quality of her performance.  However it's rarely defined that way these days.

Hey, there's nothing wrong with that.  I myself prefer pornstars who are in their 30's and even their early 40's, not only because I think coming from the 80's and 90's when porn was shot on film they have more of a "pornstar persona" about them.  Not only that but I just feel that women in that age group are more in touch with their sexuality and they've gained the knowledge to please and be pleased.

But, I have a LOT of friends who aren't interested in seeing any girl over 25.  

I guess that's why they make chocolate and vanilla ice cream - LOL

Long time no see, Eddie,

I think that the PSE's have been devalued simply because the labor supply has increased - that's the phenomenon all over the world today, as skilled labor becomes increasingly more available at a lower price.

I echo that sentiment.  I find that if I book a PSE I'm not at least a small "f" fan of, an hour after it's over I feel like I didn't have sex at all that day.  There's just no sense of accomplishment.  Yesterday, however, was NOT one of those days.  (=_0)


"To be honest, I've always had a thing for the classic pornstars, and I've seen all the ones I've fantasized about who were available.  "

True.  My point was that a porn star who won't perform the acts for which she has become famous is to me not a PSE.  If just spending time with a porn star is a PSE than merely having a drink at the bar would qualify.  Also a non-porn star escort who will perform the acts the porn star won't is also to me not a PSE.  The term PSE, like the other acronyms like GFE, has lost it's meaning--just as has the definition of porn star.  Again, the board reflects that.

Gonzo is really a genrda of adult that is between a feature and pro am ( Ed Powers)  It basically started in the early 90's it was lightly scripted or more wall to wall sex. What we know today as gonzo is basically everything that comes out of Evil Angel or Anabolic style movies. Really its many different types of movies. It basically comes down to a cost of say 10k -35k to make. Really 99% of what you rent or buy today is gonzo. Features are really only made by Digital Playground, Vivid ( thats debatable even today) Wicked, and a few smaller companies that do what are smaller budgeted mini features. Club jenna is not even really features their more really slick gonzo movies that are shot with a huge budget compaired.

Gonzo as Ed said isnt all bad. But sadly in this current age of adult 80% of gonzo looks identical to every company shooting in LA with the same girl same sets and same guys. We can blame alot of that on RLD, 3rd degree, anabolic, diabolic, definace films, anarchy, now sadly Evil Angel, Elegant angel, Cherry boxxx, and the list goes on.....