Dark Side of Porn

The Dark Side of Porn is a six part series of films that each examine an aspect of the modern porn industry. Using specific examples of films, and by speaking directly with former performers, filmmakers and families themselves; the series of films journey through the firsthand and often unseen issues that are pervasive to modern pornography—such as STIs, the use and abuse of relationships, rape, human trafficking, the recruitment process, and the seen and unseen cultural impacts of films such as Deep Throat and Emmanuelle, to name a few. Consequently, this series offers a disturbing account of the tip of the iceberg of modern mainstream pornography…

Series

In 2004, male ‘pornstar’ Darren James contracted HIV by having unprotected sex during a film shoot in Brazil. As unprotected sex is very common in the porn industry and that James had still had sex with many other women for movies after the infection, the diagnosis led to a two month shutdown of the porn industry in Los Angeles. This episode follows Sharon Mitchell, a former pornstar turned doctor as she founded the Adult Industry Medical Health Care Foundation where she works screening for STIs. Also swiftly examined are Rob Black, producer of “gonzo” pornography.

This episode gives an insight into the lives of newcomers to the porn world. From the initial approach to perhaps a ‘glamour’ agency and the first sexy photo-shoot, to the HIV test, the audition and the first hardcore shoot; it shows the gritty reality of what working in the business of porn means.

Also known as The Curse of Debbie Does Dallas, in the vein of Inside Deep Throat, this episode examines the history of the production and marketing of the 1978 cult hit, Debbie Does Dallas, and is a study of sorts of the porn industry in the 1970s. Interviews with former pornstars also try to uncover the mystery of Bambi Woods, the starlet who disappeared from porn soon after Debbie Does Dallas and was rumoured to have connections with the mafia and problems with the FBI. Featuring interviews with Robin Byrd, a female actress in the movie and Bill Kelly, a former FBI agent once working on an undercover operation to bust porn producers.

This episode examines the mystery surrounding the death of Eve Valois, or ‘Lolo Ferrari’, in March 2000. Eve was a French dancer, turned sex icon, turned ‘pornstar’, actress and singer; billed as “the woman with the largest breasts in the world” by the Guinness Book of World Records in 1996 after enduring extensive plastic surgery. In this episode, the story of how Eve came to fame is carried by candid interviews with Lola’s mother, her plastic surgeon and her husband. In a story of hurt, depression, manipulation and twists; this episode reveals just one story among the many of a person going the motions of the porn industry, with a tragic ending.

Part five examines the phenomena of ‘amateur porn’ where new male actors are lining up to do a job without getting paid. Some men are picked off the streets, others sign up to recruitment agencies; all in the pursuit of making it big. But as we find, it’s not as simple as this. Not only do many men fail to ‘perform on demand’, we also see women who are exploited to perform or are manipulated into filming for release later, as is the case with 39yr old porn producer James Edwards. Edwards recruits young women, some as young as 18, and gets his son to record him having sex. This process is repeated through his relationships, only to have the footage sold to the world later on in life.

This final episode examines how another single budget movie caused a “sexual revolution”—the cultural impact of the movie Emmanuelle. The French soft-code porn film went on to spawn a series of others, gearing to ‘push the boundaries’ of what was acceptable on screen in the early 1970s; with sex scenes of skinny-dipping, masturbation, rape, and a scene in which a dancer lights a cigarette and puffs it with her vagina. The story is similar to the film ‘Deep Throat’—a story of rape, abuse and profound seen and unseen cultural impacts for many decades to come…