Save for some Jurassic technology, filming sex videos pre-internet involved manual effort, bulky hand cameras, big tapes and cds of all variations. And there wasn’t today’s one click magic; one must get up his feet, go to nearby sidewalks and buy from sellers who discreetly market pornographic movies.
This was how they made business in porn then.
Now is a totally different infrastructure given the internet and social media. What was then an effortful, penny-requiring process to get sex material is now made free thanks to a vast selection of porn content online.
However, there are still facets of this industry that most people do not understand.
How exactly is a commercial sex video produced? How do porn stars find screen partners? How do these sex videos make their way to porn sites? The top question being; could you get rich doing porn?
Adult film actress Salome Salvi (not her real name) sheds light on all of this. She got her screen name based on the two characters of a famous novel.
Producing content
According to Salome, doing sex work, let alone thriving in the industry isn’t easy. From conceptualization until publication, production of a sex episode is a careful and oftentimes tedious process.
As porn largely remains taboo in the Philippines, the industry is far from being considered booming despite the large population of Filipinos consuming it, said Salome.
Local porn actors do not have studios, equipment or management their counterparts have in other countries so content creators have no choice but to film and produce individually and independently.
“How it is to make porn that is of good quality parang medyo salat amongst us, parang we’re just learning from each other as a community pero hindi siya katulad sa States na parang medyo standardized na o ito magiging process natin,” Salome said in an exclusive interview.
Currently, the trend that sells is the highly polished, storified plots normally seen in foreign adult films, said Salome. Storylines like innocent female secretaries being objectified by their bosses, young ladies and old men and real lovers going into honeymoon are just amongst endless content ideas that usually go viral.
This is because such plots are said to enhance people’s sexual arousal levels higher.
Getting real
While agreeing that commercialized story ideas sell, Salome prefers the relatable stuff, those that normal people actually do, experience and crave for.
“I make the kind of porn that I wanna watch. I like porn where I can see that there’s a visceral connection between the partners on screen,” she said.
Salome’s aim is to elicit real, felt and genuine reactions through content that has all the ingredients of anyone’s ideal sexual experience.
“I want that authenticity pero well shot, done well, high quality. Gusto ko yung makita ko yung ganung klaseng connection and ganung klaseng genuineness pero maganda ‘ang pagkakagawa,” she said.
As for Salome, she does everything by herself as do most porn actors locally. As the director and producer of her content, she films, edits and publishes her videos without anybody’s intervention.
For her, having someone filming the entire thing affects the genuineness of the process, especially the actors’ actions and responses which decreases the effect of the visual sexperience she aims to give her patrons.
“My videos are all real,” she said.
“That realness is something I am looking for when I look for videos I wanna watch and get off to. ‘Yun talaga ‘yung policy ko eh. Hindi ako gagawa ng something na hindi ko ma-e-enjoy panoorin,” she said.
Finding a screen partner
Salome said one of the most critical parts of the whole process is finding the right screen partner. But how do you find one? Is there an audition?
Salome says yes.
Before they get to the good stuff, she does a subtle audition process where she screens each soul who wants to have a piece of her on screen.
“Before I get to a point where I’m shooting with someone, parang may audition process pa ‘yan na let’s go out on a date, feel each other out, have sex with each other a few times before we get on screen,” she said.
“Para ‘pag onscreen meron nang chemistry, meron nang pagkakakilala ng katawan ng isa’t-isa, kabisado and nakapag warm up na sila to the idea of what they’re gonna do. So that definitely happened, I had to do that with a bunch of partners,” she said.
The right sex partner
She of course has her criteria for choosing, topping the list are good looks.
“I want na type ko physically and sexually para ‘yun nga eh, ‘yung authenticity ng responses ko, responses namin to each other, ‘yun ang hinahabol kong i-capture ng porn,” she said.
Once the first test is passed, she proceeds to ask the spine-tingling question, “are you okay with your video being online forever?”
Salome said she makes sure her screen partner is okay in seeing himself in the “most vulnerable state you’ll ever be in.”
“You’re having sex with someone. You’re opening up your body, your heart to someone, on camera. That’s so vulnerable and dangerous,” she said.
Lastly, she needs a man who could maintain performance throughout the shoot.
“So I need na kaya niya mag-remain hard, knows how to please me, knows how to have sex and can maintain that for the entire shoot, and hirap non,” she said.
Not everyone of course gets the good piece of the pie. She had hopeful screen partners that she didn’t push through because of incompatibility in chemistry, vibe and style among so many others.
Getting to porn sites
With innovations in various online and social platforms, various channels are now available to adult content creators to sell their content on. Porn sites however still remain a classic.
Pornhub in particular remains to be a cult favorite. Getting your content released in it however isn’t as easy unlike how it was back then.
Salome said Pornhub now has a strict screening process to vet every individual content creator. They now require anyone who wishes to join the community documents like valid IDs and a working bank account among others to confirm that the one who uploads content is a real person that’s true to the identity he / she claims.
Pornhub in particular has taken steps to police its community because of nefarious acts done in the past like posting child porn or revenge porn where private videos are posted without the consent of the people involved with the intent to embarrass.
Is porn a profitable industry?
“I wouldn’t say it is, honestly.”
Just like in vlogs, there are so many other adult content creators doing the exact same thing and showing the exact same meat. What separates one from the other according to Salome is viewership and staying in the game.
“Andaming may kakayahan na gumawa ng content. Ang challenge is, paano mo pararamihin ‘yung viewers mo,” she said.
“How do you stand out from a million other people that are doing the exact same thing as you? So branding is important,” she said.
Indeed, a successful online career relies solely on the influencer or content creator’s bankability. Many have hit a gold mine being online personalities but getting to that level of fame and success does not happen overnight. Unlike regular business or employment, the journey to growing that online empire unfortunately barely pays for the most part.
“It’s hard to grow your following. It took me years to get to where I am before I started going full time,” she said.
Currently, Salome’s Pornhub profile boasts of 30,600 subscribers with over 34.1 million views.
“Ready ka ba na igugol ‘yung ganung klasend oras sa trabaho mo na no work, no pay. No viewers, no pay,” she said.
How much does a porn star make?
To answer the question, how much does an adult content creator earn?
“Para na siyang YouTube. Like if you get a million views, that’s Php 30,000. Per thousand views, it’s like 60 cents USD (Php 30.00),” she said.
In the current state of porn industry in the Philippines, barely a handful make a billion views.
“Bilang kami sa kamay so hindi mo pwede masabi sa mga tao na ‘uy lucrative ‘to but even the most famous of us only make Php 30,000 from PornHub,” she said.
With all of this, Salome gets real, “lucrative siya for the people who get lucky. But for most people, it doesn’t pay anything.”
