lazerbunny!

Lux Nightmare

ElleasinSwell

Unless I'm going to the wrong soup kitchens.

Lux Nightmare

nah Justin, I am just surprised anyone, not just you but those Furrygirl and Lux talk about, would go and tell some one else to do something for free.

It's not like it's volunteering at a soup kitchen

I.M.B.Y

I totally respect that motivation -- but I also think that it's a hard way to grow something or get traction. As I'm sure you can attest to, running a site like this is a lot of work, and takes a lot of effort to keep going -- the ability to make a living doing it is a good motivator... but one that, as mentioned before, is increasingly difficult to attain.

p.s. I ♥ radical feminists who ♥ porn.

Lux Nightmare

but something i can add is that yes, based on my experience, 2257 does make it nearly impossible for independent producers to put up their own sites. we were only able to do it because of the incredible generosity of the hard working women at the porn shack that is hosting our documents.

also, our site does not get an overwhelming amount of traffic, and i imagine its because of the way we don't conform well to western beauty standards and heteronormative practices. like you said, really being alt is very difficult.

and i'm totally with you, lux, and furry girl on the "for free" aspect. If you want to do it for pay, that's totally your right and your choice and all those people who say it "should" be for free should fuck off.

djlotu5

Justin K. Rivers

I get TV for free, you read this blog for free -- but the people in my favorite TV shows, and the author of this post (hi!) are still getting paid.

Lux Nightmare

And I'm not some wanker looking for free jerk off content. I've worked on adult website since 1996. I'm just being realistic about the value of the over saturated market for adult content

buckminster

xo, lotu5

djlotu5

How many times have I felt down only to be brought up by a smiling nude regular person. It is worth something, especially if it costs you money to send it through the net pipe.

I get the whole exhibitionist thing, but seriously, is your nude body public domain? I am twitching over this. Who would say free?

I am sorry you both have to answer to the debate. Beautiful, both of you.

I.M.B.Y

[tinyurl.com]

It's the distributors and aggregators who win every time. Independent producers have no way to share risk -- if no one shows up, you've lost your investment. And if people do show up, it's not so easy to scale. But a publisher paying dozens of producers a nominal fee only needs a couple of hits to make it all pay off. And when a brand like Suicide Girls becomes the defacto destination for a content niche, it makes it that much harder to break through the marketing noise and let potential customers know about your work.

Hence, an individual is at best left with doing commissioned work for a larger site and has to hope they can negotiate favorable terms. But the publisher has a severe advantage in negotiations because they know the terms of all the other contracts and see any individual model as basically replaceable and expendable. If I was a Suicide Girl, I'd be lobbying other models to help force management into a collective bargaining agreement or at least an option to purchase an ownership stake in the site and its profits.

Jackson West

There is NO real money to be made in alt/indie porn. I swear.

Everyone says they're all about sexually liberated embrace-everyone radical body positivity, but sites that feature non- "mainstream beautiful" models don't really make any money. Cases in point: both the owner of NoFauxxx.com and myself (VegPorn.com & EroticRed.com) maintain non-altporn careers because our indie sites don't make enough to support us. She works for a cool non-porn company and I run my more heteronormative FurryGirl.com to bring home the soybacon.

This is why it's especially insulting that we get picked on all the time for charging money for our small productions- we're running our sites as "wastes of time" in the financial sense, but they're projects we love and care for. To get regularly prodded for being greedy capitalist pigs really adds insult to injury.

(Not that you're being viscous here, Justin, but I've been weathering attacks for many years now by people who think I'm a terrible human being for charging money for my work.)

Of course, the ultimate answer to all this is: Want some free alt porn? Create some free alt porn!

Furry Girl

Money has a corrosive influence on any ideals, whether that influence is external or internal. An artist should be compelled to art whether the pay is good or not. Certain art, of course, requires a lot of money. But plenty of others (like radio drama) do not.

To be a radio dramatist, for example, would result in no meaningful income or prestige. But I could do it anyway, in my spare time, and share my work with a small community of people who appreciate it. Radio dramatists today do just that. But that doesn't mean that the art form is dead. Alt, with its idealism and aspirations, doesn't die if you can't make a living at it. It dies if people stop making it.

Justin K. Rivers

For me, it brings up the whole "sex work isn't real work" thing -- which, quite frankly, is not the case: try spending your days making porn and see how you feel about it then.

Lux Nightmare

Furry Girl

Lux Nightmare

Marsupial

josereyes.theroof wishes to perform Tim Harris's sack-dance for you

Blackburn Lankershim

Lux Nightmare

Justin K. Rivers

*This would seem to imply that I am saying all bile reserved for SG is a product of jealousy, & not a longing for "fair-play". It's not, though. Certainly, jealousy at how SG managed to sell its brand -- I recall when I first learned of it, late '02 or early '03, when it was a year-old (or little more) & lagging the likes of BurningAngel -- is rampant, but even I would call into question the payment schedule for models & the distribution of their photo-sets. (I have fewer qualms with the "exclusivity" side; there again, "contract girls" are much discussed on this site, with respect other producers, & even such venerable brands as Playboy would prefer not to share their models. (To wit, I recall first seeing such as Aria Giovanni, Erica Campbell, & Joy Behrman in Playboy, but not so much since they moved to other venues.) All told, though, the SG hate is as much sour-grapes as any concern for the well-being of the individual SuicideGirls & their earning capability.

** Also, to extend the metaphor, I fully expect SG's end-game to play out like the end of There will be blood.

josereyes.theroof wishes to perform Tim Harris's sack-dance for you

Lux Nightmare

P.S. Lux, your writing is really great. I especially appreciate your not relying so heavily on puns as compared to a lot of porn bloggers. Thanks for all your work!

MichelleMyBelle

The Cooler

The same thing happened with Bang Bros., and it will happen to Abby Winters (and, hey!, Wicked is distributing their next two titles, for what it's worth), too, and so on and so forth. But fake can sometimes be just as good, and having a choice (even if they're a little watered down) isn't so bad, either. If anything, it does allow more opportunities to see up and coming talent in less conventional porn scenarios, even if, like Vivid Alt, it's being bankrolled by a bigger fish. And while I would love to toss all of my recession-era dollars at a mom and pop like Tony Comstock (and I still will), being able to see a two-week-only career stint by a girl or boy spread across six or seven releases by bigger studios seems more fair on the consumer's end of the stick, or at least mine, specifically. But them's the breaks, I guess.

CloudCarrier

DanaDeArmond

Lux Nightmare

DanaDeArmond

Even if big corporations have taken over music/film/etc, there are still indie bands, indie films, etc (they just don't get as much attention as their corporate counterparts). In the porn world, however, independent production has pretty much died out.

Lux Nightmare

I wonder if this problem could be guarded against with more informed consumers. If you go to the grocery store and want to buy an organic arugala or something, you can make an informed decision based on the label etc.

Justin K. Rivers