I have had this thought rattling around in my brain for a while about custom porn. When I first heard the tales of custom porn producers on the Jon Ronson podcast “The Butterfly Effect” I was struck immediately by the stories of the things the performers were being asked to do had nothing really to do with sex. The (usually) male customers were asking for enactments of abstract fantasies , sometimes very mundane or in contrast, bizarrely specific things. Of course a lot of this was working through some form of trauma or childhood issue in a very literal way, with the customers being very open and honest about the reasons behind their requests. It turns out this scenario is very prevalent in the world of custom porn. It made me think about the psychological impact and mental health support happening in these interactions. Ina world where these customers for whatever reason (and these will be myriad) don’t have access to the kind of “medicinal” help and mental health services they need they are choosing to seek it out for themselves via porn.
So when I am asking the question “When porn is sex ed, how do we make porn sex ed?” is there also a parallel space to ask the question “When porn is therapy, how do we make porn therapy?” also?? What happens when we ignore two huge gaps that need addressing, that should be bridged by our societal structures and education systems and are instead lay in a void that is instead filled by accessible unregulated online porn???????
I don’t know the answer to this, I think the consequences however are becoming evident and only have further down hill to go if we continue to ignore these facets of a much wider and important conversation. I would like to explore this world of custom porn and it’s relationship to mental health a little more as I think there is a interesting and relatable parallel to the lens of porn as sex ed also. I also think what’s super interesting here too is the fact that a parallel idea exists in a different for in the work of Erika Lust. XConfessions, one of Lust’s ethical porn platforms takes the anonymous sexual confessions submitted to the site and turns them into the films, taking the content ideas straight from the customers/viewers Lust is effectively “making fantasies come true” in exactly the same way the old school performers in the LA Valley home of porn making are, the production, packaging and delivery is totally different but the outcomes and motivations are arguably the same.