Exposure

by Chauntelle Tibbals

  Given all this, it’s not surprising that when I was looking for a “for-fun” side research project between completing my dissertation and my years as a visiting scholar at the University of Southern California (USC, 2012–2013)—you know, in my infinite free time between researching gender and law and occupational structures shaping adult entertainment—I settled on music in porn. I had actually been interested in this for a while, in part because of an annoying thing that often happened when I told people about my work.

  When people asked me about what my sociological endeavors entailed, depending on who they were, they’d get one of two answers. For people I perceived to be more conservative, I studied “occupational structures and workers’ rights in stigmatized yet legal industries operating in the United States.” Generally, this was obscure enough to get people to zone out and stop asking questions. For those who seemed more open-minded, I studied “the sociocultural significance of adult entertainment as it relates to law, media, and gender.” Almost invariably, option two would prompt the response: “Adult entertainment? Wait! You mean porn? Bow-chicka-bow-wowww!” Apparently this sound effect is synonymous with adult content.

  The thing is, though, that it isn’t. Absent some golden-era films produced during the time when funk was at its popular height, you never really hear anything remotely bow-chicka-bow-wow in porn. At least, I haven’t. So why does everyone think it’s there? I had been curious about this question for a long while. Couple that with all of the really creative content producers I know—people who add thoughtful, occasionally original music to their porn—and my own long love affair with music, and I had another project on my hands.

  I picked away at porno soundscapes for a while, tossing around ideas in my free time, asking questions when the topic came up, and paying attention to the noteworthy (and occasionally terrible) music I came across. I was trying to pull an interesting, specific question from yet another sea of misunderstanding. And though I wasn’t trying too hard, I also wasn’t having much luck. Then one day, a call for papers (CFP) from the Experience Music Project (EMP) museum came my way.

  The EMP in Seattle is a “leading-edge” (their words), nonprofit space rooted in music and dedicated to the risk-taking ideas that fuel contemporary popular culture. They hold several regional conferences around the country each year, and 2013’s Los Angeles–area meeting was dedicated to “Locals Only: Pop & Politics in This Town.” The CFP asked for work pertaining to music, media, gender, and insiders/outsiders in LA. It took me all of an eighth of a second to come up with “music, media, locals yet still outsiders—porn!” It was a great opportunity to work through some ideas and get some points in with my department at USC, which was where the conference was being held. A little bit of finessing yielded this submission:

  Beyond “Porn Funk”—Sociocultural Evolutions of Music in Adult Content, Past and Present

  Although all types and forms of pornography are created around the globe, the professional adult content production industry is unique to Los Angeles, specifically to the San Fernando Valley. Interestingly, the music scoring porn has often been regarded as “cheesy,” ancillary, or even unnecessary. This important dimension of adult content production, however, is anything but insignificant. Like all media (and all aspects of this media specifically), music in porn has evolved in conjunction with wider sociocultural evolutions and with changes within the adult industry itself. In this talk, I will outline the historical development of music scoring adult content from the 1970s through today. Further, I will engage insights gleaned from in-depth interviews with five currently influential and active adult content producers and/or directors in order to explore the significance of contemporary music in porn.

  My proposal was accepted immediately, and the organizers commended me for my creativity. I was excited. I got to work.

  On the day of the conference, I showed up pumped to present my findings. The project had changed shape some since my original proposal, but I was confident about it. Outlining the development of the music that scored adult content from the 1970s through the present—a dissertation-size ethnomusicology endeavor—had proven to be a bit too much for the occasion. I had scaled the scope of the project back but had still been able to incorporate a touch of historical depth.

  Funk music emerged in the 1960s and was originally associated with the Black Power Movement. It then moved through wider culture, reaching a high point in the 1970s before all but disappearing by the 1980s. And somehow, since then, it’s become synonymous with porn, sparking yet another legacy of social and cultural “knowledge” that is widely misinformed. That was as far as I had gotten, choosing instead to focus my energies on a smaller question: How does mythology of “porn funk” measure up against the real, contemporary world of music in adult content production?

  In order to explore my refined query, I conducted in-depth interviews with fourteen current adult content producers and directors (four women and ten men, whose experience in the industry ranged from two to forty years). I talked to great people: Barrett Blade, Jonni Darkko, Eddie Powell, and Jacky St. James, among others. I learned that, during the recent industry downturn, as financial constraints have tightened around professional adult content production, especially feature-length projects, music has become even less of a priority. (Outside the work of some auteurs, porn has generally always been more about the visual depiction of sex and less about other aspects of production, like music.) Consequently, the vast majority of music used in contemporary content is pulled almost arbitrarily from licensed catalogues or libraries. Most of the time very little thought is put into the process. But in some instances, I found that one of three other options occurred: (1) Producers were imaginative and culturally aware with their use of catalogue music; (2) Producers complemented thoughtful catalogue selections with some original music; or (3) Producers occasionally used porn as the platform to produce completely new music.

  Jacky St. James and Eddie Powell told me how they plumbed existing catalogues, seeking out classics and recognizable fair-use content that would connect to viewers on a deeper psychological level. Barrett Blade, a former professional musician, described how he would occasionally write original music for scenes and segments in his films, filling in places and spaces where catalogue content just didn’t work. And Jonni Darkko, who at the time of our interview had created more than 150 films, wrote an original score for every single project. For him, porn was just a visual accompaniment to his preferred auditory art form.

  I concluded my talk with my own musings—why, in spite of all this obviously thoughtful creativity, did people continued to bow-chicka-bow-wow porn to death? I had a few theories: In addition to there actually being a fair measure of lazy, stereotyped “porny” music out there, (1) Unfamiliarity breeds reliance on stereotypes; (2) Our wider culture is generally uncomfortable with sex; and (3) It has something to do with sociologist Jean Baudrillard’s ideas about a copy of a copy of a copy (and so on) losing its original integrity.1

  My ideas were smart, people asked good questions, and I got a lot of great feedback. A few weeks later, I had a final research article ready for peer-reviewed journal submission. Why the hell not, right?

  I sent the manuscript off to my first-choice journal, and my article was promptly rejected. Not offered notes and a “revise and resubmit”—just rejected. Not provided with the name of a more appropriate journal—rejected. I tried another, then another. Three different journals, three rejections without comment. I said, “Fuck it” and moved on, but I was more than a little disappointed. And in spite of everything academic I had already been through, I was surprised. About a year later, I saw a CFP from an area studies journal asking for papers on music in porn. I tried to control my frustration as I read my own ideas reflected almost verbatim in the call.

  Six months before that, however, I ran into one of the women I had interviewed for the project. It was the first time I had seen her since we’d talked, and she immediately thanked
me. She had listened to the live audio webcast of my presentation and was touched by how poignantly I had captured the meaning of music in her work. She wanted to make sure I knew that I had gotten it correct.

  A while later, after she had gone on her way and I was alone, I sat down, head in hands and shoulders low. Though the cursory dismissals still stung, it no longer mattered that my porn funk paper had been rejected three times without comment. It didn’t matter that all the big thinkers of the world would never know or care about the significance of this director’s work. It didn’t matter that no “legitimate” forum would publish my research, and it didn’t matter that the CFP had reflected my ideas without reference or citation—at least, it didn’t anymore. What truly mattered was that there had been a space for her voice.

  I thought about all this and I thought about her gratitude, and I cried—great, exhausted, forever frustrated, but never-to-be-beaten tears. Again.

  13

  The Power of the P(orn Fans)

  IT COULD HAVE BEEN ANY EVENT, AS LONG AS IT WAS ONE where fans were present. I was standing off to the side of the slightly raised stage area, behind a row of women signing autographs—one of my many posts. I was far enough away to be unobtrusive but close enough to hear what was going on, ready to intercede if necessary.

  It had already been hours, and the crowd in front of the booth was thick, always on the verge of closing in tighter. There was no easy way out, and we were all a bit on edge. Audrey Bea’s beauty was on high beam, like a sacrificial mermaid at the front of a ship. She glanced my way, and her silent scream—holymarymotherfuckingshit, I cannot stand this!—was visible in the almost imperceptible wince of her lower lash line.

  I met her gaze and attempted to send her some telepathic reassurance—Hang in there, honey! Your shift is almost up—when I was yanked hard to the right and nearly knocked off my feet by Destiny Rain.

  “This guy is . . . wet!? Get him off me!” Destiny hissed under her breath. Her nails dug into my arm as she used me as an anchor to pull her body left, away from the meaty-looking gentleman on her opposite side. Her glossy smile never flickered, not even once.

  “Sir, you’re gonna have to move along now,” I said, as I scooted around and wedged myself in between her and him. He was, in fact, quite wet. “There are lots of other people here who want to see Ms. Destiny, too.”

  The line never got any shorter.

  “Ugh, every year, the same crap. He’s such a fan,” Akeela Song lamented to no one in particular. When a porn star referred to someone being “such a fan” like Akeela had, they were talking about a certain type of admirer—one who had crossed the line of appropriate and had drifted into starstruck or obsessive. But at that moment, everything was okay. Akeela’s signing shift was over, and it was time for her to go. She tossed a pile of expensive gifts into a nearby garbage can as she retreated to the interior of the booth.

  As I kept one eye on Akeela, I could hear Krystal Harris biting back at a fan who had gotten a little too pushy. “If I’m such a whore, then why are you here? I didn’t wait in line to see you,” she pointed out the obvious, her disdain apparent.

  And as the days and years passed, time after time and show after show, I found myself between star after star and her “biggest fan,” someone who had waited hours for just one moment of attention—or for the opportunity to ask her what her father thought of her. I ducked through secret hallways in huge hotels, dragging suitcases and carrying everything from small dogs to cartoon-themed humidifiers, always making sure to shield whatever charge or friend I was currently blockading from the strangest mix of human adoration and disgust. It was an intoxicating yet toxic cocktail that eventually seemed to get them all.

  I do not understand what happens to people when they become porn fans.

  I noticed it immediately, at the very first fan show I attended back in my intern days. People, some of whom seemed almost hypnotized by lust or joy or fascination, would wait for hours to meet their favorite starlet. Some would have gifts, occasionally even thoughtful ones. All of them wanted a picture. The performers would smile and preen and pose . . . and then, almost invariably, express their disgust in some small imperceptible way.

  I was shocked. How could they be so dismissive of people who were, for all intents and purposes, the reason they were there? Without fans or consumers there would be no porn or fame—or any of the perks that went along with it.

  But I realized pretty quickly that there was way more going on than just overt dismissal. The exchange between fans and performers was actually quite complex. It broke down like this: For every sincerely kind enthusiast, there were at least a hundred weirdos—salivating, grabbing, deep-breathing, occasionally wet, often creepy individuals who expected far too much attention during their allotted thirty seconds. There were also a handful of outright assholes—people who came with stacks of photos or product they expected signed, all so they could turn around and sell everything on eBay. (This was 2007.) There were also people who came with the express purpose of saying and asking mean things. “You’ve gotten a lot fatter since you were nineteen!” or “Do you think your kid and his friends ever watch you fuck? I bet that gangbang you did would really freak them out!” A lot of them actually expected a civil, thoughtful response.

  And then there were the super fans. Rarer than the assholes, some of these folks were genuinely nice sorts who had just slipped a little too far into the fantasy. They knew intimate details and personal information, they remembered birthdays, they were pleasant and polite, but just beneath the surface they were also slightly unhinged. It was subtle and unsettling. Some super fans were openly raw and completely over the edge, the kind of people who made a woman’s spine freeze when she saw them inching their way to the front of the line. The kind of people who sincerely believed they knew their favorite performer, and one day she would be theirs, no matter what.

  The longer I watched—two hours, six hours, four days in a row, show after show—and the more times I had to tell an adult that he was not entitled to grope or hassle a woman simply because he had seen pictures of her naked, the more complex the relationship between performers and fans became. It’s not that the performers were ungrateful, it’s that they were tired. It’s not that the performers were rude, it’s that their non-camera-side shoulder was drenched in a slurry of others’ BO. Some of them were better at maintaining their composure in these situations, but every single one of them walked away from a fan day feeling at least a little tender. Or so I’ve been told.

  In recent years, social media specifically and the Internet in general have cranked this dynamic up to new levels. No longer do you have to leave your home to adore or berate your favorite performer—just reach out via Twitter! She may not respond, but she’ll most likely see what you have to say. Want to give a special gift? Performers create wish lists just for you! Chances are you’ll get a thank-you package from the recipient, or at least an image of her with the shoes, computer, body products, or sex toys you bought. And if you’d like to offer extended commentary, good or bad, on anything related to your favorite lady or her work, there are endless online forums. And most of the time, there will be other fans on there to interact with you.

  When I first started exploring these dynamics, I was taken aback by how aggressive and entitled some fans seemed to be. Today, I’m taken aback by how much more aggressive and entitled even more of them have become. Just a few years ago it took a fair amount of effort to be weird, mean, or even nice; thus, fewer people seemed inclined to expend the energy. Today, we can throw out insults and compliments at the drop of a hat—hiding behind the computer, fishing for some sort of response, and feeling entitled to a meaningful interaction.

  Imagine a Twitter user called @InventedXXXFan. In any five-minute period, @IXF may tweet some version of “You’re so hot baby, can I get a RT?” to as many performers as possible, swapping out names and reproducing the oh-so-meaningful message. Presumably, this shotgun approach will yield a
response or two. And if it doesn’t, you can almost always see the same handle a little while later, this time with the missive, “Fuck you, you cock-sucking whore-slut!” undoubtedly rendered with some creative spelling and punctuation.

  What is the point of this manic gimme-something-or-I’ll-insult-you social media exchange? And why in the world would people expect a response?

  Maybe because they occasionally get one. I’ve seen it more than once—from high-profile porn stars to new performers starting out, debating some keyboard warrior on a public forum. Women are compelled to defend their motherhood and their bodies. Performers argue the politics of their industry with people who are in no way connected to it or informed about its dealings. University students and individuals with advanced professional certifications—because some porn stars are also in college and some have earned any number of impressive accreditations—defend their intellect in light of their current chosen profession, all on nameless, faceless social media.

  I read a news item once about a young girl who had tweeted to her mainstream celebrity boy-band crush something along the lines of, “Respond to me, or I will hurt this dog!” The message was accompanied with an image of her threatening a Chihuahua. And though the entire thing was later found to be a hoax, the boy-band crush, too popular to have ever even seen the image in a timely manner, never responded. But porn stars do respond. They respond to the insults, the kindnesses, and the requests for birthday shout-outs. Not always and not perfectly but far more frequently than their mainstream counterparts. This is because, in the current age of porn production, proof of a large fan base, as evidenced by a considerable social media following, provides an independent performer with bargaining power and creative control. Career negotiations aren’t similarly impacted or improved for mainstream celebrities.