Top 5 Porn Industry Facts

In the early days of cinema, paying a few pennies to see a film less than a minute long was the extent of the industry, even if what you were seeing had minimal semblance of story and you were mostly paying for the thrill of the moving image. Remind you of anything? One such work, released in 1896 and titled “The Kiss”, simply showed a couple of totally gorgeous actors sharing a closed mouth kiss. Produced by Thomas Edison, at the time this was seen as the most shocking thing ever put to celluloid. Appalling polite society, the reaction to the film portended a new era of censorship and ratings that we are all too familiar with today. Also, it just so happens to contain the first ever porn-stache.

By its nature the porn industry is relatively private, so it's very difficult to find its actual dollar value. We do know that as of 2014, it was estimated that the industry raked in something in the neighborhood of US$ 97 Billion. To put that in perspective, as of 2013, the video game industry was estimated to be worth US$ 93 Billion. Speaking of money and sex, heterosexual porn is one of the few areas where the gender wage gap is actually reversed. Yup, according to some sources, women get paid twice as much as the man their, uh, working with. And, as you might imagine, men have certain pressures on them that women don’t. More on that later.

For decades, California’s San Fernando valley has been the the porn capital of the world. We are just now coming to the end of this era, and surprisingly for legal reasons. While many companies have their actors perform regular STI tests, hardly any would use condoms on set for a variety of reasons. Up until now, the first amendment’s right to free speech allowed this, but 2012 a law passed which made condoms mandatory for any adult movies shot in LA County. [Soundbite: James Deen on condoms] As a result of these new laws, most porn producers, including industry leader Vivid Entertainment, have slowly moved their production outside of LA, either elsewhere in California or in Nevada, where it is actually much easier to obtain a shooting permit. So long, California.

All men at some point been watching porn and thought to themselves: “That looks fun, I could do that!”. But careful what you wish for. On top of the fact that women are paid more than men, if a man is unable to climax at the end of a day’s shoot, his pay will be cut significantly. (Maybe that’s why it’s called the money shot.)This is harder than it sounds, as actors can struggle to maintain an erection on set, which is understandable considering the pressure of having lights, cameras, and people around all around you, plus the sheer length of the typical shoot. Studios have even been known to hire “fluffers” to come on set in order to stimulate the actor via oral and other non penetrative sexual acts to prepare for a scene. And you thought your job sucked.

You ever wonder what the deciding factor was in media format wars? What gave Blu-ray the strength to hammer the nails into HD DVD’s coffin? That’s right, it’s good old fashioned filth! With porn moving such a high volume of materials, their format choices have the power to decide format conflicts. In the days when Betamax was duking it out with VHS, the porn industry elected to distribute their material on VHS as it was cheaper and a single cassette could hold more footage. More recently, pornography backed Sony’s Blu-ray technology, favouring its slightly higher resolution that allowed for high quality viewing of … whatever you want.

Which of these facts surprise you? Should performers be required to wear condoms? For more money shot Top 10s and friction-causing Top 5s, be sure to subscribe to WatchMojo.com.