According to an article published today on GQ.com, “This Golden Age of Porn Has a Depressing Downside.”

Is this what we are in right now, a “golden age” of porn? Perhaps for consumers – because though they devalue the labor put into adult content creation by widely refusing to treat it as a good worth paying for, maybe it’s “golden” in the sense that porn is so easy to get?

GQ addressed this topic and more today in a somewhat confounding, irksome interview with performer Jesse Jane.

Jane, who started working as a performer in 2002, is arguably one of the most iconic personalities to come from the adult industry community. She was a Digital Playground contract star during the organization’s heyday (approximately 2003 – 2015) and then went on to do significant work with Jules Jordan.

Jane had a lot to say about the industry, taking a bit of then-and-now approach.

On porn today verses porn when she first began in the business:

There’s such a fucking difference. I got into porn right at the perfect time, when porn stars mattered. Porn stars back then, they were big, glamorous. You walked into a room, you turned heads. Everybody knew who you were because they actually had to buy your product or DVDs, everything. Porn was so naughty, but everybody watched it.

On webcam models:

Now all these cam girls say, “Yeah, I’m a porn star.” But they’re not… They do stuff like triple anal or gang bangs or shove baseballs in their asses. It’s totally different now. We never did that before. It’s become more about the shock value, instead of something sexy.

On whether or not she would do porn again:

The adult industry is just not the same anymore. Don’t get me wrong—I still love porn—but the internet is slowly killing the industry, making it all about shock. I’m known for being crazy in my scenes, but I’m just not about what objects I can shove inside me, or how many dicks I can fit in my ass at the same time.

Clearly, as a performer with over 130 scene credits to her name, Jane can speak to content production with far more authority than I. But when reflecting on sentiments expressed in her interview, I am a little confused.

Content created in the early and mid-‘00s was just as extreme, if not more so, than content created today. When making specific reference to sporting goods, one with only a cursory knowledge of adult content production can point to work from Audrey Hollander and Belladonna produced in the same early and mid-‘00s era.

Further, though precision of language is certainly important (and often sorely lacking in the adult industry), there is no need to draw hierarchical distinctions between different types of performance work. The labor required to perform on cam versus the labor required to perform in conventional pre-shot content is certainly different and some aspects may be more or less difficult, but neither are better than the other. Cam models aren’t porn performers and vice versa (unless, of course, an artist works in both arenas), but that’s about the end of it.

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Editor’s Note: “Whorearchy” describes a sort of multi-dimensional, hierarchical system wherein some sex workers are regarded by themselves (and others) as “better” than sex workers working in other sex work occupations – or, not as sex workers at all.

Read more on our sister site, YNOT Cam.

Image via Henk L