Guest *FH* Posted November 2, 2007 Report Share Posted November 2, 2007 This is something I've been thinking about for a while now. There's been a lot of talk of late comparing pornography to wrestling, especially on threads on various boards arguing about the WON HOF where the point has been raised "imagine if there were a porn HOF." Many posters reject the idea of this comparison out of hand without seriously contemplating it. I ask you to stop and think about it. Both are morally questionable in regards to abusing your body, thought by some to be a God-given temple to be cherished and not demeaned. Both are fueled by copious amounts of drugs and run by exploitive sociopaths who will swap out their "Superstars" without a second thought once they are used up (by the drugs, physical wear and tear, psychological trauma, or a combination of the three). Both occupations are pursued by people who definitely have something wrong with them, psychologically, as nobody in their right mind would want to do what these performers do night in and night out. Both occupations promote usually body images that are unattainable without medical assistance. There are easy, specific comparisons to be made, such as comparing ROH to something like bareback gay porn: a very high level of risk, for very little reward, aimed at a small but rabid niche audience. There are also telling differences that disqualify the typical knee jerk reaction that porn is worse. Indeed, porn policed itself much better during the AIDS scare than pro wrestling has, thus far, in the steroids/concussions/drug crisis it is currently facing. So we're down to the intangibles that I will leave up to you, the voter, to discuss, and decide what other criteria out there determine, once and for all, which business is more morally bankrupt: pro wrestling or the skin flick industry. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bix Posted November 2, 2007 Report Share Posted November 2, 2007 I think that you have to say wrestling is sleazier, if just for the porn business largely shutting down during the AIDS scare and having an organization that does regular testing for STDs while providing inexpensive treatment. Wrestling hasn't been nearly as responsible in its behavior. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jingus Posted November 2, 2007 Report Share Posted November 2, 2007 Porn certainly pays better on the low end. Your average camwhore makes more than a typical indy worker. But in America, sex is usually seen as being more offensive and harmful to depict in entertainment media, so wrestling is considered to be less sleazy by the general public by default. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Evans Posted November 2, 2007 Report Share Posted November 2, 2007 They are both sleazy as hell. In porn, it's been said that close to 100% of the performers have Herpes and other Sexual transmited diseases. Both have series Drug and mental problems as you have to be on drugs or have something screwed with your mind to join. And about the AIDS thing, There are still risks about it as companies are doing more and more porn in Brazil where almost everyone has some sort of HIV/AIDS disease. So Overall, I say porn has the edge. Both have people killing kids. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tomk Posted November 2, 2007 Report Share Posted November 2, 2007 I don't know much about porn but I assume people get roped into it with the lure of easy money. Thats I think the basic social assumption with porn. The societal assumption is that porn is sleazier because folks get into buisness of degrading themselves based on financial need. Does anyone really get suckered into porn based on the emotional appeal of the artistry of scat? Is there a girl taking it in the ass today who chose the career based on her aprreciation of Vanessa Del Rio's enthusiastic performances leading her to want to be part of that world. If Jimmy Swaggart found a way to make money televising Holiness devotees handling snakes and drinking strychnine....I think you'd have a closer approximation of wrestlings level of scum. Does porn provide better compensation. Yes. Not sure if it makes it any better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Al Posted November 2, 2007 Report Share Posted November 2, 2007 Gotta give the nod to porn. In wrestling, there is no problem in being recognized on the street. How many porn stars use their real names? Many in fact get upset that sites like Wikipedia openly publish their real names. I think if you polled former wrestlers and pornstars, more wrestlers would look fondly upon their past profession. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad Dog Posted November 2, 2007 Report Share Posted November 2, 2007 Pro Wrestling easily. Both are sleazy but the porn industry seems to be getting a little less sleazy while wrestling seems to be getting worse in some ways. Plus porn has a much lower mortality rate. On the PR side of things. Porn has done a much better job of tricking the public into thinking they've cleaned up their act while the WWE has been rather transparent about it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad Dog Posted November 2, 2007 Report Share Posted November 2, 2007 Gotta give the nod to porn. In wrestling, there is no problem in being recognized on the street. How many porn stars use their real names? Many in fact get upset that sites like Wikipedia openly publish their real names. I think if you polled former wrestlers and pornstars, more wrestlers would look fondly upon their past profession. I believe that's because wrestling is like a big cult for the workers. Once you're in, you get brainwashed to things and suddenly things that would be totally unacceptable to a regular person have justification when you're in that circle of people. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted November 3, 2007 Report Share Posted November 3, 2007 I don't really know what my opinion is on this, but I'm curious if porn fans point to Ron Jeremy, Jenna Jameson and Traci Lords as signs of "mainstream acceptance" the way wrestling fans often point to Steve Austin and Hulk Hogan. (I purposely omitted The Rock, because he's in a different league.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sek69 Posted November 3, 2007 Report Share Posted November 3, 2007 Well one thing you can say is the porn business (for the most part) doesn't have any pretense of what it is. Wrestling, especially WWE strives to be seen as something bigger than it is, when porn pretty much knows people just need something to crank it to on a lonely night. Not to mention the porn business does a lot better taking care of its performers than wrestling does. Then again, you can say both require performance enhancers to advance. The percentage of male porn stars using Viagra is at least equal to the amount of pro wrestlers on the gas. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Indikator Posted November 3, 2007 Report Share Posted November 3, 2007 Wrestling can be very naive, which makes it lovable. I don't think porn has the upsides wrestling provides, but I don't know anything about the porn industry. Wrestlers love to tell stories, they are pranksters, share their car/food/apartment with rookies, train others for no money or pay horrible fees to get trained, they travel insane distances and get constantly in trouble with the law and love to fight. And a lot of them do it for the love of it. I am not sure if a sex addict can be compared to a 55 year old wrestler who just wants to wrestle until he drops dead. Wrestling can be about heroics, the adrenalin rush, the fuzzy feeling when you win a title or wrestle in front of 20 000 people, knowing that you are in the history books for some reason (Shawn Michaels demanding the European title 10 years ago so that he can be the only "Grand Slam" champion), being hated by a whole country, living your desires through a gimmick, earning quick money, spending that money in the next bar, never being at home, knowing too many people to count How many female porn actors are out there that don't do it for the money? Compare that to the number of wrestlers that don't get paid. Wrestling can be a lot more idealistic and is because of that for me less sleazy. Although that doesn't mean that I don't know my fair share of horror stories about people like Brian Dixon. It's just that whenever I am going to a wrestling show most guys are happy to be there, they are eager to have fun in the ring, backstage or somewhere else after the show and they are not dead inside. Which by the way does not apply at all to the WWE wrestlers. Whatever I hear from the guys who swarm around them during European tours is mostly depressing. But what else should you expect from that company Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ohtani's jacket Posted November 4, 2007 Report Share Posted November 4, 2007 There's been a lot of talk of late comparing pornography to wrestling, especially on threads on various boards arguing about the WON HOF where the point has been raised "imagine if there were a porn HOF." When did this modern trend begin of people thinking they're above the con? If people really think wrestling is this incredibly sleazy business then what are they doing lining up their next match to download? Anyway, I chose porn since it affects a greater number of people's lives. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Evans Posted November 5, 2007 Report Share Posted November 5, 2007 Who said being sleazy was a bad thing? The Sleazier the better I say. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest *FH* Posted November 5, 2007 Report Share Posted November 5, 2007 I think if you polled former wrestlers and pornstars, more wrestlers would probably be too dead to interview. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Al Posted November 5, 2007 Report Share Posted November 5, 2007 Cute. Porn has a body count too. Recently there was Inkyo Volt Hwang and Haley Paige, a story where a director probably killed his pornstar girlfriend and himself O.D.'ed on drugs. As far as a body count, check out this page. It's safe for work, just text. http://www.rame.net/faq/deadporn/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted November 6, 2007 Report Share Posted November 6, 2007 Porn. I'm a fan of porn, and the cesspool of wrestling has gotten increasingly depressing over the years (or pehaps the other positives lessened to balance against the shit). But... Porn is an utter fucking shithole. Perhaps at its higher end it's little different from wrestling. But join any "network" with a load of sites, click through what's available, and you're quickly going to reach low levels. And even there, you're not even reaching the lowest level of shit and exploitation. Internet porn has driven it even harder. Like I say, I'm a fan of porn... but I have no illusions about what a shithole it is. As far as the industry shutting down for a while over AIDS, one of the troubling things you'll find these days is just how much unprotected sex is going on in porn sites. It's really fucking numbing. John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Evans Posted November 6, 2007 Report Share Posted November 6, 2007 John's got it right. We can all say that wrestling is the sleaziest thing ever till we are blue in the face but it will never reach the levels of Porn. The closest it got was with XPW. I forget who it was, I think it was Donavan Morgan that talked about going to the XPW offices on day and seeing some porn chick in the middle of the ring naked. Then he saw a bunch of dudes doing a gangbang with her and left and never cameback. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sek69 Posted November 6, 2007 Report Share Posted November 6, 2007 Porn doesn't tend to have generations of the same family involved in the business. How many professions outside of wrestling can you have someone have more than one family member die due to conditions that exist only in wrestling and still want to take part in it? Who's the porn version of Harry Smith, someone who's father (allegedly) drugged and raped their mother and ended up dying from the effects of long term drug abuse, then end up suspended for abusing the same drugs? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bix Posted November 6, 2007 Report Share Posted November 6, 2007 John's got it right. We can all say that wrestling is the sleaziest thing ever till we are blue in the face but it will never reach the levels of Porn. The closest it got was with XPW. I forget who it was, I think it was Donavan Morgan that talked about going to the XPW offices on day and seeing some porn chick in the middle of the ring naked. Then he saw a bunch of dudes doing a gangbang with her and left and never cameback.What does a bunch of people having sex in private have to do with anything? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sek69 Posted November 6, 2007 Report Share Posted November 6, 2007 There's a lot of people who don't really know the porn business posting in this thread. Honestly when you compare the two, the only thing where porn doesn't come out ahead is that it may be the one thing that has a lower public perception than pro wrestling. In terms of actual sleaze factor, you'd never hear the kind of stories about porn stars that you hear about wrestlers. Also, most of porn's big stars end up running their own companies and are comfortably well off, while most of wrestling's big stars end up offering handjobs for crack outside of state fairs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Evans Posted November 6, 2007 Report Share Posted November 6, 2007 John's got it right. We can all say that wrestling is the sleaziest thing ever till we are blue in the face but it will never reach the levels of Porn. The closest it got was with XPW. I forget who it was, I think it was Donavan Morgan that talked about going to the XPW offices on day and seeing some porn chick in the middle of the ring naked. Then he saw a bunch of dudes doing a gangbang with her and left and never cameback.What does a bunch of people having sex in private have to do with anything? They were taping for a movie in the ring that was used for the shows. When people leave porn, they either turn born again christian, becomes bigger drug addicts, get clean and lead successful lives or die. In reality, I guess it's kinda like wrestling now that I think of it. I don't think i've ever seen Ric Flair or Bret hart offer handjobs on the street. Of course I don't go to Bert Prentice shows so who knows? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sek69 Posted November 6, 2007 Report Share Posted November 6, 2007 Well Ric Flair runs around on airplanes with his dick waving around under his robe, so YMMV if that's better or worse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ohtani's jacket Posted November 6, 2007 Report Share Posted November 6, 2007 Perhaps if this were PornOnly.com we'd know more stories about porn actors and actresses. Porn is a much bigger industry than pro-wrestling, so in that sense the number of premature deaths in wrestling is ridiculous, but in terms of sleaze pro-wrestling doesn't compare. Porn is porn -- it's always existed and always will -- but it affects not only the lives of the people who star in it but often the people who watch it. It simply has a greater social impact than wrestling. And porn doesn't just imply some Adut Video production company out in California. That side of the business may or may not be relatively clean. When you factor in internet porn, underground porn, hardcore porn from other countries, all the different types of fetishs, illegal porn... John is right, the exploitation in porn is far worse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ohtani's jacket Posted November 6, 2007 Report Share Posted November 6, 2007 And please, the entertainment and sports industries are riddled with people who became fuck ups once their career was over. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sek69 Posted November 6, 2007 Report Share Posted November 6, 2007 Perhaps if this were PornOnly.com we'd know more stories about porn actors and actresses. Porn is a much bigger industry than pro-wrestling, so in that sense the number of premature deaths in wrestling is ridiculous, but in terms of sleaze pro-wrestling doesn't compare. Porn is porn -- it's always existed and always will -- but it affects not only the lives of the people who star in it but often the people who watch it. It simply has a greater social impact than wrestling. And porn doesn't just imply some Adut Video production company out in California. That side of the business may or may not be relatively clean. When you factor in internet porn, underground porn, hardcore porn from other countries, all the different types of fetishs, illegal porn... John is right, the exploitation in porn is far worse. You could make the same comparison with WWE and various indy groups in the US and other countries. Some have "fetishes" of their own, if you weeeeell. I'm just saying that there's a lot of kneejerk reaction because porn = sex and a lot of people have hangups about anything sexual. Porn as an industry is probably a more healthy profession to break into than pro wrestling, not that's setting the bar especially high or anything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts