Sleazier buriness: Pro Wrestling or Porn?

[sek69]

Man, I'm starting to thing half the people in this thread have never even watched a porn movie. The vibe of "porn is icky cause people have SEX" is equally hilarious and disturbing. Are ya'll serious in your apparent belief that the porn industry is one long train of rape and horror? The God's honest truth is that the wrestling business has a far larger trail of broken, damaged, or dead bodies.

 

Look, porn and wrestling are both a zillion times more fucked up than your usual 9 to 5 job, but in porn the performers aren't brainwashed zombies who go around believing they're really the character they played in their last movie and encouraging their children to enter the business. In both, there's people who go in wide-eyed expecting to be superstars and end up drug addicts, but there's more of a sense of "we need to keep this shit from getting out of control" mindset in porn than in wrestling.

[ohtani's jacket]

So...is the solution pretending this stuff isn't fucked up, or is the solution pretending it doesn't matter for whatever reason? Because those both seem way less healthy and practical than *FH*'s solution.

On a scale of fucked up things in wrestling, I think washing a guy's balls ranks pretty low. Beating a trainee to death, as happened in sumo recently and in wrestling before, is beyond sleazy or scummy. The question is whether the dojo system itself is fucked up. Here's an article about sumo -- http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displa...tory_id=9963190 As the article says, "Young Japanese men reject the brutal training and regimented lifestyle." Time will tell if these practices become archaic. Dojos have always served the purpose of weeding out people who aren't mentally or physically strong enough to become wrestlers. I suppose you could argue that anybody who'd go through that & still want to be a wrestler must have something wrong with them psychological, but there are plenty of wrestlers who've passed their dojo training, navigated a pro-wrestling career and retired to live a relatively normal life... Others probably haven't. I can see that type of abuse begetting abuse, particularly among wrestlers who came from abusive backgrounds. I imagine it differs on a case by case basis. I find it hard to believe that everyone who enters the wrestling business has something wrong with them psychologically.

 

One thing I'll say for the dojo system, I think it prevents a lot of young people from getting hurt, because if you can't pass the training then I don't think you belong anywhere near a ring.

 

The reason I mentioned the US is because far more wrestlers are dying in America. I don't have enough interest in Japanese professional wrestling to pimp it as some haven from wrestling scum.

[ohtani's jacket]

Man, I'm starting to thing half the people in this thread have never even watched a porn movie. The vibe of "porn is icky cause people have SEX" is equally hilarious and disturbing. Are ya'll serious in your apparent belief that the porn industry is one long train of rape and horror? The God's honest truth is that the wrestling business has a far larger trail of broken, damaged, or dead bodies.

The list Al posted was pretty long & suggested that porn had (has?) as big, if not bigger, problem with AIDS than wrestling does with drugs.

 

I've seen as much porn as the next guy, but I think watching porn is a really selfish thing. Perhaps watching wrestling is too, but I think it's sleazy how every day there's hawkers in Tokyo trying to hustle girls into adult video on the promise of a gucci handbag or some shit, and I think it's stupid that some girls are dumb enough to go for it. And when these girls end up pretending to be schoolgirls abducted and raped by homeless guys or some shit, that's sleazy.

 

And this idea that porn stars don't get psychological problems from doing porn is stupid. There was an expose on the porn industry by a British documentary filmmaker a few years back, and if you wanna see a guy who's ready to snap there was one straight guy doing gay for pay who was really hanging on by a thread.

[gordi]

Man, I'm starting to thing half the people in this thread have never even watched a porn movie. The vibe of "porn is icky cause people have SEX" is equally hilarious and disturbing. Are ya'll serious in your apparent belief that the porn industry is one long train of rape and horror? The God's honest truth is that the wrestling business has a far larger trail of broken, damaged, or dead bodies.

 

Look, porn and wrestling are both a zillion times more fucked up than your usual 9 to 5 job, but in porn the performers aren't brainwashed zombies who go around believing they're really the character they played in their last movie and encouraging their children to enter the business. In both, there's people who go in wide-eyed expecting to be superstars and end up drug addicts, but there's more of a sense of "we need to keep this shit from getting out of control" mindset in porn than in wrestling.

I think that anyone who thinks that what happens in porn is representative of what having sex is really like has probably never actually had sex. Hardcore porn has the same relation to sex that hardcore wrestling has to Greco-Roman. It's not the SEX that's icky about porn. Sex is beautiful. It's the far too pervasive degradation and dehumanization that's icky, sek69.

[Johnny Sorrow]

encouraging their children to enter the business.

I watched the "Greatest Wrestling Families" on WWE 24/7 today, and this topic popped up in my head. First thing I thought of was how ridiculous a porn version would be. "Fans debate as to whether the Jeremy's or the Jameson's are the most influential families in our great business, but more great performers trained in the Jeremy Dungeon than in any other training facility."

[tomk]

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?

The world of jockeys (which is ridiculously dangerous job surrounded that requires drug abuse and anorexia for little pay) is a similar family business where each generation destroys themselves.

 

Boxing has multiple generation families.

 

There is little doubt in my mind that Bill Walton’s son will probably completely destroy his knees before he hits his mid thirties and then will have a son who will do the same.

 

I would assume the “circus arts” are still filled with families.

 

Jobs where the barriers to entry are high tend to have second third generation folks in them.

 

Barriers to job entry in the world of porn ( multiple orifices and willingness to have them plugged) aren’t very high.

[gordi]

For the people who dislike the Japanese system - was Akira Maeda better of as a wrestler or should he have stayed in the yakuza?

1. "Professional wrestling is better than organized crime, and therefore okay" isn't a very compelling point.

 

2. Pro wrestling in Japan has a pretty long history of being tied up with the yakuza anyway, thus rendering this question even less potent.

 

 

So, if someone leaves organized crime to go into Pro Wrestling, it's only a slight improvement.

 

I can accept that, I suppose.

 

What if someone left organized crime to go into pornography? That would have to be seen as a huge step down, I'd imagine. Would anybody be all: Oh, good for pro wrestler X, he made the jump from wrestling to making hardcore sex dvds?

[Guest *FH*]

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?

The world of jockeys (which is ridiculously dangerous job surrounded that requires drug abuse and anorexia for little pay) is a similar family business where each generation destroys themselves.

 

Boxing has multiple generation families.

 

There is little doubt in my mind that Bill Walton’s son will probably completely destroy his knees before he hits his mid thirties and then will have a son who will do the same.

 

I would assume the “circus arts” are still filled with families.

 

Jobs where the barriers to entry are high tend to have second third generation folks in them.

 

Barriers to job entry in the world of porn ( multiple orifices and willingness to have them plugged) aren’t very high.

 

So porn has no barriers to entry if YOU have no barriers to entry.

[sek69]

Man, I'm starting to thing half the people in this thread have never even watched a porn movie. The vibe of "porn is icky cause people have SEX" is equally hilarious and disturbing. Are ya'll serious in your apparent belief that the porn industry is one long train of rape and horror? The God's honest truth is that the wrestling business has a far larger trail of broken, damaged, or dead bodies.

The list Al posted was pretty long & suggested that porn had (has?) as big, if not bigger, problem with AIDS than wrestling does with drugs.

 

I've seen as much porn as the next guy, but I think watching porn is a really selfish thing. Perhaps watching wrestling is too, but I think it's sleazy how every day there's hawkers in Tokyo trying to hustle girls into adult video on the promise of a gucci handbag or some shit, and I think it's stupid that some girls are dumb enough to go for it. And when these girls end up pretending to be schoolgirls abducted and raped by homeless guys or some shit, that's sleazy.

 

And this idea that porn stars don't get psychological problems from doing porn is stupid. There was an expose on the porn industry by a British documentary filmmaker a few years back, and if you wanna see a guy who's ready to snap there was one straight guy doing gay for pay who was really hanging on by a thread.

 

I'll just respond to these in order....

 

Point 1:

 

The list Al posted dated back to the late 70s, early 80s. Do you REALLY think a similar list involving wrestlers wouldn't be at least 2-3x as long?

 

 

Point 2:

 

Japanese porn is kind of on a different scale. The whole culture is so repressed sexually that it's bound to boil over into weird shit like tentacle rape hentai and simulated rape porn. What else would you expect from a place that pixelates the genitalia in regular porn? Also how many dudes are roped into indy wrestling on the hopes of being in the WWE some day only ending up having to blow some scummy indy promoter who's only in the business just to have a steady supply of available young boys?

 

Point 3:

 

I don't think anyone's trying to argue that porn is some happy land of sunshine and bunny rabbits. HOWEVER, the mainstream porn business is run in a better manner in regards to treatment of employees than mainstream pro wrestling is. Yes, you can find some scummy internet porn dealer getting fresh faced farm girls hooked on crack to make them to degrading things, but you also have guys destroying their bodies on indy wrestling shows for practially no money in front of 50 people max. You have to stick with apples-to-apples comparisons here.

[S.L.L.]

So, if someone leaves organized crime to go into Pro Wrestling, it's only a slight improvement.

 

I can accept that, I suppose.

 

What if someone left organized crime to go into pornography? That would have to be seen as a huge step down, I'd imagine. Would anybody be all: Oh, good for pro wrestler X, he made the jump from wrestling to making hardcore sex dvds?

Is any of this supposed to mean anything?

[Guest *FH*]

Man, I'm starting to thing half the people in this thread have never even watched a porn movie. The vibe of "porn is icky cause people have SEX" is equally hilarious and disturbing. Are ya'll serious in your apparent belief that the porn industry is one long train of rape and horror? The God's honest truth is that the wrestling business has a far larger trail of broken, damaged, or dead bodies.

The list Al posted was pretty long & suggested that porn had (has?) as big, if not bigger, problem with AIDS than wrestling does with drugs.

 

I've seen as much porn as the next guy, but I think watching porn is a really selfish thing. Perhaps watching wrestling is too, but I think it's sleazy how every day there's hawkers in Tokyo trying to hustle girls into adult video on the promise of a gucci handbag or some shit, and I think it's stupid that some girls are dumb enough to go for it. And when these girls end up pretending to be schoolgirls abducted and raped by homeless guys or some shit, that's sleazy.

 

And this idea that porn stars don't get psychological problems from doing porn is stupid. There was an expose on the porn industry by a British documentary filmmaker a few years back, and if you wanna see a guy who's ready to snap there was one straight guy doing gay for pay who was really hanging on by a thread.

 

I'll just respond to these in order....

 

Point 1:

 

The list Al posted dated back to the late 70s, early 80s. Do you REALLY think a similar list involving wrestlers wouldn't be at least 2-3x as long?

 

 

Point 2:

 

Japanese porn is kind of on a different scale. The whole culture is so repressed sexually that it's bound to boil over into weird shit like tentacle rape hentai and simulated rape porn. What else would you expect from a place that pixelates the genitalia in regular porn? Also how many dudes are roped into indy wrestling on the hopes of being in the WWE some day only ending up having to blow some scummy indy promoter who's only in the business just to have a steady supply of available young boys?

 

Point 3:

 

I don't think anyone's trying to argue that porn is some happy land of sunshine and bunny rabbits. HOWEVER, the mainstream porn business is run in a better manner in regards to treatment of employees than mainstream pro wrestling is. Yes, you can find some scummy internet porn dealer getting fresh faced farm girls hooked on crack to make them to degrading things, but you also have guys destroying their bodies on indy wrestling shows for practially no money in front of 50 people max. You have to stick with apples-to-apples comparisons here.

 

Also, you really can't look at a documentary as representative of reality.

[cabinboy454]

I don’t know, I just feel Porn is sleazier. Most Hardcore Porn isn’t the mainstream stuff most people watch. Stuff like Max Hardcore can’t even touch some underground, but still easily found and purchased porn. For example, there was a series called “The Walking Toilet Bowl.” This was professional porn series starring Jamie Gillis. It was a series of six videos featuring the following scenes:

 

--Scat play with a black woman who is racially degraded while she eats it in the tub.

--Gillis listens to the urination fantasies of an older white woman, then slaps (and even kicks) her face until she is disorientated, puts a cockroach on her tits, I believe ending with some g/s and scat.

--A younger Hispanic woman who is very high does scat on Gillis in the tub.

--A cute young white girl does scat on Gillis while he plays the "daddy" role, followed by some enemas. The girl is so disgusted by the smell that she eventually has to leave to room before G has finished.

--Gillis has saved up 3 days worth of excrement in his toilet and bathes a white woman in it. He also interviews her about her hooking, and she says something to the effect that her only rules are "no kids, no animals, no n*****s".

--An older white woman is degraded and abused by G. He wants to do scat, she is not into it, but he manages to do it anyway.

 

And that just the starting point. Consider all the 8mm loops made in the mid-to late-60’s featuring bestiality, which I’m sure still happens on an underground level. There is also a great deal of rape-porn, in fact Alpha Blue Entertainment has released at least two box sets entitled: “The History of Rape” featuring 8mm rape loops. Also, while it is true that in the US Underage child porn is illegal there is sub-genre called Lolita Porn which deliberately casts young looking actress, make them shave their pubic hair and develop childlike mannerisms and pass it off as the real thing.

 

I’m in no way debasing porn, in fact I find the history of pornography to be fascinating, but it should be known that those who run the business are sleazy. They are typically criminals, the mafia ran the porn business for many years and still may, and care about nothing but money. For the actors, directors, editors, etc. it’s just a job and I wouldn’t say they are sleazy but the business as a whole is and I would say more so than wrestling.

[Indikator]

It should be noted that tentacle rape and pixelation are the after effects of US censor standards that were imposed after the second world war. So if you talk about how creepy the Japanese can be don't forget that America has been the trigger for all that weird stuff

[gordi]

So, if someone leaves organized crime to go into Pro Wrestling, it's only a slight improvement.

 

I can accept that, I suppose.

 

What if someone left organized crime to go into pornography? That would have to be seen as a huge step down, I'd imagine. Would anybody be all: Oh, good for pro wrestler X, he made the jump from wrestling to making hardcore sex dvds?

Is any of this supposed to mean anything?

 

 

Wow, are your reading comprehension skills really THAT low? Try hooked on phonics, it might help.

 

This thread is a discussion of whether pro wrestling or pornography is the sleazier business.

 

It was argued in the thread that Pro Wrestling is marginally less sleazy than organized crime.

 

My point in the post that so baffles you is that nobody is going to argue that porn is even marginally less sleazy than organized crime. People can argue that Maeda made a step up in moving from the Yakuza to pro wrestling. Nobody is going to argue that moving from organized crime to porno is a step up. Therefore, it cannot be argued that moving from pro wrestling to porno is a step up. Therefore, pro wrestling cannot be seen as being more sleazy than porno.

 

To put it in a way that you might be able to grasp:

 

Pro Wrestling > Organized Crime > Porno

[S.L.L.]

It was argued in the thread that Pro Wrestling is marginally less sleazy than organized crime.

It was? Before you posed the Maeda question, the only talk of organized crime in this thread were tangential mentions of the yakuza's connection to wrestling and porn. No one was making that comparison. Seriously, how the fuck did you get that?

 

My point in the post that so baffles you is that nobody is going to argue that porn is even marginally less sleazy than organized crime.

 

They're not? Did we, as a society, agree on this? You really think this is unquestionable conventional wisdom? Really?

[gordi]

It was argued in the thread that Pro Wrestling is marginally less sleazy than organized crime.

It was? Before you posed the Maeda question, the only talk of organized crime in this thread were tangential mentions of the yakuza's connection to wrestling and porn. No one was making that comparison. Seriously, how the fuck did you get that?

 

My point in the post that so baffles you is that nobody is going to argue that porn is even marginally less sleazy than organized crime.

It was Indikator who brought Maeda up, not me. I was teasing you about your comprehension skills before to push your buttons, SLL. edit I know from reading your posts here that you actually have a very good grasp of the English language. Maybe you're just having an off day. It was you, yourself, SLL, who provided the basis for my argument.

 

Here's what you wrote in response to Indikator:

 

1. "Professional wrestling is better than organized crime, and therefore okay" isn't a very compelling point.

 

2. Pro wrestling in Japan has a pretty long history of being tied up with the yakuza anyway, thus rendering this question even less potent.

 

Please notice, you do not go so far as to deny that pro wrestling is a step up from organized crime, you simply try to make the dim-witted and spurious point that pro wrestling isn't much better.

 

So, we agree on this much: Pro Wrestling > Organized Crime.

 

In order to prove, then, that porno is sleazier than pro wrestling, you'd need to prove that it's much sleazier than organized crime.

 

And here, you try to suggest something along those lines:

 

They're not? Did we, as a society, agree on this? You really think this is unquestionable conventional wisdom? Really?

 

I remain unconvinced, I'm afraid. edit I don't really think that our society needs to get together to determine whether being a pornographer is more or less sleazy than being a member of the Yakuza. I think that the answer can just pretty much be taken granted.

[S.L.L.]

It was Indikator who brought Maeda up, not me. I was teasing you about your comprehension skills before to push your buttons, SLL. edit I know from reading your posts here that you actually have a very good grasp of the English language. Maybe you're just having an off day. It was you, yourself, SLL, who provided the basis for my argument.

Oops. Got my wires crossed on that one. My bad.

 

Here's what you wrote in response to Indikator:

 

I remain unconvinced, I'm afraid. edit I don't really think that our society needs to get together to determine whether being a pornographer is more or less sleazy than being a member of the Yakuza. I think that the answer can just pretty much be taken granted.

Not really. Seriously, I may not be the heppest cat around, and I may not have my finger on the pulse of today's society, but I'm almost 100% certain that "organized crime is clearly less sleazy than pornography" isn't the widely accepted conventional wisdom you seem to think it is. If nothing else, you would think the mob's long-standing influence in prostitution would disprove that, unless you want to argue that pornography > prostitution in terms of sleaziness, which I would like to think you're sane enough not to argue. And then of course there's robbery, theft, fraud, counterfeiting, loansharking, gunrunning, drug trafficking, HUMAN trafficking, money laundering, political corruption, and oh yes, MURDER. I mean, it's not like this stuff never happens in porn, but you're crazy if you can't see the difference in scope and significance here.

 

I guess if you could show me a picture of your pinky-less hand, I'd understand, but otherwise, you're bonkers.

[gordi]

Well, I had been planning to argue that a lot of what the Yakuza and Mafia do is evil, dangerous, and harmful... but not neccessarily sleazy in the sense that it isn't neccessarily sordid, vulgar or tawdry.

 

I hadn't thought about prostitution or human trafficking, though. I might be tempted to argue that sex trade workers employed by high-level organized crime have better working and living conditions than street hookers (and I'm sure that's true)... but I really don't want to argue that... To reiterate: I'm completely in favour of consensual sex, but there is too much stuff in both porno and prostituion that involves debasement and dehumanization and just don't want to argue that any of that is not sleazy.

[Jingus]

How did organized crime come up in this in the first place? There's no comparison, the mafia/yakuza/triads/vory v zakone/South American druglords/street gangs/etcetera are all way, way worse than either wrestling or porn could ever hope to aspire to be.

[S.L.L.]

Well, I had been planning to argue that a lot of what the Yakuza and Mafia do is evil, dangerous, and harmful... but not neccessarily sleazy in the sense that it isn't neccessarily sordid, vulgar or tawdry.

 

I hadn't thought about prostitution or human trafficking, though. I might be tempted to argue that sex trade workers employed by high-level organized crime have better working and living conditions than street hookers (and I'm sure that's true)... but I really don't want to argue that... To reiterate: I'm completely in favour of consensual sex, but there is too much stuff in both porno and prostituion that involves debasement and dehumanization and just don't want to argue that any of that is not sleazy.

I think that's a fair assessment. Personally, evil, dangerous, and harmful tends to blend together with sordid, vulgar, and tawdry in my mind. That said, it does go back to what I was saying earlier about the immediacy of sleaze in porn vs. the lack of immediacy of sleaze in wrestling. You could say the same for organized crime. You look at John Gotti and you look Max Hardcore and Hardcore's sleaze jumps out at you in a way Gotti's doesn't. But presiding over an empire built on ill-gotten gains, exploitation of innocents, and dead bodies on a level that would make any pornographer or wrestling promoter swoon is some pretty monumental sleaze to me.

[jdw]

There's a lot of people who don't really know the porn business posting in this thread.

I agree... though I suspect we disagree on just who doesn't know.

 

 

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.

I suspect that if we look at the entire porn industry globally (which it is far more so than wrestling these days since the global net is driving it these days), there is probably nothing that porn comes out ahead of wrestling in a positive sense. I can't even go to the "at least porn doesn't kayfabe and pretend it's a work" stance since so very much of porn at its core is nothing more than a work.

 

In terms of actual sleaze factor, you'd never hear the kind of stories about porn stars that you hear about wrestlers.

You're joking, right? Dorothy Stratten, Shauna Grant, Artie Mitchell... these all were long before Benoit.

 

 

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.

I think the problem is that people focus on "the big stars" and/or the more "mainstream" and established porn.

 

Join a few networks and you'll get a quick idea of how the "big stars" don't really have a great deal in common with the overwhelming majority of porn that's out there.

 

I'm not even touching on the underage stuff which has due to the internet turned into a massive business in places like the former Soviet Union nations and elsewhere that parents are literally pimping their kids out to "content producers". We may joke about Lawler or Art Barr or others, but they're not even a drop in the bucket compared to the exploitation that's going on there. :/

 

The porn business *as a whole* is off the charts.

 

John

[Phil Schneider]

It isn't the sex that makes porn sleazy, not even really the degredation, I mean we have all been with girls who want you to degrade them, but it only gets sleazy if you suggest that you film the degradation and sell it. People who are saying things like "at least porn stars get paid well" seem to be missing the point

[jdw]

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.

I don't have a hang up with Sex or Porn, and admitted as much in my first post - I'm a porn fan.

 

As far as being healthier to break into, I suspect that for the overwhelming majority of people around the world, the porn business is far more *unhealthy* to break into... especially these days.

 

 

John

[jdw]

Counting illegal porn as part of the porn industry is like counting dogfighting as part of the pro wrestling industry.

Totally disagree.

 

If you want to say counting dogfighting in with dog racing and horse racing, I'd say it's more valid.

 

Illegal porn is part of the "industry", and frankly always had been. Porn *was* illegal until recently, and in even basic form remains illegal in places... and even highly regulated in most places where it's "legal".

 

I suspect the major players in the supply chain of underage porn in Russian/Ukraine/etc. are making vastly more money than the chick who is taking a ride on Captain Stebbins' boat for a shoot. Even if you count in *all* the shoots she does, it's not even close.

 

The point of illegal porn is the same as legal porn - to sell sexual content to consumers. There simply are those who will break the law in that content.

 

It's a bit like saying Playboy and Penthouse weren't magazines because they were sold in that small, closed off part of the newstand rather than on the shelf next to Time and Newsweek.

 

John

[Bix]

Wait, since when was Dorothy Stratten a porn star?