Tattoo and social class

[Kahaih]

Fully gauged would usually refer to ears that are spaced to fit a double-zero gauge sized spacer, since it is the largest gauge of earring. Beyond that measurements are given by the diameter of the spacer. So 'fully-gauged' would be to have progressed through all gauges of earrings.

Thanks.

It would appear we are off into the realm of piercing ‘vernacular’, then.

So, ‘spaced’ could mean cut out, or stretched, right?

Tell me, does this ‘stretching’ process start out with a small piercing, and is that piercing done with the usual hollow needle that actually does remove a bit of flesh as well?

 

[pat grimshaw]

What circumference are these "Fully gauged" ears?

Measured in inches?

These 'fully-gauged' ears wouldn't be as full as this 'fully-gauged' lip?

 

[MakeDigitalLove]

So, ‘spaced’ could mean cut out, or stretched, right?

Tell me, does this ‘stretching’ process start out with a small piercing, and is that piercing done with the usual hollow needle that actually does remove a bit of flesh as well?

You don't cut out anything to stretch, which is why people start off stretching with smaller piercings to not cause damage. Up and to a certain point taking out a piercing will heal.

 

[Soilwork]

Somehow I get the impression that men that get tattoos are from poor neighbourhood. If you look at young teens in poor area or in porn. Marines or prisoners or gang members get a lot of tattoos.

I'm a bit baffled by your idea that porn stars are poor. What makes you think someone with a job that pays $400 per hour is poor?

I would rather hide my social class

And in saying that, showed us how truly classless you are.

you win first prize.

 

[Soilwork]

Jasun, I don't share the OP's views, but I would have assumed that porn is typified by low-wage on-screen performers in the same way we assume that about stage actors in general.

And we know what happens when we "assume" things, right?

Whereas it is true that the top performers and actors make a decent or good living, the average would be less, and the lack of full-time work in both industries suggests a lower income.

porn isn't a career. It's a hobby for most porn stars. Virtually all of them have "regular" day jobs and porn is just a way to escape a boring daily grind of a boring day job by flying to an exotic location and being something totally different for a few days. And then they come home a couple thousand dollars heavier.

It is also notable that even famous gay porn stars often work as trade with profiles on prostitution sites like rentboy.com, suggesting their porn income isn't all that reliable for per annum living.

Well no... You have it backwards. Many top escorts will make porn to promote themselves as escorts. They make porn because their bookings and asking price goes way up. But most porn stars aren't escorts.

How many gay porn actors would you estimate are in the U.S. industry, and what the average yearly income from that work?

How long is a piece of rope?

There is no "average yearly income" because a lot of performers do one or two scenes only. Some work for two weeks a year... some work once a month... some randomly here and there.

It's not a career. It's a way to make money for some people... to some it's just an escape. The idea that all pornstars are desperate whores looking for money is pretty silly and inaccurate.

 

[blackbeltninja]

You speak most often of stars. Most porn out there on the web really doesn't reach the level of stars and celebrity. There is a lot of gritty, low quality, skeezy video that really doesn't line up with the studio experiences you describe. The notion of most of them flying to any filming location and being paid well doesn't seem likely from the cross section.

I thought this too. I'm not sure most of these guys are doing it for shits and giggles; I always reckoned it is more about getting quick cash.

Jasun, have you ever dealt with the lower-end stuff? Since I've known of you you have always been with the more prominent studios who seem to operate more like a business with a plan, as opposed to a guy with a camera, some cash to spend and some web know-how to get it posted.

-d-

 

[Soilwork]

You speak most often of stars. Most porn out there on the web really doesn't reach the level of stars and celebrity. There is a lot of gritty, low quality, skeezy video that really doesn't line up with the studio experiences you describe. The notion of most of them flying to any filming location and being paid well doesn't seem likely from the cross section.

you'd be amazed at how high-budget a lot of that pseudo-skeezy porn is. People like that look and some studios will intentionally make their stuff look low-end. I'm not saying that there isn't plenty of crack-whore back-alley porn being made. But not nearly as much as you might think. Now that we have to maintain records, have legal council, have online billing companies that scrutinize our content, those days of shooting porn in your living room and selling dub copies directly to porn stores in alleys is long gone. Even X-tube requires any producers to have full U.S.C §2257 records before you can sell your content on there.

Your accounts seem more typical of the top end of the industry. Suggesting that many of the performers are in grad school without addressing how many performers there are in general is a bit of a deflection. Porn is an industry. Much of it operates in the shadows so benefits from not having much glare of public scrutiny, consumer information, or OSHA, or anything like that.

HAH... Jesus, what planet do you live on? You really need to stop watching documentaries on the Christian Channel and that silly "8mm" movie with Nicholas Cage was just a movie.

No. Not anymore. OSHA is all up in everyone's operations and yes, there is a lot of scrutiny from things like OSHA and financial institutions. You can't get a Visa merchant account unless you have all your paperwork in order.

It may be good that it is no longer all underground, but it also shouldn't get a free walk by the suggestion that its typical performer is well-educated, well-paid, and upwardly mobile. Without some sort of statistics, that's every bit as much an assumption as anything to the contrary could be.

Well, except I've worked in the industry for 12 years in two countries and for many different studios and can tell you that in my experience, most porn performers have what you'd call a "real job" and porn is just either fun, living out a fantasy, making some money for school or a bucket list thing. There are very few career porn stars who only do porn.

Like any industry, its promoters tell a slanted account. Your experiences seem to be bonafide and sincere, but they don't ring true as broadly representative of porn as seen across the spectrum on the web. The accounts come across more like a petroleum company extolling their sparkling clean restrooms when most of us have been to gas stations with bathrooms more like the one on Trainspotting. It's not that there aren't great service stations with clean tile and sinks, but we don't see them as average or representative.

Got it. So since I'm the slimy porn maker who makes money poisoning your oceans, nothing I tell you about my experiences and none of the video interviews I post on my blog are "true."

And since you've seen Boogie Nights and 54, you like TOTES know what the porn industry is really like.

 

[Soilwork]

Jasun, have you ever dealt with the lower-end stuff? Since I've known of you you have always been with the more prominent studios who seem to operate more like a business with a plan, as opposed to a guy with a camera, some cash to spend and some web know-how to get it posted.

-d-

Those guys with a camera and some web know-how to get it posted are the ones who aren't making any money and just posting it to Xtube for kicks. Anyone who wants to make actual income from it now has to operate above board. The 2257 laws, OSHA inspections, Measure B... they're not only for the big studios and it's mostly the small ones that have gotten targeted.

I know a few people who operate very small, low-budget studios but they all still have lawyers and have to have legal paperwork in order if they want a Visa merchant account or have their billing handled by anyone. Unless you're giving it away for free, you're not one of the people mentioned above. Even if the content is intentionally made to look like that.

 

[blackbeltninja]

Anyone who wants to make actual income from it now has to operate above board. The 2257 laws, OSHA inspections, Measure B... they're not only for the big studios and it's mostly the small ones that have gotten targeted.

I know a few people who operate very small, low-budget studios but they all still have lawyers and have to have legal paperwork in order if they want a Visa merchant account or have their billing handled by anyone. Unless you're giving it away for free, you're not one of the people mentioned above. Even if the content is intentionally made to look like that.

You reckon this is also the case out in the more dubious parts of eastern Europe and the old Russian republics and the far eastern regions of Asia?

Apologies to the OP - we are waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay off topic now.

-d-

 

[Soilwork]

You reckon this is also the case out in the more dubious parts of eastern Europe and the old Russian republics and the far eastern regions of Asia?

Apologies to the OP - we are waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay off topic now.

-d-

Can't tell you about old Russian Republics or Asia. I can tell you that some pretty big porn sites are shot in Prague. Bel Ami a lot of Cocksure Men... a few others.

We're not that far off topic... OP said that porn stars have tattoos because they're poor... or something... and asked why people who are poor would want to advertise their social class. Which is not only stupid and insulting, it's just inaccurate which is how we got onto this. A few posters here are having trouble with accepting that a lot of porn stars have regular day jobs and "real" careers and since that flies in the face of their own personal narrative, they've decided that I'm lying about that.

When you don't like the message, you shoot the messenger or at least compare him to the Koch Brothers and BP. Because morals.

 

[rareboy]

Got it. So since I'm the slimy porn maker who makes money poisoning your oceans, nothing I tell you about my experiences and none of the video interviews I post on my blog are "true."

....now this made me shoot.

 

[bankside]

We may be living in a "post-class society," or hoping to, or pretending to. But tattoos were a lower-class phenomenon as viewed by most of the middle classes for most of the last century. The upper class could always indulge its taste for slumming it when they felt like it, but that didn't make it part of high society; that made it a rebellion from high society, and only those with enough social clout could get away with it. For those who like them now, in our post-class world, great, but let's not pretend this doesn't have its roots firmly planted in the "edgy underclass" or that that doesn't add to its cachet even now among those who like being "edgy."

 

[rareboy]

Obviously many of us don't have Ink. We are totally afraid of what others...like employers, customers would tolerate.

I rode home on the train with an inked guy and I just wanted him to tell me what they all ere for...before I Fucked him.

 

[pat grimshaw]

^

Baron von Munchausen Syndrome

 

[alphacentauri]

Somehow I get the impression that men that get tattoos are from poor neighbourhood. If you look at young teens in poor area or in porn. Marines or prisoners or gang members get a lot of tattoos.

Do you agree? If it does, why advertize? I would rather hide my social class

It was like that decades ago; but it's not like that now at all.

Now, literally everyone and their mom has a tattoo. I do not have any and personally do not want any.

 

[pigface]

Puh-lease. Maybe 20-30 years ago, but now every hipster has one. Not saying they're just limited to hipsters, either (I have one).

Aren't hipsters right down at the bottom of the class structure? They don't think they are, but they are.

 

[peeonme]

I have worked with guys that had tattoos in every available spot on their bodies, they looked like the Sunday comics.
That's fine, I guess, but what got to me is that they were broke. Oh, they could afford beer, pizza and potato chips... but they couldn't
afford a car, if they had a car they couldn't afford insurance.
It blows my mind when people have no sense of priorities in their lives. Tattoos can be quite expensive.

 

[otters]

Somehow I get the impression that men that get tattoos are from poor neighbourhood. If you look at young teens in poor area or in porn. Marines or prisoners or gang members get a lot of tattoos.

Do you agree? If it does, why advertize? I would rather hide my social class

LOL "poor neighbourhood"

In Europe, you can meet people having tattoos who are members of aristocratic families, and have been raised in châteaus, castles or manor houses that are their families' property since time immemorial.

 

[jbrown329]

I don't mind tats if they're tastefully done. But tats on the face are ugly. And those that have so many tats that they look like Ray Bradbury's Illustrated Man are downright nasty and ugly to boot.

I don't have any tats and have never had the desire to get one. My brother has one (skunk with his name below). My uncle has one (a little red devil). My grandfather had one (a hula girl). Brother was in the Navy. Uncle was in the Army. Grandfather was a WWII Marine.

As for piercings, I think nose rings etc. are nasty. They gross me out. Eyebrow? Go for it. Lip? Go for it. Ear? Go for it. But when they stretch the holes in their ears to put disks in, yuck. Nipple pierce? Why not. Same goes for genital piercings.

I've been harboring the idea of getting a PA. But am not sure. I should've done it 20yrs ago. At the age I'm at now...... kinda late. I had 2 piercings in my left ear. They've grown shut. Those I'm going to get pierced again.