Dear Sasha, I’m interested in getting into porno but not as a star. I want to do music for adult films because it could use some changing up in my opinion. People making it seem clueless about new trends.
—Brian
Dear Brian ,
Here’s the way porn works: are you a young attractive female, and if so, are you willing to let someone film you doing everything from missionary intercourse to having a baseball bat pulled out of your ass followed by three limes and a grapefruit? No? Then you work for free.
In other words, if your job is not integral to the fucking, you can forget about making a living wage. One thing that would change this on the music end of things is if you had huge mainstream recognition and that had an impact on the subsequent sales of the film.
The music in porn doesn’t suck because people making porn are clueless, it sucks because they don’t care, though this is not to say that even if they did care, their taste would lead them in any interesting directions. Though this is a truthful generalization, there are some filmmakers who want their movies to stand apart from typical pornography and the music in their films reflects this. Eon McKai is one. Jack the Zipper is another. And someone like Richard Kern, who recently made an adult film called Extra Action (And Extra Hardcore), even got his pal Thurston Moore to do the score. Still, the problem here is that there is a clubby element to these collaborations. You may not have the same longstanding friendships or enticing reputation with people who make porn.
If you’re interested in it strictly from a creative perspective, by all means, get in touch with the directors above and see if they won’t accept a sample of your work.
In Canada, you could talk to Todd Klinck. “Goodhandy’s [the sex club that Todd owns] has been shooting erotic wrestling videos every week since we opened,” Todd wrote in an open-call e-mail this week. “We have never given much thought to copyright issues because the music playing during our scenes is just background music, documentary style, because we are shooting in a live nightclub. But the time has come that we would like to start involving people who would like to contribute their music to our work.”
Goodhandy’s is not offering money but they can offer Web links, musical credits on the content and free porn. You can contact Todd at info@mayhemnorth.com.
Dear Sasha, I’m a member of a sort of Victorian Science Fiction group. I was discussing diseases with one of the members and I got to wondering just how many active sexually transmitted infections are out there right now?
—Don
Dear Don ,
Lyba Spring of Toronto Public Health cracked open her big book of STIs for us and divided them into four categories: viral, bacterial, protozoa and fungi and ectoparasites. Some of them, upon further research, do indeed sound like they’d make harrowing plot devices for some prurient turn-of-the-century sci-fi, so here we go, first under viral: genital herpes, cytomegalovirus, Epstein-Barr virus infection, HIV/AIDS, human papillomavirus (HPV), viral hepatitis (A, B, C, D and G) and molluscum contagiosum.
Under bacterial: chlamydia trachomatis, lymphogranuloma venereum (LGV), neisseria gonorrhoeae, treponema pallidum (syphilis), endemic treponematoses, chancroid and haemophilus ducreyi, donovanosis (named for the doctor who discovered it and not the folk singer), genital mycoplasmas, shigella, salmonella, campylobacter (enteric bacterial pathogens) and bacterial vaginosis (BV). Under protozoa (including intestinal protozoa) and fungi: trichomonas vaginalis and trichomoniasis, giardia lamblia, entamoeba histolytica and vulvovaginal candidiasis. Under ectoparasites: pubic lice and scabies.
Lucky for us, most of the STIs listed are now curable or at the very least treatable.
Neither of the clinic workers I spoke to at Hassle Free knew of any that had been eradicated but Lyba says syphilis—all the rage during your era of interest—nearly was “before the spike in urban centres about five years ago.”
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