“Ethical Porn” Probably Doesn’t Mean the Porn We’re Producing in Prison

November 5, 2024

P, serving life in Georgia Department of Corrections (GDC) custody, looks at the men gathered in the cell. Three potential actors in the prison porn industry, plus me in a journalism capacity.

“So, here is the gig—I make porn videos. I pay a one-time flat rate of $100 to everyone who is willing to perform sex on camera … if you got hang-ups and issues, this thing ain’t for you. I don’t write scripts. But I will read one if you have an idea.”

One of the three men asks what kind of sex he’d be performing. P asks what kind of sex he’s into.

“Blowjobs,” the man responds. “Getting them, not giving.”

P addresses the others: “Anyone want to suck a dick?”

Hands go up.

Condoms and workplace safety aren’t exactly part of the discussion. Consent is barely part of the discussion.

After the shoot, P will edit the footage to the appropriate length and aesthetic, then upload it onto various websites. A look at just one of them shows more than 600,000 subscribers at $20 each.

Prison-themed porn is nothing new, but most of it is produced on a set rather than in actual cells, dorms, shower rooms. People pay for authenticity.

“Now, if I could get an officer to have sex on video in uniform, I would pay his or her bail and legal fees,” P told Filter. “Well, to an extent; I’d pay for a no-jail plea bargain. I mean, a clearly criminal act caught on video—that’s going to work out as a profit at the end of day.”  

GDC regulations, like those of corrections departments across the United States, “prohibit any form of sexual activity”; we’re not even allowed to masturbate. Nor are we allowed to incentivize anyone else to have sexual contact of any kind.

Also on the list of things we’re not allowed to do: have cell phones, use the internet, “conduct business activity” or look at sexually explicit materials—online or otherwise. You might assume that all of this means prisoners are not producing and distributing their own porn videos on the premises, but this is made possible by understaffing.

From a purely disciplinary standpoint, any of the above can get you sent to the hole. This is something of an occupational hazard for P, whose name has been changed for his protection. But hundreds of thousands of subscribers make the gig lucrative enough to be worth it.

 

 

For the actors themselves, the pay is finite and the risks are greater. In the same way that corrections departments like to pretend no one in prison uses drugs, they like to pretend no one in prison is having sex. So while porn shoots outside prison may discuss things like condoms and workplace safety, they aren’t exactly part of the discussion here. Consent is barely part of the discussion here.

Yet for many of the prisoners who end up starring in the vids, $100 is a better offer than they’d get for sex off-camera.

“Okay, I didn’t make them poor,” P retorted when I raise the issue of exploitation. “I did not go out, capture beautiful young men on the streets, enslave them in prisons, and feed them so little that they have to hustle at something to survive. All I have done is realize a marketable opportunity, and employ almost anyone willing to do the work.”

He described a list of gifted stars, and a different, longer list of people who want him to call them. “Some just get in once,” he said.Some are so bad I just can’t use the vid. If I see a vid going bad, I just cut it off.”

What defines “going bad?”

“When someone has 8 inches of penis in their anus and wants to stop, but the other party doesn’t. Then it has become a different thing, and I walk away,” he answered.

Doesn’t he feel any responsibility for enabling rape?

“I send them the money and I walk away. I’m not giving either of them a second chance, though. People ease up on me every day wanting to work for me. I’m not forcing anyone to do anything.”

After our interview, P shot several more vids at this facility before he was transferred. While still in the hole at his new facility he’ll buy a new phone, line up new actors and contract with whichever gang is in power over there to provide security. A new vid will appear online, most likely shot in the shower of an open dorm while most residents are at chow, probably the first day he’s out of segregation.

 


 

Top photograph (cropped) via Hall County Department of Corrections. Inset image (cropped) via Human and Civil Rights Coalition of Georgia/Facebook

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Jimmy Iakovos

Jimmy Iakovos is a pseudonym for a writer who is incarcerated in Georgia. It is illegal in some Southern states to earn a living while under a sentence of penal servitude. Writing has enabled Jimmy to endure over 30 years of continuous imprisonment.