There aren't many pariahs left in this world as we have become inured to just about everything the world has to offer. In spite of being able to accept nearly everything else under the sun, people who make their living having sex in front of cameras are still looked upon as if they crawled out from under a rock. In spite of it's the proliferation throughout the Internet and elsewhere, most producers and suppliers of pornography are looked upon as being only a step removed from white slavery.
In fact the antipathy towards the business is so universal that it comes in for equal bashing from those on both extremities of the political spectrum. It may be for different reasons, but both the religious right and the radical left condemn pornography and pornographers out of hand. While the one claims it's because they don't like the way women are depicted, and the other because they don't like sex, the end result is the same.
North America and sex have always had a strange relationship in that, while people don't see anything wrong with depicting a person literally being eaten alive on a movie screen, two people having sex is enough to send half the continent into a state of shock. The sad truth is that for too many people who think sex equals sin have made something that should be a pleasurable experience into something they feel they have to be ashamed of.
In spite of that, or maybe because of that (I'll leave that to the psychologists and social workers to figure out), there's always been a big demand for pornography in our society. From the dirty postcards of the early part of the twentieth century to the web sites and DVDs of today, the stuff wouldn't be made if there weren’t people willing to pay for it. Who are the people willing to appear in the movies and pose for the pictures? Are they somebody's innocent son or daughter whose morals were corrupted by evil people leading them astray, or even worse, addicting them to drugs so they would do anything for their next fix?
In all likelihood it's none of the above, as drugs are usually a detriment to performance. The mainstream adult film industry doesn't need to coerce people into taking part in their movies, as there are always more than enough people willing and able to choose from. If that's the case, it must mean, horror of horrors, these people want to be doing what they're doing. Working from that premise, William Walsh has created what he calls a documentary novel that traces the life and career of leading man, Wax Williams, from his childhood days in Ampersand, California to when he throws in the towel and retires from the world of adult films.
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