A lot of people think that working in porn is a full-time job for most porn models and actors. It’s not. For the vast majority, it’s a part-time gig, sometimes only once or twice a month — or less! It all depends on whether you are doing amateur shoots or professional shoots and whether you are a male or female.
I mean, let’s face it. If you’re reading this, there’s a pretty damn good chance that you have either a vagina or a penis. Right? So, what if I told you that you can get paid to use that vagina or penis?… That you could get paid to feel good?… That you could get paid to do something that you already do at home for free?… That you could be surrounded by some very attractive people and get paid for that? Well, a lot of people are very interested in these things, and so there is no shortage of people who are wanting to get into the industry. I mean, everyone has the ‘tools’ to get into the industy… assuming of course, you have a vagina or penis! So, as a result, there is just not enough work for a single person to make this a full-time job. Most people (males and females) do xxx shoots only part-time in order to supplement their income or other job(s).
Females have more options in the industry, with both professional shoots/studios as well as with amateur shoots/studios, from the simple fact that there are less women who want to get into it, but there is a high demand for them. Females are expected to be comfortable with female/female scenes and these pay the least. Females make more money doing male/female scenes, even more money doing multiple males in a single scene, and the most money doing anal and double penetration scenes.
Males have far fewer options than females, due mainly to the fact that there is a huge number of guys who are dying to get into doing this kind of work. There are exponentially more males that want to get into this than females, and therefore it’s more difficult for a male to get their big break. Not only that, but the male can’t just be a good “actor” like a female can … the male must be able to ‘physically perform’ … which in simpler terms means ‘able to get their penis to behave itself’ :).
Males usually start doing amateur work first. There is just too much competition to get into professional work off the bat, so therefore guys will usually start with amateur work. It’s the easier of the two kinds (between amateur and pro) to shoot for as well. But amateur shoots occur less regularly as well, making it harder to make this a full-time job. There are tons of types of amateur shoots, scenes, and companies. You can find all genres, straight, bisexual, gay… and on top of that you have fetish types as well. Straight males are most plentiful in trying to break in, and as you may have heard from others, many males will do bisexual and sometimes gay work in order to get the straight work. Sometimes this is known as ‘gay for pay’ because straight males doing bi or gay work pays significantly more than the straight work. The demand is quite high for actors who are open-minded to multiple categories as well, and these people will naturally have an edge on the others who are closed-minded to multiple types of work.
Males wanting to work in the professional arena of the adult industry find it extremely tough to get into at first, and even if you break into it, the likelihood of steady work is based on how easy it is for you to get an erection, keep the erection, and ability to control ejaculation (cumming). In addition to those attributes, you must also add how athletic/attractive the male is, if they are within a certain age range, and various other factors, and you soon end up with a very small percentage of males who are qualified. Then, you must consider that the professional female pornstars get comfortable with certain guys in scenes, and then you have the women requesting to work with certain men, and you finally end up with males who are used over and over again for multiple moves, multiple studios, etc. Which, in turn, makes it even harder for the next new male to break into the professional shoots. But even for those males who get their big break to be in a professional shoot, most of them fail due to the fact that there are so many people on the set watching, multiple photographers, people in charge of the lighting, the sets, the production overall — and this becomes nerve-wracking to a male, which in turn makes it hard to ‘get it up’. The vast majority of males will never make it past amateur shoots to get into the professional arena.
Regardless whether you are female or male, straight, bi, gay, or lesbian, you will most certainly find that this is a part-time job — with only occasional shoots. If someone promises you that they will make this a full-time job for you, you better do your homework on the person/company/studio/agency because this is the exception rather than the rule.
