Jill Baure and Ronna Gradus’s anti-porn documentary demystifies some parts of the thriving Internet sex industry, especially its effects upon the multitudes of young women who churn through its constantly revolving doors.
The sexual development of teens has always kept up with porn; the proliferation of Internet sex has accelerated those rites of passage. Gone are days of kids having to pour over “The Joy of Sex” to get a vague idea of how people get off. Now that young people are easily able to explore cutting-edge sexual desires (in a social media-observed world), it’s a standard part of the transition into adulthood for this and future generations. This trend is not going away, if anything, it’s increasing.
Riley is a 23-year-old Tampa “talent agent” (and sometime “talent”). He posts a “Hot Girls Wanted” ad on Craigslist that racks up numerous replies from just-turned-18 girls chomping at the bit to get away from their parents and declare their independence.
The self-described wealthy Riley has a constant bevvy of would-be porn stars staying with him at his, let’s just say, sparsely appointed house. He keeps a dog and a puppy to keep the girls happy. Riley comes off like a frat boy pimp. His charges’ suitcases explode beside mattresses on Riley’s floor in a scattered array of shoes, make-up and “cute tops.”
This young entrepreneur’s steady stream of nubile sex performers each receives a psychologically and physically exacting crash course in the brutal reality of male exploiters who lay in wait for them anywhere they go in the world. You’d be pressed to imagine a tougher hard-knocks indoctrination program into capitalist society. Perhaps that’s as it should be for all of us.
Part of the film’s unintended subtext deals with porn as a rebellious right-of-passage for girls (like girl-next-door-type Tressa — a.k.a. Stella May) to go through en masse. Social media has bred a competitive hunger for popularity and fame to which every porn actress on display aspires and claws at every opportunity.
This ordeal does have a maturing effect. In only a month or two, most of these headstrong girls will be finished with the short work-cycle of Internet porn.
Tressa’s supportive Midwest family suffers their daughter’s indiscretions with predictable worry and concern. Her doting boyfriend Kendall comes through for Tressa like a champ. Forget about preconceived notions of porn stars coming from dysfunctional families. Internet porn attracts girls from all walks of life.
The porn-star dream is alive and well in economically ravaged America. The insatiable demand for Internet porn means that a girl who turned 18 last week, making $15 an hour in her hometown, can buy a plane ticket to Florida and start filming three to five porn videos a week. Each one pays between $800 and $1000, a fee that covers such outré sex acts as “facial abuse” and “vomiting.”
All these recent past years of America’s open policy of extreme (police and military) torture appear to have pushed sexual fads in the country toward kinks previously considered bizarre.
“Thirty percent of all data transferred across the Internet is porn.” Of that content, “nearly 40 percent depicts violence against women.” That awful truth reflects of epochs of racism, sexism, and brutal humiliation that came before. A film such as “Hot Girls Wanted” helps us face who and what we are head-on. The situation boils down to simple economic reality: any douche with $800 and a video camera can hire a girl to let him abuse her sexually for eternal public display.
Ashley Knoxx gets her place as a current sex-performer identifier. Newbie porn actress Ava Kelly responds to watching Knoxx’s facial abuse video on Riley’s cell phone.
“She wants to get notoriety and not be scarred. Not everyone can come back from that.” “She was one of the girls that didn’t know what she was getting herself into.”
If nothing else, “Hot Girls Wanted” is instructional on a real-world level about the risks and minimal rewards of Internet porn.
Not Rated. 84 mins.
