Part Two — a day on a porn set with Madison Missina
Late last year I was lucky enough to spend a morning chatting with Madison Missina, porn star and private escort. Missina talked about her experiences in the sex and adult entertainment industries. We spoke at length about her career, what happens on a porn set, and sexual health and personal safety in the industry. This is part two of a series of excerpts from our conversation. In Part One – Meet Madison, Missina talks about her life in the sex industry. You can also read the full interview in the Sex Issue of The Lifted Brow.
Behind the scenes
Missina explained that a lot goes on before shooting starts. As well as hair and make-up, performers need to have their STI tests checked, and if any of the scenes involve anal, stars will have enemas to minimise the bacteria present. When working with stars she doesn’t know well, Missina will insert a wet tampon, which is what sex workers use to keep the blood up at the cervix when they have their periods so they can work right through. ‘It’s only a small precaution, but it reduces the chance that any STIs reach my cervix where they can multiply and infect me more easily,’ she said. ‘I take every additional step to protect myself.’ Some female stars also use vaginal douches, but Missina is against the practice. ‘It interrupts the body’s flora—our biggest natural protection against infections,’ she said.
Before each scene, the cast will do a run-through a few times, whether there is a storyline with scripted characters, or the scene is more free form. Missina explained the run-through gives the cast an opportunity to consent to everything that is going to happen during the scene. ‘A lot of checking and double-checking goes on to make sure everyone is comfortable with what they’re doing,’ she said. ‘If a woman is deep-throating a guy and gagging on screen, for instance, she has agreed to that before the shoot begins.’
As well as gaining consent for each activity prior to the shoot, the run–through is an opportunity for performers to discuss their needs with one another. ‘My co-stars and I will usually spend time talking about our dos and don’ts and come up with a way to signal our needs to avoid cuts to filming,’ Missina said.
Scene photos are also taken during the run-through, and then the shoot begins. The director will shoot all of the positions and once he or she has enough footage, the cum-shot will be called. ‘We all act as if the guy is about to cum, and then get into position. Usually there is a cut at that point, and the actor might run off to the bathroom or wherever to bring himself near orgasm, and then come back to film it.’
After the cum-shot, everyone holds their position while stills are taken, and then the actors head to the showers to clean up. ‘If there is any cum on our faces or in our mouths we have to take all our make-up off and wash ourselves, and then re-apply it before the next shoot,’ she said. ‘If we’re doing multiple scenes in a day, we’ll leave cum-on-face shots until the end—all the cum-shots in the earlier scenes will be on the boobs or the butt or somewhere else on the body.’
Some days are gruelling, with 8:00am starts and 1:00am finishes, and many of the female stars won’t eat during that time to avoid bloating. ‘On days where I’m expected to do five scenes, when I’m not needed on set I’ll sleep,’ Missina said. When I asked if she gets sore, Missina said these days it isn’t really an issue. ‘I used to get sore when I worked in a brothel because I had to have sex almost continually for 10 to 12 hours… It’s very physical work,’ she said, ‘but you get used to it.’
Sex as performance
‘Sex in porn is highly choreographed,’ Missina said. The actors need to position themselves at angles where the camera can see what is going on. ‘It’s not always painful,’ she said, ‘but it doesn’t always feel good.’
Cuts mid-scene are frowned upon, and this means actors may need to work through their discomfort while putting on a good show. ‘In one scene a girl was trying to make me squirt but she had no idea where my g-spot was; she was smashing my pubic bone with her knuckle.’ Missina had no way of telling her co-star she was being hurt and ended up bruised.
Missina has since created a code to indicate to her co-stars when they need to back off a bit. ‘If I’m orgasming in O sounds that means, “You’re hurting me,”’ she said. This lets her co-stars know to finish quickly and move on to something else without ruining the continuity. Missina said it’s when stars get carried away with the performance and don’t realise they’re hurting one another that injuries can occur.
Porn stars also vocalise a lot more than in real life. ‘We have to think about the audience and include them in whatever is happening,’ she said, which is why stars will often describe sensations or how people taste.
Fantasy versus reality
Missina would like to see porn depicting more genuine sexual technique. ‘If people are watching porn for education purposes—as I do to learn how to give better sexual services in my escort work—we should stop faking and show people how it’s actually done.’
She said, ‘Guys often think the urethra is the clitoris, or that girls get off using glass dildos to fuck ourselves, but that’s not how our anatomy works.’ Missina also laments the number of women who say they don’t get any pleasure from vaginal intercourse—something she believes stems from a lack of education that porn could remedy if it incorporated more realism.
According to Missina, directors often ask their actors to masturbate in ways that aren’t appropriate or pleasurable. For instance, one director wanted Missina to dominate her nineteen-year-old co-star using a glass dildo, and tried to tell her what to do with it. ‘I said if he wanted to see some genuine Australian porn, he should just let me take care of it and film the result.’ Soon her co-star’s vagina was clenching. ‘She was ripping at her male co-star’s shirt, crying and whimpering, having her first real g-spot orgasm,’ Missina said. ‘All the guys on set started shouting, “Cut! Cut! Cut!” and asking if she was okay, was she being hurt? … Only on a porn set do you have the males call “cut” during a real female orgasm!’
‘I think the industry can learn a lot from the popularity of amateur porn,’ Missina said. ‘People want the production values of glamour porn, but they also want to see something genuine. They don’t necessarily want to see actors who have been in hair and make-up for three hours, faking it in front of the camera with people they don’t even like. They want to see real intimacy, real connection, and real sexual pleasure.’
Already the glamour porn market is starting to respond, producing ‘professional amateur porn’ that uses the production values of glamour porn, but contains more realism. ‘Porn is also starting to focus on genuineness and intimacy,’ Missina said, ‘with more handholding and kissing, and less thrashing.’
For Missina, her experience in porn has mostly been positive. ‘I’ve learned there is a market for everyone at every age, in every shape, and every size,’ she said. ‘I love the industry and all the people in it. Porn shoots tend to be residential, over a weekend or a whole week, so we live together and film together, and form very strong bonds. We all know each other and call each other a family. It’s lovely. I like that the more experienced people are always available and helping the newer ones coming through. It’s a very supportive environment.’
