Ex-Spy: What I Discovered Researching $1B ADULT Industry

31:46It probably saved a few people from cheating. Well, porn's in the medical profession. And when people find that out, people say, well, what do you mean? It says, well, if you go to any fertility clinic in this country and around the world. Oh, they give you a magazine to wank into a tube. Magazine, magazine. Some of them have limited internet access to the mainstream porn sites. And some of them have DVD. That's a good point. And videos. If we also look at sex education, porn stars are used to do that. So if you look at, do you remember the, what was it? I think, was it? The Joy of Sex and the other ones in the 80s and 90s.

32:20That's a climax. Climax? They were all, I'm talking about the educational ones. They were all done by porn stars. Are you telling me Color Climax wasn't educational?

32:30So if you look at it, it's used in the medical profession. It's used professionally. So we either, as I said, we go back to the three options. You know, we ban it, we educate, or we do nothing. and I when somebody says to me Norm what do you think the risk is if we ban it I say remember Prohibition remember Tobacco that's my fear of what will happen these studios these illegal studios around the world we are trying to close that'll be their moment of growth yeah and I've never given it a thought whether it should be bad I mean I think it should be policed heavily because if people are doing it against their will and there's coercion and there's like genuine R scenes then yeah people need to be going to jail for life worse still right the death penalty let me ask you a question while we're talking about the actual actors and actresses how many porn actresses and actresses are psychologically broken did you find what i found was i interviewed some some a couple of women who were my age and they were talking about the industry wasn't that they they they They felt abused.

33:42They felt that they were not forced as in physically forced, but steered towards doing certain things that they actually weren't that comfortable doing. But it was the only way of securing work at that time. You know, if you didn't do it, somebody else would get the job. So they felt pressured that way. If you look then at the interviews that went on to the people that started round about 2016, 2017 onwards, totally different story. They feel in control. And that's because a lot of them have worked for the production side and they've got their own online accounts as well. So they feel much in control.

34:26And I spoke to one woman who'd been in the business 10 years and she had only recently opened up an online account. but she'd been with the production companies for 10 years. And what she said is in the early days, I was doing things that I thought, oh, I'm not really comfortable about that, but I'll do it because it was getting me work. But as you get more and more experience, you realise that you don't want to be doing that. You want to be doing this. And she says, I've thoroughly enjoyed the 10 years in industry. And, you know, yeah, I don't regret what I've done. I love it. I love the people.

35:01because all people see is the making of the porn. They don't see the travel. You know, they don't see the entertainment side of it. I mean, they have their own awards ceremony, which is akin to the Oscars. It's as big. Oh, yeah. So people don't see the community side of it. So it's like anything. You're going to get some people who are happy in the role and you're going to get some people who are not. Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile with your summer price forecast. Now, unfortunately, we're seeing rising costs across the country with possibility that big wireless hates you 100%. Now over here at Mint Mobile, we're seeing sunny skies and dropping prices.

35:39Every plan to just$15 a month. Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. Upfront payment of$45 for three months, $90 for six months or$180 for 12 month plan required. $15 per month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra. New customer offer for initial plan term only greater than 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy. See terms. This episode is brought to you by ChatGPT. Hey, it's Bill Simmons from the Bill Simmons Podcast. Have you guys heard about ChatGPT work? It's the new way to use ChatGPT for bigger multi-step projects. And when you need more than just answers, give ChatGPT work access to your apps and files, and it can create real work documents like spreadsheets, slides, and structured reports.

36:17Get started at ChatGPT.com by selecting work mode available on Plus and Pro plans. Do you think porn perhaps is being used for mass social control? I think it's not social control as such, because social control by whom? What I think they're doing, and I think they're very clever in how they're doing it, is no matter how many times you try to ban pornography, don't forget these guys had credit card bans. They had internet bans. They're not allowed to use, you know, meta and all those people to promote their content. So how do they do it? They're on their own rails. So what they've been successful at is marketing.

37:00So do I think that it's dangerous in terms of the marketing and where it is available? Yeah, I think what needs to happen is we quite clearly, the conclusion I drew on it was we can't ban it because we're just going to push it underground. and some people have a legitimate career and we should be supporting them in that. Whether we like it or not, the one thing we have to accept is acceptance is not agreement. And I say that to everyone. I don't agree with certain laws, but I can accept them, live by them and respect them. But I might not agree with them. You don't have to agree with pornography to accept it.

37:46We have to accept that pornography is watched by over 50 % of society in the Western world. What's the most popular genre they search for? I don't know, in all honesty, but one thing that did come up on an interview I was doing was that somebody went in and searched that very, very thing. And they said to me, what I find quite strange is that men are searching for this. and men were searching for gay scenes and transgender and things like that. And women are searching for that. Yeah, and women were searching for lesbian activity. Now, here's the thing. If you sat down with those women and say, oh, no, I wouldn't do it.

38:30And if you said to the man, are you interested? No, I'm not interested in trans. That proves my point and it proves the psychology behind it. It's a fantasy rather than something they want. They're not participants in it. It's a fantasy. In the same way, you get home, you want to watch the gangster movie tonight. I want to watch Goodfellas. So you put Goodfellas on. It's a fantasy. You don't want to go out and be a Goodfella, do you? And it's the same with pornography. I wouldn't watch Goodfellas at 2347, no. Probably not. I wouldn't hide it from the wife. Yeah. And that is what happens because we're living in a society of double denial.

39:09Let me give you some numbers. men contribute 60 billion pounds to pornography 60 billion pounds is contributed per annum into the porn industry by men women contribute 30 billion on sex toys and vibrators and things like this and in a typical relationship when i was interviewing the man would be masturbating to vibrator and a person would think well the easiest thing is stop masturbating and make love together but it's more complicated than that if they were to be honest with one another oh i'm watching the porn all right oh and i'm the honesty would improve their relationship so much better and it would also improve the sex discussing their fantasies yeah absolutely and what you'll find is the masturbation and watching a porn will deteriorate.

40:08And I'm not saying the use of the vijibator will stop, but it will be less and their intimacy shared together will be higher. The wife may object to a tranny joining in. Yeah. But, but, but, but again, the pornography enables you a safe space to fantasise, doesn't it? Yeah, I suppose it does. If you're into that shit. If you're into that, but you're into it as a fantasy. What we have to accept is that most people that have a fantasy, I'm talking general society, that have a fantasy wouldn't actually go out and do it. Otherwise, it wouldn't be a fantasy. It'd be a reality. Well, here's the thing.

40:47How much of the porn people are watching is coercion, rape? In terms of mainstream platforms, there is a very, very… Coercion. Yeah. I'll come on to those points. in terms of rape and serious sexual assaults and so that it's extremely unlikely to find that on a mainstream platform so i was always encouraged anybody's watching porn watch it through a mainstream platform because they have checks and balances they you know they they've got you know anti-money laundering laws and all kinds of stuff that they also have to abide by so they have to i think 80 percent of porn hubs uh content had to be removed because of that sort of thing yeah They have tight controls.

41:30It's taken a long time to do it, but they have tight controls. So in terms of your very serious crimes, unlike you're on a major platform, in terms of your coercion, it depends on how you view it. Financial coercion is what I say is where somebody doesn't really want to do something, but they're prepared to do it for the money. Well, we can say that about most things in society, can't we? most people will do a job they don't want to do for the money but i think because it's pornography we should have guidelines and processes to make that a bit more robust but what we have to also learn and understand that when pornography is made the contracts and i'm talking about professional pornography mainstream studio the contracts that they will sign are in depth the consent processes they go through are in depth.

42:25They will do a recorded interview of consent. They will go through every single scene as to what's going to happen. They have a chaperone. They have a mental health worker. They can stop the process at any time. The public don't see that. Okay, so here's the thing. Someone gets obsessed with a rape genre, forced sex, following somebody into the woods in a balaclava and pouncing on them and on porn it's role play. This person gets hooked on that fantasy. Before long the fantasy just isn't quite enough. Then he goes and re-enacts it in real life. I can only go by research, statistics and facts. Should there be certain genres that are banned?

43:08There is no, and let's just put that to one side for a moment and I'll come back to it. There is no evidence that I came across or I am aware of that directly links films to activity. If that were the case, if we look at the level of violent films that we have, and I'm not talking about pornography, I'm talking about violent films, there'd be a lot more trouble in the world than there is. Because in every American movie, somebody gets shot. And there's a lot of people get shot in America. Yeah. Yes, yes. But not to the proportion. I'm not talking about America as a place. I'm talking about where the movies are being watched.

43:49In the UK, every movie we watch from America or every Hollywood blockbuster, in the May, not everyone, but there's a lot of violence in films, isn't there? But that doesn't correlate with the number of violence in society. Not everyone's going to carry out their fantasy, but some will. Some will, and you won't be able to... With education, hopefully you can change that. But what I'm trying to drive at is there's no direct correlation between violent films and violent crime. And that's been looked into, that's been studied. There's always going to be someone that does it, but it's not a widespread pattern.

44:26Most people can watch a violent film and not go in and hit someone, the majority of society. So to answer your question about somebody watching that type of pornography and then going out and doing it, there's no history that shows us that. Do we need history to show us that? or would common sense tell us eventually someone's bound to do it once it's embedded in their brain? Well, somebody's going to do it, but do you then ban that? Do you then ban all violent films? Because the same thing could happen then. We can go back to Michael Ryan. I can't remember the year, but I think it was, was it 80s, 90s?

45:01I can't remember when the Rambo film came out and then he shot people and they believe it was in. Oh, I see. Okay. Yeah, I think it was Michael Ryan. Please, if I've got the name wrong, I've got the name wrong. There's a few films that have inspired serious crimes like Child's Play, The Jamie Bulger Killers. That's the film they were watching the night before. So there are people that will watch a film and then go and reenact it. Yes. But if we don't educate them... Yeah, I hear what you're saying. What's the solution? The solution is we ban it all. Okay, we ban it all. Goals underground anyway.

45:36Situations, hubs, abuse, it becomes big. We're now making the network bigger. we do nothing we do absolutely nothing and we just say well just leave it it's been going on for years let's just leave it leave people to their own devices or we educate i would rather educate than not yeah see for me just pushing back a little bit yeah i mean fuck education if you've got a burning desire to go and rape somebody you're going to do it and i think that scenes like that will encourage it. So for me, I think porn serves a purpose if it's consensual, managed like you say, but I think any kind of porn that, even if it's role play, looks like it could be against the woman's will, I think that should be banned.

46:24I don't think that's planting good seeds in people's heads. Well, that is up to. My job is to produce the stats, the figures, and the insight into the industry. society's job is to decide how to deal with that i'm not saying we should ban it i'm not saying we shouldn't i'm staying in the middle and i'm saying look here here is the facts we don't have a direct correlation between movies and violent crimes that we can actually say we have concerns so should there be um tighter legislation around that type of pornography That's a question for society and it's a question for the regulators. But at the moment, we've got that going out to, and I'm not just talking about this country, I'm talking about the world as a whole, to people who shouldn't be watching that because they're not even old enough to watch it.

47:16That's another. And it goes back to my point that if you're watching stuff like that at a young age, what do you come out to be? So surely we have to do something. So I think that what you have to look at, is should there be some sort of tighter controls around that type of pornography? Personally, I don't think it should be made in the first place because I don't see what the attraction is from my point of view, but I accept that people have different fantasies. And just because people have a fantasy, it's not a reality. It's a fantasy. I'm going to ask any female in the audience to write in the comments whether they would want those kinds of scenes banned or allowed to continue to fulfil people's fantasies.

48:05I'd be very interested in that part. I think you would see that I would suspect that most people would probably say they want it banned. But I would then say, okay, well, let's have a look at the stats of how many people are watching it. Because we're going back to, you know, if I put 100 men in a room or 1 ,000 men in a room and say, do you watch pornography? and I'm on a live podcast, I can guarantee you not many are going to say yes. If I'm on my retreat again, 90 % are going to put their hands up. So what we need to do, and the easiest way of doing this, is to say, okay, let's have a look at this type of pornography.

48:41How many people actually watch it? Then we can look at whether it's a societal thing or whether it's something we should ban because I don't know. All I can do is give you the stats and then somebody can make an informed decision and somebody can put the legislation in place. And that's why I encourage, I encourage every single MP, every single legislator, every single person that is behind pornography, the big companies, the small companies, the creators, society, individuals, to buy the book. It's not about money. It's about spreading the word. It's about understanding the market and understanding the business so you can make an informed decision.

49:15That's what it's about. What percentage of the porn industry is actually illegal? It depends how you look at that. And I wouldn't know because we didn't investigate the illegal sides of pornography. We wouldn't be allowed to, you know, I haven't got the resources, I haven't got the people, and we wouldn't be allowed to investigate the illegal sides of pornography. We'd have to go undercover to do it. So what we investigated was the legal side of pornography, i.e. pornography is legal in this country. Let's look at the legal operators in the country and let's find out why they've been so successful.

49:48Now let's look at the creator economy. we had roughly about 400 000 independent creators that's now over half a million so we're going in one direction and that's up and 87 of them are female performers and yet we're not educating people how did you go about doing your research we had a number of different uh different ways um we started off with stats because i was doing the client i had a client who had said, could you get me these stats? So we started off with the numbers and then drilling down the numbers. And then I had a few contacts through the insurance markets where we've insured certain assets and people over the years.

50:30So I spoke to those contacts and then I lined up a number of different interviews and I did a lot of research. So it came from a number of sources. It came from direct interviewing. It came from trawling through lots of podcasts and interviews of creators and producers and things like that. And it came through stats, confirmed stats of the big porn producers. It came from psychologists, papers and things like that. So it was university grade in-depth analysis on that side, interviews with people actually in the industry. And we put it all together and wrote a book, but it took three years to do it.

51:14What was the darkest story you uncovered during your investigation? The darkest story I uncovered, and again, we're going down the legal side of it, so all this was legal, was women who had done things, and men for that matter, had done things for the money and what they'd been asked to do. The most disturbing things I saw, which I was pretty shocked at, wasn't the pornography itself in terms of, you know, the porn that's being produced. It was custom content and what individuals were asking on custom content. That was concerning. And bearing in mind, this is the worrying thing. You can join a platform.

51:58You can get a pseudo name. You can jail block the country that you live in. So family, friends, whatever, won't be able to track you or see you. how can you support your loved one if you don't even know they're doing it because remember you can do pornography now from your own home all you need is a mobile phone do you hear that that sound right that means that summer's officially here it means that grown adults just sprint into the street for a frozen dessert shaped like a cartoon but this summer mint mobile has a better treat every plan, including unlimited, is$15 a month. And unlike ice cream, it won't drip down your wrist or look nothing like the picture.

52:39Does anyone have any cash? Give it a try at midmobile.com slash switch. Upfront payment of$45 for three months,$90 for six months, or$180 for 12-month plan required,$15 per month equivalent, taxes and fees extra. New customer offer for initial plan term only greater than 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy. See terms. This episode is brought to you by ChatGPT. Hey, it's Bill Simmons from the Bill Simmons podcast. Have you guys heard about ChatGPT work? It's the new way to use ChatGPT for bigger multi-step projects. And when you need more than just answers, give ChatGPT work access to your apps and files, and it can create real work documents like spreadsheets, slides, and structured reports.

53:15Get started at ChatGPT.com by selecting work mode available on Plus and Pro plans. if you had a close female relative say late teens early 20s and they asked you advice i want to get into the porn industry what would you say to them would you be happy for them to do it or would you be appalled at the suggestion well i mean my daughter passed away uh for instance um i didn't want to use your daughter no no i mean i'm very open about it i i talk about it in discussions, because obviously I talk to people who have also lost loved ones. My daughter would be 26 now. And if my daughter came to me and said, Dad, I'm going into the porn industry.

53:57Before I wrote that book, before I did the investigation, I'm ashamed to admit it, I would have gone bananas. And I would have said, no, you're not. And I would have done everything within my power to stop her. Why would you be ashamed of that? I might even have threatened to disown her. But having investigated the industry, having spoken to people who enjoy it and having spoken to people who have had difficulties, having understood how it's made and having understood that it's fantasy, not reality. if my daughter came to me and said I'm going into the porn industry I would present her with the facts of the industry the good, the bad and the ugly I wouldn't build walls between us I would build love because I want her to be able to tell me anything now the reason why I took that view is from a personal standpoint, I would do anything, pretty much anything for my daughter to be alive today.

55:11Now, regardless of the career, legal career, I may add, that she chose, and if that career was pornography, then I would rather that than be where she is now. Yeah, I don't doubt that for a second, mate. And let me just move, let me move us because it would be just terrible of me to use your daughter as an example. So I'm not at all. I'd rather use somebody else. Let's say your best friend's daughter. Yeah. Or let's say your niece come up to you and said, I'm thinking about joining the porn industry. I'm probably going to get fucked senseless by 10 blokes a day and they're all going to come over my face.

55:57do you think I should do it or would you think it's a bad idea? My answer is not about the pornography and the scenes she's doing. Put the scenes to one side. It's the pornography itself. It's going into an industry. As long as somebody is going into an industry that they consent to, that they understand, that they want to be in, then I can't stop that. But what would your advice be as an adult? My advice would be that... Would you say maybe in 25 years' time you may look back and regret that? I would say a lot of things. There would be a long discussion that you couldn't go into on a podcast.

56:42We'd be here a long time. I wouldn't just be giving her a straight answer. I would be sitting down, listening to her, and this consultation would go on for a period of time till she fully understands what she's actually getting involved with. If you just dismiss something, then there's a chance they're going to go and do it anyway without the education behind it. I would rather sit, take my time, and advise them so they can make an informed decision. But ultimately, if they are of the age, the legal age, and they've made a decision still, I may disagree with it, and I will say to her, I disagree, I don't want you to do this.

57:21but as I said in my book acceptance is not agreement I can accept someone and accept what they want to do but I might not agree with what they want to do okay final question well do you think the porn industry needs to be fixed and if so can it be fixed or has it gone too far when we say can it be fixed certainly what what we know when we look back on on porn history is that a lot of the stuff that is going on now, which is the porn you talked about, was going on 20, 30 years ago. It hasn't changed. It's just the distribution channel has changed. It's just that you're aware of it now because it's on your mobile phone, whereas before you had to go out and look for it.

58:03It doesn't mean the material wasn't being made. Is the industry too far gone? It's been going for hundreds of years. We've tried to stop it once. On a major scale, I'm talking about, it's come back. It goes up and down. I've explained the reasons why, you know, sort of banning it would be an issue. I think what will happen, and this is just my thoughts. I'm not saying that it's coming to happen. I don't have a crystal ball. I think we're going to see a movement in AI. And I think what will happen in 10 years' time, I suspect that pornography will not exist in its current format. So I don't think we'll have individuals making porn.

58:45The individuals making porn will be sitting behind a computer programming, vibe coding to create the characters. It's already happening now. So at the moment, historically, when we look at AI and porn, it was a bit like a cartoon character. But they can now produce an AI porn movie that you can't tell the difference from a studio shot porn movie to an AI porn movie and the AI characters are made up. So why do we need to go through, Why will the industry need to go through consent, medicals, all that, when they can just create an AI character to do the same scene? So within 10 years, I believe pornography in that sense will be dead in terms of studio porn.

59:29But what will happen is platform usage will go up because it will be interactive and you'll be able to create the AI character that you want. But here's the thing. If you look at what computers can't replace is what's live. Now, here's a trend that is happening. And this is what came out during the investigation. If you look at what's going on in other parts of the world, they're doing live events. Now, at the moment, what happens when a so-called public event happens, they call it a public fan event, let's call it a fan event, happens in the UK. My understanding is that, you know, the mails don't get paid for it unless it's a production.

1:00:07You turn up, you do it, and it makes its money by selling a video. what the creators are doing in other countries is doing live events and selling tickets so what you're going to see perhaps is ai taking over where the porn actresses are now making porn because it's just easier to produce on on ai but the porn actors doing live events there are people buying tickets for live events. So I see that as a likely change. And that probably explains why some governments haven't moved. I'm not talking about the UK. I'm talking about governments across the world. Haven't moved to sort of legislate because maybe they're thinking, well, actually, down the line, it's all going to be AI.

1:00:55Does it matter? Of course it matters because the AI, you can get to do anything. It's going to build it for you, isn't it? So we need to put in the legislation that stops the AI doing certain things. Otherwise, we're back to square one. So can we ban it? Probably not, because AI is going to be able to produce it at speed. So there's a problem. There's always going to be people who perhaps want to crave authenticity, where they want to know that the creator is real. But if you can create your own person, will that authenticity last? Probably in live events, yes. So I think what will happen in the industry is you're going to have, by default, less porn actors.

1:01:37I think there generally will be less people in the industry. If you look at the platforms, the average person earns less than£150 a month. Let's get that into some perspective. It's only 0.01 % of people that make the big money on the platforms. 0.1 % make sort of around about, you know, enough money to have a decent amount. But you have to be in, if you're going to say, look, I want to do this for a living and make money, you have to be in the top 5%. So 90, 95 % of people on the platform, the majority of people on these platforms make less than£150 a month. Yet they're doing the same sexual scenes as others.

1:02:20So the market is going to change. But why is it that they're predicting growth from£100 billion to£120 billion? Because, you know, they're looking at AI. that's what they're looking at so the market is going to change and i think that we need to understand that market and the only way we can understand that market is by going you know in depth and i've had creators as i say come to me and say norman wasn't what i was expecting it's an academic piece i wasn't expecting that it's brilliant it's well put together i've had university letterers come to me to say this is good this is a good insight into the industry it's fair and and its balance.

1:02:59I've had people who've had issues with porn come to me and say, hey, you know, this is pretty good. It's helped me, you know. And that's what the book was designed to do. So I want as many of society to read it as possible. I want it to be The Fifty Shades of Grey because it helps society. This isn't fantasy. This is designed to help society. and my purpose of the book was to give society something that is useful, to take my background in the services and put together something because I saw a rise in pornography. I saw a rise in the effects it was having and it does have effects on some people.

1:03:43Let's face it, you know, if you're watching pornography every day, it's no different to being an alcoholic. Absolutely not. Let's not forget that. you know anything too much of anything is normally a bad thing too much alcohol you're going to become an alcoholic too much drugs you're going to become a drug addict too much porn you're going to become a porn addict but that can't be healthy so I think we've got to the stage where we have to educate that's been interesting and if you want to find out more about this book I'm sure by now you've gathered that Norman's wrote a book about this I will put a link in the description so that you can buy it and read into it.

1:04:26Again, another fascinating conversation with Norman. Because we spoke about the porn industry, and this is my platform, I'm morally obligated to put my two pence worth in, and I'm entitled to because it's my channel. If an 18-year-old niece, nephew, niece, daughter, friend's daughter comes to you and says, I'm thinking about getting into the porn industry, what would your advice be? Please tell them not to do it, irrespective of that book. Tell them in 20 years' time, when you want a family and you're married and you've got teenage children, the last thing they want to do is go on the internet where it's going to be forever and see their mum getting pistol whipped by a big, black, veiny dick.

1:05:14Talk them out of it, please. there's other things they can do to earn money like and subscribe to the channel please and i will keep bringing you these conversations and norman once again thank you sir it's a pleasure you're an interesting man thanks for having me cheers

1:05:35ryan reynolds here for mint mobile with your summer price forecast now unfortunately we're seeing rising costs across the country with possibility that big wireless hates you 100%. Now over here at Mint Mobile, we're seeing sunny skies and dropping prices. Every plan to just$15 a month. Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. Upfront payment of$45 for three months,$90 for six months, or$180 for 12 month plan required. $15 per month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra. New customer offer for initial plan term only greater than 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy. See terms. This episode is brought to you by ChatGPT.

1:06:09Hey, it's Bill Simmons from the Bill Simmons podcast. Have you guys heard about ChatGPT work? It's the new way to use ChatGPT for bigger multi-step projects. And when you need more than just answers, give ChatGPT work access to your apps and files, and it can create real work documents like spreadsheets, slides, and structured reports. Get started at ChatGPT.com by selecting work mode available on Plus and Pro plans.