Revisiting the Gender Pay Gap in Porn

The gender pay gap is an enduring problem affecting many women in the workplace. Despite all the recent advocacy, women continue to make less than their male counterparts for equivalent work. That is, unless you work in porn.

Porn is historically one of the few industries where the wage gap is reversed: women performers have typically made more money than men. Industry insiders told CNBC in 2016 that women make $800-$1000 on average for cishet scenes while men make about $500-$600.

This may be changing, however, now that porn stars and other sex workers are utilizing independent platforms like OnlyFans to bring in income. For instance, one male OnlyFans creator recently shared that he makes up to $80,000 a month on the platform. So, is the gender pay gap in porn equalizing — and would that be a good thing?

PS spoke with various performers, directors, and producers about the gender pay gap in porn — how it’s changed and where it might be headed.

How Pay Rates Work in Porn

Porn actors are typically paid per scene. For example, there may be different rates for heterosexual scenes, lesbian scenes, threesomes, anal sex, and group sex, explains feminist porn director Erika Lust, founder of Lust Cinema. “In heterosexual mainstream porn, there are normally different rates for men and women,” she adds.

Anna Richards, who founded the ethical porn site Frolicme, says, in her experience, performers have set their own rates. “There is no fixed rate or industry standard, and there are fluctuations according to what a model wishes to charge and how many scenes they film with you,” she says. “For whatever reason, male models have charged less and, in mainstream sites, have historically also been less credited, too, with the greater focus on the female’s performance.”

Porn actor Chris Rail has typically been paid less than his women costars. He says, “The reason for this pay gap in straight porn is because most people are coming to purchase the video to see the woman, and at that point, they are the ones bringing the traffic and money to the business.”

Women may also receive more pay because being a female porn star is seen as a harder job. “It’s considered to be ‘easier’ for male performers to do porn — less backlash, less prejudice,” says porn performer Jada Sparks. “This is not necessarily true; this is how the public looks at it. It’s cool to be a male and to do porn. For a woman, this subject is way more sensitive.”

The pay gap in porn may be specific to heterosexual men and women, however. “I do think young gay men can make a whole lot more than straight men or women in this industry,” says porn actor Agatha Delicious. “But in general, when it comes to women and men performing in straight-ish porn, the women do make a lot more. In porn, women are paid typically twice as much in a regular boy-girl shoot.”

Though it’s encouraging that there’s at least one industry in which women outearn men, the reasons why are still patriarchal. Put simply, women have made more money than men in porn “because most consumers have been men wanting to watch women,” Lust says.

In addition, while the pay may be higher for women performers, this doesn’t mean the porn industry as a whole offers equal pay or treatment for women. “The reality is that a few successful and business-oriented actresses are making interesting money, but the ones making the big money are the tech guys who came into the business in the beginning of this century and who now are the ones owning the companies,” Lust says.

Lust adds, “Some are buying struggling businesses while they saturate the business with online ‘free’ porn, and others are creating their own webs.” The most obvious examples include the male-owned Aylo (formerly Mindgeek), which owns Pornhub, YouPorn, RedTube, and Brazzers, among other sites.

Among actors, experience also plays a role in payment, perhaps even more so than gender. Sparks says her rate is higher in most cases, but she has worked with one male performer who charged her same rate, and another who asked for three-times her rate. She adds, “Those are A-list pornstars, and I’m still a newcomer in that sense. If you’re not somewhat known, gender doesn’t matter.”

What About Nonbinary Performers?

Pay disparities also affect those outside the gender binary. Non-binary, genderqueer, genderfluid, and two-spirit people make 70 cents for every dollar the average US worker earns, according to a 2022 Human Rights Campaign study, and a similar pattern may exist within the porn industry.

“I’ve been paid more compared to cis men and less compared to cis women,” says Jiz Lee, a nonbinary porn performer and creator who’s also the marketing director for the sites PinkLabel.TV and CrashPadSeries. “I believe this is directly tied to my gender presentation.”

Lee says they have been told by mainstream production companies and directors that they could only increase their rate if they were the “kind of performer who would sell on box covers.” They claim to have also been described as “not porn pretty.”

Lee adds, “I’ve been asked to shave my body hair such as legs and armpits — a request that is rarely, if ever, asked of cis male performers. Because I do not conform to traditional gender presentation required of cis women in porn, I have had limited hiring opportunities.”

Other Pay Gaps in Porn

It’s not just gender that affects payment. In line with the racial pay gap existing in the larger workforce, factors like race, size, and disability have a pay influence in porn. “I have noticed the very blatant racism and ageism and pigeonholing in porn,” Delicious says. “I think we all have.”

What’s more, a lot of mainstream porn perpetuates racist stereotypes, and these stereotypes may also spill into payment decisions. “There used to apparently be a different rate for interracial scenes, where the female might make a couple hundred dollars more for filming with a Black guy,” says porn performer John Legendary. “That doesn’t occur today to my knowledge.”

Race also makes a difference in terms of who gets hired in the first place. “Most people of color are only cast in interracial scenes,” says Legendary. “Black male performers are cast more based on the size of their extremities. The bigger, the more you’re cast. White male performers don’t have to be as large but get booked more often because of the availability of roles they are targeted for from studio casting directors.”

The Impact of Cam Sites and Ethical Porn

OnlyFans exploded in 2020, when transactions increased seven-fold to $2.4 billion. Today, there are over two million creators on the platform, many of whom previously made a living through mainstream porn.

Many of these performers decided to make the leap to cam sites, and away from production companies, so they could be in full control of their earnings, Lust says, adding, “Some work with companies now and then if they like the company and they like the project and the possibility of winning awards.”

Because rates are set by performers themselves, cam sites may be leading to fewer gender-based differences in pay. “The gap in pay definitely has started closing a bit now that OnlyFans and content creator sites have become as big as they are,” Rail says. “I definitely think it is a positive thing because now, it gives freedom to express your creativity and business mindset to make as much money as you can.”

Some, however, believe it’s more likely that cam sites will reproduce the same gender dynamics that have existed in porn. Women earn 78 percent more than men on OnlyFans, according to findings from the market research firm Gitnux.

“I think OnlyFans widens the income gap between female and male creators,” says Legendary, who adds that women creators can typically charge more for subscriptions and pay-per-view sales, in addition to other revenue streams such as escorting, sexting, and selling used lingerie. “These services are available for male performers to use as well, but it’s more in demand with female performers.”

Despite headlines about cam models making tens of thousands a month, the average OnlyFans creator doesn’t make an outrageous amount of money from the site. “I am not one of these people making $80K a month on OnlyFans, and although I hear these stories, I never meet anyone who does,” Delicious says. “I think maybe some people simply go viral or already have a social media following before they did OnlyFans.” Delicious adds that content creators with large existing followings, and who’ve never previously done porn, have greater potential to make money on OnlyFans.

Another important factor here is the rise of ethical porn, meaning porn that ensures performers are empowered and treated fairly. (Ethical porn is also often made by women, inclusive, and caters to various desires outside of the male gaze.) This is the ethos behind Richards’s site, Frolicme. “It is important that every model feels valued for their work regardless of gender and are happy to be involved with our productions,” she says. “Our male models, for example, are just as equally credited for the films they are in as their female counterparts.”

There are also queer porn studios that tend to pay performers, particularly gender-nonconforming performers, more equally than mainstream porn creators since they aren’t primarily concerned with appealing to the desires of straight men. That said, these productions tend to have smaller budgets to begin with, so the pay may not be lucrative, Lee notes.

“Porn does not exist in a vacuum and in many ways, is a reflection of society,” Lee says. Still, low-budget studios have other ways of compensating actors, such as through royalties, commission rates, free products, and footage for personal usage. And Lee is hopeful: “This democratization of porn production and distribution continues to create opportunities for more expressions of sexuality, and that’s good for creators and consumers alike.”

The rise in independent porn companies may also allow more women to be on the business, technical, and production side of the industry. “When it comes to producing and owning content and growing wealth in that way, men used to have more of an advantage,” Delicious says. Now, however, is a different time, Delicious adds. “I can imagine back in the ’70s and ’80s, to make your own porn required connections and leadership skills that a lot of women were simply not taught growing up back then. Now, we are she-wolves.”