HBO’s new series, “Westworld,��� is basically soft-core porn, argues Alia Janine. And she would know. She used to be a porn star.
“It’s cable television,” says Janine, 36, who lives in Bushwick, Brooklyn. “That’s where they can get away with that type of stuff. Sex sells. It always has.”
The futuristic series, which is set in a robot-staffed resort offering orgies and brothels, started filming Wednesday. According to Deadline Hollywood, prior to rolling, the show asked all 50 extras to sign a super-detailed and nuanced waiver agreeing to: “appear fully nude; wear a pubic-hair patch; perform genital-to-genital touching; have your genitals painted [and] simulate oral sex with hand-to-genital touching.”
And that’s not all!
Extras should be prepared to “contort to form a table-like shape while being fully nude; pose on all fours while others who are fully nude ride on your back; ride on someone’s back while you are both fully nude.”
The Screen Actors Guild slammed the waivers, stating that they did not fully explain the rights of the actors belonging to the union, including the right to withdraw consent at any time and the right to a closed set.
But Janine says the forms make sense given the scandalous material.
“I think that it’s fine and actually normal, because a lot of porn actors, for every single scene that they do, whether one or 100, they have to fill out paperwork, including a waiver saying what the performer will be doing and where that content will be sold,” she says. “To me, it’s the same concept. You’re going to be naked, and people are going to see you. Even if it’s simulated, you’re selling sexual content and doing sexual things, and this will and can have an effect on your professional and personal life.”
In fact, she praised the show for fair payment (“Westworld” jacked up the standard $157-a-day union rate to $600).
“That’s actually really good,” says Janine, who quit the porn industry 2 ½ years ago and now performs stand-up comedy.
“The average female [porn] performer gets paid $1,000 for a regular boy-girl sex scene. I’ve done soft-core shoots before where I get paid between $600 and $800.”
Janine says that all the free porn available to hand-happy users are making cable networks sex it up more than ever before.
“I think that porn’s a lot more mainstream now with the Internet, and HBO may have to compete with that. So they try to make things sexier, or get more weird or creative, just to get people to watch it.”
But, she has some advice for the show’s actors.
“I would suggest STD testing or the dental dam — it’s just a little piece of rubber to plop over [your mouth]. People are riding each other’s backs!”