It’s complicated:
"Locating exact figures is a difficult task since few in the industry like to disclose their salaries, and none of the major studios have been public with pay data. The most reliable estimations come from insiders who inflate or deflate numbers when convenient, or from pieces like the one on CNBC, which surveyed performers and crew members to break down what producers pay per scene.
The latter bolsters the assumption that women make more than men because, on a scene-by-scene basis, they usually do. Men are paid a fixed rate per scene based on their reputation (gay male porn has a separate pay scale that, for sake of brevity, isn’t explored in this story), while women earn different wages based on their star power and the sex act. For example, an unknown performer filming a girl-on-girl scene might make as little as $300, but if a popular star is involved in double penetration, she can rake in as much as $4,000. Men earn between $500 and $1,200 for the same scene, with the big stars maybe hitting $1,500.
The trouble with relying on these numbers as the sole evidence that women out-earn men is that daily figures don’t account for career opportunities or longevity — two factors that influence potential lifetime earnings and favor men. In a 2013 Daily Beast article, top industry agent Mark Spiegler (oh yeah, the most powerful people in porn are all men) speculated that there are more women performers than there are available opportunities. That same year, data journalist Jon Millward conducted the largest study of porn actors thus far by using a sample of 10,000 performers listed on the Internet Adult Film Database. He found that 70% of performers were women and the average career span of a porn actress was between six and 18 months. He also found that 96% of the most prolific performers were male.
“Women and men performers in ‘straight’ porn have very different paths when it comes to career longevity,” says Dr. Chauntelle Tibbals, sociologist and author of Exposure: A Sociologist Explores Sex, Society, and Adult Entertainment. “Certainly there are ‘lifers’ — as [sex-positive activist and porn actress] Nina Hartley likes to say — but the vast majority of women come in and out of the industry in a few months to a few years.”
Linda Williams, a professor of film and media at UC Berkeley and editor of the academic journal Porn Studies, echoes Tibbals’ sentiment. “Female careers are short. Male careers, if they can consistently get and remain hard, can be long.”
