The German Invasion

I've been reading the blogs of two porn performers who came to the US from Germany: Annette Schwarz and Katja Kassin. Most of Schwarz's posts flog videos that she's performed in. The posts that describe her personal life tell stories about slutty behavior; exactly the sort of thing to sell her as someone whose videos porn fans would want to see. When she's not selling videos, she's generating interest in herself as a performer. I don't know how long she'll keep it up, but so far she's been pretty persistent. I suspect that she's getting advice on how to advance her career and what to blog. If so, then she's smart enough to take advice and disciplined enough to make a consistent effort. I have no idea if anything she posts about herself is true or not. Porn is all about the illusion, but you can create an illusion by telling an edited version of the truth, so her stories about herself may actually be true. Whether they're true or not, they sound like scenes from a gonzo video; e.g. anal sex in a restaurant bathroom.

Katja Kassin's been around for a while. She has a fan base and an income-generating website, and continues to perform in videos for other producers. Her blog is a marketing device, but in a more subtle way. She's clearly selling sex; you can't miss the photographs of her tits and ass, or the words "I take cock in every hole." But the content of her posts is rather different. Her descriptions of her personal life don't have any sexy stories, and her descriptions of her work are rather business-like. Where Annette Schwartz tells you how much she enjoyed having sex with another performer, Kassin tells you how nice they were. Against Schwartz's personae of sexually reckless adventuress, Kassin presents herself as a responsible professional. She talks about the risk of STDs, money management, career development, the logistics of feature dancing in various parts of the US, and other unsexy topics. Schwartz praises physical attractiveness; Kassin praises friendliness and competence.

Porn performers are independent business people, and both Schwartz and Kassin appear to be pretty smart. Whatever they write in their blogs is calculated to increase their income. But what Schwartz thinks will earn her more money is an image of unrestrained sexual activity and a live-for-the-moment personality. Kassin wants to persuade us that she's thoughtful, intelligent, and someone who plans and carries out long range projects. Schwartz's approach of building an exaggerated reputation as a heedless nymphomaniac is stereotypical porn marketing directed at the stereotypical porn fan. Kassin's approach is to make herself seem vulnerable by appealing to our understanding, by showing us that she wants to been seen as a normal human being. Interestingly, this seems to be working for her.