The Legal Age of Porn Actors
Under current United States Federal law, an actor in a pornographic movie needs to only be age 18 in order to perform in any kind of porn film. In my honest opinion, a lot of problems and laws that we see regarding pornography could be held in check much better if they raised the legal age of performers to 21 for a number of reasons. By allowing actors who have just entered into adulthood legally, and many not yet mentally, to enter into the porn industry seems very immoral to me. It also opens the door for older looking 16 and 17 year old's to fudge their way into a movie to make some quick easy money.
To begin, looking at the laws that are currently in place to help try and fight against immoral practices for porn actors, there is the protection of children against sexual exploitation act of 1977. This came in response to Traci Lords claiming that she began acting in some of her films in the 70's as early as age 15, enacting federal lawmakers to pass a law disallowing the use of material where the actor was a minor regardless of if the film maker was lied to. However, this to me seems like little more than a cheap dollar store band-aid placed over a problem that still exists today. It puts nothing in place that truly helps to stop an underage actor who has it set in their mind they are going to do this from performing.
Furthering the idea that this law is not enough is that pornography actors do not use their real name in their films (indicative of how proud they are of their work to begin with). With that in mind, how easy would it be for a girl who is 16 or 17 years old, or as you will see later even a boy, to get a piece of fake identification that claims they are older than their actual age. They present a different name to the producer to place on the actual film so that this person is not directly traceable by name. And without even batting an eyelash at the legalities you have an underage actor in your film. It would be...