Meet the porn researcher sociologist who is a former AV actress

Nippon.com, normally a fairly austere and academic online publication, has published an article by sociologist Suzumi Suzuki, in which she discusses her fieldwork about adult video and role play in the porn world.

Suzuki starts out with a very positive view of her subject matter:

AV actresses are surprisingly articulate when asked to talk about themselves. In the videos by which they make a living, as well as in magazines and other media, they calmly field personal questions of all kinds and narrate their personal stories smoothly and eloquently.

To a large extent, this is a skill they acquire naturally. While the basic job of an AV actress is to perform sexual acts in front of a camera in order to provide her viewers with sexual stimulation, her work also involves promotional activities, such as magazine interviews and event appearances. In addition, an AV actress must pitch herself to production companies, engage with directors and others at casting interviews, and participate in various planning and production meetings. In AV joyu no shakaigaku, I describe how this aspect of the business, along with the trials and tribulations of becoming a “veteran” of the industry, help to make AV actresses strong. In these meetings and interviews, an actress is repeatedly called on to describe her personality and background, discuss her likes and dislikes, and explain her reasons for becoming a porn actress. In the process, she develops a distinctive narrative and a persona to go with it, and is able to portray herself as someone with pride, who entered her profession of her own free will. She may not have started out with that attitude, but neither did she fabricate it in a cynical, calculated manner. Most often, it evolved naturally as a consequence of the way the industry operates.

Suzuki makes the point that the reason why so many AV actresses come and go — the sheer numbers are staggering — is that the studios make most of the money on the first release, after which, except for a handful of stars, they are like a used car: their value gradually goes down.

With a few notable exceptions, the market value of an AV actress peaks with her first video and gradually declines thereafter. Of course, her technique (camera awareness, dramatic flare and range, directability, fluency in unscripted dirty talk, and so forth) is likely to improve with each successive video. Yet such skills almost never translate into higher pay. In most cases, in fact, payment declines with each successive production, even while the demands on the performer intensify. The reason for this is simple: The Japanese men who make up the bulk of the AV market are devotees of the “cult of the virgin”—worshippers of youth, freshness, and inexperience. Most of them place little or no value on an AV actress’s experience and skill. To the contrary, their ideal actress is the AV novice who conveys the tension of a young woman performing in her very first porn video.

A tantai (standalone, star) will then be demoted to one of the kikaku performers who, often anonymously, make up the numbers in many of the minor porn releases.

Suzuki is interested in the eloquence of AV actresses, who constantly have to field questions from the media and fans, and sell themselves to studios and managers.

The typical porn star understands on an intuitive level that the men who worship her simultaneously regard her as a kind of freak or aberration. She realizes early on that interviewers want to hear about the episodes that turned an “ordinary girl” into the kind of person who would appear in porn films. The more special and compelling her reasons for becoming a porn actress, the more she is fêted. Her pre-AV interactions also give her an objective view of men’s expectations and perceptions of AV actresses.

Suzuki herself is quite a hottie. Born in 1983, she got a master’s degree from the University of Tokyo and has also worked as a journalist. While, for some reason or another, Nippon.com doesn’t mention this at all in their profile of Suzuki, some quick online research reveals that she is actually herself a former hostess and AV performer, with a career spanning over 70 titles! (Talk about burying the lede! Surely more than any academic qualifications, this direct experience is what makes her most creditable on the subject.)

She was then porn star Ruri Satoh, who made her debut in 2004 and then worked for the Moodyz label from 2005. She performed in the porn world for 4-5 years.

There is some confusion, since information on Ruri Sato says she was born in 1984, while Suzuki’s profile says 1983. Even so, it’s often the case that AV actresses’ biographies and body measurements are inaccurate.

Suzuki’s thesis on AV actresses was published in 2013 and since then she has become somewhat famous for her novel career trajectory. Of course, her looks help a lot too.

Read the full article on Nippon.com.