Date My Porn Star

If any worried parents out there really wanted to stop their kids watching porn, they could do a lot worse than let them stay up to watch Moby Longinotto’s subtle but ultimately disturbing film about three UK porn consumers meeting their idols in LA. Kevin, 20, Jonathan, 40, and Danny, 23, all began using pornography in their teens, and are experiencing varying degrees of physical, emotional and developmental problems caused by the yawning chasm between fantasy and reality.

Longinotto puts together a series of events and meetings geared at making the men think not just about the objects of their desire as real people, but about the wider industry in general and, in particular, aspects such as coercion, physical pain, drug use and moral boundaries – in short, humanity vs commodity.

Initially they’re resistant and refuse to emotionally engage in such troubling things as live online sex shows that go on for hours despite the women’s clear exhaustion – after all, they’ve invested years in their addiction, and are unwilling to acknowledge the obvious seamier sides of it – but slowly, their attitudes begin to change. It’s not an easy watch, but it is an insightful, intelligent one, seemingly offering some real clues as to how porn addiction could be tackled.