We’ve come to expect the bizarre from a Louis Theroux documentary, and the latest edition of his latest series, Forbidden America, doesn’t disappoint, at least in that respect. Three young women are standing outside in the California sun with three giant prosthetic penises strapped to them, as if they were about to cosh someone with half a pound of latex. Which, to be fair, is pretty much what happens next. In typical Theroux faux-naive style, the documentarian asks the performers with that trademark curiosity in his voice: “Is it weirdly empowering?” Sort of. The trio cheerfully tell Theroux that pegging makes a nice change for them to be on the other end of the stick, so to speak.
In “Porn’s MeToo”, Theroux is “traversing a battleground of consent”. As Theroux observes, porn is a world “dedicated to testing the boundaries of taste and taboo”, and being transformed by the web and by new attitudes and standards, and its own MeToo movement. The arrival of the likes of OnlyFans means that performers can deal directly with their customers, with no need for agents and producers taking their cut and pressuring them to do things they’d rather not. They can earn very good money. Mia Malkova, for example, who lives in a $4m castle in Portland, tells Theroux that she earns $150,000 to $250,000 a month – “I love OnlyFans,” she says. “I didn’t make that when I was shooting for a company.”
