Most P*rn is Made by and for Men. This Queer Director is Changing That [WATCH]
Shine Louise Houston, the founder of the queer porn company Pink & White Productions, speaks with Uncloseted Media.
A 2020 study found that 91% of men and 60% of women consumed pornography in the United States during a one-month span. More people visit the most popular porn sites every month than TikTok, OpenAI, Zoom, Netflix or Amazon. According to a 2023 study, men comprise roughly 80% of porn consumers, and while that may indicate less interest from women, there is more to the story.
Although “lesbian” has remained one of the most searched for terms on porn sites over the past few years, the majority of mainstream porn is made by and for cisgender men.
That’s part of the reason Shine Louise Houston founded Pink & White Productions, the queer porn company behind the award-winning site CrashPadSeries.com. Since 2005, Houston has created cinematic porn that highlights queer people—and particularly women—who represent different racial backgrounds and body types.
At a time when tube sites like Pornhub and OnlyFans are flooding the market, we speak with Houston about the trials and tribulations of directing what she describes as “feminist” and “ethical” porn in 2025.
Watch the full interview above or read the transcript here:
Spencer Macnaughton: Hi everyone! I am here today with Shine Louise Houston. She is the founding director of Pink and White Productions, a queer porn company known for honest and cinematic depictions of queer and trans sexuality. Shine, thanks so much for speaking with me and Uncloseted Media today.
Shine Louise Houston: Awesome, thank you for having me.
SM: So before I ask you specifically about the type of porn that you produce, how would you characterize where we're at in terms of porn in 2025? What does the industry look like right now?
SLH: Well, it's very different from 2008, especially because of the hostile takeover of the industry by certain companies that basically operate all the tube sites. They basically came in and devalued the industry. So it’s made it a lot harder for people to make a living 100% in the porn industry. People just aren't making as much money. And I think people were disgruntled with that. And then you had COVID and then the OnlyFans revolution. I think this is great for some talent. They take themselves directly to their audience. And some people are just killing it and make a lot of money, but now we're oversaturated. The remaining few independent studios, those of us who've been able to weather the storm, we might be needed again.
SM: Why do you say people might be swinging back to smaller studios?
SLH: Because OnlyFans and ManyVids and stuff like that? They're oversaturated. You know, so you have a ton of people who are trying to make a lot of money there on their own and not necessarily shooting with studios because some people are making just amazing, amazing money. But like, once again, I think this is a small percentage now. So I think the economy is gonna shift again.
SM: And you mentioned that Pink and White Productions creates adult entertainment that exposes the complexities of queer sexual desire. So what does that mean exactly?
SLH: Content is very, I would say, like, segregated. There's gay porn, there's straight porn, there's bi. A lot of times it’s separated by race, skin color. It's separated by body size. It's very, very compartmentalized. We didn't want to adhere to those separations, those categories. So when we started casting it was really important to ask brown people how they want to represent themselves, larger people how they wanted to represent themselves, trans women—it's like, yeah you don't have to top, because that is a thing. You can do whatever you want in the scene And we just basically created an arena for people to bring the type of performance they wanted to do on camera.
SM: Tell me more about that interview process. Like you sit down with them and just ask about what they love to do in the bedroom and then try and recreate that in porn?
SLH: It's a little bit looser than that. We encourage people to come in already with somebody that they want to work with. So if you guys apply together, you're most likely gonna get the scene. I don't particularly care to be matchmaker.
SM: What does that do for the final product in your opinion?
SLH: I would say that I get a more honest performance, a more relaxed performance. I do sit down with them and we talk about the fun stuff and like, “What do you want to do today? Can you tell me what to expect?” I let them know some of the parameters of the set. It's like, “Yeah, you can be in this area. It's not easy to shoot in that area.” But mostly the scene is led by the talent, and my job, and also my second director's job, is basically just to direct the cameras. And we let them do what they want within limits of the media.
SM: Giving them that kind of agency. Obviously there's pros to that, but are there cons as well? Like I know that the cum shot is so important. Is it hard to control for those types of things, or no?
SLH: We are working mostly with people assigned female at birth. So we're working with that type of equipment. And that's always been a question. It's just like, “Well, what does the female orgasm look like?” We're shot like documentary and then it's edited to a narrative form. And so in some ways, the money shot, the pop shot is somewhat constructed. But you feel it. It's not necessarily that you have to see it, even though it's porn. But we know it happened. Yeah, it can be a little daunting for people who have primarily worked in the mainstream and they're used to somebody being like, “Okay, we're going to do this for a few minutes and then we're gonna do reverse cowboy and then we're gonna do this and we’re gonna do that.” For some people it was a little challenging.
SM: Why challenging?
SLH: There's a bit of security in a way that you are kind of like distancing yourself-self from your work. And so in this type of situation, I’m actually asking people to bring more of themself. And I think for some people that can be challenging. Something that's beneficial, when you're working in the industry, is to be like, “Yes, this is performance. This is me. And this is my persona.” And when you’re working on our set, that distance between yourself and your persona is a little bit shortened.
SM: That's really interesting. You don't want acting, you want real people feeling it.
SLH: Yeah.
SM: And is there a moment or an example of a time when you remember being on set where you saw somebody in a scene and you were like, “Wow, they're really breaking through and past that kind of feeling of being disconnected to feeling right in it as themselves”?
SLH: I feel like there's so many moments, I don't know if I can give you one. People light up in a certain way. I've shot so much sex. You kind of know where things are going. You can kind of tell where people are at. And there's kind of a crossover moment. The only way I can describe it is like, “Oh, I can tell that person's about to light up right now.”
SM: No, that makes perfect sense. It's super interesting. How often do you think they get to a place where they zone out the cameras and are just having fantastic sex?
SLH: I would say like 95% of the time, like most of the time. It sticks in my mind, certain people who are like, “Oh, yeah, they were still they were too up here.” It's far and few between. But I'm like, “Oh, you were nervous. That's okay.” But most people get there.
SM: So interesting. Another thing, just to pivot, that I saw you say somewhere was that you believe there's a lot of room and need to create adult content that's real, that's respectful and powerful. It's the perfect place to become political because it's a place where money, sex, media and ethics converge. I found that fascinating. Why is porn the perfect place to be political?
SLH: I mean, exactly what I just said. It's a weird intersection of all our biggest triggers. You know, money and sex and a camera. Media. How we're represented. How we want to represent ourselves.
Porn doesn't exist in a vacuum. We bring all our societal bullshit to set. We bring all our societal bullshit to the business. When people watch porn, you're bringing all your societal bullshit to watching porn. It's just the conditioning that like, “Actually, maybe the thing that I'm doing is wrong. I feel guilty about sex. I feel guilty about having preferences over light skin or dark skin or big or small or skinny or fat.” And so we kind of bring all these things to making porn, to watching porn.
SM: Why do you think we are still, in 2025, so kind of afraid to talk about porn?
SLH: Sex is still being taught in a way that, like, sex is shameful. It only happens this way. If you do it any other way that it's wrong. There's still a lot of, I would say, religious influence, Christian religious influence about like, there’s still abstinence only stuff. Overall, I don't think the United States as a whole is doing its society a favor because I don't believe it's teaching sex ed. I feel like most kids only get that sex ed, like, in high school or junior high. That one class that just tells you about testes and ovaries and that's it. And we're not talking about the emotional impacts of sex or the social impacts of sex.
SM: And what do you think draws people to your porn? What distinguishes it?
SLH: We do have a very distinct shooting style. It's very obvious the folks who are on the site are very queer. There's a lot of tattoos. There's lot of different body types. There's a lot of different gender expressions. I feel like a lot of times when you look at mainstream porn, there's a similarity to most of the talent, but mostly no tattoos, longer hair. For most people, most light-skinned, light skin people, da da da, so, you know, there's a difference.
SM: We did a story earlier this year, Pornhub found that “transgender” was the sixth most viewed category of porn in 2023. And in 2022 data from lawsuit.org, they found that searches for transgender porn were most popular in red states like Texas, Georgia and Kentucky. That was fascinating to me when I saw that there's a huge connection between Republican states and searching for trans porn. What do you make of that as a porn producer?
SLH: I thinks thou protest too much. The biggest people who are railing against porn and trans people and stuff like that? That's what I'm saying. We internalize this stuff and then we take it out sideways. I'm feeling guilty about my desires and nobody around me is validating them or saying that it's okay. So it comes out in aggression.
SM: In transphobia.
SLH: Yeah.
SM: Your films have been recognized among the next big wave of women-produced porn. Why is that important? Why is it important to have women-produced porn?
SLH: Who do you want to tell your story? If somebody came along and made a story about your life that never talked to you, never really got the details and just assumed things about you and then they made a story about you. You'd be like, “What the F? Wait, that's not really me.”
SM: What do you think are the most common assumptions people make about women and sex in mainstream porn that you think are not accurate?
SLH: There's a formula. You do a little oral, then you do kind of like cowboy, reverse cowboy, doggy. There's this kind of standard choreography to things. And I think this affects men and women like, “Oh, this is the way sex is supposed to progress.” And then of course, it always ends, the scene’s over with the pop shot. That's not really how sex always goes. And that's not necessarily what's always satisfying for one woman to another woman.
So why don't we talk about what they actually want. I feel like there are so many things that happen in our scenes that you don't normally see in mainstream porn because that's not what the director's asking them to do because that doesn't tick the little boxes.
SM: What are some of the things you most commonly see that we probably don't see in mainstream porn?
SLH: There's way more toys and not just vibrators. Everybody was bringing pumps, like clit pumps. For a while there, everybody was bringing in wooden paddles. But for the most part, I think the difference is feeling like you can. It's not cheating, or yes, it is real sex if you use a lot of accoutrements, and not labeling it BDSM. Do you know what I mean? It's just sex.
SM: For lesbian porn. Obviously mainstream lesbian porn is made for men in many ways. What about for you? How does the lesbian porn, or porn between two women, differ in terms of what is the final product?
SLH: A lot of times with mainstream porn, there's not much penetration. It's all oral. I would have to say there's probably way more communication. A lot more talking. Not like, “Oh, hi.” But “No, do you want this?” “Yes. I didn't like this.” “How about this?” “I’d rather have that toy.” “Can I have more lube?” All of that kind of stuff we tend to leave in the scene as well. Mainstream porn probably isn't going to keep in the part where I'm like, “Hey, can I have some more lube? I'm gonna change my glove, blah blah blah blah blah.” I mean stuff like that. We do keep in a lot of the mechanics. And I think that's important to see. To model consent, to model safety. That's also important.
SM: I want to take it back to how we know that people as young as 10, 11, 12, even younger in some cases, are watching porn with the internet, with phones. How does porn, do you think, affect young people's view of sex and how mainstream porn particularly can dictate how their first sexual experiences may be?
SLH: Porn is not entry-level discussions on sex and sexuality. Porn is graduate-level studies. It's not going to make much sense. It's going to be like, “What the fuck?” And I can only assume that getting that type of information so soon is just like, “What the fuck?” And you’re like, “Really? This is what it is?” But there's also nobody to tell them that the porn that happens, especially mainstream porn, is like the special effects in, say, a Marvel movie. It's not really reality. It's kind of like fantasy sex. They haven't gotten to that point where it's just like, “Right, this is a performance. This isn't real.” The way we watch Marvel movies, we understand that it's fantasy. In reality, we should be watching it like a Marvel movie, like these are professionals. This is very performative. This is a very specific performance. It is a lot like special effects. We don't see the condom change. We don't see them putting on more lube. They cut all that stuff out. They don't see the part where we're kind of waiting on wood, people are taking a break, and we’re waiting for the pop shot. They don't see all that. This is why I'm so annoyed with the tube sites. They don't do anything to … There are certain things that you're supposed to do to prevent younger people from being able to see the content. Sure, they have like an age pop-up, but it's free stuff. So it's not even like there's a paywall. So we do our best to make sure that nothing super explicit is in front of the paywall. Because we don't want younger people watching it because it's not for them. It's for people who have had sexual experiences. That's why I'm saying there needs to be more comprehensive sex education from younger ages all the way up into college. And yes, understanding porn and understanding how to consume porn and consume porn ethically I think should also be a part of that curriculum.
SM: That's really fascinating. Consuming porn ethically. How do we do that? How do I consume porn ethically?
SLH: One, pay for it. When the tube sites took over, when that one company took over.
SM: Pornhub.
SLH: Now you have production companies that aren't taking in as much money, which means we can't produce. So all that stuff that you like, if you're not paying for it, we can't continue to produce it. Or conversely, you go to a tube site, you find somebody who you really like. I'm sure they have their own site or they have their OnlyFans, go support them there. That's gonna help them. That's going to keep like the economic wheel going so people can still produce. Also you know when you're working with or you're buying from a company, usually you're paying into it. That means that they're paying talent. They're most likely doing their paperwork correctly. They're doing their 2257 paperwork, which means we've seen everybody's IDs. We have model releases. They've consented. This isn't revenge porn. This isn't underage porn. We're working with adults. We're working with consenting adults. And that's also how you can consume ethically because you're working with a company that's actually operating like a company.
SM: Yeah, and how does a consumer figure that out? How do they figure that out and know that they're going to watch porn where a company is actually doing those things?
SLH: Unfortunately, if you're on Pornhub, they're not going to tell you who the production company is in the first place. Which is also just so infuriating.
SM: I gotta ask about Trump. Obviously, there’s been a ton of efforts to undermine trans rights and take away diversity. How does all of this, if at all, affect queer porn?
SLH: I mean, mostly it has a chilling effect. A lot of people are like, “Eh, I'm out.” Or it's impossible for them to even really operate as a company because you can't use certain resources. Either if you divulge that you're an adult company or if they find out that you are an adult company. And then, of course, with the AV laws coming in, that's been another chilling effect, also because there's not a whole lot of consistency in the laws from state to state. So trying to comply with regulations is complicated because you're like, “Okay, well this might be in compliance for this state but it's questionable whether what we're doing is in compliance for that state over there.” And a lot of financial burden is being placed on companies to do the age verification. I'm hoping in the long run, there will be more sensible ways to comply that won't completely financially gouge people. The other option is to block those states, which once again puts a financial burden on companies to try to stay compliant. Well, if it's questionable to be compliant well then screw it. We're gonna block the state. Then the next question on people's minds is, “Okay, so if you block that state, but somebody still uses a VPN to access your site, where's the liability and where's the fault? What's gonna start happening?” And we're all kind of waiting about who's—what’s gonna be the test case? So far, nothing has really happened, knock on wood. We're all waiting to see what they're going to do and what's going to happen.
SM: It puts enormous stress on you as the founder.
SLH: Yeah.
SM: Shine, fascinating conversation. You have so much amazing insight into the porn industry. Thank you so much for speaking with me and Uncloseted Media today.
SLH: Awesome. Thank you for having me.
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