British Channel 5 Docu-Series Shines Light on ‘The Sex Business’

CYBERSPACE—A new documentary on the porn industry, featuring interviews with well-known British adult performers Ashley Ryder and Kiki Minaj, airs tonight on Channel 5 in the United Kingdom, and promises to expose “how surface glamour masks the costs paid by these performers.” But if the advance previews of The Sex Business are any indication, both Ryder and Minaj speak in generally positive terms about their experiences working in porn. “I guess [people] think working in the porn industry is a bit sleazy, a bit grimy, and people take advantage of you. But isn’t that the same for every industry?” veteran gay performer Ashley Ryder said ahead of the docu-series premiere. “It’s not sleazy.” The three-part series airs on Channel 5 Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday at 10 p.m. British Summer Time. The first episode is titled “Porn Stars,” while parts two and three are called “Working From Home” and “Working the Streets,” and focus on the escort business and street prostitution, respectively. The documentary, according to an advance report by Pink News, features Ryder—the star of 2009’s Hot College Boy With Dildo—displaying his personal collection of anal sex toys and discussing his enthusiasm for performing in fisting scenes. “No one’s forcing me to take a fist in my ass because I have to do that to make ends meet. I’m actually doing the job I enjoy personally,” he told the site. “I don’t think it’s a taboo anymore. In the gay scene, it’s very mainstream to be into fisting.” As for what Kiki Minaj discusses in the program, even she isn’t sure. “OMG last year I was filmed for a documentary on c5 an I cant remember what shit said, arghghg my mouth anyway it’s on Monday on c5, I’m literally cringing as I type MATE,” she wrote in a Twitter post Friday. But judging by a promo clip released by Channel 5, Minaj spends a significant amount of her airtime discussing the difficulty of finding a satisfactory relationship while working as a porn performer. “Unless my boyfriend did porn too, I just don’t have time for the whole drama, or making sure somebody else is feeling secure,” she says in the clip. “If I choose a man, he’s got to be a man. Be strong. Like, don’t be, ‘Oh, I don’t want you to do it no more!’ Well, then you should’ve never got with me. That’s so crazy.” The Sex Industry will not mark the first time that Channel 5 has explored envelope-pushing sexual programming. In 1999 the British Broadcasting Standards Commission reprimanded the network over its documentary series Sex and Shopping, which the government commission said contained scenes that were “unacceptable for broadcast at any time.” Photo by Channel 5 Screen Capture