MONTREAL — It may be cold in Canada but the Quebec province is quickly heating up as Canada’s capital of porn.
A recent Toronto Star report said that because of Quebec’s “open” sexual culture, small and large Internet and video production companies are thriving.
Some are well known in the U.S., like giant Montreal-based Manwin, owner of Brazzers, Mofos and tube site Pornhub.com that reportedly employs 325 people, as well as Braincash, Gamma Entertainment and video company Mile High Media.
And there are a number of new ventures popping up. Last October, Canada’s first homegrown adult-oriented entertainment TV channel, Montreal-based Vanessa debuted.
The webcam business in particular is burgeoning with average rates of about $4 per minute and includes almost every niche imaginable.
Mark Prince, owner of 2Much.net, a developer of web cam technology pointed out a new site featuring “older men.”
The webcam sites are not only profitable but are offering performers a safe way to make a living.
Sean Defreitas, a partner in Toronto’s Trifecta Creations, told the Star that he employs 80 webcam girls in Montreal who normally couldn't pay their bills. “We think we’re providing a much safer way for girls to get involved in the sex trade. They don’t have to come into contact with anyone.”
One budding porn entrepreneur, Ariel Rebel, who runs a live soft “tease” webcam site where she charges a $35 membership fee, said that the legitimacy given to porn in Quebec is due to the widely accepted view that sex is not taboo and is natural, normal and people should have fun while doing it.
Rebel not only performs but designs her sites and also manages other perfromers’ sites. “I make a great living, just off my websites,” she said.
The performer noted that even her mother is on board with her business. She gives Rebel advice and opinions on the photos and “action shots” with other performers.
“She’s like, ‘I like that one better than that one. It’s really funny. At the beginning it was kind of odd. It’s a bit weird to talk to your family about your job when it’s porn. But it’s fun to see my family opening up and seeing what I’m doing and where I’m going,” Rebel said.
Vanessa TV’s couples’-friendly service features strippers, sex toys, fantasies under hypnosis and risqué public sex with Quebec porn actor BrunoB. The channel airs in French but is targeting an English audience this year.
“In a culture where people do consume (porn), why not show it? What’s the problem?,” said Vanessa’s brainchild, Anne-Marie Losique, who started making sex-based TV in 2001 and is known as Quebec’s “queen of soft porn.”
“I’m not leading the curve. I’m there with what’s already happening,” she maintained.
“I became a celebrity in this vein. This society allowed me to do this. I don’t know if I could have done this elsewhere.”
The report said that Quebec has a long history of being porn-friendly that began in the ‘60s with support from the Canadian Film Development Corp. Quebec filmmakers took advantage of the climate and began making softcore movies that would later be called “maple syrup porn.”
The city of Toronto is also home to porn companies but concentrates more on making money while Montreal has more production.
One local producer/director and performer Vid Vicious said the city of Montreal is an ideal spot for porn. “I love Toronto, but it’s a much more uptight town than Montreal. There’s a less corporate feel here.”
Montreal is reportedly also a “world destination for fetishism” and hosts a fetish weekend every year, an atmosphere that has allowed porn to flourish for years.
“A girl would be less ashamed to say, ‘I’m a porn actress,’ in Quebec than elsewhere,” said Greg Jones, general manager at 2Much.net. “There’s more of a ‘screw it’ attitude.”
But despite the flourishing adult business, the region isn’t without its anti-porn crusaders. Montreal cops recently shut down a well-known strip club citing alleged mob-ties and CLES, a Quebec–based group that mounts campaigns against exploitation of sex workers.
Michel Plante, the man behind Canadian online expo, QWEBEC-Expo said, “Maybe the girls are less shy here. Strippers and porn stars are cool, not trash.”
