Did you know Airbnbs in Portland are frequently reserved to make porn? Is this only in Portland? —Coast2Coast Host2Host Voyeur
I think I speak for at least two generations of conventional-hotel operators when I say to the squeamish hosts of Airbnb: Welcome to the commercial lodging business!
Coast2Coast’s tip is based on some posts to a Facebook group for Airbnb hosts—posts which, unfortunately, have since disappeared, so we cannot absolutely confirm this rumor. But frankly, it would be shocking if a porno hadn’t been shot in a Portland Airbnb at some point.
After all, porn producers have been shooting (don’t say it) in regular hotel rooms for years. There are several popular web series, in fact, for which the hotel room location is one of the most identifiable parts of the brand. (Not that, you know, I would know anything about that.)
The point is, if you’re going to disrupt an existing industry by stealing its client base, you have to accept that client base, warts (shut up) and all.
Though we have yet to hear of documented cases of Airbnb porn in Portland (I suspect that may change after this column sees print), the Airbnb hosts of Ventura County, Calif., have very nearly come to blows (honestly, you’re like a child) over this problem in the past few years.
Since 2012, when Los Angeles County voters passed a bill mandating condom use in all adult productions, much of the industry has fled to nearby Ventura County.
Since Ventura is less densely populated than L.A., it boasts fewer commercial hotels. It does, however, still have plenty of the kind of hot tub-equipped multimillion-dollar houses that are apparently so popular with the families of 18-year-old stepsiblings who still live at home. SoCal adult filmmakers have confirmed that they use Airbnb for location shooting on the regular.
While the firm’s terms of service forbid using a rental for any kind of commercial filming, it’s a difficult rule to enforce, since, in many cases, the homeowners never even know what’s happened. (At least, not until years later, when an eerily familiar sofa may disrupt what the viewer had hitherto hoped would be a relaxing, private moment.)