Porn Stars Upset by Santorum Comments Take Action

The website Jest.com has produced a video where porn stars mock Santorum.

April 7, 2012— -- Presidential candidate Rick Santorum wants to put an end to the distribution of pornography in the U.S. and the porn industry is fighting back – sort of. On Wednesday, the online video site Jest.com posted a two-minute comedic take on the former Pennsylvania senator's controversial comments called "Porn Stars Against Santorum." Jest teamed up with Vivid Entertainment, a porn production house, to produce the video, which features male and female porn actors.

In "Porn Stars Against Santorum," Vivid employees dressed in street clothes (save for the leather jacket open to reveal the actress' orange bra) speak directly to camera, taking on the role of victims, explaining to the American public what life would be like without porn ("pizza delivery boys with nothing to dream about") and asking Americans to take action on May 1 with "Wank Out 2012." It's a call to action -- masturbation, that is -- aimed directly at Santorum, who posted a statement on his website last month supporting the enforcement of federal obscenity laws.

"America is suffering a pandemic of harm from pornography," the statement read. "A wealth of research is now available demonstrating that pornography causes profound brain changes in both children and adults, resulting in widespread negative consequences." In "Porn Stars," an actress argues that Santorum's criticisms are not supported by facts and then, addressing the "negative consequences," asks, "Wouldn't the opposite be true?"

The candidate's comments created quite a stir on the campaign trail during a time when polls show that voters are more concerned with the economy than social issues.

"We try to make videos about what's going on in the news," says Jeff Rubin, editor-in-chief of Jest, a sister site of College Humor. "We kept hearing about Rick Santorum's stance on porn, an obvious unpopular one and started thinking, These are real people whose jobs he's trying to shut down."

Jest pitched the story to Vivid, which signed up immediately. Rubin says it's all about making people laugh and doesn't think anything will actually happen on May 1. But making a point in their videos that viewers can identify with is what drives traffic to the site. (Recent Jest videos include "9 Cheesy Animated Passover Videos" and "The Passion of Tebow.")

"Porn Stars Against Santorum" is one of the most popular videos for the six-month-old site, with over 150,000 views.

"Sharing this video is a way of showing your support for this point of view without doing it publicly. If it was a really serious video about pornography, people wouldn't pass it around," says Rubin.

In the video, porn stars also explain how eliminating porn would be impossible and that it's best to "Vote Romney." After a few seconds of thought, the statement is retracted to push support to Santorum "because if he wins the primary, he would definitely get crushed by Obama."

And, adds one of the stars, "Obama would never try to stop the porn industry."

The site plans to do more videos about the 2012 election and is currently working on one involving the GOP candidates and a game of monopoly.

Rick Santorum's campaign could not be reached for comment.