In this guide
- Why performers need a union at all
- What APAG is
- A messy birth: from IEAU to APAG
- What the union fights for
- Why organising porn performers is so hard
- Unions and rights outside the US
- My take
I am not a lawyer or a labour expert. I am a performer with 14 years in the business, and this is a topic most fans never think about: who protects the people on screen when something goes wrong?
In most jobs, if you get sick, injured or treated unfairly, there is an employer, a contract and sometimes a union. In porn, there is usually just you.
Why performers need a union at all
Most adult performers in the US work as independent contractors. We are booked scene by scene, often through agents, and paid per day or per scene. That means:
- No employer health insurance.
- No paid sick days. If you cannot work, you do not earn.
- No pension. Careers can be short, and there is no retirement plan unless you build one.
- Testing costs are often paid by the performer.
- Discrimination outside work. Many performers struggle to open bank accounts, rent apartments or keep social media accounts, as I explained in why banks and card networks fear porn.
Add the stigma, the pressure on new performers and the fact that a career can end overnight, and you can see why people started organising.
What APAG is
The Adult Performance Artists Guild (APAG), originally called the Adult Performers Actors Guild, is an American union for adult performers and other sex workers, including strippers and online creators. Its president since 2018 has been former performer Alana Evans, who took over from the first president, Sean Michaels (Wikipedia; APAG).
In May 2021, APAG became the first adult performer union to be federally recognised in the United States. Evans said membership rose from about 300 to 1,300 by September 2021.
A union does not make porn safer by itself. But it gives performers something they rarely have: a collective voice in rooms where decisions are made about them.
A messy birth: from IEAU to APAG
The story was not smooth. APAG started as a subsidiary of a larger group, the International Entertainment Adult Union (IEAU). In 2020, the IEAU supported a bill that would have required adult performers to get a public occupational licence and give fingerprint records to the government. Evans said her name was used to promote it without APAG’s knowledge.
The IEAU then filed with the US Department of Labor to terminate APAG, and APAG’s officers sued the IEAU. After separating, the guild reorganised and in December 2020 renamed itself the Adult Performance Artists Guild. A few months later came federal recognition.
It is a reminder that even inside the industry, people disagree about what protection should look like. A licence and fingerprint register can sound like safety to an outsider. To performers, it can sound like a public list of their names.
What the union fights for
According to public reports on its work, APAG’s priorities include:
- Guaranteed pay and clear contracts with studios.
- Industry-wide healthcare and retirement savings.
- Producers paying for required STI tests, instead of performers. More on testing in how porn STI testing works.
- A recommended consent checklist for performers, and an on-set stewards programme in which experienced former performers attend shoots. I described how consent works on set in consent on a porn set.
- Platform fairness. In 2019, APAG protested outside Instagram’s headquarters over performers whose accounts were deleted despite showing no nudity or sex. In 2020 it raised similar complaints about OnlyFans accounts being deactivated without clear explanation.
- Lobbying. APAG meets lawmakers on bills affecting the industry and wants “occupation” to become a protected characteristic, so that banks and landlords cannot discriminate against sex workers.
Why organising porn performers is so hard
Even with a recognised union, organising this industry is difficult:
- Independent contractors are harder to organise than employees, and US labour law gives them fewer collective bargaining rights.
- Short careers. Many performers work for a few years and leave. It is hard to build long-term membership.
- Fear of being visible. Joining a union can feel like putting your name on another list.
- Competition. Performers compete for the same bookings, and some fear being labelled “difficult”.
- The creator shift. Many performers now earn mostly on OnlyFans and similar platforms, where the “boss” is an algorithm and a terms-of-service page, not a studio.
There is also the trade association side. The Free Speech Coalition, which runs the PASS testing system, represents the business side of the industry. A trade association and a union can work together, but their interests are not always the same.
Unions and rights outside the US
Other countries are taking different routes:
- Spain. The sex workers’ union OTRAS (Organización de Trabajadoras Sexuales) had its statutes validated by the Supreme Court in June 2021, after a long legal fight (Wikipedia ES). It includes an audiovisual section.
- United Kingdom. United Sex Workers operates as a branch of the IWGB (Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain).
- Belgium. A law of 3 May 2024, in force since 1 December 2024, gave sex workers employment contracts, health insurance, sick leave, maternity pay and pensions, and the right to refuse clients or acts (BBC News; The Guardian). It was described as a world first.
- Brazil. Since 2002, “profissionais do sexo” have been listed in the official Brazilian Classification of Occupations, which allows them to contribute to social security as self-employed workers.
These models differ a lot, and porn performers are not always covered in the same way as other sex workers. But the direction is the same: treating the people who do this work as workers.
My take
When I started, the idea of a union for porn actors would have made most people laugh. Today it exists, it is federally recognised, and it has pushed issues like consent checklists, testing costs and account bans into the open.
Is it perfect? No. APAG is small, its early years were chaotic, and many performers, especially creators who work alone online, are still outside any union. But I have seen what happens when performers have no voice: new people get pressured, costs get pushed onto the weakest, and nobody answers when an account or a bank account disappears overnight.
My advice to anyone entering this business: learn your rights, keep your own records, talk to other performers, and do not be afraid to join something bigger than yourself. If you are thinking about starting, read how to become a porn actor first.
For the human stories behind this industry, read my columns on House of Maximo. Follow my work at maximogarciaworld.com, and for the 18+ side, fuckingpornstars.net.
Sources
- Wikipedia. Adult Performance Artists Guild.
- Adult Performance Artists Guild. apag.org.
- Wikipedia (Spanish). OTRAS (sindicato).
- BBC News (2024). Belgium’s sex workers get maternity leave and pensions under world-first law.
- The Guardian (2024). Belgium’s sex workers win maternity pay and pension rights in world first.
- Belgian Official Journal. Law of 3 May 2024 on sex work under an employment contract.
