Jakarta's Porn Film Actors Earn Up to Rp15 Million, Similar to the US

In mid-September 2023, the Directorate of Special Criminal Investigation of the Jakarta Metro Police raided a pornographic film production house in South Jakarta.

In this incident, police arrested several suspects, including I (director and producer), JAAS (cameraman), AIS (film editor), AT (sound engineer and extra), and SE (secretary and main female actress).

According to police investigations, the pornographic film production house in South Jakarta had been operating since 2022, had produced around 120 films involving dozens of actors, and had earned a total profit of Rp500 million.

The actors could be paid up to Rp15 million per film.

"There were no contracts for the actors used in the making of the aforementioned obscene films. So the payment was only once per film, ranging from Rp10 million to Rp15 million," said the Director of Special Criminal Investigation of the Jakarta Metro Police, Ade Safri, in a press interview on Monday (September 11, 2023).

This payment amount is similar to the pay of pornographic film actors in the United States (US), a country that legalizes pornography.

Based on an *Independent* interview with Derek Hay, an adult film model agent in the US, in 2017 the standard pay for female pornographic film actors in his country was around US$1,000 per film.

Converted to rupiah at the current exchange rate, the pay reaches almost Rp15.4 million per film.

In the US, the pay for pornographic film actors can increase to the range of US$2,000 to US$6,000 (between Rp30 million and Rp92 million per film) if the actor is willing to perform unusual sex scenes.

Derek Hay also mentioned that the standard pay for pornographic film actors tends to be the same from year to year.

"For some special types of scenes (in pornographic films), the pay has increased now. But, the pay for regular (pornographic film) actors has generally not increased in the last five years. There has been no increase in pay related to inflation, it's flat," said Derek Hay, as reported by *Independent* (April 14, 2017).