Pop shot

Porn industry slang for the shot where a performer cums visibly on camera: the money shot, said the way crews say it on set.

The pop shot is the moment in a porn scene when a performer cums on camera, visibly, so the viewer can see it happen. It is the same thing as the money shot and the cum shot, said in the slightly more workmanlike voice of people who make porn for a living. On set it is a task like any other: the director wants a good pop, from the right angle, at the right time.

In gay porn it is usually the end of the scene, and often the end of the scene for each performer in turn. A pop shot is not about pleasure as much as proof: the audience is shown that it was real.

Where it comes from

To pop is slang for coming, and the pop shot is simply the shot where it happens. Green's Dictionary of Slang finds pop shot in print in the British comic magazine Viz in 1997, in a glossary scene where a male actor has to come on camera after help from the fluffer, and again in the trade press of the adult industry in the 2000s. The phrase was certainly in use on sets before anyone wrote it down, but nobody has pinned down how long before.

In porn

The pop shot is why so much classic gay porn ends with the top pulling out. In the condom era it was the only way to show cum at all; in bareback porn, where the load can end up inside, studios came up with the creampie shot to show the result instead.

Getting a good one is harder than it looks. Performers have to come on cue, sometimes after hours of shooting, and scenes are often arranged so the pop shot is filmed last. A facial is one kind of pop shot; a load on the chest, the back or the ass is another.

Close relatives

• Money shot: the general name, used well beyond porn for the climax of anything.
• Cum shot: the plain-English version, used by viewers as much as by makers.
• Load: what the pop shot shows, and a word gay men use far beyond the screen (see load).

Related terms