“Although Los Angeles remains the mecca of the adult entertainment industry, the landscape is quickly changing. Over the past several years, we’ve seen production begin to move east to more porn-friendly cities such as Las Vegas, as well as north to places like Montreal and Toronto.”

– Dave Strauss, Co-Founder, Arm Candy Creative

In an interview last October with Tyler Lemco of Thrillist, Dave Strauss, one of Arm Candy Creative’s co-founders, took the opportunity to riff about his beloved hometown of Montreal. Dave’s experience in the adult industry, coupled with his Montreal upbringing, makes him the ideal person to speak to in order to gain insight into the city’s impact on adult entertainment both nationally and globally.

Montreal is home to practically every aspect of the adult film business, with the exception of film production. Some of the world’s largest porn distributors, including the undisputed global king of porn, PornHub (MindGeek), are based out of Montreal. According to Dave, if you’ve lived in Montreal for an extended period of time, chances are you have a friend who has a friend who works at MindGeek. Brazzers also has a big presence in Montreal, having been founded by two Concordia University alumni.

The interview concludes with an interesting argument, with Lemco making the case that the overly competitive landscape in Montreal is what pushes each company to innovate. The technical innovations taking place at companies like MindGeek, rival those of Silicon Valley tech Goliath’s like Apple and Google.