Your Porn is About to Look a Lot Different
July 16, 2020 2:28 PM   Subscribe



 
I assume this can only be an improvement.
posted by aspersioncast at 2:46 PM on July 16, 2020 [2 favorites]


Porn seems so retro to me these days, much like when I see people smoking cigarettes or throwing trash out their car windows. Just an observation.
posted by heyho at 2:57 PM on July 16, 2020 [6 favorites]


Might that be generational, driven by youths raised in a world of Tinder (and really, OKCupid had a reputation before it). I guess there were also stories about "hookup culture" (caution: big article!) 15 or so years ago? I know that as an approaching-middle ager that there is mostly a pointed rejection of that on the apps among my cohort.

Free internet porn has been a thing for so long that it makes sense that it would start falling by the wayside, at least until the CIA invents a new condom-permeating STD. Heck, that could be coronavirus itself!
posted by rhizome at 3:02 PM on July 16, 2020 [1 favorite]


This smaller casting pool has resulted in uniquely specific challenges during the casting process: for instance, “it’s a little hard to find MILFS right now,” says Calvert.

I guess now we know why Trump is pushing so hard to get the kids back in school.
posted by spilon at 3:12 PM on July 16, 2020 [37 favorites]


Perhaps we have enough porn now, to keep us going, as a species?
posted by turbid dahlia at 4:00 PM on July 16, 2020 [26 favorites]


Others, however, disagree that kissing is any higher-risk than any other forms of on-camera sexual activity. As performer and director Casey Calvert drily puts it: “I’m certainly of the opinion that if someone’s penis is going to go inside of you, that’s the same amount of risk as kissing them.”
Someone doesn't understand what "respiratory virus" means. Or they breathe with their genitals.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 4:07 PM on July 16, 2020 [19 favorites]


Mainstream porn may not be as popular as it was 10-15 years ago. But indie porn, camgirls, onlyfans, etc., are huge, and have largely cut out the middle men, making performers free to set their own prices, promote themselves as they wish, and do their own booking and even organize their own shoots. Porn hasn't gone away, it's just changed, mostly for the better.

As for whether it's gotten tamer, noted indie performer Charlotte Sartre and a few others have recently pioneered quadruple anal penetration, so, probably not.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 4:23 PM on July 16, 2020 [23 favorites]


Someone doesn't understand what "respiratory virus" means.

I think its more that existing risk of sexual transmitted diseases is so high, that this new COVID-19 thing doesn't change the risk profile that much.
posted by sideshow at 4:24 PM on July 16, 2020 [2 favorites]


pioneered quadruple anal penetration

Allright, I haven't, and won't be looking this up, but what? There's got to be a prize somewhere in physics or biology research for this.
posted by mrgoat at 4:36 PM on July 16, 2020 [12 favorites]


It sounds like it requires a purpose-built structure lol
posted by eustatic at 4:42 PM on July 16, 2020 [2 favorites]


In all seriousness, there are a lot of basic lessons about disease transmission that sex workers and porn actors could teach us masses
posted by eustatic at 4:43 PM on July 16, 2020 [16 favorites]


Yes, people were generally boggling at the physical positioning logistics for that. I haven't seen the clips myself, but it's certainly some kind of impressive.

And yeah, sex workers are generally pretty far ahead on disease prevention. The two main tools in the toolkit are frequent testing (which is now universal, and PrEP, which is becoming extremely common. There's a reason there hasn't been any cases of HIV transmission on porn sets for years now.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 4:50 PM on July 16, 2020 [3 favorites]


Perhaps we have enough porn now, to keep us going, as a species?

Hannibal Buress would agree.
posted by jeremias at 4:58 PM on July 16, 2020 [3 favorites]


> Charlotte Sartre

that is such a good name.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 5:06 PM on July 16, 2020 [5 favorites]


Head-to-toe latex suits and glory holes set for a triumphant comeback....
posted by Serene Empress Dork at 5:34 PM on July 16, 2020 [3 favorites]


Perhaps we have enough porn now, to keep us going, as a species?

We've got enough, but do we have enough?

Porn might be the frozen pizza of sexual experiences. And as every survivor of Totino's knows, there is such a thing as bad pizza, even if it can scratch an itch.

Maybe there's enough porn like there's enough frozen pizza, but an astounding amount of porn is Totino's or worse. We can frame it as too malegazey genitalangled etc and I don't disagree but I think the problem is bigger: it's just rare to find material where it seems like everyone on screen is really having a sexy sexy time or those offscreen care.

I don't know if this is even in the top half of the world's problems to solve. And I have my doubts that capitalism can fix it (it's good at getting people partway to the pretense of passion in *any* area while abusing people for actually caring). And it might even be the things that make an experience sexy for those participating are not trivial to realize in an image anyway (I'm pretty sure that some of the experiences I found sexiest in the moment would have looked odd or mundane if someone had been filming).

And... even if enough people got really good at making consistently sexy porn (with consent and no abuse of actors etc etc) there's always the question of whether that would actually be good for everyone.

Anyway, yes, there's a lot of porn in the world, even more than enough to get the world through a pandemic, but maybe there's not enough good porn.
posted by wildblueyonder at 7:02 PM on July 16, 2020 [7 favorites]


that is such a good name.

Your porn name is your favorite Sex and the City character and the philosopher you grew up on.
posted by condour75 at 7:37 PM on July 16, 2020 [16 favorites]


"many performers and crew members...use an independent company, Talent Testing Services (TTS), which is offering tests for a relatively cheap $35 a pop."

Relatively cheap? Holy shit that's cheap. Here in Japan if you're getting tested because the authorities think you should be tested (showing symptoms, or being a contact of someone who is infected), it's free, but if you're just doing it of your own accord, like the situation being described here, you're looking at private clinics charging $350 to $400.
posted by Bugbread at 7:38 PM on July 16, 2020 [1 favorite]


Nobody Heinlen...

LOL
posted by Windopaene at 8:01 PM on July 16, 2020 [2 favorites]


  1. miranda spinoza would be a pretty good cam name tho
  2. okay before things get too jokey i feel compelled to shout "no terfs no swerfs no fascists!"
no terfs no swerfs no fascists!
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 9:34 PM on July 16, 2020 [5 favorites]


and like seriously the "we have enough porn!" tone is maybe not great? maybe kind of swerfy? maybe we should center sex workers instead of adopting a like consumer-centric "porn? yuck! i don't like watching people having sex! gross!" position?
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 9:37 PM on July 16, 2020 [24 favorites]


Also:

“I am keeping a close eye on the situation and seeing where it goes... we do understand it’s a very fluid situation... ”

Probably would need to be out at sea to find a more fluid situation.
posted by wildblueyonder at 9:39 PM on July 16, 2020 [3 favorites]


Charlotte Sartre and a few others have recently pioneered quadruple anal penetration

Four. You can say “a few”. Or: Four.
posted by armoir from antproof case at 10:03 PM on July 16, 2020 [3 favorites]


Harry Kant? Or does it go Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Blatch?

Also, are we at the point yet where porn performers are like pop stars? In that there's people so mainstream yer gran has heard of them, and there are 'one era's Gaga is another era's Madonna, someone's always gotta fill that part of the lineup' comparisons?
posted by bartleby at 10:06 PM on July 16, 2020 [2 favorites]


Well, I learned a lot in this thread. I thought I was a fairly with it guy, but apparently I am way behind the curve.
posted by Literaryhero at 10:15 PM on July 16, 2020 [2 favorites]


quadruple anal penetration

Ah, "The Four Horse-Men of the Asspocalypse".
posted by CynicalKnight at 11:29 PM on July 16, 2020 [12 favorites]


Someone doesn't understand what "respiratory virus" means. Or they breathe with their genitals.

Or coronavirus has been found in semen
posted by otherchaz at 11:46 PM on July 16, 2020 [6 favorites]


>> pioneered quadruple anal penetration

> Allright, I haven't, and won't be looking this up, but what? There's got to be a prize somewhere in physics or biology research for this.
...

Moist looked at Mr. Spools and raised his eyebrows.

“It’s all about holes,” he said. “It ain’t nothing if it ain’t got hole...”

Three hours went past. Foremen were sent for. Serious men in overalls turned things on lathes, other men soldered things together, tried them out, changed this, reamed that, then dismantled a small hand press and built it in a different way. Moist loitered on the periphery of all this, clearly bored, while the serious men fiddled, measured things, rebuilt things, tinkered, lowered things, raised things, and, eventually, watched by Moist and Mr. Spools, tried out the converted press officially—

...

—Going Postal, Terry Pratchett
posted by sebastienbailard at 11:58 PM on July 16, 2020 [4 favorites]


But indie porn, camgirls, onlyfans, etc., are huge, and have largely cut out the middle men, making performers free to set their own prices, promote themselves as they wish, and do their own booking and even organize their own shoots.

This is decidedly not yet true across the board. The web platforms that workers have to use are simply the new middle men (in the section of the industry that folks I know work in, none of these platforms are worker owned, managed, or developed), and I'm told there are some problematic issues. (Think, eg., of how Uber is still very much an employer despite theirs claims to the contrary; and a crappy one at that.)
posted by eviemath at 2:51 AM on July 17, 2020 [9 favorites]


Yes, people were generally boggling at the physical positioning logistics for that. I haven't seen the clips myself, but it's certainly some kind of impressive.

Part of me wants a SFW diagram of this.
posted by MattWPBS at 4:56 AM on July 17, 2020 [3 favorites]


Hentai. It will all be replaced by be hentai.
posted by Young Kullervo at 5:33 AM on July 17, 2020 [2 favorites]


Part of me wants a SFW diagram of this.

Facebook today suggested a video for me of a V4 engine in operation which had some beautiful animation of all four...errr...pistons doing their thing. I assume it has absolutely no relevance to the physical effort in question - and I don’t want to know - but dear reader there were tears of laughter.
posted by inflatablekiwi at 5:36 AM on July 17, 2020 [3 favorites]


I tried to read all these articles but didn’t get very far. I think primarily these are about media getting to put the word “porn” in their headline and getting to show some sexy girls “for free.” Yes, the porn industry reformed itself mostly in regards to HIV and STDs. And as testing and diagnostics got more available and cheaper and quicker, they were able to wrap that into their professional work. But, I don’t need porn to know that in order for people to resume some semblance of daily life, we need rapid, at-home, free or very cheap, testing. You can’t walk through a grocery store and get an STD. I’m glad that some women are able to use this time to wrest control from the porno-bro industrial complex but I have no doubt that these folks will be pressured by their jobs, like all of the more vulnerable people, to return to work under less than safe conditions.
posted by amanda at 7:07 AM on July 17, 2020 [6 favorites]


And I fear the porno-bros aren't just going to wander off and get straight jobs. They'll figure out a way to re-establish themselves, perhaps getting Onlyfans marginalized by payment processors or something such that they have to then rely on the old providers...I mean, that's gotta be 80% of the problem: workers having visibility and control over their money, while there are a lot of dudes who want to get a middleman slice. Funny what happens when you remove physical danger from both sides of the sexworker biz.
posted by rhizome at 10:35 AM on July 17, 2020 [2 favorites]


and like seriously the "we have enough porn!" tone is maybe not great? maybe kind of swerfy? maybe we should center sex workers instead of adopting a like consumer-centric "porn? yuck! i don't like watching people having sex! gross!" position?

I read that comment about having enough already as a bit of a joke about it accounting for, like, half the internet, most video ever shot, I'd wager, and half the sales of Polaroid film back in the day. I mean, there's a lot of porn out there! It's likely one of the first things anyone used a camera for.

And if my comment above about it seeming retro to me was mistaken for that, then it shouldn't have been. It really was just an observation. Ever since cancer treatment, I've enjoyed good health and a very liberating lack of libido. Sorry if my words conveyed something else, but that certainly wasn't my yucking on porn. I don't hate it.

I did learn the term "swerf" in this thread though, so thank you for that. It never ceases to amaze me that for every single thing there is, there's a group dedicated to obsessing over it and wanting to obliterate it—even when it's people. Now that's gross.
posted by heyho at 11:08 AM on July 17, 2020 [6 favorites]


Charlotte Sartre and a few others have recently pioneered quadruple anal penetration,

Christ, what an asshole.
posted by chavenet at 12:53 PM on July 17, 2020 [29 favorites]


You know, wildblueyonder, I didn't expect an actual considered response to my throwaway line, but I agree with what you say. I'll be honest, I'm thinking of subbing to a few OnlyFans performers, and leaving PornHub behind, because yes, there is a lot of porn but the majority of it is terrible.
posted by turbid dahlia at 3:54 PM on July 19, 2020 [1 favorite]


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