The Way Forward

The past of the porn industry is someplace I like to hear about, but I wouldn't want to visit it.

Tales abounded of adult movie theaters, where the floors were sticky from countless patrons who pleasured themselves in the flickering light of 24 frames a second. Of strip clubs that were dark, illuminated by weak lighting and the red glow of cigarette cherries. Of live sex theaters that reeked of cum and bleach.

They were a far cry from today, where porn is seen instantly on a laptop, in the privacy of one's own home. Or the high end "gentlemen's clubs" where the lighting is as elaborate as a stadium rock show. Or the clinical sexuality of webcam girls from other countries who coo and wink for their customers to buy extra minutes.

Porn and the adult industry, then and now, have always shared a common taint among the general public. Shame. It's projected in many ways, by people with different agendas. There's something shameful about someone who would partake in that sort of entertainment. It's shameful to objectify women "in that manner." It's shameful that a woman would work in "that sort of place." I also believe that this drive to mandate condoms in porn from outsiders is partly because people should somehow be ashamed that they enjoy watching unprotected sex when STDs and AIDS are still a problem.

But that moralistic finger waving doesn't hold the same sway as it used to. The puritanical guilt that one should feel for engaging in pleasure for pleasure's sake doesn't weigh as heavily on Americans. It's easier now for people to talk about their sexual interests, be it adult movies to hookers thanks to the Internet.

The adult video industry is marked by revolutionary, not evolutionary, change. People used to watch movies in the theaters I talked about, but they were shut down by video tapes. Then, in the 2000s, DVDs entered the scene, which the video industry thought would be the next revolution. But they were blindsided by Internet porn, which allowed customers to indulge their specific tastes and fetishes and not be at the mercy of the bored college student who stocked the shelves of their local video store.

The industry is trying to adapt to the new reality of porn on the Internet. It's like a fire hose was opened, and where once customers couldn't get enough of what was made, no matter how much it cost or how badly it was made, now the number of movies and scenes that are produced are an embarrassment of riches.

For years, people in the industry looked at each other and at the increasing number of movies being made and asked themselves, "When will people have enough?" And for years — decades — the answer was "Not yet."

Lately, though, the perfect storm of quantity, price and the Internet have fundamentally altered conventional thinking. Producers that once made obscene amounts of money for very little effort are scraping by. Distributors that had storied histories of starting out from the trunk of some mob-connected salesman are no more. Video stores... well, when
was the last time you went to a video store for anything? More importantly, there's the issue of free porn.

Even if some killjoy do-gooder waved a magic wand and somehow all new movies were made with condoms, there's still untold hours of footage of bareback sex that no one could ever watch in their lifetime, which could be watched for the price of a song, and that's on a good day.

The irony is that moralistic Christians picketing in front of video stores didn't mortally wound the industry. It won't be a crusading supposed do-gooder who claims his interest is the health of the performer, either. Right now, the biggest foe the industry has is itself and the fact that it now values its product too lightly.

The old timers talk about a time when videotapes wholesaled for $80, $90, $100 a tape. That was in late '70s, early '80s money. Most companies would do somersaults to get a tenth of that for their wholesale price.

The biggest revolution the adult industry now faces is that it needs to reinvent itself. The adult industry in 10 years is going to be something that we won't recognize today.

The power of the Internet means that no one needs to be in any one place to do anything, and that includes pornography. You can legislate laws to outlaw the production of porn all you want outside of Los Angeles, or write condom laws until married couples are compelled to use rubbers in the name of public health in California, but someone will always think it's a pretty cool idea to video tape themselves having sex for fun and/ or profit.

How will they make money? If I knew that I'd be doing it and be making forts made out of stacks of $100 bills.

In the last 10 years, there's been a lot of talk about wanting to bring the industry into the mainstream. Coincidentally, as the industry's gone more mainstream, so has the push back by groups who would like it shut down — condom crusaders included. But with that slow and grudging acceptance of porn, shame slowly becomes less of a factor surrounding it.

I don't think you'll ever eliminate all the taint that goes along with this business. We're a long way away from guidance counselors asking, "Have you considered a career in the adult industry?" But when sexual topics are the stuff of critically acclaimed mainstream movies and wives throw parties to sell sex toys like Tupperware, there's something to be said about progress. But there's a flip side to this — the shame surrounding the industry was one of the reasons it could charge so much for its product.

But there's still money to be made and if there's money to be made, history has shown someone will figure out how to make it, especially when sex is involved. The revolution will be how today's adult companies adapt to that change.

This post is a part of Fleshbot's Bobbi Starr Week.