I've often joked about adapting the idea of YouFitter to porn... I call it miXXXfit, but I never really considered it as a serious business model. Now, I don't want to go down the path of laying out my argument on the back of estimates as to how much Internet traffic is driven by porn, but suffice to say it is still quite large. It's certainly larger than ever in terms of bandwidth consumption, but likely smaller in proportionate terms with the explosion of video and YouTube.
If you haven't been paying attention (and I imagine most net savvy guys have), there have been a number of PornoTube clones proliferating around the web these days. They purport to offer more user submitted amateur videos than traditional sites and complement their content with web 2.0 interactivity functions such as ratings and folksonomy tags. Although they are free, clean of digital STDs (viruses), and there is definitely more “real” amateur porn to be found there, the same old tricks of online porn purveyors remain intact. The clips are optimally sheared down to around half a minute to keep viewers switching between a larger number of videos, most of their catalog is composed of recycled short clips of professional production companies, and paid links to these companies form the basis of their revenue model and in-your-face approach. I must give them some credit though... It is quite a clever guise, complete with a savvy deployment of the new Internet terms, technology, and design. However, it does not suffice. As with most other entertainment industries, their product will be decommodified. In fact, it is already happening at an impressive rate – profits are down markedly in just the past year. The industry heads are complaining as much as they can – though their line of business keeps them from getting (or wanting) the kind of sympathy stories in the press that the music industry had. The porn industry in its current form shouldn't exist, that is, it would be better off if it did not. However, this does not mean I don't think porn should exist – for sure it should – though in a different form and through different processes of production and consumption.
That the act of sex is something that is performed all over the world hundreds of millions of times daily comes as no shock to anyone. That it should cost one person to watch other people engage in it seems ludicrous to me... does it to you? Granted, most of the desirous watchers wish to do so in private, possibly because they are ashamed to be seen watching and pleasuring themselves, but mostly because if they try to do so outside of the formal channels of the porn industry, they will be arrested as so-called “peeping toms” or criminal voyeurs. So they turn to professional pornographers to help them maintain their dignity while still fulfilling their needs. However, this does not mean that they are always happy with the products provided. Despite the huge amount of content produced by the industry and the enormous scope of diversity within it, I would venture to say that few consumers are truly satisfied. Take a look at the size of their collections, or more appropriately, the amount of material they have gone through in their history of consumption. Some might say that this is the nature of the (male) beast – that they must constantly search out new fruits and sexual spoils. However, I contend that it is the nature of the media at hand most responsible for diving the wheels of this unending treadmill. It is not that the media is low quality – porn has always kept up the cutting edge technology of the times for its most ambitious displays. In fact, producers of the highest quality porn now worry that HD formats make it harder to do their business well, because so many more imperfections will show on their “actors”.
That's right – actors. "Prostitutes" or "porn stars" nor any other term will suffice for this argument. That they are actors is the heart of the matter I wish to bring forth. Amateur porn is ascendant for a reason – because people (not only men) prefer the real thing. Now, I don't want to get into any conceptual squabbles over the nature of “reality” - we'll leave that for the young philosophers and post modernist scholars on their days off. An often cited aphorism in sociology is that “real” situations are defined as such because their consequences are “real” - end of bunny ears. Look at these new sites... which word always looms largest in the tag cloud? AMATUER. Why? Because that's what people like – that's what works. This is not a laboratory experiment with numerous sampling and environmental controls, but it is still powerful. It is nothing short of a head to head competition – a popularity contest between real vs. fake porn when the pricing conditions are equal. Granted, real amateur porn is still in relatively short demand in comparison to the glut of fakeness. Still, it has lots of other drawbacks that I think should be considered as well – terrible production value (lighting, sound, image quality, etc.), less attractive subjects, and the lack of almost any direction or control to maximize the things traditional porn banks on – sounds, angles, and acts. That the last word helps bring us back full circle back to the question of reality, albeit from a different vantage point, is quite helpful.
The "acts" (what they can get their actors to do) are what porn has increasingly relied upon, and must continue to rely upon in its attempt to sustain itself. That's what helped it diversify so far in the first place. There are only so many distinct kinds of human beings that can be divided up into groups – though there are quite a lot of them to be sure. Still, when that large number of unique categories is multiplied by the unique acts that can be performed, the permutation is almost unbelievably large. Perhaps it is not infinite, but it seems close enough for most people when they really set their mind to contemplating the possibilities. Utilizing different sexual positions is now so common that they should barely even be conceived as “acts” when we take into context how many different things the parts and functions of the human body can be employed to achieve. Yet it still seems as though our imagination, even in its most depraved forms, may be reaching its limits. It's not that exploration will ever halt, but that the proceeds have dwindled. If any of you have ever seen some of the MaxHardCore series, I think you'll get my point – how much worse can it get!!!??? It seems as the next step in this “evolution” is not expansion in the diversity of acts, but in who performs them. When it isn't just professional porn actors doing these things anymore, it can be said that a media-based cultural transfer or "norm modification" has occurred.
Any good social scientist with longitudinal methods (collection of data over time) had surveyed the proportion of high school girls who knew the meaning of the terms “money shot” or “reverse cowgirl” twenty years ago vs. ten years ago vs. today would see quite clearly what I'm getting at. Does this necessarily mean that way back then they had never heard or conceived of it? Not neccessarily. However, I still would contend the proportions would be much, much higher. More importantly, the proportion who had actually engaged in the acts would be similarly larger. I guess it can be best summed up by my old black neighbor who said to me, “People be doing crazy shit in their bedrooms these days.” This was near the time I overheard her fifteen year old grandson tell her that she might need to purchase a bottle of lube before remarrying. We have definitely expanded our range of interest in watching and doing different sexual acts. This should help the porn industry considerably, especially with globalization opening up markets in poor, ex-communist, and traditionally prudish lands across the developing world. So, WTF mate? I'm sure that's those executives in the other Silicon Valley are saying to themselves right now. And in I no way doubt their ability to pull magical rabbits out of any available orifice. Still, I think there's a lot to be said for the limitations of complexity in both desire and choice.
Here's what I believe to be the sad, hard truth of the matter. Most porn purchasers would be happier with a tape of some random amateur couple having regular amateur sex with prosumer AV equipment than they would with the highest paid porn actresses taking whatever their underpaid, but very well endowed costars can muster. Shoot, they'd probably take just the audio track and be better satisfied. Plus, it can quite easily be made and distributed free of cost to the vast majority of viewers. Plus, the amount of this type of material circulating is ever increasing, perhaps at an exponential rate due to loosening sexual mores and the availability of grassroots recording and distribution capacity. So, is it easy to find this stuff, the stuff we're all looking for online? No. How about at the adult superstore just outside city limits? Hell no. Why? Well, partially because there isn't yet a market to encourage this to happen – both in terms of terms of rewarding producers and in just covering their basic costs. You see, most amateur porn producers are more than happy to do it for free, but only a few will be so driven by exhibitionism to pay for it. It's almost as important to realize that almost none of them would accept being paid to do it – they would view that as a distinct ethical lapse, putting them in the same category as those demeaned individuals who profit from their stigmatized occupation. These porn ethics may seem really strange to a lot of people, but not me. As usual, I'm surprised at a different thing – that I can't easily find “ethical” porn online or at the store. What do I mean by “ethical”? That which is made by consenting, loving, parties that set their own conditions in production and distribution. Why is that still so hard to come by. Call me a conspiracy theorist if you will, but I think the porn industry has a vested interest in actively suppressing that material coming to market. I think it's the only kind of diversity that offers a real threat. In a kind of weird postmodern twist come true, the only threat to an industry predicated on fakery is reality itself.
So, is that the end of the story? Is their battle forever lost? While I certainly would like to count those dastardly bastards out, to sound the death knell on a business I can neither bring myself to patronize or excuse, again, I just can't bring myself to do it. Virtual reality... reality TV... reality web TV with audience commands executed on a per bid basis... these are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of new media possibilities. But they are quickly being realized, so we'll get to see if the industry can reinvent itself by depraving reality in real time... with amazing interactive effects thrown into the mix. They have the capital, the investment in technology, the white collar managers, the conference circuits, and of course, the hordes of experienced actors. I wouldn't say they're big capitalists in robber baron terms, but they're certainly a formidable bunch. However, for the time being, the consumers still aren't getting what they want. Well, that's kind of silly to say... they are... orgasm through self simulation is achieved on a very regular basis. What I mean is that consumers are not satisfied enough such that the porn industry is not under threat of a killer innovation by the competition, especially if the competition is willing (and can) accept smaller profits.
Who's the competition? I am... me, my waiting prosumer content minions, my imagination, cheap sex fiends, and the brave new world of wily web applications. We can marry information and entertainment in some pretty creative ways at a fairly low cost. And in the world of programming, the easiest way to save a buck is by reusing code. This usually means taking the ideas and architecture of an existing idea and applying it with some modest modifications to another. Hmmm... exercises, videos, workouts, online = acts, amateur clips, sex, online. Does that add up well enough to justify the effort? I think so. Let me answer my own questions without too many caveats for the moment. What market segments does porn not cater so well to right now? Women. Couples. What does porn emphasize? Hot bodies. What are the body-based boom businesses in America right now? Plastic surgery, yes... but also fitness and health. How do those relate to sex in the current public/scientific mind. Sex with a regular partner is healthy and helps you stay fit, physically and mentally. But sex workouts? That's crazy... who wants to turn the act of love making into a rationalized activity aimed at getting better at something? Looking at the covers of our leading popular magazines, what is it people experience the most anxiety over? Terrorism? No. Sex and their bodies. A whole lot of people will openly admit to wanting to make improvements on both of those things. The question is whether these desires can be reconciled in a synergistic way. I really think so.
Regular sexual intercourse has been shown to be great exercise in itself, but what about souped up sex for fitness? I can hear grandparents exclaiming in unison, “Who ever heard of such a thing?” But maybe not the baby boomers, who are pretty sexually liberated and obsessed with fitness. And younger folks – well, it's just another new thing to try. Sure, not everybody is going to be into it. Some women are going to find the idea repulsive and some guys are going to be too lazy to divert from their dominant habits... and sometimes vice versa. Still, behaviorists think you can train yourself to do anything... you could be those porn stars. It's both a physical and mental challenge. Plus, it's a great way for men to help expand the market by giving their girlfriends more (better) reasons to watch porn with them – something I know a lot of guys would desire. Yet, for all this talk, I must admit that I've never even tried such a thing. I'm sure there are plenty of yogic, tantric, and taoist guides to having more amazing, demanding sexual, and fulfilling sex out there, but those books suck. They're hard to read, not entertaining, and definitely not multimedia... unless we let the definition rot in its old frame of text combined with greyscale illustrations. I'm thinking of hypertext, full color diagrams, demonstration videos, software to track your progress, forums, interactive games, etc. In short, all the media and tools YouFitter will encompass, but applied to a different purpose. Give it a redesign, a wholly different marketing campaign, and some slightly different terms and conditions regarding use... whalla! We'll allow some controlled data linkages between the sites and decommodify fitness and sex at the same time.
So, do you think it can happen? In a year you might be watching videos on miXXXfit with your partner, trying out different positions as they're demonstrated in a sequence of video clips featuring sexy amateur innovators, recording your progress using multidimensional methods like time, heartbeat counts, and perhaps even some survey questions. Maybe you'll even buy a new toy to improve your sexercise experience. Does the idea follow the analysis – to improve our personal reality through the use of reality in media and technology? If not, why not? Please, let me know. A lot of people point to the obvious problem of "normal" people exposing themselves to criticism for appearing in such compromised, moral positions. The best way I've heard the argument phrased is that "we are used to paying porn stars to be vulnerable for us." I understand this argument - they're the ones who get shunned... they're the ones who would likely get fired from regular jobs if the boss or coworkers found out about their other occupation. However, the best answers I been able to come up with are 1) there are already sites that do this and have ethical restrictions - homeclips.com for one 2) submitters could always go lone ranger style and mask up 3) use the classic R Kelly defense - "that isn't me!"
