What are your thoughts of the porn industry this day and age.

[Pklon 60]

I know this is a swinger board site not a porn board site. But I think the Answer here will be more honest than a porn board site.

With all the documentary out there lately about the dark side of the entertainment industry such as former Disney/nickelodeon child stars to the dark side of the music industry to the comedy industry and everything else in between. As more former top tier stars both female and male are coming out and regrets their porn careers in this age of social media. Too many too named and given X reason why.

Yes, Porn too has its dark side. I don’t deny that. Too many people in it die young and get into the drugs scene. We are 2024, people should know the dangers of drugs. Also once you do porn it there forever. Even if you do one scene , it will be there forever. I still have a hard time believing that people are still naïve in believing it won’t.
Years years ago I saw the Belladonna interview with Diane Sawyer. Not long ago after that Belladonna did another interview saying that they took a lot out of context. Soon after that, it was the beginning of those porn documentary about porn and pornstars.

I don’t recall his name, I think he was either a porn agent or something in one of those porno documentary, but what he said stayed with me all those years ago. Only less 1% of new girls per year will be successful. And porn is much like the wrestling industry. A lot of it is fake, most of it is all scripted. Yes the sex is real but it plan out. Yes there a lot of backstage potential stuff, a lot of double standards. Yes I do think agents need to be honest to the their girls. Instead of doing false promises to them. But girls also need to realize also that need to put in the effort to, if they want to make it big. They have to earn their spot.

Some women to my knowledge have also praised the porn industry for helping them out and give them better lives. Sophie Dee got out living in poverty, Leah Luv was able to pay for her son medical expenses when he had cancer as a baby. To name a few.

To me porn is porn. It what it is. Another part of business in the entertainment industry. Plain and simple. Yes I agree that some porn themes should not be accepted such as rape scenario theme from Kink. Also there are some porn that I question the legitimacy of the safety of the women and men in the Eastern European porn industry mainly in Russia and also cam models in Russia and South America. How many of those girls/women and men choose on their own free will to be in that line of work. You can tell on their faces that they don’t want to be there. They are emotionless. Which is sad.

But most of it can be quite enjoyable to watch.

There are also some many studies on the negative on porn on people. But there are some positive things too. There was a porn documentary I saw in 2020 (filmed before Covid) that I saw that had a group of young adults (both guys and girls) talking about the porn industry what there thought of it. One of guys in the documentary said that gay porn helped him accept his sexuality. And I thought that was pretty cool. Many of the groups took part in seeing the behind the scenes of a porn shoot and talk to the cast of a European porn shoot. Also they got to talk to some anti porn women on showing the violent side of porn, mainly from kink. And many of the young adults of the documentary agree that Kink is not suitable porn. Then at the end of the documentary most of the group took part in a violence against women rally/protest.

I think porn help me on my sexual too. First time seeing 2 girls going at it than later on the film it had a 3some. my brain just unlocked itself, hard to put it in words but it felt right.

At the end of all this, like I said porn is porn. Another part of business in the entertainment industry. To make it big, it all about luck and putting in the effort. Being there at the right place at the right time. Like any job and life , there the good the bad and the ugly.

Edited April 13 by Pklon
Press enter by mistake

[Billygoat 416]

Personally We prefer home videos/pics, amateur video/pics of mature real couples, singles and groups/swingers.

 

Unexpected results, surprises, reactions etc.

 

commercial porn is ok and typical…..often boring, at least for us.

 

However;

 

The revenue from the global porn industry is $100 billion and is expected to increase to $117 billion in 2030.

The revenue from the US porn industry is $13 billion.

In comparison: the NFL generated revenue of around $12 billion in 2022, and Netflix generated revenue of around $31 billion in 2022.

How do porn sites make money: 70% of revenue comes from ads (banners & aff. links), 20% of revenue comes from subscription plans (live webcam, premium, etc.), and 10% of revenue comes from online porn games.

Definitely increases sexual imaginations for most.

Definitely increases skill sets.

‘Definitely provides out of proportion expectations.

 

Because of our anti sex industry views making sex, sex industry and those (women more than men) negative, societal disgusted point of views.  Except for those who watch porn secretly those who make money are looked down on as broken disgusting people (again, women more than men) and against the law in many cases, especially offering sex for cash.  We prefer an organized legal sex industry including paid services.  
 

There is a great line in the movie Private Benjamin by Goldie Hawn “….I’m a housewife we give it away”.  Sadly this is our collective acceptance/attitude towards women and sex.  

 

 

[GoldCoCouple 4,021]

Back in the 'golden age' of porn (80s-90s), there pretty much was only one option and that was to be a star in porn movies. There were no other alternatives, and if you didn't become a star, you were already close to the end of your rope. Also, social pressure, society, and stigmas cause more than a few porn stars who more often felt either trapped by situations or due to the abundance of drugs and the party culture of the time, to turn to drugs and alcohol as a crutch. These days, there are so many different options to make money in porn, it no longer is a 'do or die' proposition. There are still movies, but now there are dozens of other choices, and all of them can be profitable if you are looking to make money with it. Probably the biggest is Only Fans and other similar sites, but there is also personal websites, subscription services, selling adult products, streaming, photography, audio, 'custom' (making something for a specific kink or specific person), VR, erotic stories, and many others. Revenues of the adult industry are difficult to determine, but a 1970 federal study estimated that the total retail value of hardcore pornography in the United States was no more than $5 million to $10 million. But by 2011, pornography was becoming one of the biggest businesses in the United States and in 2014, the porn industry was believed to bring in at least $13 billion a year. As of 2023, the global porn industry made over $97 BILLION dollars and it is expected to exceed $120 billion in 2024.

 

People are no longer looking at porn as a last resort, but in many times, a first resort. Kaden Kross was attending Sacramento State University (as a psych major) when she quit school to become a 'porn star'. She later moved behind the cameras to become a director of porn movies. There are constant stories in the news of women and couples making 6 figures on Only Fans and other similar sites, in addition to their day jobs.

 

I think the bigger problem here is when something...anything, becomes an addiction. Be it drugs, alcohol, porn or anything else. To much of anything can easily end up being a bad thing...for both the creator and the consumer.

[EroticGent 65]

The points made in the above posts are fascinating-- both the economics which I suspected and the options which can give more control.   However, I do worry about the dark side of parts of the porn industry that can exert quite an emotional and physical toll on the performers who entered the field voluntarily.  I find some porn quite arousing and especially love authentic porn by non-professionals ("amateur porn"), some of the early performances by fresh new performers which can be quite authentic and arousing, and classic porn from the "golden age".  However, when I watch professional porn these days, I tend to watch less of it and am more questioning of it after having seen the mainstream movie "Pleasure", which looks at the Los Angeles porn industry through the eyes of a young star.  I think about what the young star went through and ultimately exited when I see some of the scenes.  I seem to have become a bit more squeamish and careful about watching mainstream porn.

[let's do it again 382]

I have to disagree on some points made here. I retired from a factory of 3,000 employees and drugs was everywhere starting in the 80's with cocaine to the present with pills, drugs are everywhere not just the porn industry, partiers will be partiers! The biggest difference I see is how anyone now can make their own video, post it, and be a star. Look how many women are making videos of themselves masturbating or whatever and how many different videos they have posted, I don't know what kind of money they get, but I had a young lady told me she made more money being on Only Fans than she made at the factory. I see more young ladies putting themselves out there on PornHub or being on Only Fans, which by the way I knew 5 women in the factory that was on Only Fans making extra money and no one that I know batted an eye about it !

[Fundamental Law 2,825]

We'll respond to the initial inquiry.

The industry is somehow successful. It has been in every day and age. The question is ... why? 

Only then can we respond to the questions of where does it seem to fall short and how can it be improved?

 

We'll assert that porn is different than erotica. Porn--regardless of whether it is fantasy porn, mommy porn, anime porn, soft-core, hard-core, or apple-core--has one common characteristic. It somehow invites the viewer to project themselves into the story. It might be projection into written text, it might be projection into pictures or video, whatever. Porn is sought after because it frees the viewer from their physical, emotional, social, psychological , relationship constraints, invites suspension of disbelief (if not reality altogether) and says to the reader/viewer--you can be part of this. 

 

The problem arises that sex is so much more than "Tab A in Slot B". And so much of porn today is simply visual Tab A into Slot B. It lacks even the laughable choreography of "professional wrestling".  Much of it is...boring. 

 

What makes for great fantasy, great entertainment, great "we can imagine ourselves there" is, of course, story. Why are these people coming together? What are there flaws? What is the life situation that has juxtaposed them? How does the narrative keep them apart until the power of attraction overwhelms them? Showing up at a swinger party is not narrative. Stepmom-stepson is not narrative. They are (at best) tropes. We end up not caring. 

 

That said, we think the next great innovation will be personalized AI-enabled porn. Where deep fantasies are realized, taboos are violated and so on. Where the viewer is not depending on a writer/director's imagination, but one's own. 

 

The characters have to be believable enough, flawed enough, passionate enough, to make the whole thing worth experiencing. 

[Fundamental Law 2,825]

Maybe this needs a separate thread: suppose that you and your s/o were writing/directing the porn. What is the storyline for your production? Who are the characters, why are they there, what are the near-misses bringing them together, what happens after they get together, how are they changed? Think a bit on some of the classics from the "Golden Age of Porn" like the Devil in Miss Jones, Behind the Green Door, etc. 

[Anon321 483]

I have a lot of mixed opinions on the porn industry nowadays.  I do think that it's a good thing that there is more homemade porn that people can put out because they enjoy it.  And they also have the ability to make themselves stars and money through channels like OnlyFans and live webcams.  I feel like this has also made porn and sex more accepted and less shameful.

 

Having said all of that, I feel it has also killed the mainstream business of porn.  I can't imagine how these companies can make the same money off of big porn stars when there is just so much free and competitive content out there now.

 

I think another downside is that the content has gotten so extreme that it has desensitized some people, especially younger people.  We see this all the time.  We've played with guys of all different ages and the younger ones are rougher and kinkier and I think a lot of it is due to the porn today.  And I am not talking about the rape scenes on something like Kink that OP referred to.  If the parties all consent and there are the proper precautions in place including safe words/ actions, other men and women on set to make sure everything is proper and not boundaries are crossed, etc., then I'm actually perfectly fine with it.  It's more of the amateur porn today where women are unknowingly getting themselves into abusive scenes without proper precautions.  Facial Abuse falls into this category.  All the younger guys are very familiar with their work and many have cited specific scenes of stuff they saw and want to do. 

 

Overall, things like facefucking, anal, pissing, and overall rough sex acts whether spanking, slapping, spitting, hair pulling, etc. just seem to be more commonplace in both porn and real life.  I also think there is much more emphasis on humiliation in porn which has also carried over into real life.  Most of the time it is humiliating the woman, however there has also been an uptick in male humiliation from cuckold scenarios.

 

I am not judging these acts themselves.  Hell, my GF LOVES being dominated and humiliated in bed.  I mean, she complains when a guy isn't rough with her.  But I always thought of her as in the minority, whereas in porn it almost seems to be the majority now.  Just because my GF likes it doesn't mean the majority of women want a guy to ram their cocks down their throats until they puke.  But its become a more and more common theme in porn and I think that is translating to real life sex too.