Porntifications

Posted by mikezillion at December 2nd, 2007

Bareback is the norm in straight porn. It is also the driving business model of several edgier gay porn companies. This split comes as a result of the higher level of awareness in the gay community about the dangers of barebacking. Some gay consumers get off on the danger of barebacking, either in their porn or in their personal lives. I don’t know of any studies, but I imagine that the popularity of bareback sex in porn has increased the popularity of bareback sex in real life.

Straight consumers don’t really seem to consider it a sexual act if some body fluid isn’t shared. At the moment, straight porn companies are hard-pressed to sell safe sex porn. Instead, the industry has turned to testing performers. That works for the performers, but it is a cop-out when it comes to social responsibility. Instead of eroticizing bareback sex, we as an industry could be demonstrating the broad erotic potential of safe sex.

The social networking sites are also split between bareback and safe sex seekers. Now a company called Safe Sex Passport is capitalizing on the popularity of bareback sex and the fear of disease with a service that will certify people as disease-free for a membership fee of $75 and a testing fee of about $200 or so. They claim to have over 15,000 registered members already.

It will be interesting to see how this new business model develops.

Posted by mikezillion at November 8th, 2007

According to an article in Forbes, Sumner Redstone, the Chairman of Viacom believes that copyright protection is the incentive which drives the creation of content. To me, that seems backwards.

I would say that copyright drives the production of much mediocre market-driven content (including a lot of pornography) but is actually a disincentive to true creative content creation.

If someone has something to say, and wants to get it said, any limitation on how many people are exposed to it will just frustrate the creative process. This is unlike child protection legislation, which filters an audience by the appropriateness of the message for the viewer. A creative artist wants everyone in the appropriate target audience to see. It is the folks who market the expression as a product who benefit from copyright protection.

On the other hand, if someone has nothing to say, but wants money for saying something people enjoy hearing, copyright is a true friend.

Perhaps this has implications for the writers strike?

Posted by mikezillion at November 8th, 2007

I was watching this documentary about how advertising targets the hidden desires of the masses. It occurred to me that pornography essentially gives away what advertising and PR (and maybe religion) only suggests in order to gain and hold an audience. Propaganda is mass persuasion based on individual hidden desires. According to the emerging theories of attention economy, pornography would be an obvious threat to any influencer seeking power.

Posted by mikezillion at July 12th, 2007

I am not kidding you. This was actually handed to me on the corner of 17th and Castro St. in the heart of San Francisco’s gay district this afternoon, by a group of folks soliciting contributions to support the impeachment of Dick Cheney. (Note: The telephone numbers are for Nancy Pelosi. The intent was to encourage folks to call her office and support the impeachment.)

When I objected that giving people condoms with staple holes through the middle was irresponsible, they said nobody would be foolish enough to use one. I pointed out that it was foolish to provide them in the first place, and they asked me whether I was generally uncomfortable with sexual humor. I told them I run a porn studio, and that this was a public health issue. They replied that they were here about political issues, not public health, and asked again for a donation–or at least for a few hundred replacement condoms if I was really that serious about getting them to stop what they were doing. It went on like that for a few minutes. They continued to hand these out while we talked.

I finally left, and went two blocks down Market Street to the offices of the Stop AIDS Project. They immediately dispatched a volunteer with a box of 800 condoms to explain the situation to these irresponsible solicitors. I ran into the volunteer an hour later, and he told me that he had succeeded where I had failed. I guess 800 condoms are a good bargaining edge.

How can folks think this is ok? Sheesh!

Posted by mikezillion at June 3rd, 2007

Exhibitionism is becoming part of normal expressive sexuality, but it’s starting to affect our children in negative ways. Given the trend, it may be that exhibitionists with alternative body types, such as the popular Suicide Girls site, could help pave the way to a more accepting and healthy body image for all of us.

Posted by mikezillion at June 1st, 2007

The Second Life community is reeling from a blog post warning that the service will not tolerate certain taboo activities on its site. Among these is role-playing of sexual interaction involving minors, even when both role-players are actually consenting adults.

This is getting into a sticky area, and I don’t envy the folks at Linden Labs, who run Second Life, their responsibility. I’ve visited Second Life a few times (and no, I’m not going to tell you my alias there) and as far as I can tell it’s equally easy for a minor or for an adult to log in and play around as either a virtual minor or a virtual adult. This being the case, I don’t see that they have any choice but to impose reasonable limitations on the activities of their members.

Make a site that’s limited to adult members, and make sure that all the members are adults, and then we can open this discussion again. Of course, I might still side with the folks who want to impose similar limits on what’s acceptable in virtually public adult-only spaces, but at least then the discussion would be worth having.

Posted by mikezillion at May 21st, 2007

Titan Media has signed up to be the first adult gay studio to sponsor the annual Folsom Street Fair in San Francisco at the “Presenting Sponsor” level, right beside Miller Beer and NakedSword. The agreement includes a three-year commitment to the sponsorship, and the launching of a new line of leather-themed Folsom DVD’s from Titan. Sounds like a good deal all around!

Posted by mikezillion at May 20th, 2007

I don’t mean to be insensitive. I think it’s a shame that the most representative memories I have of Jerry Falwell are his losing lawsuit against Larry Flynt and the First Amendment, and his outing of Tinky Winky. I’m sure he was a great man and a fine leader to his community. I believe he was sincere in his faith. I just have trouble reconciling the images.

I blame myself.

Posted by mikezillion at April 18th, 2007

I consider it good news when major corporations decide to loosen their standards about selling pornographic material. Circle K, the convenience store chains which operate in many Shell Oil locations, has received tacit approval from Shell Oil to permit the sale of Playboy and Penthouse magazines as “adult sophisticates.” Shell-branded convenience stores will still not carry any adult products. Shell executive Otto Meyers explained that magazines such as Playboy and Hustler do not fit the definition of pornography held by the general public. Any specific issues of community standards violation will still not be tolerated, at the discretion of the retailers.

Posted by mikezillion at April 4th, 2007

I always thought there was something appealing about Anderson Cooper. Now the French gay magazine Tetu tells me that the American magazine OUT will be officially outing the popular journalist (along with longtime-passing movie star Jodie Foster) in their next issue. Personally, I agree with the old GLAAD-SF mantra that it is not at all negative to say that someone is gay. But I don’t think it makes sense to mention it without an appropriate context. OUT’s proposed context is that gay people with media influence have an obligation to make their orientation known, for the sake of visibility. I’m not so sure that I would publish a magazine cover specifically to make the point. But I am sure it will sell copies.