I just read this interesting and encouraging column by long time porn reviewer John F. Karr about the porn DVD industry. Guess what, it's NOT all doom and gloom!
KARR'S GOLD
by John F. Karr
You know what they say about the best-laid plans. I was so busy this last week getting laid (isn't that what summer vacation is for?) that I'm not ready to continue my survey of a revitalized Falcon Studio. I'll get back to that next week. Meanwhile, here's my sudden revelation du jour. We're living in a golden age of porn.
You know I hate to call it that: porn. I don't believe the erotic movies so abundantly available to us are pornographic. So why call them that? I coulda said, It's a splendid time for skin flicks, or, These sure are happy times for hardcore. But those just don't have the same snap.
Whence cometh my porn epiphany? Movies have been giving me less and less to complain about. It's not that I'm becoming a softie with age. I realized it's simply that the product is surprisingly and reliably swell.
Yes, the abundance of the stuff is unquestionable. StorErotica.com, an online industry magazine supporting retailers of sexual goods, reported last year that counting both gay and straight, the adult industry releases over 20,000 movies a year. That's more than 20 times the mainstream industry.
But it's not just abundance that's to be celebrated. It's more to be questioned: 20,000 movies a year! The stuff piles up to our puffed-up pecs (and sometimes I feel like I've watched them all). Neither is the most remarkable thing about today's blue movies their technical quality, fine as it is with sharp image, plus videography, editing, and scoring that's so unlike the dismal, eye- and ear-straining features of yore.
It's the content, a wonderland of content that truly impresses. I marvel at the athleticism and endurance that's been bred into performers (and thus becoming a standard among lesser mortals such as you and I). There's a sexual Olympics going on! And just look at what the games include. Activities that were beyond the pale, too outre or entirely unknown a couple decades ago are now daily fare. Is it straightforward non-kink you like? It's splendidly available in suave renditions, with or without romance. Name a fetish, and there's a company devoted to it (and equally devoted to outdoing every other company). Wrestling? Check out NakedKombat.com. Fisting? Utterly commonplace. Piss? I drink it all day. Sounding? A niche, perhaps, but present and accounted for. S&M and Bondage? Served up all around. Nobody in the 70s or 80s even dreamt of anything like the beautiful cock- and body-bondage of BoundGods.com. From availability to quality, and most especially in content, a golden age.
Yet all that good-and-plenty invites rumors. One such rumor currently afloat whispers that when a local major sells off their stock of DVDs, they're gonna go strictly online-streaming. I can almost see the industry going this way. But not too soon. Another rumor has another local major player going out of business. And I wonder. My in-box is barraged with sales and bargains from every company in the biz. I'm not impugning the following companies, nor implying they're having any business difficulties. These are just random examples of current sales. Lucas has a handful of some very recent features at $20 a pop; Falcon has most of their back catalogue available through various sources for the same; Titan has a free week at their site. I could name a lot more. Yes, there's a recession. But we're not seeing a reduction in production values or cast size. Just sales and more sales.
Finally, I wonder why film directors of top brands are aiding and abetting business rivals. HotHouse owner Steven Scarborough is collaborating with new director Erik Rhodes at Falcon, while Falcon's John Bruno is moonlighting at Jet Set.
I'll close with more interesting porn facts from StorErotica. Half of all hotel in-room movie rentals are porn. But their average viewing time is a pathetically brief 12 minutes. Check in, pop off. I should think hotel porn rentals were becoming passe, however, with guys spending more time in their lap-tops when on their lap-tops, checking into websites. Eight years ago, there were 28,000 adult websites. Today there are over 280,000. 60% of all websites are sexual in nature. 77% of online visitors are male and around 41, and 75% report that they masturbate while online. Count me in on that – I'm sure not online waiting for my nail-polish to dry.
