It is possible that because we view such an astonishing amount of porn each year at Sir Rodney that we have our finger on the pulse of emerging trends in online porn, which shadows its retail cousin the DVD, but is increasingly where the action is. As we round out the year in porn, there are certain random, subjective observations that we can make about our tawdry but exciting quadrant of cyberspace.

♣ The quality of porn sluts and porn scenes is going down in direct proportion to the sheer quantity, which is just overwhelming. Thousands of titles every month. There are too many of them, and they are all the same. The tremendous amount of no-personality porn scenes shot documentary-style with no dialogue is beginning to resemble nothing more than nature footage. The porn chicks all blend together, without adhering to the imagination. It is almost as if the performers know this, and the tattoos are a bizarre and ritualistic way of differentiating themselves Powerless to offer anything but their bodies, porn chicks resort to tatoos and other fetishistic ways of differentiating themselves, ironically just adding to the confusion. Personality is ultimately going to separate the winners from the losers. This is why a dirty talking, dimpled forty-year-old swinger can come from nowhere and be a new porn sensation, or why a 23-year-old from Rutgers can simply decide to be a porn star and producer.

♣ It may be that the proliferation of “reality” porn sites has run its course. We have seen far fewer new sites professing to follow fake border patrol agents or cops who shake down porn sluts for sex. No girls are stripping in the trunk of hot rods nor trawling marinas, looking for sex on the high seas. The reality is that the spell of so-called “Reality Porn” is wearing off. Reality was nothing more or less than low-cost documentary-style gonzo porn with some framing twist - MILF-hunting, or Mike’s apartment rental for sex scheme. These are well established sites with enormous libraries of material right now, and that makes it very hard for new sites to compete. Instread, new sites will have to find other ways to cut through the clutter. Certainly, Bang Bros. (Bang Bros. Network ), Nasty Dollars (AllSitesAccess), and Naughty America (My First Sex Teacher) have been much better at growing their big franchise sites much faster and better than most new entrants, which strike us as uninspired and half hearted.

♣ The tremendous output of the low-budget product with medicore porn sluts means there are tons of product on the market with no place to go; hence, the rise of the DVD download mega site. The pricing has just fallen through the floor. It must be hurting the download-on-demand segment. Videobox is taking over the universe because it has all the recent releases (OK, mostly secondary titles) but still, it’s less than ten bucks a month.

♣ Along with fake “reality,” the appeal of Gonzo (handheld documentary camera work by the performers) is wearing off, at least on this reviewer. First, it’s just a shitty way to shoot porn. Second, we’re finding that while we still like to jump ahead to the proverbial “good stuff,” there is nothing like a good fantasy to make you remember a porn scene, and porn performers. The simplicity of the scenarios on the Naughty America sites (older man/younger women, older worman/younger man, adultery) and their appealling execution seem more exciting today than the contrived reality of MILF Hunting in the mall.

♣ The rise of the mega blockbuster DVD. In order to break through the sea of generic porn, the big studios with deep pockets can offer mega productions to command the attention of traditional - and untraditional - porn markets, and feed their all-important cable and satellite ppv and subscription channels. To the big boys, this is where the real money is. At $14.95 per movie, we have to agree. The web is a bargain medium compared to retail and cable ppv. Still, given their success in cable, the failure of major offline porn producers like Hustler, Vivid and Wicked on the web is astonishing.

In the coming year look for Sir Rodney to continue to clue you in to the biggest stories and trends in online porn. Going into the new year, we find ourselves increasingly concerned about the crackdown on porn in America. The other big trend we are tracking is the emergence of handheld devices, which lend themselves to the practical application of porn (i.e. these can be discreetly carried into the men’s room).

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 13th, 2005 at 9:17 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.