How the Crisis Changed Porn and Politics
Porn stars sign autographs at the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo (AEE) in Los Vegas, Nevada, 10 January 2007 AFP PHOTO / Robyn BECK
On January 8th, porn industry moguls Larry Flynt and Joe Francis appealed to Washington for a $5 billion bailout. “The government’s handing out money to the auto industry,” said Francis, creator of the “Girls Gone Wild” franchise, “why shouldn’t it hand some to an industry the nation could not live without?”" While their appeal amounted to little more than a publicity stunt, the porn makers may have been justified in arguing the American porn industry is tied to the political and economic climate of the nation.
Porn producers are quickly realizing their industry is not immune to the economic conditions of the current FICRY. As the wallets of porn users are slimming, access to pornography has largely become democratized. On sites like YouPorn and Xtube, every internet user can upload and download porn at no cost. By visiting these sites, users have access to an entire digital library of pornography. The task of today’s pornographers is then to produce a product that people will pay for even when they can access homemade porn for virtually no cost.
How can the industry compete with sites like YouPorn? Porn moguls have responded to democratized access to porn by radicalizing their product. Kinkier, harder-edged porn is harder to find on free online sites. The porn industry’s only chance at staying afloat is to have a monopoly on extreme fetishes and sexual practices the amateurs won’t dare to try. For More Information, Click Here.
Exxxotica 2008, Porn Trade Show
This process of democratization and subsequent radicalization is not unique to the porn industry. American’s are most familiar with this process as it relates to our political climate.
When the political status quo is no longer lucrative, two responses tend to emerge: First, political democratization. By the end of Bush’s second term, it became clear the status quo was no longer a viable political option. Americans were disillusioned with the state of our politics and Bush’s approval ratings had fallen to a record 22%. Obama emerged in this climate of cynicism and distrust. Many Americans felt incapable of affecting change in leadership and policy. How could Obama counteract this skepticism? He convinced voters of their own political agency. Obama’s cries of “Yes we can” reminded voters that they already have been given the power to affect change and vote for leaders that embody our ideals. We are all familiar with the rhetoric: Change does not come from external forces, but is something every individual has the power to bring about.
In order to fully empower voters, Obama’s campaign utilized social networking and video sharing technology. These technologies served to connect voters to their communities and help them share information with fellow Obama supporters. Campaign sites like my.Barack.Obama.com made every Obama fan feel as though they were part of the nationwide movement that would likely make history. There was also a wave of internet movements that didn’t stem from the campaign itself, but helped to further Obama’s democratized campaign strategy.
Obama Girl, the viral YouTube sensation, allowed voters to freely admit they, too, had a “crush on Obama.” In an almost too perfect metaphor for Obama’s campaign, Obamacon.me allowed supporters to replace Obama’s mug with their own on his iconic, “Hope” posters. In Obama’s campaign, the internet provided an ideal tool for democratizing our politics.
Obama Girl Bares it All
Should we be surprised that the same technologies that connected and empowered Obama voters have also served to democratize the porn industry? Sites like YouPorn and Xtube.com, the my.Barack.Obama.com of the porn industry, allow every user to become part of the democratization of pornography. Every visitor to the site can download a seemingly infinite amount of user-generated porn content for free. Most importantly, uploading videos of yourself can make you an overnight porn sensation.
Mike Rizzo, a plumber from New Jersey, now gets recognized on the streets for his homemade pornography: “I put a new video up a few weeks ago and it already has 700,000 hits. The other day someone at the grocery store recognized me from XTube.” Indeed, these so-called “amateurs” are becoming the new face of the porn industry. People like Rizzo, an everyman of porn users, have replaced the flawless and unrealistic image of a porn star. “LordBenthefirst,†a college student who shoots porn videos for Xtube in his free time, explains the appeal of amateur porn: “It feels like you could have sex with this person if they lived in your town.†Scenes from pornography are no longer silicone fleshbots and unattainable fantasies, but something every user can emulate, the porn-star-next-door.
After all this time… are we the porn stars we’ve been waiting for? Perhaps Obama’s cries of “Yes We Can†not only resonated with undecided voters but with porn users facing tough economic times. Yes, we can demand free porn. And yes, we can have our own sex-tape scandal. The transformation of the porn industry was not driven from an external force; it was by, and of course, for the people.
The Backlash: This process of democratization has also given rise to a new brand of politics and pornography. This tendency is not uncommon in our history. When democracy offers freedoms that are perceived as threats to their ideals, conservatism comes to the political forefront. So how did social conservatives respond to the general trend towards democratization? They moved to the right.
In the months since Obama’s inauguration, Americans have witnessed the radicalization of the right-wing. Cheney has gone on a publicity tour defending interrogation tactics that violate the terms of the Geneva Convention. Cheney’s national security beliefs are so extreme they lost favor with Condaleezza Rice and Bush by his second term. Without a clear leader or convincing leader, Rush Limbaugh has emerged as the default spokesperson of the party. Limbaugh has said of Obama’s victory: “I want him to fail, if his agenda is a far- left collectivism, some people say socialism, as a conservative… why would I want socialism to succeed?”
Now, Limbaugh has been spewing this sort of hate for years, but never has the GOP been so indebted to him as a leader. Michael Steele, chairman of the party recently joined the long list of Republicans who had to apologize for his criticism of Limbaugh for fear of upsetting the party base. The radicalization of the party even helped convince Senator Arlen Spector to move to the other side of the aisle: “the Republican Party has moved farther and farther to the right, I have found myself increasingly at odds with the Republican philosophy and more in line with the philosophy of the Democratic Party.” Democratization, the driving force of Obama’s campaign and election, is so threatening to conservatives that they are forced to radicalize their politics and move right, courting a less mainstream audience. Click Here for more.
An examination of the post-election porn industry reveals the process of radicalization is both a political and cultural force. As the FICRY and the emergence of YouPorn threatens the state of porn industry, many production companies and websites have been forced to radicalize their content. Porn producers realize their industry is no longer “recession-proof” they have to find a product that people would still pay for even when they can access homemade porn at zero cost. How can the industry compete? Porn producers are cutting costs in production and marketing extreme fetishes and unsafe practices. “Barebacking,” or unprotected gay sex, was once a niche market. Today, in order for porn producers to stay afloat, the majority of their content has to be condom-free.
Of course, when I compare the constituents of the Republican Party with porn users who are willing to pay for harder-edged content, I do not mean to say the Republicans advocate radical sexual behavior. Despite the recent, conservative celebration of tea-bagging, abstinence education has long been a cornerstone of conservative social policy. However, the same reactionary, cultural forces that allow radicalism in politics have created a harder-edged, fringe component of the porn industry. While radicalism in politics gave us Rush Limbaugh as the predominant Republican spokesman, radicalism in porn sells strange and unorthodox fetishes.
Sarah Palin waves in front of her daughter Bristol after being introduced as U.S. Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain's 02/09/2008
The network of YouPorn users is far removed from the fledgling, mainstream porn industry and Limbaugh-listeners aren’t in communication with the network of Obama supporters and organizers. But is this polarization necessarily negative? If we’ve learned anything from the impending collapse of the porn industry, it’s that radicalization pushes the customers that can’t find the content they want on sites like YouPorn, to the fringes of the porn community. The same applies to political conservatives. If the mainstream media is too liberal, let them listen to Rush Limbaugh. Limbaugh-listeners, like radical porn users, will be excluded from the conversations that determine the direction of our politics. And maybe that’s the most effective way to combat radical conservatism. Since the day YouPorn and “Yes We Can†came to dominate our culture, radical conservatism is little more than a fetish. Click for more more this author from FICRY.com
By Leah Weiss, Featured Contributor, FICRY.com
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