In this day and age, you might wonder how the porn industry stays afloat. The mounting restrictions and outright attacks on porn are one thing. But what about the simple fact that a lot of people simply refuse to pay for porn? Yet commercial pornography continues to be produced.
Of course porn will not simply go away. If you count hand drawn images of sex then porn has been around almost as long as humankind. Even if you hold to a stricter definition of “porn” as a type of video there’s a long history. El Satario was filmed 118 years ago!
As long as people have had a way to express themselves, we have been portraying sex and sexual desires in various formats. The profit motive came in later as society changed. At first “civilized” societies tried to suppress sexual entertainment. But limericks and even printed material circulated underground. Even during the Great Depression, Tijuana Bibles abound.
By 1969 reality came to bear as Denmark legalized porn. It wasn’t long before other western democracies followed suit. Before long there were porn theatres followed by home porn movies. Once the internet came along and enabled people to stream video in their homes porn became more common place than Netflix.
Porn still makes money
Of course the most common source of porn these days is the tube sites like PornHub. Even though they have been banned or voluntarily removed from various parts of the world, these free porn sites continue to prevail. Yet there is still a lot of studio porn being made. One look at the best premium porn will show you why.
The numbers are hard to come by. Some estimates claim that porn generates hundreds of billions of dollars each year. That may very well be true. Though how is it made? And what percent is channeled through the now popular direct-to-consumer models like OnlyFans?
The old monthly subscription services have certainly dwindled. Though you can still find plenty if you take a look. One thing you’ll notice is that there are basically two types of monthly subscription porn left.
First are the legacy sites that are just coasting on their past strengths. Some are semi-broken and barely updated. If at all. Second are the high quality sites where people are obviously putting in a lot of energy and work. Some of those monthly subscription sites are still incredible to this very day.
Keeping up with the Johnsons
With so much porn out there you might wonder how to keep up with it all. Indeed even as a veteran reporter on the worldwide sex industry I am sometimes bewildered by everything out there. Apparently I am not alone. Check the comments on any online porn video and you will undoubtedly find someone asking “what is her name?”
At one point it was popular for individual porn stars to maintain their own personal pages with member sections. These days that is mostly dead, supplanted by the OnlyFans model. Yet there are still some porn companies cranking out content. They range from the small but dedicated independents to the large companies behind global phenomenon like Blacked.
Although I’ve watched more than my fair share, I do not consider myself a porn expert per se. If you want to really dig in and deep dive on all the porn available now you might want to look at a website like http://rabbitsreviews.com. They look at pretty much everything and anything online and give you a non-nonsense review of the material.
I will continue to examine the porn industry from afar. Whether that means doing more interviews, attending porn trade shows, or simply tuning in to more of the lewd stuff myself. One thing is for sure. Porn isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
