Future porn flash: Flesh on flesh, sans flesh, as computer-generated porn stars
indistinguishable from people tear up the sheets.
Future porn flash: Life-sized porn stars make hay in your living room, beamed
in by holographic cameras, with you directing the action - for one of the
holograms is you.
Future porn flash: Quantum computers attached to sensory sex toys or dolls
beckon users to physically merge - to have sex - within a virtual world of
porn.
In short, porn made not for spectators, but created in part by fans who are
able to interact with real or imaginary stars.
"We are the experimental medium," said adult film actor/director Ron Jeremy, a
veteran of nearly 1,900 adult films and director of 200 more. "The live (sex)
dolls and holograms, they'll certainly be in the future. You'll be able to see
porn in 3-D. You'll be able to dial it up on your telephone. You'll be doing
your own editing, acting in your own movies."
But while many see porn flourishing well past the 50th anniversary of "Deep
Throat", others foresee a social backlash that will "quarantine" it.
Glenda Miskin, a former madame who has recruited hundreds of paraplegic women
to perform phone sex from farmhouses across the Midwest, sees adult images
someday restricted on the Internet and elsewhere.
"In 20 to 30 years, we'll see parents protecting their children full-on from
pornographic and sex-oriented businesses," said Miskin, who runs Dial A Model
Entertainment Services in Crookston, Minn.
"Now they look the other way. Their kids go online. But there will come a day
when this business will be absolutely delineated - with porn on one side and
absolute abstinence on the other."
Those who for decades have waged a losing battle in their fight against the
mainstreaming of porn hope that law enforcement will someday - through sheer
political will - return curtains to the bedroom and safeguard the Internet.
"People think there are no laws against porn - that's wrong," said Cathy Ruse,
an attorney with the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C. "The problem
is the federal and state governments don't vigorously enforce their obscenity
laws.
"People are going to get angrier and angrier about the excesses that the porn
industry is taking, with impunity ... (and) demand that something be done about
it."
But Bob Peters, president of Morality in Media, a New York-based advocate
against porn, said unless things change, the future appears ominous.
"If the current trend continues, you'll see more and more of the lifestyles
depicted in porn in real life - you're looking at anarchy, no holds barred
Sodom and Gomorrah, representing the utter breakdown of morality.
"Porn is going to become a substitute for marriage and family life."
Here to stay
Porn backers say that porn is a form of free speech and will always be part of
family life.
Tom Hymes, publisher of XBiz World, a future-oriented adult business trade mag,
said the "millions and millions" now being spent on video-game technology are
also being applied to porn. With interactive features, you'll be able to insert
yourself into any adult scenario.
"It's the `Westworld' of cyberspace," Hymes said, referring to the cinematic
robotic theme park. "These are out-of body experiences, where your reimagined
self can have sex with an alien or with any type of creature, in any type of
environment, with absolutely no restrictions. Except you're not touching."
The "biogenetic computer interface," he added, could someday even allow those
in military service to have sex with their wives or husbands at home.
So for adult industry peddlers, the money lies in advanced technology.
"Adopt or die," declared panelists at a recent XBiz adult industry conference
in Hollywood. There are riches to be made beaming postage-size porn into cell
phones around the globe.
But the real adult entertainment future lies in the morphing of Internet, TV
and videos, with video on demand described as "the big prize" poised to stream
soft- and hardcore images into every home and portable device.
"The game has totally changed," said Katie Smith, director of online
subscriptions for the Playboy Entertainment Group.
Twenty to 30 years from now, run-of-the-mill skin flicks will still titillate
mostly male audiences, forecasters say. Only they say computers will permit
untold "live" interaction with real adult actors.
Scintillating graphics, far more vivid than the chesty warriors in the recent
blockbuster "300," will usher in a world of plastic porn.
Actors may be indistinguishable from computer characters, or avatars.
With a glut of flesh, the porn star of today will have scampered into a bygone
age of celebrity.
"They'll be porn meteors - come in, burn out fast and disappear," said Bill
"Papa Bear" Margold, an early adult film veteran, film critic and an advocate
for adult industry workers.
"In the year 2022, the (porn) industry will be totally technological; it'll be
hermetically sealed - no theaters, no bookstores. ... You won't even need human
beings anymore."
But will the San Fernando Valley still reign as the porn capital of the world?
Few can say with certainty.
Dan Blake, director of the San Fernando Valley Research Center at California
State University, Northridge, said the Valley will likely be home to porn as
long as Hollywood is the heart of television and film.
"As long as the TV/film entertainment production stays here, the adult industry
is likely to stay here as well, because it has the same kind of tech facilities
and talent.
"But in order for (the adult industry) to be viable in 30 years, (it) must
conquer the (online) distribution system; they've got to figure out a way to
make it profitable for producers."
With nascent video on demand, both Hollywood and the porn companies of
Chatsworth are wrestling with how to charge for it and protect the product
against piracy.
As long as there is money to be made, some say porn's not going to go away any
time soon.
Nate Thomas, a professor of Cinema and Television Arts at CSUN, said now that
the genie is out of the bottle, we're going to see more, not less, porn.
"Our society is ... becoming more and more open," Thomas said. "They're pushing
limits in every aspect of the media.
"(Porn) is going to expand, because of the technology. It'll come through the
cell phones. It's probably going to get interactive. You'll be able to have
actual relationships with porn."
Part
VIII: Porn in the mainstream
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