Porn 2.0

In the words of esteemed thought leader L.L. Cool J, “Conventional methods of making love kind of bore me.”  Amen, Cool James.

Like so many of us, I was past puberty when the internet began blossoming.  My first email address came freshman year of college.  Approximately twenty minutes after creating my Hotmail account, I was frantically searching for the P word.

And so began my quixotic quest towards onanistic heights of glory, fueled by my new friend, the triple W.

In the early days there were the slow-loading JPGs of ever-more-scantily-clad women.  Persian Kitty was the hub, and finding a good batch of photos involved clearing a lot of ad/spam cobwebs.  The photos quickly slanted towards the hardcore, though it took a lot of patience before we Edisoned the daguerrotypes and moved into the age of motion picture porno.  And what a golden age that was. Doubtlessly, drug stores saw lubes flying off the shelves at ludicrous speed, teenagers began monopolozing the family computer room after dark, and the world watched patiently as society grew hair on it’s communal palm.

But before we knew it, we’d passed the golden age and modernity, arrived on the shores of postmodern porn hunting, and now find ourselves in the throws of post-post pornucopic chaos.  There are sites that link to other sites in an endless turtles-all-the-way-down paradox.  There was the MILF phenomenon of the early 00s, which is now an empty term, since most MILF sites now include girls of all ages.  There are BDSM comics, a rash of YouTube style porn streaming sites, and the promise of web cams in every nubile young woman’s pretty-in-pink bedroom.  Ah, the widening gyre of internet porn.

What I’m getting at is this- most males (and I’d imagine many females) in the world are suffering from masturbatory ennui because of the embarrassment of riches that internet porn has provided us for most of our adult lives.  And for the most part, the net isn’t evolving as fast as we are becoming bored.

Behold, the advent of Porn 2.0!

I think Chuck Klosterman was the first to make the proclamation, in Chapter 9 of his best-selling Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs.  The only trend in porno which has continually moved forward amidst the entropy of all other smut is AMATEUR PORNOGRAPHY.  We are constantly moving away from high production values in the hope of abolishing the fourth wall forever.

Society wants nothing more than to screw the girl next door.  And every day the internet gets us tantalizingly closer.

Just as Web 2.0 revolutionized the way we looked at the internet, so Porn 2.0 forces us to re-focus.  When I ask my friends what sites they frequent during their alone-time, I hear less and less The Hun and Richard’s Realm, and more and more Facebook, MySpace and Flickr.

Facebook, MySpace and Flickr.  The democratization of porn and the victory of the Male Gaze.  Now everyone is officially a porn star, whether you’re softcore (your Facebook pics consist of visits to Europe and birthday parties) or hardcore (you’ve got some swimsuit pics or artistic nudes in your Flickr account).  Now we are all the Girl (or Guy) Next Door.  And everyone is humping everyone’s friends, every night.

Where will this evolution take us next?  From professional amateurs in the Valley to actual amateurs who were being paid, on to leaked sex tapes of your ex-girlfriend, and now to social networking smut…  Where can we go from here?

I explored the virtual porntopia of Red Light District a few years ago.  Avatars controlled by actual humans were having their way with other avatars, exchanging poorly-typed grunts and moans.  I’ve seen videos of full-body-sensor-suits that allow you to mimic fornication, and transmit your movements into a virtual world for your virtual partner to see and react to.  Adultery?  The shifting boundaries of adultery will doubtlessly be one of the most fascinating topics in the next decade.  Instead of being caught with your neighbor’s wife, you’ll be caught virtua-rutting your neighbor’s wife’s avatar, as she types out her whinnies of pleasure next door.

If we’ve arrived at Porn 2.0, where will we find 2.1 or even 3.0?  Any forecasters out there?