Pornographic movie

Pornographic movies appeared shortly after the creation of the movie technology that made them possible. Pornographic films have much in common with other forms of pornography.

Table of contents

1 Overview
2 Sub-genres
3 Clichés
4 AIDS and the fetishization of unsafe sex in pornography
5 See also

Overview

The movie camera has been used for pornography throughout its history, but pornographic movies were for most of that time typically only available by underground distribution, for projection at home or in private clubs.

More permissive legislation permitted the rise of "XXX-rated" movie theaters in the U.S in the 1970s. There was also a proliferation of coin-operated "movie booths" in sex shops that displayed pornographic "loops" (so-called because they projected a movie from film arranged in a continuous loop).

At that time, pornographic movies even approached acceptance into the mainstream movie industry, with films such as Deep Throat, Behind the Green Door and Gerard Damiano's 1972 film The Devil in Miss Jones being shot on film with high production values, and grossing substantial amounts in movie theaters.

With the arrival of the home video cassette recorder in the 1980s, the pornographic movie industry grew massively, allowing people being able not only to view pornography in the privacy of their own home without having to go out to a theater, but also to make their own pornography. Video production is much cheaper than shooting and editing on film, and has thus displaced production on film for almost all pornographic movies.

With the advent of the Internet and DVDs, the production of pornographic movies has become even easier but is still concentrated within a few small companies.

Sub-genres

Current pornographic videos can be divided into a number of types:

Those with some semblance of a story
"Gonzo" porn, which purports to recruit amateur performers off the street (but does not actually do so, because of the need for HIV testing)
Those which are simply assemblies of sequences of sex acts

Pornographic movies are notable for their extensive use of sequels: a successful new movie will often generate 10 to 50 numbered sequels in essentially the same format.

Clichés

There are various subjects that are common in pornographic movies of the late 1990s and early 2000s. They are referred to the jargon of the pornography industry as:

Anal: anal sex is engaged in various positions, equivalent to the various vaginal sex positions.
Double penetration: where a woman is penetrated by two men, one inserts his penis into her vagina the other into her anus.
Cum Shot or Money Shot: where a man ejaculates onto a woman, usually onto her face, sometimes onto her sex organs
Gape: a gaping body orifice, usually a woman's anus, occasionally a man's anus or a vagina
A2M: Ass to Mouth, indicates the removal of the penis from the womans anus to be replaced by a second womans mouth (i.e. anal to oral sex)

These sex acts are typically presented in a ritualized manner not representative of common sexual behavior and often objectifying one or more of the performers.

AIDS and the fetishization of unsafe sex in pornography

With the advent of AIDS, the pornography industry instituted a system of testing for the HIV virus. Often the pornography industry does not depict safer sex: mainstream pornographic movies now depict a range of behaviors including anal sex that are high risk activities for STD transmission, as if the taboo status of these activities has made them more thrilling for the consumers of pornography. Anal sex and other similar activities are now part of heterosexual pornography in a way that was unprecedented before the outbreak of AIDS.

Much more should be written on this topic, which is a psychosexual oddity of some note