Pornography 2.0. What Is The Secret Of The Popularity Of Home Videos? - Relationship, Sex

More and more people not only take pictures of each other during sex, but also upload videos to the World Wide Web, where a grateful global audience awaits them. There is even a social media twin term for the new phenomenon - social pornography

In pornography, "home video" has challenged industry professionals and robbed them of a significant chunk of their audience. Representatives of the American porn industry talk about a sharp decline in income and a drop in demand for a "quality product". This trend is a consequence of technological development. Photo and video equipment that allows you to make high quality materials, easily mount them and save them in a digital format, is becoming more and more accessible, and the Web makes it possible to actually make these materials public with one click. But the development of information technology acts here as a catalyst for the processes hidden in the depths of our consciousness.

OUTSIDE SEX

On one of the amateur porn sites I came across a curious video. The couple has sex in front of the bathroom mirror. The girl looks in the mirror. The guy, he is behind, holds a video camera in his hands and takes pictures of what is happening in the mirror. On the one hand, the bodies of the two characters in this plot are directly connected. However, at the gaze level, the connection between a girl and a guy is carried out through two intermediaries - a mirror and a camera. Such a scheme creates an amazing duality: the young man seems to be directly involved in the event, but looks at himself and his partner from the outside. He performs several roles at once: an actor, a cameraman and a spectator, simultaneously going outside his body and staying inside it.

The French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan suggested that in the mirror a child meets another and recognizes himself in him. Thus, the mirror plays a role in the development of his "I", connecting the consciousness with the body, which were previously split. This kind of effect of reuniting the split through reflection can be seen in sex. The act of “owning another” or “owning another you” is experienced not only through tactile sexual contact, but also through a visual information picture. The sexual "I" is cognized through a visual image, in which partners expand the boundaries of the physical "I" to two bodies.

Reaching the “mirror stage”, sexual contact reaches a new level, when partners act not only as participants in the process, but also as spectators.

The use of a mirror during sex is not a revelation, you can recall what was fashionable in the "pre-feng shui" era to hang a mirror over the bed. A camcorder is a mirror with memory. Now the image can be repeated, discussed, saved, or simply viewed together, for example, over a glass of wine.

Let's go back to Lacan and imagine a child who watches not his own reflection in the mirror, but a recording of himself dancing, for example, on Youtube. Here, self-identification is more difficult due to the lack of immediate feedback. The object on the screen sees itself as independent of the behavior of its own body, which means it is more alien. Likewise, the degree of dissonance between self and what is observed on the screen is higher in the case of video filming of intimate relationships. But the stronger the dissonance and the higher the degree of alienation, the more significant the effect of the mirror, which leads to the unity of the external and internal, their own feelings and what is seen on the screen.

Of course, the mirror effect is far from the only reason for the craving for video sex. The camera is also an instrument of domination, which builds a hierarchy of relationships between partners. The camera can also enhance the “humiliation effect”: even if the recording remains a secret for the two, it adds an element of potential audience to the relationship. Finally, the camera is the possession mechanism. If photography, as some indigenous tribes believed, could steal a soul, then filming sex locks the intimacy of the person in front of the camera in a video cage. Depending on who holds the record, the other becomes his hostage.

For the male conqueror, the camera also becomes a tool for constructing his own ego. A collection of intimate photographs or videos, even if the collection is a secret, becomes a documentation of sexual solvency. At the same time, the phenomenon of a male collector in itself, of course, is more indicative of problems with self-confidence than of success in the sexual field.

SOCIAL CAPITAL

If the internet representation (1), your blog or website is interesting - it attracts attention. Online identity works like a magnet, attracting other members of the Web. Such attention can be a factor in success. At the same time, in the new information environment, the struggle for attention is becoming increasingly fierce. It takes more and more creative and professional resources to make your voice sound loud in the online world.

A classic example of the oversupply problem is dating sites. Success depends primarily on whether your profile is noticed among thousands of others. It is quite easy to increase your visibility here. You can just pay for the rating, and then for a few seconds (and if you're lucky, even minutes) you will be in first place.

However, there are other less expensive tools available. The fact is that not only the mind, but also the body can be a factor in the formation of social capital. In the physical world, this works simply and visually - if an impressively dressed girl walks down the street, she attracts attention. How do we get people to look at us on the Internet?

Artemy Lebedev, one of the most popular bloggers, holds a contest every month: girls send their photos with naked breasts and a sign with their nickname. Blog readers comment and choose the best one - all the participants had an influx of visitors and those who added them to their friends list.

Intimate publicity acts as a mechanism for attracting attention and increasing visibility. The frank is a magnet in an environment of information surplus. In fact, bare breasts are also a mechanism for the formation of social capital. Of course, the nature of the network depends on what gets the attention. The audience that will gather around an interesting story about a trip to the ends of the world or something erotic will be completely different.

In the physical world, intimacy is terrifying in its danger, but the Internet heightens a sense of security. The fall in risks, on the one hand, and the increase in the potential for attracting attention, on the other, led to a fall in the value of candor - the inflation of intimacy. Many discussions on the Internet touch on the topic of threats to private life, not noticing that for the new generation information technologies not only reduce the area of the personal, but also change the attitude towards the publicity of the intimate, in fact changing the norms and frameworks of what is permitted.

Against this background, frankness and intimacy are increasingly becoming not only a mechanism for attracting attention, but also a part of Internet communication, and not just a source of entertainment. In the search for common interests, sex has always been one of the most significant common denominators. The only thing that does not make it one of the main topics of discussion is, again, regulatory restrictions. But the moment the Web removes or softens these barriers, taboo topics become a topic of discussion. People on the Web are easier to share intimate and discuss intimate. By the way, this is also why we see that intimate materials, videos and photographs appear more and more often not only on specialized sites, but within social networks.

Ultimately, deciding whether or not to share intimate material with the general public is a matter of balancing what you lose and what you gain by posting such information. Information technology is changing the norm. As a result, public intimacy leads to the fact that you lose less and gain more.

ON THE WAY TO THE NETWORK COLISEUM

Why do people prefer home videos to professional films with actors, budgets, and even sometimes stories? Today, both professional and amateur materials can be found with almost equal success. Moreover, more and more paid home pornography sites are emerging, which means people are willing to pay for material that didn't cost any money to produce. In addition, more and more professional materials are being produced in the pseudo-amateur genre.

It can be assumed that the reason for the popularity of amateur video is that the viewer becomes in the position of a spy. Moreover, these porn stars belong to the same world as the viewer. However, these explanations do not end there.

Human history has already known times when, in pursuit of entertainment, imitation went over the coast, finding itself in the real world. Think of the Colosseum, where death was part of the show and entertainment, but it was absolutely real. Moreover, historians write that not only gladiator fights took place on the stage of the Colosseum. Acts of love were also part of the spectacle. The feeling of imitation in this situation arose due to the fact that the action took place on stage. The Colosseum did not know the boundaries between imitation and reality, but the structure of its space clearly divided the world into a stage and an auditorium. What was happening on the stage was imitation by definition. The real remained in the auditorium.

Over the centuries, cultural development has gradually taught us to enjoy imitation. To have fun in the theater, we do not expect Chekhov's gun on stage, which, as we know, will definitely fire, and besides, it really does kill someone. However, information technologies blur the line between imitation and reality.

On the one hand, they make it easy to document the real.

On the other hand, they present us with the real through the network and the screen, dividing the space into the world of the performance and the world of the audience, just like in the Colosseum. The Internet is a global Colosseum, where the real is part of the spectacle. Be that as it may, we remain spectators, which means that any real can always be a legitimate spectacle. As a result, there is not only inflation of intimacy, but also inflation of the real. We no longer need expensive special effects, but rather the opposite - proof of the reality of what is happening. We are less and less able to enjoy imitation, while the real, in order to bring pleasure, must be not just real, but very real.

But in pursuit of the present, it is no longer enough for us that amateur porn is made by ordinary people. We want to know who they are to make sure they are one of us. Pornography, associated with a blog, a profile on a social network, a specific person, adds reality, and thus entertainment. Another element of increasing the entertainment value is becoming amateur pornography on the air, that is, not just real, but real right now. For example, it was for this that the new Internet video roulette service was often used, which arbitrarily chose a partner for video chat from the circle of site users. Spontaneity here created a sense of security, allowing the degree of public online intimacy to be maximized, bringing the casual actor to the casual viewer and allowing them to switch roles. Virtual sex using video cameras also balances on the brink of social interaction and pornography maximized for reality.

Who knows what other means of increasing the sense of reality will be offered by information technology in the future. One thing is clear - in our striving to enjoy the real, we begin to create this real, while ordinary life seems to us more and more an imitation. Concepts are replaced, and pornography becomes a relationship, while what we previously thought of as a relationship becomes a shadow of the "real present" we create.

IMPORTANT

If you are going to start creating, distributing or watching the art of home frankness, remember:

1. It is unlikely that an amateur video from your bedroom will help you find a job, potential business partners or even true friends.

2. The network does not know the expiration date and stores everything that gets into it. Do you want this photo or video to be available in 20, 30 or 40 years?

3. Don't send information via email.

4. Do not store information on a computer that is connected to the Internet.

5. If you have sex through a camera, remember that it can be recorded from the second or even from the third side.

(1) Representation - the representation of an object, but not direct, but with the help of any ideas, images.