Sep. 07, 2010 - Issue #777: The Sex Issue 2010
I’d fap to that
Rule 34: If it exists, there's porn of it
It's one of the few constants on an ever-shifting list of Internet "rules." Rule 34 reads, "If it exists, there's porn of it." If that sounds vague, it's because 34 is that all-encompassing; with a few key taps on a search engine, you can find anything from pop culture figures bumpin' uglies to historical personalities paired together in the throes of passion to the most specific and shocking fetishized forms of sex. Pretty much whatever you can imagine has already likely been filmed, drawn, photoshopped or otherwise brought online; mention something you can't find on the right message board, and it'll appear soon enough.
Such extremely focused fetishizing is hardly a new concept for adult entertainment, of course. But the speed at which the Internet enables a fetish to be found is changing how we look at porn—or, more accurately, the kinds of pornography popping up online, and what forms it takes.
"That idea of, if it exists, there's porn about it, well, that's not new because of the Internet." explains Dr Rebecca Sullivan, a University of Calgary professor who teaches on and researches pornography. Her research specializes in finding new models of analyzing porn, somewhere between anti-pornography movements that see the medium "as violence against women for male pleasure," and those claiming pornography as a new form of women's sexual liberation.
"The very definition of a fetish is taking a discreet object out of its context and obsessing on [the object]," she continues. "And of course this is a key esthetic element to porn; you have the cumshot, the over-the-ass shot ... Porn operates according to a fetishized gaze—close-ups on labias and assholes and tongues and ejaculating penises. That's how it operates.
"Increasingly, porn has returned to that discreet, atomized moment," she continues. "For a while there was what people called the golden age of porn; the idea of the pornographic feature film, one that has cinematic value as well as sexual or erotic value. But increasingly, we're turning back to the fetishized moment, the atomized moment."
Sullivan explains that adult industry's dream of going mainstream began to die decades ago when VHS took off; suddenly, the skin-house cinemas were no longer necessary when you could rent a movie and watch in the privacy of your own home. With the golden age dream went big budgets and expansive story lines, and, in the present, the industry's continued to compartmentalize online. Now, you don't even have to leave your house to watch whatever it is that cranks your chain, and as long as you clear your browser's history, your fetish is more secret than ever. Full-length films are hardly necessary when most people rarely hunt for more than a scene-length video.
"The Internet gives itself to the discreet moment—Flickr only allows 90 seconds of video," Sullivan says. "[It] creates an architecture that is more amenable to that moment."
The bottom line is, of course, money: though the adult industry still releases thousands of DVDs each year, specialized fetishes that would be difficult to market on a physical level, perhaps, are much more likely to find a successful financial model for online.
"It's a lot easier to circulate the material, it's a lot quicker to access the material, and a market [for] an obscure fetish isn't that high, so how much is a company going to make on a magazine? Magazine production and distribution is expensive," Sullivan explains, "but finding [a fetish online], it's not that much money, but if you're the one who has that fetish, it takes nothing to pop that up on the website and to create the networks of fetish aficionados.
"If you can market a website that all you have to do is post a few 90-second clips and some photos, and charge people $29.95 membership, I mean why are we not doing this? It's almost 100 percent profit. And you don't have to even make your own product." V
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