Frequently Freakonomics-addled economics professor Alex Tabarrok relays the following from Louis Theroux in The Guardian

...it is difficult to see how a business selling hardcore movies and even internet clips is sustainable when most people simply don’t want to pay if they don’t have to. To many people, when it comes to porn, not paying for content seems the more moral thing to do.

Source: The Guardian

To which I can only say I'm winning. That's a link to what I think was my first assertion that as both the stigma for acknowledging one's sexual activities and the economic barriers to entry drop, the number of people who find it exciting to upload "porn" made with partners who similarly enjoy exhibitionism is going to increase. And as it increases it's going to eclipse industrial porn.

Or, as I'd put it today, I would add that, especially now that both stigma and capital barriers to entry are so low, to many other people when it comes to porn not charging for the content they and their sex partners produce and upload also seems like the more moral thing to do.

Because the best thing about zero-marginal-cost porn is there’s also approximately zero marginal incentive for the coercion, exploitation, and unsafe working conditions which have traditionally been the biggest objections to porn, at least on the progressive side of anti-porn debates.

Photo by Flickr user Universal Pops. Used under a Creative Commons license.

So for their regular weekly Wise Guys feature Em & Lo asked for answers to a reader's question: "What’s the appeal of the “money shot?" Although I'm one of their Wise Guy contributors the question didn't pop up in my rotation. But I did leave a comment. Em & Lo were then nice enough to make it their comment of the week this week.

So once again the question was "What’s the appeal of the “money shot?" Here's what I said.

I’m not even stepping into the whole “facial” business. I’ll just point out Charlie Glickman’s thoughts from a post that arrived in my newsreader moments before this one.

Instead I’ll just say I think the “money shot” is a seriously stupid dual artifact of porn. First, in the production of porn it’s just way more convenient to towel semen off skin than out of bodily orifices and therefore it’s more cost effective. This is why, at least early on, it was the low-budget porn shops that did money shots rather than the well-heeled ones. Second, for decades, anyway, porn was primarily an aid for male masturbation and so, I think, money shots are a way to help watchers identify with male actors.

I really think the masturbation element is key. Yes, you’ll occasionally see men’s parters “finishing” them off, but for the vast, vast, vast majority of cases the man essentially stops interacting physically with his partner, steps back a ways, and basically jacks off.

Again, fine if you’re at home alone. But seems to me sort of the whole point of sex with a partner is to have sex with them… not just on them.

Now, that said, don’t get me wrong. If you’re both into it (and increasing numbers of both men and women seem to be) and it’s all good clean fun for both of you then great. Lots of great things about “sex” don’t actually involve sex.

Also, that said, another name for “money shots” is “the withdrawal method.” And while nothing in life is certain, when ejaculation occurs outside a partner’s body it at best reduces the odds of pregnancy and STI transmission and even at worst it evens them out between the semen donor and semen receiver. So that’s ok too.

But at the end of the day, for me, the physical pleasure reduction of orgasm via masturbation rather than with a partner isn’t worth whatever symbolic enjoyment it seems to bring other people.

So, again for me, thanks but no thanks.

Source: Em & Lo

Note: I shared the comment-of-the-week slot with fellow Wise Guy pinch-hitter Mark Luczak, who seems to share my assessment.

Photo by Flickr user Photography_Gal. Used under a Creative Commons license.

Don't ask me why I would know such a thing but sex on a trampoline isn't as much fun as it sounds.

Actually that's not quite true. It's lovely to be outdoors, if you get a thrill out of the possibility of being seen or perhaps caught it can be fun, and hey, it's a nice relatively flat surface. And since trampolines are a great form of exercise and sex after mild physical exertion can be pretty great because of the increased circulation, oxygenation, muscle activation, and body warmth.

So let me rephrase my original sentence: "don't ask me why I would know such a thing but vigorous woman- or man-on-top PIV intercourse on a trampoline isn't as much fun as it sounds.

Yes, of the 100,000 or so trampoline-related emergency room visits sprained penises, bruised hips and pubic bones, and other pelvis-related injuries rank pretty low. But...

Oh wait, I said don't ask why I would know such a thing... :-)

I'll just say that it was years ago.

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Incidentally, at least according to Google, while Rule #34 ("if you can imagine it there's porn of it") appears to be conserved thanks to a few relatively random uploads to sites like YouPorn, there do not appear to be any dedicated trampoline porn sites.

This, incidentally, could be more significant than some people might think. A few years ago I predicted that the flood of amateur photography made possible by stigma relaxation plus affordable home recording equipment plus ordinary network effects would have strong negative consequences in the market for paid porn. After all, 5 megapixel cameras on dumb cellphones are now par for the course so if even one tenth of one percent of the billion or so people with digital capability choose to upload images they've taken for their own enjoyment that's 100,000 new actors and models competing with paid performers and producers.

I'm confident there will always be specialty sites, particularly for the kinds of things far more people want to consume than are willing to produce for their own recreation (cough kink.com) but to invert William Gibson's famous quip, the future may not yet be evenly distributed but it's here.

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Note: I don't object to commercial porn in principle, and the total market for professionals will never be completely replaced any more than affordable home equipment has replaced ordinary professional photographers. But the influx of volunteers both in front of and behind cameras has reduced the previously high opportunities for arbitraging the ability to make money by depicting fairly ordinary people engaging in what at the end of the day are fairly ordinary sexual activities.

Note: The enclosed erotic male image is considered perfectly "safe for work" since it only shows body parts that straight men don't realize are sexy.  All links, however, lead to other NSFW posts.

Note to Rep. Weiner and... pretty much every other man who thinks it's the height of creativity to snap a pixie of their peepee and call it erotic, here's how you do it.

Australian sex-blogger and frequent erotic self-photographer GeekyVamp reposts another woman sex-blogger, Musingsandmischief's repost of a male self-photographer, Isinpi's photo.

Photo by Tumblr user Isinpi.

Oh wow, mr Isinpi,

this pic deserves to be reblogged the shit out of. Well played sir, well played…

musingsandmischief:

Beautiful picture, no wonder I keep seeing reblogs with you getting tumblr ladies weak at the knees.

isinpi:

I can’t decide which one, so fuck it I’ll post two. Hands, clavicle, lips, and scruff in one photo.

Source: There May Be Tits There May Be Banter

It's not that women don't think penises are sexy.  Or that penis bulges veiled behind athlete-gray underpants are sexy.  A surprising number do.  But what seems to be an even more surprising number of women prefer a bit more context -- as, in fact, would most men if they too were regularly innundated with random unsolicited closeups of solicitous women's vulvas.  Once context is established (and believe it or not, intentionally visiting a porn site establishes some kind of context) then one has a great deal more latitude.

But for out of the blue imagery?  Even when you want to preserve your anonymity?  Well.  If you follow the link to his Tumblr post and check out who's already followed and/or liked the photo you'll find that as of this morning (the photo was posted this morning) fifteen women (and no men) have indicated their approval and several, like GV and MAM have reposted it to their own erotic-photography blogs.

Hint, maybe?  Clue perhaps?

The funniest thing?  I could be mistaken but I'm guessing that Rep. Weiner could post and tweet photos like this all day long and the likes of Andrew Brietbart would never register it.  Or if they did they wouldn't register it as anything but some kind of artsy-fartsy east-coast liberal noodlings.  Because, you see, it wouldn't be porn for men.

Now I don't happen to think there's anything wrong with porn for men per se. And of course there are plenty of women who are downright cheerful about consuming it (and of course men who aren't.)  But that's not the point.

The point is, it seems to me, that if you're interested in women, and if you're going to go around sending random, unsolicited photos of yourself to women, then maybe you should take, oh, five or ten minutes to find out what women find most eye-catching about men.  And try sending that instead.

Especially if you're going to send them via Twitter.  Because, you see, while in the ancient history that was the world before Twitter (i.e. July, 2006) and before Tumblr (i.e. 2007) it was quite a bit harder to find out what sort of erotic images of heterosexual men women preferred.  But nowadays?  If you were interested you could find out pretty quickly.  But you would have to be interested.

Update: While watering the planter boxes just now it occurred to me that I might sound like I'm claiming I know this photo but not that one will work as "porn for women."  I'm just saying that if you want to know what works, look at what women are saying works!  Same's true, obviously, about all manner of other kinds of decisions, sex-related or not, about what works for all kinds of people.  Even when you think you know what should work for other people.

Also, this post obviously isn't supposed to be an enlightening tract on how people, in Congress, in power, or otherwise, should and should not impose themselves sexually on those who have not indicated it would be appreciated.