I found this article on pornography producers and their use of data mining interesting. I particularly liked the similarity it surfaces between popular science reporting and porn trends reporting. In both cases the media uses a few random and limited data points to spin a click grabbing headline. So on one hand we get that dark chocolate makes you smarter and on the other we find that millennials don’t like boobs.
It also illustrates the degree to which porn is being targeted to the niches where customers are willing to pay. Although it seems to miss a pretty big part of that story. It talks about the major producers and the amateur community, but skips over the clips sites like KinkBomb, Clips4Sale and iwantclips. The producers of that content might not be running data mining jobs on their sales data in the cloud, but it is typically very highly targeted niche material created by professionals based on customer feedback and requests.
Perhaps the most interesting question here is the one that’s almost impossible to answer: Does porn simply reveal existing kinks or create new ones? Is it leading or following? The article mentions incest as a topic that has been a big growth area. I’d also say cuckold porn is another one that seems to have gone from almost nothing to a major sub-genre in just a few years. But is this growth simply the result of a more efficient and anonymous market place? Is the number of potential cuckold fans a constant and they were just badly served before? Or is there a feedback effect, created from the prevalence of sexual imagery and more complex sexual dynamics that create more wannabe cuckolds? It’ll take more than a pornhub analyst and a database of page views to answer those questions.
Of course I couldn’t possible mention cuckolding porn and not post some shots from it featuring odd facial expressions. They’re a staple of the genre. This is from the Submissive Cuckolds site.
The answer to your question of “Does porn simply reveal existing kinks or create new ones?”, at least for me is a resounding YES.
When I first got into BDSM porn, I could care less for corporal. In fact it was a turnoff – especially if there was blood.
Then I saw this Insex show (back in the early days of Insex) where a particularly bratty sub was bent over a table, tied and being caned by PD. He would hit her, she would scream and squirm, and then taunt him. I mean really taunt him: “You hit like a girl . . . ” kind of stuff. So he’d hit her again, she would scream, squirm and taunt him.
He kept hitting her again, and again, harder and harder.
Finally, when her ass was basically hamburger, PD said “My arm’s tired and you’re enjoying this more than I am – I quit” and the show ended.
That one show started a still continuing fascination with corporal.
Readers – don’t go looking for that show. It was one of Insex early live shows and they never posted it. They claimed that the equipment failed and they didn’t get a recording – I’ll always wonder if they didn’t post it because of A) the blood which wasn’t cool back then or B) because a sub bested PD :-).