LONG POST, so no one fucking bitch:
I started getting involved with the industry around February/March 2005, started snooping on different boards a few months after. I've noticed a remarkable change since then, much of it seeming to be mirroring the current gloomy U.S. economic state, but a bunch of reasons that have been porn's own creations that I blame for the decline.
First there's way too many companies out there, way too much content and way too may names for me to follow porn news anymore. It seems like it was so much simpler three or four years ago.
There's been a ton of personal tragedies; I think the turning point was when Jon Dough hung himself in August 2006...its been nothing but shitty stories about free wheeling Brian Surewood, Panty Raider/Rapist Jack Venice, Chico and Haley, and tons of overdoses. Many of these reaching national news headlines. I just don't know if any of these are sobering enough. Hell, even Joe fucking Francis spent most of the last few years behind bars!
Who's porn's #1 villain now? Shelley fucking Lubben? John Ashcroft seemed so much more imposing. With an industry so full of whackos and ex-cons I'm surprised no one's just flipped out on her yet.
I think the curtains shielding so many of porn's "Great Wizards of Oz" have been yanked off the rod. In 2005 Alt Porn was all the rage (I admit, I was a fan and thought it could be a cool new porn revolution). Instead we get Eon McKai on a Showtime "reality" show looking like the world's biggest douche (is it a wonder he loved Kurt Lockwood in so many of his epic artistic works?) Or Steve Hirsch's rapist glare he always seems to have? Ick. Porn just kind of fizzled in the mainstream the last few years...so much publicity seemed to surround the ridiculous hype of celebrity porn tapes. We went from Pam Anderson and Paris Hilton to Chyna and MINI ME? WTF?
I thought Free Speech Coalition was some intelligent power house of a force; after seeing them up close and personal its no wonder they've imploded over the last few years. This was an organization that won their own Supreme Court case just a few years previously. While they tried to have everyone fear a big 'ol Obscenity Boogey-Man knocking on every company's doors, 2257 inspections came and went, most companies seemed happy to throw those charged (Max, JM, Extreme Associates especially) with Federal obscenity violations to the wolves...yet FSC ignored all sorts of issues until too late. Piracy? Now they're just starting to address it (five years too late), or OSHA enforcement which will quite possibly become the biggest headache for the most producers within California, not to mention insurance for filming, contracts of "independent contractors?"
I had four or five friends who I had met in college who eventually got involved in the business at all sorts of levels (I met them all before they went to porn, from performing to behind the scenes at some of the biggest companies to small operations). Not a single one remains; for me I've lost much of my personal connection to the industry so I've cared less and less.
Though its not all lost; there seems to be a resurgence in sexual talk among people my age and I've noticed more and more friends doing their own private photo shoots or movies on their I-Phones. The same technological advances that are powering a new promiscuity and sexual openness are killing porn. Guess it might be for the better though.
