Pornographic film
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Pornographic films (pornos), erotic films, adult films, blue films, sexually explicit films, or 18+ films, are films that represent sexually explicit subject matter in order to arouse, fascinate, or satisfy the viewer. Pornographic films represent sexual fantasies and usually include erotically stimulating material such as nudity or fetishes (softcore) and sexual intercourse (hardcore). A distinction is sometimes made between "erotic" and "pornographic" films on the basis that the latter category contains more explicit sexuality, and focuses more on arousal than storytelling; the distinction is highly subjective.
Pornographic films are produced and distributed on a variety of media, depending on the demand and technology available, including traditional film stock footage in various formats,
Films with
In the 1970s, during the Golden Age of Porn, pornographic films were semi-legitimized, to the point where actors not known for appearances in such productions would be cast members (though rarely participating in the explicit scenes);[1] by the 1980s, pornography on home video achieved wider distribution. The rise of the Internet in the late 1990s and early 2000s changed the way pornographic films were distributed, complicating censorship regimes around the world and legal prosecutions of "obscenity".
Classification
Pornographic films are typically categorized as either
Pornographic films are generally classified into subgenres which describe the underlying theme or sexual fantasy which the film and actors attempt to create. Subgenres can also be classified into the characteristics of the performers or the type of sexual activity on which it concentrates and not necessarily on the market to which each subgenre appeals. The subgenres usually conform to certain conventions, and each may appeal to a particular audience.
History
Early years: before 1920

Production of erotic films commenced almost immediately after the invention of the motion picture.[citation needed] Two of the earliest pioneers were Frenchmen Eugène Pirou and Albert Kirchner.[4] Kirchner, under the name "Léar", directed the earliest surviving erotic film for Pirou. The 7-minute 1896 film Le Coucher de la Mariée had Louise Willy performing a bathroom striptease.[5] Other French filmmakers also considered that profits could be made from this type of risqué films, showing women disrobing.[6][7]
Also in 1896.
In Austria, cinemas organised men-only nights (called Herrenabende) at which adult films were shown. Johann Schwarzer formed his Saturn-Film production company which between 1906 and 1911 produced 52 erotic productions, each of which contained young local women fully nude, to be shown at those screenings. Before Schwarzer's productions, erotic films were provided by the Pathé brothers from French produced sources. In 1911, Saturn was dissolved by the censorship authorities which destroyed all the films they could find,[12] though some have since resurfaced from private collections. There were a number of American films in the 1910s which featured female nudity.[13]
At the beginning of the 20th century, Argentina may have been the first center of pornographic film production in the world.
Because Pirou is nearly unknown as a pornographic filmmaker, credit is often given to other films for being the first. According to Patrick Robertson's Film Facts, "the earliest pornographic motion picture which can definitely be dated is A L'Ecu d'Or ou la bonne auberge" made in France in 1908. The plot depicts a weary soldier who has a tryst with a servant girl at an inn. He also notes that "the oldest surviving pornographic films are contained in America's Kinsey Collection. One film demonstrates how early pornographic conventions were established. The German film Am Abend (1910) is a ten-minute film which begins with a woman masturbating alone in her bedroom, and progresses to scenes of her with a man in the missionary position, fellatio, and penile anal penetration."[19]
1920s–1940s suppression
Pornographic movies were widespread in the
1950s: home movies
The post-war era saw technological developments that further stimulated the growth of a mass market and amateur film-making, particularly the introduction of the
Entrepreneurs emerged to meet the demand. In Britain, in the 1950s, Harrison Marks produced films which were considered risqué, and which today would be described as "soft core". In 1958, as an offshoot of his magazines, Marks began making short films for the 8mm market of his models undressing and posing topless, popularly known as "glamour home movies". To Marks, the term "glamour" was a euphemism for nude modeling/photography.[23]
1960s: Europe and United States
Starting in 1961, Lasse Braun was a pioneer in quality colour productions that were, in the early days, distributed by making use of his father's diplomatic privileges. Braun was able to accumulate funds for his lavish productions from the profit gained with so-called loops, ten-minute hardcore movies which he sold to Reuben Sturman, who distributed them to 60,000 American peep show booths.[24] Braun was always on the move, and made his hardcore movies in a number of countries, including Spain, France, Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands.[citation needed]
In December 1960, American female director
In the 1960s, social and judicial attitudes towards the explicit depiction of sexuality began to change. For example, Swedish film I Am Curious (Yellow) (1967) included numerous frank nude scenes and simulated sexual intercourse. In one particularly controversial scene, Lena kisses her lover's flaccid penis. The film was exhibited in mainstream cinemas, but in 1969 it was banned in Massachusetts allegedly for being pornographic. The ban was challenged in the courts, with the Supreme Court of the United States ultimately declaring that the film was not obscene,[25][26] paving the way for other sexually explicit films. Another Swedish film Language of Love (1969) was also sexually explicit, but was framed as a quasi-documentary sex educational film, which made its legal status uncertain though controversial.
In 1969, Denmark became the first country to abolish all censorship laws, enabling pornography, including hardcore pornography. The example was followed by toleration in the Netherlands, also in 1969. There was an explosion of pornography commercially produced in those countries, including, at the very beginning,
In the United States, producers of pornographic films formed the Adult Film Association of America in 1969, after the release of Blue Movie by Andy Warhol, to fight against censorship, and to defend the industry against obscenity charges.[27]
1970s: adult theaters and movie booths in the United States
In the 1970s, there was a more tolerant judicial attitude to non-mainstream films. Mainstream theatres did not usually screen even softcore films, leading to a rise of
Denmark started producing comparatively big-budget theatrical feature film sex comedies such as Bordellet (1972), the Bedside-films (1970–1976) and the Zodiac-films (1973–1978), starring mainstream actors (a few of whom even performed their own sex scenes) and usually not thought of as "porno films" though all except the early Bedside-films included hardcore pornographic scenes. Several of these films still rank among the most seen films in Danish film history[28] and all remain favourites on home video.[29]
In 1969,
The first explicitly pornographic film with a plot that received a general theatrical release in the U.S. is generally considered to be Mona the Virgin Nymph (also known as Mona), a 59-minute 1970 feature by Bill Osco, who created the relatively high-budget hardcore/softcore (depending on the release) 1974 cult film Flesh Gordon[21][33] and later, in 1976, the X-rated musical-comedy film Alice in Wonderland.
The 1971 film Boys in the Sand represented a number of pornographic firsts. As the first generally available gay pornographic film, the film was the first to include on-screen credits for its cast and crew (albeit largely under pseudonyms), to parody the title of a mainstream film (in this case, The Boys in the Band), and, after the 1969 film Blue Movie,[30] one of the first to be reviewed by The New York Times.[34] Other notable American hardcore feature films of the 1970s include Deep Throat (1972), Behind the Green Door (1972), The Devil in Miss Jones (1973), Radley Metzger's The Opening of Misty Beethoven (1976) and Debbie Does Dallas (1978). These were shot on film and screened in mainstream movie theaters. In Britain, Deep Throat was not approved in its uncut form until 2000 and not shown publicly until June 2005.[21][35][36]
In the U.S.
1980s: new technology and new legal cases
With the arrival of the home
Similarly, the camcorder spurred changes in pornography in the 1980s, when people could make their own amateur sex movies, whether for private use, or for wider distribution.[citation needed]
The
1990s: DVD and the Internet age

In the late 1990s, pornographic films were distributed on DVD. These offered better quality picture and sound than the previous video format (videotape) and allowed innovations such as "interactive" videos that let users choose such variables as multiple camera angles, multiple endings and computer-only DVD content.[citation needed]
The introduction and widespread availability of the Internet further changed the way pornography was distributed. Previously, videos were ordered from an adult bookstore or through mail-order; with the Internet, people could watch pornographic movies on their computers, and instead of waiting weeks for an order to arrive, a movie could be downloaded within minutes (or, later, within a few seconds).[citation needed]
Pornography can be distributed over the Internet in a number of ways, including
In 1999, the Danish TV channel Kanal København started broadcasting hardcore films at night, uncoded and freely available to any viewer in the Copenhagen area (as of 2009, this is still the case, courtesy of Innocent Pictures, a company started by Zentropa).[40]
Once people could watch adult movies in the privacy of their own homes, a new adult market developed that far exceeded the scope of its theater-centric predecessor. The Internet served as catalyst for creating a still-larger market for porn, a market that is even less traditionally theatrical.[citation needed]
By the 2000s, there were hundreds of adult film companies, releasing tens of thousands of productions, recorded directly on video, with minimal sets. The market was further expanded by webcams and webcam recordings, in which thousands of pornographic actors work in front of the camera to satisfy pornography consumers' demand.[citation needed]
2000s to present: competition and contraction
By the 2000s, the fortunes of the pornography industry had changed. With reliably profitable DVD sales being largely supplanted by streaming media delivery over the Internet, competition from bootleg, amateur and low-cost professional content on the Internet had made the industry substantially less profitable, leading to it shrinking in size.[41] At the same time this gave rise to video sharing platforms such as Pornhub, XVideos and xHamster.[citation needed]
Pornographic film industry


Economics
Globally, pornography is a large-scale business with revenues of nearly $100 billion,
The global pornographic film industry is dominated by the United States, with the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles being the heart of the industry.[44]
In 1975, the total retail value of all the hardcore pornography in the United States was estimated at $5–10 million.[2] The 1979, Revision of the Federal Criminal Code stated that "in Los Angeles alone, the porno business does $100 million a year in gross retain volume." According to the 1986 Attorney General's Commission on Pornography, American adult entertainment industry has grown considerably over the past thirty years by continually changing and expanding to appeal to new markets, though the production is considered to be low-profile and clandestine.[45]
As of 2013[update] the total current income of the country's adult entertainment is often estimated at $10–13 billion, of which $4–6 billion are legal. The figure is often credited to a study by Forrester Research and was lowered in 1998.[46] In 2007 The Observer newspaper also gave a figure of $13 billion.[47] Other sources, quoted by Forbes (Adams Media Research, Veronis Suhler Communications Industry Report, and IVD), even taking into consideration all possible means (video networks and pay-per-view movies on cable and satellite, websites, in-room hotel movies, phone sex, sex toys, and magazines) mention the $2.6–3.9 billion figure (without the cellphone component). USA Today claimed in 2003 that websites such as Danni's Hard Drive and Cybererotica.com generated $2 billion in revenue in that year, which was allegedly about 10% of the overall domestic porn market at the time.[48] The adult movies income (from sale and rent) was once estimated by AVN Publications at $4.3 billion but the figure obtaining is unclear. According to the 2001 Forbes data, the annual income distribution is the following:
Adult video | $500 million to $1.8 billion |
Internet | $1 billion |
Magazines | $1 billion |
Pay-per-view | $128 million |
Mobile | $30 million[49] |
The Online Journalism Review, published by the
The world's largest adult movie studio
Production
This article needs additional citations for verification. (April 2018) |

Pornographic films are produced and directed at a target audience, who buy and view the films. Traditionally, the audience of pornographic films have been straight males, the male actor typically acted as a proxy for the viewer. A typical pornographic film focuses on a female performer, her male partner traditionally had no distinctive features. However, there has been an increase in female viewers over time, and there have recently been efforts to increase the sexualization of male performers also. Efforts such as, men with charming facial features and well-built bodies becoming predominant in pornographic films, as well as the emergence of feminist pornography.[54][55] Overtime a gay audience also developed, and the scenarios of the films adjust accordingly.
Pornographic films attempt to present a sexual fantasy and the actors selected for a particular role are primarily selected on their ability to create that fantasy. The physical features of the actors and their ability to create the sexual mood of the film is the main factor in who is cast in certain roles. Most actors specialize in certain genres.
Within the average film targeted at a heterosexual male audience, the primary focus is on the sexually attractive appearance of female actress or actresses, meanwhile most male performers in heterosexual pornography are selected less for their looks and more so for their sexual prowess. They are presented as being able to fulfill the proxy fantasy of the male watching audience.
Legal status
In the United States, the
At present, no other state in the United States has either implemented or accepted this legal distinction between commercial pornography performers versus prostitutes as shown in the Florida case where sex film maker Clinton Raymond McCowen, aka "Ray Guhn", was indicted on charges of "soliciting and engaging in prostitution" for his creation of pornography films which included "McCowen and his associates recruited up to 100 local men and women to participate in group sex scenes, the affidavit says."[58] The distinction that California has in its legal determination in the Freeman decision is usually denied in most states' local prostitution laws, which do not specifically exclude performers from such inclusion.
In some cases, some states have ratified their local state laws for inclusion to prevent California's Freeman decision to be applied to actors who are paid a fee for sexual actions within their state borders. One example is the state of Texas whose prostitution law specifically states:
- An offense is established under Subsection (a)(1) whether the actor is to receive or pay a fee. An offense is established under Subsection (a)(2) whether the actor solicits a person to hire him or offers to hire the person solicited.[59]
In the United States, federal law prohibits the sale, distribution or dissemination of obscene materials through the mail, over the broadcast airwaves, on cable or satellite TV, on the Internet, over the telephone or by any other means that cross state lines.[60] Most states also have specific laws banning the sale or distribution of obscene pornography within state borders. The only protection for obscene material recognized by the Supreme Court of the United States is personal possession in the home (Stanley v. Georgia).
The Supreme Court of the United States affirmed in Miller v. California that obscenity was not protected speech. Further, the court ruled that each community is responsible for setting its own standards about what is considered to be obscene material. If pornographic material is prosecuted and brought to trial, a jury can deem it obscene based on:
- whether "the average person, applying contemporary community standards" would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest
- whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by applicable state law and
- whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.
In many countries pornography is legal to distribute and to produce, but there are some restrictions. Pornography is also banned in some countries, in particular in the Muslim world and China, but can be accessed through the Internet in some of these nations.
Health issues
Sex acts in pornographic films have traditionally been performed without the use of
See also
- List of pornographic film awards
- Adult movie theater
- Amateur pornography
- Cartoon pornography
- Cum shot
- Golden Age of Porn
- Hentai
- List of pornographic film studios
- Pornography addiction
- Porn groove
- Porn parody
- Pornography by region
- Sex industry
- STDs in the porn industry
- Unsimulated sex
- X-rated
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Bibliography
- Patrick Robertson: Film Facts, 2001, Billboard Books, ISBN 0-8230-7943-0
External links
Media related to Pornographic films at Wikimedia Commons
Works on the topic Pornographic films at Wikisource