The industry's decision to embrace VHS in the early 1980s, for example, helped to do away with Sony Betamax, despite the latter format's superior quality. Video rentals soared from just under 80 million in 1985 to half-billion by 1993.[64] Suffering at the hands of video warez tended not be publicly stressed by country's film industry.[65] In 1999 there were 711 million rentals of hardcore films.[66] 11,300 hardcore films were released in 2002. In the recent years, according to Fishbein, there are well over 800 million rentals of adult videotapes and DVDs in video stores across the country.
Now there is a debate on two future formats: the Blu-ray Disc and HD-DVD. Digital Playground said it is choosing the Blu-ray Disc for all of its "interactive" films because of its greater capacity.[67] The female demographic is considered to be the biggest catalyst for pornographic cultural crossover.[68] According to Adella O'Neal, a Digital Playground publicist, in 2000 roughly 9% of the company's consumers were women while four years later that figure has bloomed to 53%.
American adult pay-per-view television is presently unregulated since it is not technically "broadcasting" as defined in the Federal Communications Act. Cable and satellite television networks host about six main adult-related channels. Most of them (particularly Playboy TV, Penthouse TV and Hustler TV (there is also a "Hustler Video", a line of raunchy films created by Larry Flynt)) are maintained by three mainstream porn magazines. In 1999 Playboy Enterprises sold to Vivid Entertainment a small channel which was renamed to Hot Network. Since that Vivid lauched two more channels - the Hot Zone and Vivid TV. The viewers paid close to $400 million a year to tune in to Vivid's hardcore content and the company soon overtook Playboy as operator of the world's largest adult-TV network. However, after passing the 2000 United States v. Playboy Entertainment Group case Playboy bought all three networks from Vivid in 2001 and folded them into "Playboy's Spice" brand. Operators then shunned "Playboy's Spice Platinum", black trannies fucking a new group of channels with graphic hardcore fare.[69]
Some subsidiaries of major corporations are the largest pornography sellers, like News Corporation's Direct TV. Comcast, the nation's largest cable company, once pulled in $50 million from adult programming. Revenues of companies such as Playboy and Hustler were small by comparison.[70]
[edit] HIV encounter
With the onset of AIDS in the 1980s, HIV transmission between performers resulted in a number of deaths, including that of the famous porn actor John Holmes. After this, the pornography industry, despite of not promoting the safe sex, instituted a system of HIV testing designed to prevent the spread of the virus within the industry. However, in April 2004, the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services received several reports of work-related exposure to HIV in the heterosexual segment of the adult film industry in California. The source was apparently in Brazil.[71]
[edit] Publications
American adult magazines which have the widest distribution do not violate the Miller test and can be legally distributed.[72] Adult magazines have been largely put into mainstream by the pioneer Playboy. However during the so-called Pubic Wars in 1960s and 1970s Penthouse established itself as a more explicit magazine. By the mid-'90s magazines like Playboy had become noncompetitive and even hardcore publications like Penthouse and Hustler struggled. According to Laura Kipnis, a cultural theorist and critic, "the Hustler body is an unromanticized body - no vaselined lens or soft focus: this is neither the airbrushed top-heavy fantasy body of Playboy, nor the ersatz opulence, the lingeried and sensitive crotch shots of Penthouse, transforming female genitals into objets d'art. It's a body, not a surface or a suntan: insistently material, defiantly vulgar, corporeal".[73]
Many adult magazines in the United States are now highlighted by special features and are usually sold wrapped to avoid their look-see by the under-age persons. A primarily softcore Barely Legal focuses on models between 18 and 23 years. Hustler's Leg World is focused on the female legs and feet. Perfect 10 publishes the images of women, untouched by plastic surgery or airbrushing.
Pornographic bookstores have been subject to zoning laws in the US.[74]
[edit] Video games and Japanese influence black trannies fucking
Further information: Pornography in Japan
Microsoft has long declined to license development software to game makers whose titles include sexual content. Wal-Mart, America's largest distributor of video games, maintains the policy of selling no games with an AO rating.[75] However in recent years the pornographic content in video games has been promoted particularly by Playboy. Playboy: The Mansion became the first game built around the "Playboy" license.[76] In Playboy's softcore line of the video games heroines Rayne was the only featured undressed atop (October, 2004 issue).
A downloadable mod -- "Hot Coffee" -- developed by Dutch hacker Patrick Wildenborg in 2004, according to Jason Della Rocca, executive director of the International Game Developers Association, accelerated the need to discuss the challenges faced in creating games with pornographic content. The two-day San Francisco gathering was held in June, 2006 to delve into the design, development and technology of sex in video games, also in the United States.[77]
Playstation 2 video game God of War features an event in the first part of the game where protagonist Kratos can have sex with two topless prostitutes, who reside in a bedroom on his boat. Although no sexual acts are depicted (they occur off-screen and are indicated by sound effects), the women are shown topless. The player interacts by performing button and joystick commands that appear on screen which results in an experience reward for the player.
The adult sections of American comic book stores carry a large number of translations of Japanese hardcore comics, as well as an increasing number of home imitations.[78] However works, similar to lolicon, are prohibited in the United States due to their underage characters. Meanwhile the legal framework in both countries regarding the regulation of obscene and pornographic material is overall rather similar.[79]
One of the anime porn movies, which started the American adult video market, was Urotsukidoji. The adult anime market exists primarily through direct sales: mail-order to customers, and wholesale to specialty shops which cater to anime and to comic-book fans.[80]
[edit] Notes
a ^ In the 1969 Stanley v. Georgia case (later followed by the 1971 United States v. Reidel) the Supreme Court ruled that private possession of pornography (except child pornography as determined in 1990 by a 6 to 3 decision[30][81]) in the home was not a crime, nor was it subject to government regulation. Technically why people have a constitutional right to watch hardcore pornography privately has never been explained,[82] but in the 1973 Paris Adult Theatre v. Slaton Chief Justice Burger wrote: "We categorically disapprove the theory... that obscene, pornographic films acquire constitutional immunity... simply because they are exhibited for consenting adults only".[83] Miller v. California held 5-4 that the state may outlaw the showing of hardcore pornographic films, even if the "adult theatre" is clearly labeled and warns black trannies fucking.
b. ^ The sex tourism involving minors outside the U.S. is also illegal.[84]
c. ^ The term "dial-a-porn" was used at the federal level e.g. by the Telecommunications Act of 1996 [85], but it was partially voided by federal courts over subsequent years.[86] Another term usage includes the 1996 Denver Area Educational Telecommunications Consortium v. Federal Communications Commission certiorari to the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.[87]
d ^ The transportation of pornography in interstate commerce was banned in the 1973 case of United States v. Orito. The Supreme Court upheld zoning restrictions that either quarantine or disperse pornography merchants, leaving it to local officials to determine whether local interests are best served by restricting all porn merchants to a single district. Though the Court has also upheld zoning that prohibits pornographic entertainment within a certain distance of a school, the legitimate primary purpose excludes the preventing of access by minors which can be achieved much more directly by simple restrictions.[88] On May 13, 2002 writing for the majority in Ashcroft v. American Civil Liberties Union, Justice Clarence Thomas stated that using community standards to identify material that could be harmful to minors does not make the law overly broad and therefore unconstitutional under the First Amendment.[89]
e ^ Utah uses the legal term "pornography" for the same illegal sexually explicit material.[90]
The concept of "pornography" may have emerged in the Edo period when every form of popular culture flourished. All forms of pornography flourished with the sole exception of figures and statues. This does not mean there were no works of erotica; these early works were by highly literate nobles and were often considered works of art. Both Japanese mythology and Shinto have few references to sexuality. An act of sex was and is an act of happiness without guilt or sin.
In the Edo period, pornography flourished due to the unique characteristic of the city of Edo. In this period, men (who were the only consumers of pornographic material at that time) made up well over 60% of the population. These men came from all over Japan to work, and remained there for years before returning to their hometown to marry (or to their wives), having learned valuable skills like reading, writing, and crafts. The disproportionate population balance and excess of young males demanded means to fulfil their sexual needs. State controlled prostitutions like Yoshiwara were an answer, black trannies fucking and pornography was another.
There were many pornographic materials. Shunga or pornographic wood-block pictures were printed with all imaginable situations. These were often made into a book with sentences to describe their situations as well as to offer brief descriptions of a scene. Near the end of the Edo period when foreigners became widely known and seen, even interracial sex acts with foreign males were drawn and sold. The actual use of shunga was not simple. Less explicit books with kimono covering most of the body were used for sex education, while some were probably used for masturbation and others were even viewed with a lover. In many places, these shunga were packed by parents of the wife for use in her marriage. In 1788, a shunga book Haikai Yobukodori had a single picture on each page with lengthy descriptions attached. These shunga were rented from a rental book shop. In 1808, there were 656 shops in Edo, 300 shops in Osaka. This means that there were about one shop for every 1500 people in Edo. Much softer materials were also available. There were wood-block pictures of celebrities like kabuki actors and geisha both completely clothed in kimono.
After the Meiji restoration in the second half of the 19th century, the publication of pornographic materials declined under governmental pressure. It was still the early 20th century and the government feared that such an openly sexual culture could be seen as a sign of backwardness by European countries. The shunga production stopped and they were exported as "erotic arts" at a bargain price to any buyer from abroad. Pornographic novels were still produced underground as the language barrier would prevent them from becoming widely known abroad. Pornographic arts were still produced but by a general consensus rather than an enforcement and these came to be viewed as low arts.
In the late Taisho period and early Showa period, an artistic movement called Eroguronansensu, lit. erotic-grotesque-nonsense, occurred influenced by decadence works of Europe. These words were used because they had an air of a new and modern feeling. Until the 1950s, pornography were still very limited in production. Open sexual expressions were permitted in novels and manga but a strict control was applied on photographs and films. During World War II, pornographic materials were banned altogether.
Influenced by magazines like Playboy, pornographic magazines were printed soon after World War II. These magazines quickly branched to cover all genres and featured pornographic novels as well as pictures. Playboy itself, however, did not succeed in Japan. Its articles were about the American lifestyle; women were mostly non-Asian, interviews were with people largely unknown in Japan, and fashion and sport were about American ones. Instead, it spawned a fetish and a genre known as Yomono, lit. Western things. Playboy revamped its articles and style in the early 2000s in Japan by having Japanese writers write exclusively about Japan and dropping most of the original content.
In the early 1960s, several movie studios began producing "pink movies" to be exclusively viewed in an adult-only movie theater. With censorship laws prohibiting genitals from being seen but otherwise free to express anything, these movies quickly diversified to fill all genres, including rape and bondage. Throughout the 1960s, the "pink films" were mainly produced by low-budget, independent filmmakers such as Koji Wakamatsu. In 1971, the black trannies fucking major studio Nikkatsu entered the pink film genre with its higher production values through its Roman porno (lit. romantic porno) series. From the 1960s to the late 1980s, ambiguous censorship laws resulted in hundreds of cases regarding erotica and pornography. At midnight, television stations mostly aired soft-core pornographic movies until their ratings dropped due to the pornographic movies.
Gay oriented magazines began to appear, starting with Barazoku in 1971, which continued publishing until 2004. Gay magazines tend to be tailored to particular segments of the population, such as Badi which features younger adult males, Samson, devoted to chubby men, and G-men, featuring muscular men. The websites of these magazines also feature videos produced featuring these respective body types.
The proliferation of pornographic videos in the 1980s commonly called AV, short for adult video, eventually crashed the market for pornographic movie theaters. Rental video stores offered pornography at a price far below that of movie theaters. Because most Japanese families now had at least two television sets and VCRs, more videos were sold. It is rumored, but not supported, that VHS became popular over Betamax format because large numbers of AV were released in VHS format. Few AVs were sold in laserdisc format, but VCDs and later DVDs were used to distribute AV.
In 1983, the Nintendo Family Computer was released and a few pornographic games quickly followed. However, Nintendo wanted these machines to be family oriented and pornographic games were locked out of the market. Computer games with no limitation on content except for censorship laws became a popular way to distribute pornographic games. Early VCDs and DVDs were viewed on personal computers. Because so few Japanese people saw any reason to play games on these platforms, as opposed to video game consoles, playing computer games was sometimes viewed as being synonymous with playing Bishojo games.
In the late 1980s, the Dojinshi market expanded. It is estimated that about half of this market consists of pornography. Copyright problems plague the market, yet the dojinshi market was a common place for one to start before making a debut in a professional magazine. Yaoi began in the dojinshi market. From the mid 1990s, the dojinshi market also began black trannies fucking making and selling pornographic games.
In 1980s, magazines oriented towards a mature male audience began to offer more explicit content. This was not immediately a major social issue because magazines oriented towards a mature female audience already existed and their content was in some ways more explicit.
[edit] Laws and movements
Japanese pornography has diversified to fill a vast number of categories and needs, with some themes being so obscure that the appeals and differences are too subtle for anyone but the most devoted to recognize. These diversities occurred because of three major reasons: to entertain by developing new methods of expression, to fill niche markets, and to work around censorship laws. Neither religious conservatism nor feminism had been a powerful factor black trannies fucking in pornography in Japan.
[edit] Censorship Laws
