Lust for the Real: When Porn Gets Postmodern

The goal of pornography is to simulate reality. One way in which it does this is by taking advantage of technological innovations. With HD streaming and VR headsets— plus, for the truly privileged, automatic fleshlights that sync up to a pornstar’s motions — porn is growing progressively more sophisticated in its ability to replicate sensory phenomena. Still, no matter how advanced porn may get technologically, no viewer can fully erase the knowledge that he is watching a video, that he is pleasuring himself.

Enter self-aware porn. This burgeoning genre, instead of seeking to distract its viewers from recognizing that it is a simulation, takes full advantage of its fakeness. Thus, it is increasingly able to simulate reality not merely on a sensory level, but on a psychological level.

Porn in this genre takes many forms, ranging from the latently self-aware to the overtly self-aware. An example latently self-aware porn can be found in cuckold videos. When watching cuckold porn, the viewer imagines himself not as a man having sex with a woman, but as a man watching a man having sex with a woman. It is easier for the viewer to insert himself into this role because, naturally, he is already performing the voyeuristic act of watching porn.

Overt self-awareness often takes the form of “jerk-off instructions,” or JOI. Though some JOI videos feature relatively vanilla content, many others directly confront the viewer, and play into anxieties he may have over viewing porn. No matter how normalized porn viewing has gotten, it is still inherently embarrassing. Most people, disregarding certain exceptions, find it extremely difficult to openly and honestly discuss their porn viewing habits with anyone — including, sometimes, their significant other. Humiliation-based JOI videos play into this embarrassment. Consider the widely-memed Pornhub ad in which a naked woman condescendingly asks, “Are you really watching porn all by yourself?” More intense forms of this can be found on subreddits like /r/pornischeating. Some titles of top-voted posts include, “Give up on real women and fuck your plastic pussies all day already pervert,” “This is what you stroke to now? Good. Keep pumping,” “Nothing sexier than watching porn destroy traditional relationships,” and “You have no control.” Instead of creating an illusory fantasy, this type of porn asserts itself as being deeply real by mirroring deeply felt anxieties that the viewer may have.

Practically all self-aware porn is rooted in anxiety and humiliation because, frankly, those are the most prevalent attitudes that people hold with regards to their porn consumption habits. Is anyone truly proud of the fact that they watch porn? Some people may be indifferent, yes, but most people tend to see it as a harmful vice. According to a 2018 Gallup poll, 43% of adults said that porn was “morally acceptable.” Even if a particular porn viewer does think that porn is morally acceptable, that does not change the fact that he is participating in something that most people would look down on. Thus, he feels shame — whether it is conscious or unconscious. Plus, many people have first-hand experience of porn becoming an addiction, taking over one’s life, ruining one’s relationships, and generally lowering one’s self-esteem.

Self-aware porn, though, does not only share narrative similarities to other forms of postmodern media — as can be found in “metafiction” that blurs the line between reality and simulation — but it also often shares aesthetic similarities. This can be seen in the fact that many self-aware pornographic videos or gifs do not simply show people having sex. Instead, they incorporate overlaid text, voiceovers, juxtaposed clips, quick edits, and other elements of visual design.

The purpose behind this multimedia aesthetic is that it removes the appearance of porn as only being an inert bit of footage. By using these visual and auditory techniques, porn takes on the presence of a “being” that seduces, mocks, and titillates its viewer through its replication human interaction. People communicate, after all. with multiple media. With digital communication, we share pictures, written messages, and videos. Even in face-to-face communication, we use body language as well as spoken language. Within spoken language, too, one’s word-choice, vocal intonation, rhythm, symbolic meaning, and literal meaning all add depth to the exchange.

Perhaps the future of pornography, then, isn’t in virtual reality headsets like the Oculus Rift, but in pornography that more fully mimics how people interact in today’s world. Pornographic performers are already becoming “personalities” who interact with their viewers on streaming websites, OnlyFans, Twitter, etc.

The reality that porn seeks to simulate, ultimately, isn’t physical — it is social.