Aesthetics of reality:
an analysis of amateur pornography on
Pornhub
Annabel Burger 11042249 Master Thesis 20927
Supervisor: Michael Stevenson
Second examiner: Guillén Torres Sepulveda University of Amsterdam
Table of Contents
Introduction ... 3
1 Theoretical framework ... 6
1.1 Reality and authenticity ... 6
1.1.1 Reality TV ... 7
1.1.2 Voyeurism in Reality TV ... 7
1.1.3 Mediated Reality ... 9
1.1.4 Reality fetish in contemporary media culture ... 11
1.1.5 Construction of authenticity on social networking sites and social media. ... 13
1.1.7 Voyeurism in social media and social networking sites ... 15
1.1.8 User-generated content ... 16
1.2 Pornography and sexual scripting ... 18
1.2.1 History of amateur pornography ... 19
1.2.2 Amateur content ... 22 2. Method ... 28 2.1 Object of study ... 29 2.2 Analysis ... 29 2.2.1 Visual analysis ... 30 3. Pornhub description ... 34 4. Visual analysis ... 36 5. Results ... 38 6. Discussion ... 41 7. Conclusion ... 45 Appendix ... 48
Individual video checklists ... 48
Introduction
A reality fetish in contemporary media culture has been well described in a number of different areas (Van Doorn, 2010) such as, for instance, user-generated content on various social media platforms or daily vlogging (Garcia-Rapp, 2017). To date, however, little is known about how a reality fetish manifests itself in the world of amateur pornography. This lack of investigation of a reality fetish in amateur pornography may be something of a missed academic opportunity. Despite its potentially embarrassing subject matter - or perhaps because of it - as an aspect of
contemporary media culture amateur pornography offers a unique combination of realism,
voyeurism and not unimportantly for research – a huge volume of freely available user-generated content producing a novel hybrid which enjoys a leading position.
The reason for performing qualitative research into a branch of pornography is that this topic does not receive enough attention due to the prejudices surrounding the seedier side of the subject matter. The topic is rarely discussed in a neutral manner despite the fact that pornography
represents a large part of many people’s internet consumption.
The research object is amateur pornography on Pornhub. In researching amateur porn from the angle of a reality fetish in contemporary media culture this thesis will answer the research question how voyeurism and ‘reality’ are constructed in amateur pornography. It will also answer four sub questions:
- What are aspects viewers use to register ‘reality’ and authenticity?
- How has voyeurism become an aspect of the contemporary media landscape? - What drives the production and sharing of user-generated content?
- How different is amateur pornography from mainstream pornography?
Still a growing phenomenon in the world of pornography, amateur pornography is mostly to be found on pornography platforms, such as Pornhub, and is even categorized as such for easy searching. The idea of amateur pornography is that ‘amateurs’, i.e. ordinary people, record and share video recordings of themselves having sex (user-generated content) onto a pornography website. This genre of pornography is very popular on platforms such as Pornhub: so popular, in fact, that professional porn actors have started making pornography in which they act as if they are amateurs and categorising the content produced as amateur pornography – in a sense, art imitating life. This is called Pro Am and on a practical level it is very difficult to figure out if the pornography is really made by amateurs or professional porn actors. This distinction is hard to make because professionals now work with amateur aesthetics to construct this idea of ‘reality’ and authenticity.
The theoretical framework will outline the picture that emerges from the literature regarding the concepts that underlie the topic of this thesis. It will outline the reality fetish and examine what constructs reality and authenticity in a number of different mediated contexts (Reality TV, social media, social networking sites and platforms). It will explore the relationship of reality and
authenticity with voyeurism and the relationship of voyeurism with user-generated content, as well as the dynamic between the watcher and the watched. Via the concept of user-generated content and some historic background the link will be made with amateur pornography in the wider context of pornography and sexual scripting. Amateur pornography will be examined in different contexts and how ‘real’ it needs to be for the user will be explored.
Applying the concepts defined and explored in the theoretical framework, the thesis examines a sample of the most popular amateur pornography videos on Pornhub, which is the most popular category on one of the most popular platforms. These videos will be deconstructed and described using a rigorous checklist (see Method) originally designed for examining socially and situationally constructed aesthetic strategies in advertising. The context of the Pornhub platform will also be briefly sketched.
Authenticity is constructed in a variety of ways. An example is Reality TV, with participants who know they are being filmed, a fact the audience is aware of but tends to forget. Reality TV is perceived as authentic to a certain extent, especially looking at Big Brother and the fly-on-the-wall type of filming style (Roscoe, 2001). Reality TV can be considered a voyeuristic pleasure, a delight in being allowed to observe how a ‘real’ person interacts and behaves. Contemporary media culture seems especially constructed for this form of voyeurism, enabled by elements of exhibitionism. Social media for a large part consists of people sharing personal information: youtubers who vlog their lives every day, or even live-streaming content of people eating on camera for hours on end. This is all extensively consumed in contemporary media culture because it satisfies a certain reality fetish.
At the time of writing this thesis, during the eruption of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, people have been advised to stay inside as much as possible. The platform Pornhub issued a statement (The Next Web, 2020) that to help flatten the pandemic infection curve they were encouraging people to stay inside by temporarily making their premium feature free.
Simultaneously, live streaming became increasingly popular. According to The Verge (2020), it increased by 45%. This indicates that in the middle of a global pandemic during which people are forced to stay indoors, people may find some solace in the semblance of human, real time contact, even in live streaming the content of someone else’s meal. This illustrates how an element of voyeurism in society is one of the drivers for the popularity of consuming this type of ‘exhibitionistic’ content.
Niels van Doorn (2010) explored the term fetishation of ‘reality’. This theory is relevant for this study as it clearly sets out a concept that is central to this thesis. Van Doorn also discusses amateur pornography in this context, namely the aspect of sexual scripting. Users have a certain awareness of the fact that media such as pornography, social media and reality TV contain an element of performativity. Consumers have adapted to this fact and register this aspect. Of course, enjoying this type of content relies on a form of suspension of disbelief and the content can still feel real, even if the awareness is nevertheless there. Users also understand that there is an element of scripting; depending on how interpretable the script is, the user is given a sense of reality and authenticity in the depicted scenes.
This awareness of performativity may not yet be fully present with amateur pornography, which is branded as completely authentic and the closest one could come to being an actual voyeur, albeit online. As mentioned above, that makes amateur pornography an interesting research object. Are amateur pornography videos freer and more emancipated? Are they a true record of ‘couples caught in the act’? Or are the aesthetics of the ‘real’ enough to scratch the voyeuristic itch?
This thesis will summarise how these still relatively new genres of pornography configure ‘reality’ as a source of sexual pleasure, using a mix of aesthetic strategies to give the impression of immediacy and authenticity, the realer the better.
1 Theoretical framework
1.1 Reality and authenticity
To understand in what way reality is constructed in contemporary media, the relationship between reality and authenticity must be reviewed. What do users of online pornography do? A broader context is formed by the subjects of reality, authenticity, reality online and social networking. As stated earlier, it is important to consider how users experience authenticity in the online realm. There is academic literature which argues that authenticity is vital for general, emotional and psychological subjective well-being (Kernis and Goldman, 2006).
According to Van Leeuwen (2001), there are different ways to explore and describe the concept of authenticity. First, when someone perceives something as authentic, they register it as genuine. Van Leeuwen goes on to say that this is on the basis that the origin and authorship are not in question. Van Leeuwen argues that this can become problematic due to copying, imitation and adapting which may call the authority and authenticity into question. The second form which Van Leeuwen describes is when something is a faithful representation or reconstruction. This highlights the problems mentioned above because it becomes harder to register the core authenticity when it is a faithful reconstruction. There would be no reason to believe it is not authentic and genuine. Thirdly, van Leeuwen discusses authenticity as something that can also mean authorized. He argues this with the bearing of a stamp, a genuine signature or seal of approval. Van Leeuwen goes on to say that something is authentic “because it is declared authentic by an authority” (P. 393). Yet, these elements of authority can still be imitated and adapted as was the problem in the first sense of authenticity. Lastly, Van Leeuwen argues that spontaneity, as opposed to prepared and planned actions, is believed as being more truthful. Van Leeuwen does not leave performance out of this: “regardless of whether it is a spontaneous performance or, for instance, a performance by an actor” (P. 394). Performances can still be regarded in measurements of authentic or inauthentic, even when the awareness of the performance is there. Van Leeuwen states that authenticity is something that is centred more around “the moral or artistic authority of the representation than with its truth or reality” (P. 396).
This, in essence, means that the perception of truth is just as valuable as actual truth. Authenticity seems to be in the eyes of the beholder and realism seems to be more important than reality. As part of what this thesis intends to demonstrate, this mechanism is also at work in the production and consumption of amateur pornography.
1.1.1 Reality TV
Similar to social media, Reality TV also claims authenticity in its presentation of a version of reality, one difference being that Reality TV is not peer-to-peer or interactive but a one-way broadcast. Compared to regular TV, however, Reality TV is a hybrid form of reality and television. “In essence, reality programs are marked by ordinary people engaging in unscripted action and interaction” (Nabi 2007, P. 373). “To categorize reality programs into sub-genres, scholars provided classification based on range of reality programs, viewing frequency of reality-based programs, or concept mapping […] the range of reality programming and identified six sub-genres: gamedocs (e.g. Survivor), dating programs (e.g. Joe Millionaire), makeover and lifestyle (e.g. A Wedding Story), docusoaps (e.g. The Real World), court programs (e.g. Judge Judy), and reality sitcoms (e.g. The Osbournes).” (Bagdasarov et al. 2010, P. 301).
Audiences are already aware that television is not ‘real’, so reality TV that is positioned as a genuine look inside people’s lives presents a hybrid form, also because the participants are aware of the viewing audience. In the article Keeping it Real? Social Class, Young People and
‘Authenticity’ in Reality TV (2012) by Kim Allen and Heather Mendick, the continuous ongoing judgement of authenticity by audiences of Reality TV is examined. Audiences take into account three interlocking elements: identification, situation and production. They weigh up whether the people on screen are identifiable; if it is a common and recognizable or uncommon environment; and a certain element of scriptedness. The classic example of Big Brother’s fly on the wall
technique to present Reality TV is set out in the article Big Brother Australia: Performing the ‘real’ twenty-four-seven (2001) by Roscoe. The Big Brother house is like a public site that audiences can watch and peer into. In the case of the Big Brother format, however, the participants know that they are being watched, the whole idea of the show contains a performing aspect for the cameras. The performative aspect has an effect on both sides of the screen: Reality TV participants know they are being filmed, which affects their behaviour, and audiences ‘know’- in theory at least - that what they are watching is to a certain extent a performance, which affects their viewing experience.
This voyeuristic dynamic between watchers and the watched combined with the uncertainty regarding the level of performativity is examined in the next section: voyeurism in Reality TV.
1.1.2 Voyeurism in Reality TV
Voyeurism is a central concept in this research and how voyeurism and pornography build on each other will be discussed later on in this thesis. The basic language definition of voyeurism (Wikipedia) is that voyeurism is “getting sexual pleasure from viewing intimate behaviour that would otherwise be private and hidden from the viewer”. Wider aspects of voyeurism also deal with psychoanalysis and sexual perversion or even medical disorders which are outside the scope of this thesis. Relevant to the topic at hand, however, there is literature that describes that voyeurism does not
have to be specifically sexual. Voyeur Nation: Media, Privacy, and Peering in Modern Culture (2004) by Calvert for example describes that we have become a nation of voyeurs “obsessed with the mass consumption of information about others' apparently real and unguarded lives.” The mere “viewing of intimate behaviour that would otherwise be private or hidden” is enough to stir up people’s voyeuristic tendencies. Sexual content merely raises the stakes but is not essential to the mechanism.
As mentioned earlier, Reality TV is inherently voyeuristic. To quote from Reel Pleasures: Exploring the Historical Roots of Media Voyeurism and exhibitionism by Bilge Yesil (2001) “The voyeuristic and exhibitionist culture is a strange yet potent mix of authenticity and contrivance, pleasure and repulsion. The desire for the real is bound up with a repulsion from what is not normal or safe. Audiences usually moan about the ’freaks’ they see on daytime talk shows or a participant eating a rat on Survivor. The paradox of voyeurism is contained in the coexistence of revulsion” (P. 4) This is a very interesting quote since it pairs voyeurism with social identification. Watching other people’s intimate behaviours also presents a mirror which asks the viewer to consider how they relate to the people on TV, producing feelings on a spectrum from ‘I’m not alone’ to ‘thank goodness that’s not me’ – or shifting between the two as they watch.
In Lemi Baruh’s article, Mediated Voyeurism and the Guilty Pleasure of Consuming Reality Television (2010), Baruh discusses the concept of the “curtains-left-slightly-open”, a concept which according to Baruh contains a certain ambiguity of the authentic. Because if the curtains are fully open there is no secret or mystery. The curtains-left-slightly-open appears to be unintentional and adds to the guilty pleasure when engaging in voyeuristic behaviour. In this same way, Reality TV uses the fly-on-the-wall technique: the candid camera. Even though people on reality TV know they are being watched, the ‘candid camera’ approach lends the mystery of authenticity to the scenes playing out and an ambiguity in viewing it. “To examine media content, the authors operationalized voyeurism consistent with Calvert’s (2004, P. 23) definition of ‘mediated voyeurism' as the
consumption of revealing images of and information about others’ apparently real and unguarded lives, often yet not always for purposes of entertainment but frequently at the expense of privacy and discourse, through the means of the mass media and Internet.” (Bagdasarov et al. 2010, P. 301) “Kavka (2004) observed that Reality TV programs were dependent on voyeuristic elements such as the performance of intimate elements in public, and the transformation of ordinary events from unwatchable to something worth watching, suggesting that voyeurism was one key
programming content that distinguished Reality TV from fictional television programs.” (Bagdasarov et al. 2010, P. 301)
Reality TV relies on a similar type of audience engagement as does amateur pornography (as will be shown later), with viewers constantly weighing whether scenes are ‘real enough’, checking identification and production and suspending their disbelief regarding scriptedness and elements of performativity.
1.1.3 Mediated Reality
How does reality relate to media in contemporary media culture? As Mark Deuze states in Media Life and Media Work (2017) “We live in media. Media are to us as water is to fish. The ubiquitous and pervasive nature of contemporary media does not mean people’s lives are determined by technology, but it certainly should suggest that our understanding of society […] must start with an appreciation of the profound mediatization of everyday life and the lifeworld (the world we
experience) (Deuze, 2014). This is all the more important as the ubiquitous and pervasive nature of media in everyday life is a direct function of their disappearance from our active awareness of them.” (Deuze 2017, P. 17) This means that contemporary culture is mediated, and media are entrenched and converged. Reality is mediated in ways that are so pervasive that reality and media can barely be viewed as separate from each other, one could argue it would not be helpful to look at it in that way. Media therefore become invisible and embedded in human life and daily activity. “The invisibility of media, coupled with their connectivity and persistency, forms the human condition of experiencing and acting in the world. Media and life are mutually implicated physical and emotional infrastructures – in that people’s lived experience with media has become so intertwined, ritualistic and natural, to draw distinctions between ‘us’ and ‘them’ seems fruitless.” (Deuze 2017, P. 18) The relationships people have with media are very personal. All the aspects of daily life are structured by and in media. While simultaneously, media in people’s daily life are shaped by the way they fit into their own environment (Deuze 2017). Deuze further states what all industry and scholarly
approaches such as ‘Martini’ media, convergence culture, media as ensemble, polymedia, manifold and practices, mediation and mediatization, have in common is that the understanding and
construction of everyday life cannot be separated from the formative role media play. People create, as much as they consume the world.
Deuze goes on with this explanation, sketching that because of this perception a person can transform from a mere worker, ‘homo faber’, into an information processor, a player with
information: ‘homo ludens’. “As our media are anytime, anyplace, and anywhere, so are we. In media, we witness crucially intimate occurrences in people’s lives from around the world. […] Our media use turns us – at times – from people who listen to and watch stories about people’s lives to people who witness other people lives” (Deuze 2017, P. 22). This describes the gradual shift from the mere sharing and subsequent consuming of user-generated content to something that is more akin to participation, either way something that is intimate and a dynamic that may be produced by an unspoken and implicit pact between voyeurism and exhibitionism.
As Deuze says, people have become witnesses of other peoples’ lives. This even extends to peoples’ sex lives, as shown by the popularity of amateur pornography. A low-quality standstill camera propped on top of a piece of furniture somewhere in the domestic sphere suffices to capture in real time one of the most intimate acts between two people. In this straight-forward way people
produce videos classified as user-generated content, upload this content for free to a free
pornography platform for other users to consume, making it also part of the gift economy. Jenkins and Deuze (2008) talk about this connection between user-generated content and participatory culture in terms of convergence culture: “Look around the edges of the happy talk about ‘user-generated content’, and one will see growing surges of audience activism as the public objects to the commodification of the gift economy which has grown up around the participatory culture of the web. The phrase ‘harnessing collective intelligence’ seems emblematic of the contradictory relations between consumers and producers during this transitional moment in the history of the media ecology.”
Jenkins and Deuze discuss the meaning of user-generated content and how that could be commodified. This phenomenon is present in amateur pornography in the form of the genre of ‘professional amateurism’ or Pro Am. This genre consists of professional (paid) porn actors emulating amateur aesthetics because the demand for that is so high, as will be discussed below. This illustrates that also in pornography, participatory culture and the gift economy can be eroded and commodified, with sharing ultimately replaced with selling. It means that reality and authenticity aspects of ‘amateurism’ and user generated content are even more difficult to ascertain.
In another text, Media Life (2011), Deuze discusses the concepts of reality and media and how they interplay; how it seems that reality is malleable, that it can be manipulated, fast-forwarded, panned, scanned and zoomed in. “Media become the playground for a search for meaning and belonging – not just by consumption or what […] calls ‘flexible accumulation’ of artifacts and ideas that would make up and reconstitute one’s sense of self-identity, but also by producing, co-creating, assembling and remixing ‘a whole series of simulacra as milieux of escape, fantasy, and distraction’ (1990: 302). […] in this context has argued for an emerging culture of ‘real virtuality’ (1996: 364ff), where reality itself is entirely captured by mediated communication.” (Deuze 2011, P. 138). Deuze goes on to give his own perspective on the arguments by the two authors he mentions stating with regards to media studies that he believes it is important not to see people as hapless victims of this seemingly fragmented worldview, nor to assume that this shift towards a media life inevitably makes people’s experience of society somehow less ‘real’ or ‘true’. The potential power of people to shape their lives and identities can be found in the assumption that people produce themselves, and therefore each other, in media. And how this may additionally explain why people do not recognize their media habits because they are a constitutive part of them. (Deuze, 2011) “In other words: people in media life inevitably engage with reality on the basis of a constant moving in between idealism (what we perceive) and materialism (what is apparent), using the tools and techniques of contemporary digital and net-worked media to edit and remix both their perceptions and the
appearance of that reality.” (Deuze 2011, P. 142). What these quotes and this explanation illustrate is that the relationship between media and reality and how they are perceived are in constant conversation with each other while also mutually shaping each other.
1.1.4 Reality fetish in contemporary media culture
Moving on from the subject of mediated reality, how does this idea of the fetish of ‘reality’ connect to contemporary media culture? Take for example the platform YouTube: certain “youtubers” (e.g. Casey Neistat, Zoe Sugg or Alfie Deyes) publish daily vlogs, video diaries of their daily lives and they may attract many followers. In the opinion of the followers, the more authentic, real and
unfiltered the content is, the better. This is explored by Garcia-Rapp (2017) in her article ‘My Friend Bubz’: Building intimacy on YouTube's beauty community. She states that for online celebrities, there is a strong expectation of authenticity. Garcia-Rapp argues this is due to social media’s implicit values of immediacy and spontaneity, as well as the inherent image of grassroots, amateur and DIY culture. This is something that, according to Garcia-Rapp, the YouTube platform started and seeks to maintain. She further states that being a successful online celebrity implies building intimacy through disclosure and connection-seeking. She states that this legitimises celebrity practitioners’ positions and reputations as renowned personalities. Garcia-Rapp follows Cohen (2001) as he argues that self-disclosure is ‘the engine that drives new relationships’ and ‘disclosing intimacy acts as a marker that defines authentic friendship’. The article meticulously analyses the viewing behaviour of the audience of a beauty vlogger or guru named Bubz. She argues that “viewing and commenting imply an interest in the person behind the channel – the guru, herself. Bubz turns from a stranger to a skilled guru […], to a friend who shares her daily life and stories. At the same time, viewers turn from random viewers to loyal subscribers and fans”. Garcia-Rapp illustrates that the shift from general informative content to intimate and more personal content creates the simultaneous shift from spectator to partaker; viewer to fan; stranger to secret-sharing friend with an emotional connection. The feeling of authenticity is the device which encourages viewers to develop sustained interest and loyalty. Significantly, intimate vlogs become the most sought-after content on this channel.
The phenomenon of building intimacy through disclosure and authenticity combined with the fetish around voyeuristically watching daily activity and the capturing of ‘real life’ in a more extreme form than just YouTube vlogs, is also evident in live streaming. According to Wang and Chou (2019) the motivation for watching live streams can be divided into four categories: leisure, celebrity
worship, social connection, and voyeurism. They then posit that these four categories can be
divided into eight “motives”, including passing time, entertainment, relaxation, celebrity identification, vicarious participation, companionship, social interaction, and voyeurism. There are many
contemporary live streaming services, including regularly used social media platforms such as Instagram and Facebook, which now offer a live streaming function. According to Wang and Chou, through live video streaming, people can broadcast their own lives and share their daily activities in real time. “By viewing live video streaming, audiences are privy to broadcasters’ personal activities
and private affairs. Live video streaming attracts audiences’ attention.” (Wang and Chou, 2019). It is also significant to mention that live streams can go on for a significant amount of time. For hours on end viewers can stay entertained by just watching someone’s private sphere and activities. What Wang and Chou show is that three of the ‘motives’ for viewing live streams: vicarious participation, social connection and voyeurism can be viewed as the main aspects of the reality fetish that contemporary media culture holds today.
This thesis discusses how voyeurism is tied in to almost every aspect of contemporary media culture. In contemporary media, what counts as ‘real’ or authentic and how are the aesthetics of reality and authenticity constructed? A key part of this is formed by the aesthetic strategies that are chosen and the norms that develop. This is interesting in Reality TV, in social media and also even in older forms of media such as photography. When photography was first invented in the early 1800s people were stunned by the fact that it was an actual snapshot of reality. An image held authority because it was tangible visual proof that the event depicted in a specific picture had actually happened at the moment in time the picture was taken (Marien, 2006).
On a more contemporary note, take for example the Vietnam war, which was intensively televised for a broad audience. This content of the war that would be viewed by many people in their own safe environments and domestic spheres, was also very voyeuristic. Television viewers watched people who were in incredibly fearful and high-stakes situations and sometimes the viewer even witnessed people dying (Steinman, 2002).
Voyeurism has been at play long before contemporary media ever existed, an example being the 13th century story of Peeping Tom, who alone among the townsfolk spied on the Lady
Godiva's naked horse ride (Wikipedia). This illustrates the dynamic between exhibitionist, Lady Godiva (Countess of Mercia, died approx. 1066) riding naked on a horse, and the voyeur, the peeping Tom.
As mentioned earlier, the dynamic between exhibitionist and voyeur lies at the heart of Reality TV, where contestants are the willing exhibitionists and the audience the semi-aware voyeurs. This is evident in the Big Brother format, which employs a 24/7 camera set up as ‘fly-on-the-wall’, recording everything the contestants do (Roscoe, 2001). What this means for audiences is that they get the illusion that nothing is filtered or edited and that this show is capturing reality in real time, turning it into a voyeuristic dream. A similar program to Big Brother is Temptation Island, in which young couples test the strength of their relationships by living in a house with other young attractive singles of the opposite sex. The goal for the singles is to seduce the person who has a relationship and eventually have sex with them on camera. This makes this show voyeuristic in a more sexual way: the audience is mostly rooting for these people to eventually have sex on camera (Vandenbosch and Eggermount, 2010). What Temptation Island also breeds, is a feeling of relief expressed in the idea ‘thank goodness it’s them and not me’, generating emotional distancing, or even ‘hate watching’ (Yesil, 2001). Reality TV breeds a feeling of superiority: the viewers tell
themselves that they would never act the way these contestants act and can therefore feel better about their own choices or their own life.
Voyeurism with regard to Reality TV is one-sided. In the case of social media, however, it may become bilateral. Social media is also a voyeuristic medium, in essence it is an online place where personal, intimate and private information is shared. Social media, as opposed to Reality TV, is two-sided because a user can simultaneously take the role of an exhibitionist and a voyeur.
User-generated content in general is the carrier of contemporary media culture, examples are not only to be found on YouTube in the form of daily vlogging and live streaming, but on many other platforms. Prime examples of voyeuristic content and therefore voyeuristic satisfaction are extensively consumed. There is clearly a longing for the authentic and the ‘real’: a reality fetish in contemporary media culture. This is also an important driver in amateur pornography. Pornography in itself is voyeuristic because it is content of people engaging in sexual activity. Yet, mainstream pornography can feel inauthentic and is therefore not registered as real (Hardy, 2008). Amateur pornography constructs that feeling of authenticity by means of aesthetics. Even in the context of the hybrid form of Pro Am - professionals enacting amateur aesthetics - the pleasurable feeling of the authentic and therefore the voyeuristic element is constructed.
1.1.5 Construction of authenticity on social networking sites and social media.
How does this construction of authenticity work for and on specific social networking sites? A user must in a way navigate the online realm between the ‘real’ and the ‘fake’. In examining authenticity and online reality, social networking sites are eminently interesting, especially because of the affordance of posting and the concept of sharing. The concept of sharing is explored by Nicholas John, Sharing and Web 2.0: The emergence of a keyword (2013). The idea is explained that in semiotic terms sharing one’s feelings or emotions is also an act of communication. Social
networking sites prompt the user to share their personal information with terms such as: ‘share your world’ and ‘share your life’. This appeals to the user to share their life, telling everyone what is going on, how they are feeling and what they are doing. This type of communication, because it takes place in the context of a community, creates the expectation of reciprocity: a user can expect the same from other users.
The question may be raised how real and authentic what is shared is experienced. Natalya N. Bazarova (2012) explores the idea of authenticity, and also intimacy is further discussed in her article Public Intimacy: Disclosure Interpretation and Social Judgments on Facebook: Public Intimacy. Bazarova discusses how the disclosure of personal information is perceived as adding a feeling of intimacy, while Van Leeuwen and Garcia-Rapp in earlier sections of this thesis showed that it also adds to a sense of authenticity. According to Bazarova, however, not any sharing will do: sharing on Facebook is considered so easy and casual that it is valued and appreciated less,
reducing the sense of intimacy. Creating a feeling of relational intimacy and bonding is more difficult in the public Facebook sphere. Crucially, Bazarova also states that people experience more
intimacy when information is unique and unavailable to others. The study concluded that in line with their hypothesis, intimacy is indeed harder to attain through Facebook public communication
because intimate disclosures in public interactions are viewed as less intimate and less appropriate than intimate disclosures in private interactions on Facebook.
The above information paints a picture of a rising scale of perceived authenticity and intimacy that relies on sharing, disclosure, relationship orientation and reciprocity, with intimacy most enhanced when sharing, though potentially public, feels private. These are constituents of the concept of voyeurism and the reality fetish, both vital elements of the appreciation of amateur pornography.
A brief historic overview by José van Dijck on the evolution from social networking sites to more social media platforms is set out in her book Culture of Connectivity (2013). Van Dijck states there are no hard lines between these two objects: platforms usually adding more ways of using creativity and user-generated content, whereas social networking sites primarily promote
interpersonal contact. Nowadays, however, many social networking sites implement user-generated content and many platforms also promote interpersonal contact. This is also because, as Van Dijck states, media have co-evolved with the public using them. Furthermore, Van Dijck discusses that everyday things such as talking to friends, gossiping and showing pictures used to be contained within a selective group of people. In the case of social media, however, these aspects are formalised inscriptions and can take on a different value once spread to the wider public on these platforms.
Providing an insightful observation regarding the term ‘social’ in social media, an article by Taina Bucher Networking, or What the Social Means in Social Media (2015) states: “the social is not a thing or domain of reality; it does not explain, it is precisely what needs explaining.” This
perspective is remarkably easy to forget, as social media platforms constantly suggest the opposite: take the social for granted, naturalize it, make the social equal happiness, inclusion, the good life: ‘Sharing is caring’, ‘All that happens must be known’. In this way it becomes one huge network of ‘friends’ whereby the amount of content to consume only keeps growing as the network does, this gives users a look into other users personal lives and a way for users to show and share their own. All in all, there is a certain aspect of agency connected to social media usage, the user is aware. As Bucher and Helmond state in their article The affordances of social media platforms (2017) the platform’s own affordances call for different actions form the users. Also, these affordances extend beyond the boundaries of the platform itself, implying that different platform contexts call for different social behaviour. Therefore, there is an element of active participation and also agency.
How is authenticity constructed on social media? According to Hall (2015) it is constructed by employing aesthetics of the everyday. In her article, Hall discusses a youtuber named
lonelygirl15 who was created by an actress named Jessica Rose playing the character Bree on the channel who was the subject of these vlogs. Hall states, that the precarity of everyday life manifests in an aesthetic mode. This means that the aesthetic of the everyday, the mundane, can be
constructed and this construction is enough to be registered as real. Further, Hall suggests that it is less important in this research to look at individual authenticity but rather “that authenticity is merely one affect of the personal branding required by social media performance, which, by extension, works to simultaneously brand social media.” (Hall 2015, P. 130) What Hall means here is that a construction of aesthetics of the everyday and shared intimacy online is enough to sustain this personal connection between the character Bree and her viewers. Hall states at the end of her article that “These vlogs utilize the same amateur aesthetic to create personas that exceed the definition of reality and fiction, and blend the two in the performance of a highly consumable personal brand.” (Hall 2015, P. 140) She connects this YouTube social media presence and performance to amateur aesthetics, branding them as the same. This construction, Hall states, exceeds the idea of reality or fiction: it becomes something that is constructed by how it is perceived and believed by the viewers with the help of aesthetics. This could also be the case for amateur pornography, which is what this thesis sets out to research.
1.1.7 Voyeurism in social media and social networking sites
Some aspects of social media are a voyeuristic dream. Its content is based on sharing, often of intimate details, by its users. There is simultaneous voyeurism - consuming other people’s content, seeing how they live their everyday lives - and exhibitionism - people sharing their own content and parts of their own private life. Mantymaki performed an empirical study on this, described in
Voyeurism and Exhibitionism as Gratifications from Prosuming Social Networking Sites (2014). Key findings were that gratification is achieved from the voyeurism that consuming social networking sites afford, but also that there is a strong link to be found between this gratification from consuming and the gratification in giving up this private information for the voyeuristic pleasure of others. Voyeurism and exhibitionism are two sides of the same gratifying coin.
As an aside, it is worth mentioning that this thesis uses contemporary examples for a contemporary concept (online amateur pornography) but it does not hold a technologically
deterministic view. As Yesil (2001), mentioned earlier, points out: “Technologies and the media are new, but the choices are as old as human history. People have always liked to watch other people. Technology has only made it simpler to do so.” This quote illustrates that it is not in a sense of technological determinism that technology increased the voyeuristic need. Voyeurism is ancient, there are now just different tools that make it a different and interesting idea to research.
Picking up and extending the theme of voyeurism on social media, in a different article by Keppler and Querol Is there anybody out there? – Social Media as a new social fetish (2011) social
media interaction is analysed from the perspective of fetishized experience. They propose that for social media to have a guaranteed function they require some level of interactive and “interpassive” behaviour. Interpassivity is a state of passivity in the presence of the potential of interactivity. The term was coined by Robert Pfaller in the book Interpassivity: The Aesthetics of Delegated
Enjoyment (2017) and combines the words "interactivity" and "passivity". In the article mentioned directly above, Keppler and Querol use this term to connect it to contemporary social media usage: “In this sense, Social Media can be understood as a medium generating both interactivity and interpassivity, which converts them into a new social fetish and communicative commodity. They act, disguised by their ‘social’ name, as catalysts of the hypermodern age, promoted by the premises of capitalism and technology and strengthening the cultural axioms of individualism and consumption. According to Žižek (1998), the interpassive mode is characterized by the fact that “we are active all the time to make sure that nothing will really change. The first truly critical step is to withdraw into passivity and to refuse to participate” (P. 19). The latter is their advice on how to overcome interpassivity and the fake realities produced by it. The title of the article by Keppler and Querol (referring to the Pink Floyd song “Is there anybody out there?” The Wall, 1979) seems to illustrate this paradox of the so-called attention industry: “although we live in the most
(inter)connected, social and interactive era ever known to man, most of this attention is only experienced interpassively, creating fetishes, fake realities and the illusion of connectedness and attention.” Keppler and Querol criticise these realities as ‘fake’.
Earlier on in this thesis, mention was made of some of Mark Deuze’s texts which also discuss reality. He examines how reality can be considered as constructed by different factors that interplay with each other, rather than in terms such as ‘real’ or ‘true’. What Keppler and Querol interestingly highlight is how this ‘reality’ that to a certain extent is constructed and created and even mediated can become a fetish in itself.
1.1.8 User-generated content
User-Generated Content (UGC) forms the heart of both social media and amateur pornography. How pornography and UGC interrelate forms an important part of this thesis and will be discussed later on, but a definition of UGC is appropriate here. User-generated content can be defined as content that is produced and voluntarily shared by users, which can be content such as video, audio, text and images (Wikipedia). UGC has been a growing source of content on the internet, partly because it is inexpensive as users mostly produce and contribute it free of charge. Some unpaid labour aspects of amateur pornography in particular are addressed in a later section of this thesis, Amateur Content, but is not the main focus of this thesis. David Corteau, in The Growth of Self-Produced Media Content and the Challenge to Media Studies (2006) mentions that at that time user-generated content was largely evaded by media scholars: “We know next to nothing about the
range or frequency of content on these Web sites, nor do we understand much about who produces them, why, and to what effect.” User-generated content has of course grown even more since 2006. In an article by Bird, Are we All Produsers now? (2011), she states: “Convergent media can and have transformed the traditional ‘audience’ experience, especially in the West, where even many people who are not really produsers are still taking advantage of multiple media platforms to extend their mediated practices.” The article shows that there are exceedingly active content ‘produsers’ online that take their user-generated content deeply seriously and that there are also ‘normal’ users who take advantage of these affordances and opportunities. The term ‘produser’ is coined to explain the shift from a passive consumer society to active users who want their experience tailored to their specific needs regarding consuming and producing.
In a study by Terry Daugherty, Matthew S. Eastin & Laura Bright Exploring Consumer Motivations for Creating User-Generated Content (2008) they set out to research the motivations behind creating user-generated content. What they found in their study is that “Specifically, ego-defensive and social functional sources are serving as strong contributors toward attitudes
formulated for creating UGC. The ego-defensive function recognizes that people have self-doubts that they seek to minimize. Likewise, the social-function drives people to spend time with others and experience a sense of community.” (P. 23) This illustrates that there are strong emotional rewards for the user, connected to generating and sharing content. These two aspects work hand in hand in stimulating user-generated content: the ego-defensive act of trying to minimise self-doubt can partly be achieved by the social-function of the sense of community. The emotional reward generated by these two interlocking mechanisms keep the wheel of user-generated content spinning and the faster it spins the more reward is generated.
The idea of social status across user-generated content platforms is further explored by Levina and Arriaga in Distinction and Status Production on User-Generated Content Platforms: Using Bourdieu’s Theory of Cultural Production to Understand Social Dynamics in Online Fields (2014) The authors explain that a platform, specifically, has an overwhelming interest or genre of content, but that the practices vary across different platforms. “The online is constructed in a way, through the practices of contribution and evaluation of content, agents generate a unique set of power relations. The producers therefore try to gain the recognition for their content from their consumers. These producers and consumers are held together by shared interest. The interaction among agents pursuing a given interest in a particular social setting determines what will count as status and how it may be achieved even though status and power are not the explicit motives behind usages for many users.” (P. 485) So, all in all user-generated content is a matter of active participation from both sides, consumer and producer, and these roles may be flipped and changed.
Producing and contributing user-generated content sets up power dynamics in producers aiming for recognition from consumers. Agents with higher authority may be experienced as more authentic, as was suggested by Garcia-Rapp (2017).
1.2 Pornography and sexual scripting
To understand how reality is fetishized in amateur and other pornography, this chapter briefly introduces the topic of pornography. Pornography has always been a controversial topic and even within the academic world there is no clear consensus about the role it plays in society. Some articles and books such as Katharine Jenkins (2017) state that porn is unhealthy and could even be ruining lives; even more specifically it could lead to “desensitization”, a theme explored by Pamela Paul’s book Pornified (2007), which squarely takes this position. As part of her conclusion she states: “Whatever one’s personal use of pornography, we as a society need to confront and understand its broader effects and make efforts to contain them. As with alcohol, cigarettes and even fast food, pornography can and should be discouraged.” Precisely because of its
pervasiveness, which is a form of acceptance if only by acquiescence, she believes pornography has a negative role in society. On the other side of the debate, there are academics such as Williams, Paasonen and Attwood and Smith, who treat pornography just like any other media embedded in society and examine what it is and what it means for individuals and society. Either way, the topic of pornography is divisive and depending on where we stand regarding the
acceptability of it, we will think differently about consuming it, let alone actively producing it, as is common in amateur pornography.
As discussed above in the context of Reality TV, consumers are aware that there is a level of performativity present because the contestants of the reality show know they are being filmed (Roscoe, 2001). This element of performativity is explored by Judith Butler (2009) in the context of gender, which is germane to the topic of pornography: “The theory of gender performativity
presupposes that norms are acting on us before we have a chance to act at all, and that when we do act, we recapitulate the norms that act upon us, perhaps in new or unexpected ways, but still in relation to norms that precede us and exceed us. In other words, norms act on us, work upon us, and this kind of ‘being worked on’ makes its way into our own action” (P. 11). What Butler illustrates is that to a certain extent everyone ‘acts’ in their daily life and specifically to conform to the norms of a specific situation. Societal or situational norms even apply to what people do in their own
bedrooms, when being intimate with others. A variety of sources, including pornography, have provided people with examples, ways to act and norms to uphold. In societies or families where sex is not a topic which may be openly discussed, pornography may act as the only source for how to act in a sexual situation.
A normative societal framework regarding sexuality combined with a lack of direct sources and with pornography acting as a stand-in teacher leads to sexual scripting. Another research of
pornographic videos also discusses the element of sexual scripting, in the article Rasmussen (2018) follows Gagnon and Smith (1973): “Sexual script theory (Gagnon and Smith 1973) posits that sex and relationships are informed by sexual scripts — cultural and interpersonal cues about normative
sexual behavior (e.g., what one should be turned on by or what sexual positions one should try). Pornography is a ready source of such cues. Researchers have found well-supported links between exposure to pornography and a number of relational outcomes, including one-night stands […], the number of sexual partners […], extradyadic flirting […], extramarital sex […], and divorce […]. Despite these findings, some see pornography’s influence on sexual scripts as positive for relationship health, providing individuals with healthy sexual and relational scripts that would improve sexual communication and satisfaction […].” The script theory illuminates the cultural construction of sexual life. It posits that sexual scenarios by mutually shared conventions help actors to enact a sexual situation interdependently (Kimmel, 2007). These scripts are gendered and in the case of amateur pornography on Pornhub they are mostly heteronormative.
Both these concepts, performativity and sexual scripting are at the root of the fact that knowledge of being filmed while having sex has influence. The question of how to represent sex authentically depends on performers and viewers sharing the same sexual script.
1.2.1 History of amateur pornography
Amateur media production is often considered synonymous with ‘home movies’ (Fox, 2004), as is also discussed by Zimmermann (1995) which Fox also discusses in his text. Zimmermann’s argument relies heavily on the level of technical equipment used in a production. As an effect of major equipment and stock manufacturing, what was considered ‘professional’ and what was considered ‘amateur’ became standardised, as defined by technical aesthetics. Eventually, the gap in the level of technology was too large to be bridged by amateur film makers: “Add into the
equation an increase and diversification in leisure time and with this a progressive, intractable hardening of the line between the public and private domains. Public time became characterized as methodical, controllable, and regulated. This became akin to ’professional time’, the time of
professional media production (an industrial product). Placing amateur production into the realm of private time allowed for an association with illusions of spontaneity and freedom, individuality and personal fulfilment. Amateur media practice became a hobby, not the activity of producing a viable or an important product to be shared with others beyond the immediate family.” (Fox, 2004) In the year when this was written (2004), Fox saw amateur filmmaking as private play, a hobby.
Amateur filmmaking eventually also evolved into amateur pornography, but there is a longer history to consider. In visual art, pornography dates back to prehistoric times (Wikipedia). Skipping a few thousand years, however, when photography was invented (1826), it was also used to produce photographic pornography. Around the 1800s, there were a variety of bans and regulations in place regarding ‘the pornographic’, mostly based on the claim of obscenity even though that was never specifically defined. The private possession and viewing of (some forms of) pornography was not made an offence until the twentieth century, however.
Pornographic film emerged practically immediately after the invention of the motion picture in 1895. This was not considered acceptable and led to producers and distributors being prosecuted. Distribution and production were done by amateurs and illicitly, with the added difficulty of the ban in place. Later, various countries gradually lifted the ban on commercial pornography, thereby
decriminalising it. In the United States for example, Blue Movie by Andy Warhol (1969), was the first adult erotic film depicting explicit sex to receive wide theatrical release.
Internet pornography on the World Wide Web started in the late 1990s, now mostly being viewed on commercial platforms such as Pornhub (2007) or YouPorn (2006). The first academic journal
dedicated to the study of pornography, Porn Studies was first published in 2014, which is very late considering pornography’s pervasiveness.
The brief historical overview above shows that pornography (and erotica) have been around for a long time, but how it is consumed keeps changing along with constant shifts in the media landscape. As one of these shifts, this thesis examines the emergence of a reality fetish driving the popularity of amateur pornography distributed via commercial platforms.
With the eruption of the internet and specifically Web 2.0, pornographic imagery distribution became much easier and grew strongly. This was also because of the user-friendliness and low cost of digital technology (including cameras) and also taking the anonymity of the internet into consideration (Chase, n.d). Pornography was an ‘early adopter’ of digital technologies, as it had been an early adopter of VCR. It was able to benefit from greater possibilities for interactivity and platforms for user-generated content, including amateur pornography. Online amateur pornography is a descendent of amateur video pornography, a phenomenon from the mid-1980s. This consisted of couples recording their ‘private’ sexual encounters and distributing this content through swapping services. (Chase, n.d).
After the amateur genre received such popularity also through easily accessible free
platforms, like for instance Pornhub, the genre of Pro Am - ‘professional amateur’ - came to the fore. Pro Am is pornography which just like mainstream pornography is made in a professional studio, but with settings mimicking the aesthetics of authentic amateur work by means of low production value such as using only a single camera or even a handheld (Chase, n.d).
To elaborate on this, the idea of the ‘Pornification’ of society a term discussed by Paasonen in her book section Diagnosis of Transformation (2014) “Pornography has become a pervasive element of contemporary culture and is increasingly accessible (and diverse) in its hard-core variants and ubiquitous in its soft-core forms.” (P. 4) So, with this part of the quote that mentions ubiquitous soft-core forms, Paasonen alludes to the onscenity of pornography in society. Onscenity means the increased public visibility of pornography. This means that a culture is constantly
exposed to pornified images and texts without people even noticing it anymore. An example of this would be a highly erotic perfume commercial, that just gets registered by the person as a perfume
commercial while its highly erotic content is not even consciously registered (Paasonen, 2014). In western societies, pornography and pornification are embedded and have become ubiquitous in daily life.
These days, pornography consumption is often quite a soloistic affair, but that was not always the case. Take for example The Stag, a genre of film that was prevalent during 1915 to about 1968 (Waugh, 2004). These films were made mostly by amateurs, were not always legal and in Europe they were mostly screened in brothels. These where viewings for male audiences only, of films that where about 12 minutes long. Men would gather and watch these films together and usually also masturbate. Afterwards they would discuss the films and share their opinions about it. It served as a very collective experience for these men even though the level of sexual closeness is very high (Waugh, 2004).
Pornography, as we define it now, was scarce then; these men would not know when the next viewing would be or if the place showing the film would be shut down and criminal charges of conduct against public decency brought against them. Without knowing the precise motivation of each and every participant it would appear on the surface as if the need for sexual gratification outweighed the risk of shame and embarrassment from collectively orgasming in a room with other masturbating men. That said, if you look at this from another perspective on sex in history, the communal gratification ceremony could be re-categorized as very “open” and “forward”. Think of the classic History of Sexuality by Foucault (1978). Foucault writes that our thinking of sexuality is mainly made up by our ‘repressive hypothesis’ which therefore means that the history of sex is a history of repression. Sex without the purpose of reproduction is taboo and for us to overcome this form of repression sex needs to be talked about, integrated in society and enjoyed. From this point of view, The Stag film viewing may be considered a perfect example of this openness.
When first developing, amateur pornography relied heavily on the technical innovation of electronic video-recording. Nowadays there are more contemporary technologies that can be used such as the use of webcams, mobile phones, tables etc. However, even with these newer technologies amateur pornography still aims to exude the same aesthetics of authenticity and immediacy. (Stella, 2016) The most important element of authenticity of amateur porn lies in the signs of intimacy that actors and actresses involved in mainstream pornography cannot reproduce (Sarracino and Scott 2008). “These features are ‘inimitable’, they cannot be ‘enacted’, and they can only be seen in people capable of expressing them spontaneously. The ‘real-life’ impression generated by such films goes beyond the power of representation of the images or of any abstract debate around what is ‘real’ and what is ‘authentic’ in pornography […] There is a point beyond which pretending is no longer possible; what counts is not establishing rules and languages in order to distinguish what is ‘real’ and ‘authentic’ from what is simulated. When it comes to amateur and industrial porn, the difference […] has to do more with the personal, intimate dimension that the protagonists succeed
in conveying naturally during the action. In the end, the fact that there is no screenplay […] is irrelevant, because what makes a porn video more authentic is the personal story of the individuals and couples – told through gestures, postures, and expressions. This story is always more ‘real’ and authentic than any possible expedient invented to provide a setting for the video’s content, including the lack of a screenplay.” (Stella 2016, P. 356)
Reality aesthetics have surpassed actual intimacy as the focal point for pleasure. There is a mutual influence between mainstream pornography and amateur content distributed on
pornography platforms. The awareness of being filmed that the amateurs possess, make them also to a certain degree follow tacitly or explicitly known sexual or pornography scripts.
Building upon this, Helen Hester in her texts goes through the history of pornography
discussing the arguments for and against by different perspectives. She hereby synthesises how we can best view and discuss pornography nowadays in the 21st century. She writes in her article
Contemporary understandings of the pornographic: Transgression, affect, and the displacement of sex (2011) that she attempts to think through the displacement of sex within contemporary
understandings of the pornographic and to theorize the apparent explosion of the pornographic as a cultural concept. Something valuable for this thesis is that Hester explains what pornography can look like nowadays and how that adds to the feeling of authenticity, she states: “Certainly, these texts demonstrate an abiding preoccupation with involuntary bodily responses. We witness flinches and facial contortions, and hear exclamations of shock and horror. The most spectacular corporeal reaction to feelings of disgust - the gag or the dry heave - is particularly cherished in these videos;” (P. 58) she explains that the “fascination with largely uncontrollable bodily experiences such as the heave or the shudder has strong links with certain characterizations of the pornographic.” (P. 59) Furthermore Hester explains it as “this focus upon rendering sex visually accessible is problematic for porn, for 'while it is possible, in a certain limited and reductive way, to "represent" the physical pleasure of the male by showing erection and ejaculation, this maximum visibility proves elusive in the parallel confession of female sexual pleasure'”. This shows that female sexual pleasure can be visualised by facial contortions and physical bodily experiences where the male’s sexual pleasure can be derived clearly from his erection. Male sexual pleasure is visible from his erection and ejaculations and as such convincingly authentic on video. Female sexual pleasure is harder to visualise and ironically, to make it more convincing on video, it needs more “acting”, through vocalisations or facial expressions. The viewers are left to decide whether they are convinced, not convinced or whether they care about female pleasure at all.
1.2.2 Amateur content
In discussing amateur pornography, the netporn scholar Katrien Jacobs is important to discuss. In her artice The New Media Schooling of the Amateur Pornographer: Negotiating Contracts and
Singing Orgasm (2004) she discusses “a new wave of amateur pornography, where the central metaphor is that of a mutually developing sexual act, a bodily communication where one party responds to the other, and language and lust spiral together into a recorded pornographic process.” (P. 17). She states how amateur pornography centers around mutual pleasure paired with
consumer desire. Jacobs goes on to synthesize three types of contemporary amateur
pornographers. Firstly, she discusses Peer-to-Peer Porn, this entails web-based consumers using peer-to-peer platforms to exchange products. Secondly, Pride Porn which is made up of sex and queer activist networks who distribute porn to their sex partners, social circles, or larger groups of web users and movie audiences. And lastly, Art Porn which refers to the work of artistically inclined amateurs, who frame their cultural performances as “body art” or their movies as “erotica” and exhibit sex in (virtual) galleries or arthouse theaters. Web based platforms now also help in the distribution of this. Jacobs goes on to discuss how all three have a different level and expression of performance, but how they are all performances none the less. This thesis centers around the reality fetish and how amateurism is a big part of that and Jacobs states in her article that “Amateur porn does not always cater to physical arousal or masturbation, but can trigger fulfilling reactions in audiences. Therefore, the screenings give amateur pornographers an opportunity to interact with audiences and get immersed in changing feedback loops.” This can be used as an example to show how the settings of amateur aesthetics can fulfill the consumers need for authenticity in amateurism and fulfil a voyeuristic need regardless of sexual aspects. This all tied together can feed the reality fetish.
In Labors of love: netporn, Web 2.0 and the meanings of amateurism (2010) Susanna Paasonen writes: “Amateur porn, as distributed in self-organizing online networks, has been identified as a gift economy in which ‘deviance is the norm’ […]. A netporn scholar, […], associates amateur pornography with peer-to-peer practices based on the principles of pleasure […], another active agent in the netporn community, has coined the neologism ‘realcore’ to describe the realness of the sexual acts and desires presented. Being a departure from the familiar pornography
categories of hardcore and softcore, realcore has been quickly picked up as shorthand for self-made pornography that refuses to confine itself to the generic conventions of mainstream porn, its distribution, or economy […] To a degree, amateur productions have come to connote a better kind of porn, more ethical in its principles of production, but also somehow more real, raw and innovative than commercially produced (i.e. mainstream) pornography.” (P. 1302) Paasonen adds that in a simple way, the distinction between amateur and professional pornography is, among other things, just the level of technology used, which Zimmermann and Fox have also argued. Professional productions exude skill and quality whereas amateur production exude the opposite. Amateur porn is connoted with spontaneity, truthfulness and authenticity. Another distinction is that it is presumed that amateurs do this work for the sheer pleasure of it and not for financial gain as is presumed to be the case for professionals. Amateurs do not keep working hours, they produce their content in
their own leisure time, adding to the presumption that it operates in their own domestic and private sphere, representing a slice of life. Amateur porn and its audience have a relationship based on mutual pleasure. What Paasonen points out is that hybrid forms of amateur porn have evolved, because of its rise in popularity, such as ‘amateur professional’ or ‘professional amateur’: Pro Am. These hybrid forms are blurring the boundaries between the produced and the spontaneous; the working day and pleasurable pastime.
Considering that amateur porn does not have economic gain as its primary goal makes it ‘free’ in practical terms, to both makers and users whereas professional porn involves aspects of labour irrespective of other aspects involving some form of incidental gratification as a by-product of that labour. Amateur porn, which still involves effort if not paid labour, could be viewed as a special form of the gift economy, posting user-generated content online for free, the hosting sites profiting from advertising, and audiences able to enjoy it for free. The aesthetics of amateurism give the audience the feeling that what they are watching is real and authentic. Taking another angle, Zabet Patterson’s book entitled, Going On-line: Consuming Pornography in the Digital Era (2004) further explores the fact that online amateur pornography significantly engages with the opportunities of interaction and self-production. Remarkably, it is showing a notably different genre of
user-generated content. Patterson also states that in amateur content the pleasure of the viewer is not always sexual, as discussed in the section on voyeurism above. This non-sexual element is very much an aspect of amateur content, but this will be elaborated on in a later chapter.
In the case of certain cases of amateur content made by women, they do not engage in sexual activity but display a completely different type of private activity. For example, as discussed earlier when examining live streaming, such content could be someone merely eating sushi on camera. Many viewers registered this as entertaining. “This further extends the concept of interpassivity and its relationship to sexual pleasure because, in amateur porn, these secondary activities become primary — they mark the crucial difference of amateur porn” (Patterson 2004, P. 119). This suggests that the sense of intimacy is created not only by viewing and consuming content in which another person engages in sexual activity, but also or maybe even more so by watching content showing other mundane or everyday activities. Having the opportunity to observe something ‘private’ seems to be an important part of the emotional reward and central to satisfying the voyeuristic need. The greatest arousal can come from the subjective identification with the person performing, taking a look or even participating to some extent in their everyday life. The real, the raw, the unfiltered, the authentic becomes an obscure object of desire.
According to Hardy (2008), amateur content, and in this case a girl live streaming online, gives the opportunity for interaction with, as Hardy states, a ‘real’ girl as opposed to viewing professional content whereby one simply is looking at “an inaccessible performer giving an over-played performance.” (P. 62) Hardy makes an additional interesting aesthetic point regarding amateur content and its registration of reality and authenticity. He argues that “the grainy images
