BUTTERFLY EFFECT, PORN & 24/7 CAPITALISM a Flapping of Wings
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Running Head: A FLAPPING OF WINGS: BUTTERFLY EFFECT, PORN & 24/7 CAPITALISM A Flapping of Wings: An Exploration of The Butterfly Effect, the Pornography Industry & the Logic of 24/7 Capitalism Ruth Massey CMSTMM 705 McMaster University Instructor: A FLAPPING OF WINGS: THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT, PORN & 24/7 CAPITALISM 2 Introduction: The First Few Flutterings Standing at the bus stop on a cold, winter afternoon, I am enjoying a wash of weak winter sunlight on my face, barely listening as the podcast I have on transitions from one episode to the next. I am reflecting instead on the simple pleasure of cold, clean air and sunlight; on friends that I recently saw; and on how nice it is to have something to listen to on the long bus-ride home. It is no surprise, then, that I am caught off-guard as a flood of orgasmic sounds suddenly fills my ears: breathy and gasping female voices intertwine with low, guttural masculine groans, building in crescendo. Face turning red, I compulsively thumb the volume button on my phone, hoping no one around me hears and assumes the worst (a quick, nonchalant glance around reveals that everyone has their own headphones in). Ten, panic-filled seconds later, the reassuring tones of Jon Ronson’s voice comes on, and the symphony of orgiastic sound fades to the background. Ronson explains he is on the set of Bad Babysitters, Vol. II, a pornographic movie with, based on the title, an easily deducible plot. Ronson continues to explain that he is here to interview Mike Quasar, a veteran adult film producer whose lifework is, without his consent, continually being made available online for free. This is my experience of listening to The Butterfly Effect, Episode 2, entitled “The Fallow Years Between Teen & MILF.” This podcast explores the changing pornography industry, tracking its evolution from the 1990s through the lens of a single man’s decision. Fabian Thylmann, a Belgian entrepreneur was amongst the first Internet users of the mid-1990s. As he describes, the trade and dissemination of pornography online coincides neatly with the Internet’s entrance into public consciousness (as more than an ethereal notion): as the Internet materialized into a concrete tool for public usage, so rose access to porn. Porn’s online dissemination had humble beginnings: Thylmann compares the culture of porn in the 1990s, when he was only a A FLAPPING OF WINGS: THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT, PORN & 24/7 CAPITALISM 3 teenager, to young boys passing around an illicit Penthouse magazine. Chat room users would trade log-in information for paid-access pornography websites. Porn options at the time were limited as well, as particular studios made limited content available online on paid-access websites. It was in this nascent world that Thylmann dreamt of a time in which porn would be free; and not only free, but also easily accessible, pirated (not to mention piratable) and copious. Fast forward to the mid-2000s, and Thylmann finds a company in Montreal who is realizing his exact dream: Mansef Incorporated creates websites that allows users to pirate pornographic DVDs and put them online for free, while the company makes money largely from advertisers on their site. Inspired, Thylmann quickly purchases the company and soon all other companies doing similar work.1 He hires tech-professionals who are pioneers in the world of search engine optimization, and the sites grow in popularity and online traffic. Site users are uploading content by the minute, and advertisers are paying millions of dollars to have their ads displayed on the sites; in other words, business is doing well. To put this in perspective, just one of these sites, YouPorn, is now worth an estimated $862 million. (“How Much?”, 2018) However, as tends to happen, all this success in one arena (and for one individual) came at the detriment of another. The podcast picks up on this thread, following the flap of the butterfly’s wings to gauge the effect of free, pirated, easily accessible online pornography on users, industries, societies, economies, and, notably, porn producers and actors individually. This is how I come to find myself standing at a bus stop listening to Ronson interviewing Quasar over the fading moans of a “bad babysitter.” At once heartbreaking, funny, uncomfortable, and uplifting, The Butterfly Effect has much to teach listeners about the changing landscape of the industry in the age of digital capitalism. 1 Popular pornography websites, including RedTube, YouPorn, and Pornhub, were all owned by Thylmann through his company, Manwin (now MindGeek). Thylmann sold his stake in the company in October 2013 (Pardon, 2013) A FLAPPING OF WINGS: THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT, PORN & 24/7 CAPITALISM 4 Extending the podcast’s already thorough analysis, I want to suggest that 24/7 capitalism, as Crary (2013) describes it, has a key role to play in this discussion. As a significant feature in the digital landscape, 24/7 has created a world in which online access to porn is both an example and an extension of capitalism’s role in the online world. As Ronson tracks the butterfly effect of Thylmann’s decision to make porn widely accessible online, I want to track the role 24/7 plays in those same sectors of our world: economy, society, and industry. I will argue herein that the new face of online porn, heralded in by Thylmann’s purchasing of major porn websites, follows the logic of 24/7 capitalism in a way that older modes of pornography did not. I will furthermore argue that sexuality, like sleep, is under attack by the logic of 24/7 capitalism, and this attack is in fact at the head of the success of online porn and of Thylmann’s success. Operationalization: Tracing the Butterfly First, it is important to specify what is meant by “online free porn.” This is adult content2 of a sexual nature3 that is available in still image formats or short/full-length clips for streaming online, and for which (financial) payment is not required. Such content is usually graphic but can range from softcore (nudity and sex scenes usually with slow lovemaking, soft cinematic focus, and gentle music) to hardcore (violent sexual acts, extreme close-up shots of genitalia, screams etc.). Covering a wide range of identities (e.g. black, gay, Asian etc.), fetishes (e.g. foot, urine etc.), acts (e.g. anal, oral sex etc.), and genres (e.g. comedic, horrific etc.), online pornography arguably has something for everyone. 2 I want to address a thread in literature that seeks to distinguish “pornography” from “erotica.” (Steinem, 1984; Gerkhe, 1996; Suraiya, 2004) While this distinction, which is predicated largely on the notion that erotica is “a story that involves sexual themes” and pornography is a “graphic depiction of sexually explicit scenes,” (Gerkhe, 1996) I do not see a need to distinguish between these two for the purposes of this discussion. I use the term “pornography” throughout this paper, but that term may well be inclusive of erotica. 3 While some people refer to various subjects as “pornographic” (e.g. “food porn,” an aesthetic and appetizing depiction of food; or “travel porn,” attractive and appealing images of travel destinations and wanderlust lifestyles), I will limit this discussion to images and videos of a sexual nature. A FLAPPING OF WINGS: THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT, PORN & 24/7 CAPITALISM 5 This material once needed to be purchased in the form of DVDs or videotapes; conversely, one could also purchase magazines that featured pornographic pictures and still images. Now, due in part to the aggressive marketing tactics of online porn sites, (Thornburgh & Lin, 2002; Wolak et al., 2007) these sites are more easily accessible than ever: much of the content is available online for free and can be easily accessed through a simple search. Search terms like “free porn” (or even “porn” itself) are sure to pull up free pornography sites within the first few results, sometimes even when a SafeSearch feature is turned on. As well, pornographic still images are easily accessible through numerous sites and search engines themselves – Google Images, for example. This ease of accessibility may account for the average age for first-time porn viewing being merely eleven. (Hines, 2011, p. 14). It is important to note the effect of the Internet on making pornography available. Price et al. (2015) found that there was a “big jump” in pornographic usage and viewing in the last few decades, since the advent of the Internet (p. 18). The Butterfly Effect discusses the many reasons for this, including ease of (private) viewing; however, I am interested in the change to our theoretical notions of how the Internet affects or is affected by capitalism. While Strangelove (2005) argues that “the Internet’s subversion of the dominant meanings produced by corporate speech thereby implies trouble for capitalism’s management of the consumer and the citizen,” I will argue that this is not always the case. (p. 43) In fact, as is evident in the case of eleven-year olds viewing pornography, consumers are embroiled in systems of capitalism enacted online from increasingly young ages. It is, therefore, important to understand the theoretical framework through which I will conduct this analysis: through that of 24/7 capitalism. A FLAPPING OF WINGS: THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT, PORN & 24/7 CAPITALISM 6 Theoretical Framework: 24/7 Plucking Off the Wings of Sexuality The concept of 24/7 capitalism is explored by Crary (2013) in his book, 24/7: The Ends of Sleep. This book particularly chronicles how sleep is threatened by 24/7 capitalism, but the effect is by no means limited to human respite and slumber.