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. In identifying the key characteristics of what he means by “24/7 capitalism” (which he refers to by the abbreviated “24/7”), Crary provides us with an entry-point into understanding 24/7 as a system and the implications for the pornography industry.
Human vs. Machine
Preeminent among these characteristics is the idea of 24/7 capitalism as an environment that “has the semblance of a social world, but it is actually a non-social model of machinic performance and a suspension of living that does not disclose the human cost required to sustain its effectiveness.” (2013, p. 9) It is therefore evidently a world in which human beings are forced to compete with machines, the latter of which require neither rest nor sleep for rejuvenation.
Importantly, these machines do not require sex or intimacy, with their manifold implications, either. (E.g. procreation, relaxation, or edification)
The pornographic comparison to “a non-social model of machinic performance,” where the variegated expressions of human sexuality are reduced to specific sounds, gestures, and identities, is also important to keep in mind. These variegated expressions are the “blurred, meandering textures” of human life, to which 24/7 always provides a “reprimand and deprecation” (Crary, 2013, p. 29) and to which porn provides a standardizing, homogenizing counterpoint. 24/7 reinforces the idea that human life is messy, and that this messiness is undesirable: rather, the industrialized gesture of the machine is both a triumph of human invention and an unattainable goal to which humanity must never cease to strive. A FLAPPING OF WINGS: THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT, PORN & 24/7 CAPITALISM 7
The Homogenization of Time and Experience
In keeping with the deprecation of human texture and “messiness,” 24/7 provides us with a homogeneity of experience and time that mimics machinic performance. Crary (2013) describes this as a form of “amnesia,” a “zone of insensibility” that “steadily undermines distinctions between day and night, between light and dark, and between action and repose.” (p.
17). Instead of these distinctions, traditional notions of time matter not in a system that never sleeps and on which darkness has no effect. Crary argues that “24/7 should be understood not simply as a homogenous and unvariegated time, but rather as a disabled and derelict diachrony”
(2013, p. 57) Here, he refers to a collapse of history (the “amnesia” of earlier) that keeps individuals fixed in a state of present, immediate homogenous experience, accelerating so quickly as to obliterate any sense of the past and without thought for the future.
If Crary positions his discussion of the effect of 24/7 in time, Bifo (2009) discusses the same phenomenon in space: virtual space, like time in 24/7 logic, is equally reductive in its homogenizing capabilities. Bifo (2009) lends to our theoretical understanding by rounding out the picture, arguing, “virtual is a reality whose tangible physicality has been eliminated… digital technologies are based on the loss of the physicality of the world, on simulating algorithms capable of reproducing all life forms, except for only one quality: their tangible reality, their physical form and therefore their caducity.” (p. 103-104)
Evidently, human sexuality in this space must also be reduced and homogenized: in fact,
Bifo further argues that “sexuality and conviviality have been transformed into standardized mechanisms, homologated and commodified: an anxious need for identity progressively replaced the singular pleasures of the body.” (P. 79) He describes the “network world” as a place where relation to others is “artificially euphoric but substantially desexualized.” (Bifo, 2009, p. 103) A FLAPPING OF WINGS: THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT, PORN & 24/7 CAPITALISM 8
Bereft of sexual meaning, then, human interaction online is typified in the pornographic image or video: at once euphoric and lacking the multifaceted layers, interactions, and complexities that makes human sexuality distinct and exulted. Sexuality, instead, is reduced to audio/visual performance and consumption, an experience disabled by 24/7 “through processes of homogenization and redundancy, and acceleration,” and the “infinite cafeteria of solicitation and attraction perpetually available.” (Crary, 2013, p. 33) The perpetuality of this availability bespeaks a privileging of immediacy (i.e. what is immediately available) in a 24/7 system.
The Privilege of Immediacy
In a 24/7 system, what is immediately available, accessible and utilizable is substantially equated with the full extent of what actually exists. (Crary, 2013, p. 19) This means that privilege is given to the online, mediated experience, which is often more conveniently and immediately accessible than real-life interaction or transaction. Similar to 24/7’s homogenizing effect on time and experience, this represents a collapse of time: to have an interaction that is not immediately available is a sign of the spectral disruption, the ghosts of older modes and technologies that have not yet been annexed by 24/7. Meanwhile, 24/7 attempts to absorb or neutralize these disruptive experiences that “could potentially undermine the substantiality and identity of the present and its apparent self-sufficiency.” (p. 20)
This idea of immediacy and the terrorizing of time presented by 24/7 challenges older notions of the way capitalism as a system operated to control. Foucault (1977), for example, argued that bodies were disciplined through the organization of time, which he referred to as
“disciplinary time”: he explains that disciplinary time, in “specializing the time of training and detaching it from the adult time, from the time of mastery; arranging different stages, separated from one another by graded examinations, drawing up programs, each of which must take place A FLAPPING OF WINGS: THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT, PORN & 24/7 CAPITALISM 9 during a particular stage,” thoroughly capitalized time. (p. 159) The results of this capitalism of time and the regulation of time, bodies, and forces, are docile bodies of consumers and individuals embroiled in a capitalist system. Now, in 24/7, bodies are no less controlled and docile, but this is accomplished through a system of immediacy and convenience: arguably, the phone in one’s hand owns one more thoroughly and totally than the boss, commanding officer, or politician above oneself.
The Birth of the (New) Logic of Capitalism
The result of all these changes produces a slight shift in the logic of capitalism. Crary
(2013) argues that:
the effectiveness of 24/7 lies in the incompatibility it lays bare, in the discrepancy between
a human life-world and the evocation of a switched-on universe for which no off-switch
exists. Of course, no individual can ever be shopping, gaming, working, blogging,
downloading, or texting 24/7. However, since no moment, place, or situation now exists in
which one cannot shop, consume, or exploit networked resources, there is a relentless
incursion of the non-time of 24/7 into every aspect of social or personal life…The
promotion and adoption of wireless technologies, and their annihilation of the singularity
of place and event, is simply an after-effect of new institutional requirements. In its
despoliation of the rich textures and indeterminations of human time, 24/7 simultaneously
incites an unsustainable and self-liquidating identification with its fantasmatic
requirements; it solicits an open-ended but always unfinished investment in the many
products for facilitating this identification. It does not eliminate experiences external to or
unreliant on it, but it does impoverish and diminish them. (p. 30-31, emphasis mine) A FLAPPING OF WINGS: THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT, PORN & 24/7 CAPITALISM 10
It is therefore evident that non-time and downtime are being capitalized by 24/7 in new and inventive ways: not only is time being capitalized, but, as individuals are encouraged to compete with never-sleeping machines, there is even more coercion to buy products and services that would help in this endeavour. While the making of these purchases is hardly new, the drive behind it certainly is; the desire now stems from machinic logic that spoils and wrecks human textures. In this world, the purchasing of a new phone, for instance, is not simply a capitalistic desire to compete with one’s neighbor; neither is it simply a fetishistic approach to the latest technology. It is as well a yearning for a tool that helps one stay awake and active in a system that never sleeps: it is a desire for invincibility. 24/7 births a capitalistic logic that promises near immortality to the purchaser.
Thus-equipped with a theoretical framework that understands a 24/7 system to be one that pits humanity against machines, homogenizes time and experience, privileges immediacy, and births a particular form of capitalistic logic (or rationale); it is time to apply this framework onto The Butterfly Effect and the pornography industry.
Analysis: The Ceaseless Flapping of the Butterfly’s Wings
With all the changes to older modes of pornography brought about by Thylmann’s purchasing of major porn websites, the new face of online porn follows the logic of 24/7 capitalism in a way that older modes of pornography did not. Sexuality, as a result, is under attack by the logic of 24/7 capitalism; this logic feeds and is fed by the “new” pornographic industry. In order to understand how this happened, it is important to understand what happened to the “traditional” pornography industry and what the effect of those changes have been. The A FLAPPING OF WINGS: THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT, PORN & 24/7 CAPITALISM 11 following analysis has been structure to provide both a synopsis of the change as well as a discussion of the myriad of predictable and unpredictable effects.4
What Happened to the Traditional Porn Industry?
In the age of routinely pirated pornography, the immediate availability of porn is privileged over ethical considerations regarding the creation of porn and remuneration for its producers. In The Butterfly Effect, Ronson’s interview with Quasar discusses this in detail.
Quasar searches Pornhub using some keywords (he does not reveal what these specific words are), and instantly a film he shot two months earlier appears: “the entire movie, and it’s right there on Pornhub. And it’s the whole movie, it’s not just a clip or a little snippet to get you to go somewhere else – it’s the whole fucking movie.” (“The Fallow Years,” 2017) Quasar’s tone is less angry, more resigned: he knows that there is little he can do to stop this from happening.
While he could have lawyers issue takedown notices, he says the time and expense is not worth it: the speed of these takedown notices cannot compete with how quickly users are uploading his films, in part or whole, nor can they stop new videos being uploaded constantly.
This is particularly troublesome for veteran porn producers who have been in the industry for a long time and are now approaching retirement. While they can no longer make substantial money off their films, their names are also often blacklisted by their long-term association with porn. They are, as Quasar describes it, stuck in a field they desperately want to get out of, while their life’s work is continually being made available online for free. (“The Fallow Years,” 2017)
4 It is important to note that The Butterfly Effect is not critical of pornography in general (e.g. exploitation/abuse of actors, objectification of women etc.). Ronson’s approach is one of non-judgment towards porn producers and actors; whether he glosses over feminist or social justice issues is something many listeners and reviewers debate. However, as a result of his limited discussion, I will also limit this analysis to the themes he covers, and not offer a direct critique of porn. A FLAPPING OF WINGS: THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT, PORN & 24/7 CAPITALISM 12
The futility of this competition with Pornhub users, while the latter are constantly uploading material, embodies 24/7’s pitting of the machinic against the human. An individual cannot compete with an unsleeping system, represented by users from around the globe covering a 24/7 cycle of uploading. To put this in perspective, in 2017 alone, over four million videos were uploaded to Pornhub; if played continually, these videos would run for 68 years straight.
(Pornhub Insights, 2018) The Internet here, and Pornhub as a particular site, is the 24/7 virtual space that facilitates constant uploading; without this technology, much less could be accomplished. Meanwhile, a single producer, the Quasars of the world, cannot compete by providing more material than these users; as well, they cannot in have it taken it down as quickly as it goes up.
Porn producers are not the only ones losing out, however. As Ronson describes, in an age where online content must be indexed to optimize search engine results,5 porn is increasingly divided into categories. (“The Fallow Years,” 2017) These categories might be made up of identities, genres, sexual acts, cinematic or shooting style, or fetishes, and are attached to specific videos through the use of tags, or “keywords used to classify content.” (William, 2008) While the plus side is the undoubted turn of profit for porn websites (after all, porn is now easier to sort, retrieve and hyperlink), porn actors find themselves increasingly forced to ascribe tags to their performances.
In a best-case scenario, this means that an actress (or actor, but predominantly the former) is simply squeezed into boxes of identity and forced to hold on to those positions. (E.g. being given and retaining the title of “Anal Queen”) However, in a worst-case scenario, actresses can
5 Search engine optimization (SEO) was a huge concern for Thylmann from the beginning. He hired tech professionals, like Brandon Retty, who specialized in SEO in a time when “phones were still, kind of black and white, and were flip phones.” (“A Nondescript Building,” 2017) A FLAPPING OF WINGS: THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT, PORN & 24/7 CAPITALISM 13 quickly find themselves out of work. Quasar shares his regret over having to turn away beautiful women between the ages of 22 to 30 who neither look young enough to fit a “teen” category nor look old enough to fit a “MILF” category. “If you’re just the standard, run-of-the-mill, attractive
26-year-old,” Quasar says, “it’s gonna be tough for you. You’re going to need a second job.”
(“The Fallow Years,” 2017) This means that, while porn is certainly easier to find, women who cannot fit necessarily homogeneous categories of sexuality are forced out of the industry.
The effect for users is an obvious homogenizing of porn, sometimes the only sexual experience viewers have. The result has been the formation of a new industry for users who seek an individualized porn experience: niche and custom porn production. Ronson interviews Dan and Rhiannon of Anatomik Media, producers in this niche industry, and describes the content they create: “custom made porn videos, commissioned and devised by wealthy fans for their personal consumption.” (“The Fallow Years,” 2017) While, finally, a way for industry professionals to make money again, the requests for these videos are often strange and outlandish; yet with so much money on the table (a video can easily cost in the tens of thousands), it is not so easy for producers to walk away. In The Butterfly Effect, Ronson shares the story of a man who pays to have several videos created of beautiful women burning and destroying his expensive stamp collection; another man commissions a video of a woman dressed as Wonder Woman beaten and held captive by a creature resembling a gremlin; yet another asks for a video of women driving in a truck while they smoke and urinate in it.
(“Something Happened,” 2017)
While arguably some of these videos appear to not be of a sexual nature, they bespeak a desire to forgo the homogenized sexual experience of Internet pornography. As Crary (2013) writes: A FLAPPING OF WINGS: THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT, PORN & 24/7 CAPITALISM 14
The nature of wishes and drives has gone through enormous historical changes over the
last 400 years. This is not even to address a much longer time frame during which the
notion of "individual desires" may have been meaningless... It is impossible now to
conjure up an individual wish or desire so unavowable that it cannot be consciously
acknowledged and vicariously gratified. Now, during waking hours, reality shows and
websites indifferently detail every conceivable "prohibited" family romance or
antagonism, while web pornography and violent gaming cater to any previously
unmentionable desire. The unavowable now, in this milieu, is any wish for a collective
overturning of omnipresent conditions of social isolation, economic injustice, and
compulsory self-interestedness. (p. 108)
Sexuality herein is under attack against the implacability of these omnipresent conditions, which are mere symptoms of a 24/7 logic. Custom porn is, for now, really only the purview of the wealthy: however, as porn continually becomes more homogenized and custom porn becomes more outlandish, this dichotomy “feeds the desire to emulate wherever possible this particular privilege of the elite.” (Crary, 2013, p. 124) Sexuality, therefore, is being manipulated to conform to a fetishistic fantasy rather than physical intercourse between individuals.
New Porn Sites: Advertising and Consumption
Porn sites themselves are also arenas for the manipulation of sexuality and for 24/7 capitalism to flourish. Advertising on these sites, the most crucial source of revenue for
Thylmann and his ilk, play into complex lifestyle marketing campaigns that assume much about the porn site user. While data mining is common on these sites, (Hawkins, 2017) displayed advertisement are as much prescriptive for users as they are descriptive of them. Ronson describes how companies that particularly sought male audiences created revenue-sharing A FLAPPING OF WINGS: THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT, PORN & 24/7 CAPITALISM 15 infrastructures6 with Thylmann’s porn sites in lifestyle branding efforts. (“The Yes Ladder,”
2017) One such website was Ashley Madison, a paid online dating service that was exclusively for married people to have extra-marital affairs. In 2015, a group of “hack-tivists” revealed the name and personal information of people on Ashley Madison, causing a massive scandal; they also revealed that many people on the site were actually chatting with bots instead of other human beings seeking affairs.
The obvious connection to machinic performance (bots being more reliable than humans when it comes to online seductions, apparently) is even more evident in the advertisements for sex toys: these toys, after all, stand in for the very literal messiness of human textures and replaces it with small machines. The Butterfly Effect shares the story of a Louisianan man named
James who sleeps and shares his bed with a sex doll that resembles his first love, Darlene – while his wife (not Darlene) sleeps in the other room. (“Anxiety,” 2017) This seems almost too on-the- nose as an example of machinic logic and a privileging of the immediacy of sexual availability a doll may provide that humans probably do not – a doll, after all, can never say “no.”
The result is a very literal spin on Crary’s (2013) idea that, “Most of the seemingly irreducible necessities of human life - hunger, thirst, sexual desire, and recently the need for friendship - have been remade into commodified or financialized forms.” (p. 10) It also calls to mind Bifo’s (2009) distinction of virtual space as distinct from physical. The sex doll positions itself as a bridging of the divide: at once the “simulating algorithms capable of reproducing all life forms,” (Bifo, 2009, p. 104) and the tangible reality of physical form traditionally absent in the virtual space.
6 Companies like Ashley Madison would track when an individual clicked through an advertisement on another website (e.g. Pornhub), go to the external link, and registered for Ashley Madison’s services. The latter would then share some of the revenue (“rev-share”) with Pornhub. (“The Yes Ladder,” 2017) A FLAPPING OF WINGS: THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT, PORN & 24/7 CAPITALISM 16
Effect on Porn Viewers and Consumers
Customized porn experiences, extramarital affairs, and sex dolls are not all that is on offer for porn viewers and consumers. Another important consideration is the hunt for more graphic porn: not merely customized to one’s own fantasies, but porn that pushes the limits of human bodies and psyches. As Dines (2011) discusses, “The other problem Fishbein [founder of
Adult Video News, an online industry publication] points to is the enormous amount of pirated or free material on the Internet. Everyone I spoke to at the Expo was worried about this highly competitive market, and many shared the feelings of one producer who told me that ‘this is an industry running out of ideas.’” (p. 11) As a result, pornographic content has become increasingly graphic, violent, and sensationalized. (Dines, 2011, p. 39) While clearly a push against a homogenous experience of sexuality, these graphic pornographic expressions are also ways for actors to differentiate themselves in a world with an overabundance of content and a limited number of tags: “As the market becomes saturated and consumers become increasingly bored and desensitized, pornographers are avidly searching for ways to differentiate their products from others.” (Dines, 2011, p. 11)
Another, related side effect is “pornography addiction,” a compulsion to watch porn
(sometimes despite being ethically opposed to it) that is facilitated by personalized Internet- enabled devices (e.g. phones, tablets, etc.)7: now, users can cheaply (freely) and easily access porn in a myriad of positions and venues, while on-the-go or at home. Ronson interviews several people dealing with such an addiction, including members of an addiction support group made
7 It is worth noting here that many pornography addiction therapy programs suggest that sufferers get rid of Internet- enabled devices and switch to basic cellphones (e.g. flip phones). The desire to be free of this addiction is pitted against a capitalistic compulsion to own newer, faster and better phones that enable a 24/7 mindset; after all, wanting to compete in a never-sleeping system requires “investment in the many products for facilitating this.” (Crary, 2013, p. 31) A FLAPPING OF WINGS: THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT, PORN & 24/7 CAPITALISM 17 up of female, seminary students. One such student argues that pornography addiction is dehumanizing, having nothing to do with the intricacies and textures of human sexuality. When
Ronson asks if she ever thought about the lives of the porn stars onscreen when she viewed porn, she responded, “I didn’t really care about them. I just cared about myself. ... It’s like when you kill a deer. You don’t name it because then you can’t eat it.” (“The Yes Ladder,” 2017)
Crary (2013) reminds us that, “even the quasi-addictiveness associated with internet [sic] pornography and violent computer games seems to lead quickly to a flattening of response and the replacement of pleasure with the need for repetition.” (p. 87) This seems to be what this self- professed addict is referring to here: a compulsion to watch, an implacable gesture to click and view, that has little to do with the pleasures of intercourse. Rather, it imitates the machinic gesture that is at once compulsive and irresistible, privileging the immediacy of the moment and homogenizing sexual experience.
Effect on Non-Viewers: Children and Vulnerable People
This is perhaps more worrying given that children and vulnerable people are now exposed to (or have access to) pornography at younger-than-ever ages. While sexual representations should be carefully monitored before being passed on to children (if at all), private viewing practices have become so standardized that children are able, more and more, to do view porn without parents ever knowing. An interesting case discussed by Ronson is of a woman who began shooting porn in her 40s.8 She and her husband chose not to share this new career path with their 13-year old daughter, evidently underestimating the curiosity and
8 Amateur videos, being so easy to create, film, edit and upload, has led to the rise of the “cam girl,” a woman who makes money by broadcasting entertaining (often sexual) performances via webcam from her home or a studio. (Richtel, 2013) While amateur contributions are important to the way the industry has changed, this is not substantively discussed on The Butterfly Effect. I therefore wish to acknowledge this important element without following a discussion that leads away from the podcast. A FLAPPING OF WINGS: THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT, PORN & 24/7 CAPITALISM 18 resourcefulness of 13-year old children. The case ended in one of the worst possible ways, with their daughter’s fellow students telling her about her mom’s exploits and bullying her about it.
(“Children,” 2017)
Another important case was that of a young man in Oklahoma suffering from bipolar disorder and autism. Having a limited social circle throughout his teen years as a result of his condition, Nathan befriended an unnamed girl at the age of sixteen. The two bonded over a shared love of anime; Internet searches for anime soon led Nathan to anime pornography, links to which he texted to the girl. He also mimicked some of the aggressive, sexual language he heard in these videos. The girl felt threatened by his language and became afraid; soon after, her parents called the police. In short time, and before Nathan could truly grasp what happened,
Nathan was slapped with a label as a sex offender and now, at age 22, has limited opportunities for work and living space (he must not live within a certain distance of any school zone).
(“Children,” 2017) While this is possible a “worst-case scenario,” it is also not unimaginable when one considers how easy porn is to access: the money Thylmann invested in SEO, evidently, paid off.
For uncritical and less-critical minds, in the cases of children and the vulnerable, the results of exposure to online pornography may be devastating. Crary (2013) argues that, “it is also important to consider other omnipresent electronic industries of temporal objects, though ones that are more open-ended and indeterminate in their effects: for example, online gambling,
Internet pornography, and video-gaming. The drives and appetites at stake here, with their illusions of mastery, winning and possession, are crucial models for the intensification of 24/7 consumption. (p. 53) For uncritical minds, the context of human sexuality is not part of the A FLAPPING OF WINGS: THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT, PORN & 24/7 CAPITALISM 19 equation: Internet pornography is really much more of a game. The damage to developing sexualities, however, can be very real.
Effect on other Industries
This is true for adults as well, whose sexualities are increasingly informed by pornography and mediated, homogeneous expressions of sex. Ronson discusses the psychological effect that all this porn viewing may have on viewers: it is suggested to him that free porn is making it harder for people to have sex with actual humans, so he interviews Gary
Wilson, a psychologist with the US Navy. Wilson has been asked to investigate what is happening with soldiers who are increasingly exhibiting anxious behaviour as a result of intimacy issues and erectile dysfunction. He discloses that the long time away from home encourages soldiers to watch porn instead of having sex with their partners; the result is a trained habit to reach for porn, rather than another human, to address sexual urges or to inspire arousal.
(“Anxiety,” 2017).
Armies, navies, and other groups that need their employees ever-ready are concerned about this because the psychological health of their soldiers could have very real, very detrimental, consequences. This is even more true for soldiers who suffer badly from pornography addiction such that they stay up all night watching porn and are thus too tired to function properly the next day. (“Anxiety,” 2017) Wilson also describes this as a problem that does not only pertain to soldiers, citing studies that show a “jump” in the rate of erectile dysfunction in 2008-2009, corresponding to the rise of searchable and streamable porn; he cites
“a Canadian study” that found rates of erectile dysfunction to be about 26% in males aged 16-21 years old. (“Anxiety,” 2017) The psychological effect of the use of pornography for sexual arousal has a funny little moment in the podcast: while on the set of a porn film, Ronson A FLAPPING OF WINGS: THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT, PORN & 24/7 CAPITALISM 20 observes a porn actor watching porn on his phone in between takes to maintain his arousal, despite the naked woman in front of him.
It comes as no surprise, then, that pharmaceutical companies are benefitting from this.
Pills for erectile dysfunction, anxiety disorders, and depression are being prescribed in record numbers. Crary (2013) interestingly argues that “the fluctuating textures of human affect and emotion that are only imprecisely suggested by the notions of shyness, anxiety, variable sexual desire, distraction, or sadness have been falsely converted into medical disorders to be targeted by hugely profitable drugs.” (p. 55) Whether these are “false” or not is certainly debatable, but it is quite clear that these conditions can be exploited for profit. In a competitive, 24/7 system, where underperformance is intolerable, these conditions must be dealt with promptly, even if that means a symptom-treating regimen and not a long-term cure.
Conclusion
The new face of online porn, heralded in by Thylmann’s purchasing of major porn websites, follows the logic of 24/7 capitalism. This means that it encourages the pitting of humanity against machines, homogenizes time and experience, privileges the immediate availability of pornography, and creates a capitalistic impulse to buy in order to remain awake and engaged 24/7. As a result, 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. While some of the major effects of online, free pornography are discussed in The Butterfly Effect, it is hardly an exhaustive list: there is still much we do not know, much we cannot gauge the extent of. We are also in the midst of so much change – and chronic change – in technology, industry and society.
In a 24/7 world, it is difficult to keep up with the frequency of change: the butterfly, it seems, flies through the night. A FLAPPING OF WINGS: THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT, PORN & 24/7 CAPITALISM 21
But we are able to determine that capitalism is at work to undermine human sexuality, and perhaps as a result, be better armed against it. It is in the interest of 24/7 for us to be medicated as we strive to compete with machines, mindless as our experiences are reduced and homogenized, and uncritical as we privilege the immediacy of what is in front of us. Rather, the preciousness and virtue of human sexuality must be protected and preserved just as Crary (2013) argues sleep should be. While journalistic endeavours, as indicated by The Butterfly Effect, certainly help in this effort, it is the imperative of individuals and industries as well to decide how this is accomplished. A FLAPPING OF WINGS: THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT, PORN & 24/7 CAPITALISM 22
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