The productions of the 80s and 90s were less numerous due to the cost of equipment and production. When they made a vid back then, it had to count. Since the dawn of the digital age in the 2000s, anyone could buy a digital video camera, produce a vid in an afternoon, and post it online or burn it to disk.
The quantity of films being put out took precedence over the quailty of it's content.
I've been watching a lot of classic porn as well as a lot of Europorn lately, and they both share something in common.
The sex in both is so much more believable... There's very little of the canned dialog; "Oh... fuck me... fuck me with your big dick", etc. etc.
The difference is their facial expressions... the classic girls and the Euro girls didn't have to fake moaning; the made/make it arousing with the faces.
I always get turned on when the guy first penetrates the girl and her eyes go wide as she lets out a little gasp; VERY sexy. But watch American porn... you'd never know the girl had just had a 10" cock shoved into her if you didn't see it.
Plus, with Europorn, most of the girls are gorgeous with a lot less tattoos, and the films are produced with the quality of a Vivid or Wicked DVD, but the action is SO much hotter and nastier. It's a rare Eurogirl who doesn't do anal, and for the most part the girl finishes the guy of rather than him jerking off onto her face.
I'm sorry to say it, but the stuff coming out of Porn Valley today just doesn't get me off any longer.
...I don't care for the guys who just seem to aimlessly pound away at a beautiful young lady. There seems to be no passion, no chemistry in most cases.
Some of the hottest vids from Europe really capture the art of lovemaking with extended kissing and oral sex, followed by numerous position changes, then into anal, with a great facial finish. Great camera work, too. I'm tired of watching American women pretend to smile, while keeping their mouths closed during a facial. Open up and take it all in, or get a real job, lol!
I also appreciate the lack of tats and piercings. The women are stunning as well, so for my money I stick with Private vids and I love Rocco's stuff, as well.
I have to agree with you Eddie.
The American market is just not cutting.
The Scenes are not realistic and no one stays in porn long enough to develop a fan base anymore.
The following youtube clip of Ginger Lynn sums up the whole biz nowadays.
I went to the San Fernando Valley last night. It does not even feel like the capital of the porn industry anymore. The sex shops hardly carry any good videos and if they do have a decent one, it is way over priced at $40 bucks. Porn stars are not performing at the local strip clubs anymore because the clubs don't want to pay there fees. Those were the days in the valley, hitting a strip club and chilling with a porn star.
I heard a rumor that Erotica - La will not take place this year since the vendors are complaining the show is not profitable anymore. Well, don't blame us the consumers for that, blame the industry for that and the organizers. Last year's show was pathetic compared to the first one I went to in 2000. No one was there selling condoms, sex toys or a wide array of dvds. Most of the talent was sitting with their friends behind a chain link fence. That bugs me when I see that. It is a convention for fans to meet the stars but they don't want to talk. And you don't know why no one is paying for videos anymore.
Eddie, thanks for posting about Euro porn, I have been enjoying it along with Golden Age Porn.
My 2 cents,
Ken
I dont think the Euros have the same substance abuse problems we have here, primarily cocaine is harder to get in europe and quadruple the price. If people are just shooting vids to support their habit the quality goes down.
I think this keeps the euro girls more clean and yes i agree the vids are way better.
I think the big money producers are less and less in porn valley, so that leaves anybody with a camcorder making a cheap video, with no quality lighting. The Euro vids all have great lighting.Lighting costs, lighting directors charge money.
It's not just the porn industry it's every industry. That's America. Commercialize it, Slap a label on it and then market it.
Fake everything motto is complete turn off indeed!
Is it possible to get more Euro PSE's to tour the USA? Visa problems?
While I agree that you might be right about your personal tastes and points in American porn none of it is the actual reason the industry is tanking in the U.S. I can site the exact same things and more in Euro porn. A great deal of euro porn, in fact some of the best selling and most popular, is nothing but an exercise in finding a girl that has something to offer physically and seeing how many different ways you can do her and how much she can take without making so much as eye conctact. Mind you I'm not saying I completely despise this as it's a part of my collection. But that as well as the other reasons are beside the point. The real problem is a three headed, economic monster. Ask anyone in the industry and they'll tell you that what's killing American porn is the cost of talent and production, a down economy, and maybe most of all... piracy. You can download almost any video, for free (read pirated) mere hours after it is released online or on DVD. Several forums and download services offer many options to find any title or material you want for free not to mention torrents and sharing services. This combined with the fact that during the economic/internet boom, online porn grew too fast for its own good and producers like Bangros and several others began offering talent huge rates that are now financially toxic with the current market. It's the reason you can find so many stars available here now as they got used to an inflated industry and pay rate and aren't making the money or getting the volume of offers they were before. Now between the amount of amateur porn and piracy taking it's bite, porn's become like the restaurant business and the internet where everyone gets in thinking they can make it but only a minority are able to make a go of it. While you may not like American porn and the points about it's style and quality may even be valid, there's always someone with different tastes who does like it but when they don't have to pay for it why would they, especially during tough times and with virtually no repurcussions.
Agree completely with Eddie...its all so fake and mass produced, its like McPorn now...there are no true stars anymore...Tats are the big turnoff for me...honestly what is it with the obsession with tats, I mean look at Jesse James, he had Sandra Bullock and cheated on her with a walking wall of graffiti??!
I don't disagree with your assessment of the state of porn (though I am partial to bolt ons). I just disagree hat it will be the death of the American porn industry. Someone will come along, maybe some day soon, with a new style that really gets people going. Maybe it will be like the European stuff, maybe different. But it'll be hugely popular, and the industry will shift. I just think porn will change style like everything else does. We're probably 85% of the way through this phase, with the trend setters like Eddie reaching their fill. It's just how product development in a capitalist economy works.
I realize that it's not the quality of the porn that's killing the business. Primarily, it's all of the free adult tube sites where you can search for a particular girl and watch dozens of her scenes, even some full length movies, for free. And you also have internet sites like Bang. Bros. and Realality Kings for less than the price of one DVD you get a whole month of content.
But my main point was that the quality of American porn today vs. the European porn, and even compared to the classic porn, is like night and day. The girls of the classic era, when compared to today's p'stars, were no where near as hard bodied, but their performance more than made up for their looks.
You and Delp hit the proverbial nails on the head.
Anybody old enough to remember peep show theatres? No quality or drama either. Just whacking material.
Just like a tube site.
(but without the sticky mess.)
Hopefully all this "craporn" will get played out soon.
...back in the day the old stuff looked unrealistic! But I agree I miss old school seventies style bush and production values.
I now find scenes that feel like an actual hour session with a hooker really erotic.
Fuck production values. Couldn't care less.
But an Ed Powers-type scene totally does it for me. Where you feel like it is you setting your camera on video and tapping the girl.
I find that hot.
The other thing I find inexplicable, in this day of practically free digital cameras, is why even gonzo guys don't have ten cameras rolling at once to splice from.
I agree! The only porn that works for me is classic porn.
I have a lot of problems with the crap they're producing today, but one of the things that bugs me is that everything seems to be over-lit. It washes out the color. In the old days, the skin colors looked warm and real. Maybe I'm just weird, but it makes a difference for me.
U.
what is up with all the tattoos nowadays?
i rememeber back in the day, most porn girls didn't have tattoos, and if they did they were minimal; like nikki tyler and jill kelly. JR carrington didn't even have any. now they all have huge tattoos, and i noticed JR even has accumulated many now that she has quit making films
Don't get me wrong, I have some favorite past and present movies and pornstars, but there are a lot of misses. What I don't like all that much is the high production value titles like the "Pirates" movie with Jesse Jane. It just seems like way too much of a niche title. If I wanted to see that kind of stuff I'd watch the "Hollywood" Pirates of the Caribbean on one screen and a raw porn title on the other. Plus, I never went for too much of that character/acting/plot crap getting in the way of the really enjoyable sex, totally driven by instinct, or at least appearing so. Save that cash and make a few really good fuck flicks, even specific fetish stuff would find a broader audience I think. Euro stuff tends to show more girls really getting in to the sex, and changing things up, and in really great looking places. I don't think anyone does sex in the incredible variety of the great outdoors better than Private Video does. I'm sure there are other reasons for the porn industry's denouement, but maintaining Hollywood type production value rather than porn type production value seems a like a big mistake.
The productions of the 80s and 90s were less numerous due to the cost of equipment and production. When they made a vid back then, it had to count. Since the dawn of the digital age in the 2000s, anyone could buy a digital video camera, produce a vid in an afternoon, and post it online or burn it to disk.
The quantity of films being put out took precedence over the quailty of it's content.
I have to agree that there are way too many tattoos. I just watched the new scene at NA with Paris Kennedy, I was pretty excited as I love redheads, but after seeing that horrific face on her shoulder with the skin missing... I had to stop, I couldn't even get it up...
The young girls think tats are a turn on. Maybe to the young bucks they are 'cause they have them too, but who is buying the porn? Us older guys, and we are the ones paying them for escorts too.
I, for one, find lots of tats not attractive, although I have seen some providers with them, they do nothing to enhance her or her performance. I much prefer just natural skin.
Just an ol' guy's thoughts.....
Swim
I may be repeating so forgive me but to me it's about exclusivity. There is so much of the same type of porn produced it's rather disposable. I almost don't care who's in the next scene. How many mechanic, pool guy and naughty neighbor scenes can I watch?
Tattoos if done tastefully and artistically and placed on the canvas of the human body can be attractive.
But… so many girls get so many tattoos or choose tats that are so elaborate in design and color that they become virtually illegible, all blending into one another and becoming a "mish-mash" of color. It's as if a painter decided to throw all his ideas and use all of his colors on a single canvas. Too much on too little area.
Fewer tats can be, and usually are, more intriguing and alluring on the human body.
The porn industry is in trouble for the same reason the music industry (and soon the TV and film industries) is — too much poor content and rampant piracy. It's product it as fast and as cheap as possible which, when everyone is following the same production philosophy, ends up hurting the entire industry.
Porn will never go away. But, I doubt we'll see return to high production values anytime soon!
I'd have to agree with your view fasteddie. The dialogue of fuck me... fuck me with your big dick, foul mouth repeating the same thing over and over; spitting now a days, fake moaning, the don't cum in my mouth or face and I really don't want to be there attitude. Along with the guy jerking off onto her face. All sounds like Teri Weigel is sort the poster child for present day porn movie performance's. I gotta believe her session have to be better then movies! Except she has no tats. The Eurro girls are definitely beautiful and come across as sooooo enjoying what they do!
I agree
You all sound like a bunch of old guys lamenting the "good ol' days." Which I guess you are...
I'm hear to sing the praises of American porn. Thanks to the Internet, American porn is available to everyone, in all walks of life and in every corner of the USA. Thanks to porn, every high school girl thinks she has to "pop her booty" at the teen dance. Kids basically fu*k with clothes on on the dance floor. Lap dances are a well-known commodity now, thanks to the availability of porn.
I can now easily find porn matching MY specific kinks, instead of being forced to watch Ron Jeremy and one of a dozen of the same hairy, overweight guys doing to same things. In the mood for a Handjob clip? No problem - I can find a thousand with a few mouse clicks. Want to see Black girls? Well now you can see thousands of fresh new faces and asses, instead of just the half-dozen that were around during the so-called "golden age" of porn.
I can get on the Internet, and in minutes have a 1-hour film that is better than anything I could buy in a store for $60. And it's better because each scene is exactly what I want. Remember buying DVDs where there might be one or two scenes that really were hot, while the rest was crap? Those days are over.
Sorry guys, as far as I'm concerned, today is the golden age of porn, and every day it gets better.
I think fasteddie51 makes a very good point. In fact, I'm glad he brought this up because it's also been on my mind lately.
What he was referring to was not nostalgia but rather the level of realism the classic performers (and today's European performers) showed on screen and that's lacking in today's porn. I didn't quite think of it myself until I checked out old clips online recenly. He's absolutely right. The realism really added to the fantasy element of being with a chick who's truly into it rather than appearing as if she's just going through the motions robotically.
Even the blowjobs, for example, were done with certain enthusiasm that most of today's stars could use a lesson on. One of the greatest on-screen fellatio artists was Janey Robbins. Unfortunately, very few of her good performances are available online, but I came across one somewhere recently. I didn't know anything about her up to that point, but man, was I impressed! She didn't have model good-looks, but wow, she was really into deep throat and did it like it was her absolute favorite thing in the world.
By contrast, most of today's stars who are known for their DT scenes seem to perform them as if they're meeting their quota for the day. "Yeah, I'll just take it in deep three or four times, towel off and grab my paycheck." The other pet peeve of mine is when the guy fucks the girl's mouth. Not a big turn-on at all. It's called a blow "job" for a reason. Let the girls do their job, guys. Audrey Bitoni is one rare exception I can think of off the top of my head (no pun intended) who really seems to do something different with her blowjob scenes, like her varying head movements and moans and use of her hands roaming over the guy's body while she sucks him off.
I do agree with you regarding the absence of male porn star "screen presence," which for me is a plus. I don't care much for watching the close-up shots of these guys' faces as they're getting sucked off. The guys in today's porn are just the stunt dicks. Nobody knows nor could care less who they are.
Also gone are the long scripted storylines and cheesy dialogue which were usually skipped anyway with the fast forward button.
You're right, there's a lot more to choose from that suits everyone's taste. But it's gotten to where it's a whole lot of the same old, redundant stuff. And there are more porn actresses than ever, more than I can name. And they are more undoubtedly beautiful than ever. But I think if one of these girls can study the way the classic performers did it and bring that to her scenes, she will set herself apart from the rest of the pack.
I have been watching more classic porn lately (pre 1995) a lot of the same reasons given- Also another difference - scene length.
Classic porn scene can be from 8 - 15 min,but with a lot more intensity and passion while today its 25-35 min and its like watching calstethics. Thank good for the fast forward button.
For the most part Euro girls dont do it for me (with exceptions) to plastic looking.
Haven't watched any US made porn in years except for the occasional hot girl-girl scene on one of the free sites. The fascination with ever bigger boobs, gagging, choking and slapping, and the inability of porn producers to get the idea that just filming close ups of body parts is not sexy has left me turned off from domestic porn for a while now.
only really aware of Angel Dark and Alexis Silver, both brits. know of any other euro porn stars who provide and travel to the states?
mate
FYI, Angel dark and Alexis silver are Slovakian and Czech not British.
there are loads of Euro grils out there providing, Jennifer Stone, lucy love, alletta ocean.... the list goes on and on. try photogirls they will try to like a tour up if enough people ask same with angency allure. most girls will travel now the US has dropped their crazy visa restrictions but you will have to pay for a day at least may be two so that €2400ish and a plane ticket all you have to do is drop them an email.
the problem is the saturation of product has driven the quality into the toilet. Now anyone with a high end cam, a set of girls and calling themselves a director can make a porn.
I also think that the classics, the ero-stars and the high end girls are good at what they do and realize that is is not them but the product they provide whether it be the look or the style or the performance.
with the porn business not really dying but actually "shedding the fat" so to speak, I think that it will get better for them once they understand that it is a business, providing fantasy to the consumer not enriching themselves and their own perceptions of what they theink but what sells.
QUICK: You are low on brake fluid and you pull into an Auto Parts store---what BRAND are you going to buy [USA requires DOT 3 Brake Fluid]? Are you going to hold out for the PENZOIL? Or GUNK? Or Chevron? Or are you going to buy the CHEAPEST DOT 3 Brake Fluid you can buy? ANSWER: You are going to buy the cheapest Brake Fluid you can buy!!! Brake fluid is brake fluid wheither it is brand named or not---you can't tell the difference and neither can your car.
SAME WITH PORN. French,Greek,Russian, American, Asian, Spanish, Italian, Polish and Japanese (euuuu). Then you got Gay, Straight, Fetish and Kink (ScheiBen Videos, Kiddy Porn, Beastiality). You got various body images (BBW, BigTit, SmallTit, Amputees, Midgits), Hair Colours (Blonde, Brunett, Red Heads). That's about it!!!
The Problem with Porn is that its business model is dying. In the 70s & 80s, it was about film and counter-culture ART HOUSES. In the 90-Y2K is was about home consumption/transportability Post 2010 Porn is mostly Pay Per View Hotel Fare. PORN IS DEAD because its business model is DEAD. First, you can't get people to PAY for a Porn Video when there is free Porn on the internet to Jack off to. I love EYE CANDY and the variety of Porn I can consume for free (Big Black Tits Monday, Amputees Tuesday, Midgits Wednesday, Hungry Housewives Thursday, Freaky High Schoolers Friday). Why would I want to pay $69.00 for a dirty movie I'd view once & throw away!!!
Worse, Porn is a.) ubiqoutious b.) It is dateless (I've seen some hot 1904 porn at an ART Theatre that was tre hot and some wretched 2012 porn) c.) The trend is for Wall to Wall Sex meaning no story or acting is requiried. Porn is a generic dateless product that is unbrandable and there is TOO MUCH OF IT OUT THERE.
BIGGER PICTURE: CONTENT DON'T MEAN SQUAT ANYMORE SINCE THE ADVENT OF DIGITAL!!! Porn is in the same boat as the Music industry is. 40 years ago, I would have gone without sex, food, drugs or shelter to pick up the latest Beatles, Led ZEP, CCR or Stones LP. I would have jumped on my bike, gone to Tower Records, Paid my $3.99 LP for 12 songs (4 keepers, the rest filler) and I was in paradice. Today, I go to YouTube and download 50-100 songs a night. Some Ancient, some Brand Spanking NEW. Today, paying for a song or a ringtone would, for me, be akin to walking into a WhoreHouse and paying for sex. I actually feel shameful for buying music on iTunes because I could be downloading it for free somewhere else. Am I a theft? No---the free business model is the currency of the rhelm and CONTENT producers have to bundle other shit to get me my attention!!! I don't pay for flowers---I pick them; I don't pay for air; I breathe!!!