Jared* turned 21 in January. He's a tall, good-looking kid with a rather serious mien and a head full of ideas about what's wrong and right with the world. He and his girlfriend will talk the ears off anyone who'll listen if the conversation turns to politics or global warming, but that's only natural. Both of them are idealistic, enthusiastic college juniors majoring in marine science.
Jared seems like any other middle-class, Southern Baptist scion in the suburban South. In fact, he is, right down to the collection of porn he keeps in his dorm room. He calls it his "pornfolio," and most of it is digital - stored on an iPod and an external hard drive that attaches to the laptop he carries to classes - although he has a few pristine DVDs tucked away for "the collector value." "One of these days, those things are going to be rare as hen's teeth," he predicted, using a Southern colloquialism that represents a jarring anomaly among a lexicon otherwise peppered with more age-appropriate slang.
He and his girlfriend Sher* sometimes watch porn together, but mostly it's something Jared enjoys alone or gawks at with his buddies. "We like different stuff," he explained about Sher. "She's not into freaky." And he is? "Dude, it's not something I'd do," he said with a grin, "but I like to check it out." And he likes to compare his discoveries to his friends.' Jared said his pornfolio is "totally lame" compared to the ones some of his friends have amassed.
Sher said she actually has little taste for porn. It's not that it embarrasses her or she finds it morally reprehensible. "It's just ... well, kinda boring," she said. "I like sex as much as the next person, but watching a bunch of silicone-laced Barbie dolls act like those hideous-looking guys are the best thing they've ever had is just too much - way too much. I could have more fun with a dildo, and it would be better-looking. If I'm going to do the fantasy thing, I'll cyber in Second Life."
She said she doesn't "cyber" - engage in the computerized modern equivalent of what previous generations might have been called "phone sex" - very often, but she has participated in a few "club scenes" online and has one or two friends in Second Life with whom she's experimented. "It's not like I'm cheating on Jared," she explained. "It's not real."
Jared nodded. "Yeah," he said. "It's harmless."
Gavin's* pornfolio is different from Jared's. He's a bit older - 25 - and describes himself as "a connoisseur." As a film student, he's interested primarily in classic porn, so he has amassed a substantial collection from the Golden Age of adult entertainment, much of it on videotape. He even has a few film loops. Recently, he added a DVD of Digital Playground's Pirates to his collection because "it represents a sort of dawning of a new Golden Age of porn, I think."
Gavin unabashedly derides the "cheesiness" of classic adult content, but he said even with schlocky "porn music," bizarre plots and subpar acting, movies like Deep Throat and Behind the Green Door can be fun to study from an academic perspective. His personal tastes in adult entertainment run more toward the sorts of interactive adventures he finds in Second Life, which recently added an audio component. "The experience is more than cybersex and much more than watching video or looking at pictures on the Web," he said. "I mean, that's pretty much a waste of time for anybody but old folks, isn't it?"
What about his girlfriend? "Fuggedaboudit," he answered with a sly wink. "I'm a film student; I get enough drama."
Gavin said he has created a few "mash-up" films by combining scenes from classic porn movies with computer-generated imagery and original animated cartoons. They're meant to be cynical, post-modern takes on a world that values violence and bigotry above even the tamest expressions of sexuality. Although he has posted several short, "throwaway" pieces to his MySpace page, he hasn't posted the more exotic ones online yet because he's still a bit insecure about his "serious art." He said he has submitted a couple of pieces to a juried competition, but the judging hasn't been completed. Is he worried the subject matter might offend? "Naw, man. These are tame," he said, adding that another student with whom he occasionally works once called him "the Michael Moore of porn." He said he considered the comparison a compliment, even though he prefers to think of his work as more like digitized Basquiat in motion.
The young and the restless
Who are these kids, and what planet are they from? Do their parents know what they're up to?
In some cases, they do. Gavin said his parents have seen his short films and are supportive, but they're social liberals who view pornography as just another form of artistic expression. Jared, on the other hand, said he keeps his extracurricular activities under wraps around his family because they probably wouldn't approve. After all, his uncle is a minister.
"Yeah, and didn't you tell me you and your cousin got into his porn stash one time?" Sher slyly asked, butting in.
"Well, yeah, but nobody talks about it," Jared said. He said that's one of the reasons he and Sher - to the dismay of their families - attend a popular, non-traditional church. They abhor the hypocrisy of more traditional religious communities. "We've actually talked about the whole sex thing [with a group of friends from church]," Jared said. "The consensus seems to be that, yes, the Bible does prohibit some stuff, but no one's really ready to say that what happens in your head is sin, as long as you don't act it out."
But what about the people in the movies and online who act so viewers can sin in their heads? "Um ... that's really their business," Jared replied. "If they're OK with it, I'm OK with it."
Such situational morality is not uncommon among today's crop of young adults, according to Kevin Alderman, whose Second Life alter-ego, Stroker Serpentine, is somewhat iconic. At 46, Alderman is well outside the youthful demographic of the majority of Second Life's users, but he works hard at understanding what's on the youngest adults' minds. He has to: His livelihood depends on it. A significant portion of his income comes from selling Second Life accessories; another significant portion comes from consulting with companies that are trying to get a handle on how the young and technologically savvy think. He's the first to admit that's not easy. "They've seen it all, and they're not impressed," he said.
According to Alderman, the most obvious characteristics that set young adults apart from their predecessors are an unprecedented lack of inhibition, an ever-increasing level of technological and artistic sophistication, a sense of entitlement, a voracious appetite for content and an attention span that can be measured in nanoseconds. They demand to take an active role in any creative process that interests them, and they have an almost unshakable devotion to the utopian ideal that "content wants to be free," Alderman noted. And why shouldn't they? In an age where virtually anyone can produce and distribute his or own content and collect the kinds of accolades previously only available to an anointed few, any one of them could become the next Peter Jackson or J.K. Rowling - or Eon McKai, Matt Zane or Joanna Angel. In fact, Angel arose from among the cyberscenti.
The prevailing milieu complicates life for traditionalists.
"Being a content creator or provider is exhausting," Alderman said. "You never get a rest. If you ever sit on your laurels, [the audience] will find somebody else to provide their fix."
The drug analogy is particularly apt, considering the all-consuming, immersive nature of most young people's relationship with technology. The vast majority of them have never experienced life without television, easily accessible movies, the Internet, cell phones or video games.
Instead of prowess on the intramural sports field or in chess or debate competitions, many measure their social status by how many MySpace "friends" they've collected, the number of top scores attributed to them in online gaming communities or the facility with which they attack new software. They can surf the Web, text on their cell phones, listen to music and absorb the gist of broadcasts all at the same time. They don't write letters, and they don't research the unknown at brick-and-mortar libraries. They don't acquire their music collections at local music stores: Their music comes from iTunes or peer-to-peer networks, and it's played on iPods instead of stereos. They feel like their opinions - most often exposed in blogs - matter, and they're never out of touch with the people and happenings that interest them.
In short, many of today's youth have difficulty relating to non-digital experiences, they're not satisfied with the mundane, and they're not willing to wait to obtain whatever it is they desire - and they desire more all the time.
The old and the settled
Unfortunately for intellectual-property owners, when the young want something, they show no qualms about simply taking it. "[Intellectual-property] theft is blatant and pervasive," Alderman said. It's not that young consumers are unwilling to pay for things they can't get some other way, he noted, but since they put so much of their own original material into the system free of charge, they expect everyone else to reciprocate. "They expect a lot to be free," he said, but that doesn't mean they can't be moved to support a commercial endeavor. "When required, they community is willing and able to police itself," he explained. "‘Black hats' quickly are pointed out and shunned."
The trick, Alderman said, is to convince young potential consumers that they and businesses are part of the same community and everyone needs to support each other. Although young people will willingly "appropriate" material from people they don't like and respect, businesses that can form rapports with them, in part, by playing by their rules can expect quite a bit of loyalty and support in return.
That's only partially comforting to old folks who still cling to hopes that they'll figure out the changing tides of consumer behavior in time to recapture a market they see slipping away.
"Everyone I talk to right now is going through the same pain," said Falcon Enterprises President Jason Tucker, who, at 34, is barely dry behind the ears himself. "For the first time, I don't understand the [Web] traffic showing up at my door. Consumers are changing; kids aren't the same anymore." Tucker said it used to be that during Spring Break and at the beginning of each new semester, college students had money to burn, and quite a few burned significant sums at porn sites. "That pattern is dissipating," he noted.
Worse, he admitted, he has no idea how to lure young consumers back to sites that traditionally have performed well. He said he's busily engaged in an ongoing effort to "analyze that, because it means people's social behavior is changing, and [the adult industry is] going to be out of touch pretty quickly unless we get some handle on it."
Even content producers who have been immersed in so-called Web 2.0 - which, as it turns out, is only part of what drives young consumers' behavior - feel somewhat at a loss when it comes to defining exactly what will attract and hold the attention of elusive "millennials" long enough to make them a profitable market. No Rivals Media President Chris Potoski, a rabid evangelist for Web 2.0's interactivity and customizability, said next-generation Web design is only part of the picture when dealing with young adults. "That group knows more about what they want and how they want to interact with a website than I actually understand," he said. "There's a big difference between what the younger generation wants and what the older generation not only wants but understands about technology. That's a huge issue."
According to Potoski, 37, technology decisions as simple as how and where to incorporate Flash video on a website can mean the difference between life and death. One misstep in a low-tech direction can alienate the young who are accustomed to immersive experiences and find static content "boring." A misstep in the opposite direction can alienate core users who still appreciate video and still images - and are willing to pay to see them - but get hopelessly lost in Second Life. Potoski likened the resulting scramble to be all things to all people to the struggle to design websites for cross-browser compatibility during the Web's early years. Designing for cross-generational compatibility, though, embodies a broader range of potential headaches.
Other content producers have abandoned the market segment represented by college-age students as worthless, although they're completely aware the kids eventually will grow up and seek next-gen versions of the things their parents now enjoy. For the moment, though, such producers' attention is turned to what is currently profitable, not what will be in a few years. "I think college kids are all over porn sites," said Tony Pirelli, founder of Twisted Factory and Bondage Bank. "It's just that you can't make money from them. They don't have enough to throw around in the first place, [and they question] why [they should] pay when you can get all you can eat for free. Besides, no one is having as much sex as college kids - and if they are not, they have a problem. If you can't get laid when you're surrounded by and in constant contact with hundreds of first-time-away-from-home, horny peers, then how are you ever going to do it?"
Of course, there are those - like Kasi* and her husband Marc* - who would contend that Pirelli may have gone a tad ostrich in his thinking. Kasi and Marc dated through high school and college and got married after graduation. Now 24, they both teach junior-high students. They would prefer for their students, the students' parents and school officials to not know they also enjoy porn at home. They find computers not conducive to bedroom gymnastics, so Marc devised a way to connect a Windows Media Center PC to the couple's bedroom television screen. That allows Kasi and Marc to share homemade videos with a community of swinging friends online. Since they don't get many opportunities to "party" in the real world, the virtual experience is the next best thing, they said.
Kasi's younger sister, Jenna* is 19 and "so over" porn, she said. She has encountered sexually explicit material online at least since she was 15 and submitted some erotic tales to Web-based anthologies last year. At one time, she toyed with the idea of starting her own voyeur website, but she eventually discarded the notion. "It's all just so silly," she said. "Maybe I'm weird, but I just don't get it."
What's next?
It's no wonder that content producers and distributors are practically pulling their hair out as profit margins shrink, piracy increases exponentially and a once-reliable market seems to be slipping away. According to Alderman, the situation is never going to return to "the good old days" when anything depicting sex was worth its weight in gold. The genie is out of the bottle. Be careful what you wish for: Wishes can come true. The world belongs to the young. Pick your favorite tired cliché, and it probably will apply, Alderman said.
On the ironically positive side, virtual trade shows, seriously immersive virtual reality, high-poly avatars, and metaverses even larger and more impressive than Second Life are on the horizon, and even today's brazen youth soon will feel like dinosaurs among a younger, even savvier generation. According to Alderman, it's not just traditional thought patterns that are keeping the adult entertainment industry from progressing beyond the obvious and being able to attract and hold young consumers with offerings they won't be able to ignore: It's also a noticeable stagnation in technology.
"We're so close to the edge of the envelope right now, we're getting paper cuts," he observed, adding that advances in throughput and streaming are on the horizon, and both of those things are necessary for any digital endeavors to move forward. He can't wait for the conceptual and literal breakthroughs he hopes some whiz kid at MIT already has on his screen. "In the early '80s, we pushed and pushed and pushed until we hit a wall, and that's when the public Internet happened," Alderman said. "Now, we've got our backs against a wall again, so it's just a matter of time."
* Not their real names.
This article originally appeared in the April 2008 edition of AVN Online magazine. To subscribe to AVN Online, visit AVNMediaNetwork.com/subscriptions.
