The market for taboo, borderline offensive adult material has been a money-maker since the 1970s, so it’s no surprise that relative newcomer Desperate Pleasures has taken a top spot on Pure Play Media’s sales list. Tapping into a reality that many of us can’t—or would rather not—imagine, this fledgling studio has inspired fans around the world to dig deep into the depraved corners of their minds and live out their darkest fantasies. Figuratively, of course.
Desperate Pleasures is still considered a relative “noob” in the DVD distribution business, but when the studio joined our distribution lineup last year, we knew we had something special on our hands. Before coming to Pure Play Media, the amateur studio was a goldmine not yet tapped, and founder JW Ties was desperate (so to speak) to find himself a home. As soon as the ink dried, we started working one-on-one to develop his line and prep it for DVD, which was a learning process for a husband-and-wife team whose previous experience with porn was strictly as occasional consumers.
But with Ties’ talented—and twisted—mind, his wife’s camera and aesthetic skills, and Pure Play Media’s dedication to providing stores with content that sells, Desperate Pleasures is quickly rising the ranks and breathing fresh, and lucrative, life into the modern DVD market.
“Pure Play Media’s owner, marketing team, distribution team, and other execs are available any time we need them, which has been a big perk,” Ties said. “They make you feel like part of the team, not just another vendor.”
A former plumber whose career took a dive during the recession, Ties had only one fallback plan: amateur photography. What was once a hobby became his hopeful bread and butter, and a fortunate connection with a popular online paysite gave him and his wife an outlet to create and sell fetish clips for cash. The duo soon built a loyal following and launched DesperatePleasures.com to give fans a one-stop shop for their niche content, and the eventual leap into professional taboo porn production was motivated by none other than Ties’ mother-in-law. It was clear that Desperate Pleasures was destined to become a family business—in more ways than one.
Taboo role-play was the direction Ties and his wife (and now partner-in-porn) took. Step-siblings with unrelated step-parents, uncles with distant cousins not connected by blood—Ties imagined every possible way to blur the lines of blended families and soon that content niche became his core category. Fans couldn’t get enough of his true amateur entertainers and their role-playing performances, and before long Ties and his wife came up with a concept that eventually brought this taboo content onto DVD.
Deflower Me Daddy featured a true virgin being penetrated for the very first time—with shots of her intact hymen included—and the dark side of the World Wide Web went nuts. Ties and his wife knew there was a market for what was coming out of their minds, with traffic numbers to prove it, and it was high time to put it out on DVD. And that’s where they got stuck, until fairy godfather of sorts Dan Leal of Immoral Productions/Porno Dan fame put them in touch with us at Pure Play Media, and we snatched up Desperate Pleasures before anyone else got a chance.
Any hesitation about their potentially perverse themes melted away when our customers saw the sales numbers, and I can state with confidence that Pure Play Media truly scored with Desperate Pleasures. Working alongside the studio’s official sales rep, Mike L., has given me a sneak peek into what contributes most to this content’s popularity, and we both believe that much of its appeal comes from Ties’ and his wife’s lack of experience in DVD production. The two are very vocal about their figure-it-out-as-they-go approach, and it works to their benefit. The scenarios, the girls, the sets, and even the quality all attract viewers who find its potential realism more appealing than some of the highest-production porn on the market.
And what’s most interesting about what Desperate Pleasures has accomplished goes much deeper behind the scenes and more into the psyche of the studio’s loyal (and growing) fan base. We all argue about the science behind our turn-ons. Are we born with them or do we learn as we go? No one knows for certain, but we definitely know that there’s no “off” switch. What’s so special about Desperate Pleasures is that it provides a safe environment for its fans to express these passions in private, free of judgment.
Having worked in DVD distro for years, I can tell you that there are taboo porn titles more than three decades old that still sell as though we had released them this week. There’s been an incredibly profitable market for this category for longer than some industry members have been alive, which proves that society craves content that explores fantasies that fall far beyond the traditional and expected. And that’s exactly what Desperate Pleasures is in business to provide.
Ties says about 95 percent of his plots, stories and concepts come from his head and that there isn’t a theme he can’t handle. Nothing hits the cutting room floor—“If I made it, there’s somewhere I can sell it,” he says—and now he’s focused on further expanding his explosively popular step-family role-play using a secret weapon that no other studio can claim: Grandpa, the oldest working American man in porn.
Seventy-four-year-old Grandpa is a former Juggs magazine photographer and had been filming Sybian and blowjob scenes for Desperate Pleasures’ previous online presence for years before Ties realized he had another specialty niche on his hands. The two formed a partnership of sorts and Grandpa has become a regular in the studio’s family-focused content, with his first full feature now released, appropriately named Weekend at Grandpa’s.
“He’s a hoot and I’ve learned quite a bit from him,” Ties said. “He bakes cookies, gives [the girls] multiple orgasms, hot photos for their ports, and keeps it fun. Many of them come back for more.”
Desperate Pleasures has several projects currently in the works and we’re already laying the groundwork to give our customers a heads-up on what’s to come. We’re recommending that some stores create their own fantasy or role-play sections to make finding this kind of in-demand content fast and easy, and it’s a pleasure to see them sustain such success. DVD is here to stay, thanks to smart buying decisions and bold content creators like Desperate Pleasures.
This article originally ran in AVN magazine.
