Cartoons sure have come a long way since Steamboat Willie. Thanks largely to the enduring success of The Simpsons, traditional animation has become increasingly mature in nature (even The Incredibles was rated PG), and the Cartoon Network’s popular Adult Swim block of programming has helped to usher in a new era of kid-unfriendly animation. It was, of course, inevitable that the adult industry would pick up on this trend.
In recent years, a spate of X-rated animated content has appeared on the Internet, in videogames, and on DVD, and the success of the genre has many industry players buzzing. “Anime is a specialized niche with many fans worldwide,” claims Danny Z., who co-owns gay adult affiliate program zBUCKz.com with his business partner, Craig Jackson. “This gives webmasters with quality anime content the opportunity to market to a completely different demographic and increase their profits.”
The company—whose forthcoming site GayAsianAnime.com will feature an array of adult-themed animation, including “hentai” (pornographic cartoons) and its gay counterpart, “yaoi”—is one of several companies marketing such content. TopBucks’ GayHentaiXXX.com features licensed content from several well-known artists, while RealBucks.com (GayCartoon.com), ActualCash (AllGayToons.com), and Platinum Bucks (StudToons.com) are testing the waters by offering their own dirty-toon sites targeted at fans of gay porn. Yaoi content even found its way into dating-sim PC games, like JAST USA’s Enzai: Falsely Accused and Absolute Obedience, and the upcoming CG-animated, 3D movie Penetration Penitentiary.
Why the sudden trend among gay pornographers? “The trend in anime is not new,” claims Tom Barrington, president of IPO Entertainment, whose GayPayCheck affiliate program launched SpunkToons.com, which features all-original animation. “It’s been around for a very long time. But, like any other art form, once it finds grass-roots support, there tends to be a groundswell of content created to feed that demand.”
Anime originates in Asia, where hentai and yaoi content have sizeable followings. Interestingly, perhaps because its male characters are “androgynous,” yaoi has picked up a sizeable lesbian audience. Most hentai/yaoi content contains graphic sex scenes in which one party is coerced into intercourse.
Of course, sex in comics is nothing new. Priceless Films Chief Executive Officer Tahl Price says, “There has always been sex embedded into comic books. A lot of people suspected a homoerotic relationship between Batman and Robin or associated Superman with being gay and Wonder Woman with being a lesbian.” It wasn’t until Frank Miller released his Batman interpretation, The Dark Knight Returns, in 1986 that comic books regained their popularity. “The success of the ‘darker’ genre of comic books led to the introduction of anime and hentai comics and animation to the U.S. market.”
OK, then what’s the lure of cartoon porn? “For surfers, it’s original ideas and content, storylines, and sets that would be too expensive to create for filmed pornography, and CG that is more eye catching than traditional 2D-animated work,” Price says. Moreover, its producers don’t have to worry about 2257 regulations, flakey porn stars, or nervous talent. “Our porn stars always say ‘yes,’” Price chuckles, “and animated penises always stay hard.”
Animated porn is gaining ground with U.S. surfers hungry for exciting new content, and it is relatively inexpensive to shoot. Beyond that, X-rated toon producers say, anime fulfills fantasies in a way that live-action pornography often cannot. “Hentai is cool because you can draw anything or express any idea at all, from a monster with naughty tentacles and sexy maids with cat ears to guys who change into girls through chemistry experiments gone wrong,” offers JAST USA’s Peter Payne. And, he notes, it is guilt-free entertainment. “There are no thoughts about how the father of the model feels about his child’s career choice, which I like a lot.”
As Danny Z. adds, “I think the attraction to anime porn comes not so much from just wanting to get off or the artwork, but from truly appreciating a world of unlimited possibilities.”
According to Barrington, it’s just a matter of time before toon porn becomes the next big thing. “Once it becomes apparent that there is a global market [for anime], there are going to be more and more people interested in cashing in on it,” he predicts. “I think we will see a period of time where adult sites will rush to include animated art in their membership sites. It’s not a new trend, but it’s a growing trend, and it will grow larger in the years to come, as the lines between realism and art blur.”
