paul smith's Snaps & Bytes e-home
January 2006: PAUL 'NOSTRADAMUS' SMITH'S DEVIANT'S DIARY - Polishing my crystal balls
To state the bleedin' obvious, the beginning of a new year is always a good place to take stock; looking back to review and evaluate the year that's just gone. But like few other events, the changing of that last digit of the date also reminds us the future is coming, whether we want it to or not. Like a man who cowers at the sight of 8p in coppers, many of us fear change. Looking forward with positivism, I've always liked to play a game I call 'Oracle'. The basic premise is I make a prediction about something and wait to see if I'm right. I've had patchy success but one highlight was when, in an IT magazine I used to write for, I said that proper camcorders based on notebook hard drive technology (yawn) were on their way. That was in 2003, and what did I see in my local Dixons the other day? At last!
Thus here are my predictions for the adult entertainment industry. To help cover my back, I'll not give a timeframe.
Fucking machines may be a phrase I'm often heard shouting at my various PCs, but I'm actually talking about the mechanical thrusting devices here. While speaking to Jason Regler of Vibrafun at last year's Skin Two Expo, I confidently predicted that the first person to market a half-decent fucking machine for £100 retail would make themselves a fortune. The closest I've seen were the Solo Sex Machines at Erotica, but they are £500 and quite fancy. Another model was a little cheaper, disguised as a vanity case and featured variable depth and speed of thrust, plus a mirror in the lid. This is all very nice and pretty, but if you've got a cupboard or a space under your bed you don't need a fuckbox that looks like anything else, and what good is a mirror when your eyes are screwed shut in the throws of ecstasy? As for depth of penetration, what's wrong with sitting/lying further away from the box? The basic mechanics are very simple. A power source passes current through a variable resistor (to control speed, if required) to drive a motor, which needs to be geared down to maintain efficiency and produce the right sort of RPM for a linkage (adjustable?) to drive a reciprocating arm. Some designs I've seen are even simpler, with a cam on the output shaft from the reduction gear driving a hinged, spring-loaded arm, which then moves like one end of a seesaw. The dildo is attached vertically, at right angles to this arm, to be knelt or squatted over. Grab a windscreen wiper motor from a breakers yard, visit B&Q for some wood and screws and make your own for £15. Replace the wood with strong plastic or metal and the motor with something less oily and Roberta's your orgasming auntie. There's no reason why, with the cost advantages of mass production (as opposed to the bespoke models currently available) and overseas labour rates you couldn't market a simple machine for retail-realistic money.
Kissing in adult films. Girls like porn, right? Sure they do. And girls like romance too. The reason why male-biased pornography holds limited appeal to the curvier sex is that it literally dives for the clitoris. This can be a turnoff. You don't need a storyline to inject some foreplay, just a little tenderness and atmosphere building before things get more frantic and sweaty. Since over half of the population is female it might be time for mainstream fuck-fest directors to take a look at some porn made by women for women. That'll be lesbian erotica then (typed 'tongue in cheek'. Hey, an anilingus reference!). With material specifically intended for girls it isn't all about the money-shot, if any; it's about the preamble. The image of a finger tracing the curve of a breast towards a vulnerable nipple can do a lot more for a lady than the same finger rapidly disappearing into any given hole. Anna Span knows this, which is why her work is gaining a growing following, while she carves a fresh niche for female-orientated porn. The adult toy industry has catered for women's tastes for years but when it comes to films you can't afford to ignore this other pink pound for much longer. Shortcut: The man who turns up on the doorstep isn't a plumber, he's a handsome florist with a bouquet of beautiful flowers or a hunky door-to-door fluffy-kitten-in-a-basket salesman. Plus they've brought chocolates with them.
More mainstream profile for industry figures. - Abi Titmas. Famous for being videoed in compromising positions and performing acts of a lewd nature with/by John Lesley of Blue Peter fame, while having a funny name. And precious little else. If she can make a living as a 'celebrity' from an appearance in amateur porn, you can be sure some fit spunky actress can hit the top of the video charts with a raunchy keep-fit video, not least because it might be bought by as many (or more) men as women. Sexercise is a bit of an obvious tag, but too good to ignore. Go for the burn indeed. Ben Dover is releasing a record for the World Cup and popular culture is about ready to embrace sex toys (as seen by Amazon, Tesco and LastMinute.com adding them to their product portfolio in recent months) and with this new openness comes new opportunities - and challenges - for the adult entertainment industry. If a porn actress could get into the Italian government (as opposed to…and so on) 19 years ago, stranger things can and will happen in the UK in future. Even that well-known 'character' Robert Kilroy Silk stood at the last erections, sorry, elections. I dare say Cathy Barry could beat him off and ensure he lost his deposit... I'm saying we're not quite at Dutch levels of tolerance, if that's the right word, but in time I think the UK could get there. With Northern Ireland following 30-40 years later.
The death of crappy plastic dongles. In the age of the iPod Nano and the ever increasing fetishisation of consumer electronics, a speed adjuster that wouldn't look out of place on a '50's bakelite hairdryer just won't cut the mustard any more. These generic, Chinese-made units (you know the design. Thumb-wheel below a curved horn denoting you rotate it to change the volume and/or speed. Usually in white, brown or black with gold detailing) have remained, unchanged, from the days when city gents looked like John Steed and carried an umbrella in all weathers. While more innovative manufactures have addressed this deeply unstylish component, other, perhaps more generic/budget brands, steadfastly stick to brittle plastic like the super glue you need if you tread on it. In the name of all that's good and right and decent, please stop it!
Interactivity is a term oft banded about in this industry, especially in connection with DVD-based games. However, the technology already exists to make an adult film far more immersive than that. DVDs can carry a lot more info than just the movie visuals and soundtrack. Like the flicking white blocks you should never see but which power Ceefax, extra data can be embedded - data that could be used to control a toy. I've seen this done by Japanese firm SOM, who I saw at Erotica in November. Their models were being controlled by a laptop but it's not hard to imagine a small discreet unit plugged into the back of your home DVD player. It's powered off the SCART socket, so there's no extra wiring to worry about. You just plug the SCART lead from your telly into its back, and forget about it. It sits there, minding its own business, looking for the data added to a porn title, while conveying all the usual signals to your TV. When it finds the extra code, it begins broadcasting low-power radio to any toy in the room that's switched on and 'listening'. And thus the toy can simultaneously emulate the action on the screen. If it's a fucking machine, it reproduces the thrust speed and depth of the male (or strap-on equipped) star. If it's a pocket-pussy type sleeve, it vibrates and squeezes in sync with the female starlet (or male receiver in gay titles). If it's 'just' a vibe, it interprets the radio signals the best it can, with low and high speed vibrations, changes in pattern and force of surges of power… and so on. It'd not quite be like being there, but for not too much money (the electronics are actually fairly basic) it would add a whole new dimension to 'Erotica-Stimulated Masturbation' - or ESM, as I like to call it. I can see the packaging now; "Play the DVD-game that plays you back". The same Dildonic technology would be easy to adapt for the more social pleasures of cyber and phone sex. There are already some toys that can be controlled remotely via the 'net, of course. Just have your web cam, tissues and debt card handy. There are lots of possibilities - You could have cheaper corded versions, bundle films or DVD-games with the equipment… All it needs is a bit of vision and investment.
Marketing and Packaging is all about growing a brand, and in this industry there are currently precious few of them that have made the leap into the public consciousness like Sony, McDonalds and Disney have. Ann Summers and the Rabbit are the only names I know my mum would recognise - even if she'd not admit it. However, additional adult retailers -the likes of Hustler Hollywood- appearing on the busy end of the High Street, and more adult products appearing in established 'mainstream' businesses, can only mean this will change. To facilitate this growth, the marketing and packaging of sex toys (want to see the power of marketing? Sex Toys sound like fun. Marital Aids sounds like a serious medical condition) and films will have to change too. Some folks, Top Cat and Fun Factory being good examples, have already upped their game, producing eye-catching designs that are a world apart from some I've seen. Bland far-eastern boxes with three different styles, sizes and colours of font, mutant artificial-limb coloured toys that look as cheaply made as they are and amateurish DVD sleeves for non-amateur titles need to go before a brand can stand for quality and desirability. Shelf Appeal can't really be about the product; it's about its presentation - how it looks and what that makes the potential purchaser infer about how it'll feel to watch or use. Otherwise shops would be obliged to have curtained-off demo cubicles and a bucket of Milton Fluid™ on standby at all times.
Finding a bedroom buddy in the early 21st century isn't as simple as it once was. There was a time that a chap would see a gal at a tea dance and quite like the cut of her jib. Similarly, she'd admire his well-groomed moustache and so they'd marry, produce offspring and die from all the lead, asbestos and boredom in their prefabricated home. Now drunk people mate and quickly part the following morning when they realise their sober-selves have nothing more in common than a hankering for a full English breakfast and a love of Hard House. Why else is it that there are more single person households now than ever before? The Internet is an obvious place to 'meet' a likeminded person because it's safe and discrete but most well known dating sites specifically warn against referencing sex or sexual preferences. Which is all well and good if it's a sexless spouse you're looking for rather than a sordid squirter. Sex is a big deal in relationships (sometimes the only deal) and if his/her love of anal and her/his passion for watersports make the couple totally incompatible then getting those predilections out in the open up front would save a lot of wasted flirting, and perhaps a big bar bill. There are a few more broadminded sites but most, like Adult Friend Finder, are very US-centric. Now, if you want to buy or sell something second-hand online, there's one obvious place to go because, well, it's the place where everyone goes. Success has bred success. Taking what I perceive as a need to its logical conclusion, I predict a UK-based online racy 'dating' service will come to the fore in the near future, probably associated with an already established name in the British sex industry. And like a twisted version of Friends Reunited (there's a tag for it: Fuck-Buddies United) it'll become THE place to make contact with open-minded folks for 'friendship' or more(somes).
POD - Porn on Demand. Be it via satellite, broadband, MMS or cable TV, how we get our moving porn is changing. There was a time it came on Super8, which as a medium for viewing and distribution was rubbish. On the up side I guess piracy wasn't much of an issue. Anyway, DVD has reached its plateau stage, VHS is sliding ever faster towards wherever obsolete formats go (car boot fairs?) and the next generation of digital HDTVs will need equally advanced storage systems to go with them. There's a higher-capacity version (or two) of DVD coming, but for Sky+ fans storage currently means a hard-drive system too. Of all of these, the hard-drive or Gb+ memory-card offers the most convenient storage - just ask any MP3 fan. The barely-policed distribution channel that is the Internet is the ideal way to send encrypted, copy-proof material to consumers with a high-speed connection. No wonder the electronic distribution rights to all sorts of media, not least in the adult realm, are being hotly fought over right now. If your business just sells films off a shelf, you may want to think about expanding into other areas. Eggs, baskets and all that. And if you're an MP, you might have to accept un-BBFC-rated material is just a small subscription fee and an anonymous 4Gb download away - Controlling the movement of physical media is a lot easier (and thus cheaper) than trying to monitor the flow of 1s and 0s.
If and when the above comes to pass, remember who gave you the nod. Alternatively, if you use the above information to build a personal fortune and somehow 'forget' to send me a cut, I'll see you in court with a copy of this ETO under my arm. And I predict I'll win.
Paul Smith is still free to a good home. Kinky Job offers to info@snapsandbytes.co.uk please.
2400ish words on The Shape of Things to Cum Dale. I hope you find them prophetic, not pathetic :-)
Paul.