User-Generatd Porn Storytelling: Ecstasy and Exploitation on Xtube

I knew that for the final VRM project I wanted to work with the idea of user-generated porn as a space for digital storytelling, but I found myself stuck in trying to think through a form for that content to take. On the one hand, I’m interested in how sties like Tumblr and Twitter have become spaces for pornographic media sharing and archive curation. But, I wasnt interested in making anyone engage with media that makes them too uncomfortable and the use of those mediums would’ve been constructed heavily around visuals. So I instead found what I hope is a happy medium: my final “paper,” which I’ll instead call a project despite being text-heavy, is presented as an Xtube profile page.

You can find it here.

Visiting a porn site is obviously NSFW, but the profile page I’ve created includes only a few, non-graphic video thumbnails toward the botto. Otherwise it’s all text, both my own writing and a cataloguing of the self-descriptive terms/activities/desires that users have the option to choose from. I decided that, even if I couldn’t and wouldn’t want to make y’all engage with porn directly, I could still make you engage with the platform itself and see what the space looks like as a social networking tool.

The profile page I’ve created houses my writings in the available categories of self-description. My introduction come in the “general info” section. A discussion of the history of user engagement and a now-defunct profile comes in the “About my Partner” section. And my analysis of two recent user examples is available for reading in the “sexual interests” section. I highly recommend you visit the profile pages for the users, even if you’re uninterested in viewing the pornographic videos. Also, QualityCouple’s video is not pornographic and instead is a clean, informative video about their choice to leave the site.

I wanted this project to be informal and informative. I want visitors to the page to get a feel for what the potentials, positive and negative, are for using Xtube as a space for storytelling. In order to engage with my full text, a visitor must navigate the structure of the profile page. The videos I discuss are available for viewing in the “favorite videos” section of the page, so visitors have the option of viewing them if they so desire. I thought this was the best compromise, allowing y’all from the course a look into the site’s structuring—without bombarding you with the pornographic imagery that is obviously everywhere on this site.

My analysis mostly takes on two users who both utilize the platform to create content involving third party participants. biversbear is a user who has captured potent moments of intimacy on cam within a context of dirty kink and role-play. jayscock is a user who exploits homeless men in his area and puts that exploitation online for all to see. Both use their videos to tell stories of their sexual encounters, but they have starkly different relationships to “vulnerability” and notions of the “authentic.” I briefly discuss Zizek, quote Lorde and Warner.. But the text offered here is not completely academic. More than anything it’s an introduction to the tactics used in this space when users craft images and narratives that involve both themselves and their sexual partners.

For anyone uncomfortable clicking through, here’s a preview of what it looks like:

Coming out as a gay-for-pay porn star: BSB uses Youtube to expand into documentary

Porn site Broke Straight Boys (BSB) has been producing behind-the-scenes content for Youtube for quite some time, but their most recent effort at letting fans inside their world is the most revealing, candid, and meaningful content they’ve produced yet.

In this half-hour documentary we watch a 21 year old young man who goes by the name Paul Cannon talk to his family about his sexuality and his choice to work in porn. What ensues is the kind of discussion that usually stays behind closed doors. It’s the kind of exchange that’s infuriating to watch because there’s such a disconnect in their competing conceptualizations of sex and gender and no informed mediation. So what is captured on film is raw and uncomfortable and. It’s sometimes contentious, as you see in the video above. It’s part of a new youtube series that BSB is calling a reality series, giving fans a behind the scenes look inside the BSB house. But this half hour documentary is something much more, delving deeper than the simple solo interview they’ve done in other videos into interactions with family.

In Paul’s shining moment of self assertion and clarity (which happens in a solo interview, not in front of his family) he says, “the reason why I don’t like labels like that is that bisexuality has this negative connotation of being confused. And I’m definitely not confused. I mean, I know what I like. I definitely find women attractive, but then there’s certain aspects of men that I find attractive. Which is… I don’t think that’s very confusing.” The BSB team cleverly follows this up with a clip of one of Paul’s brothers saying that Paul is a liar. Paul isn’t to be trusted. He can say what he wants about his sexuality, but there’s a lack of belief. I don’t want to harp on the deceitful gay man trope here, other than to say that Paul’s brothers, like many, are quick to jump to the conclusion that uncertainty, privacy, or change with regards to sexuality are the result of deception and a general queer untrustworthiness. It’s not pretty.

But it can’t and shouldn’t be forgotten that Paul is also a young man who has put his family through an overdose at the age of 18. There’s reason for him to be seen as a liar or a manipulator. The documentary actually spends the first third of the runtime on this backstory, during which I found myself angrily cursing at them to just move on already. What surprised me, though, is that this short film doesn’t ignore those issues OR fall into common traps. Paul’s history is acknowledged, but pornography is not painted as the seedy low-point of his addiction or the unwelcome position he’s been forced into. It’s part of his triumphant move into comfort with himself and independence from his addiction.

But the money doesn’t hurt either. “I’m not in any of those holes anymore,” Paul says. Of course, the audience has never been allowed to forget the money. The t-shirt he’s wearing for the solo interview that we see throughout reads “I’M NOT GAY, BUT $1000 is $1000.” The documentary balances these two viewpoints fairly well, considering their own interest is in painting their business in a favorable light. This is, after all, an advertising tool as well as a documentary effort.

By the end of the documentary, the audience has a feel for who Paul is as a person. That means a view into the why and how of gay-for-pay porn, but also how working in porn has fundamentally altered his life. Paul struggles with unwanted celebrity in his home town, but also has finally reached a point where he has the hope and means to pursue long-term goals like an education. It’s a complicated position to be in, and he doesn’t minimize the positives or negatives.

I was really impressed to see that Broke Straight Boys dealt with “coming out” in such an honest way. The video could include more of the exchange with his family, but it’s a big change from their previous efforts that have focused on the men as they live and operate within the BSB environment. This documentary isn’t just a teasers for fans to get more fantasy material. It’s a real story with many cringe-worthy moments. Here we have a major online porn studio blending real-life, documentary accounts of their model’s lives into their online presence. It’s a phenomenal shift away from the secrecy that has dominated pornographic work for so long.

So, even if you’re unfamiliar with BSB, I highly recommend the video. What it lacks in polish it more than makes up for in candor. BSB would be paving new ground if they continue on this path toward documenting the lived experiences of pornographic work and breaking down the public/private barrier. The most important work they have done with a story like this is to provide a mouthpiece for a young man in their employ whose public identity is otherwise so often outside his own control. Paul is staking a claim to his position as one of agency and self-reflexivity, and it’s commendable for him to be so public in doing so.

The “I’m straight, I swear!” interview is a basic part of the gay-for-pay-model. And this does, to an extent, operate as a continuation of that. But BSB has allowed this series to evolve into something more substantial than the infrastructure for a false fantasy. It’s documentary, through and through, and it deserves respect as a sincere effort at documenting these men’s experiences.

Aaaaaand, if you’d like to see Paul’s work from BSB, here’s a sample video. Full warning, by clicking the link you will be redirected to Pornhub. So, obviously NSFW. The documentary link at the top of the article, on the other hand, is within Youtube’s content standards.