When the lockdown began nearly a year ago, it felt as if we were on some beach, sucking back oysters, filling our lungs and loins with salt, when suddenly we choked on our slimy aphrodisiacs; our pants zipped up fast and hard, without making sure everything was first tucked up inside. There we were, half in the dark and half painfully dangling, trying to elude some plague that was supposed to belong to another century. All at once, we were left isolated and idle, with a lot of toilet paper, a part of us still salty and half out of our pants, and unable to meet a one-night stand.

Enter porn and the world of online sex.

We should be thankful that we live now and not in 1918, when the last pandemic hit. There were no televisions or computers then; no live cam shows or subscriptions sites where you can watch people have sex in surround sound and high definition. No Skype or Zoom—or tokens to purchase for a name shoutout and a titty bounce. All you had was your hand, some Vaseline (if you bought name-brand), and your painfully limited imagination. Think about it: when our great grandparents were wanking it, they hadn’t seen a well-choreographed gang bang, or a pile drive, and I’m sure they didn’t know a girl could squirt. What a limited world to live in without that font of knowledge.

But we don’t have to lean so far back into history to see how the business of adult entertainment, and how we relate to it, has changed. We only have to look pre-pandemic to see that our relationship with sexual gratification lies beyond imagination and what we thought was mindless ejaculation. We now look to sex, and sex workers, for connection and intimacy—and most surprisingly, humanity. Those who have been vilified and marked with red letters and tied to stakes, primarily to intensify our own animalistic satisfactions, are now marked essential. The virgin and the whore are one, their worth elevated and knotted up in a time we really need to get off.

“Don’t take your clothes off,” a fan said to me when requesting a custom video on my personal entertainment platform. I had heard it all when it came to these requests, but a demand for full clothing was new. “Just dress up nice, unbutton the top of your blouse so I can see bra lace and pretend we’re flirting at the bar.” He also specified the name of the bar, which is one he often frequented in the before-time, and also where he was the night the world shut down.

That wasn’t the only message I got like that, either. More and more fans were requesting intimate videos that mimicked real-life situations. A drink after work; plans of an illicit affair; hanging out and smoking a cigarette in stilettos and stockings while I laugh at their little cock—still dangling. That casual intimacy had become the taboo, the illicit. They wanted to feel what it was like to be on a date again. To touch a stranger. To be unmasked. And porn was the only way to do it.

DIY and immersive content (like Vixen Media Group’s Intimates series) filmed from the kitchen of the industry’s elite stars has made a name for itself this year, not only because you can buy premium NSFW content from your favorite adult stars and get up close and personal but it’s a place where the five senses come alive. The sounds, the visuals, the taste of your bitten lip when she calls out to you in that foot-fetish custom you bought with the painted red toes. Touch is mutual—the only separation being your computer screen. Really only the smell is missing, but I hear other sites offer previously used costume materials to aid with that.

Handout

Porn, and its players, are no longer two-dimensional—you can talk to them, buy their vaginas (hello Fleshlight—the unsung hero of 2020), and keep them on a loop for as long, or as little, as you want. Adult films have evolved from being this hush-and-blush secret—a stag movie played at a bachelor party, some shocking VHS found at the bottom of your dad’s drawer of briefs. Porn is now at your one-handed fingertips. If anything, the adult industry should be heralded for getting us through this time. The virgin and the whore are our patron saints. After all, Tiger King, as it’s been proven, could only take us so far.

I wonder, if back in 1918, or 1970, or even 1999, if people had what we have now, how their lives would be different. It’s no wonder prisoners write the most fan mail. They could easily satisfy themselves in the dark without anyone except their bunkmate being the wiser. But they feel a need to reach out, because that’s the need we all feel. That’s what Great Grandpa felt back in 1918 with his jar of Vaseline and the belief that a woman couldn’t really have an orgasm. And of course he thought this way—because Great Grandma never had a webcam and a ring light.