rule 34 in action
CORONAVIRUS, PORN, SATIRE AND SURVIVAL
by
ANGELA JONES
______________________________________________________________
Angela
Jones is a sociologist who studies African American political
thought and protest, race, gender, sexuality, sex work, technology
studies, and queer methodologies and theory. You can find out
more about her work here
or @drjonessoc.
Rule
34 of the Internet says, if an object or social phenomena exist
in the world, there is pornography of it somewhere. Does it shock
anyone that porn featuring coronavirus themes has emerged on the
Internet? It shouldn’t!
The coronavirus
pandemic is undoubtedly affecting sexual behaviour. As a scholar
who studies sexualities, I suspect that social distancing means
people are having less sex or certainly having sex with fewer
partners, and more people are turning to porn (sorry sex club
patrons and proprietors). So, while we’ll need to wait to
see empirical data regarding the effects of distancing on sexual
practices, I do want to explore how the global pandemic is shaping
the consumption and creation of pornography.
As
people practice social distancing, are self-quarantined, and compulsorily
locked-down, many perverts like me turn to porn as part of our
self-care and coping routines. As of March 25th, Pornhub reported
that its global traffic rates were up 24.4%, immediately following
the site offering people access to Pornhub premium for free.
It is
not a surprise that rates of porn consumption rise under social
distancing and quarantine. It also is no shock that capitalist
porn giants like Pornhub capitalize on such moments by initially
offering free trails to quarantined Italians or later offering
free premium services to boost subscription sales. xHamster, too,
started providing free access to people severely affected by the
coronavirus. The site reported that since this announcement, registrations
on xHamster.com surged 22%.
People
will watch more porn while under lockdown — while this observation
tickles my queer little heart — it is also a somewhat obvious
and unremarkable fact. What is unique about this moment is the
creation of amateur pornographic videos of Covid-19 or coronavirus
porn. But before we get to the porn, let’s set the stage.
A brief
note on public health and social policy contextualizes our understanding
of coronavirus porn. The creation of coronavirus porn says something
profound about human sexualities, desire, pleasure and social
control. Historically, public health crises have been a tool for
the state to control and police people’s bodies, sexualities,
desires and pleasures of the flesh. In the US, for example, the
HIV/AIDS crisis ushered in a wave of new policies that criminalized
and punished people with a positive status. Such state-sanctioned
violence had the most adverse effects on the most marginalized.
As journalist and professor, Steven Thrasher’s work has
shown, in the US, the history of HIV criminalization is rooted
in White supremacy. For those who come from marginalized communities,
the criminalization and policing of their sexualities, desires,
bodies and pleasure is old news.
In New
York State, where I live, the New York City Health Department
released the Sex and Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) report,
a government-produced how-to guide for sex during a pandemic.
A wide range of news outlets, web-MD sites have posted articles
about having sex with Covid-19, and in some cases, encouraging
people not to have sex at all. Tinder released a message to its
users, “While we want you to continue to have fun, protecting
yourself from the coronavirus is more important.”
Thus,
with much public discussion of safe sex under pandemic, there
may also be an increasing desire to find creative ways to push
back against developing governmental regulations and public policing
of sexuality during the pandemic. This is especially true for
sex workers.
Government
agencies have been directing porn production companies to close
down shoots, which means more professional pornographers are seeking
work in other segments of the erotic economy such as camming.
Dark studios mean pornographers also move to sites such as Onlyfans
and turn to sex worker communities for support and survival. Not
limited to professional pornographers, coronavirus regulations
have shut down brothels and entire red-light districts. The closing
of large porn studios and other sex markets opens an opportunity
for more people to create amateur online pornography. These individuals
can try to recoup earnings online but in ways that push back on
the policing of sex industries during a public health crisis.
Increasingly,
online pornography is amateur pornography, and the coronavirus
pandemic is undeniably creating spaces for more people to produce
and create porn. As feminist media scholar Susanna Paasonen has
noted, the rise of online pornography, which is increasingly amateur
porn, has changed the form and content of porn, and crucially
these technological shifts have caused changes in the resonances
and experiences of porn users and producers. The growth of websites
known colloquially as tube sites — sites devoted to sharing
and disseminating amateur porn — have created a profound
cultural shift in the types of pornography that are valued both
culturally and economically. The explosion of amateur pornography
on the Internet has led to what I elsewhere termed the demystification
of porn.
Importantly,
the demystification of porn and the growing number of amateur
pornographers posting videos of sex online ushered in a new cultural
trend, where consumers of pornography began to desire amateur
porn. Critically, the porn industry has, for so long, been an
exclusionary one. Many amateur content creators are actively challenging
cissexism, racism, sexism, heterosexism, fatphobia and ableism
within the porn industry. This shift has been critical to developing
more inclusive, queer, and ethical porn, which fosters new ways
of thinking about desire, erotic life, fantasy, and how people
can and do have sex in the world.
The creation
of corona porn further highlights how individuals and amateur
pornographers have significant power in shaping porn markets.
According to the statisticians at Pornhub, searches containing
coronavirus first appeared on January 25th. In 30 days, from mid-February
to mid-March, there were 9, 127, 482 searches on Pornhub using
coronavirus-related search terms. These data suggest that a demand
for such porn emerged not long after the virus began to spread
— see rule 34 in action.
The rise
of coronavirus porn was not solely the brainchild of pornographers
and sex entrepreneurs looking-in cash-in on disaster capitalism.
As psychologist Justin J. Lehmiller noted, in the article, How
the Pandemic Is Changing Pornography, what we are seeing is an
eroticization of fear and consumption of corona porn is merely
one of many available coping mechanisms.
Following
this psychological line of thought, we might argue that corona
porn is the sexualized version of any number of memes circulating
the Internet — aimed at cheering people up through humour.
Many
of the memes circulating the Internet are funny, but I’d
argue corona porn does even more — it is also effective
satire. I see corona porn not only as a means of making a buck
but as social commentary, and as part of community care. We are
living through a pandemic, our lives have been upended (albeit
in unequal ways), people are dying, and people are worried about
how they will pay their bills. This is a serious time, and this
is all the more reason for us to use humour, especially sexualized
humour, to help us through. The creation of corona porn also makes
a statement about human resilience and a collective desire to
help our communities navigate this difficult time.
As a
porn studies scholar, I sat down to conduct content analysis and
analyze these videos — my academic cover to justify watching
smut while I should be working on my online teaching duties. For
people with hand fetishes, I found a video of a femme person seductively
sanitizing their hands. I found videos of women having a “squirting
orgasm during coronavirus quarantine,” MILF and BBW Cougar
teachers giving students home visits, “sexy Chinese nurses”
taking care of patients, and amateur men-on-men action in “Covid-19
cosplay.” People of various races, nationalities, genders,
sexualities, ages, and body types are creating coronavirus porn
— see rule 34 in action.
Many
of the titles and videos are social commentary regarding the hoarding
of goods such as toilet paper and people present pussy, creampies,
blowjobs, and barebacking sessions as cures.
The most
satirically satisfying videos I found were of people in full-on
hazmat suits, latex, medical, and other militarized crisis gear.
I see
coronavirus porn as a form of sexualized parody, which often has
delightful elements of camp. Surely, pornographers are thinking
about their economic survival, but satire and what people see
as inappropriate humour are critical to survival in hard times.
In such an unpleasurable context, the desire for coronavirus porn
is rational, and for many, its consumption is not only an effective
coping mechanism but a pleasurable antidote.
This
pandemic is forcing people to change their sexual practices. It
has shut down porn studios, brothels, entire red-light districts,
and sex clubs. The coronavirus porn we are now seeing is a satirical
commentary regarding the sexual anxieties and general panic surrounding
sex, quarantine, and disease.
Critically,
corona porn is a reflection of people’s desires to still
explore and enjoy sexual pleasure even under the worst conditions.
We all know that neither the best head nor the most gratifying
anal will cure the respiratory failure that is killing some people
who have Covid-19. However, many people quarantined at home trying
to ward off the virus and flatten the curve, still want and desire
sex and sexual community. So, yeah, mind-blowing dental-dam-free
cunnilingus or a barebacking session won’t cure Covid-19.
However, watching these acts alongside symbolic markers of the
pandemic surely help many people cope and survive. As Alice Redlips
and her 3.2 million views suggest, coronavirus porn is a literal
fuck you to the pandemic. So, I say, let’s be grateful for
rule 34.
