The Evolution of Porn

Sex is ever-present in our lives. Whether it’s in art, pieces of writing, film or even (quite frequently) in our thoughts, it has a very special and particularly controversial place in society. In order to understand the full extent of just how far back in time pornography goes, we need to start from the very beginning — or at least what we know of it.

One of the earliest known forms of erotic art dates back to 79 BC when Mount Vesuvius erupted, leaving the city of Pompeii covered in a blanket of hot lava. 2000+ years later, archaeologists uncovered hundreds of sexually explicit frescoes and sculptures within the Mount Vesuvius ruins. Moving on to circa 950, when extremely intricate and often sexually explicit sculptures were found on the outer walls of the temples built by Chandravarman at Khajuraho in Madhya Pradesh, India.

This went on until the first erotic novel came out in 1748, under the name of “Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure”, written by John Cleland. Roughly 100 years later, Robley Dunglison’s “Medical Lexicon: A Dictionary of Medical Science” coined the English term “pornography.” The word gained widespread use as a general term for sexually explicit material within a decade.

In 1899, the first known softcore erotic film came out; Eugéne Pirou’s “Coucher de la Mariée” was a controversial masterpiece, showing scenes of Louise Willy (burlesque comedy star) performing a striptease and bathing on camera. This paved the way for the first hardcore pornographic movie, “L’Ecu d’Or ou la Bonne Auberge”, released in 1908.

The early 1900s marked the era of the “stag film.” Such films were illegally shot, consumed and distributed, and were representative of America’s crude, but booming porn industry. Since then, pornographic movies have taken over the industry, getting better and more diversified during the 80’s & 90’s period. Now we’re getting to the truly interesting part of porn’s evolution: its encounter with technology.

Before the internet was “a thing”, big studios were completely in charge of producing pornographic content, then outsourcing it via CD’s/DVD’s for the masses to freely purchase. The content was limited, generalized at first and the idea of “niche” was far from becoming a reality. The supply and demand market was at its very beginnings, the user basically just purchasing whatever the big studios provided without actually having a say in the actual content of the porn movie.

But as times changed, so did the adult industry. Once the internet took over, people suddenly found themselves having a voice when it comes to what they want to see in porn. And not only that, but now they also had the option to make their own independent content and share it with others. And this is when peer-to-peer content and the idea of “amateur porn” began to take shape.

Peer to peer pornography is erotic and sexual material made by and for peers. With recent bandwidth, camera, hardware and software developments, pornography is increasingly being made by more people. Websites, specialist and generalist, list “amateur” or peer porn alongside “professional” porn. This has not only drastically increased the number of porn videos out there, but it has now split into every possible category one could think of, exploring every fetish that has remained unknown or under-exploited up till now.

This brings us to a new concept taking shape within the adult industry: Bounty Campaigns. And when I say “just taking shape”, I mean it. In 2018, there is already so much content out there that people have started to think of new and innovative ways to filter it to exactly what they like. Sharesome, an adult social media platform I work for, has implemented their own in-site tokens, called Flame. Using Flames as reward, Sharesome has started a Bounty Campaign for the best porn content out there.

What is a Bounty Campaign?

Remember the Wild West? Sheriffs there offered a considerable reward to anybody who managed to find the wrong-doer on the “WANTED” posters. You’d catch the criminal, take him to the station and receive your bounty to go spend it on booze and women. (Mostly women)

The same concept applies to the Bounty Campaign released by Sharesome, except here people hunt for the best specific content and get rewarded by their peers instead of a set authority.

We’ve developed a smart contract that enables people to incentivize each other to hunt down content from the web and democratically elect the best by putting their Flames where their mouth is.

Let’s say Bob wants to find the best threesome video in the world. He’ll create a bounty, deposit some Flames into the pool that acts as a reward for whoever finds the best threesome video. Alice joins the bounty since she has a common interest with Bob. The bounty increases. People who deposited Flames have proportional voting power to decide what submission wins the pool. For a small buy-in, anyone can submit proposals via Sharesome to potentially win the pot.

I don’t know what the future holds when it comes to the marriage between porn and technology, but seeing that so far it’s basking in the user’s freedom of expression, taste and content sharing & creating, it’s looking brighter than ever. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a bounty campaign to prepare for.

Check out the official Flame Token website. Refer your friends & followers and earn loads of tokens!