Hollywood Exhibit Celebrates Mainstreaming of Porn

I’m sitting here watching Lifetime’s The Secret Lives of Women. It is about swingers. Last week’s episode focused on prostitution. In the beginning of January, G4’s Attack of the Show team covered the Adult Entertainment Expo for the second year running, showcasing products such as the Boob bong on the air during prime time. Is porn really going mainstream?

My personal and professional opinion as an astute member of the media—both mainstream and erotic? Yes. And it has been for some time.

Is this a bad thing? Not for the millions of “mainstream” men and women looking to add some excitement into their love lives. I’m sure for every couple who might shake their heads in disgust – or at least say “not for me”—if they came across the Secret Lives of Women while channel surfing one night, just as many would be intrigued. They might not be ready to place an ad on Craigslist to find another couple to play with or call up her best friend for a ménage a trois, but the idea might spark an interesting conversation about fantasies and boundaries.

The trend has been going on for quite some time. We have multiple modern-day examples. My Bare Lady, a FOX series, focused on blossoming porn stars trying to make it big. The next year, Ron Jeremy was one of the stars in The Surreal Life.

More recently, the Sex and the City movie showed full frontal male nudity and still garnered a mere “R” rating. Years before, Carrie Bradshaw made talk of Rabbit vibes acceptable at the office water cooler. And let’s face it… the Internet makes porn accessible to anyone with a computer, Internet connection, and two fingers to type “tits” or “pussy.”

But the mainstreaming of porn pre-dates reality T.V. and the Internet, and a new exhibit at the World of Wonder’s storefront gallery in L.A. drives home the point. The exhibit “All-American Porn: 25 Years of Erotic Photography from Vivid Entertainment” opens February 14 with a Valentine’s Day cocktail party from 7PM – 11PM. Guests will be able to meet Vivid Girls and also enjoy a screening of excerpts from “Deeper Throat,” Vivid’s third premium cable TV series which debuts that evening.

On February 19, a free panel discussion hosted by World of Wonder co-founder Fenton Bailey explores topics such as: How Vivid became the world’s top adult studio offered by the company’s co-founder and co-chairman Steven Hirsch; How to direct an adult movie, presented by legendary director Paul Thomas; and What it takes to be an adult superstar with inside tips from Vivid Girls.

Vivid was the first company to bring porn into the mainstream, creating adult films with high product values and turning the performers into “stars” with the creation of the Vivid Girls. Since “Ginger” starring Ginger Lynn was released in 1984, the face of porn—at least as far as adult films went—changed. Explicit images on the front of VHS tapes gave way to artful photography of gorgeous women that—you guessed it—had mainstream appeal. Years later, Vivid was the first production company to offer titles targeted to couples.

So you could say porn’s been “mainstream” for more than a quarter of a century. But  what I find so ironic is that people who enjoy sex are not—and never were—freaks! In fact, I don’t think there’s anything not mainstream about buying a vibrator or reading a sex blog.

Although I write for Vibrator.com, love shopping for sex toys, and have had a few experiences swinging, I consider myself to be pretty “mainstream.” In a lot of ways, my love for science fiction is more “fringe” than my healthy sexual appetite. (Yes, another confession from Desiree Sweet: I’m a closet Trekkie!)

As a group, Americans have always been more conservative about sex and nudity than, say, Europeans. Maybe we’re just now catching up to the rest of the world.

What do you think? Is porn getting more and more mainstream or are Americans—perhaps with the exception of Facebook—just getting less uptight?

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