I watched a fair amount of softcore porn because at one time I thought they might be going somewhere artistically, but over the years it has become evident that this is one medium that is not evolving. I’ve got a theory as to why this is so: softcore cable porn bears the same relation to real porn that elevator music bears to real music: it is the product of a corporate interest, not a human interest.
That is to say, there is virtually no one who is a fan of sotftcore porn, who is interested in it and finds it compelling watching. It’s strictly a product of cable movies channel’s corporate need to have something sexy on the screen to demonstrate that, hey, they are different than non-premium channels, they got naked women.
I think most people who watch them do it with an attitude of “Meh! Nothing else on!” I suspect for some they are masturbatory fodder, perhaps because they are too inhibited to watch hardcore, or because hardcore is just too freaky and ugly with all the spitting and hitting and stuff that goes on in hardcore nowadays.
But I don’t think anybody goes, “Hey! Wow! Softcore! Lame acting, crap writing and naked people obviously faking sex, with relatively high production values, for porn! THAT’S what I’m talking about!”
But I am haunted by the thought that I could be wrong, that someone else sees something in softcore porn that I don’t. So I thought I’d ask. And I’m not asking here because I think Dopers are likely to have a good answer. I can’t think of ANYWHERE I could find a good answer. So I might AS WELL ask here.
I always thought softcore porn was ridiculous. They inject fake fucking into a story for gratuitous reasons. If you’re going to fake it, at least make it real, or forget it.
Way back in the day, when my girlfriend browsed the cheap soft-core flicks at the rental store, it was a clear sign that she wasn’t really interested in seeing a movie that night. Eventually we moved past that level of coyness and I haven’t had much use for soft-core flicks since.
The only possible market for softcore porn is 13- to 15-year-old boys who don’t have access to any other kind of jerkoff material, and those no longer exist courtesy of the internet. I can’t fathom why “porno lite” films are still being made. Years ago they were available on pay-per-view at hotels, which I’m sure spawned more than a few instances of “what the FUCK… why aren’t they SHOWING anything? I paid for THIS?” But now you can see the real deal, or even better watch it for free on your laptop or freakin’ phone.
I think the answer is in Popatopolis, a documentary about director’s Jim Wynorski frantic chase to film a complete softcore film in three days.
Wynorski has directed about 90 movies. And the budgets and shooting schedules for them keep going down. At one time, he could could spend several weeks on a film. At that point in 2005 he was down to two lights, actors bringing and applying their own makeup, everybody staying in one rented house and cooking for each other, and anything else he could do to save money, trying for one take shots in every case.
The documentary is light and fun and occasionally vicious - one big breasted veteran keeps complaining that this is not proper movie making but she is the star of one endless scene in which she goofs up a simple line dozens of times. She also complains that porn stars - i.e. non-actresses - are ruining the industry.
What the documentary doesn’t do is the one thing you need to know. What happens if filming runs four days? Where do the costs go? How much more money would be spent or lost? Would any of it appear on the screen? The narration says that Wynorski was going to try to make one-day films in the future, and so would be even less concerned with quality.
In any case, the film (I think it was The Witches of Breastwick) sold to cable and lots of other places and made money. No, I’ve never seen it.
But the answer about quality seems to be a flat no. They are made for no other reason than to strip large-breasted women and have them fake sex. Why that still sells these days isn’t a question the documentary even tries to address.
Well, in the pre-Internet days these types of movies were the easiest way to see real T&A in your home, without the shame of browsing the X-rated section at your local video store. *
As silly as it may sound, there may actually be something to this. There probably are people out there who really do enjoy seeing what’s basically a porno, but with halfway decent acting, a somewhat interesting story and TV movie production values, but without the grossout close-up shots. Gauzy and (superficially) tender are what get some folks off.
*speaking from experience as someone who was a teenager in the early 90s.
My scientific investigation has revealed that what is called “softcore” today is what aired on the Playboy channel in the '90s. Basically everything but insertion and “finish”. It has also become essentially plot less in may respects.
Ironically, Porn, at least Parody Porn seems to be upgrading its writing. The parodies of the Office, 30 Rock and Scrubs have actual jokes that are kind of funny.
As a 13 to 15 year old boy with poor supervision, I watched a LOT of softcore porn on cable in the 80’s. If my memory serves me, they actually had plots, albeit usually pretty thin. The European ones usually tried a lot harder to have an interesting plot, with varying degrees of success.
As a video store manager in the 90’s, I’d have to agree with your assessment that softcore porn was “going somewhere”. The direct to video market was filled with them. The plots were usually a bit more well-written, with much higher production values. Some customers were either shocked or pleased that they ended up with a movie with so much sexual content in it.
But, the genre’s existence in the U.S. was necessitated by the local laws. Lots of areas simply did not allow the distribution of hardcore porn in their city. First movie theatres, then cable and the local video store were bound by the local laws and were sensitive to public pressure. Satellite television and the internet are much more free to distribute whatever they like. So, it seems that the people who have the money to produce softcore with a story are are now just producing hardcore variants instead. They probably always wanted to anyway, but distribution was more limited before. And this leads to the existence of movies such as 9 Songs, which is either a very good porn film or a not-so-great concert film, but it’s better than anything shown after midnight on Cinemax.
There are also those weird cable series that come pretty close to softcore porn, but try to maintain a level of respectibilty, shows like True Blood and Californication.
Is the OP complaining that soft-core doesn’t have the deep stories and plots that hard-core is so well known for? Soft-core that I have seen at least has some story to it which is more than I can say for the hard-core I’ve seen.
In any case, I will speak up for soft-core porn. I have cable, I like looking at naked women and I don’t want to look at a 20 minute close up of a penis going in and out of a vagina with a squirt at the end. I don’t mind listening to some stupid dialogue for a few minutes while I wait for the hot chick to take off her clothes and pretend to fuck. Yes a good story would be nice. It would be nice in hard-core porn too but that is never going to happen.
Exactly. Porn with stories, or stories with porn, that my wife and I can watch together.
I think I’d rather go for the soft porn rather than the … Idunno … turgid (?) porn that you get on the Playboy Channel these days.
The bass player in my band subscribes, so more often than not, that’s what’s on the TeeVee out in the studio … with the occasional Red Sox game breaking up the monotony. Here’s the thing though … oh, they show full on sex, swinging dicks, dripping twats, blowies, fucking, in whatever hole you might want to think about … but semen is off limits. They’ll show two beautiful people going at it, rutting like wildebeasts in heat for a straight hour … just pounding, pounding, pounding - position change - pounding, pounding, pounding - position change - pounding, pounding, pounding … and then … nothing! They just fade out and show two other people poking each other.
There has to be a resolution, here, people, that’s all I’m saying. Won’t somebody think of the money-shots?
30 Rock had a fantastic softcore porn joke in the St. Patrick’s Day episode.
One guy shouts from the other room that “There’s a lesbian movie on Showtime”, and a second guy goes off to watch it (offscreen).
Later, guy 1: “Dude, you missed the end of the lez movie. Their daughter, she goes off to college, and Mark Ruffalo, he’s just going to do his own thing with the restaurant.”
I’ve had gf’s who’ve said they watch them for mastabatory material. I think woman are the primary market, since a sizable percentage of woman like “porn with a story” (even a poorly acted story) rather then hardcore porn, where there’s rarely any story and basically just two people thrusting for 30 minutes.
Same deal as with romance novels really.
I’m sure 13 year old boys watch them to, but since adolescents don’t usually pay for the cable services in their home and can’t buy pornography, I doubt they’re really the “market” that’s being catered to.
They have kept food on Eric Robert’s table for a long time.
Good God! Looking at his IMDB page, I think we have the true ‘Hardest Working Man in Showbiz’. Just for 2012/13 he has 9 projects released and another 33 in some level of production (granted, most of it is crap). Take that, sis!
There’s something to this. Not only the spitting and hitting, but with all the extreme close-ups – well, sometimes I’m just not in the mood for an anatomy lesson. Sometimes I’m in a less is more kind of mood.