Porn Shooting Blanks

This post first appeared on Minyanville.

"Regrettably, it's true, standards have fallen in adult entertainment. It's video, Dude. Now that we're competing with amateurs, we can't afford to invest that little extra in story, production value, feeling. People forget that the brain is the biggest erogenous zone."
- Jackie Treehorn, The Big Lebowski

It seems there's no escaping the structuring deflation rippling its way through the formerly consumerist underbelly of American society. Prices are falling, bling is on the decline -- and now, according to the New York Times, even porn is feeling the ill effects of shrinkage. (No, not that kind.)

Pornographic filmmakers have long debated the pros and cons of plot and character development in their movies: On the one hand, there has to be something in between sex scenes to allow actors and viewers alike to take a break. On the flip side, however, character development in porn is sort of like those personal interest stories during coverage of the Olympics: Absolutely no one cares.

Industry executives say that viewers are now demanding shorter and shorter clips, and films are increasingly devoid of plot and focus exclusively on the sex itself. This shift, in part, is in reaction to the flood of X-rated footage now available for easy viewing online.

The advent of the Internet as a medium for video distribution has been a boon for smut-peddlers, enabling even amateurs to capture their lewd acts for the world to see. And, of course, to pay for. DVD sales have been hit squarely below the belt, with some experts estimating that sales have fallen more than 50% in the past 3 years alone.

Big porn studios, like Vivid Entertainment and Digital Playground, are rapidly changing their business models to meet the thrust of consumer demand. Rather than full-length features, producers are instead opting for "vignettes," a series of sex scenes tied loosely together with a common theme. This provides for easy distribution of the clips themselves, in the likely event that viewers can't be bothered to watch the entire film.

Meanwhile, more traditional media, as it's wont to do, is following porn's lead. After all, it was the pornography industry that first capitalized on the VCR, perfected the art of pay-per-view, and pioneered the concept of premium online content.

Rhythm New Media, who delivers video content through a mobile phone-based distribution platform, recently launched an application for Apple's (AAPL) iPhone where users can splice together snippets of Family Guy episodes, creating, in effect making their own version of the show.

TiVo (TIVO) and other digital video recording services offered by cable companies like Time Warner (TWC) and Comcast (CMCSA), offer TV viewers the luxury of seeing exactly what they want, when they want it. YouTube, now owned by Google (GOOG), has likely advanced this trend more than any other online media site, as attention-deficient users comb through millions of short video clips.

Ultimately, the demise of the intricate, well-developed pornography film was sort of inevitable. I mean, let's face it, the vast majority of porn aficionados aren't looking for surprising plot twists and dramatic action scenes.

They're looking for action of an entirely different sort.