The Rise and Fall of Amateur Porn

Internet Porn has changed so much since Jay and I began posting our sexy pictures on the usenet newsgroups back in the mid-90’s. Those were the days of the Dot-com Millionaires, the Code Rush and the Wild Wild Web. The internet was on the cusp of being a household staple, and legislation had yet to catch up to this new medium.

Back then, doing “amateur porn” meant taking pictures of the wife or the girlfriend. She’s not a model, stripper, or anyone the photographer had to pay to get a picture of. The photographer is her husband or boyfriend, not a guy with a photo studio. Photos were taken around the house, maybe on vacation, but definitely with just a point and click digital camera.

As more households got wired, the demand for internet porn grew as well. Professional models and strippers were hired by small porn companies wanting to cash in on the whole “amateur” scene. Professional photographers (or wanna-be’s with hi-res digital cameras) got out of the studio and tried to recapture the girl-next-door feel of amateur porn. Membership sites cropped up, charging monthly dues in exchange for access to a virtual peep show. Affiliate systems followed shortly, with webmasters raking in pretty good dough for driving traffic to membership pay sites.

As soon as money was involved, the word “amateur” became a diluted term, that evolved to mean someone who is not a big-name porn star like Jenna Jameson or Nina Hartley. Big-name porn stars and companies like Playboy and Hustler jumped on the bandwagon and created their own membership sites.

The competition created spam, and suddenly porn was not tucked away safely in sites marked as “adult” or in designated usenet newsgroups anymore. Porn showed up unsolicited in people’s email boxes, setting the trend for everything from mortgage loans to prescription drugs.

After the Dot-com crash at the turn of the millenium, internet porn continued to grow, but we are now seeing the decline of this once-vibrant industry.

First, Paypal issued a policy against adult-theme transactions. It was a stab in the back of every amateur cam girl who signed up for Paypal during its humble beginnings. There have since been other companies patterned after the Paypal paradigm, but getting someone to sign up for another company is difficult after they’ve already jumped through the hoops for Paypal.

Next, Visa required all adult websites to pay a $700 one-time registration fee plus $300 annual fee. This alone separated the amateurs from the pros. Big corporate sites had no problem coughing up the $1000 investment. For the one-woman amateur site, however, it felt like having a “pimp” to pay dues to.

The latest pressure on amateur porn is the Revised Title 18 U.S.C. 2257 Record-Keeping Requirements by the Department of Justice. This regulation has good intentions – to keep minors out of pornography. Porn producers are held responsible for inspecting and keeping records of performers’ IDs, making sure they are of legal age at the time they are performing sexual acts on camera.

The regulation mandates that such records be kept at the producer’s place of business, where investigators authorized by the Attorney General may show up without advance notice to inspect them. Furthermore, this street address must be posted on the website along with a statement of compliance. P.O. boxes are not allowed.

For the amateur pornographer, however, the logistics of complying with this rule may prove to be complicated because of one major detail: most “amateurs” operate at home. This is a cam girl’s worst nightmare: her home address posted on her website as an open invitation for stalkers.

It seems that the only way amateur porn can survive is by taming its wild ways. “Visual depictions of simulated sexually explicit conduct” (italics is mine) are exempted , but “a statement attesting that the matter is not covered by the record-keeping requirements of 18 U.S.C. 2257″ must still be made.

The Free Speech Coalition is currently putting a case together to contest this version of Title 18 U.S.C. 2257. If another revision is made to allow a third-party Custodian of Records, perhaps home-made porn can survive without amateurs having to sacrifice the privacy and sanctity of their homes. Until then, the only people who can safely comply are porn companies who shoot porn at a business location, and guys who don’t mind publicizing the address to their bachelor pads.