I could write a lot about this one.
I'll try and be brief, but there is a lot of history that I need to lay as background.
For those of us who remember the pre-internet days of porn buying what follows will be something that will make you smile and nod your heads.
Before, say 1977 or so if you wanted to see porn, you went to a movie theatre in a seedy area of town, and either used a private booth viewer, or sat in an honest to god theatre and watched it on a big screen with other folks about.
Needless to say this limited the audiences that were willing to go and view.
The arrival of the VCR in the late 70's opened the porn market in ways that at the time no one suspected. It was found out rather quickly that people were very happy to buy or rent porn and watch it in their own homes. And the audience was amazingly huge. A lot of people who would never be caught dead in a adult theatre would put down cash to be part of this market.
So the SoCal porn factories ramped up. And a lot of new producers entered the market. For a good bit they produced basic porn. No kink, just your typical guy on girl.
Slowly to compete branching out started. Girl/girl, interracial, anal, groups etc.
And the marketplace loved it. They bought.
Some producers started to tap the, which were at the time, edgy markets. Bondage and light S&M. These also were found to sell at levels that could support producing them.
By the late 80's the producers had identified that tickling, watersports, spanking, and foot fetish material also could support video production. Harmony, VidTech, and CalStar/Platinum are the names from this era that many of us knew about. There were others, but those three were the ones that got the largest.
There would be other fetishes filmed, but they rarely could reach critical mass to warrent consistant production. So they were not often seen.
Tickling however met the threshold. Our fetish was enjoyed enough by enough folks to be right at the edge of profitability.
At the same time all this was happening, American society was undergoing the slow shifts in sexual morality that it tends to. Bondage, which had once been a kinky thing done by other people, became a experience that the majority of college students had tried at least once. S&M while still kinky was now seen as something that 'some folks enjoyed' and came to be understood (if not fully accepted) as a valid sexual expression. In the American way, most folks felt "It's not my cuppa, but I could care less if others do it"
The decade of exposure to the media had softend people attitudes.
Also, at the same time affordable home video cameras had started to pop up. People began to make thier own porn. Once upon a time you could rent homemade porn in big city video stores. They had local amature sections.
This also was a softening of the way people thought about and played with sex.
1993: Enter the internet.
The adult industry has learned from the VCR. They were on the web early and in force. A lot of the technology that we enjoy on the web today was driven by the adult industry. Online secure payment, streaming video, etc. They put cash down on the problems in buckets and it paid off. The industry started to make HUGE dollars.
The fetishes that had been able to support video lines in the pre web days. Bondage, S&M, Spanking, Tickling, Water Sports all quickly gained producers that specilized in them, and operated through the web. FM was our fetishes early adaptor along with Harmony, and a few others.
At the same time, fetishes that were below the marketability line before the web suddenly became profitiable if you could find your audience. And the Web was perfect for that. There was a quiet proliferation of specialty fetish sites. Smoking, ballon popping, sticky stuff, etc.
It was all still Pro-produced. Video editing equipment was expensive. People could film stuff on handcams, but it tended to be lower quality, and it would be raw unedited stuff.
By 1997 technology had jumped again. Affordable home editing suites appeared. Better light cameras.
Now single operators could produce material. MTP, SY, TC and on. People could make the adult material in thier homes and carve a marketplace out. Inbe factor of MTP's early success was based on the fact that Jeff adapted to the brand new credit card over web acceptence tech.
All of this allowed for yet more media that targeted specific fetishes to appear, and be found by people with greater ease.
And like Bondage and S&M before, familiarity started to play a role on the greater culture.
Things kept changing.
Today in 2007 an 18 year old college student has grown up with the web always being there as far as their memory goes.
They have had a lifetime exposure to casual depictions of sex. Nudity, once a massive public taboo that could ruin a womans reputation forever is now traded casualy on web cams and on cell phone snaps. I've met more then one woman who has expressed the idea "There are millions of tits on the web, whats the big deal if mine are" This is a HUGE socialical shift. It goes beyond the scope of this talk, but this atmosphere plays a huge role in what Hal is asking about.
The new generations have a more open view about sex and sexuality based on the technology they use and see it delivered through. It's not as big a deal, and they are open to exploring more, and accepting more because of it. Communities like the TMF, and others that mirror it in other fetishes show people they are not alone, and that thier likes are others.
Clips4Sale is another breakthru technology.
It took away the heavy costs of credit card processing, and site maitenance and delivery that before it acted as a hurdle to producers wanting to enter the marketplace. It was a pain to open a credit card account. It took skill to program a site that did downloads. No more. with a few simple clicks ANYONE could sell media with ease.
Add in even CHEEPER video cameras, and video editing programs that were basic on any new Apple, that were better then what TV stations had in 1985. And you have what we see today.
Individials have the ability to produce and sell media at their whim from thier homes.
The atmosphere for that media is now wider in acceptence.
The consumers are coming from a position of better understanding and acceptence of their fetishes. They have found places like the TMF, and have gained years on the generations that came before in thier self acceptence because of it.
Tickling had made headway before the web. It was always on the edge. Now with all these changes, all these advancements, and a new attitude it's one of the fetish groups that is 'first through the door' behind S&M and Bondage and Feet.
And because of that position, people who want to make money are producing for it. It's cheep to do a tickling shoot as long as you have the models there for the bondage one. And hey, it might make some extra coin! So why not? So thinks a major producer. AND so things a bondage specialty producer also who knows some of his market also gets off on tickling.
So we see an explosion of clips.
Is it good? Yes. Familiarity is always good. And volume breeds familiarity. People looking at bondage sites are exposed to our fetish. They might not give a damn, or like it, but they see it there, and accept it as "Something other folks like, and thats cool". And so on.
There will be a hellish about of crap tickling media produced. But there will be a ton of great stuff also. People will sort through it, and the cream will rise. And the tickling community will quietly be come to be seen and accepted as "Something I don't like, but it's cool if others do it" by the majority of folks who encounter our media.
Acceptence for the most part means being ignored while you go about your business. We are walking to that point at a steady pace.
Myriads
