WEBVTT 1 00:00:11.040 --> 00:00:14.105 Friends, hello, and welcome to Never Post, a 2 00:00:14.105 --> 00:00:16.345 podcast for and about the Internet. I'm your host, Mike 3 00:00:16.345 --> 00:00:20.905 Rugnetta, and we have a desirable show for you today. 4 00:00:21.545 --> 00:00:24.825 Senior producer Hans Buto talks with sexual wellness educator 5 00:00:24.825 --> 00:00:30.640 Courtney Brame and cofounders of SWR Data, Melrose Michaels, and 6 00:00:30.640 --> 00:00:35.680 Mike Stabil about the rise in safe for work content searches 7 00:00:35.760 --> 00:00:41.520 on the very not safe for work platform Pornhub. Why is this 8 00:00:41.520 --> 00:00:44.495 happening? What does it tell us about the Internet at large? 9 00:00:44.575 --> 00:00:49.775 And is it really safe for work? Before we get to Hans, who 10 00:00:49.775 --> 00:00:52.655 attempts to answer these questions and more, some ads, 11 00:00:52.655 --> 00:00:55.615 unless you're on the member feed, and then a quick story 12 00:00:55.890 --> 00:00:59.330 from reporter Bob Woodward in his book, The Brethren, about 13 00:00:59.330 --> 00:01:07.410 some old men in a basement watching body movies. It's the 14 00:01:07.410 --> 00:01:11.170 nineteen sixties in Washington. The men are mostly in their 15 00:01:11.170 --> 00:01:15.545 seventies, and they are the justices of the Supreme Court of 16 00:01:15.545 --> 00:01:18.825 the United States with their younger clerks. They all gather 17 00:01:18.825 --> 00:01:22.185 once a session in the basement or maybe a conference room of 18 00:01:22.185 --> 00:01:23.865 the Supreme Court Building. 19 00:01:24.160 --> 00:01:27.920 They make popcorn, and together they watch a series of 20 00:01:28.400 --> 00:01:34.480 pornographic movies. Because each movie is an exhibit in an 21 00:01:34.480 --> 00:01:38.475 obscenity case that has appealed to the court, and the system at 22 00:01:38.475 --> 00:01:43.675 the time was that these people had to go through them one by 23 00:01:43.675 --> 00:01:50.155 one to judge based on their own direct experience if those films 24 00:01:50.155 --> 00:01:55.640 were, in fact, obscene. Each of the nine judges dealt with movie 25 00:01:55.640 --> 00:01:59.960 day, as they called it, a little differently. Judges Douglas and 26 00:01:59.960 --> 00:02:03.880 Black never attended. Nothing should be banned, they said, and 27 00:02:03.880 --> 00:02:06.600 they dubbed it a supreme court of censors. 28 00:02:07.135 --> 00:02:11.775 Judge Berger just didn't want to go. Judge Harlan, who was ill 29 00:02:11.775 --> 00:02:15.935 and nearly blind by the end of his career in 1971, would sit 30 00:02:15.935 --> 00:02:19.830 just a few feet from the screen. He could only see shapes and 31 00:02:19.830 --> 00:02:22.550 outlines and had his clerks describe to him what was 32 00:02:22.550 --> 00:02:26.230 happening. Famously, around this time, his wife had to read Lady 33 00:02:26.230 --> 00:02:31.350 Chatterley's Lover to him. But maybe most famously, in 1964, 34 00:02:31.350 --> 00:02:36.135 during this ritual, justice Potter Stewart coined the phrase 35 00:02:36.135 --> 00:02:40.055 that would become perhaps the most famous yardstick for 36 00:02:40.055 --> 00:02:41.495 measuring obscenity. 37 00:02:41.735 --> 00:02:46.310 He said, I know it when I see it. Now, I know it when I see it 38 00:02:46.310 --> 00:02:50.630 is not a legal standard by any stretch, but it has lingered for 39 00:02:50.630 --> 00:02:55.030 sixty years as a shorthand for how we think about the nuance of 40 00:02:55.030 --> 00:03:00.555 what is and is not pornography. Our story today is not about 41 00:03:00.555 --> 00:03:05.675 litigating obscenity, but it is about how we know what fits into 42 00:03:05.675 --> 00:03:09.995 which categories when it comes to the murky, the personal, and 43 00:03:09.995 --> 00:03:16.750 the private world of desire and sex. What is and is not safe for 44 00:03:16.750 --> 00:03:21.870 work? Well, maybe we know it when we see it. 45 00:03:22.430 --> 00:03:37.775 And we are looking for it. The data says so. But first, around 46 00:03:37.775 --> 00:03:42.760 the world, there are cameras, cameras, cameras. And a lot of 47 00:03:42.760 --> 00:03:46.440 those cameras are connected to the Internet. And some of those 48 00:03:46.440 --> 00:03:52.520 cameras are on 20 fourseven, pointed at one thing, an 49 00:03:52.520 --> 00:03:54.040 unblinking eye. 50 00:03:54.280 --> 00:04:00.805 And some of those cameras have microphones, always listening, 51 00:04:00.885 --> 00:04:05.685 even when there isn't really anything going on. So in our 52 00:04:05.685 --> 00:04:10.485 interstitials this episode, quiet cams. Live streamed 53 00:04:10.485 --> 00:04:15.220 cameras with microphones in places where really not much is 54 00:04:15.220 --> 00:04:20.900 happening at all. In order, the Namib Desert, the North Circular 55 00:04:20.900 --> 00:04:24.820 Road in Dublin, and Lamai Beach in Thailand. 56 00:05:50.015 --> 00:05:55.055 We love some data here on Neverpost. Give me some 57 00:05:55.055 --> 00:05:59.280 data, and I'll give you the world. That is a quote from 58 00:05:59.280 --> 00:06:02.080 legendary Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Terry Bradshaw. I 59 00:06:02.080 --> 00:06:08.240 just made it up, but we believe in it very strongly. So I got 60 00:06:08.240 --> 00:06:12.935 very excited when last December, as they do every December, one 61 00:06:12.720 --> 00:06:15.815 one of the biggest porn sites in the world, Pornhub, published a 62 00:06:15.815 --> 00:06:19.575 report analyzing some of the usage data that they had 63 00:06:19.575 --> 00:06:20.615 collected over the past years. 64 00:06:20.615 --> 00:06:23.975 Search terms, biggest categories, visit length, top 65 00:06:23.975 --> 00:06:27.500 performers, breaking all that stuff down by country and then 66 00:06:27.500 --> 00:06:33.580 even by state. We don't see any data, it's only analysis. So as 67 00:06:33.580 --> 00:06:36.700 legendary Minnesota Vikings quarterback Fran Tarkenton said, 68 00:06:37.435 --> 00:06:43.115 you can tell any story from the data, so be careful. When I 69 00:06:43.115 --> 00:06:47.275 looked at the stats this past December, one thing in this most 70 00:06:47.275 --> 00:06:51.850 recent report made me go like legendary Browns quarterback 71 00:06:51.850 --> 00:06:57.850 Otto Graham did at some point in his life. One of the top six 72 00:06:57.850 --> 00:07:02.330 trends that the data team at Pornhub noticed for 2025 was a 73 00:07:02.330 --> 00:07:05.370 rise in safe for work content. 74 00:07:06.795 --> 00:07:10.315 It said, quote, it might be counterintuitive to think people 75 00:07:10.315 --> 00:07:13.755 come to Pornhub for safe for work content, but over the 76 00:07:13.755 --> 00:07:17.835 years, it has been impossible to deny its rising popularity. Some 77 00:07:17.835 --> 00:07:24.320 of the top gaming categories of 2025, podcast up 327%, gaming up 78 00:07:24.320 --> 00:07:31.440 283%, and music up 62%, shows users interest in creators and 79 00:07:31.440 --> 00:07:37.035 sexuality goes beyond pornography, end quote. This 80 00:07:38.475 --> 00:07:41.835 tickled my brain as much as legendary jets quarterback Joe 81 00:07:41.835 --> 00:07:44.395 Namath tickled his teammates in the locker room in some of the 82 00:07:44.395 --> 00:07:48.080 internet fanfic that I found. Why, I asked myself, would 83 00:07:48.080 --> 00:07:53.520 people be watching safe for work content on one of the most not 84 00:07:53.520 --> 00:07:58.880 safe for work platforms? I expected that the answer was 85 00:07:58.880 --> 00:08:01.495 gonna be a combination of a few things. 86 00:08:01.495 --> 00:08:05.895 One, that Gen Z is in a so called sex recession, having 87 00:08:06.135 --> 00:08:09.975 even less sex than us chaste millennials did back in our day. 88 00:08:10.375 --> 00:08:14.550 Two, that chastity content like anti masturbation stuff is on 89 00:08:14.550 --> 00:08:20.070 the rise, especially amongst the manosphere boys. Three, that 90 00:08:20.070 --> 00:08:22.790 Pornhub had always been used for weird, say, for work 91 00:08:22.790 --> 00:08:25.895 experiments. So weird comedy pranks, full length Hollywood 92 00:08:25.895 --> 00:08:29.895 movie piracy, and just assorted hoozy whats it for a long time. 93 00:08:30.695 --> 00:08:35.735 And four, the fact that due to age verification laws, which 94 00:08:35.735 --> 00:08:39.280 we've covered on the show before, causing Pornhub to be 95 00:08:39.280 --> 00:08:43.520 unavailable in half the states in The US, half the dataset 96 00:08:43.520 --> 00:08:46.720 would be missing, and the data would be off or at least 97 00:08:46.720 --> 00:08:47.440 different. 98 00:08:48.240 --> 00:08:51.735 And truly, some of those four are factors in the rise of 99 00:08:51.735 --> 00:08:55.335 searches for safer work content on Pornhub, but I still wanted 100 00:08:55.335 --> 00:08:59.975 to look into whether I was missing something. And boy 101 00:08:59.975 --> 00:09:08.630 howdy. Spoiler? Yes, I was. So first, let's talk about what you 102 00:09:08.630 --> 00:09:11.670 get when you search for safe for work content on Pornhub. 103 00:09:11.830 --> 00:09:16.710 What are we talking about? Well, not all of what you find with 104 00:09:16.710 --> 00:09:23.185 that label is really actually safe for work. I mean, I guess 105 00:09:23.185 --> 00:09:26.065 it depends on where you work. I don't know where you work. But 106 00:09:26.065 --> 00:09:28.625 there is a gradation of sexualized content. 107 00:09:29.105 --> 00:09:32.065 There are very safe for work videos like- 108 00:09:32.300 --> 00:09:34.780 I got this little card right here. 109 00:09:34.780 --> 00:09:37.740 People unboxing Yu Gi Oh card packs. There's hand 110 00:09:37.740 --> 00:09:41.820 cleaning videos. Hi there. ASMR and video game speedrun. 111 00:09:41.820 --> 00:09:43.660 I was trying it. I was looking for that jammer. 112 00:09:43.820 --> 00:09:45.900 There are people in front of chalkboards and 113 00:09:45.900 --> 00:09:49.505 whiteboards just explaining complicated math concepts. 114 00:09:49.505 --> 00:09:53.425 The sum notation, which you might have seen as this. 115 00:09:53.985 --> 00:09:57.025 Then there are the videos that move into talking 116 00:09:57.025 --> 00:09:58.865 about sex and sexuality. 117 00:09:58.945 --> 00:10:01.185 Otherwise, you're not going to make money. 118 00:10:01.185 --> 00:10:04.240 Mhmm. So advice for how to model in the platform. 119 00:10:04.240 --> 00:10:05.760 Sexual wellness discussions. 120 00:10:05.760 --> 00:10:09.040 My husband and I decided, why don't I make, like, 121 00:10:09.040 --> 00:10:11.360 a Tinder account? And I can start flirting with guys. 122 00:10:11.360 --> 00:10:13.520 Kink explainers and lots. 123 00:10:13.520 --> 00:10:15.120 Hold on, sex. Stop right there. Before we start, 124 00:10:15.120 --> 00:10:17.520 we have big exciting news. And lots. 125 00:10:17.735 --> 00:10:18.855 That's a good question. 126 00:10:18.935 --> 00:10:21.095 Of podcast interviews with performers. 127 00:10:21.095 --> 00:10:23.735 Like a threesome in a jail or something like that. 128 00:10:23.735 --> 00:10:27.255 Yeah. So these sometimes get not safe for work 129 00:10:27.255 --> 00:10:30.540 when the performers move into performing sexual acts, but they 130 00:10:30.540 --> 00:10:33.900 are often conversations about the porn industry, performers' 131 00:10:33.900 --> 00:10:36.700 sex lives, and other sexualized topics. 132 00:10:36.700 --> 00:10:39.740 Does that sound like something you might be into? 133 00:10:41.100 --> 00:10:44.805 So in the 2025 report, there are these stats 134 00:10:44.805 --> 00:10:47.765 about the trending rise in safer work searches in the platform. 135 00:10:47.765 --> 00:10:51.845 And just below those stats, giving some context to why those 136 00:10:51.845 --> 00:10:55.765 stats are important, there's a quote from a guy named Courtney 137 00:10:55.765 --> 00:10:56.085 Brame. 138 00:10:56.550 --> 00:10:58.630 And I just approach it from that lens of, 139 00:10:58.630 --> 00:11:01.990 oh, okay. Well, let me see what stands out. Save for work. 140 00:11:02.150 --> 00:11:04.710 Right? That's not even that's not porn. 141 00:11:04.710 --> 00:11:07.990 Right? Like, how did this make it into a top porn category? So 142 00:11:07.990 --> 00:11:09.590 I think that was my initial reaction. 143 00:11:10.325 --> 00:11:12.485 Courtney is the founder of Something Positive 144 00:11:12.485 --> 00:11:16.005 for Positive People, which is a nonprofit platform for support, 145 00:11:16.005 --> 00:11:18.805 education, and stigma reduction for people diagnosed with 146 00:11:18.805 --> 00:11:23.605 herpes. Courtney is also the host of the SPFPP podcast, a 147 00:11:23.605 --> 00:11:27.490 video creator, and a consultant for Pornhub's Sexual Wellness 148 00:11:27.490 --> 00:11:31.730 Center, which is how his name appeared on the report. So I 149 00:11:31.730 --> 00:11:35.410 decided to do like legendary St. Louis Rams quarterback Norm Van 150 00:11:35.410 --> 00:11:39.815 Broklin might have done, and I called up Courtney to have him 151 00:11:39.815 --> 00:11:43.735 walk me through what he had written about why safer work was 152 00:11:43.735 --> 00:11:44.215 trending. 153 00:11:44.215 --> 00:11:47.415 I think that porn offers us the opportunity 154 00:11:47.415 --> 00:11:51.815 to experience what we're not experiencing. There is the talk 155 00:11:51.815 --> 00:11:56.110 about porn use being consumed for education but I think that a 156 00:11:56.110 --> 00:11:58.750 lot of people who may become the porn hub are looking for 157 00:11:58.750 --> 00:12:01.790 something that is different than what they normally have access 158 00:12:01.790 --> 00:12:02.350 to. 159 00:12:02.670 --> 00:12:05.870 For Courtney, the rise in safe for work content 160 00:12:06.190 --> 00:12:08.670 points to more people looking for intimacy online. 161 00:12:09.165 --> 00:12:12.765 I think back to when Mia Khalifa went to Rooster 162 00:12:12.765 --> 00:12:17.725 Teeth, the gaming platform, and how popular that was. 163 00:12:17.725 --> 00:12:20.765 Mia Khalifa was listening, guys. That's awesome. 164 00:12:20.765 --> 00:12:22.925 Lovely. Mia Khalifa. So lovely. 165 00:12:23.130 --> 00:12:25.370 Mia Khalifa was a performer who was listed as 166 00:12:25.370 --> 00:12:31.690 number one most popular on Pornhub in 2014, despite having 167 00:12:31.690 --> 00:12:36.585 had only a three month career. Three years after this, she 168 00:12:36.585 --> 00:12:38.985 appears on a podcast called Always Open. 169 00:12:39.305 --> 00:12:43.065 Hello, everyone. Welcome to Always Open. 170 00:12:43.065 --> 00:12:46.585 In this appearance, as a woman best known as an 171 00:12:46.585 --> 00:12:50.530 adult performer, she doesn't talk about it. She talks about 172 00:12:50.530 --> 00:12:53.730 her dating life. She talks about using Lyft. She talks about 173 00:12:53.730 --> 00:12:55.090 Twitch streaming video games. 174 00:12:55.090 --> 00:12:57.490 My favorite video game of all time is actually one 175 00:12:57.490 --> 00:12:59.730 that I just played recently. It was called Until Dawn. 176 00:12:59.730 --> 00:13:00.850 Okay. Yes. I've heard of 177 00:13:01.090 --> 00:13:03.490 Yeah. And right now, I'm playing You played that with Edward. 178 00:13:03.615 --> 00:13:05.295 Yeah, did. I watched it. 179 00:13:05.295 --> 00:13:07.375 When I think about the intimacy, think about 180 00:13:07.375 --> 00:13:12.095 the the connectedness. Right? Sometimes we can feel more like 181 00:13:12.095 --> 00:13:16.335 we know someone and someone knows us. I think that's like 182 00:13:16.335 --> 00:13:20.690 true intimacy. But then there's this one-sided intimacy where 183 00:13:20.690 --> 00:13:25.090 you know someone so well and they don't even know you exist. 184 00:13:25.330 --> 00:13:29.810 So that feels like connection, that feels like intimacy. And I 185 00:13:29.810 --> 00:13:34.485 think that what Safe for Work does is it also gives us that. 186 00:13:34.485 --> 00:13:36.965 Right? You listen to your favorite podcast or you might 187 00:13:36.965 --> 00:13:41.525 watch your favorite streamer or gamer. You may hear people just 188 00:13:41.525 --> 00:13:44.165 talking about their daily life and you kind of feel like you're 189 00:13:44.165 --> 00:13:44.405 there. 190 00:13:45.310 --> 00:13:47.870 So then why go to a porn site for that? 191 00:13:48.110 --> 00:13:52.590 Because oh, this is I like this question. You you 192 00:13:52.590 --> 00:13:57.230 may have your go to people person. You see them often and, 193 00:13:57.310 --> 00:14:00.125 you know, they get the job done. Right? So you know you see this 194 00:14:00.125 --> 00:14:02.205 person, it's gonna be a quick session. 195 00:14:02.205 --> 00:14:07.245 Right? And I think that having the opportunity to see them in a 196 00:14:07.245 --> 00:14:09.965 different way because when you watch the same person, you're 197 00:14:09.965 --> 00:14:12.365 watching them in their different roles and their different 198 00:14:12.365 --> 00:14:17.860 performances. So that kind of gets old and you still want that 199 00:14:17.860 --> 00:14:21.140 novelty, the newness, the excitement. So the only thing 200 00:14:21.140 --> 00:14:24.500 that you can see them in different outside of their 201 00:14:24.500 --> 00:14:29.395 natural naked bodies might be them in clothes or doing 202 00:14:29.395 --> 00:14:31.475 something that isn't sexual. 203 00:14:36.595 --> 00:14:39.395 There's this quote that I love to misattribute to 204 00:14:39.395 --> 00:14:42.410 legendary Miami Dolphins quarterback Dan Marino, which is 205 00:14:42.490 --> 00:14:46.010 and this is it's a little bit long, so bear with me. Quote, I 206 00:14:46.010 --> 00:14:50.010 see Courtney is describing here a desire for a type of 207 00:14:50.010 --> 00:14:53.130 relationship transition from purely explicit relationship 208 00:14:53.130 --> 00:14:56.490 focused entirely on a performer's body, what we might 209 00:14:56.490 --> 00:15:02.355 call a parasexual relationship, shifting to a relationship that 210 00:15:02.355 --> 00:15:05.235 tries to see them as real people, that they can maybe hang 211 00:15:05.235 --> 00:15:08.595 out with, or are hanging out with as a parasocial 212 00:15:08.595 --> 00:15:16.810 relationship. Another reason that I found Courtney's example 213 00:15:16.810 --> 00:15:20.490 of Mia Khalifa interesting is that in between her transition 214 00:15:20.490 --> 00:15:23.610 from porn to becoming a sports podcaster, which she eventually 215 00:15:23.610 --> 00:15:30.895 did, at that exact same time was the launch of OnlyFans. So it 216 00:15:30.895 --> 00:15:34.655 started in 2016 in London, and it was a new platform that at 217 00:15:34.655 --> 00:15:38.575 that time was quickly being adopted by adult performers so 218 00:15:38.575 --> 00:15:43.380 that they could have this direct financial and also communication 219 00:15:43.700 --> 00:15:45.780 connection with their fans? 220 00:15:46.260 --> 00:15:51.220 On OnlyFans, there are influencers who people 221 00:15:51.220 --> 00:15:54.820 pay to watch them do dishes. People pay to watch them just 222 00:15:55.115 --> 00:16:00.075 take the trash out or eat their dinner, cook. Right? So the safe 223 00:16:00.075 --> 00:16:03.275 for work content just gives you more intimate access to a 224 00:16:03.275 --> 00:16:08.750 person's day to day life, and that can be just, hey. I'm on my 225 00:16:08.750 --> 00:16:09.550 way to the gym. 226 00:16:09.550 --> 00:16:14.590 This is my workout. This is my Spotify playlist. Connect with 227 00:16:14.590 --> 00:16:17.950 me here. These are some of my favorite video games, and these 228 00:16:17.950 --> 00:16:22.590 are just, like, little nuggets of opportunities for people to 229 00:16:22.590 --> 00:16:27.285 attach and connect to and feel more connected to the person. 230 00:16:28.405 --> 00:16:30.965 This connection makes a lot of sense to me. It's 231 00:16:30.965 --> 00:16:33.445 one of the main reasons that people go to places like 232 00:16:33.445 --> 00:16:38.770 OnlyFans or cam sites from a video site. You get to do more 233 00:16:38.770 --> 00:16:42.690 than just watch, and I don't think of those sorts of sites as 234 00:16:42.690 --> 00:16:46.290 safe for work platforms. But what people are buying on those 235 00:16:46.290 --> 00:16:54.805 sites is not really nakedness, it's something else. So when we 236 00:16:54.805 --> 00:16:58.325 come back from the break, we talk with some folks who can 237 00:16:58.325 --> 00:17:02.565 help us take Courtney's intimacy ideas beyond the arena of 238 00:17:02.565 --> 00:17:03.285 Pornhub. 239 00:17:03.285 --> 00:17:05.045 It's it's funny. It's a huge 240 00:17:05.045 --> 00:17:08.550 misconception. I think that everyone on platforms like 241 00:17:08.550 --> 00:17:12.230 OnlyFans or, you know, the fan site equivalents to it are 242 00:17:12.230 --> 00:17:15.670 selling explicit content only or that that's the bulk of what we 243 00:17:15.670 --> 00:17:18.870 do. Really, what we sell is access to us. 244 00:17:24.735 --> 00:17:28.415 We'll be right back after a quick detour to Dublin 245 00:17:28.415 --> 00:19:01.790 and the North Circular Road. To put Courtney's theory about 246 00:19:01.790 --> 00:19:05.310 intimacy to the test, I wanted to run it past two folks. 247 00:19:05.390 --> 00:19:08.510 So I'm Melrose Michaels. I am a veteran adult 248 00:19:08.510 --> 00:19:12.245 performer in the adult space for about fourteen years. I also 249 00:19:12.245 --> 00:19:14.885 launched a company called SexRick CEO. It's an educational 250 00:19:14.885 --> 00:19:16.965 company that's completely free for adult performers and 251 00:19:16.965 --> 00:19:20.725 creators. And then I cofounded a company called SWR Data with 252 00:19:20.725 --> 00:19:24.325 Mike Stabil, where we survey adult performers and creators to 253 00:19:24.325 --> 00:19:26.970 get platform data of our industry. 254 00:19:27.370 --> 00:19:30.890 So I'm Mike Stabil. I am a twenty plus year veteran of 255 00:19:30.890 --> 00:19:35.770 the industry, cofounder of SWR Data along with with Melrose, 256 00:19:35.770 --> 00:19:39.905 which we built to try to better understand the industry and and 257 00:19:39.905 --> 00:19:42.385 understand the way that the industry is changing. 258 00:19:42.785 --> 00:19:45.585 As folks who run a study about the adult industry, 259 00:19:45.585 --> 00:19:49.265 Mike and Melrose were familiar with the data from Pornhub. So I 260 00:19:49.265 --> 00:19:51.985 ran them through Courtney's logic about increased safe for 261 00:19:51.985 --> 00:19:55.320 work searches pointing towards this growing desire for 262 00:19:55.320 --> 00:20:00.920 intimacy, Melrose immediately agreed. She sells access because 263 00:20:00.920 --> 00:20:02.760 that's what she sees people asking for. 264 00:20:02.840 --> 00:20:05.000 We live in a world right now where parasocial 265 00:20:05.000 --> 00:20:08.785 connection is one of the only connections most people have on 266 00:20:08.785 --> 00:20:11.985 a day to day basis. And so I think really what we're selling 267 00:20:11.985 --> 00:20:15.185 is just an intimate look at who we are as people and what we're 268 00:20:15.185 --> 00:20:18.225 really like. And you're not gonna get to know me as a person 269 00:20:18.225 --> 00:20:22.280 through explicit content. So in order to have connection, you 270 00:20:22.280 --> 00:20:25.800 need access to me, and access is the ability to see what I'm 271 00:20:25.800 --> 00:20:29.160 eating for lunch in a photo. It's the ability to see me on a 272 00:20:29.160 --> 00:20:30.840 lot, like, a livestream. 273 00:20:30.840 --> 00:20:34.040 It's the ability to DM me and have me DM back. It's the real 274 00:20:34.040 --> 00:20:36.415 day to day of what your life looks like. You know, me on a 275 00:20:36.415 --> 00:20:39.295 farm wrangling cows out of my front yard because they all got 276 00:20:39.295 --> 00:20:41.775 out. Like, you're not gonna see that on social. It's not 277 00:20:41.775 --> 00:20:43.055 something I'm posting about. 278 00:20:43.775 --> 00:20:46.095 I would love if you could I'm gonna put something in 279 00:20:46.095 --> 00:20:49.950 the chat here. So this is from 12/06/2025. This is your your 280 00:20:49.950 --> 00:20:52.430 account on X. And if you could just read me what you wrote 281 00:20:52.430 --> 00:20:52.990 there. 282 00:20:53.470 --> 00:20:56.350 Okay. So it says, if you ever catch feelings 283 00:20:56.350 --> 00:21:01.150 for me, tip one one one, which is a $111, and I'll give you the 284 00:21:01.150 --> 00:21:03.950 underqualified therapist experience and teach you about 285 00:21:03.950 --> 00:21:07.635 parasocial relationships or how they work. And, yeah, I think 286 00:21:07.635 --> 00:21:10.835 that's a this is something because, you know, it doesn't 287 00:21:10.835 --> 00:21:12.995 get talked about enough, but a lot of adult creators and 288 00:21:12.995 --> 00:21:16.675 performers end up being underqualified and overpaid 289 00:21:16.675 --> 00:21:19.475 therapists for a lot of their fans. You know, they come to you 290 00:21:19.475 --> 00:21:24.650 about challenges they're facing, losses they've had, really 291 00:21:24.650 --> 00:21:28.890 intimate details of their lives. And a lot of it, especially for 292 00:21:28.890 --> 00:21:31.290 a male demographic, they just want someone to talk to. 293 00:21:32.105 --> 00:21:34.425 Okay. That's why I did not expect that answer from 294 00:21:34.425 --> 00:21:36.425 you. I thought that you were gonna be like, oh, no. It's 295 00:21:36.425 --> 00:21:38.745 totally a joke of things. But this is you're being like, no. 296 00:21:38.745 --> 00:21:41.225 Actually, this is what No. Part of just my work is. 297 00:21:41.225 --> 00:21:43.625 Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. It's not just 298 00:21:43.625 --> 00:21:47.760 here's a nude topless photo of me. It's actually getting to 299 00:21:47.760 --> 00:21:49.760 know these people and treating them like people and helping 300 00:21:49.760 --> 00:21:51.600 them navigate their lives a lot of the time. 301 00:21:51.600 --> 00:21:54.720 That's a part of what it's become this in this day and age. 302 00:22:00.035 --> 00:22:03.795 Melrose shares content and access to her on 303 00:22:03.795 --> 00:22:07.155 several different platforms. And the annual study that she does 304 00:22:07.155 --> 00:22:11.715 with Mike at SWR Data called the state of creator study that 305 00:22:11.715 --> 00:22:15.710 covers a lot of those same platforms. So it's fan sites, 306 00:22:16.030 --> 00:22:20.110 like loyal fans, fansly, sext panther. Those are the biggest 307 00:22:20.110 --> 00:22:23.390 ones that are in the dataset that they collect. But there are 308 00:22:23.390 --> 00:22:27.150 also cam sites like Chatterbait or any of the streaming 309 00:22:27.150 --> 00:22:27.550 services. 310 00:22:28.305 --> 00:22:31.585 And there are also clip sites like clips for sale, and those 311 00:22:31.585 --> 00:22:34.225 allow content creators to earn money while they sleep. They're 312 00:22:34.225 --> 00:22:39.745 just video clip aggregates. Mike and Melrose have put out the 313 00:22:39.745 --> 00:22:43.250 state of Creator every year since 2022 so that they can 314 00:22:43.250 --> 00:22:47.330 better understand this ecosystem and the creators that work in 315 00:22:47.330 --> 00:22:47.810 it. 316 00:22:48.770 --> 00:22:51.170 How do we figure out what this community looks 317 00:22:51.170 --> 00:22:54.130 like? Because finding out what they look like helps us find out 318 00:22:54.130 --> 00:22:58.495 what they need, right, and helps us report on them in a a more 319 00:22:58.495 --> 00:23:00.895 realistic way. So over the years, we've talked about things 320 00:23:00.895 --> 00:23:03.855 like banking access. Right? We've talked about things like 321 00:23:03.855 --> 00:23:06.015 what types of content are you making? 322 00:23:06.015 --> 00:23:08.575 Where are you located? You know, how much money do you make? What 323 00:23:08.575 --> 00:23:11.520 platforms are you on? And I don't know that we have, you 324 00:23:11.520 --> 00:23:14.400 know, an exact map. I know that we don't at this point, but 325 00:23:14.400 --> 00:23:16.480 we're getting contours of what this looks like. 326 00:23:16.480 --> 00:23:19.040 And what we've seen in the past couple of years is a couple of 327 00:23:19.040 --> 00:23:22.560 things. Okay. You know, one is there were a lot of people got 328 00:23:22.560 --> 00:23:27.245 into this industry in 2020. The lockdown Yeah. People did not 329 00:23:27.245 --> 00:23:28.765 have another way to connect. 330 00:23:28.925 --> 00:23:31.725 And this type of content really filled that gap, and I think 331 00:23:31.725 --> 00:23:34.925 that it fill still fills that gap. Right? Where people who are 332 00:23:35.165 --> 00:23:39.120 they may not have a social life the way that you might imagine 333 00:23:39.120 --> 00:23:42.160 historically. You know, I think there are a lot of people who do 334 00:23:42.160 --> 00:23:44.080 seek out that connection. I think that this industry 335 00:23:44.080 --> 00:23:47.920 provides that connection to be able to talk about desires that 336 00:23:47.920 --> 00:23:52.565 they have in a nonjudgmental way is not accessible to most people 337 00:23:52.565 --> 00:23:53.365 anywhere else. 338 00:23:53.365 --> 00:23:56.245 Right? And our sexualities are valid. So one of the things that 339 00:23:56.245 --> 00:24:00.725 we we've seen is a huge jump in things like kink and fetish. 340 00:24:00.725 --> 00:24:05.090 Right? People who are trying to, you know, explore their 341 00:24:05.090 --> 00:24:06.290 sexuality and then do it. 342 00:24:06.290 --> 00:24:09.650 And a lot of that is safe for work. You think about things 343 00:24:09.650 --> 00:24:14.450 like ASMR. Right? Yeah. That is sexuality adjacent. 344 00:24:14.450 --> 00:24:18.850 And so there is a lot of vanilla content out there, and a lot of 345 00:24:18.850 --> 00:24:22.165 it is free. So the stuff that makes money often is the stuff 346 00:24:22.165 --> 00:24:25.685 that is more tailored to someone's specific desires. 347 00:24:26.325 --> 00:24:29.525 Mike called these sites, these sites like Pornhub, 348 00:24:29.525 --> 00:24:34.450 the the tube sites, Mike called them a launch pad. You go there 349 00:24:34.450 --> 00:24:37.410 because it's what comes up when you feel a desire, but you don't 350 00:24:37.410 --> 00:24:42.130 know where to go except Google. In the first two years of the 351 00:24:42.130 --> 00:24:46.530 study, they found that on fan and cam sites, the number of 352 00:24:46.530 --> 00:24:52.895 folks offering kink and fetish content increased by 70%. So if 353 00:24:52.895 --> 00:24:57.615 we're seeing more safe for work searches on the Launchpad 354 00:24:57.615 --> 00:25:02.730 platform, maybe, like Courtney is saying, maybe that reflects a 355 00:25:02.730 --> 00:25:06.970 growing desire by more users for something more. 356 00:25:10.410 --> 00:25:14.890 People really want something that feels authentic 357 00:25:14.890 --> 00:25:18.325 to them, that resonates with, you know, their body. Things 358 00:25:18.325 --> 00:25:21.845 like kissing fetishes, right, have risen dramatically. Like, 359 00:25:21.845 --> 00:25:27.285 all of this stuff that is produced outside of the notion 360 00:25:27.285 --> 00:25:29.365 of, like, oh, everything is going to be hardcore sex. Most 361 00:25:29.365 --> 00:25:31.445 people what we found in our survey is most people are 362 00:25:31.445 --> 00:25:35.660 producing solo content. 70% of creators are not doing anything 363 00:25:35.660 --> 00:25:36.620 with a partner. 364 00:25:36.940 --> 00:25:41.420 You can't make explicit content day after day after day. It's 365 00:25:41.420 --> 00:25:44.540 really wearing. And so people come up with ways to how do I 366 00:25:44.540 --> 00:25:46.540 fill this? How do I do this? What do I look like in this 367 00:25:46.540 --> 00:25:46.860 dress? 368 00:25:46.860 --> 00:25:49.635 What do you think of this? And I think you see that on social as 369 00:25:49.635 --> 00:25:53.475 well as in in the chats. People wanting to engage with their 370 00:25:53.475 --> 00:25:56.515 creators because it's not always about just making a sale. It's 371 00:25:56.515 --> 00:25:57.875 about building a relationship. 372 00:25:58.195 --> 00:26:01.155 Right. Well, the gaze is a really interesting way 373 00:26:01.155 --> 00:26:04.880 to to think about that. Like, a solo performer in front of the 374 00:26:04.880 --> 00:26:07.520 camera is going to have a different relationship with the 375 00:26:07.520 --> 00:26:11.120 camera gaze, and especially if they're aware that there are 376 00:26:11.120 --> 00:26:14.240 literally other people on the other side of that camera in 377 00:26:14.240 --> 00:26:17.680 real time and that there's a venue for communication back and 378 00:26:17.680 --> 00:26:21.265 forth between the two of them. It's more like interdiegetic or 379 00:26:21.265 --> 00:26:26.145 like like a documentary style way of looking at gaze than it 380 00:26:26.145 --> 00:26:31.940 is a theatrical performative way of looking at gaze. And, Naraj, 381 00:26:31.940 --> 00:26:33.780 do you think about that differently when you when you 382 00:26:33.780 --> 00:26:35.060 are in different spaces? 383 00:26:35.460 --> 00:26:37.780 Yeah. No. I find that to be true completely. 384 00:26:37.780 --> 00:26:40.820 And the thing about it is is, like, we've had this huge 385 00:26:40.820 --> 00:26:43.620 pendulum swing. Everything was super pretty, super polished, 386 00:26:43.620 --> 00:26:45.940 super edited, super, like, unachievable. 387 00:26:46.345 --> 00:26:48.905 And we had that pendulum swing way back where it's like, I want 388 00:26:48.905 --> 00:26:52.585 people I relate to. I wanna see you, you know, looking silly. I 389 00:26:52.585 --> 00:26:55.145 wanna see you being silly. I wanna feel like you might be my 390 00:26:55.145 --> 00:26:59.400 friend. And that's why like even the the super, you know, crazy 391 00:26:59.400 --> 00:27:02.120 beautiful performers that are like really conventionally 392 00:27:02.120 --> 00:27:05.320 attractive also tend to not do as well as like the girl next 393 00:27:05.320 --> 00:27:08.440 door types that are crushing it on these platforms because they 394 00:27:08.440 --> 00:27:10.520 seem more attainable, they seem more relatable. 395 00:27:10.520 --> 00:27:13.475 And that's just obviously for the female creator lens, but but 396 00:27:13.475 --> 00:27:17.315 that this swing towards less polished, more real, more 397 00:27:17.315 --> 00:27:20.595 authentic has been huge. And and I think that speaks to why fan 398 00:27:20.595 --> 00:27:21.795 sites have done so well. 399 00:27:22.755 --> 00:27:25.555 Relatable is not just physical. As soon as 400 00:27:25.555 --> 00:27:28.035 someone is more than just a body on your screen, you're gonna 401 00:27:28.035 --> 00:27:32.610 start looking for commonalities. Right? Like, when we can express 402 00:27:32.610 --> 00:27:37.010 our affection, we want to. Love language is not a phrase that I 403 00:27:37.010 --> 00:27:39.410 like using because it's it's pretty restrictive, it's 404 00:27:39.410 --> 00:27:42.050 ultimately the love languages are pretty random. 405 00:27:42.655 --> 00:27:45.375 But it is a helpful rubric because it is true that we wanna 406 00:27:45.375 --> 00:27:48.015 share affection in a way that's meaningful to us. 407 00:27:48.415 --> 00:27:50.335 There are lots of relationships, especially in 408 00:27:50.335 --> 00:27:53.215 heterosexual relationships, where men are used to get 409 00:27:53.215 --> 00:27:56.175 pleasure from buying things for women, right, or giving them 410 00:27:56.175 --> 00:27:59.560 things or, you know, feeling seen by them. And I think that, 411 00:27:59.560 --> 00:28:02.040 you know, looking at some of the stuff that does really well, 412 00:28:02.120 --> 00:28:04.600 clothes may not come off at all. Right? It's something like 413 00:28:04.600 --> 00:28:08.360 financial domination, right, where, you know, someone may 414 00:28:08.360 --> 00:28:11.245 just ask, listen. You know, you're my sub. 415 00:28:11.245 --> 00:28:14.525 I want you to pay me a $100. I'm going to brunch. Who's gonna buy 416 00:28:14.525 --> 00:28:17.645 this for me? Or I want a new pair of new shoes. They send a 417 00:28:17.645 --> 00:28:19.805 pair of new shoes, and then they send a picture of them on. 418 00:28:19.805 --> 00:28:23.485 So it's women taking charge. It's men feeling like, hey. 419 00:28:23.485 --> 00:28:26.750 Listen. I this is an uncomfortable situation for me. 420 00:28:26.910 --> 00:28:28.830 I would like to have some of the pressure off me. 421 00:28:28.830 --> 00:28:30.110 You tell me what to do. 422 00:28:30.190 --> 00:28:32.350 Yeah. And then to that point too, with that 423 00:28:32.350 --> 00:28:36.030 kink specifically, financial domination, a lot of that is a a 424 00:28:36.030 --> 00:28:39.605 fan coming to you asking you to help them make a budget so that 425 00:28:39.605 --> 00:28:43.445 they can spend on you in a way that is reliable and consistent 426 00:28:43.445 --> 00:28:46.725 for you. So you actually help them budget their finances, 427 00:28:46.725 --> 00:28:49.765 which actually helps them. People like to think financial 428 00:28:49.765 --> 00:28:51.925 domination as like you're just draining someone's wallet and 429 00:28:51.925 --> 00:28:55.230 like using them. But a lot of it comes with a lot of care and a 430 00:28:55.230 --> 00:28:58.190 lot of kindness and also helps them get on track in their own 431 00:28:58.190 --> 00:28:58.590 lives. 432 00:28:58.590 --> 00:29:01.790 So there's two sides to a lot of a lot of kink and fetish 433 00:29:01.790 --> 00:29:02.750 specifically. 434 00:29:03.310 --> 00:29:05.950 Do you find that that, like, if you expand that 435 00:29:05.950 --> 00:29:09.475 dynamic out of that specific fetish into some of the other 436 00:29:09.475 --> 00:29:13.475 ones, that that sort of pattern repeats itself in some of the 437 00:29:13.475 --> 00:29:14.435 other spaces? 438 00:29:14.915 --> 00:29:16.915 I think to some degree, yeah. Like, another 439 00:29:16.915 --> 00:29:20.840 really big one is jerk off instruction. Suggesting or 440 00:29:20.840 --> 00:29:23.720 instructing a fan on how to pleasure themselves. You can 441 00:29:23.720 --> 00:29:27.400 also maybe suggest or say things that they haven't done before, 442 00:29:27.560 --> 00:29:30.440 which lets them be exploratory with themselves and kinda grants 443 00:29:30.440 --> 00:29:33.400 them this permission because they're just following the 444 00:29:33.400 --> 00:29:35.400 instruction, then that takes a little bit of the pressure off 445 00:29:35.400 --> 00:29:38.095 too. I think that there's a lot of common themes like that. 446 00:29:38.415 --> 00:29:40.495 Yeah. You look at, like, a lot of things like make 447 00:29:40.495 --> 00:29:44.095 me buy, and it gives you the permission to say, oh, I didn't 448 00:29:44.095 --> 00:29:47.375 come up with that. I'm not doing that. Goddess has asked me to do 449 00:29:47.375 --> 00:29:50.710 that. And often, they're entirely clothed. 450 00:29:50.950 --> 00:29:53.830 They are just giving you permission to explore. 451 00:29:55.030 --> 00:29:56.950 When I start thinking about permission to 452 00:29:56.950 --> 00:30:01.915 explore and mapping that against the idea of intimacy and 453 00:30:01.915 --> 00:30:06.475 parasocial authenticity, it starts to make sense to me that 454 00:30:06.475 --> 00:30:09.995 folks often find a need for those to be hand in glove. It's 455 00:30:09.995 --> 00:30:14.475 a building of trust, not just in the performer, but in yourself. 456 00:30:15.115 --> 00:30:18.960 And I don't know, but I don't think that trust is as easily 457 00:30:18.960 --> 00:30:23.200 accessible through impersonal mass broadcast content. 458 00:30:23.360 --> 00:30:25.200 People want something that is a little bit 459 00:30:25.200 --> 00:30:27.760 more custom. Right? They want custom content. They want clips 460 00:30:27.760 --> 00:30:30.480 that speak to them. And so that's really where we we sort 461 00:30:30.480 --> 00:30:35.585 of see the growth is in this really specific articulations of 462 00:30:35.585 --> 00:30:37.185 sexuality that resonate with you. 463 00:30:37.185 --> 00:30:40.145 It's not just about playboy, and it's not just about one body 464 00:30:40.145 --> 00:30:43.825 type. Right? They have this idea that the adult industry is a 465 00:30:43.825 --> 00:30:47.130 monolith and that everybody looks like Jenna Jameson did in 466 00:30:47.130 --> 00:30:51.610 1990. And because, you know, in those days, you had to sell to 467 00:30:51.690 --> 00:30:53.850 the greatest common denominator. Right? 468 00:30:53.850 --> 00:30:56.730 What was the easiest thing to sell to the most people? Now 469 00:30:57.050 --> 00:31:00.570 that doesn't sell nearly as well as things that are specific to, 470 00:31:00.945 --> 00:31:03.345 you know, an individual, and that's lots of different body 471 00:31:03.345 --> 00:31:05.185 types. That's lots of different genders. That's lots of 472 00:31:05.185 --> 00:31:06.465 different sexualities. 473 00:31:10.945 --> 00:31:13.825 With a lot of individual denominators and 474 00:31:13.825 --> 00:31:18.100 everyone looking for the one that speaks to them, one of the 475 00:31:18.100 --> 00:31:21.700 markers that becomes important in differentiating them is 476 00:31:22.180 --> 00:31:26.980 authenticity. Courtney Melrose and Mike all talked about being 477 00:31:26.980 --> 00:31:32.815 real and authentic, But I was hearing them use those words and 478 00:31:32.815 --> 00:31:36.815 those concepts differently than I had previously heard. Because 479 00:31:36.815 --> 00:31:39.055 the conversation about authenticity has been a part of 480 00:31:39.055 --> 00:31:44.610 the porn literature for literal decades, But that conversation 481 00:31:44.770 --> 00:31:49.650 has mostly revolved around the realness of the performance. Was 482 00:31:49.650 --> 00:31:52.130 she faking it? Can he really go that long? 483 00:31:52.130 --> 00:31:57.105 Is she always that ready to go? The number of books and papers 484 00:31:57.105 --> 00:32:01.265 that I looked through that were dicing, scrutinizing, analyzing 485 00:32:01.265 --> 00:32:06.385 the quivers and moans and eye rolls and trying to hold frankly 486 00:32:06.385 --> 00:32:10.500 mostly women accountable for being real while performing a 487 00:32:10.500 --> 00:32:13.700 sexual act, most of it was focused on mainstream 488 00:32:13.700 --> 00:32:17.220 heterosexual porn produced by production companies and the 489 00:32:17.220 --> 00:32:24.805 authenticity of the performer's physical desire. I did not see 490 00:32:24.805 --> 00:32:28.325 any of that performative authenticity from Melrose. She 491 00:32:28.325 --> 00:32:30.885 never, when we were talking, gave me the impression that she 492 00:32:30.885 --> 00:32:35.890 was cultivating an aura of always on or hypersexuality. And 493 00:32:35.890 --> 00:32:37.250 in fact, she was doing the opposite. 494 00:32:37.250 --> 00:32:40.930 When I asked her directly about how she thinks about 495 00:32:40.930 --> 00:32:44.690 authenticity, her answer had nothing to do with explicit 496 00:32:44.690 --> 00:32:47.010 performance. It was all values based. 497 00:32:47.090 --> 00:32:48.610 I don't ever want to give someone advice 498 00:32:48.610 --> 00:32:51.305 that's going to harm them. I don't want to ever mislead 499 00:32:51.305 --> 00:32:55.145 someone. I don't wanna ever betray someone's confidence. 500 00:32:55.705 --> 00:32:58.585 This is a different valuation of authenticity than 501 00:32:58.585 --> 00:33:02.185 porn scholars have historically noticed in consumers or 502 00:33:02.185 --> 00:33:06.960 creators. And I heard Melrose return to this frequently. How 503 00:33:06.960 --> 00:33:10.880 she wants to show up as a person is how she wants to show up with 504 00:33:10.880 --> 00:33:15.280 her audience, and it has nothing to do with her clothes being on 505 00:33:15.280 --> 00:33:20.960 or off. She is selling authentic humanity as opposed to authentic 506 00:33:20.960 --> 00:33:25.835 performance. But it's also the case that as with any parasocial 507 00:33:25.835 --> 00:33:31.995 relationship, sharing that much to that many that often is a 508 00:33:31.995 --> 00:33:32.635 challenge. 509 00:33:32.955 --> 00:33:35.435 There's a huge emotional and mental labor that 510 00:33:35.435 --> 00:33:38.155 comes along with this job that wasn't necessarily true a decade 511 00:33:38.155 --> 00:33:41.570 ago. And how do we navigate that? What do we do for it? I'm 512 00:33:41.570 --> 00:33:43.090 charging for it. That's what I'm charging. 513 00:33:43.090 --> 00:33:45.650 Hey, disclaimer, I'm not your therapist and I you don't have 514 00:33:45.650 --> 00:33:47.970 to take my advice, but this is what I would do and I'll I'll 515 00:33:47.970 --> 00:33:51.010 listen to you. And a lot of creators are kind of taking that 516 00:33:51.010 --> 00:33:53.815 route forward. Yeah. We're seeing a shift there, would say 517 00:33:53.815 --> 00:33:54.535 for sure. 518 00:33:54.775 --> 00:33:56.855 And even with the financial exchange, there can 519 00:33:56.855 --> 00:33:58.135 still be a lot of risk. 520 00:33:58.535 --> 00:34:01.895 There is the parasocial aspect to it. It's 521 00:34:01.895 --> 00:34:06.430 like how real can you be within safety and how how genuine can 522 00:34:06.430 --> 00:34:09.710 you be while respecting your own boundaries? And that's kind of 523 00:34:09.710 --> 00:34:12.270 the line we work. That's the that's the work that we do. 524 00:34:12.270 --> 00:34:15.470 Even with safety, constant access is just a tough 525 00:34:15.470 --> 00:34:16.590 thing to sustain. 526 00:34:16.670 --> 00:34:18.510 Creators are like, listen, I don't wanna do 527 00:34:18.985 --> 00:34:22.105 the constant access. I'm tired of being constantly accessible. 528 00:34:22.105 --> 00:34:24.905 Yeah. And they'd rather start building a passive library on a 529 00:34:24.905 --> 00:34:27.785 clip store that pays them while they're sleeping. Which is, you 530 00:34:27.785 --> 00:34:29.545 know, that's one way to approach the business. 531 00:34:29.545 --> 00:34:32.070 It's a great way to approach it. Also, stores clip are gonna have 532 00:34:32.070 --> 00:34:34.790 a lot of internal traffic. A lot of creators have been deleted 533 00:34:34.790 --> 00:34:37.270 off of social media. They don't have a way to drive traffic 534 00:34:37.270 --> 00:34:39.670 anymore. So that pushes them into these other kind of 535 00:34:39.670 --> 00:34:41.990 verticals that can support the business they're trying to 536 00:34:41.990 --> 00:34:42.150 build. 537 00:34:43.995 --> 00:34:45.675 It's important to remember that these are 538 00:34:45.675 --> 00:34:49.675 businesses. Melrose is a successful businesswoman, and so 539 00:34:49.675 --> 00:34:51.915 are the folks making explicit content, fetish content, 540 00:34:51.915 --> 00:34:54.715 girlfriend content, niche content, even studio content. 541 00:34:54.715 --> 00:34:59.100 They're all business people. And Melrose bringing up traffic, 542 00:34:59.180 --> 00:35:03.100 driving traffic, finding content, marketing. One of the 543 00:35:03.100 --> 00:35:05.820 things about coming to this question of safe for work 544 00:35:05.820 --> 00:35:10.220 through Pornhub is that their report evaluates search terms, 545 00:35:10.460 --> 00:35:15.455 and those search terms often correspond to the established 546 00:35:15.455 --> 00:35:19.375 categories that Pornhub has already set up, which revolve 547 00:35:19.375 --> 00:35:25.135 around nationalities, body type, ethnic type, or sexual act. 548 00:35:26.640 --> 00:35:31.280 When you're focused on the explicit business, you need 549 00:35:31.280 --> 00:35:35.440 explicit categories to sort it, which leads to explicit titles 550 00:35:35.520 --> 00:35:39.280 and explicit descriptions to maximize SEO, which leads to 551 00:35:39.625 --> 00:35:44.345 more searches for those same keywords. But you can't really 552 00:35:44.345 --> 00:35:47.145 search on Pornhub for what Melrose and Mike are talking 553 00:35:47.145 --> 00:35:50.985 about. Not really. You can't search for friendly or 554 00:35:50.985 --> 00:35:54.985 approachable or cares about animals or help me do a budget. 555 00:35:55.510 --> 00:35:57.430 Right. When you're talking about just going to a 556 00:35:57.430 --> 00:35:59.510 site and searching, a lot of people, it's like they don't 557 00:35:59.510 --> 00:36:02.070 know what to look for. Right? This is the beginning of their 558 00:36:02.070 --> 00:36:04.310 journey. You have a lot of people that end up on the site, 559 00:36:04.310 --> 00:36:04.470 and they 560 00:36:04.470 --> 00:36:04.790 look, I 561 00:36:04.790 --> 00:36:07.990 don't know, big boobs. They're trying to figure out what they 562 00:36:07.990 --> 00:36:12.335 want. And I think that that's a way to connect with desire that 563 00:36:12.335 --> 00:36:16.335 maybe falls outside of those big categories. Right? You're 564 00:36:16.335 --> 00:36:17.135 looking for something. 565 00:36:17.135 --> 00:36:20.575 And what is it that turns me on? What is it that I'm drawn to in 566 00:36:20.575 --> 00:36:23.620 someone like Melrose? And I think that that is hard to 567 00:36:23.620 --> 00:36:26.820 search for on a generic platform because there's so much there. 568 00:36:27.060 --> 00:36:29.060 I think that's where adult performers have 569 00:36:29.060 --> 00:36:32.180 really served their purpose in the market too. It's like, you 570 00:36:32.180 --> 00:36:36.145 can go to Pornhub, search a term, one, if you're to a big 571 00:36:36.145 --> 00:36:38.145 site like that, you're probably trying to get in and get out. 572 00:36:38.145 --> 00:36:42.145 You're not really trying to like scroll for hours. Yeah. But on 573 00:36:42.145 --> 00:36:44.305 the flip side, when you're with an adult performer or creator 574 00:36:44.305 --> 00:36:47.425 and you're doing like a fan site kind of interaction, almost you 575 00:36:47.250 --> 00:36:50.530 have like a concierge or like a tour guide to your sexuality. 576 00:36:50.530 --> 00:36:54.370 It's a very different thing than searching a term on Pornhub. 577 00:36:55.810 --> 00:36:58.930 This idea of a concierge or a tour guide is 578 00:36:58.930 --> 00:37:05.135 really interesting to me as a way to look at what people are 579 00:37:05.135 --> 00:37:11.775 really looking for. And, okay, I buy it. I buy what Courtney is 580 00:37:11.775 --> 00:37:14.735 saying. I buy what Melrose and Mike are saying in corroboration 581 00:37:14.735 --> 00:37:19.000 with it. It feels like we are looking for a little bit more 582 00:37:19.000 --> 00:37:19.640 intimacy. 583 00:37:19.640 --> 00:37:22.200 It feels like we're looking for a little bit more connection. 584 00:37:23.000 --> 00:37:27.480 Well, my next question then, of course, is, like, why now? Have 585 00:37:27.480 --> 00:37:32.015 we not always been looking for this? So when we come back, 586 00:37:32.255 --> 00:37:35.535 let's ask that. Let's reckon with the why now of this. 587 00:37:35.535 --> 00:37:41.455 Why is this happening in 2025? We will be right back after we 588 00:37:41.455 --> 00:39:37.970 return from Lamai Beach in Thailand. I think this growing 589 00:39:37.970 --> 00:39:41.170 interest in the parasocial aspects of porn has something in 590 00:39:41.170 --> 00:39:44.050 common with a thing we talk a lot about at our editorial 591 00:39:44.050 --> 00:39:46.690 meetings on Neverpost and that we're starting to see talked 592 00:39:46.690 --> 00:39:54.715 about more widely, And that thing is friction. The cut talks 593 00:39:54.715 --> 00:39:58.395 about friction maxing. So does journalist and mental health 594 00:39:58.395 --> 00:40:01.835 writer PE Moskowitz and friend of the show and beauty know her 595 00:40:01.835 --> 00:40:03.035 about Jessica Defino. 596 00:40:04.000 --> 00:40:10.160 Friction maxing is often framed as a reaction against escapism. 597 00:40:10.160 --> 00:40:13.120 So our impulse to avoid the thing that might feel hard, like 598 00:40:13.120 --> 00:40:16.075 talking to someone, moving around, or reading, and instead 599 00:40:16.075 --> 00:40:20.795 opting for a slightly easier alternative, posting, not 600 00:40:20.795 --> 00:40:25.035 moving, and scrolling. You can think of it as a pendulum swing 601 00:40:25.035 --> 00:40:30.490 back from the adulting is hard phase of millennial meaning that 602 00:40:30.490 --> 00:40:33.690 we all went through. It's a realization that sometimes you 603 00:40:33.690 --> 00:40:37.930 want something to be a bit challenging. That is where you 604 00:40:37.930 --> 00:40:38.730 find the value. 605 00:40:39.895 --> 00:40:42.615 And that's how we talk about it when we talk about friction at 606 00:40:42.615 --> 00:40:47.975 Neverpost. Less about escapism and more in terms of an antidote 607 00:40:47.975 --> 00:40:51.655 to the convenience that minimizes the steps taken 608 00:40:51.735 --> 00:40:55.750 between impulse and fulfillment, which allows your habitual self 609 00:40:55.750 --> 00:40:59.270 to run your decisions. Right? In a frictionless environment, 610 00:40:59.750 --> 00:41:01.990 there's less between you and the outcome. 611 00:41:01.990 --> 00:41:03.590 Yeah. Pornhub is a pretty frictionless 612 00:41:03.590 --> 00:41:06.150 experience. You can find something. You can go to the 613 00:41:06.150 --> 00:41:08.775 home see what's trending. It's gonna be algorithmically catered 614 00:41:08.775 --> 00:41:10.775 to whatever you've been engaged with in the past. 615 00:41:10.775 --> 00:41:14.055 So it's likely to be what you're looking for anyway, then you 616 00:41:14.055 --> 00:41:16.135 can, you know, get off and get off the site. 617 00:41:17.495 --> 00:41:22.990 Look. I just want to acknowledge the irony or at 618 00:41:22.990 --> 00:41:27.310 least dad jokey ness of where we've arrived and what I'm about 619 00:41:27.310 --> 00:41:34.685 to say, porn is better with a desire for more friction. In 620 00:41:34.685 --> 00:41:37.805 porn, can imagine friction might look like content that isn't 621 00:41:37.805 --> 00:41:42.205 always on, but instead warming up. Not characterized by getting 622 00:41:42.205 --> 00:41:46.845 the job done, but by making a connection. It's searching for 623 00:41:46.845 --> 00:41:48.365 more than just the money shot. 624 00:41:50.150 --> 00:41:54.710 And one component of the search for friction might be bespoke or 625 00:41:54.790 --> 00:41:58.470 unique. Putting in the time, the energy, the resources into 626 00:41:58.470 --> 00:42:02.115 making something feel like yours that seems to be growing as a 627 00:42:02.115 --> 00:42:06.675 tempting choice compared to the free, frictionless thing off the 628 00:42:06.675 --> 00:42:10.435 shelf. It's a little bit more work to get to know the food 629 00:42:10.435 --> 00:42:13.235 preferences of your favorite performer, but when you invest 630 00:42:13.235 --> 00:42:18.120 that work, doesn't it change how you see them when you see them 631 00:42:18.120 --> 00:42:23.960 naked? Friction makes you pay a lot more attention to where you 632 00:42:23.960 --> 00:42:27.080 are and to where you're going, which makes you pay more 633 00:42:27.080 --> 00:42:31.455 attention to how you're getting there, and to what else might be 634 00:42:31.455 --> 00:42:36.175 an option. You find alternate routes, and suddenly you're in 635 00:42:36.175 --> 00:42:38.975 new places you never thought you'd be. 636 00:42:39.455 --> 00:42:42.895 We're seeing a more complex, rich ecosystem 637 00:42:42.895 --> 00:42:46.270 emerge, and I think probably the most complex and rich ecosystem 638 00:42:46.270 --> 00:42:49.790 for the adult industry that has ever existed. Right? It used to 639 00:42:49.790 --> 00:42:52.670 always be it was studios. Studios. It was this top down 640 00:42:52.670 --> 00:42:55.470 thing that was created by people who were filming, thinking what 641 00:42:55.470 --> 00:42:56.510 they knew what people wanted. 642 00:42:57.225 --> 00:42:59.625 Then there was this sort of explosion of content and the 643 00:42:59.625 --> 00:43:01.865 explosion of creators. And I think that what we're seeing now 644 00:43:01.865 --> 00:43:05.865 is it is just a much richer buffet of content there. Right? 645 00:43:05.865 --> 00:43:09.385 That that you're looking at clips, and you're looking at 646 00:43:09.385 --> 00:43:11.850 cams, and you're looking at customs, you're and looking at 647 00:43:11.850 --> 00:43:14.650 video calls, and you're looking at free content, and all of that 648 00:43:14.650 --> 00:43:17.850 works together. And whether you're a fan or whether you're a 649 00:43:17.850 --> 00:43:18.570 creator. 650 00:43:19.690 --> 00:43:21.930 I mean, that's beautiful. I gotta say it's one 651 00:43:21.930 --> 00:43:24.745 of the most surprising things about doing this story. I did 652 00:43:24.745 --> 00:43:31.145 not expect to have this level of enthusiasm for the current state 653 00:43:31.145 --> 00:43:35.945 with everything swirling about, like, how much of Pornhub's map 654 00:43:35.945 --> 00:43:39.790 was dark and how much, you know, they're coming down on us for 655 00:43:39.790 --> 00:43:43.710 COSA and they're coming down on us for age verification. And it 656 00:43:43.710 --> 00:43:47.630 just it feels a little bleak out there in terms of being able to 657 00:43:47.630 --> 00:43:53.105 have a nuanced, sophisticated, interesting, compelling, 658 00:43:53.105 --> 00:43:58.385 passionate, diverse conversation about desire. And I'm just I'm 659 00:43:58.385 --> 00:44:01.185 really floored by the three of you being so aggressive that 660 00:44:01.185 --> 00:44:04.770 things like intimacy, things like passion, things like 661 00:44:04.850 --> 00:44:08.930 connection are things that you're seeing increasingly 662 00:44:08.930 --> 00:44:15.250 valued and increasingly used by people online, I'm I'm floored. 663 00:44:15.330 --> 00:44:18.685 Well, as someone in one of those dark 664 00:44:18.685 --> 00:44:22.525 states, which is where I live. Yeah. There is still hope at the 665 00:44:22.525 --> 00:44:25.725 bottom line. I think we've always been, you know, on the 666 00:44:25.725 --> 00:44:28.765 leading forefront of innovation of technology, of all of the 667 00:44:28.765 --> 00:44:33.600 things. So while it's a little daunting and, you know, where I 668 00:44:33.600 --> 00:44:36.400 live, especially at times, it's like, well, holy shit, how many 669 00:44:36.400 --> 00:44:37.600 times can you write your senator? 670 00:44:37.600 --> 00:44:40.720 Like how's you know, I have an army of creators at my disposal. 671 00:44:40.720 --> 00:44:45.440 How many times can we all write my senator? But I think at the 672 00:44:45.440 --> 00:44:47.895 base of it, people need connection. Like, people need 673 00:44:47.895 --> 00:44:49.655 people. Like, that's not going anywhere. 674 00:44:49.655 --> 00:44:51.335 So Absolutely. 675 00:44:51.575 --> 00:44:54.375 You know, when the entirety of, you know, the the 676 00:44:54.375 --> 00:44:57.255 administration and and conservative culture and and 677 00:44:57.255 --> 00:44:59.735 sometimes left leaning culture is saying, you know, this is 678 00:44:59.735 --> 00:45:03.230 really bad. This is really terrible. You you start maybe to 679 00:45:03.230 --> 00:45:05.550 react and say, you know what? I think maybe you're wrong. I 680 00:45:05.550 --> 00:45:11.150 think that that sexuality is a is a a way to break sort of that 681 00:45:11.150 --> 00:45:12.110 dominant paradigm. 682 00:45:12.110 --> 00:45:14.715 Right? It's a way to say, oh, wait. You know what? I don't 683 00:45:14.715 --> 00:45:17.435 think that way. I don't think that the way that I feel is 684 00:45:17.435 --> 00:45:18.075 terrible. 685 00:45:18.475 --> 00:45:20.635 Maybe the rest of what they're saying is wrong. I think that 686 00:45:20.635 --> 00:45:25.355 it's it's a a really revolutionary aspect of society 687 00:45:25.355 --> 00:45:26.635 that that is underrated. 688 00:45:30.380 --> 00:45:34.780 Going into this story, I was not expecting talk 689 00:45:34.780 --> 00:45:39.420 of revolution. But when the levers of power go after sex 690 00:45:39.420 --> 00:45:43.485 workers, the audience moves closer to them. When avenues to 691 00:45:43.485 --> 00:45:46.845 connection are shut off, people are looking for choice, variety, 692 00:45:46.845 --> 00:45:50.605 and exploration. I really do believe that people are looking 693 00:45:50.605 --> 00:45:54.910 for intimacy in a time when intimacy feels less and less 694 00:45:54.910 --> 00:46:00.430 encouraged or maybe even more and more discouraged. And maybe 695 00:46:00.430 --> 00:46:03.790 that's a little bit too big a weight to put on the sixth 696 00:46:03.790 --> 00:46:07.230 biggest change in the numbers from Pornhub last year. 697 00:46:08.065 --> 00:46:15.265 Probably. But also probably not. I keep thinking about this 698 00:46:15.265 --> 00:46:18.065 analogy that Mike made while we were talking. 699 00:46:18.625 --> 00:46:20.945 Consuming adult content is like consuming food. 700 00:46:20.945 --> 00:46:23.185 Sometimes you wanna cook it. Sometimes you want takeout. 701 00:46:23.400 --> 00:46:25.960 Sometimes you just are in a hurry. You want something quick. 702 00:46:25.960 --> 00:46:29.320 And sometimes you really wanna enjoy it and savor it. And those 703 00:46:29.320 --> 00:46:32.280 are gonna be at different price points. Right? Uh-huh. Those are 704 00:46:32.280 --> 00:46:33.880 gonna be different experiences. 705 00:46:33.960 --> 00:46:37.895 And I think that, you know, we thought for so long that it was 706 00:46:37.895 --> 00:46:40.375 just as as as Melrose said, you just get on real quick and you 707 00:46:40.375 --> 00:46:42.855 get off. And that's not what everybody wants, or it's not 708 00:46:42.855 --> 00:46:45.575 what they want at all points. Sometimes they want a three hour 709 00:46:45.575 --> 00:46:49.175 cam show. Sometimes they want a personal interaction Yes. And 710 00:46:49.175 --> 00:46:51.415 they want the the chef's table in the restaurant. 711 00:46:51.620 --> 00:46:54.420 Right? And sometimes they are just on the road, and they want 712 00:46:54.420 --> 00:46:58.180 something at McDonald's. This is not a shameful thing to consume. 713 00:46:58.420 --> 00:47:01.380 Right? All of that are ways in which to get in touch with your 714 00:47:01.380 --> 00:47:02.820 authentic sexuality. 715 00:47:03.620 --> 00:47:06.260 As he said this, I was literally pumping my fists 716 00:47:06.260 --> 00:47:12.495 in the air. I'm shaking my fists in the air. I'm yes. Just like I 717 00:47:12.495 --> 00:47:16.255 can imagine the quarterback Sam Howell might have thought to 718 00:47:16.255 --> 00:47:17.855 himself as he walked into the locker room 719 00:47:17.855 --> 00:47:19.135 of the Philadelphia Eagles, which 720 00:47:19.135 --> 00:47:22.310 was his fourth team in four years after the Washington 721 00:47:22.310 --> 00:47:26.630 Commanders, Seattle Seahawks, and Minnesota Vikings, we 722 00:47:26.630 --> 00:47:39.405 actually might be getting somewhere. We exercise our power 723 00:47:39.405 --> 00:47:43.165 through our collective desires. And our collective desires are 724 00:47:43.165 --> 00:47:47.910 showing us, like with so many things right now, that the 725 00:47:47.910 --> 00:47:53.030 current state of pornography is not enough. That we want more 726 00:47:53.030 --> 00:47:56.230 pornographies, varied pornographies, exploratory 727 00:47:56.230 --> 00:47:59.430 pornographies, we want personal pornographies, and intimate 728 00:47:59.430 --> 00:48:03.125 pornographies. We want our performers to know us, and for 729 00:48:03.125 --> 00:48:04.405 us to know them. 730 00:48:05.365 --> 00:48:09.605 Platforms can help us do that, but they are not the solution at 731 00:48:09.605 --> 00:48:15.605 the end of the day. I don't know that this is the new face of 732 00:48:15.605 --> 00:48:22.190 porn, but I do believe that more and more of us want to take off 733 00:48:22.190 --> 00:48:28.030 from the launch pad. More and more of us want to find 734 00:48:28.030 --> 00:48:50.300 something new. Thank you. Thank you. 735 00:48:50.300 --> 00:48:52.940 Thank you. Thank you to Courtney Brame, to Melrose Michaels, to 736 00:48:52.940 --> 00:48:56.205 Mike Stabil for coming and talking with me about all of 737 00:48:56.205 --> 00:49:00.605 this. We covered so much, and all of it really expanded my 738 00:49:00.605 --> 00:49:06.605 thinking. Thank you all. You can find them, Courtney at s p f p p 739 00:49:06.605 --> 00:49:07.325 dot org. 740 00:49:07.325 --> 00:49:10.260 That's something positive for positive people. You can find 741 00:49:10.260 --> 00:49:14.340 Melrose Michaels on all the socials and Mike Stabil on Blue 742 00:49:14.340 --> 00:49:18.900 Sky. And you can find and follow SWR data and the state of 743 00:49:18.900 --> 00:49:25.775 creator study at swrdata.com or on their Substack. Please do go 744 00:49:25.775 --> 00:49:28.895 follow them. They're gonna continue to release data and 745 00:49:28.895 --> 00:49:33.695 analysis of this study and have an upcoming study on AI and the 746 00:49:33.695 --> 00:49:36.495 adult market later in the summer. 747 00:49:37.375 --> 00:49:44.440 And you can find us in all the normal places. Phone, email, air 748 00:49:44.440 --> 00:49:47.080 table, all the details you'd ever need on getting a hold of 749 00:49:47.080 --> 00:49:51.880 us are all in the show notes. A very special thank you to this 750 00:49:51.880 --> 00:49:55.925 episode to America's National Football League, who I can only 751 00:49:55.925 --> 00:49:59.765 assume has only the best wishes for my longevity. 752 00:50:48.160 --> 00:50:50.400 That is the show we have for you today. We're 753 00:50:50.400 --> 00:50:53.200 gonna be back here in the main feed next week with a segment 754 00:50:53.200 --> 00:50:58.945 about the Internet as a place. But what ordinal number place? 755 00:50:58.945 --> 00:51:00.865 Is it a third place? Fourth place? 756 00:51:00.865 --> 00:51:03.745 Fifth? The kids these days, they got a lot of places. Too many, 757 00:51:03.745 --> 00:51:08.080 if you ask me. We're also going to be streaming a team chat at 758 00:51:08.080 --> 00:51:14.880 twitch.tv/ The neverpost on Monday, February 16 at 11AM 759 00:51:14.880 --> 00:51:18.080 eastern. An edit of that conversation will go out to the 760 00:51:18.080 --> 00:51:21.840 member feed only shortly after, so do not miss it. 761 00:51:21.840 --> 00:51:25.825 Or if you do, hey, consider becoming a member for $4 a month 762 00:51:25.825 --> 00:51:28.785 at neverpo.st. You can help support your favorite Internet 763 00:51:28.785 --> 00:51:32.305 pod and the weirdos who make it, and you can do that for the cost 764 00:51:32.305 --> 00:51:36.700 of a convenience store egg sandwich. Neverpost's producers 765 00:51:36.700 --> 00:51:39.260 are Audrey Evans, Georgia Hampton, and The Mysterious. 766 00:51:39.260 --> 00:51:41.740 Doctor first name, last name. Our senior producer is Hans 767 00:51:41.740 --> 00:51:42.300 Buto. 768 00:51:42.300 --> 00:51:45.500 Our executive producer is Jason Oberholzer, and the show's host, 769 00:51:45.500 --> 00:51:51.025 that's me, is Mike Rugnetta. The dream is to be moved by anything 770 00:51:51.025 --> 00:51:55.265 at all. By this Garfield fan comic in which John collapses on 771 00:51:55.265 --> 00:51:58.625 the kitchen floor, linked triangles and hoops painted onto 772 00:51:58.625 --> 00:52:02.385 a wall stretching three storefronts, mannequins in full 773 00:52:02.385 --> 00:52:06.040 plate clutching their scabbards, folded t shirts, the shape of a 774 00:52:06.040 --> 00:52:09.160 dreadnought through glass wearing all denim. Pass through 775 00:52:09.160 --> 00:52:12.360 a cloud of vape smoke in the canned Isenglass department, 776 00:52:12.360 --> 00:52:17.560 exit bawling at the beauty of all manifest creation. You will 777 00:52:17.560 --> 00:52:21.755 aspire to enter into labor translucent, like a paraffin 778 00:52:21.755 --> 00:52:26.875 sheet, wet and flammable light passing through shape. 779 00:52:27.755 --> 00:52:31.675 Alchemy is based on such fluidity of exchange, all my 780 00:52:31.675 --> 00:52:36.310 affect splattering out into the public sphere, cathecting onto 781 00:52:36.310 --> 00:52:43.270 every measly beloved thing. Excerpt of Secret Mission Orders 782 00:52:43.270 --> 00:52:47.732 for Goblin Romantic by Holly Raymond. Never Post is a 783 00:52:47.732 --> 00:52:50.852 production of Charts and Leisure, and it's distributed by 784 00:52:50.852 --> 00:52:51.652 Radiotopia.