Soundtrack of the Week

Why I’m Single: Amateur Porn vs. Professional Porn: Part 1

I recently came across a friend of mine’s old porn collection. How or why these videos surfaced is neither here nor there. Long story short, I mentioned how I have never owned a porno movie since I have always had the Internet available to me. That’s when he whipped out his collection (bad choice in phrase right there). Curious about how porn used to be, I took a few home with me. I proceeded to watch these films (while my roommate was away. This is important to note since he will be the first to read this. This disclaimer will prevent him from announcing his entrance every time he enters the living room). Another disclaimer: I only watched these movies. No hanky panky spanky. I’m not saying this to cover my ass (or penis). I’m saying this because a) it’s the truth which leads to b) the point I’m trying to make.

While watching these films I realized they were just that…FILMS. There was a plot, decent camera work, hot plastic women, the whole works. I was confused. You see, I’m from the new generation of porn. The era of amateur porn. I’m used to seeing films where there is no more than five minutes of set-up followed by at least thirty minutes of actual porn. This raised an interesting question: What is better? Amateur porn or “professional” porn?

First, we need to define what is amateur porn and what is professional porn (I use the word “professional” rather loosely in this article…ironically, this is the only time I use the word “loose” in this article). We’ll start with professional porn. Professional porn is any porn that meets the following criteria: high-quality cameras, a plot, and some kind of a budget. The “actresses” are usually pretty hot and their boobs are usually fake. Also, there is a lot of noise involved in professional porn. By noise, I mean a lot of over-exaggerated moans and groans. It’s what I call the “pay-per-moan” aspect of professional porn. Just about every porn that came out pre-Internet meets these prerequisites.

Now it’s time to define amateur porn. Amateur porn is relatively new. It didn’t really take hold until the Internet became popular. This is probably due to the fact that anyone can film and upload a video at practically no cost. Amateur porn is pretty much the opposite of professional porn: crappy cams you can get at Best Buy, no plot whatsoever, and consequentially, the budget doesn’t exceed the cost of the bus they film in and the shame that soon after follows. Unlike professional porn, the “actresses” in amateur porn are typically the girl-next-door type…you know, the type of girl you could probably have sex with in real life. The noise factor is like that of a Kenny G concert (whereas professional porn is like that of a Slayer concert). The actresses aren’t on a pay-per-moan income. Therefore, they have no motivation to feign interest. This is what I refer to as the “enthusiasm factor.” In amateur porn, the only person showing any kind of enthusiasm is the bus driver who just snorted a trash bag’s worth of coke.

So in Part I, we have defined what amateur porn and professional porn is. In Part II, I’m going to define the two types of masturbators (stop laughing, this is serious research) and what it means in terms of the amateur porn vs. professional porn. Don’t forget to listen to Episode XXVII of Soundtrack of the Week for the roundtable discussion.

This is why I am single.