Alt Porn - History

History

While pornography specifically oriented toward alternative culture did not arise until the 1990s, the work of Gregory Dark, David Aaron Clark, Michael Ninn, and Stephen Sayadian are seen by some as predecessors of alt porn. The Cinema of Transgression of Richard Kern and Nick Zedd (as well as Kern's later photographic work) can also be viewed as early examples of alt porn.

The first venue explicitly devoted to "subcultural erotica" was Blue Blood, a glossy magazine that began in 1992 and featured models with a goth or cyberpunk look. The biggest market for alt porn, however, has been on the Internet. Other than a few ephemeral personal websites, the earliest explicitly alt porn site was Blue Blood's GothicSluts.com, established in early 1999. This was followed shortly after by Raverporn.net (later renamed EroticBPM.com) in July of the same year, and later followed by NakkidNerds in December. Supercult began in 2000, followed by SuicideGirls in late 2001, which has grown to become the most popular and financially lucrative alt porn site. With the success of SuicideGirls, the number of alt porn sites has grown enormously since 2002. In addition to the above-mentioned sites, well-known altporn websites in operation as of September 2008 include Lazerbunny, Burning Angel, and GodsGirls.

The terms "alternative porn" or "alt porn" were coined in the early 2000s in reference to SuicideGirls, RaverPorn, and similar sites; longer-standing projects, such as Blue Blood, generally used terms such as "subcultural erotica".

Alt porn websites are often distinguished by their use of message boards, blogs, social networking, and other features of online community, encouraging participation by both models and viewers. While these features are not exclusive to alt porn sites, their inclusion stands in stark contrast to the standard operating procedures adopted by more typical porn sites, which tend to feature more or less anonymous models who are viewed by anonymous visitors.

Alt porn-themed videos are also becoming a growing niche in the adult video market. The work of directors Stephen Sayadian and Gregory Dark during the 1980s and early 1990s had many of the features of later alt porn, and are often cited as being contributing influences on current alt porn video. In 2001, two amateur videos under the title Technosex were produced, featuring women involved in the rave scene along with a techno music soundtrack. Since 2004, director Eon McKai has been producing alt porn-themed videos for VCA Pictures (an otherwise mainstream adult video studio), and in 2006 was signed by Vivid Entertainment to produce alt porn-themed videos under the Vivid-ALT imprint. Vivid-ALT has also signed noted fetish photographers Dave Naz and Octavio "Winkytiki" Arizala.