Bruce Sterling On Porn In 2031
Bruce Sterling, whose futurism writing is always a wild ride, has something to say about the future of porn. First he predicts the death of genres in general by 2031:
Genres are gone — well, genres haven’t vanished exactly, but genre conventions have to be carefully explained to people, like the extravagant gestures once native to silent film.
And then:
Since pornography is a genre, there isn’t any left. Of course, there are mega-terabytes of recorded sex acts, but since nobody pays to view all that, it doesn’t formally exist as a social problem. Prostitution exists. Espionage exists. Prostitution and espionage have never been closer, because, in 2031, sex scandals are a major political enterprise. Old commercial porn has become new political power-porn; everyone in power is surrounded by a haze of prurient micro-video, captured and spread by enemies. Popes, queens, supermodels, billionaires, socialites, anybody really. This is the massive civilizational moral crisis. It is routinely decried as shocking and decadent and shameful and how-could-they. Nobody does anything much to stop it.
Shorter URL for sharing: https://www.erosblog.com/?p=7711
Bruce Sterling is a genuine visionary and his views are always stimulating. He’s certainly correct that we have progressed though eras of moral change rapidly, while not quite leaving behind the clucking tongues of the village good folk. I hope he’s right about the death of genre. I hate that my writing – even the stories that are about sex rather than being “merely” sexy – is inevitably bounded by the conventions and label of erotica.
The article site vanished but here’s the Archive copy in case someone wants to read it (highly recommended).
Thanks! I used the Archive URL you found to update the broken link in the post, also. Appreciate it!