Transcript

Pornhub Goes SFW · Never Post

0:11
Mike Rugnetta: Friends, hello, and welcome to Never Post, a
0:14
podcast for and about the Internet. I'm your host, Mike
0:16
Rugnetta, and we have a desirable show for you today.
0:21
Senior producer Hans Buto talks with sexual wellness educator
0:24
Courtney Brame and cofounders of SWR Data, Melrose Michaels, and
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Mike Stabil about the rise in safe for work content searches
0:35
on the very not safe for work platform Pornhub. Why is this
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happening? What does it tell us about the Internet at large?
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And is it really safe for work? Before we get to Hans, who
0:49
attempts to answer these questions and more, some ads,
0:52
unless you're on the member feed, and then a quick story
0:55
from reporter Bob Woodward in his book, The Brethren, about
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some old men in a basement watching body movies. It's the
1:07
nineteen sixties in Washington. The men are mostly in their
1:11
seventies, and they are the justices of the Supreme Court of
1:15
the United States with their younger clerks. They all gather
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once a session in the basement or maybe a conference room of
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the Supreme Court Building.
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They make popcorn, and together they watch a series of
1:28
pornographic movies. Because each movie is an exhibit in an
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obscenity case that has appealed to the court, and the system at
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the time was that these people had to go through them one by
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one to judge based on their own direct experience if those films
1:50
were, in fact, obscene. Each of the nine judges dealt with movie
1:55
day, as they called it, a little differently. Judges Douglas and
1:59
Black never attended. Nothing should be banned, they said, and
2:03
they dubbed it a supreme court of censors.
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Judge Berger just didn't want to go. Judge Harlan, who was ill
2:11
and nearly blind by the end of his career in 1971, would sit
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just a few feet from the screen. He could only see shapes and
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outlines and had his clerks describe to him what was
2:22
happening. Famously, around this time, his wife had to read Lady
2:26
Chatterley's Lover to him. But maybe most famously, in 1964,
2:31
during this ritual, justice Potter Stewart coined the phrase
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that would become perhaps the most famous yardstick for
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measuring obscenity.
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He said, I know it when I see it. Now, I know it when I see it
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is not a legal standard by any stretch, but it has lingered for
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sixty years as a shorthand for how we think about the nuance of
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what is and is not pornography. Our story today is not about
3:00
litigating obscenity, but it is about how we know what fits into
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which categories when it comes to the murky, the personal, and
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the private world of desire and sex. What is and is not safe for
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work? Well, maybe we know it when we see it.
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And we are looking for it. The data says so. But first, around
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the world, there are cameras, cameras, cameras. And a lot of
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those cameras are connected to the Internet. And some of those
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cameras are on 20 fourseven, pointed at one thing, an
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unblinking eye.
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And some of those cameras have microphones, always listening,
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even when there isn't really anything going on. So in our
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interstitials this episode, quiet cams. Live streamed
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cameras with microphones in places where really not much is
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happening at all. In order, the Namib Desert, the North Circular
4:20
Road in Dublin, and Lamai Beach in Thailand.
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Hans Buetow: We love some data here on Neverpost. Give me some
5:55
data, and I'll give you the world. That is a quote from
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legendary Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Terry Bradshaw. I
6:02
just made it up, but we believe in it very strongly. So I got
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very excited when last December, as they do every December, one
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one of the biggest porn sites in the world, Pornhub, published a
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report analyzing some of the usage data that they had
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collected over the past years.
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Search terms, biggest categories, visit length, top
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performers, breaking all that stuff down by country and then
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even by state. We don't see any data, it's only analysis. So as
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legendary Minnesota Vikings quarterback Fran Tarkenton said,
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you can tell any story from the data, so be careful. When I
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looked at the stats this past December, one thing in this most
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recent report made me go like legendary Browns quarterback
6:51
Otto Graham did at some point in his life. One of the top six
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trends that the data team at Pornhub noticed for 2025 was a
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rise in safe for work content.
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It said, quote, it might be counterintuitive to think people
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come to Pornhub for safe for work content, but over the
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years, it has been impossible to deny its rising popularity. Some
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of the top gaming categories of 2025, podcast up 327%, gaming up
7:24
283%, and music up 62%, shows users interest in creators and
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sexuality goes beyond pornography, end quote. This
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tickled my brain as much as legendary jets quarterback Joe
7:41
Namath tickled his teammates in the locker room in some of the
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internet fanfic that I found. Why, I asked myself, would
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people be watching safe for work content on one of the most not
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safe for work platforms? I expected that the answer was
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gonna be a combination of a few things.
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One, that Gen Z is in a so called sex recession, having
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even less sex than us chaste millennials did back in our day.
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Two, that chastity content like anti masturbation stuff is on
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the rise, especially amongst the manosphere boys. Three, that
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Pornhub had always been used for weird, say, for work
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experiments. So weird comedy pranks, full length Hollywood
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movie piracy, and just assorted hoozy whats it for a long time.
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And four, the fact that due to age verification laws, which
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we've covered on the show before, causing Pornhub to be
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unavailable in half the states in The US, half the dataset
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would be missing, and the data would be off or at least
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different.
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And truly, some of those four are factors in the rise of
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searches for safer work content on Pornhub, but I still wanted
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to look into whether I was missing something. And boy
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howdy. Spoiler? Yes, I was. So first, let's talk about what you
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get when you search for safe for work content on Pornhub.
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What are we talking about? Well, not all of what you find with
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that label is really actually safe for work. I mean, I guess
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it depends on where you work. I don't know where you work. But
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there is a gradation of sexualized content.
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There are very safe for work videos like-
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Pornhub: I got this little card right here.
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Hans Buetow: People unboxing Yu Gi Oh card packs. There's hand
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cleaning videos. Hi there. ASMR and video game speedrun.
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Pornhub: I was trying it. I was looking for that jammer.
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Hans Buetow: There are people in front of chalkboards and
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whiteboards just explaining complicated math concepts.
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Pornhub: The sum notation, which you might have seen as this.
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Hans Buetow: Then there are the videos that move into talking
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about sex and sexuality.
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Pornhub: Otherwise, you're not going to make money.
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Hans Buetow: Mhmm. So advice for how to model in the platform.
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Sexual wellness discussions.
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Pornhub: My husband and I decided, why don't I make, like,
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a Tinder account? And I can start flirting with guys.
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Hans Buetow: Kink explainers and lots.
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Pornhub: Hold on, sex. Stop right there. Before we start,
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Hans Buetow: we have big exciting news. And lots.
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Pornhub: That's a good question.
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Hans Buetow: Of podcast interviews with performers.
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Pornhub: Like a threesome in a jail or something like that.
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Hans Buetow: Yeah. So these sometimes get not safe for work
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when the performers move into performing sexual acts, but they
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are often conversations about the porn industry, performers'
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sex lives, and other sexualized topics.
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Pornhub: Does that sound like something you might be into?
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Hans Buetow: So in the 2025 report, there are these stats
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about the trending rise in safer work searches in the platform.
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And just below those stats, giving some context to why those
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stats are important, there's a quote from a guy named Courtney
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Brame.
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Courtney Brame: And I just approach it from that lens of,
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oh, okay. Well, let me see what stands out. Save for work.
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Right? That's not even that's not porn.
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Right? Like, how did this make it into a top porn category? So
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I think that was my initial reaction.
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Hans Buetow: Courtney is the founder of Something Positive
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for Positive People, which is a nonprofit platform for support,
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education, and stigma reduction for people diagnosed with
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herpes. Courtney is also the host of the SPFPP podcast, a
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video creator, and a consultant for Pornhub's Sexual Wellness
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Center, which is how his name appeared on the report. So I
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decided to do like legendary St. Louis Rams quarterback Norm Van
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Broklin might have done, and I called up Courtney to have him
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walk me through what he had written about why safer work was
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trending.
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Courtney Brame: I think that porn offers us the opportunity
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to experience what we're not experiencing. There is the talk
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about porn use being consumed for education but I think that a
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lot of people who may become the porn hub are looking for
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something that is different than what they normally have access
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to.
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Hans Buetow: For Courtney, the rise in safe for work content
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points to more people looking for intimacy online.
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Courtney Brame: I think back to when Mia Khalifa went to Rooster
12:12
Teeth, the gaming platform, and how popular that was.
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Always Open: Mia Khalifa was listening, guys. That's awesome.
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Lovely. Mia Khalifa. So lovely.
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Hans Buetow: Mia Khalifa was a performer who was listed as
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number one most popular on Pornhub in 2014, despite having
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had only a three month career. Three years after this, she
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appears on a podcast called Always Open.
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Always Open: Hello, everyone. Welcome to Always Open.
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Hans Buetow: In this appearance, as a woman best known as an
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adult performer, she doesn't talk about it. She talks about
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her dating life. She talks about using Lyft. She talks about
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Twitch streaming video games.
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Mia Khalifa: My favorite video game of all time is actually one
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that I just played recently. It was called Until Dawn.
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Always Open: Okay. Yes. I've heard of
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Yeah. And right now, I'm playing You played that with Edward.
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Mia Khalifa: Yeah, did. I watched it.
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Courtney Brame: When I think about the intimacy, think about
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the the connectedness. Right? Sometimes we can feel more like
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we know someone and someone knows us. I think that's like
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true intimacy. But then there's this one-sided intimacy where
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you know someone so well and they don't even know you exist.
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So that feels like connection, that feels like intimacy. And I
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think that what Safe for Work does is it also gives us that.
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Right? You listen to your favorite podcast or you might
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watch your favorite streamer or gamer. You may hear people just
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talking about their daily life and you kind of feel like you're
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there.
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Hans Buetow: So then why go to a porn site for that?
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Courtney Brame: Because oh, this is I like this question. You you
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may have your go to people person. You see them often and,
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you know, they get the job done. Right? So you know you see this
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person, it's gonna be a quick session.
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Right? And I think that having the opportunity to see them in a
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different way because when you watch the same person, you're
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watching them in their different roles and their different
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performances. So that kind of gets old and you still want that
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novelty, the newness, the excitement. So the only thing
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that you can see them in different outside of their
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natural naked bodies might be them in clothes or doing
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something that isn't sexual.
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Hans Buetow: There's this quote that I love to misattribute to
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legendary Miami Dolphins quarterback Dan Marino, which is
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and this is it's a little bit long, so bear with me. Quote, I
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see Courtney is describing here a desire for a type of
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relationship transition from purely explicit relationship
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focused entirely on a performer's body, what we might
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call a parasexual relationship, shifting to a relationship that
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tries to see them as real people, that they can maybe hang
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out with, or are hanging out with as a parasocial
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relationship. Another reason that I found Courtney's example
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of Mia Khalifa interesting is that in between her transition
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from porn to becoming a sports podcaster, which she eventually
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did, at that exact same time was the launch of OnlyFans. So it
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started in 2016 in London, and it was a new platform that at
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that time was quickly being adopted by adult performers so
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that they could have this direct financial and also communication
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connection with their fans?
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Courtney Brame: On OnlyFans, there are influencers who people
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pay to watch them do dishes. People pay to watch them just
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take the trash out or eat their dinner, cook. Right? So the safe
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for work content just gives you more intimate access to a
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person's day to day life, and that can be just, hey. I'm on my
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way to the gym.
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This is my workout. This is my Spotify playlist. Connect with
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me here. These are some of my favorite video games, and these
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are just, like, little nuggets of opportunities for people to
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attach and connect to and feel more connected to the person.
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Hans Buetow: This connection makes a lot of sense to me. It's
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one of the main reasons that people go to places like
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OnlyFans or cam sites from a video site. You get to do more
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than just watch, and I don't think of those sorts of sites as
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safe for work platforms. But what people are buying on those
16:46
sites is not really nakedness, it's something else. So when we
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come back from the break, we talk with some folks who can
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help us take Courtney's intimacy ideas beyond the arena of
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Pornhub.
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MelRose Michaels: It's it's funny. It's a huge
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misconception. I think that everyone on platforms like
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OnlyFans or, you know, the fan site equivalents to it are
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selling explicit content only or that that's the bulk of what we
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do. Really, what we sell is access to us.
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Hans Buetow: We'll be right back after a quick detour to Dublin
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and the North Circular Road. To put Courtney's theory about
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intimacy to the test, I wanted to run it past two folks.
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MelRose Michaels: So I'm Melrose Michaels. I am a veteran adult
19:08
performer in the adult space for about fourteen years. I also
19:12
launched a company called SexRick CEO. It's an educational
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company that's completely free for adult performers and
19:16
creators. And then I cofounded a company called SWR Data with
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Mike Stabil, where we survey adult performers and creators to
19:24
get platform data of our industry.
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Pornhub: So I'm Mike Stabil. I am a twenty plus year veteran of
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the industry, cofounder of SWR Data along with with Melrose,
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which we built to try to better understand the industry and and
19:39
understand the way that the industry is changing.
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Hans Buetow: As folks who run a study about the adult industry,
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Mike and Melrose were familiar with the data from Pornhub. So I
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ran them through Courtney's logic about increased safe for
19:51
work searches pointing towards this growing desire for
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intimacy, Melrose immediately agreed. She sells access because
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that's what she sees people asking for.
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MelRose Michaels: We live in a world right now where parasocial
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connection is one of the only connections most people have on
20:08
a day to day basis. And so I think really what we're selling
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is just an intimate look at who we are as people and what we're
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really like. And you're not gonna get to know me as a person
20:18
through explicit content. So in order to have connection, you
20:22
need access to me, and access is the ability to see what I'm
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eating for lunch in a photo. It's the ability to see me on a
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lot, like, a livestream.
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It's the ability to DM me and have me DM back. It's the real
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day to day of what your life looks like. You know, me on a
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farm wrangling cows out of my front yard because they all got
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out. Like, you're not gonna see that on social. It's not
20:41
something I'm posting about.
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Hans Buetow: I would love if you could I'm gonna put something in
20:46
the chat here. So this is from 12/06/2025. This is your your
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account on X. And if you could just read me what you wrote
20:52
there.
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MelRose Michaels: Okay. So it says, if you ever catch feelings
20:56
for me, tip one one one, which is a $111, and I'll give you the
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underqualified therapist experience and teach you about
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parasocial relationships or how they work. And, yeah, I think
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that's a this is something because, you know, it doesn't
21:10
get talked about enough, but a lot of adult creators and
21:12
performers end up being underqualified and overpaid
21:16
therapists for a lot of their fans. You know, they come to you
21:19
about challenges they're facing, losses they've had, really
21:24
intimate details of their lives. And a lot of it, especially for
21:28
a male demographic, they just want someone to talk to.
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Hans Buetow: Okay. That's why I did not expect that answer from
21:34
you. I thought that you were gonna be like, oh, no. It's
21:36
totally a joke of things. But this is you're being like, no.
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Actually, this is what No. Part of just my work is.
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MelRose Michaels: Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. It's not just
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here's a nude topless photo of me. It's actually getting to
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know these people and treating them like people and helping
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them navigate their lives a lot of the time.
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That's a part of what it's become this in this day and age.
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Hans Buetow: Melrose shares content and access to her on
22:03
several different platforms. And the annual study that she does
22:07
with Mike at SWR Data called the state of creator study that
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covers a lot of those same platforms. So it's fan sites,
22:16
like loyal fans, fansly, sext panther. Those are the biggest
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ones that are in the dataset that they collect. But there are
22:23
also cam sites like Chatterbait or any of the streaming
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services.
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And there are also clip sites like clips for sale, and those
22:31
allow content creators to earn money while they sleep. They're
22:34
just video clip aggregates. Mike and Melrose have put out the
22:39
state of Creator every year since 2022 so that they can
22:43
better understand this ecosystem and the creators that work in
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it.
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Mike Stabile: How do we figure out what this community looks
22:51
like? Because finding out what they look like helps us find out
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what they need, right, and helps us report on them in a a more
22:58
realistic way. So over the years, we've talked about things
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like banking access. Right? We've talked about things like
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what types of content are you making?
23:06
Where are you located? You know, how much money do you make? What
23:08
platforms are you on? And I don't know that we have, you
23:11
know, an exact map. I know that we don't at this point, but
23:14
we're getting contours of what this looks like.
23:16
And what we've seen in the past couple of years is a couple of
23:19
things. Okay. You know, one is there were a lot of people got
23:22
into this industry in 2020. The lockdown Yeah. People did not
23:27
have another way to connect.
23:28
And this type of content really filled that gap, and I think
23:31
that it fill still fills that gap. Right? Where people who are
23:35
they may not have a social life the way that you might imagine
23:39
historically. You know, I think there are a lot of people who do
23:42
seek out that connection. I think that this industry
23:44
provides that connection to be able to talk about desires that
23:47
they have in a nonjudgmental way is not accessible to most people
23:52
anywhere else.
23:53
Right? And our sexualities are valid. So one of the things that
23:56
we we've seen is a huge jump in things like kink and fetish.
24:00
Right? People who are trying to, you know, explore their
24:05
sexuality and then do it.
24:06
And a lot of that is safe for work. You think about things
24:09
like ASMR. Right? Yeah. That is sexuality adjacent.
24:14
And so there is a lot of vanilla content out there, and a lot of
24:18
it is free. So the stuff that makes money often is the stuff
24:22
that is more tailored to someone's specific desires.
24:26
Hans Buetow: Mike called these sites, these sites like Pornhub,
24:29
the the tube sites, Mike called them a launch pad. You go there
24:34
because it's what comes up when you feel a desire, but you don't
24:37
know where to go except Google. In the first two years of the
24:42
study, they found that on fan and cam sites, the number of
24:46
folks offering kink and fetish content increased by 70%. So if
24:52
we're seeing more safe for work searches on the Launchpad
24:57
platform, maybe, like Courtney is saying, maybe that reflects a
25:02
growing desire by more users for something more.
25:10
Mike Stabile: People really want something that feels authentic
25:14
to them, that resonates with, you know, their body. Things
25:18
like kissing fetishes, right, have risen dramatically. Like,
25:21
all of this stuff that is produced outside of the notion
25:27
of, like, oh, everything is going to be hardcore sex. Most
25:29
people what we found in our survey is most people are
25:31
producing solo content. 70% of creators are not doing anything
25:35
with a partner.
25:36
You can't make explicit content day after day after day. It's
25:41
really wearing. And so people come up with ways to how do I
25:44
fill this? How do I do this? What do I look like in this
25:46
dress?
25:46
What do you think of this? And I think you see that on social as
25:49
well as in in the chats. People wanting to engage with their
25:53
creators because it's not always about just making a sale. It's
25:56
about building a relationship.
25:58
Hans Buetow: Right. Well, the gaze is a really interesting way
26:01
to to think about that. Like, a solo performer in front of the
26:04
camera is going to have a different relationship with the
26:07
camera gaze, and especially if they're aware that there are
26:11
literally other people on the other side of that camera in
26:14
real time and that there's a venue for communication back and
26:17
forth between the two of them. It's more like interdiegetic or
26:21
like like a documentary style way of looking at gaze than it
26:26
is a theatrical performative way of looking at gaze. And, Naraj,
26:31
do you think about that differently when you when you
26:33
are in different spaces?
26:35
MelRose Michaels: Yeah. No. I find that to be true completely.
26:37
And the thing about it is is, like, we've had this huge
26:40
pendulum swing. Everything was super pretty, super polished,
26:43
super edited, super, like, unachievable.
26:46
And we had that pendulum swing way back where it's like, I want
26:48
people I relate to. I wanna see you, you know, looking silly. I
26:52
wanna see you being silly. I wanna feel like you might be my
26:55
friend. And that's why like even the the super, you know, crazy
26:59
beautiful performers that are like really conventionally
27:02
attractive also tend to not do as well as like the girl next
27:05
door types that are crushing it on these platforms because they
27:08
seem more attainable, they seem more relatable.
27:10
And that's just obviously for the female creator lens, but but
27:13
that this swing towards less polished, more real, more
27:17
authentic has been huge. And and I think that speaks to why fan
27:20
sites have done so well.
27:22
Hans Buetow: Relatable is not just physical. As soon as
27:25
someone is more than just a body on your screen, you're gonna
27:28
start looking for commonalities. Right? Like, when we can express
27:32
our affection, we want to. Love language is not a phrase that I
27:37
like using because it's it's pretty restrictive, it's
27:39
ultimately the love languages are pretty random.
27:42
But it is a helpful rubric because it is true that we wanna
27:45
share affection in a way that's meaningful to us.
27:48
Mike Stabile: There are lots of relationships, especially in
27:50
heterosexual relationships, where men are used to get
27:53
pleasure from buying things for women, right, or giving them
27:56
things or, you know, feeling seen by them. And I think that,
27:59
you know, looking at some of the stuff that does really well,
28:02
clothes may not come off at all. Right? It's something like
28:04
financial domination, right, where, you know, someone may
28:08
just ask, listen. You know, you're my sub.
28:11
I want you to pay me a $100. I'm going to brunch. Who's gonna buy
28:14
this for me? Or I want a new pair of new shoes. They send a
28:17
pair of new shoes, and then they send a picture of them on.
28:19
So it's women taking charge. It's men feeling like, hey.
28:23
Listen. I this is an uncomfortable situation for me.
28:26
I would like to have some of the pressure off me.
28:28
You tell me what to do.
28:30
MelRose Michaels: Yeah. And then to that point too, with that
28:32
kink specifically, financial domination, a lot of that is a a
28:36
fan coming to you asking you to help them make a budget so that
28:39
they can spend on you in a way that is reliable and consistent
28:43
for you. So you actually help them budget their finances,
28:46
which actually helps them. People like to think financial
28:49
domination as like you're just draining someone's wallet and
28:51
like using them. But a lot of it comes with a lot of care and a
28:55
lot of kindness and also helps them get on track in their own
28:58
lives.
28:58
So there's two sides to a lot of a lot of kink and fetish
29:01
specifically.
29:03
Hans Buetow: Do you find that that, like, if you expand that
29:05
dynamic out of that specific fetish into some of the other
29:09
ones, that that sort of pattern repeats itself in some of the
29:13
other spaces?
29:14
MelRose Michaels: I think to some degree, yeah. Like, another
29:16
really big one is jerk off instruction. Suggesting or
29:20
instructing a fan on how to pleasure themselves. You can
29:23
also maybe suggest or say things that they haven't done before,
29:27
which lets them be exploratory with themselves and kinda grants
29:30
them this permission because they're just following the
29:33
instruction, then that takes a little bit of the pressure off
29:35
too. I think that there's a lot of common themes like that.
29:38
Mike Stabile: Yeah. You look at, like, a lot of things like make
29:40
me buy, and it gives you the permission to say, oh, I didn't
29:44
come up with that. I'm not doing that. Goddess has asked me to do
29:47
that. And often, they're entirely clothed.
29:50
They are just giving you permission to explore.
29:55
Hans Buetow: When I start thinking about permission to
29:56
explore and mapping that against the idea of intimacy and
30:01
parasocial authenticity, it starts to make sense to me that
30:06
folks often find a need for those to be hand in glove. It's
30:09
a building of trust, not just in the performer, but in yourself.
30:15
And I don't know, but I don't think that trust is as easily
30:18
accessible through impersonal mass broadcast content.
30:23
Mike Stabile: People want something that is a little bit
30:25
more custom. Right? They want custom content. They want clips
30:27
that speak to them. And so that's really where we we sort
30:30
of see the growth is in this really specific articulations of
30:35
sexuality that resonate with you.
30:37
It's not just about playboy, and it's not just about one body
30:40
type. Right? They have this idea that the adult industry is a
30:43
monolith and that everybody looks like Jenna Jameson did in
30:47
1990. And because, you know, in those days, you had to sell to
30:51
the greatest common denominator. Right?
30:53
What was the easiest thing to sell to the most people? Now
30:57
that doesn't sell nearly as well as things that are specific to,
31:00
you know, an individual, and that's lots of different body
31:03
types. That's lots of different genders. That's lots of
31:05
different sexualities.
31:10
Hans Buetow: With a lot of individual denominators and
31:13
everyone looking for the one that speaks to them, one of the
31:18
markers that becomes important in differentiating them is
31:22
authenticity. Courtney Melrose and Mike all talked about being
31:26
real and authentic, But I was hearing them use those words and
31:32
those concepts differently than I had previously heard. Because
31:36
the conversation about authenticity has been a part of
31:39
the porn literature for literal decades, But that conversation
31:44
has mostly revolved around the realness of the performance. Was
31:49
she faking it? Can he really go that long?
31:52
Is she always that ready to go? The number of books and papers
31:57
that I looked through that were dicing, scrutinizing, analyzing
32:01
the quivers and moans and eye rolls and trying to hold frankly
32:06
mostly women accountable for being real while performing a
32:10
sexual act, most of it was focused on mainstream
32:13
heterosexual porn produced by production companies and the
32:17
authenticity of the performer's physical desire. I did not see
32:24
any of that performative authenticity from Melrose. She
32:28
never, when we were talking, gave me the impression that she
32:30
was cultivating an aura of always on or hypersexuality. And
32:35
in fact, she was doing the opposite.
32:37
When I asked her directly about how she thinks about
32:40
authenticity, her answer had nothing to do with explicit
32:44
performance. It was all values based.
32:47
MelRose Michaels: I don't ever want to give someone advice
32:48
that's going to harm them. I don't want to ever mislead
32:51
someone. I don't wanna ever betray someone's confidence.
32:55
Hans Buetow: This is a different valuation of authenticity than
32:58
porn scholars have historically noticed in consumers or
33:02
creators. And I heard Melrose return to this frequently. How
33:06
she wants to show up as a person is how she wants to show up with
33:10
her audience, and it has nothing to do with her clothes being on
33:15
or off. She is selling authentic humanity as opposed to authentic
33:20
performance. But it's also the case that as with any parasocial
33:25
relationship, sharing that much to that many that often is a
33:31
challenge.
33:32
MelRose Michaels: There's a huge emotional and mental labor that
33:35
comes along with this job that wasn't necessarily true a decade
33:38
ago. And how do we navigate that? What do we do for it? I'm
33:41
charging for it. That's what I'm charging.
33:43
Hey, disclaimer, I'm not your therapist and I you don't have
33:45
to take my advice, but this is what I would do and I'll I'll
33:47
listen to you. And a lot of creators are kind of taking that
33:51
route forward. Yeah. We're seeing a shift there, would say
33:53
for sure.
33:54
Hans Buetow: And even with the financial exchange, there can
33:56
still be a lot of risk.
33:58
MelRose Michaels: There is the parasocial aspect to it. It's
34:01
like how real can you be within safety and how how genuine can
34:06
you be while respecting your own boundaries? And that's kind of
34:09
the line we work. That's the that's the work that we do.
34:12
Hans Buetow: Even with safety, constant access is just a tough
34:15
thing to sustain.
34:16
MelRose Michaels: Creators are like, listen, I don't wanna do
34:18
the constant access. I'm tired of being constantly accessible.
34:22
Yeah. And they'd rather start building a passive library on a
34:24
clip store that pays them while they're sleeping. Which is, you
34:27
know, that's one way to approach the business.
34:29
It's a great way to approach it. Also, stores clip are gonna have
34:32
a lot of internal traffic. A lot of creators have been deleted
34:34
off of social media. They don't have a way to drive traffic
34:37
anymore. So that pushes them into these other kind of
34:39
verticals that can support the business they're trying to
34:41
build.
34:43
Hans Buetow: It's important to remember that these are
34:45
businesses. Melrose is a successful businesswoman, and so
34:49
are the folks making explicit content, fetish content,
34:51
girlfriend content, niche content, even studio content.
34:54
They're all business people. And Melrose bringing up traffic,
34:59
driving traffic, finding content, marketing. One of the
35:03
things about coming to this question of safe for work
35:05
through Pornhub is that their report evaluates search terms,
35:10
and those search terms often correspond to the established
35:15
categories that Pornhub has already set up, which revolve
35:19
around nationalities, body type, ethnic type, or sexual act.
35:26
When you're focused on the explicit business, you need
35:31
explicit categories to sort it, which leads to explicit titles
35:35
and explicit descriptions to maximize SEO, which leads to
35:39
more searches for those same keywords. But you can't really
35:44
search on Pornhub for what Melrose and Mike are talking
35:47
about. Not really. You can't search for friendly or
35:50
approachable or cares about animals or help me do a budget.
35:55
Mike Stabile: Right. When you're talking about just going to a
35:57
site and searching, a lot of people, it's like they don't
35:59
know what to look for. Right? This is the beginning of their
36:02
journey. You have a lot of people that end up on the site,
36:04
and they
36:04
look, I
36:04
don't know, big boobs. They're trying to figure out what they
36:07
want. And I think that that's a way to connect with desire that
36:12
maybe falls outside of those big categories. Right? You're
36:16
looking for something.
36:17
And what is it that turns me on? What is it that I'm drawn to in
36:20
someone like Melrose? And I think that that is hard to
36:23
search for on a generic platform because there's so much there.
36:27
MelRose Michaels: I think that's where adult performers have
36:29
really served their purpose in the market too. It's like, you
36:32
can go to Pornhub, search a term, one, if you're to a big
36:36
site like that, you're probably trying to get in and get out.
36:38
You're not really trying to like scroll for hours. Yeah. But on
36:42
the flip side, when you're with an adult performer or creator
36:44
and you're doing like a fan site kind of interaction, almost you
36:47
have like a concierge or like a tour guide to your sexuality.
36:50
It's a very different thing than searching a term on Pornhub.
36:55
Hans Buetow: This idea of a concierge or a tour guide is
36:58
really interesting to me as a way to look at what people are
37:05
really looking for. And, okay, I buy it. I buy what Courtney is
37:11
saying. I buy what Melrose and Mike are saying in corroboration
37:14
with it. It feels like we are looking for a little bit more
37:19
intimacy.
37:19
It feels like we're looking for a little bit more connection.
37:23
Well, my next question then, of course, is, like, why now? Have
37:27
we not always been looking for this? So when we come back,
37:32
let's ask that. Let's reckon with the why now of this.
37:35
Why is this happening in 2025? We will be right back after we
37:41
return from Lamai Beach in Thailand. I think this growing
39:37
interest in the parasocial aspects of porn has something in
39:41
common with a thing we talk a lot about at our editorial
39:44
meetings on Neverpost and that we're starting to see talked
39:46
about more widely, And that thing is friction. The cut talks
39:54
about friction maxing. So does journalist and mental health
39:58
writer PE Moskowitz and friend of the show and beauty know her
40:01
about Jessica Defino.
40:04
Friction maxing is often framed as a reaction against escapism.
40:10
So our impulse to avoid the thing that might feel hard, like
40:13
talking to someone, moving around, or reading, and instead
40:16
opting for a slightly easier alternative, posting, not
40:20
moving, and scrolling. You can think of it as a pendulum swing
40:25
back from the adulting is hard phase of millennial meaning that
40:30
we all went through. It's a realization that sometimes you
40:33
want something to be a bit challenging. That is where you
40:37
find the value.
40:39
And that's how we talk about it when we talk about friction at
40:42
Neverpost. Less about escapism and more in terms of an antidote
40:47
to the convenience that minimizes the steps taken
40:51
between impulse and fulfillment, which allows your habitual self
40:55
to run your decisions. Right? In a frictionless environment,
40:59
there's less between you and the outcome.
41:01
MelRose Michaels: Yeah. Pornhub is a pretty frictionless
41:03
experience. You can find something. You can go to the
41:06
home see what's trending. It's gonna be algorithmically catered
41:08
to whatever you've been engaged with in the past.
41:10
So it's likely to be what you're looking for anyway, then you
41:14
can, you know, get off and get off the site.
41:17
Hans Buetow: Look. I just want to acknowledge the irony or at
41:22
least dad jokey ness of where we've arrived and what I'm about
41:27
to say, porn is better with a desire for more friction. In
41:34
porn, can imagine friction might look like content that isn't
41:37
always on, but instead warming up. Not characterized by getting
41:42
the job done, but by making a connection. It's searching for
41:46
more than just the money shot.
41:50
And one component of the search for friction might be bespoke or
41:54
unique. Putting in the time, the energy, the resources into
41:58
making something feel like yours that seems to be growing as a
42:02
tempting choice compared to the free, frictionless thing off the
42:06
shelf. It's a little bit more work to get to know the food
42:10
preferences of your favorite performer, but when you invest
42:13
that work, doesn't it change how you see them when you see them
42:18
naked? Friction makes you pay a lot more attention to where you
42:23
are and to where you're going, which makes you pay more
42:27
attention to how you're getting there, and to what else might be
42:31
an option. You find alternate routes, and suddenly you're in
42:36
new places you never thought you'd be.
42:39
Mike Stabile: We're seeing a more complex, rich ecosystem
42:42
emerge, and I think probably the most complex and rich ecosystem
42:46
for the adult industry that has ever existed. Right? It used to
42:49
always be it was studios. Studios. It was this top down
42:52
thing that was created by people who were filming, thinking what
42:55
they knew what people wanted.
42:57
Then there was this sort of explosion of content and the
42:59
explosion of creators. And I think that what we're seeing now
43:01
is it is just a much richer buffet of content there. Right?
43:05
That that you're looking at clips, and you're looking at
43:09
cams, and you're looking at customs, you're and looking at
43:11
video calls, and you're looking at free content, and all of that
43:14
works together. And whether you're a fan or whether you're a
43:17
creator.
43:19
Hans Buetow: I mean, that's beautiful. I gotta say it's one
43:21
of the most surprising things about doing this story. I did
43:24
not expect to have this level of enthusiasm for the current state
43:31
with everything swirling about, like, how much of Pornhub's map
43:35
was dark and how much, you know, they're coming down on us for
43:39
COSA and they're coming down on us for age verification. And it
43:43
just it feels a little bleak out there in terms of being able to
43:47
have a nuanced, sophisticated, interesting, compelling,
43:53
passionate, diverse conversation about desire. And I'm just I'm
43:58
really floored by the three of you being so aggressive that
44:01
things like intimacy, things like passion, things like
44:04
connection are things that you're seeing increasingly
44:08
valued and increasingly used by people online, I'm I'm floored.
44:15
MelRose Michaels: Well, as someone in one of those dark
44:18
states, which is where I live. Yeah. There is still hope at the
44:22
bottom line. I think we've always been, you know, on the
44:25
leading forefront of innovation of technology, of all of the
44:28
things. So while it's a little daunting and, you know, where I
44:33
live, especially at times, it's like, well, holy shit, how many
44:36
times can you write your senator?
44:37
Like how's you know, I have an army of creators at my disposal.
44:40
How many times can we all write my senator? But I think at the
44:45
base of it, people need connection. Like, people need
44:47
people. Like, that's not going anywhere.
44:49
So Absolutely.
44:51
Mike Stabile: You know, when the entirety of, you know, the the
44:54
administration and and conservative culture and and
44:57
sometimes left leaning culture is saying, you know, this is
44:59
really bad. This is really terrible. You you start maybe to
45:03
react and say, you know what? I think maybe you're wrong. I
45:05
think that that sexuality is a is a a way to break sort of that
45:11
dominant paradigm.
45:12
Right? It's a way to say, oh, wait. You know what? I don't
45:14
think that way. I don't think that the way that I feel is
45:17
terrible.
45:18
Maybe the rest of what they're saying is wrong. I think that
45:20
it's it's a a really revolutionary aspect of society
45:25
that that is underrated.
45:30
Hans Buetow: Going into this story, I was not expecting talk
45:34
of revolution. But when the levers of power go after sex
45:39
workers, the audience moves closer to them. When avenues to
45:43
connection are shut off, people are looking for choice, variety,
45:46
and exploration. I really do believe that people are looking
45:50
for intimacy in a time when intimacy feels less and less
45:54
encouraged or maybe even more and more discouraged. And maybe
46:00
that's a little bit too big a weight to put on the sixth
46:03
biggest change in the numbers from Pornhub last year.
46:08
Probably. But also probably not. I keep thinking about this
46:15
analogy that Mike made while we were talking.
46:18
Mike Stabile: Consuming adult content is like consuming food.
46:20
Sometimes you wanna cook it. Sometimes you want takeout.
46:23
Sometimes you just are in a hurry. You want something quick.
46:25
And sometimes you really wanna enjoy it and savor it. And those
46:29
are gonna be at different price points. Right? Uh-huh. Those are
46:32
gonna be different experiences.
46:33
And I think that, you know, we thought for so long that it was
46:37
just as as as Melrose said, you just get on real quick and you
46:40
get off. And that's not what everybody wants, or it's not
46:42
what they want at all points. Sometimes they want a three hour
46:45
cam show. Sometimes they want a personal interaction Yes. And
46:49
they want the the chef's table in the restaurant.
46:51
Right? And sometimes they are just on the road, and they want
46:54
something at McDonald's. This is not a shameful thing to consume.
46:58
Right? All of that are ways in which to get in touch with your
47:01
authentic sexuality.
47:03
Hans Buetow: As he said this, I was literally pumping my fists
47:06
in the air. I'm shaking my fists in the air. I'm yes. Just like I
47:12
can imagine the quarterback Sam Howell might have thought to
47:16
himself as he walked into the locker room
47:17
of the Philadelphia Eagles, which
47:19
was his fourth team in four years after the Washington
47:22
Commanders, Seattle Seahawks, and Minnesota Vikings, we
47:26
actually might be getting somewhere. We exercise our power
47:39
through our collective desires. And our collective desires are
47:43
showing us, like with so many things right now, that the
47:47
current state of pornography is not enough. That we want more
47:53
pornographies, varied pornographies, exploratory
47:56
pornographies, we want personal pornographies, and intimate
47:59
pornographies. We want our performers to know us, and for
48:03
us to know them.
48:05
Platforms can help us do that, but they are not the solution at
48:09
the end of the day. I don't know that this is the new face of
48:15
porn, but I do believe that more and more of us want to take off
48:22
from the launch pad. More and more of us want to find
48:28
something new. Thank you. Thank you.
48:50
Thank you. Thank you to Courtney Brame, to Melrose Michaels, to
48:52
Mike Stabil for coming and talking with me about all of
48:56
this. We covered so much, and all of it really expanded my
49:00
thinking. Thank you all. You can find them, Courtney at s p f p p
49:06
dot org.
49:07
That's something positive for positive people. You can find
49:10
Melrose Michaels on all the socials and Mike Stabil on Blue
49:14
Sky. And you can find and follow SWR data and the state of
49:18
creator study at swrdata.com or on their Substack. Please do go
49:25
follow them. They're gonna continue to release data and
49:28
analysis of this study and have an upcoming study on AI and the
49:33
adult market later in the summer.
49:37
And you can find us in all the normal places. Phone, email, air
49:44
table, all the details you'd ever need on getting a hold of
49:47
us are all in the show notes. A very special thank you to this
49:51
episode to America's National Football League, who I can only
49:55
assume has only the best wishes for my longevity.
50:48
Mike Rugnetta: That is the show we have for you today. We're
50:50
gonna be back here in the main feed next week with a segment
50:53
about the Internet as a place. But what ordinal number place?
50:58
Is it a third place? Fourth place?
51:00
Fifth? The kids these days, they got a lot of places. Too many,
51:03
if you ask me. We're also going to be streaming a team chat at
51:08
twitch.tv/ The neverpost on Monday, February 16 at 11AM
51:14
eastern. An edit of that conversation will go out to the
51:18
member feed only shortly after, so do not miss it.
51:21
Or if you do, hey, consider becoming a member for $4 a month
51:25
at neverpo.st. You can help support your favorite Internet
51:28
pod and the weirdos who make it, and you can do that for the cost
51:32
of a convenience store egg sandwich. Neverpost's producers
51:36
are Audrey Evans, Georgia Hampton, and The Mysterious.
51:39
Doctor first name, last name. Our senior producer is Hans
51:41
Buto.
51:42
Our executive producer is Jason Oberholzer, and the show's host,
51:45
that's me, is Mike Rugnetta. The dream is to be moved by anything
51:51
at all. By this Garfield fan comic in which John collapses on
51:55
the kitchen floor, linked triangles and hoops painted onto
51:58
a wall stretching three storefronts, mannequins in full
52:02
plate clutching their scabbards, folded t shirts, the shape of a
52:06
dreadnought through glass wearing all denim. Pass through
52:09
a cloud of vape smoke in the canned Isenglass department,
52:12
exit bawling at the beauty of all manifest creation. You will
52:17
aspire to enter into labor translucent, like a paraffin
52:21
sheet, wet and flammable light passing through shape.
52:27
Alchemy is based on such fluidity of exchange, all my
52:31
affect splattering out into the public sphere, cathecting onto
52:36
every measly beloved thing. Excerpt of Secret Mission Orders
52:43
for Goblin Romantic by Holly Raymond. Never Post is a
52:47
production of Charts and Leisure, and it's distributed by
52:50
Radiotopia.