For years, people have decried the porn industry for a variety of reasons. While the arguments against it are myriad, the arguments boil down to three major statements: 1.) Porn exploits women, 2.) porn dehumanizes sex, or 3.) porn is immoral and damaging to relationships. Now, female exploitation is not an argument that any logical person could argue against when it comes to the major porn industry, as it is pretty much legalized pimping. The same could be said for the argument of the dehumanization of sex, seeing as more and more men seem to be retreating from the exercise of even attempting to get to know women for that purpose (much less pursuing a "relationship") and going straight to the computer or phone for that gratification. As to the third, I make no comment, but I do understand where those people may be coming from.
However, I believe that there is one growing exception to any outcry that may have been raised in the previous paragraph: amateur porn. Pornographic material that was made specifically for the enjoyment of the exercise, not with the initial intent of having one person or company make hundreds of thousands of dollars off of a group of people's performances. Many performers are solo women with webcams, cell phones, or digital cameras that just wanted to make something for either themselves or the rest of the world to see. Perhaps they get off on the idea that someone out there is watching their erotic offering, appreciating their body and thinking wholly of them. I've communicated with a lot of women who make these videos, and when I ask them why they do these videos, their responses have been something to the effect of "Because I like knowing that I'm making someone cum. It gets me off." If that's not the ultimate expression of female power, I don't know what is.
Amateur pornography is also empowering because it doesn't require the performer to have a "porn body." You don't need to have abs, tanned, smooth skin, Botox, a tummy tuck, a boob job, ass implants, a huge cock, a face lift, anal bleaching, or any of the things that the industry requires its workers to have. It is a celebration of the body as it is, hair, cellulite, wrinkles, and all. It also allows people of all genders, orientations, ages, and fetishes to have something to fap to, which is something that I appreciate.
Amateur porn also allows people that may feel marginalized to show their sexual side to an increasingly more accepting public, regardless of casting couch requirements or popular conceptions of what is sexy. So if one day, you want to watch the hirsute girl with the wolf ears, paws, and tail butt plug fuck herself with a dragon shaped dildo that shoots cum-colored lube, you can go see that. If you want to then go watch a MTF transgender get her cock sucked by an FTM transgender before the FTM fucks the MTF with a strap-on, then that's there too. Why do those videos exist? Because the people who made them saw fit to say, "Hello, Internet! I want you to have this!" It did not happen because some person in a tall leather chair in a three piece suit said, "Hmm...the algorithm says that this kind of niche will make me the most money. Tell the models to start making this!"
Even more interesting is the fact that a good portion of it is made specifically with another person in mind. I have seen countless videos that were made for one person, but shared by both parties involved because they both thought it was something beautiful enough to share. I've seen captions like "Hubby and I..." or "My wife decided that she wanted us to..." all over the internet. Many times, I've seen live webcams with couples who'd decided to broadcast themselves together in order to either make money together or just because they liked showing off for other people. If you peruse Tumblr long enough, you'll find people of all shapes, sizes, and genders posting pics of their naked bodies in erotic acts for both their significant others and for whoever stumbles into their page to see.
The reason why amateur porn is both so accessible and gaining steam these days is because of how easy the Internet has made it to share files. Sure, most sites that offer extensive collections of amateur porn are big, corporate run entities, but here's the beautiful thing: somehow, they manage to offer enough content that you can watch as many videos as you want for absolutely free. Taking the YouTube model, they've enabled ads everywhere, but if you're good, you can avoid all of them and never have to worry about viruses or anything like that. It's all there, freely offered, freely displayed, and freely watched.
See, that's the beauty of the thing: amateur porn is made just because whoever wanted to make it decided to share it with the world. It's an expression of human eroticism, and while there are still some sub-genres that I have issue with (voyeur, candid upskirts, etc.), it is far less exploitative than industrial porn. So if you do watch porn, watch amateur. It's genuine, and in a world full of falsehood, it's refreshing to see.
