A turn on music in online pornography

Abstract

Online pornography usually starts with music, but continues without it. The development of video cameras, editing software and internet connections has popularized the DIY-aesthetic and sense of immediacy that belonged to amateur videos. This aesthetic leaves little room for music, as it exposes the video as mediated. Placing music only at the beginning of a video creates a juxtaposition between the non-diegetic sound of music, and the diegetic sound of people having sex. This intensifies the explicitness of the depicted sex. Because the change of sound environment usually happens between the sexual acts that focus on female pleasure and those that focus on male pleasure, the placement of the music signifies how pornography prioritizes male pleasure. Another important role of music in online pornography is that it acts as a “threshold”, based on the concept of Gérard Genette, and elaborated on by Giorgio Biancorosso and Guido Heldt. The Pornhub Community ident is a musical threshold that acts as a frame that demarcates the diegetic world of the video. It also serves as a peritextual cue that signals the beginning of the video. Finally, music and paratexts play a key role in constituting the “story” of online pornography. Online video-sharing websites such as Pornhub are saturated with paratexts. These captions and tags provide a large bulk of information that is not addressed in the video itself, except through the music. Here Ronald Rodman’s associative approach to television music is applicable, because the small budgets and relatively short span of television programs are taken a step further by online video culture.