The Golden Age of Porn: When Porn Moved into the Living Room

Some Say Porn Decided the Video Tape “Format Wars.”

The progressive death of publicly accessible porn theaters indeed heralded the beginning of the end of the Golden Age of Porn, but neither happened overnight. While technology began to make it possible in the mid-1970s to record television programming for later viewing on VCRs (Video Cassette Recorders), it took a while for the idea that the public might also like to purchase, or God forbid rent, videos to catch on.

The average television program in 1977 was 30 or 60 minutes, so Sony had made its initial Betamax tapes to accommodate that much programming and no more. The format boasted superior quality to its competitor, JVC, which released the VHS (Video Home System) format.

In addition to being less expensive, consumers and producers could fit more content onto a VHS tape. Making it worse for Sony, licensing its format was not a smooth process, which meant that it was a lot easier to find a VHS player than a Betamax player. Alas for the Betamax format, its superior quality was meaningless in a world where televisions and home sound systems weren’t much to boast about, and the competition was so easily accessible.

Some insist that it was pornography that determined the winner of the VCR “Format Wars,” but there were more factors at work than a preference for privacy while whacking off. Nonetheless, in practical terms, it was easier to find one-time theater releases on VHS than on Betamax and people were willing to spend money to collect their favorites.

Titles like The Private Afternoons of Pamela Mann, Maraschino Cherry, Misty Beethoven, Barbara Broadcast, Deep Throat, The Devil in Miss Jones, Behind the Green Door, and Naked Came the Stranger were advertised for mail-order delivery in adult magazines and could run $99 a title.

Porn may not have revolutionized the “Format Wars,” but the arrival of VHS tapes revolutionized porn. Instead of it being a walk-of-shame into an adult theater we hoped nobody would see us go into, it became something we could watch from the privacy of our couches. In addition to expanding the list of titles and performers that fans could savor, the availability of early film to video content made it harder to vilify. Adult “book” stores that carried VHS tapes began to spring up and demand kept up with availability.

In addition to domestic titles, the Dutch, French, and Germans released porn movies during this time. Like those of the US, they featured complex storylines, high-quality visuals, and talented performers. It was a time without trailers, trial memberships, or hardcore box covers. Indeed, although saucy, the photos or illustrations on the box covers were not explicit. The backs contained descriptions of the plot and, sometimes, sexual highlights to watch for. As video shops increasingly offered adult tapes in their “back rooms,” the box covers became more hardcore, as did the content.

Soon, names including Marilyn Chambers, Seka, Harry Reems, John Holmes, Jamie Gillis, John Leslie, Vanessa Del Rio, Annette Haven, Kay Parker, Georgina Spelvin, a thin but still creepy Ron Jeremy, and, in time, Nina Hartley became familiar even to people who had never seen their movies. Pubic hair was the norm, breasts were not enhanced, and the men had bushy mustaches.

A whole new generation of people with limited exposure to the genitals of the opposite sex developed opinions about them after viewing now-famous hirsute vulvas. With the rise in reliable contraception, more of them also had the opportunity to experience the genitals of other people for reals as well as watch them on their TV screens.

The downside of VHS porn’s availability and demand was that budgets dropped, and not because the cost of production dropped. Storylines and dialogue became minimal or non-existent, and features gave way to scene-centered all-sex collections. On the other hand, playback quality improved.

This proved a double-edged sword since the reusability and replaceability of tapes made piracy easier. Among those that helped raise visibility and a veneer of respectability for the porn industry was Playboy, which released a dozen issues of its Playboy Video Magazine between 1982 and 1987 on a variety of formats, including both Betamax and VHS.

With that, porn became decreasingly taboo even as it became a less artistic and more gratuitous form of entertainment. Then the world went into an understandable panic as AIDS entered our daily vocabulary, affected our dating and mating patterns, and made porn an even more appealing way to satisfy sexual cravings. This did not necessarily mean an increase in the overall quality of X-rated content.

With the 1985 death of 38-year-old performer Wade Nichols, who had appeared in films including Blonde Ambition and Barbara Broadcast, due to complications from AIDS, the Golden Age of Porn officially came to an end and the world of professional and mainstream sexuality changed forever.