Ask A Genius 1425: The Death of Plot-Driven Porn: Amateur Content, OnlyFans, and Modern Sexual Culture
Author(s): Rick Rosner and Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2025/06/14
Rick Rosner is an accomplished television writer with credits on shows like Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Crank Yankers, and The Man Show. Over his career, he has earned multiple Writers Guild Award nominations—winning one—and an Emmy nomination. Rosner holds a broad academic background, graduating with the equivalent of eight majors. Based in Los Angeles, he continues to write and develop ideas while spending time with his wife, daughter, and two dogs.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen is the publisher of In-Sight Publishing (ISBN: 978-1-0692343) and Editor-in-Chief of In-Sight: Interviews (ISSN: 2369-6885). He writes for The Good Men Project, International Policy Digest (ISSN: 2332–9416), The Humanist (Print: ISSN 0018-7399; Online: ISSN 2163-3576), Basic Income Earth Network (UK Registered Charity 1177066), A Further Inquiry, and other media. He is a member in good standing of numerous media organizations.
Rick Rosner argues that the rise of amateur, quick adult content killed story-driven porn, replaced by platforms like OnlyFans prioritizing clips over plots. They discuss Channel 4’s Naked Attraction and evolving body standards, note younger generations’ declining sexual activity amidst political turmoil, and reflect on media tech and AI’s role.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: So, do you think people would have any interest in, say, a pornographic novel or an erotic rock novel for women, a pornographic video for men, or—for the more eccentric or nostalgic crowd—a pornographic radio play (joke) featuring smart people having sex? Would that be a thing?
Rick Rosner: No. The rise of easily accessible, amateur and homemade porn killed off story-driven porn. If any random person with a phone can record sex and upload it, then nobody looks for a plot anymore.
She says she has heard it all before. However, there used to be big porn studios like Vivid Entertainment—they were famous for big-budget, plot-heavy adult films, and they still exist. Still, they are not what they once were. Now, anyone with a phone and an internet connection can make adult content, so most people do not go to porn for storylines.
Sure, some old-school studios still produce narrative porn, but most adult content is short, straightforward clips. Platforms like OnlyFans have over a million content creators—that is huge. Moreover, hardly any of them are professional screenwriters, so you are not getting a carefully crafted plot; you are getting people in lingerie or thongs, posing, twerking, and talking directly to the camera.
They do post some non-porn content, too. OnlyFans even tries to market itself as a place for all creators. I received an email once trying to get me to join—it linked to pages where models in lingerie showed their butts while making “how-to” videos: how to bake cookies, how to identify different kinds of birds in your backyard, and how to renovate a camper. So, they want to show that it is not just about adult content; you can learn something, too.
However, it is not genuine storytelling. You do not see three OnlyFans creators getting together to write a modern update of Clare Boothe Luce’s The Women or Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, but with everyone in thongs. Although, that would be a funny euphemism.
Anyway, last night Carole wanted to watch Naked Attraction. I’m okay with it, even though it’s annoying. It is a British reality dating show—not BBC, but it airs on Channel 4, which is known for edgy stuff.
British TV has a tenth of the budget of American TV, so they often find cheap yet shocking formats. Naked Attractionworks like this: they bring in a single contestant, usually in their twenties or thirties—Gen Z or millennial. That person is surrounded by six coloured pods each. In the first round, the bottoms of the pods lift to show just the lower half of the six naked bodies. The chooser eliminates one based only on what they look like from the waist down. Then, round by round, the pods lift higher—to reveal up to the neck—while the chooser talks a bit with the host and eliminates more people. In the final round, the chooser sees the whole body and finally hears them speak. They narrow it down to two people, then pick one for a clothed date in the real world.
Now, last night’s episode featured a woman picking from male contestants and a man picking from female contestants. I assume they have same-sex episodes, too. Anyway, once it is down to two finalists, they make the chooser take off all their clothes too. Then the three of them stand there completely naked, chat a bit, and the chooser picks the final date. They go on a clothed date afterwards.
They film part of the date and then follow up to see if they want to see each other again. It is an inexpensive show to produce. I like watching it because, honestly, people’s penises look terrible. Here is the part you should plug your ears and gouge out your eyes for.
My penis is much better than these guys’ penises. For one thing, there are factors in my favour: I have about 5% body fat. The chubbier you are, the more fat there is to hide your dick, so it looks smaller. I am extremely lean, so mine is out there. I have been masturbating for about fifty-five years, so it is, let us say, well-exercised and nicely stretched. It looks substantial because it has been “worked” maybe 16,000 times.
Also, I have huge balls because I have varicose veins in them. So, the whole package looks hefty and out of proportion compared to these mostly plump guys. Last night, almost every guy was on the heavier side, partly because the woman doing the choosing seemed to prefer chubbier men. All but one were uncircumcised, which can make a penis look like a water bear or an anteater—honestly, not a great look. So, I am perfectly fine with Carole comparing me to these guys.
It is not entirely fair, however. Gen Z and millennials—at least the ones willing to go on this show—tend to care less about having so-called perfect bodies. However, if someone wants physical perfection, they can always watch professional porn and build up a mental “spank bank” to use while they are with their imperfect real-life partner.
As I have said before, back in the seventies, when I was trying to lose my virginity, sexual opportunities were much less democratic than they are now. The hottest people had the most hookups. Now, it is not quite like that. All over the world—but especially in America—people have less perfect bodies, partly because about 74% of Americans are overweight or obese.
Standards have shifted. We are more inclusive now. I want people to look more at what is inside rather than whether someone looks like a cheerleader. All these Gen Z contestants on the show are tatted up; some work out a bit, but no one is seriously toned. They are asymmetrical and pierced, and people seem okay with it.
As I said, this is not the seventies anymore, when people were harshly judged and hot, skinny blondes dominated American media. Look at Charlie’s Angels—super skinny women, no butts, no bras, everyone was trim from jogging, cocaine, or just plain luck in the gene pool. That is not the aesthetic now.
The aesthetic now is a big, fat butt. The average American woman weighs about 171 pounds, so most people naturally have a rounder butt—and that makes things more democratic. If you can appreciate a thick butt, that brings more people into the dating game.
Also, as I mentioned, mainstream culture in the seventies was predominantly blonde and white. Statistically, white men do not have huge penises on average—especially if they are overweight. So, I would argue that a culture that embraces big butts is more sexually democratic and less centred on white male ideals. A big butt might even intimidate a white guy with a small dick because you have to be able to get in there to have actual sex. Anyway, that is many thoughts on sex.
Also, statistically, we care much less about sex now. If I had to guess, I would say that younger people—and probably older people too—are having only about 70% as much sex as people did a generation or two ago, according to various studies. As we have discussed a million times before, there is just so much other stuff to do now besides chasing sex. We are over-entertained, and we are also over-traumatized by all the crazy stuff going on.
In the seventies, sure, we had a constitutional crisis with Nixon, who resigned because of crimes he committed while president, and we were at the tail end of the Vietnam War. However, the average person on the street did not believe that America or democracy was collapsing. Nixon at least had the decency and common sense to resign, and the system more or less healed itself. It was not perfect, but the country was never truly in danger.
Now, fifty years later, it feels like democracy and the rule of law are under siege. For example, on Saturday, June 14, Trump is throwing himself a $70 million parade in Washington, D.C. He claims it is to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the U.S. Army, but it just happens to fall on his birthday.
On the same day, some Americans are calling it “No King’s Day” because they see Trump behaving like a king. For example, he attempted to deploy the National Guard and even active-duty Marines to assist local law enforcement in Los Angeles, even though L.A. is not a lawless area.
Between the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department and the LAPD, we have about 18,000 officers. L.A. County is about 4,000 square miles; L.A. The city is about 470 square miles. The actual protest area is tiny—less than a quarter of a square mile—and the police have repeatedly stated they have it under control. So have the mayor and the governor.
However, that did not stop Trump from sending in about 700 Marines to “help” 18,000 local cops, which is absurd. That is about 4% of the number of cops already there, so it is not meaningful help even if it were needed. It is a power move, and people are justifiably worried that Trump will try to use the military illegally. Moreover, yes, the law you are thinking of is the Posse Comitatus Act, which restricts the use of the U.S. military for domestic law enforcement.
You are not allowed to use America’s military forces against the people of your own country. Our Army and Air Force exist to fight threats from other countries. However, even so, Trump is going to claim there is chaos in various cities, send in the military, and then declare a national emergency so he can impose federal control—martial law. This is all part of what people worry about with Project 2025, which is akin to the playbook for a potential second Trump presidency.
So, on Saturday, besides the Trump birthday parade, there are expected to be at least 1,800 protests across America. It all feels much more dire—people worry he will try something extreme like that. Moreover, maybe people do not feel like having sex in the middle of all this nonsense.
Jacobsen: The Daily Show even did a whole bit about this—about the Posse Comitatus Act—which restricts the military from acting as domestic police. They showed a clip of someone mispronouncing it as “pussy comitatus.” Then the host–the great Lydic–took that clip and ran with it for comedic effect, exaggerating it into “pussy come on tatas”—just a whole silly wordplay riff.
So the gag was: there is a Posse Comitatus Act. Still, someone on air mispronounced it, and then The Daily Show with the double entendre. The punchline was that Trump is so lawless that people joke that he will violate not just the Posse Comitatus Act but also the “Snatch Act”—the fake law they made up.
Rosner: And honestly, if you want to speak in literal terms, Trump has not been able to “come on tatas” in decades, if at all, given his age, stamina, and equipment. There is no way. So yeah, that was The Daily Show’s take. Moreover, we had the opportunity to see the cast live on Saturday. They are a talented bunch—they know the big stuff and the deep cuts.
They even briefly mentioned AI. They discussed how, when they began, Avid digital editing machines did not yet exist. Jon Stewart and Jimmy Kimmel both pioneered the modern clip package, making a point by stitching together multiple news clips to highlight hypocrisy or absurdity.
When The Daily Show started with Jon Stewart in 1999—it had already run for about four years before that with Craig Kilborn—this kind of editing was not as easy. When I started my TV job back then, we submitted material handwritten on slips of paper. There was only one computer in the entire production office, and a single person sat at it, typing everything into it.
This was back in 1987 or 1988, so technology has undergone drastic changes since then. The cast of The Daily Show, especially Jon Stewart—since he has been there longer than anyone on the current team—talked about how much tech has changed and said he is optimistic that AI is not going to ruin the show. It is just one more technological shift they can address, embrace, and incorporate into their production.
Jacobsen: AI is a horizontal enhancement layer—or lateral layer—on everything we do that involves text, images, and some spatial stuff, at least for now.
Rosner: JD and I were invited to pilot a show about the intersection of Hollywood and AI. We shot the pilot, but they passed on it.
It was a podcast. The pilot was far from perfect, which we became painfully aware of while editing it. However, come on, it is a podcast. Most podcasts do not launch as highly polished productions. Still, they passed. I sent them an email afterward, basically saying: Let us do another pilot—now that we have learned from our mistakes and your feedback. However, I suspect they will pass again.
That said, given what we learned, we will try to do it elsewhere. By the way, you and I should do a podcast, too—or some combination of you, me, JD, and maybe Kevin if we can rope him in. We have enough areas we can plausibly talk about. I am not saying we are experts, but we can be entertaining, and we think about angles that most people do not.
Is that something you want to do? What we are doing here is basically like a podcast—except it gets transcribed and published as text.
Jacobsen: That is true. However, I would need more concrete plans. I am open to it, but it needs structure.
Rosner: Yes, same here. We needed that when we did the pilot as well—we could have used a more precise outline.
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