The best porn era?

[anschus]

Great topic. I would say late 90s to mid 00s. Best natural looks, no tattoos, very little plastic and nice landing stripes. Talking about you, Jane Darling.

[wsbfan1]

1980s. Lisa Deleeuw, Seka, Kay Parker, Desiree Cousteau, Taija Rae. Ebony Ayes, etc. All beauties.

2nd place would have to go to 2000 - 2012 abouts. But only because of the 80s and 90s stars coming back as MILFs. Selena Steel, Keisha, Amber Lynn, Shanna McCullough, Lasa Ann, Julia Ann, etc. Looking even better and with a newfound taste for anal, DP and black cock.

[Cheste]

Originally Posted by analt4pron

Do eras even exist for porn? If so what are they?

Googling only seems to be able to find one named era:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Age_of_Porn

.

I ask because I noticed that I tend to enjoy porn from the late 2000's through the mid 2010's more than stuff newer or older than that. Not that I don't enjoy stuff outside that time range at all, but all my favorite stars and most-watched scenes seem to be from those years.

I'm not an expert, but I think at least four different eras could be distinguished in porn history.

The first one goes from the beginning of film (late 19th century-early 20th century) to the 60s. It's not very remarkable: many short scenes, starred by unprofessional performers (mainly, whores and hobos), where filmed in an amateurish style, for private audiences. Porn cinema had a serious competence in brothels, varietés, and other erotic live spectacles, like "sicalipsis" in Spain. Also, in Spain, one of the first porn sponsors was king Alfonso XIII -you can easily find a clip called "El confesor" ("The confessor") on the internet from that era.

The second one, which is popularly referred as the Golden Age or "porno chic" as well, goes from the 60s to the mid 80s. At first, most of these products where made in Northen Europe and sold as sex ed documentaries, as it can be seen in Taxi Driver, for instance. During this period, productions were made with film crew and equipments, and the movies released on cinema theatres. Many performers were wannabe actors and actresses, who had little experience on stage in the off-Broadway in many cases. That's why they where technically outstanding.

The movies plot in this era involved often medium-high characters who wanted to explore new dimmensions in their sexual lives. Thus, the coined term "porno chic".

This era is well depicted in Paul Thomas Anderson's "Boogie Nights". In this film, for example, the director (Burt Lancaster) sees himself as an artist or, at least, making a quality product. His star starts to decline when the second era changes to the third one.

The third era goes from mid 80s to 2000s. What happened in this period? Videocasettes, videoclubs, cable and pay-per-view tv, and domestic filming equipments became affordable and popular, so producing a porn movie was considerable cheaper than before. Gonzo style appeared those years, and IR as a fetish as well.

It's worthwhile to note that along these two eras, most porn productions where plot-based.

Finally, the last era, in which we are now, is from the 2000s on. It's the internet era. Porn is everywhere and almost everyone could be a porn star just shooting themselves masturbating and asking for money to see it. Plot-based films are done. Hardcore has become the new standard. Practices which were unlikely to be depicted in previous eras: from cum swallowing or anal, to gangbang, A2M, gaping, bukakke, multiple penetrations, creampie, etc., seem to set the difference between a professional and a rookie.

[Jason-X]

Originally Posted by analt4pron

Is it exclusively the sets and photography that you think were better in that time?

Both.

The photography and settings looked more natural, warm and relaxing. The instrumental Music Scores that were put into the scenes were great. Sexy sounding Beats and Tempos.

I don't like most porn today. I don't like bright white and cold looking sets and the Filtered up photos.

I love the Stars of the time. Here's some of my absolute top tier favorites.
Ariana
Ashlyn Gere
Bionca Seven
Candie Evans
Chelly Supreme
Dyanna Lauren
Flame
Jenteal
Johnni Black
Missy
Natasha
Nina Hartley
Nikki Knights
Nikki Sinn (Pre Nose job)
Nikki Tyler
Ona Z
Porsche Lynn
Serenity
Sharon Mitchell
Tiffany Million
Tiffany Storm
Vanessa Del Rio
Victoria Paris

[Johnny Cage]

I would say 2001-2007-ish for me.

I like porn older than that and more recent than that but I think this is the time when through a combination of who the stars were and the kind of porn that was being produced, there was the highest ratio of scenes I enjoyed compared to what was released.

[alexora]

Originally Posted by anschus

Great topic. I would say late 90s to mid 00s. Best natural looks, no tattoos, very little plastic and nice landing stripes. Talking about you, Jane Darling.

That's my favourite timeframe as well.

[SynchroDub]

Originally Posted by Johnny Cage

I would say 2001-2007-ish for me.

I like porn older than that and more recent than that but I think this is the time when through a combination of who the stars were and the kind of porn that was being produced, there was the highest ratio of scenes I enjoyed compared to what was released.

Originally Posted by alexora

That's my favourite timeframe as well.

+1

I definitely agree.
That was, indeed, the best era of Porn (for me)

[Beef78]

its a toss-up between the 80s cuz thats when I first got my hands on porn, and the late 90s cuz thats when I had the Spice channel lol.

Lotta hot stars since dont get me wrong but nostalgia cant be beat. Stuff is so fake now, plus having the scenes shot in these lavish mansions is just so unrealistic

[Karmafan]

Originally Posted by anschus

Great topic. I would say late 90s to mid 00s. Best natural looks, no tattoos, very little plastic and nice landing stripes. Talking about you, Jane Darling.

Same for me. The Euro invasion brought us Jane Darling, Silvia Saint, Rita Faltoyano, Monica Sweetheart, Karma Rosenberg, Anita Dark, Anita Blond, Monica Roccaforte, Terry Nova, Wendy White, Adele Weisenthal, Gabriella Kerez, Meridian, Gabriella Tchekan, Cassandra, Lucy Van Dam, Daniella Rush, Angel Dark, Laura Lion, and many more. So many really pretty sexy girls that were mostly free of implants and tattoos.

They did anal, IR and DP at a time when most American porn stars didn't.

[Zarkness316]

Originally Posted by reclaimer

The current era is the best. Resolution is better than it was in any other era and you can easily find whatever fucked up shit you're into.

The idea that in the past all pornstars were flawless paragons of natural beauty is horseshit. There are as many attractive women now as there has ever been(if you're ONLY into a certain look, that might not be true because that goes in waves) but there are infinitely more pornstars and we now all have immediate access to anything and everything, so it is seems like there are fewer just because they are a smaller percentage.

That being said, the industry could absolutely improve in a number of significant ways, so I'm not pretending everything is perfect.

I agree with this but from a downloading standpoint, 2007 to 2013 was a gold mine, you could get anything at fast speeds for free without it instantly dying off. Porn was getting better in quality and definitely can't compete to the HD/4K quality of now, but the girls looked amazing and you had more of the gorgeous girls stick around compared to girls now that just leave after a month because of reasons and P0rNH3B or OFs didn't exist yet. Plus a lot of videos were deleted when other hosters died off in 2012 and so on, or discontinued when those studio went bust, so if you were apart of those days you probably got something that's not available anymore.