Porn surfing 101: mobile porn
If you're looking for porn to stream on your mobile device there are many options out there, some much more to your advantage than others. In BananaGuide's site reviews we tell you what a particular site offers for mobile users. We can divvy up the offerings as follows:
Sites that include a full mobile-friendly version along with a regular desktop version
By far the best deal for you, a few porn companies recognize that customers should be able to readily enjoy content from desktops, laptops, smart phones and tablets -- all for one inclusive price. These sites can be accessed and easily navigated on smart phones as well as on full-sized screens. Some of these sites include:
Corbin Fisher American College Men [read the review]
Next Door Pass [read the review]
Helix Studios [read the review]
Chaos Men [read the review]
Men Over 30 [read the review]
Extra Big Dicks [read the review]
Sites that include mobile video formats but do not have a mobile-friendly design
Many sites include videos that comply to the H264 standard of MP4. What that means is that the video will stream directly on a mobile device. (In some cases, they have to be downloaded to your desktop and then uploaded to the device, an inconvenient process as it takes more time and uses up storage space.) While having a mobile video format available to stream is a definite plus, these sites do not have a separate design for mobile, which makes navigating them on a tiny screen a challenge. Some sites that fall into this category are:
Sean Cody [read the review]
College Dudes [read the review]
Broke Straight Boys [read the review]
Sites which only provide access to the mobile version OR the desktop version.
A few companies have decided that they will charge users separate subscriptions for the mobile version of their content and for the desktop version. If you only look at porn on your mobile device then these sites are something to be considered, but keep in mind you will have no access to the desktop version of the site. A couple of these sites are:
Gay Porn Pass
CJ XXX Mobile
Sites that do not offer any mobile formats or have a mobile version available for a separate subscription
Many online porn companies still don't offer anything for mobile users, but that is changing fast.
In our opinion, gay porn sites that offer all of their content in both a desktop and mobile version are by far the best deal for the consumer.
Porn Surfing 101: Large screen viewing
It can be a lot more satisfying watching porn on your large flat panel TV, from the comfort of your favorite chair, than perched at a desk or table. Many porn websites now offer video formats in near-HD quality, which makes large-screen viewing viable.
There are two major ways to watch Internet video on your TV. One is a direct wired connection from your computer or device to the TV. The second is to wirelessly stream the content, which usually requires a media box of some type.
Wired Connection - Easy and Cheap
While it's not the prettiest solution, setting up a wired connection is dead simple if you have an HDTV with an available HDMI port. Buy an HDMI cable and connect one of the TV's HDMI ports directly to your Internet-connected device or laptop. Use an adapter if your device does not have an HDMI port (for example Apple products). Note that when buying HDMI cables, the "premium" ones are a ripoff; go for the less expensive ones for no loss in quality.
Switch your TV's "video source" to the connected HDMI input and the TV screen becomes a giant monitor. Using your wirelss mouse and keyboard you can surf on over to your favorite membership site and stream a video, opting for Full-Screen.
With a wired connection you can also watch downloaded videos (though if using an Apple device, the video must be moved to iTunes first.)
Wireless streaming
There are many gadgets that will wirelessly stream Internet content to your TV, but not all of these allow you to use a browser to freely surf the web, which is key for streaming porn from a website to your TV.
1. Connect a media box to your TV. Probably the best, if you like Apple products, is Apple TV; others include the Veebeam HD.
2. Connect to the box via wifi with your laptop or mobile device; your screen should be mirrored on your TV screen.
3. Surf the web to get to the content you want.
4. Inside the website, choose a video format to stream. Usually a 960x540 video labelled "HD"; stream the content, telling it to go Full Screen.
4. Use either your device, laptop or the media box's remote to pause, rewind or fast foward the video.
You can also watch videos that have been downloaded to your laptop (if using an Apple system, the video has to be moved to iTunes firest)
Some newer televisions have Google TV built into them. This allows you to browse sites and play videos as you would normally without any additional equipment or connections.
A Brief History of Porn
The pornography industry in the United States earns revenues of over $10 billion annually. Of that amount, over $2 billion is spent on porn websites. Baby Boomers and subsequent generations have played a major role in fueling this spending. As avid participants in the sexual revolution of the 1960's and 70's, Boomers helped to loosen the taboos that permeated sexual life until that time. Porn DVDs, pay-per-view movies, adult cable channels, the phone sex industry and membership sites all contribute to overall revenues.
At the same time the rights of adults to view adult-oriented material have been hotly debated in the media, all levels of government and organized religion. Dramatic changes in the public attitude toward explicit material have been driven by a loosening of restrictive moral strictures, an acceptance of sexual fantasy as healthy and by the spread of these materials throughout the media. These changes have stoked the fires of a highly profitable industry.
Magazines
Hugh Hefner, the founder of Playboy magazine was one of the first to take adult material into the mainstream. In 1953 he obtained a calendar photo of Marilyn Munroe for $500 and featured it in his first issue, selling more than 50,000 copies on the newsstands. The second anniversary issue of Playboy sold 400,000 copies. Many imitators followed, the most notable of which were Penthouse and Hustler. These magazines definitely pushed the envelope for explicit photography and content. They were also sometimes considered degrading to women.
By the mid 60's stars like Jane Fonda, Shirley McLean and Elizabeth Taylor had appeared in Playboy. In 1971 Hefner's worth was pegged at $168 million, and in 1973 Roger Ebert wrote a profile for Esquire Magazine of Hefner's daughter Christie when she became the Chief Executive Officer of the Playboy empire.
Magazines catering to a gay clientele were clearly in evidence by the 1950's. After Dark, published in New York was a glossy entertainment magazine that featured lengthy articles and tastefully revealing photographs on choreographers, dancers and handsome young actors in the early stages of their careers. Robby Benson and Jean Michael Vincent are just two of many who were featured.
On the opposite coast, in Los Angeles, Physique Pictorial also began in the 50's. Muscular young men in "athletic" or playful poses filled its pages. Photographers such as Van Gloeden and William Day published portfolios of frankly erotic photographs. In the 1970s gay pornographic magazines took their places on newsstands. Of course gay men read them only for the articles!
Adult Movies
Movie loops and underground film footage were in wide circulation in both the straight and gay communities by mid-century; however by the early 70s mainstream films such as Deep Throat, starring Linda Lovelace and Behind The Green Door, starring Marylyn Chambers took pornographic movies into the mainstream. Male stars such as John Holmes and Harry Reams received notice for their own unique talents. In recent times, porn stars Ron Jeremy and Traci Lords have crossed over into mainstream films and television. Sexual themes, plot lines and images have now become common in all of the mainstream media.
The VCR
The advent of the videocassette recorder in the late 1970's caused a sea-change in the adult movie world. The VCR allowed millions of consumers who would never be caught dead in a porn theater to enjoy adult films in the privacy of their own homes. The adult video industry exploded. Today, over 10,000 new DVD titles a year are released, a star system has developed and there are industry associations, trade fairs, and a multitude of publications and guides to the adult film world.
The Internet
The development of viable personal computers in the early 1980's started the revolution we enjoy today. Color monitors with improved screen resolution and greater graphics capabilities coincided with the development of File Transfer Protocols, which allowed files to be transferred between computers using a remarkable piece of hardware called a modem. Despite the fact that the early modems were slow, and the transfer of large files over long distance lines was expensive, the earliest computer bulletin boards were a huge success. The Bulletin Board Services (BBS's) became a repository for large numbers of explicit images scanned in by willing contributors.
In 1989 a computer scientist named Timothy Berners-Lee created a set of protocols for linking documents that would allow personal computers to talk to each other. He called it HTML, or Hyper Text Markup Language and it was the single most important milestone on the road to the World Wide Web. Because of the need to be able to move around between and inside a website, the first Web browsers appeared in 1991. Then came Mosaic, a browser that allowed more than one type of information to appear on the screen at the same time, combining graphics, text color and sound.
The need to broaden the reach of the Net became quickly apparent. Universities and governments operated the first servers and access to the Web was very limited. Soon more and more commercial servers opened up, allowing customers with PCs to access other PCs via the growing Net.
In 1994 the development and mass marketing of Netscape Navigator boosted the number of Internet users to 2 million. Individuals and businesses began realizing the potential of the Internet and started setting up their own sites. In the mid to late nineties, Internet traffic grew exponentially.
By the late 1990's large and small advertisers were spending billions a year on Internet advertising. Advertising of adult sites represented a significant percentage of that amount, demonstrating the economic potential of the Net. Pornographers made early use of online shopping mechanisms such as catalogues and credit card use, monthly site fees and provision of extensive free material as a lure for potential customers. In just a few years, the Internet changed the way we all interact with the world.
We applaud the operators of porn sites for their early recognition of the Internet's potential, their creativity and their willingness to portray frank sexuality in all its many facets.
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