Pioneers of Porn – The People Who Changed the Sex Industry

Pornography is as old as humanity itself. We’ve always been sexual creatures and some of the oldest art in the world is of naked women.

All through recorded history, us humans have made images of sex, watched other people have sex, and told stories about sex. If you’ve never heard about the exploits of the Greek god Zeus, he was one horny boi.

In the modern era of color magazines, color TV, and smartphones, porn has become a much bigger, global industry. It didn’t happen overnight and there were a lot of people who have made the industry what it is.

From those who fought the battles to go mainstream, to people who brought the fringes of sex out into the open, these are the people who changed porn in some way.

Here, we’re going to honor the contributions made by five people in the last few decades, whilst also recognizing that some may not be the most inspiring of people. Some of them are cool af, too.

Larry Flynt

First off, we want to acknowledge he has been accused of sexual assault by people in his life, including his daughter. Some of the content in his publications also wouldn’t fly nowadays. He was a problematic person and although we don’t want to glorify him, his contribution to the porn industry was important.

What was that contribution? Flynt owned a string of strip clubs and published Hustler magazine among others, and ran porn TV channels.

In the USA in the 1970s, there was a lot of opposition to porn on religious grounds. Flynt was part of numerous legal challenges about whether his publications were obscene. He put a lot of time and money into fighting cases to protect his right to peddle porn under the US First Amendment.

By standing up and fighting for his business, he was able to ensure porn, sex, and all things lewd and nude were available. He used the power of the media to get attention for his cause and protect access to porn, even if other people didn’t approve.

Candida Royalle

A much more positive person in the realms of porn and selling sex, Candida Royalle was a porn actress turned director. She even went on to produce porn and made hundred of films before she sadly died in 2015.

Candida was a sex-positive sex educator who focused on feminist porn. She’s hailed as the first woman to have directed porn and there are some great women standing on her shoulders and carrying on her work.

What she did was change the focus of porn from the cum shot to female pleasure. Her movies were used as educational as well as to get people off. Showing the sensual, female-oriented side of porn showed couples a different attitude towards sex.

Her last foray into porn acting was in the vintage 1975 Blue Magic, which she also wrote. She went on to establish Femme Productions and directed famed pornos like Afrodite superstar, Urban Heat, and Stud Hunters.

Randy Spears

He may not be the best looking or longest lasting porn star to make a sex tape, but he’s got a reputation that reaches far outside of porn. He made his first porn film in 1988 after a few stints in mainstream action and worked for 25 years.

What really made Randy stand out was his acting ability. Yes, you need to keep your dick hard for hours as a male porn star, but having a little something else to you also helps. He had some talent and acted in some of the biggest Hollywood-spoofs on the 90s and 00s.

He’s the proud owner of some of the most prestigious awards in the business spanning from 1991 up to 2012. By bringing acting into the industry along with prolific sex, he changed expectations of male porn actors.

Stormy Daniels

You might have first heard this name in relation to Donald Trump. Her assertion about how small his penis is makes us fully believe her, even if his team did try to pay her hush money.

She’s much more than an affair with the world-famous Cheeto, however. Her porn films have crossed generations; she’s moved into MILF porn seamlessly and will probably end up working in GILF if she chooses to continue her career.

What makes her a pioneer in the porn industry is her mixing politics in porn. When Trump was standing for president, she stood up and confirmed that he was the type of man to have affairs, validating the other women who were accusing him of sexual assault.

John Baku

If you’re into kinks and fetishes, you’ll no doubt know about Fetlife.com. John Baku founded the website back in 2008. From scratch he created an online community for people to discuss their fetishes and kinks without judgement.

There had been sites around the same theme before, but John wanted his to be more accessible without high subscription charges. It’s probably most famed for making BDSM mainstream, but all kinds of people into everything you can think of to get them off can connect on the site.

Similar to the recent PornHub scandal, in which Visa and Mastercard withdrew payment options over concerns about content on the site, Fetlife lost the ability to take card payments in 2017. The site has since changed some rules whilst working to maintain the community.

Baku is a pioneer because of his openness. Fetlife has made the fetish community safer because people have a place they can talk openly without fear of judgement. He’s also made fetish and BDSM much more accessible, increasing demand not only for porn in genre, but for more realistic fetish porn.