Abstract
In 2010 Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, stated that the iPhone, iPod and iPad were not for watching porn on (Chen 2010). It was a typically hubristic statement from the man in charge of the world’s largest technology company (Tweney 2010) and the second biggest company in the world (Satariano 2010). It was also a timely reminder that however ’mainstreamed’ porn has become, it still lacks respectability, especially for a brand as prestigious as Apple. But Jobs’ comments weren’t just arrogant, they were disingenuous. We may be getting used to watching TV and film on our PCs, laptops, tablets and smartphones, as streaming and downloading services become faster, more reliable and gain greater market purchase against existing DVD, Blu-Ray, cable and satellite services, but we’ve been watching porn like this for years. The demand for media devices (and that includes iPods, iPhones and iPads) and the technology that drives them has been catalysed by demand for porn. This was the case with the emergence of VHS, and has remained so in the context of online commerce, where porn companies were the first to develop technologies for secure online payment, and to develop profitable business models for online content: ‘pornography is the handmaiden of new technology’ (O’Toole 1998: 352; Maddison 2000: 45–52; Ward 2003).
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© 2013 Stephen Maddison
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Maddison, S. (2013). ‘It’s Gonna Hurt a Little Bit. But That’s Okay — It Makes My Cock Feel Good’: Max Hardcore and the Myth of Pleasure. In: Attwood, F., Campbell, V., Hunter, I.Q., Lockyer, S. (eds) Controversial Images. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137291998_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137291998_11
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