Suck On This: Fashion Through A Steamy Lens

Since the dawn of the motion picture camera at the turn of the 20th century, people have been making pornos. The industry finally went legit in 1969, when Denmark became the first country to legalize hardcore pornography. Thanks guys! Since then about a gazillion fuck films have been made. As well as being an easy (and a little bit sad?) way of getting oneself off, porn is also a steamy glimpse into the fashion of its time. Here’s a look at what people were wearing while they were doing it, from the early 1970’s right up until now. Suck on this.

 

1970’s

 The 70’s was the decade of major production porn films—films whose reputations still hold strong today, like Deep Throat (1972), The Devil in Miss Jones (1973), and Debbie Does Dallas (1978). This is the scene from Debbie Does Dallas where Bambi Woods fucks herself with a bunch of earthy colored candles, surrounded by some ethnic rugs. This behavior was commonplace in the 70’s, as people didn’t know what to do with their hippie leftovers, so they just stuck them up their vaginas.

The late 70’s were all about Studio 54, bell-bottoms, polyester, Farrah Fawcett hair and embarrassing dance moves. Groovy! During this time it was the norm to fuck wearing crotchless, boobless, disco cat suits made of white satin. Bareback porn was also very “in” in the 70’s, as it was before AIDS was invented by the government to irradiate the homosexual population or Africans, so no one had to worry about condoms. Those were the days, eh?

Obviously in the 70’s it was cool to have a giant, untamed jungle bush that reached all the way back to your asshole. Sort of gross, but to be honest it’s better than those scary slut strips that porn stars have today.

1980’s

With the arrival of the home video cassette recorder in the late 70s and early 80s, the porn industry skyrocketed. Instead of hundreds of porn flicks being made each year, there were thousands. By 1982 most pornos were being shot on videotape, which meant the end of the age of big budget productions. This change moved porn out of theaters and into the home, meaning viewers could now jerk-off freely in the privacy of their living rooms, rather than having to awkwardly stroke their throbbing erections under a trench coat in a packed cinema. Yay! This explosion also spawned porn mega stars like Ron Jeremy and Traci Lords. This is the man Ron Jeremy rocking the classic 80’s porn star look—hairy chest, leather biker jacket, moustache and slight double chin. Hot?

The 80’s were all about power, cocaine and being super glam like Princess Di, the cast of Dynasty or Oprah. Even porno chicks masturbated in their power suits, wearing fancy pearl bracelets and with immaculately painted red nails.

50’s retro was big the 80’s, largely to do with insane success of Grease. Being a raunchy whore (a la Madonna) was also pretty popular. So obviously this meant that letting a stranger suck your asshole while draped across a Cadillac was the hippest of the hip. Big hair, big hair, big hair!

1990’s

 In 1991 a little thing called the Internet was invented, thus changing porn forever. The www sparked a rise in amateur porn, as well as spawning the webcam. Ugh webcam, so addictive, am I right? Cam girls of the mid 90’s normally looked like a possibly underage version of Britney Spears, except from Eastern Europe. The fall of communism also freed millions of poor white people to join the porn industry. All their clothes looked like they were bought from stores with names like Risky and Rave Gurl 66.

In the 90’s it was very en vogue to have sex under water wearing lots of brown makeup and gaudy gold jewelry. Not breathing was also very “in.”

The 90’s were all about filling a teen movie stereotype, both in real life and in porn. I was the hot popular chick with cool clothes that everyone wanted to fuck, a la Cher Horowitz. Which one were you? During this time cheerleading costumes and pigtails were big. So was dressing the same as your best friend. No, but like seriously, you can’t deny you didn’t do that at least once.

21st century

If you were lucky enough to have sex on camera at the turn of the century, it’s a fair bet that you had a fake tan, were dressed in tacky “nightclub” clothes, and were rocking some serious Sarah Michelle Geller hair. This was sort of a dip in the overall porn aesthetic, if you ask me. Everything looked like it was filmed in a Holiday Inn.

Colorful skull sheets, star tattoos and crying during sex became fashionable in the porn the 00’s, thanks to bands like My Chemical Romance and whatevs all those other shit emo bands are called. I’m actually really pleased with the recent rise in emo porn, to be honest. It just feels so real. Even if all the clothes are from Topman.

P.S. Note the New Moon poster.

This is a screen grab from Bruce LaBruce’s 2008 porno, Otto, or, Up with Dead People. All of the costumes were designed by Rick Owens. Yeah, I realize that this is technically art porn, but it’s a good example of actual fashion making its way into pornography. Plus. FUCK ME, gay zombie porn? Does anything hotter even exist on this earth? I just came.