I first heard about XTube — YouTube’s naked, well-hung, slutty stepbrother, with even less talent and more ego — weeks ago from a friend, who gasped at my unfamiliarity with the sex site. I promptly went to my computer to begin my one-handed research. By then, XTube already had an entry in the Urban Dictionary (“A Web site like YouTube, but for porn. I saw your mom get fucked by your dad on XTube”), along with more than three million users. Its Canadian creators are rumored to have already purchased a $25 million island. (Canadian dollars, but still.)
Expecting some hack, amateur site, I was floored to discover a seemingly endless supply of every kind of porn imaginable. You could make raisins of your fingers getting off to this stuff. Videos are divided into straight and gay, then subcategorized into everything from “Swingers,” “Hairy,” and “Shemale” to “Daddies,” “Fisting,” and “Muscle Worship.” There’s even an anime section which, frighteningly, has more videos than the “Bisexual” and “Swingers” sections combined.
One minute you can be enjoying “Blonde amateur footjob babe,” and the next be glued to “Screaming housewife gets rammed by her first black cock.” The options are endless. And the best part about XTube is that it’s free.
But as the old adage goes, you get what you pay for. Though littered with links to DVDs and paid porn sites, the site that dubs itself “The Greatest Thing Since the Orgasm!” is essentially user-run. XTube video quality ranges from high-end, professional-looking scenes to shaky bathroom jerk-offs. (It’s also proof that many men will do anything to flaunt their meat.)
Though many users have complained about the site crashing or providing sluggish videos, my complaint is of another order. What the hell is a girl to do with 19 seconds of porn? Come on, people. If you’re going to make a frothing whore of yourself for millions of viewers, at least make a video that’s long enough to be worth it. Though the rare XTube video streams for longer than five minutes, the average one is somewhere between 30 seconds and two minutes, which can make for a frustrating, albeit prolonged, experience.
Of course, if the user-contributed videos aren’t enough for you, XTube also has thousands of photos for viewing and purchase, plus chat rooms, community groups like the “Nasty Byches” and the “Strap-on Lovers,” and a store selling everything from anal lube to XTube ballpoint pens and boxer-briefs. For addicts of another kind, XTube has even partnered with Grand Nevada to present live nude gambling, with a dealer working in real time. And XTube offers its amateur contributors the opportunity to make money from their photos and videos through a revenue-sharing equation based on a contributor’s number of page views.
So what does this mean for the future of porn?
Reactions seem mixed. Some people with whom I’ve broached the subject have seemed disgusted, others intrigued, and still others as dumbfounded as I was when I first learned of the site. One guy was ecstatic at my newfound familiarity with XTube. “You know XTube?” he screamed, before whipping out his iBook, logging into his XTube account, and showing me a video of him screwing his boyfriend through a split in the seat of the guy’s pants.
As much as my mother is dying as she reads this, I like the idea of XTube. Something about professional porn makes me cringe a little bit. There’s always that glimpse of desperation or pain I see in a woman’s face; I lose my buzz thinking of the abusive dad and trailer-park past that led her down this road. At least with XTube it seems the participants are happier to be involved. And they’re certainly not making millions from their 20-cents-a-minute rates. It’s nice to see real women, sans implants and two-inch talons, actually looking like they’re enjoying sex with their boyfriends, girlfriends, or husbands. Last week I watched a black chick completely destroy her boyfriend. And though her moves made me feel like less of a sexual being, I enjoyed the refreshing role-reversal.
Like journalists fretting over the proliferation of blogs, I’m sure some porn stars are shaking in their silicon about this organic, amateur competitor. No doubt some of the folks involved with XTube will achieve cult status. Some of its more popular stars have already been featured in men’s magazines, and at press time, Canada’s Fab magazine was trolling the site for gay men interested in being interviewed about their XTube popularity. The porn industry will likely follow suit, swooping in and snagging the site’s most popular players to cast them in feature-length films.
But there’s another byproduct of XTube that seems less explored: it offers a window into someone’s sexual soul. YouTube and MySpace have essentially allowed us to discover everything about a person before we meet them. We know their likes and dislikes, talents, hobbies, quirks, even all the famous bands with which they’re tight. Now, with XTube, we can check out the goods, watch them in action, see if we think we’d be compatible in the sack. We can hear the noises they make, learn about their stamina. We can check to see if they dub themselves “kinky man” and snap clothespins on their penises, or go by the screen name “slutwife” and have regular gang-bangs with their friends.
Welcome to a world where nothing is private. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go change my pants. @
Jeannie Greeley is a freelance writer who likes to “Log On. Get Off” at www.xtube.com. She can be reached at jeannieg@comcast.net.
