Florida has laid claim to a lot of titles in it storied 171-year history. Of course, we’re known as the Sunshine State, even though Arizona gets far more of the stuff annually. We’re the home to the hotel where Anna Nicole Smith died; the hanging chad from the Presidential election of 2000; and serial killer Ted Bundy. Well now, we’ve got a new nugget for infamy. According to the folks at the AdultDVDEmpire.com, and pornmd.com, Orlando, Florida, leads the country for the most DVD’s downloaded, streamed, or rented.
It’s no wonder the city is called The Happiest Place on Earth. Orlando won the title for the third time, over seemingly more likely winners like Miami (who scored in 10th place, and Tampa, which came in 7th). Fort Lauderdale apparently likes to experience its sex one-on-one in person, since our city of sun didn’t make the top one hundred at all.
Florida is no slouch when it comes to the production of gay pornography either—ending up in second place right behind Los Angeles. But as the years go by, the number of production companies have been dwindling, right along with the profits that reached in the millions not too many years ago.
All of which brings us right back to Florida and its downloading dominance in the porn industry. The arrival of the Internet has produced some major breakout companies in the distribution end of the industry with pornmd.com one of the largest porn delivery services in the world. Unfortunately, the easy availability of pornography is also threatening to be its downfall, as studios are facing the reality that piracy from free internet content providers are cutting them out of the money chain.
It’s an unusual turn for an industry that saw its birth in the production of Wakefield Poole’s Boys in the Sand in 1971. The three-scene film starring Casey Donovan was made for only $8,000 in Cherry Grove on Fire Island, and set the bar high for gay pornography that followed. Both producer and star ironically had Florida connections. Poole, an American dancer and choreography, was born in Jacksonville in 1936. Donovan, who had an extremely lucrative career in the modeling and porn industries, died of AIDS in Inverness, Florida in 1987 at the age of 43.
Much of the industry is moving overseas where porn stars are being paid next to nothing to appear in films which lack the production value typically seen in those down in the U.S. But with decreasing profits, it is the only way many production companies are staying in business at all.
One of the most currently successful porn business models was developed by a company called Bel Ami from Bratislava, Slovakia. Headed by Prague filmmaker George Duroy, the company has become synonymous with young blonds with hairless bodies, a group which has a large following among the younger porn viewer.
Those in Florida, however, tend to be older and richer, still willing to pay monthly fees to streaming sites to accommodate their growing need for explicit sex.
Despite tracing its history all the way back to Greek antiquity (the earliest known pornographic art is from the Byzantine Empire), the diversity of gay porn continues to grow, as amateurs take to the internet to secure their own 15 minutes of fame. With the availability of film production software, and music scoring programs, there appears to be no end to the industry that continues to adapt to its audience.
For the record, the other top ten cities for porn viewing are Las Vegas, Wilmington (DE), Raleigh and Charlotte (NC), Atlanta, Anchorage and Austin (TX).
