Like all good deep dives, the origin of this article starts with a conversation in the pub between friends.
“Hey quick question,” said a mate of mine, sheepishly calling the floor. He paused to suss out who was around us, then lowered his voice.
“Is it just me or is there heaps of stepsister, stepmum and stepbrother porn online now?”
Ten minutes and two schooners later, we all agreed that yes, the internet had become a breeding ground for blended families to bone one another. Each of us had the same experience. You jump on the laptop, cruise around for a while, eventually ending up in the sexiest corner of the internet.
Or so you thought, cue the taboo.
Stepsister Shows Step Brother How Much She Loves Him or Horny Step Mom Demands Creampie.
And my personal favourite. BIG-TIT THICK Ass Stepmom Riding Hard While Wearing Lingerie To Make Stepson Cum!
What should’ve been a pleasant and healthy tug has turned into a clusterfuck involving people who may or may not be related.
Yet anyone who has visited any porn website in the last few years will be familiar with this trend, like it or not.
Step porn has populated the front pages of all your favourite spots, and it’s been this way for a while.
In 2016, stepmom and stepsister were the first and third most popular searched terms on PornHub. Last year stepmom dropped to seventh but remained in the top ten.
So what’s the deal here: are we really fascinated with fauxcest or is step porn a step too far?
Can we blame step porn on Game of Thrones?
It’s no secret that porn often takes its cues from pop culture, whatever is zapping in the zeitgeist will eventually trickle into porn.
PornHub stats show the step porn spike took off on their site in 2015. This is also the same year that the AVN Awards, the Oscars for porn, introduced the Best Taboo Relations category.
Around that time the biggest television show in the world was Game of Thrones, which was coincidentally the only show to feature an incest plotline between two central characters, brother-and-sister duo, Jaime and Cersei.
“Media has always had a role in sex education, challenging sexual, social norms, setting cultural trends,” explains sex therapist, Brett McCann.
“What we watch and talk about ends up conveying strong messages, then sexual urges are reinforced.”
The final frontier?
Human arousal is driven by the novel and new, and given we’ve pretty much pushed every other boundary, perhaps step porn is the final frontier?
“As sexual attitudes change towards what was taboo or naughty sex this spot of erotic fantasy must be replaced,” says Brett McCann, President at Australian Society of Sex Educators, Researchers and Therapists.
“Heightened sexual thrill often depends on the taboo, the secret, the naughtiness of the sexual thought, which then gives the reward of heightened orgasm.”
Dr Justin Lehmiller, a research fellow at the Kinsey Institute, agrees, telling Mashable, “It’s something you’re not supposed to do — and we know that when you tell people they’re not supposed to do something, this often makes them want to do it even more.”
An innocent mistake
Another likely scenario, and certainly the most common anecdotal justification during my pub chat, is that the user ignores the ‘step’ context of the video.
“The woman in it was attractive, so I clicked, I only noticed the title towards the end,” maintains my mate.
It’s also true that the increasing popularity of step porn means more performers appear in these types of videos. Whether it’s your favourite actress or just someone you fancy in the moment.
“Most people will watch this porn knowing it is a contrived storyline but may find the porn star sexually appealing,” says Brett McCann.
Hardcore users ruining it for the rest of us
We’re led to believe algorithms deliver what the people want, but when it comes to porn, are we simply seeing what paying subscribers want?
“A lot of the tube sites are creating content for those niche audiences because they’re the most likely to click on ads and pay for porn and things like that,” continues Dr Lehmiller.
The bottom line: a small sample size of heavy watchers, on the hunt for taboo videos, end up dictating what the rest of us see.
“Heavy users are also more likely to want to repeat using this category of porn, thus increasing the number of times they visit these sites,” says Brett McCann.
“The algorithm then promotes the category to the front pages, increasing the likelihood of finding new consumers.”
The power of a few, influencing the porn of many.
It’s all, uh… relative
Ultimately, the porn landscape will continue to shift and as is the case with most industries, one day you’re trending, then next you’re ending.
“I think like most taboo sexual fantasy contexts, culture is always changing,” says Brett McCann.
“The mainstreaming of step porn is likely to diminish over time and be replaced with a new taboo.”
Can’t wait to see what cums next.
