Friday – I See No Reason Why Porn Cannot Exist on the PS3

My name is Ian Drinkwater, and I want streaming pornography on the Playstation 3. I want it sold from the Playstation store. I want to be able to click on a menu selection and choose from Goopy Load Wunders 9 or Teasing A Tasmanian She-devil. I want all of this, and I don’t see any good reason why I shouldn’t receive my wish. While there are countless valid arguments for the prohibition of porn from the PS3, I don’t think any of them are solid enough to keep my beautiful dream from coming to fruition.

I don’t have any sort of moralistic argument in support of porn. That debate is old-hat, and either you watch porn or you are miserable and kick kittens. I have done some research, and this is precisely how the two groups break down:

People who dabble in the pornographics

People so unhappy they go straight in the “Right Hand Turn Only Lane”, spend their time writing Left 4 Dead manifestos, try and tell me I have a chemical addiction or two, and still write checks at the supermarket.

I’m arguing against this argument I usually hear:

You want pornographic movies to be sold on a gaming console marketed to kids. And let’s be real, no matter what sort of restrictions you put the console, them kids will always find a way to get around it.

That’s the sort of shit my girlfriend came at me with when I initially broached the topic of PS3 porn with her. I described what I found to be Heaven to her:

Babe, you don’t understand! There’s this network, and you click on it, and they sell movies. Well, the dude from Vivid (do you know what Vivid is? Oh, okay, good), wants to put porn on the network. You could just click on a button and get porn! Isn’t that amazing?!?!!?!?!?

It freaked her out, because I was actually yelling “QUESTION MARK, EXCLAMATION POINT, QUESTION MARKRRRRRK.” I had lost it. Let me tell you, if you combine porn with caffeine, my head almost pops off.

But yeah Ian, you want on porn on something marketed for kids.

Not really. Not at all. Listen, the PS3 is an expensive piece of impressive technology. This isn’t some Nintendo 64, or even a Wii. It’s got Blu-Ray, it has equipment that is significantly more complicated to set-up. Kids who are in little league are not going to be the majority demographic here. That’s not what Sony is marketing towards. Their core audience is people like me. In their twenties or so.

Wonderful girlfriend hopped onto the Internet. With the clickety-clack of the keyboards she asked Mr. Google if I was right. Mr. Google has become the great ender of debates for my generation. Everything can be proven with minimal keystrokes.

Do you think I’d bring this up if I was wrong? Of course not!

Via Gamer.blore:

Nielsen Media Research tried to prove the point by tracking usage data by age and gender for all three of the home consoles. Console activity in all National TV Panel homes was measured.

The PS3 generally seems to appeal to the older generation, with no young kids anywhere in the mix… Both males and females saw the largest usage amongst the 18 to 24-age range.

In an interview about the Playstation Network, where this porn would be bought, PSN director of operations says the PSN demographic is:

Via Kotaku:

Primarily male. The average age is 28 years old, in usually the middle- to higher-income range. They over-index against those with graduate degrees.

This system isn’t being marketed to children. Children aren’t playing it. So is it really controversial to put pornography on a console that’s being played by males in their mid-twenties?

The second objection I want to make is to the idea of a “gaming console”. This term really is some amorphous blob at this point. If it was a human it’d be that fat lady stuffing herself at the Swine Flu infested Chinese Buffet near you. Without distinct shape.

Back in the day, it was pretty obvious what a game console was. A game console was that little slab of plastic you jacked into your 13 inch RCA television through your RF tuner. Then you played Mario Kart 64 for fifteen hours against friends while screaming, “Don’t throw the controller!”

It seems like a prohibitive term at this stage in the game. It should be thrown into the tar pits, like they did with the old parents on that television show Dinosaurs. Do you remember that crap?

The PS3 doesn’t just play video games. And just to prove my point, consider the current marketing campaign for the PS3. The tag line is, “It Only Does Everything.” The PS3 plays video games, and it surfs the Internet. You can stream music through it, you can look at photo albums with it. You can buy television shows and music on it. You can watch movie trailers.

The PS3 isn’t a console in the traditional sense. It’s more of an entertainment hub, which is what Microsoft and Sony wanted to market their systems as back in the day. That was until all the nerds like me had an anxiety attack at the thought of change, and they went back on it. But now Sony seems to be towing that line once again.

The PS3 is more akin to a super-gorgeous custom-built computer. And let’s not discuss how much pornography is on your computer and mine.

So let’s recap. The PS3 isn’t marketed towards kids, and primarily successful adults are using it. And, the day of the console is past. We dabble now with entertainment centers.

So if it isn’t for kids, and adults are using it, what’s the problemo?

There is this fear that kids are going to use it anyways, and stumble onto pornography. So those who oppose my idea cry that no such age verification system will adequately protect kids from the naked glistening bodies.

You know what, you’re probably right. But so what? Anyone who is being honest is going to admit there are inadequacies in age verification systems. I just don’t think that should be the determining factor.

Age verification systems guide countless things. Pornography on the Internet is theoretically protected by verification systems. And yet we all know they fail. And they probably fail hard. Can you just strike pornography from the Internet at this point? While I realize it’s not financially feasible to pull this off at this point, I disagree with that idea on a philosophical level as well.

We have to deprive the masses because of the fear that some little kids are going to stumble into it? Instead we should be arguing for better systems of protection.

The Internet has pornography and failing age verification systems. So does your cable box. How much pornography is On Demand these days? A lot. Trust me. I always hear that console systems don’t have decent enough protection. Yeah well, nothing does as well. So let’s strike porn from well…everything. The Internet, magazine racks, our cable boxes, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

The Playstation 3 is a entertainment hub that is marketed at adults. It’s core demographic are bro dudes in their mid-twenties, and probably would dig some porn up on the PSN. There are age verification systems just like there are on the Internet and on our cable boxes that are designed from Susie Curiousgirl from stumbling onto some truly shocking shit to her young mind.

I see no reason why I shoudn’t be able to get boners onto my PS3. Let’s get it done.