The First Real Boom in Virtual Reality? It’s Pornography.

The First Real Boom in Virtual Reality? It’s Pornography.
By David M. Ewalt. Wall Street Journal, 11 July 2019

Naughty America, one of the world’s most prolific producers of VR content, is at the forefront of a lucrative niche driving adoption of the technology

Adult content helped popularize new media formats like
VHS, Blu-ray and streaming video, and now it's doing the
same for virtual reality.  Photo: ISTOCK

Jill the babysitter is walking across the kitchen when she notices someone sitting at the counter. “Oh my god!” she says, clutching the towel wrapped around her body. “Mr. Johnson! I hope you don’t mind I used the shower.”

Mr. Johnson, like the babysitter, is a character in an adult video, and the actor who plays him doesn’t have any lines. The audience will never hear his voice or see his face, even though he does have a big part in the movie. This is virtual-reality pornography, and every scene is shot from his point of view.

Pornography has provided the first real boom in VR, and adult-entertainment companies like Naughty America—producer and distributor of “Bangin’ the Babysitter”—are leading the way. In the 18 months after producing its first VR video, the San Diego-based studio released 108 more, making it one of the most prolific producers of VR content in the world. In 2017, the company operated a booth at the annual International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas and became the first adult business allowed to exhibit in 19 years.

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