I recently conducted an email interview with Richard, the man behind Beautiful Agony, IShotMyself, and IFeelMyself, and several other exciting sites. Richard and his team are responsible for some of the most creative, inspired new approaches to online erotica that I have ever seen. Running all these spectacular sites must make for a pretty busy schedule, but he managed to find some time to answer a few of my questions, and I am thrilled to be able to reproduce them for you here. So without further ado:
Positive Porn: Of course the obvious first question: Whence came the inspiration for Beautiful Agony? It is such a unique idea- what's the story behind the epiphany, and how did the site first get off the ground?
Richard: We had been working on ishotmyself for about a year and I was talking one day to a friend of mine, Lauren, about the state of porn. The previous night my partner and I had been to an adult store and could not find a single video which looked even remotely erotic. Lauren had similar experiences, but as a recent arts graduate, she had another perspective, somewhat more analytical. We had a reductionist discussion which came to the conclusion that really, the eroticism is mostly in the face, and it stood to reason that you could make porn with no nudity. So we passed a video camera around amongst a few friends and ISM contributors, and the ISM designer whipped up a simple, but elegant site. We emailed a few people around the net for a reaction, and they talked it up on their blogs and such, and pretty soon we had interest from major sites like Nerve.com. And so it snowballed; we started accepting contributions through the site, and increased the number of updates to 5 per week. It has been very successful, even by porn standards, or so it seems.
PP: Was BA your first project in the erotica/sexual-art/porn genre, or had you prior experience in the field? I'm interested in how you got into this particular business- not a job that you can generally find in the help-wanted classifieds. Did you ever have qualms about devoting so much time to something that some people will inevitably see as not respectable?
R: Our fist foray into this field, as a company, was ishotmyself, but I had done some creative work for another web site a couple of years earlier. That's where I learned a little about how things work on the internet. At the time I was working in a 'regular' business but found it increasingly frustrating, uninspiring, and long hours for little return. In retrospect I can see that I'd been stifling ideas my entire life, following conservative lines instead. No matter how ethically you approach an adult business there will always be people who put labels on what you do. I find it ironic that an executive for a tobacco company would probably be welcomed in many places I would not.
PP: How has Agony changed over the years? Have you let it evolve or kept it as much the same as possible?
R: The basic credo of all our sites is reality, so we're loathe to do anything which would interfere with the natural process that's happening in front of the camera. That means we've resisted the temptation to build a studio and streamline the process, or 'direct' the participants to do particular things in particular ways, to cater to niches or fetishes. But that doesn't mean the site is stagnant by any means; last year we added 'Confessions', short exit interviews where we ask the particupants to shake out their dirty laundry for us. We're finding those are often just as fascinating as the Agony videos themselves.
PP: How do you define the terms 'erotica' and 'pornography', and where do you think Beautiful Agony fits into those categories?
I think porn aims straight for the groin, where erotica aims for the mind. On Agony, most of the stimulus is coalescing inside your own head, so it is certainly erotica; but I sometimes call it hardcore porn as well, because of the ultimate effect it has on the audience. Our members are polarised largely into 2 groups; those who have used porn for years, progressing through more and more hardcore levels until they're jaded by the whole thing; and then, they discover Agony, and it's like a rebirth for their mojo. The other group are 'virgins', those who have never joined an adult site before, and women comprise a large part of this group I think.
PP: The popularity of Beautiful Agony has grown so much; you must get a stupendous amount of submissions. How do you filter out the bad from the good, and decide what to publish? Richard: It's not as hard as you'd think. We look at the tape and if it looks performed, or exaggerated, we ditch it. Reality is our foremost criteriea, and after that is technical quality. PP: In a similar vein: What is the most peculiar submission you've ever received? R: I think it would have to be the clip which we're putting up next week, in which a young woman ejaculates on her own face. Hers is a wonderful contribution in many ways, and no less so her Confessions, which reveal her to be a very honest and sexually aware person with a particular gift that she can control to some extent. PP: Some people would say that Beautiful Agony is an invasion into the most private of private moments, and that this is a bad thing. What do you say to people who are concerned about the fact that such a private thing is being made public in the most public of places- the internet? R: It's the individual's choice after all. If you want to impose a philosophy on us, that we're breaking some ethical boundary, I reject that outright. On Agony ther's a sharing agreement between those who like to be watched, and those who like to watch, and that's as far as it needs to go. PP: Some of the same people might object to making money in any way from human sexuality. Do you think sexuality can be bought and sold without running into the possible ethical problems of marketing sexuality? R: We aren't dealing in sexuality, rather a rendition of it, like the relationship between an image and its subject. Didn't some native tribe, seeing a camera for the first time, fear it would steal their souls? PP: What are the most common reasons that Agonees submit- curiousity, exhibitionism, just on a whim? R: I would say curiosity, specifically a sense of adventure, like "I wonder what it would be like to..." At least that's what we are hearing in their Confessions. PP: Has Beautiful Agony spawned any new sites recently? I remember hearing about sonicerotica.com, and now IFeelMyself is up and running... What other things are in the works? R: Yes sonicerotica.com, our site for vision-impaired users, will be up very soon. That wasn't a spinoff from Agony, it came from a different place altogether. Ifeelmyself.com was a result of the reaction we had on Agony to a clip where the entire body was shown, albeit with clothes on. At first it seem to challenge our credo that sensuality was centred in the face, until you consider that for some, the image of face and body together was even more stimulating. On IFM we've gone a step further than Agony; it certainly has nudity, but the focus is still on the face. There are no gyno closeups, and the lighting is subtle. It has a lot of fans but there is still a core audience for Agony which isn't interested in anything more. Curiously, the instant reaction from women to ifeelmyself has been even more zealous than Agony when it first started, and we're starting to get quite a few submissions, even though we aren't seeking any. Ifeelmyself differs from Agony in that most of the subjects are in a controlled environment, though they aren't given direction and are mostly alone during filming. PP: Do you see Beautiful Agony as a social movement? Do you have hopes that it will in some way change the way society views orgasm, or even sexuality in general? What are its (and your) goals? R: The facettes aren't put up there to be judged or made an example of, and I'd hope people don't use them as some sort of model. But if it changes peoples perceptions of what is or isn't erotic, then we have achieved something. If it reduces the consumption, and therefore the production, of soulless, degrading, male-oriented porn, even a little bit, then I'm very happy with that.
