These home movies were initially shared for free, often under the counter at the local video store. This was both expensive and risky as the processing laboratory might report the film to the police depending on their local laws.Īmateur pornography began to rapidly increase in the 1980s, with the camcorder revolution, when people began recording their sex lives and watching the results on VCRs. Home movies and videos īefore the advent of camcorders and VHS tapes couples had to film themselves using Super 8 film which then had to be sent for film processing. The result is now a small but growing amount of online amateur porn depicting underage models, created by the young people themselves. Images initially meant to be shared between couples can now be spread around the world. The general public has become more aware in recent years of the potential dangers to teenagers or children, who may be unaware of the consequences, using their camera phones to make videos and images which are then shared amongst their friends, as in sexting). A more private and easy to control method of sharing photos is through Yahoo or Google Groups which have access restricted to group members.
Photo sharing sites such as Flickr and social networking sites such as MySpace have also been used to share amateur pornographic photographs – usually nudes but also hardcore photos. Starting in the 1990s, pornographic images were shared and exchanged via online services such as America Online (AOL). It has also been argued that in the Internet age it has become more socially acceptable to make and view amateur porn. These have enabled people to take private photos and then share the images almost instantly, without the need for expensive distribution, and this has resulted in an ever-growing variety and quantity of material. One of the more significant increases in amateur pornographic photography came with the advent of the internet, image scanners, digital cameras, and more recently camera phones. The introduction of Polaroid cameras in 1948 allowed amateurs to self-produce pornographic photographs immediately and without the need for sending them to a film processor, who might have reported them as violations of obscenity laws.