Popperbate: video collage, vernacular creativity and the scripting of the gay pornographic body

ABSTRACT

In this article I explore the contemporary amateur practice of making ‘popper training’ videos. These examples of amateur gay porn, usually circulated via porn aggregators such as Xtube, constitute what might be described as video collages that repurpose a range of found sources including commercial moving-image gay porn, still images, text and music. The resulting videos are designed for the express purpose of aiding a form of masturbation often described as ‘edging’, fuelled by amyl nitrate use, into a pursuit that is elevated to the status of a competitive training activity, known by its practitioners as ‘popperbating’. I argue that these popperbate videos, which function as examples of what Jean Burgess has described as ‘vernacular creativity’, construct masturbation as an activity that might be regarded as ‘productive leisure’. The intention of this article is to contextualize this creative practice and to provide some tentative conceptual orientations to situate popperbate videos and for the analysis of the textual qualities of the videos, and to discuss the sexual scripting that they produce.

KEYWORDS:

• Gay pornography
• amateur porn
• sexual scripting
• video collage
• productive leisure
• neoliberalism
• popperbating

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. See http://www.pornhub.com/view_video.php?viewkey=ph56f3bec18516d (accessed December 16, 2016).

2. See online for examples (http://www.xtube.com/video-watch/BareBreeder-Popper-Trainer-Getting-Trained-v2-25285182 (accessed December 16, 2016); http://www.xtube.com/video-watch/Poppers-Trainer-FSCRN-28118261 (accessed December 16, 2016); http://www.xtube.com/video-watch/Daddy-s-Popper-Training-28879261 (accessed December 16, 2016); and http://www.xtube.com/video-watch/POPPER-TRAINER-TRIPLE-DOSE-26340811 (accessed December 16, 2016) and discussion of popperbating practice and popperbate videos (http://fagsonlove.tumblr.com/ (accessed December 16, 2016); http://www.reddit.com/r/popperpigs/comments/4e78vt/my_favorite_popperbate_trainer_videos_for_now/ (accessed December 16, 2016); https://www.reddit.com/r/popperpigs/comments/3h450p/how_do_you_popperbate/ (accessed December 16, 2016); and https://www.thumbzilla.com/gay/video/search?q=popper-bate (accessed December 16, 2016); http://hottiebxl.tumblr.com/ (accessed December 16, 2016).

3. See, for example, http://www.xtube.com/video-watch/Popperbating-on-Cam-with-the-from-BW-20093962 and http://www.xtube.com/video-watch/Popperbating-to-Porn-12452151 (accessed December 16, 2016).

4. There is perhaps a parallel, albeit tenuous, connection between the material that I discuss in this article and the repurposing of existing mainstream footage that Noah Tsika (2016) discusses in his essay ‘Blue Transfusions: Internet Porn and the Pirating of Queer Cinema’s Sex Scenes’ for this special issue.

5. It is naturally enough difficult to assess the number of popperbate/popper training videos in circulation. However, searches reveal that as of January 2017 well over 17,000 Xtube videos are tagged with the keywords ‘popperbate’ or ‘popper training’ (Xtube remaining the ‘market leader’ for amateur porn), with smaller numbers at Pornhub (1212 videos) and Xvideos (325 videos). Hundreds of Tumblr sites use popperbate/popperbator/popper training as titles and a search of Reddit yields over 5000 results. These searches disregard associated terms relating to masturbation practices such as ‘edging’, ‘bating’ or ‘gooning’ which produce even larger results but do not relate precisely to my object of study in this article.

6. See http://www.pornhub.com/view_video.php?viewkey=ph57d6a9d34393c (accessed December 16, 2016).

7. See http://www.xtube.com/video-watch/Poppers-Machine-Interactive-trainer-19379712 (accessed December 16, 2016).

8. See http://www.pornhub.com/view_video.php?viewkey=ph58344e2f4d8bd&t=0&utm_source=www.myvidster.com&utm_medium=embed&utm_campaign=embed-logo-html5 (accessed December 16, 2016).

9. See http://www.pornhub.com/view_video.php?viewkey=ph5696a93de64e9 (accessed December 16, 2016).

10. See http://www.xtube.com/video-watch/Popper-trainer-compilation-for-popperbators-only-male-25990081 (accessed December 16, 2016).

11. I would draw readers to this specific example that is less effective in its execution and realization, in part at least because of the use of classical music as accompaniment. This seems to some extent at least to reference the history of gay pornographic cinema echoing the use of classical music in the films of Wakefield Poole. See http://www.xtube.com/video-watch/21-salute-poppers-training-reload-25714791 (accessed December 16, 2016).

12. See http://www.xtube.com/video-watch/POPPER-TRAINER-The-Second-Cumming-26426911 (accessed December 16, 2016).

13. See http://www.xtube.com/video-watch/POPPER-TRAINER-Triple-Shot-Trailer-27372281 (accessed December 16, 2016).

14. See online discussions of the various failings of commercial porn: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/9qvto/have_you_become_bored_of_internet_porn/ (accessed December 16, 2016); https://www.reddit.com/r/AskMen/comments/1v0nrn/do_you_ever_get_tiredbored_with_porn_in_general/ (accessed December 16, 2016); http://sabotagetimes.com/sex/10-reasons-im-bored-porn (accessed December 16, 2016); https://www.datalounge.com/thread/12924565-why-is-gay-porn-so-boring (accessed December 16, 2016); and http://www.justusboys.com/forum/threads/145465-Gay-porn-is-BORING (accessed December 16, 2016).

15. See http://www.pornhub.com/view_video.php?viewkey=ph576871c90e411 (accessed December 16, 2016).

16. See http://www.xtube.com/video-watch/Poppers-Experience-Massive-Intense-Orgasm-27393541 (accessed December 16, 2016).

17. There are many examples, such as: http://www.xtube.com/video-watch/Wank-the-Night-Away-Popper-Training-with-Binaural-Rhythms-29100481 (accessed December 16, 2016).

18. See http://www.xtube.com/video-watch/Poppers-Training-Interactive-Video-Extreme-Progressive-26327481 (accessed December 16, 2016) and http://www.xtube.com/video-watch/Poppers-Experience-Massive-Intense-Orgasm-27393541 (accessed December 16, 2016).

19. See http://www.xtube.com/video-watch/BareBreeder-Popper-Trainer-Jock-Transformation-24864691 (accessed December 16, 2016).

20. See http://www.xtube.com/video-watch/BATETOPIA-29382881 (accessed December 16, 2016).

21. See http://www.pornhub.com/view_video.php?viewkey=ph56ed688d93118 (accessed December 16, 2016).