What it's like to describe porn for a blind audience.
Love descriptive language! The mind is the best sex organ.
“The video begins with a small Latina with dirty-blond hair lying face down on a massage table with nothing but a small towel covering her ass,” the voice-over for one video explains. Another describes an actress: “Black hair, lots of makeup, and squeezing a nice, curvy figure into a tight blue dress.” You can probably imagine where they go from there."
This video script was written by a woman with a Ph.D. and a background in art history. She wrote 25 scripts for Pornhub videos in 2016 alone.
"I really came at it more from the angle of my art history background, because in art history, image description is essential," she said. "One of the ways we’re asked to think about writing a description of a work of art is literally to describe it for someone who can’t see, so I had that experience in visual description and analysis."
"Mostly the art history background helped with choosing what to say, which aspects to describe. Obviously, you can’t describe everything, so it requires a kind of selectiveness. The challenge is to capture the right balance of inclusion and exclusion and creating the right mood."
Far Too Clinical
"This actually wasn’t the first time that porn for the blind had been attempted, but they told me the problem with previous attempts was the way it had been approached, which was far too clinical. You know, there’s a time and a place for clinical language about sex and bodies, but porn is not that place.
"For instance, 'He inserts his penis into the other man’s mouth. The second man sucks on the first man’s penis for 42 seconds.' That’s not going to make a lot of people come.
"So yes, Pornhub did offer language guidelines to me, and I definitely had to use casual language, sexy language, pornographic language. It was one of the only times in my life I spent looking for synonyms for wet pussy or thick cock."
p.s. I have never watched online porn because it objectifies and degrades women.
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That's interesting that they were doing this in 2016. Didn't they just recently have someone sue them for lack of accessibility because they don't have subtitles on their videos - or only a very few? Turns out that Google has the ability to do very good automated speech to text - if you have an Android phone you can turn off the volume on turn on "Live Caption" [1] and it will do it's thing using just processing power on your phone - so without sending any data to Google. If you habitually have your phone muted it can be pretty handy.
Not sure what "Live Caption" would do with a porn video - they aren't generally known for scintillating dialog. Maybe just having people subtitle it with completely made up dialog that is scintillating or captivating could be a fun alternative - like a text version of "Bad Lip Reading" [2] or that kids TV show from the 70s "The Magic Roundabout" [3] where they took the French original "Le Manège Enchanté" (get your mind out of the gutter, it's a manège not a ménage) and recorded a new voice over sometimes with a completely different story to fit the visuals.
[1] - [cnet.com]
[2] - [en.wikipedia.org]
[3] - [bbc.com]
[4] - [en.wiktionary.org]
[5] - [en.wiktionary.org]
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prometheus
Level 7
Feb 27, 2020
0
Maybe if you differentiate between porn and erotica. As sex is healthy, many people find sexual fantasy helpful it keeping it interesting. Erotica can be sensually pleasing. The porn some find offensive, that reinforces objectifying women, or glorifies non-consensual acts, is the viewer’s fantasy, not everyone’s. Thankfully, statically there is no correlation between porn viewing and rape, or violent video games and crime, or we’d all be victims.
NJSnarky
Level 6
Feb 25, 2020
1
I have been told by men that I should write sexy books. I am sensuous, articulate and a descriptive writer and speaker.
But I don't want to support the porn industry. Romance novels are vacuous and boring.
Funnily, I also have a background in art history.
LiterateHiker
Level 9
Feb 20, 2020
0
what made you interested in this topic if you do not watch porn though? Was it recommended to you by someone or by a news agency? 
demifeministgal
Level 8
Feb 19, 2020
1
@ToolGuy I guess I was wondering how she came across said article? Did she search for it specifically as a topic? Or was it recommended?
How interesting! I can not imagine what they see in their minds if they have never actually seen blue, or body parts!
GreatNani
Level 8
Feb 19, 2020
2
What you imagine in your mind is a construct from sensory input... so why should it be any different?
I believe that the only way this is possible is to be as descriptive as possible which is hard to do with someone who has vision. A vivid imagination would be needed to the one trying to describe it.
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