PLEASURE POINTS ·
PLEASURE POINTS ·
Pleasure Points (2019) is a journey exploring California’s pleasure product industry; sex doll workshops, family-run dildo factories and virtual reality porn sets. It shines light on the way people take control of their sex lives and sexual identities—choosing where, how and when they get their sexual satisfaction. The series documents the diversity, but also the creativity and technology behind the products created.
At the factory of Doc Johnson, 450 employees produce around 75,000 dildos, vibrators, masturbators, butt plugs and more every week. Produced with increasing connectivity, couples can control each others’ products remotely, allowing interaction over long distances.
At the RealDoll workshop around 30 sex dolls are created per month. Each is completely customisable—from hair, to lips, to nipples, to vagina (there are more than 10 types), some have robotic heads and can interact with their owner. " ... a lot of people are lonely," explains Jeff, who works in the workshop. "They want somebody there, you know, they've lost their wives or boyfriends, girlfriends."
Technology is also playing its part in the porn world. VR Bangers produces highly immersive virtual reality porn shot in a 180-degree point-of-view (POV) angle. In this scenario users wear a headset and can look around as if they are in the room as the star of the show.
With these products more people are gaining control of a part of their life that up til now has been dependent on a relationship with another human.
The RealDoll workshop in San Marcos, California, where 20-30 fully customisable sex dolls are made by hand every month
A robotic head at the RealDoll robot workshop in San Marcos
Lip options for the RealDoll dolls and robots
"The whole mouth comes out for cleaning, but the tongue actually has four sides. You can do a fat tongue down, fat tongue up, skinny tongue up, skinny tongue down. You know, like she's licking her lips or whatever. But they all come with the flexible teeth and tongue."
Anjani Hunaman, the Columbian artist that has sculpted the Doc Johnson sex toys for 20 years. "Most of those pieces over there, I have done most of them by hand out of my imagination."
The factory floor at Doc Johnson in Los Angeles, where 450 employees produce 75,000 “pleasure products” per week
Pornstar Katie Morgan with her travelling suitcase of outfits
"It's definitely takes a certain kind of guy that can be able to keep that party going without the eye contact ... it is definitely more acting than regular porn, because you don't get that, I don't want to say romantic connection, but you don't even get that, right? Like that spark that you can't look at the person. They're not there. They're just a camera." John Strong and Katie Morgan performing in "Cable Guy" by VR Bangers
