What’s the first thing that comes to mind when we think of porn? Depending on the era and generation, the image may vary. In its most stereotypical form, the word “porn” evokes the image of VHS tapes with over-the-top titles, scenes and storylines that are often mere pretexts, now turned into memes like the famous "Help me stepbro, I’m stuck," or, in the words of former porn star Elena Grimaldi: "If you ask a hundred men, the common porn imagery is the plumber. But when the hell has a plumber ever come to your house and you started having sex? The real imagery is the construction worker. But also a tall, blonde American with fake boobs in a dreamy mansion with a pool." Porn, in fact, is also that—especially in the era of major platforms like Pornhub, where 90s pornographic films have been atomized into individual scenes, changing the very nature of the pornographic genre, its production, and most importantly, its consumption. Today, things are even more different. Alongside the professional porn industry, a new one has emerged: OnlyFans, which in just a few years has become even more disruptive than the traditional industry, growing so quickly that it has already reached saturation.

Now, in its relentless evolution, it is beginning to coexist more or less peacefully with the professional porn world, separated from it by an increasingly permeable barrier. Everything changes so that everything stays the same, in a way, or as OnlyFans creator Annalisa Oddone, known as Annalisa Atomic Blonde, told us: "Sex and sexual pleasure services and jobs have been around forever: they are becoming more and more digitalized, but they will never end. The excitement of paying and playing sexually with someone unknown is part of human nature." In fact, anyone looking to trace the history of this type of media would find that it has no true beginning but is as old as humanity itself. Nevertheless, sex on screen does have a starting point: it is generally marked as 1972 with the release of Deep Throat by Gerard Damiano, the first porn film with a storyline. Its release marked the beginning of a phenomenon that, rather than a straightforward history, has undergone a surprising and multifaceted evolution. And that is precisely what we are about to explore.