By strange coincidence, just after my previous post on Kink.com and their famous San Francisco studios, this article popped up in my news feed – End Of An Era: Kink.com To Stop Filming In Its Famous Porn Dungeon.
It seems that this change was triggered, in part at least, by a combination of falling revenue and the difficulty in maximizing use of the Armory building. Less people are buying porn and mainstream companies don’t like to share space with famous kinky porn studios. The new approach will be to keep just the kink.com offices in the Armory, making it easier to lease/repurpose the remaining space, and then spread the filming to other sets and studios. Given the high cost of San Francisco rent, that may mean directors building their own facilities in LA or Vegas.
I certainly wouldn’t hold kink.com up as an exemplar for femdom porn. Their shoots tend to play to a lot of the classic femdom stereotypes. High in leather, snarling and sneering. Low in emotional connection, sensuality and fun. They’ve also had allegations of workplace mistreatment. However, all that said, I am sad to hear they’re no longer going to be shooting at the armory. It always seemed amazing that a kink dedicated company could buy a run such a big and impressive property in one of the most expensive cities in America. I can remember when kinky material was obscure, hard to find and (frequently) cheaply shot. Now we have dedicated riggers and set designers putting together complex scenes and fiendish equipment in a huge army building in the middle of SF. For me that building was a physical embodiment of kinks transition from obscurity to mainstream success.
I hope their new approach will allow them to stay viable. If you like their stuff, then now would obviously be a good time to subscribe. Femdom is a lot lot more than humiliation, pain and fancy bondage, but there’s no reason those elements can’t also be some part of it, and kink.com often did a pretty good job on them
These two shots are of Claire Adams and EuroSex from the old Men in Pain channel.
I like the idea of kink.com, it’s just for all their sites, there’s still a fake kink.com feel that I don’t love. I always liked the feel of a lot of insex videos, but somehow insexm didn’t have the same creativity and feel.
The feel you get from this kind of stuff is an interesting aspect of it. I think in some ways there’s kind of an uncanny valley effect. You either want to be really fake or very real. In between seems kind of weird.
I know what you mean about kink.com. Femdom Empire (to pick an example) seems a lot more fake, but it’s also kind of comfortable to roll with that and play in that fake space. Kink.com structures scenes more like genuine play, but the shooting style and performers never quite seem to have the naturalness to make it believable. Insex did have higher intensity and a more real feel. I liked insexm, but yes, it didn’t carry quite the energy of the parent site.
-paltego