By “softcore nude male erotica” I refer to videos showing naked men, sometimes erect but no cum shots and no gay sex. Do you guys think there would be a market for this type of content? Is there enough of an audience to make it profitable?
There are few examples I can think of. I believe the All American Guys site has some nude/no sex content. And is Athletic Model Guild still around? They were one of the first that made that sort of erotica.
I actually find this type of content very appealing so I’m wondering if I’m alone in this or if enough people would pay for it to make it a viable business model.
I think there is, you’re definitely not the only one. Reaching the right audience is probably difficult, but that’s the case with most niches.
I believe that MaleModel.nl is still going strong and I love what they are doing. The Full English did not survive, but one of my old sites still get a lot of SE traffic from people searching for their site and/or models.
Maybe you should check Reddit or forums to find people who find it appealing and try to find out whether they would ever pay for such content.
Male Model sells well. Dylan Rosser had The Male Form for a while and that sold really well. Himeros has had some great sales on our network… softcore-ish.
English Lads might be the better model to follow - softcore only outside the members area and the sales just keep rolling in.
I forgot to mention another trailblazer in this niche, Sharpshooter Studios. I used to love their VHS videos and DVDs showing off guys, mostly male strippers, totally nude and aroused. Looks like their website is still active but not sure if they’re producing new content.
My impression is that the marketing of erotica and softcore porn is very different than the marketing of hardcore porn. Is there a market? There seems to be, but from what I’ve seen it revolves around the photographers making a name for themselves. How they actually make money baffles me. I’m not sure who pays them for their work.
The only photographer I know even somewhat well is Stanley Stellar (Instagram, Facebook). He photographed me twice a long time ago. Back in the day when porn magazines were big he did shoots and sold them to Mavety and the other publishers, and he did more artistic/soft shoots on the side. So he published a coffee table book of his artistic/erotic work back then. And these days he still has the occasional gallery show. I’m sure he makes some money off those sorts of things, but I can’t imagine it’s enough to pay for his loft on N. Moore Street in TriBeCa even if he did move in decades ago when it was cheap. So I’m not sure where the bulk of his money comes from. I’m guessing he now lives off retirement savings.
But there are more current photographers following in the same vein (e.g. Nick Mesh). While j/o mags funded the prior generation of phogotraphers, like Stanley, when they were at their peak, I’m not sure what the primary source of income is for current day erotic photographers like Nick Mesh. Does he do mainstream commercial work and just do the erotica on the side? He’s got an OnlyFans page, but I doubt that gives him enough money to live comfortably.
Honestly I’d love to better understand how the money flows in softcore / erotica, 'cause I don’t really get it.
In my time writing for GayBodyBlog over the years I’ve seen numerous photographers who straddle the line between mainstream photography (fashion and editorials etc) and erotica and softcore. A good example of that is Rick Day. I think a lot of them make their money primarily in the mainstream business but produce books and calendars to support their passion project.
I think they’re different from the photographers who produce content for sites like FitYoungMen (EnglishLads’ second site) or Bodytorium. They’re sustaining their work through subscription payment. But again, it does require their name getting out there, and that’s where social media and blogging comes in. I’ve written content for Bodytorium (it really is great photography) and it’s promoted by sponsored blog posts and via social media.
There is a market for it, but I can only assume it’s harder to reach it.
If the guys today are largely fashion photographers who do erotica on the side, then what I’m seeing make a bit more sense. The erotica today is overly produced and very “pretty” (both the guys and the settings). Earlier erotica, done by the guys who made their money from the j/o magazines, was much more “raw”. Just taking Stanley Stellar as an example, his passion was street photography. Early on he took a lot of photos of guys on the Christopher Street Pier â do dirty, abandoned industrial settings, or the dirty streets of 1970s NY. Then later he documented guys during the AIDS crisis (watch documentary), but there were no trendy bathrooms, or designer beds with fluffy pillows â usually it was just something like a wooden chair, or a desk, or something else incredibly simple.
I think social media has opened this market back up - a huge new market for body worship, but it isn’t marketed the same way. On social media platforms, softcore is all you can promote. When I look at a lot of the user-submitted content on Sticky, it’s non-sexual. It can be graphic, full nude, but it’s about the model more than the action.
I agree, there’s a lot of male erotica out there today that’s not dissimilar from what you’d expect to see in an editorial in a mainstream fashion or fitness magazine, there’s just a dick out. It’s the same color wall, the same props, the same perfect lighting and airbrushing.
There are a few photographers who stand out from that crowd, though. Paul Freeman is one of the best examples. I think his most famous shoots so far have been of naked Aussie men. It’s romanticized, the models aren’t in familiar surroundings and it’s not spontaneous, but it’s far more interesting to me than a lot of the naked guys posing in a studio.
Then we have guys like Bad JohnPaul. Just discovered him recently and he seems to be from the LA school of erotica (drugs, dirt and rock and roll kind of thing). What I’ve seen of his work so far is interesting and kind of reminds me of what we saw from Benjamin Godfre and Starrfucker years ago. I think he started out with the same kind of boring color wall/models dick out kind of thing but he’s recently been mixing performance art into his work. It’s pretty edgy stuff from what I’ve seen.
I personally love the combination of male erotica in industrial environments, I guess what you might call a cruisy aesthetic, but there’s not a lot of it out there.
I’m not sure what the primary source of income is for current day erotic photographers like Nick Mesh.
I’m a big fan of Nick’s work although I have not purchased any of his items or joined his OnlyFans page yet. From what I can tell he has really nailed the way to monetize his work. Besides the standard books and calendars most photographers sell, Nick sells just about every other kind of merchandise you can imagine… coffee mugs, t-shirts, posters, mouse pads, even shower curtains! I have no idea if he makes a profit on all this but he seems to have no trouble attracting super hot bodybuilder models so who knows.
Seems everyone forgot to mention Playgirl, who were the pioneers of this kind of content. I know Playgirl still does very well. It is important to consider women as customers as well if you are going to create this kind of content, which I believe is about half of Playgirl’s fan base.