History Main / TheRuleOfFirstAdopters

* Motion pictures seemed ready to follow the pattern until MoralGuardians of the period complained, leading to the establishment of MediaNotes/TheHaysCode.[[note]]A short story called [[http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/pierce.htm The Pierce Arrow Stalled, and...]] theorizes what Hollywood might have become had the trigger for said code being implemented never happened.[[/note]] Up to that point, though, early cinema was far more daring that most people might believe. For example, few remember that the glamorous star of the 1930s and 1940s, Creator/HedyLamarr,[[note]]''[[Film/BlazingSaddles That's Hedley!]]''[[/note]] initially became famous for doing topless and nude scenes in the 1933 Czech film ''Ecstasy''. It took the counterculture movement, and the advent of [[UsefulNotes/FrenchNewWave New Wave]] [[UsefulNotes/NewHollywood cinema]] in the 1960s, to rejuvenate the adult film industry.

* The UsefulNotes/HighDefinition train also is getting a delayed reception from the porn industry (yes, even them), mostly because they're busy making scads upon scads of money with the Internet, but also because many porn stars are afraid of [[GrossUpCloseUp previously-obscured imperfections and flaws becoming not just visible but spread across monster TV screens in ultra-high resolution]]. In fact, it's pretty much eliminated the "cowboy" shot, once standard in the porn business, as imitating the point of view of a man who is having sex with the woman on top with better video cameras means that those breast implant scars are really visible from that angle. It seems television will always be the exception to the rule.

* The rise of [[UsefulNotes/{{VCR}} home videotape machines]] has often been attributed to the availability of porn. Those wanting to watch it previously had to go to skeevy porno theaters, where everyone around them was doing exactly what you'd think people would be doing in a porno theater and the floors were [[{{Squick}} very sticky]], plus they ran the risk of being seen going into or coming out of the theater. Watching in private has got all sorts of obvious advantages that everyone jumped at. The porno theater industry keeled over and died. Sony refused to license Betamax to pornographers until it was too late to counter the foothold VHS had on the fledgling industry. [[http://message.snopes.com/showthread.php?t=2126 Read more about it here.]]

** History almost repeated itself in the UsefulNotes/HighDefinition DVD war between Sony's UsefulNotes/BluRay and Toshiba's HD-DVD. When reports indicated Sony was going to ban porn on Blu-ray too, the industry reaction was to predict Sony's loss. Sony eventually agreed to license Blu-ray for porn, even if it wouldn't advertise that fact much. It ended up winning the format war this time. Unlike with Betamax, Sony isn't the sole owner of Blu-ray and instead is one of many partners in the Blu-Ray Disc Association. Sony could not actually ban Blu-ray pornography, but in the early, critical days, they held a de facto monopoly on Blu-ray manufacturing (Being the first to have large-scale production facilities), and did not peddle their services to the adult media industry.

** Few people remember it these days, but the same dynamic played out in the UsefulNotes/LaserDisc vs. UsefulNotes/{{CED}} [=VideoDisc=] battle in the early 1980s as well. RCA maintained a tight grip on CED manufacturing (there were only 2 plants in the world capable of making CED discs), and a handful of softcore, ''barely''-above-"R"-rated ''Playboy Video Centerfold'' discs were as far as they were willing to go into that territory (see also this [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpwZxC2Cz2g "internal use only" test disc]] featuring a stripper). [=LaserDiscs=], on the other hand... Although only a niche market in the the US, Europe, and Australia; [=LaserDiscs=] [[GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff were the dominant video medium]] in Japan, Hong Kong, and affluent areas of southeast Asia such as Singapore, until the new millennium. Also, by the time it came out, video cassette recorders were already established.

Supposedly, the first group of content providers to colonize a new medium once it becomes commercially viable will almost always be the producers of adult-oriented material -- that is, UsefulNotes/{{pornography}}.

* One of the first third-party supplements to be produced and sold when ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' owner Creator/WizardsOfTheCoast developed the Open Game License[[note]]essentially declaring the UsefulNotes/D20System and the core ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragonsThirdEdition'' rulebooks to be open-source[[/note]] was ''The Book of Erotic Fantasy'', which is exactly what it sounds like: a gameplay and gamemastering manual for R- and X-rated adventuring. The same creative team later made a new version for ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'' called ''The Book of Passion''.

* {{Hentai}}. An actual strange case, hentai actually ''precedes'' the {{anime}} forms most Westerners are familiar with; the Rule of First Adopters applies to anime in microcosm as it's applied to individual series, with often the first adaptations of successful anime or manga series being pornographic "retellings." Hentai even ''subverts'' this trope, as popular hentai anime, manga, or video game series [[BleachedUnderpants are then turned into]] more "MoralGuardian-friendly" adaptations.

* Motion pictures seemed ready to follow the pattern until MoralGuardians of the period complained, leading to the establishment of UsefulNotes/TheHaysCode.[[note]]A short story called [[http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/pierce.htm The Pierce Arrow Stalled, and...]] theorizes what Hollywood might have become had the trigger for said code being implemented never happened.[[/note]] Up to that point, though, early cinema was far more daring that most people might believe. For example, few remember that the glamorous star of the 1930s and 1940s, Creator/HedyLamarr,[[note]]''[[Film/BlazingSaddles That's Hedley!]]''[[/note]] initially became famous for doing topless and nude scenes in the 1933 Czech film ''Ecstasy''. It took the counterculture movement, and the advent of [[UsefulNotes/FrenchNewWave New Wave]] [[UsefulNotes/NewHollywood cinema]] in the 1960s, to rejuvenate the adult film industry.

-->'''Kevin:''' Now, if you recall that whole hullabaloo where Hollywood was split into schisms, some studios backing Blu-ray disc, others backing HD DVD. People thought it would come down to pixel rate or refresh rate, and they're pretty much the same. What it came down to was a combination between gamers and porn. Now, whichever format porno backs is usually the one that becomes the uh most successful. But, you know, Sony, every UsefulNotes/PlayStation3 has a Blu-ray in it.\\

*** However, again, it is probable that other factors were more important than porn; Sony notably made the UsefulNotes/PlayStation3 an affordable Blu-ray player, which helped to popularize the format and their console. Indeed, this was a repeat of what happened with the UsefulNotes/PlayStation2, which could double as a DVD player and was often purchased as a cheap alternative to a dedicated DVD player.

* It's not too uncommon of an occurrence for people to take pictures of their genitals as their first photo on the Game Boy Camera, or on its SpiritualSuccessor in the UsefulNotes/DSi. With the 3DS on the market now (with its novel and unique 3D camera), people will ensure that it fits this trope.

* The UsefulNotes/{{PlayStation 4}} was launched with the ability to create video streams, supported by twitch.tv. About three days later, people realized they could use its Playroom app to create live non-gaming stream shows. Three ''hours'' after they discovered that, people began engaging in sex acts undaunted, to the amusement of stream monsters.

** When the UsefulNotes/OculusRift was introduced, authors scrambled to figure out who would be one of the first to find a different use for it. One of the first articles? A man hooking up a rift to a mechanical rig to simulate sex with UsefulNotes/MikuMikuDance models.

* The pornographic game ''Sinful Robot'' was one of the earliest games developed for the UsefulNotes/OculusRift.

* ''Webcomic/HijinksEnsue'' brings up the Holodeck quite wonderfully [[http://hijinksensue.com/2008/04/25/later-he-changed-the-name-to-holodeck right here]]. ([[{{NSFW}} Not entirely safe for work,]] but good for a laugh.) Turns out they had to change the name.

** When the UsefulNotes/OculusRift was introduced, authors scrabmled to figure out who would be one of the first to find a different use for it. One of the first articles? A man hooking up a rift to a mechanical rig to simulate sex with UsefulNotes/MikuMikuDance models.

* Averted with TV in TheFifties, largely because government watchdog groups cracked down on obscene material from the start. Softcore pornography can be seen on late-night premium cable channels like Creator/{{Cinemax}}, and hardcore porn can be found on pay-per-view, but those are exceptions that prove the rule -- those venues don't have to answer to pressure from {{media watchdog}}s or advertisers.

** More importantly, the anime/manga ecosphere gets quite a bit of talent from the doujinsphere, which is very often populated with hentai doujins of popular anime/manga. Other pornographic authors, such as eromangaka that make original comics for magazines, also get work for relatively SFW ([[{{Ecchi}} or at least borderline]]) series.

* Appears in-universe in ''Magicnet''--the titular Internet replacement was built off a forum for occultists, but the moment they realized how convincingly it could simulate reality, they immediately started creating virtual simulations of boyfriends and girlfriends. The system administrator turns out to have an entire harem of nonexistent women at his beck and call.

* It's older than that too. Note nudes in art and people have got to have been the bodies for all those naked Greek statues.

* It didn't take long for players to make [[{{Ecchi}} sexually-suggestive]] microgames for ''[[VideoGame/WarioWare WarioWare D.I.Y.]]'', which led people to joke that the game is the first from Creator/{{Nintendo}} to feature porn.

[[folder:Film]]

* Researchers in Germany found an [[http://news.sciencemag.org/paleontology/2009/05/earliest-pornography ivory statuette]] of over 35,000 years old, one of -- if not ''the'' -- oldest pieces of art found. It's of a female figure with extremely exaggerated [[GagBoobs breasts]] and a detailed, enlarged vulva.

** More than one old art master dabbled in depicting the favorite bedtime activity of all. Along with ''The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife'' mentioned above, Japan has ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shunga Shunga]]'' as a classical genre, there's an etching of Rembrandt van Rijn depicting a couple mid-coitus, and Leonardo Da Vinci made a sketch of the act in cross-section as part of his anatomical drawings.