The Color Spectrum, Arousal, and Porn's Future

Sexual arousal is an imprecise science. From our kinks to turn-offs, a search through how HotMovies categorizes its ever-growing database of over 200,000 films (with five times as many clipped scenes available) denotes that the achievement of pleasure is truly a boundless activity. However, what if there were a way to re-assess pornography to discover something that worked for the most significant percentage of people as much as possible? In studying the history of color as a tool of how arousal is inspired, there’s a story that emerges in how regardless of what is happening or who is doing it, how it looks may matter more.

Crucial to this idea is the fact that, just like a color wheel, arousal is best considered as a spectrum. Colors and hues play an essential role in inspiring sexual thoughts and actions. In a 2018 Vice article entitled, “These People See Colors and Taste Flavors When They Orgasm,” the idea that red hearts stand for love and purple eggplant emojis indicate erections meets synesthesia—experiencing one sense through another.

In the article, Connie Arlanda, a 37-year-old from Vermont, recalls how sex, colors, and pleasure commingle in her head.

“My eyes were closed, and I started to see a light pinkish-orange oval shape in front of me, like a sunrise. The oval was swelling and expanding like a balloon being slowly inflated…a few seconds later, the oval shape burst, and I had a powerful orgasm. My vagina clamped down on his dick hard enough to push him out. And I saw an explosion of colors as I rode out the orgasm.”

Colors matter.

Ideally, if thinking about this from a cinematic standpoint, the idea that seeing one color that stokes passion for sex is used in one scene, then, perhaps following with another scene where the color almost certainly guarantees some manner of intercourse or auto-erotic stimulation, is ideal.

Porn’s historical work with hues to connote both nuance and simplicity has created a modern scenario where color should be considered the most direct of many instruments of sparking desire.

1972’s Behind the Green Door is vital to consider. Green is regarded as a powerful mental stimulant. The color used in the marketing (known as green leaf and “faux sap” green) plays directly to notions of nature and healing. Blend that with a photo of ex Ivory Soap model Marilyn Chambers being included as the lead star. It’s a magical combination.

Behind the Green Door

Dig into scientific research regarding color, and the idea our brains have already been significantly aroused by marketing, regardless of anything that happened on-screen, becomes apparent.

The 2019-released scientific study, “Differences in Color Categorization Manifested by Males and Females: a Quantitative World Color Survey Study” notes that there is rare agreement across gender in the idea that the color green has the most broadly eye-catching appeal. If rumored earnings of Behind the Green Door’s initial run are actual, its net revenue was over 800 times its budget.

Green is as arousing as it is lucrative.

Following such incredible success, attempts to explore the lusher end of the color spectrum with an eye for high art yielded the work of acclaimed director Radley Metzger (Score, The Opening of Misty Beethoven), who notes in a 2013 interview that “decadent” displays of color that “would not bore crowds” were essential.

Score
The Opening of Misty Beethoven

Couple this notion with years of Valentine’s Day marketing and gender-specific male-to-female sexual conversations having limited the sexual arousal spectrum—from a commercial standpoint to somewhere between red and pink. As well, note that pornography’s ever-present desire to dive into fetish most often invokes black leather and latex. Plus, add in 70s pop culture loving “earth tones” like green, brown, and gold.

Thus, the Golden Age of Pornography can be best seen as a conversation between intense (red), aphrodisiac-driven (earth tones), and mysterious (black) romantic (pink) encounters.

On the back of lushly shot films that erred in the direction of a broad, diverse array of a multitude of colors used to evoke high art and idyllic romance, the porn industry became a multi-billion dollar industry in short order.

However, how the onset of the mass-marketed and mass-produced VHS and DVD ages both exploded and devalued art and color in porn should be considered. Between 1969 and 1984, the dynamic range of color able to be shot on camera dramatically lessened. In addition, the width of film commonly used for shooting dropped by 77% in that era (35mm to 8mm), which reduced the dramatic range of high-contrast images showcased.

The video era that followed showcased that though film quality did not lessen desires, the half-life for our arousal had lowered significantly. Color—as previously noted—plays a role here, too.

By the 1990s, auteurs like the Dark brothers (New Wave Hookers) made films for two classes of people: smart people and stupid people, as Gregory Dark bluntly states in a 2007 interview. As a director, he’s displayed the youthful sexuality in everyone from Traci Lords to Britney Spears (Dark later became a music video director). His ability to maintain decadence, but divorce it from high art was important. However, their use of period and era-friendly neon and colors that were less dynamic and lacked contrast—due to mainly shooting for VHS and DVD releases—carried a stigma.

New Wave Hookers

In 2016, The American Academy of Pediatrics published, “National Trends in the Prevalence and Treatment of Depression in Adolescents and Young Adults,” which notes that blue-light derived colors (read as “neon”) can disrupt our brain’s photoreceptors. This action directly contributes to “disordered” moods, which can spur increased hypersexuality. Increased sex that lacks pronounced nuance can be physically great, but potentially psychologically traumatizing.

Note that six New Wave Hookers films volumes were released between 1985 and 2000.

Even more intriguing than the use of neon is the use of a more basic range of colors in these films. If color and arousal are both set on a spectrum, limiting that spectrum directly impacts the possible type of porn-inspired sexual experiences. The interplay of, for instance, black leather, pink latex, and red satin strike a different chord in this scenario.

New Wave Hookers orgy scene
New Wave Hookers orgy scene
New Wave Hookers orgy scene
New Wave Hookers orgy scene

The evolution of pornography from a film-driven marketplace with broad appeal to a quickly-produced retail item used for more direct and intense (less purely passionate) appeal—as defined in a conversation about colors, porn, and arousal—has a clear correlation.

Fast forward to the modern-day, and the depth and scope of a site like HotMovies, both hosting classic and current erotica, is noteworthy. From the luster and dynamics of color ranges in the Golden Era to the VHS, DVD, and now click-driven digital age offering smaller ranges of colors over a greater breadth of desires; it’s all here. But as far as colors that could lead the next wave of where this heads, there are two: blue and purple.

Eight times in the past decade (periwinkle, blue, coral, rose, tranquil blue, ultraviolet, marsala, orchid), Pantone has named natural shades of blue and purple as their Color of the Year. Blue is a color that is stereotypically linked to stability and trust. As for purple, it has a strong association with emotion and lavishness. In an era beset by social, economic, physical, and emotional doubt, porn mirroring Pantone and pushing for more shoots inspiring lavish displays of emotion could lead to premium experiences short, long, kinky, more traditional, and otherwise.

Southern California man Langdon Parks’ seven-year-old and appropriately-titled Purple-Red Scale of Attraction expands the conversation regarding where porn heads as a hybrid of classic and modern concepts occupy shared space.

Purple is also a color that connotes community amongst asexual people, while red, to Parks, identifies as “red-blooded.” Therefore, the scale that emerges delves into discovering asexual to hypersexual desires, plus bi-to-pansexuality. Similar to Alfred Kinsey’s famous 1948-invented scale, the Purple-Red ranking identifies people’s levels of same-or opposite-sex attraction with a number from zero to six (zero being exclusively straight, six being exclusively gay), plus it also lets someone label how they experience the attraction on a scale of A to F. Its standard of intentional inclusivity is a roadmap.

As for blue, sites that aggregate the porn industry’s output are rising. A site with blue as a backdrop—like HotMovies—stands to serve as a constant in a marketplace driven by a need for calm and strength.

Ultimately, a porn industry that shoots and designs—whether on film, video or digital means—with purples and blues at the front, not unlike green five decades ago, has incredible potential to continue the industry’s evolutionary roller coaster.


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