[Japanese porn film featuring a bicycle]
There is one surefire sign that bicycles are hot at the moment. It's not the coverage urban cycling is getting on tv networks or in mainstream newspapers and fashion magazines.
It's pornography. Increasing numbers of bicycle related porn films are being spotted on adult websites. You read it here first [but you probably noticed yourself, didn't you?] Once again, the adult film industry is a deciding factor in cultural and technological issues.
[Screen grab from another, more recent film featuring bicycles and a 'cyclist'.]
The adult film industry almost single-handedly killed of Beta in favour of VHS when they decided to back the latter format for the distribution of their films. Every time you view internet streaming and watch clips in the most popular formats, you can thank the porn industry for choosing them and therefore standardising how we view online content. The industry was a major factor in the rapid development of streaming technology and their choices of format killed off all the other competitors to mpeg and avi.
Most recently, the world awaited the porn industry's choice between HD-DVD or Blu-Ray.
So now there are bicycle porn films popping up. From the States but also from Japanese websites and producers. Like it or not, it's good for cycling. Well, probably. At the very least it is a little step towards removing the bike/sports geek factor from cycling and returning the bicycle to its rightful place as an inseparable part of our culture. If you can fuck on a bicycle, you can certainly pop down to the supermarket on it, or ride to work.
[Nobody said it was QUALITY porn...]
For too long the car industry has enjoyed its place in porn films, especially the cheesy online ones. Bimbo in silly heels bent over the hood of a Corvette or suchlike visual pandemonium. It's time the bicycle took its cultural market share.
We have a relaxed attitude towards porn here in Denmark. We were the first country to legalise it back in 1969 and, when U.S. video rental giant Blockbuster moved into the Danish market ten or so years ago by buying up a local chain, there were protests when they announced they would stop renting porn. The protests came from family groups, among others, who didn't fancy the company bringing the cultural morals of another country into ours.
Blockbuster caved in and Denmark is the only country where they rent adult erotica films in their shops. Whether or not Danish adult film producers are capitalising on the popularity of bicycle porn films in order to broaden their international market is unclear but it's some research I'm going to enjoy thoroughly.
Copenhagenize the Planet indeed.