Watching My Neighbors Watch On-Demand TV

Josh Levin, Slate Magazine writes "I have a magical box that allows me to watch other people watch TV — their movies, their sports, their cartoons, and their hour-long procedural dramas. And sometimes, usually around 11:30 on Friday nights, their soft-core pornography... I solved the mystery by consulting online message boards. At techie sites like AVS Forum, other voyeurs described their adventures in freeloading. I was intercepting video-on-demand channels through the power of my Samsung's QAM tuner."

Comments

He's not watching his neighbors watch TV...

[reset_button]

...he's only watching what they're watching...

You'll go to jail for that

[Weaselmancer]

It's not exactly the same thing, but close enough. All it would take is a prick DA and an idiot judge. Neither are in short supply.

Did you people learn nothing from the internet?

[geekoid]

We you got something good, keep your yap shut.

Re:Plyboy has great articles

[Tweekster]

Actually playboy is great, if it werent for the naked pictures. If i want nudity i will get nudity, not airbrushed women that practically look like cartoons.

Why not encrypt VOD?

[mveloso]

Funny how the comcast spokesperson lies:

Cable encryption is done per channel, not per title. The problem is that Comcast's infrastructure is built on SeaChange, which is running Windows NT 4 (if I remember correctly). They just can't handle the load.

The other architectures (non-SeaChange) can handle encrypted VOD streams, but tend not to because the operator hasn't thought about it.

And lastly, encryption of VOD content is done by fiat from corporate - that's how the cable industry works. And that's exactly the kind of thing that corporate is for - to set systemwide policies like that.

Let's try this in geekier terms...

[cyberwench]

Think about things like slash and yaoi, which have been getting increasingly popular for women. They range from soft- to hard-core, and while a lot of them go for the emotional side of sex and relationships, there's no shortage of just straight sex. Ok, so "straight" is probably the wrong word. Or 'Queer as Folk' - huge female audience, and that's not because they identify with the single pair of lesbians. It's not guys writing all that Sparrow/Norrington or Aragorn/Faramir fiction out there.

Frankly, as a woman my issue with actual porn in general is the same issue I have with movies in general. They're poorly made, the good ones are few and far-between. And frankly, if you're talking about limiting the misery, hardcore films at least have sex to break up the bad acting/lighting/costuming/etc. I'd have to disagree that hardcore sex is inherently violent - it's simply graphic. Maybe you're watching the wrong ones? =) Try looking for hardcore that is marketed to women... it tends to be better, all around. Especially if what you're wanting is something your wife/girlfriend/fling will watch with you.

I suppose the point I really want to make is that women are very much like men in that they're individuals. If you think you're going to "understand" women like they are some sort of weird single organism, it's just not going to happen. Interest yourself in the individual and you're more than half there.

Re:Let's try this in geekier terms...

[Kokuyo]

Another evidence that it takes a woman posting on Slashdot to get an Insightful posting about women on Slashdot ;).

Re:Softcore porn....

[try_anything]

My theory is that the cumshot is a perfect combination of the following factors:

• The event is centered around the man's orgasm; the woman's role is to receive and appreciate. Considerations of her sexual functioning, which are highly anxiety-inducing, are completely absent.
  
• The cumshot can express either of the primary male fantasies of simple sex: that the woman is extremely eager, or that she is extremely submissive and compliant. The event centers around the woman's face, so her eagerness or misery is especially evident.
  
• Most women find it objectionable, which highlights the extraordinary sexual eagerness or submission a woman who receives it.
  
• The forcefulness and volume of the ejaculation is an easy measure of the quality of the act. A simple, concrete understanding of masculinity puts a man's mind at ease; subtlety makes him anxious. There's nothing less subtle than splattering a chick's face with a massive load. A bit of acting on the woman's part confirms the understanding.
  

Given all this, I understand why the cumshot is a staple device, rather than a fetish, but I am still surprised that there is no market for porn that is specifically guaranteed to be free of cumshots. I imagine it would be free of other things, too, but I'm not sure.

Complicating this is the fact that many women who enjoy porn have adapted to the porn model of sex, which skews the market. Some chicks, especially ones who grew up in repressive environments, have a lot of affection for pornography and associate it with their sexual emancipation. They interpret any criticism of mainstream pornography as a step down a slippery slope that ends in repression of female sexuality. They try hard to like cumshots and feel bad about not being able to "take it like a pro" through the back door. (They're also paranoid about people looking down on their sexuality. The smallest suspicion of judgment turns them into neurotic, inhibited wrecks. So no, just because I know this stuff does not mean I'm not the luckiest guy in the world.)