Pioneers of Amateur Porn
Tuesday, October 18th, 2011
In 1982, Homegrown Video became the first company to distribute homemade sex videos and changed the entire landscape of adult videos forever. Before Youtube made everyone a producer, director, and star of their own movies just as Steven Spielberg once predicted the access to video cameras would change the world of movie-making, Homegrown Video put the power of being a porn star in the hands, and private parts, of the masses. The effort was grassroots, and like grass, when it caught fire it spread quickly to change the entire face of porn. Even professional high glamour companies, from Playboy to Vivid et. al., began to offer amateur stylized productions.
Homegrown paved the way for “gonzo” and “reality” porn, offspring of amateur porn. It laid the foundation for celebrity sex tapes, from Tanya Harding through Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton. Homegrown Video made making a homemade sex video fun and more importantly – normal – and even sort of acceptable in a mischievously naughty sort of way. If your next door neighbor might be doing it, then people didn’t have to feel so weird about themselves enjoying this form of entertainment. In this way, Homegrown Video helped bring porn out of the shadows in San Fernando valley, and into the bright light of mainstream consciousness.
Homegrown Video did not stop shaping the landscape there either and continued to innovate by digging down into what customers really wanted, then building mountains of content to satisfy them specifically. Focusing on niche themed fare in the days before the internet became a what it is today, Homegrown launched series like “CreamPie Club” and “Natural Bush” that addressed exactly what customers were looking for in their porn and catered to niches that had previously been completely neglected. As one fan once wrote, “Now I don’t have to keep watching movies shot in 1970 if I want to see hairy pussies”.
Just as Apple’s i-Tunes changed the way people listen to music, Homegrown Video changed the way people look at porn. Not only that, it changed the way people look in porn. Eric Schlosser, the author of “Fast Food Nation”, says in his book “Reefer Madness” that “Made by the people, for the people, Homegrown Video represents the democracy of porn”. Today, the face of porn is no longer necessarily a blond busty beauty with big fake boobs; it might be a housewife in Ohio, or a privileged socialite, a big beautiful woman or a skinny young co-ed with a very hairy pussy, thanks to Homegrown Video’s impact on the world of porn.






















