Neo Vanilla Porn represents an expansion of mainstream acceptable things-you-can-do in a fuck. What a fuck are we talking about?
Neo Vanilla Porn
The first time I noticed the rising of this new trend was Rhyheim Shabazz’ coming up. Back then, we wrote a post coronating him as King of Vanilla Renaissance. Later on, I switched to talking about Neo Vanilla Porn, because I’d celebrate the new rather than the re-birth.
First of all, let’s clarify what we understand Vanilla Porn is. It is the depiction of sexual practices universally accepted as “appropriate” in mainstream culture. Of course, in scenarios and situations equally deemed appropriate. The concept comes from mainstream straight porn. As soon as we move to gay territory, the understanding of “appropriate” turns into much more inclusive. Things like eating ass (that probably are not vanilla in straight porn) are a must be in gay land.
Porn is not less and not more than another human expression, changing as its cultural context changes. Whatever Vanilla sex was 30 years ago, it is not what we call Vanilla today. “Neo Vanilla Porn” is just another jump in this historic process of inclusiveness and expansion, as society in general becomes more sex affirmative and curious.
Throughout our description of the trend, we will mostly use Rhyheim Shabazz’ work to illustrate our points. Indeed, he is not the only gay porn powerhouse creating Neo Vanilla Porn, and not all of his work can be labeled as such. However, no other performer or studio in the industry gets even close to the quality of Big Bro and EyeFilmz’ production.
Sex positive and curious
To better understand Neo Vanilla Porn, it would be a good idea to highlight the core mindset that allows it. This is the growing sex positive and curious trend that an hedonistic culture is fostering.
This mindset questions essential principles from our previous understanding of sex and sexuality, although it has not yet become mainstream. We are starting to look at sex and affection like two things that cannot be divided. I still hear even very progressive thinkers talking about having “animal sex”, but we humans are just not capable of such a thing. We are whole entities, we cannot leave our human emotions out of bed.
This separation between our flesh and our feelings is related to the Romantic myth of monogamic love. Not only gay porn, but mainstream gay culture has imported this heteronormative model without much questioning.
One of the new understandings that opens the gates for Neo Vanilla Porn is that Love and Monogamy are not a necessary condition to have the Best Sex You Can Imagine, on one hand. On the other hand, a sex affirmative mindset cannot separate sex from affection. When we are fucking in Neo Vanilla realm, we are always making love.
Another understanding is that sex is not something to be studied, regulated, contained, and controlled. Instead, we look at sex as something to be celebrated, shared, enjoyed, expanded, and explored.
Bottom line, what really defines Neo Vanilla Porn is not a practice. It is an attitude. We will come back to this throughout this article.
Kissing in Neo Vanilla Porn Age
In this merging of traditional sexual boundaries, clean becomes kinkyish and kinky, cleanish. Passionate kissing has always been a popular practice in the Vanilla catalogue. However, Neo Vanilla porn pushes kissing from fore to full playing, and welcomes the kinkiest French kissing. We keep working on the lips, but now we add tongues, generously and uninhibitedly.
Unlike traditional porn where you will have a short kissing session before moving to the Real Thing, Neo Vanilla Porn incorporates kissing as an essential and ubiquitous interaction along the whole intercourse. Rather than fore playing, rather even than playing, passionate voracious kissing becomes the brand of the trend.
Follow EyeFilmz’ camera and you will get the point. It is not only about the kissing, but also about showing the lovers’ facial expressions. Neo Vanilla Porn is about documenting sex, but specially the pleasure and the joy gifted to us by sex. There is no better window for that than our faces.
Additionally, the two lovers eating each other faces without inhibitions epitomizes the equalitarian relationship between partners beyond their sexual roles, a core Neo Vanilla Porn feature.
Bringing Sex to Light
Almost anything could be enrolled in the Neo Vanilla Porn trend, if performed as a legitimate practice. Meaning depends on context. The same sexual practice can be vanilla or not, depending in situational considerations.
For instance, let’s examine the practice of eating cum. Traditionally, it would be in the catalogue of the kinky stuff. It has always been a very common and ubiquitous practice in scenarios that include the submission of the bottom partner, or are rated as hard sex.
Celebrating the smell, the flavor, and the texture of cum was hardly imaginable before as a mainstream practice. Indeed, this has changed. Images speak more than words. Observe the clip illustrating this section, where the performers feast on cum and its beauty. And they do it openly, in a beautiful sunny day, by the pool.
The contrast with traditional scenarios is eloquent. Eating cum used to be relegated to dark dungeons and alleys. You could find it in other less marginal contexts, but always including somehow the feeling of transgression and kinkiness. Neo Vanilla Porn leaves away that kind of connotation and welcomes the practice to Vanilla realm, the land of Light and Joy.
Beauty of the whole body
Traditional Vanilla Porn would include long camera pans depicting the beauty of male bodies. Faces, chests, arms, abs, legs, bubble butts, backs, dicks, all would be documented in detail. If we were lucky, perhaps we could also enjoy a few views of the rim, although this would be considerable less common.
Neo Vanilla Porn continues this tradition of celebrating male physical beauty. However, the protagonism of hard cocks and ass holes rises significantly. The difference is remarkable regarding the new place occupied by The Hole.
Dick worshipping has been a practice widely accepted in gay and straight porn since the very beginning. We are not giving up on our Faith for Hard Cocks. Instead, Neo Vanilla Porn raises the place of the darkest part of our bodies and takes it to Light. Not only the trend is reflecting an expansion of acceptable practices in a more sex and body affirmative culture, but also a change in the understanding of sexual roles.
The End of Top Privilege?
Gay culture (and consequently Porn) is constrained by the incorporation of heteronormative roles. For many decades, “top” meant masculine, and “bottom”, feminine. We dragged a baggage of double standards and privilege.
Indeed, rigid roles are progressively fading, replaced by versatility. Similarly, binary sexual identities are leaving space to fluidity. Neo Vanilla Porn is one of the many fields where this evolution is reflected. Everyone is welcomed.
Talking about the end of Top Privilege is just a hook and an overstatement. But it is my way to highlight one of my favorite trends in nowadays porn and sexual culture. Perhaps I should have talked about The Rising of the Bottom, or The Rising of Versatility or Fluidity, instead.
However, lack of versatility does not disqualify a porn production as Neo Vanilla. After all, the King of the trend has never bottomed in from of the camera. What is essential for the trend is the nature of the relationship between both partners. Bottom and Top partners strive to please each other, and the dominant place can switch even if the roles stay unchanged. As examples, check the scenes of Rhyheim Shabazz with Chino Black and with Cagedjock.
Orgies are in
Traditional Vanilla porn has reflected the mainstream culture stigmatization of sexual promiscuity. In the same way as gay culture, (specially after the HIV crisis) imported binary heteronormative models, so did gay porn industry.
The broader society, and gay culture, are indeed still trapped inside the cage of self oppressive monogamy. However, a different understanding is gaining followers. Holistic understandings of human nature are replacing the dichotomy between flesh and soul, and the association of Love with sexual exclusivity.
Of course, Neo Vanilla Porn still celebrates intercourse between two partners, as Vanilla productions always have. But now, we are opening the field and welcoming threesomes and orgies.
In general, we could say that orgy scenes following the gang bang format would be excluded from the trend if they are framed as a mistreated bottom satisfying a bunch of dominant tops. But orgies are in if there is no narrative related to abuse or domination. Rhyheim’s Brazilian orgies are the perfect example of clean, sex affirmative Neo Vanilla Porn.
Ethnically diverse
Until now, porn involving ethnicities other than White was considered not mainstream. You had to look for your Black, Brown, and Asian performers in niche websites, and interracial was a whole category per se. If you are into porn, you probably know about the last few years controversies around Porn Industry Awards and the never ending conflicts between performers of colors and mainstream studios.
In Neo Vanilla Porn age we are not into post-racial terrain, let’s not dream. Nevertheless, the inclusiveness of the trend welcomes performers of all colors. Ironically, Vanilla King is a Black performer. If a porn factory does not work with performers of all colors, we can comfortably place it out of the trend.
Although we still have much to improve here, the trend is unquestionable. No studio and no adult artist should ignore Rhyheim Shabazz rocketing popularity. You can envy it, you can admire it, but we all should lean from it.
Neo Vanilla Porn’s Ins and Outs
Once again, rather than to singular practices, Neo Vanilla Porn’s essence is related to a mindset. Nevertheless, there are a few scenarios we can identify and would not be in the trend nowadays.
Any situation that implies the unwilling submission of one partner to other is out. Of course, we are talking about porn, about fantasies, we are not discussing non consensual practices but the role playing of non consensual situations. Definitely out, no matter what the degree of abuse is.
Any scene presenting a practice as not clean, disqualifies a production as Neo Vanilla Porn. If an ass is eaten in a bedroom or outdoors, framed in a narrative that implies consent and joy, we are in. If the same ass is eaten in a dungeon, or while the bottom partner is sleeping, we are out.
Any kind of physical harm, no matter how consensual it may be, is out, and so is coprophilia, and coprophagia, at least for now. Differently, I think we can welcome Golden Showers in the proper context. I do not know you, but I can picture a situation where peeing on your lover is not related to humiliation and dirt, but to joy and pleasure. As proof, take a look at the super hot scenes where Rhyheim’s fucks Porfi.
One more scenario that probably is ready to be welcomed in the Neo Vanilla Porn realm, is Puppy Play. Even if we can make associations between the Puppy/Trainer subculture and controversial practices as Zoophilia and submission/domination, its context usually lack of most of the indicators we associate with the Forbidden. Nowadays we can easily say that it is in the field of broadly accepted, joyful, legitimate practices.
Neo Vanilla Porn recommendations
To see the best examples and the adult artists leading the trend, I strongly recommend you to check Rhyheim Shabazz’ and EyeFilmz’s creations. Not all of their production can be classified as Neo Vanilla Porn. However, in my opinion most of their work is enrolled in the trend. Additionally, every second of their videos is prime quality, Vanilla or not.
Another performer in the trend is Krave Melanin. If you want the freakiest version of the trend, go for him. His Fans Page worths its price.
The studios that better represent the trend are, in my opinion, Cockyboys (more narrative, less ethnic diversity) and Guys In Sweat Pants (less narrative, more racial diversity). Nevertheless, they cannot compete with the quality of the previously mentioned stars.
I expect Neo Vanilla Porn to continue rising, mirroring the broader culture trend towards diversity and sex affirmation.
Hasta la próxima pinga, amig@s!
