Diana and Damien’s first stab at making virtual reality porn wasn’t exactly a smashing success.
In 2022, the couple — who have been making their own amateur porn since 2020 — went to great lengths to record homespun 3D content, renting an expensive dual fisheye camera from Canon and concocting a makeshift way of setting the whole thing up to properly film. Their VR debut was expensive; it was unwieldy; it was, frankly, a humongous waste of time.
“We ended up jury-rigging the whole thing to the headboard of our bed. That didn’t work great — it worked, but it was kind of a pain in the ass,” Damien tells Inverse. “And then once we filmed it, it was kind of a pain to try and convert all the files. I had to actually buy a new computer to handle the file size and all the conversion I needed to do to get it to a usable format.”
Diana and Damien started making adult content with spatial video (pictured above) upon the Vision Pro’s release in February.
Videos taken with an iPhone 15 Pro are from a fixed angle, while those taken with the Vision Pro are point-of-view style.
Whichever method they choose, (iPhone or Vision Pro) the ease of recording is night and day compared to previous endeavors.
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This was the clunky state of amateur VR porn just a couple of years ago. In fact, it was the state just a few months ago — that is, before Apple decided to throw its hat into the world of mixed reality with a $3,500 mixed reality headset, the Vision Pro. Now, in the wake of Apple’s new “spatial computing” ambitions — and the launch of Apple’s own immersive video format, spatial video — the couple says their endeavors in semi-3D porn-making are nearly unrecognizable.
“It’s unbelievable, honestly, compared to what we were doing before,” says Damien, who shelled out thousands of dollars to buy his own Vision Pro this past February and already owns an iPhone 15 Pro capable of taking advantage of spatial video. “There’s no rig necessary for our headboard anymore…”
Diana agrees. “It was mind-blowing how easy the process was,” she tells Inverse.
On one hand, the marriage between VR porn and Apple’s headset is a fraught one — Apple has long had a vice grip on its squeaky-clean image as a family-focused tech company. But on the other, it’s a story as old as time. Where there’s technology, there’s porn — that’s the cold hard reality whether Apple likes it or not. And for that reason, the Vision Pro isn’t just another expensive headset, it’s the center of a potential porn revolution.
Apple’s Big Amateur Hour
The connection between pornography and the advancement of consumer tech is well-documented. In the ‘70s and ‘80s, the adoption of the VHS was propelled into the dominant home video format partially because it was easy to distribute and didn’t necessitate a less-than-ideal public experience of watching porn.
“The VCR is a classic example where its early adoption was largely affected by porn use,” says Neil Malamuth, professor of psychology at the University of California, whose research has focused partially on the effects of pornography.
“It used to be the case that you had to go to some seedy theater to watch a film with porn and you’d be concerned in sitting down and whether there might be some sperm on the seats… and this technology emerged — particularly the VCR — you could see it in the privacy of your home.”
VHS and the VCR ballooned in popularity due, in part, to the emergence of porn made cheaply with low-cost, easy-to-use camcorders.
In just a few years, the VCR exploded in popularity, ballooning from just 14 percent household adoption in 1985 to 66 percent in 1990. The VCR, while a great example of the confluence of porn and technology, is just one of many throughout history.
High-quality streaming video, for example, might never have come to us as fast as it did if it weren’t for porn sites like Pornhub pushing the boundaries. Since 1998, the Adult Entertainment Expo, the largest trade show of its kind, has long bought out expensive real estate in Las Vegas to run concurrently with the Consumer Electronics Show. Coincidence? Probably not.
And now, people are connecting the dots between the Vision Pro and adult content. Just days after the release of Apple’s spatial computer, Reddit came alive with porn-focused communities centered around the headset. On February 6 this year, the platform became home to a new subreddit called r/NSFW_Spatial, a community (which has been banned for being unmoderated) that’s devoted to talking about and promoting porn made with Apple’s new spatial video format and meant to be watched on the Vision Pro.
Since then, others like r/VisionProNSFW and r/applevisionnsfw have also cropped up with even more spatial porn and VR enthusiasts to populate them.
Among the denizens of those communities are creators like Diana and Damien, who are experimenting with their iPhone 15 Pro and Vision Pro headset, making amateur porn with spatial video. And so far, Damien tells Inverse the experience has been “night and day” compared to their previous endeavors in making VR porn.
If history is any indication, all of the pieces for the Vision Pro to become a porn machine, and reap all the benefits of one, are in place.
The couple has two options: They can either set up their iPhone 15 Pro on a tripod and press record or actually wear the Vision Pro headset while recording for point-of-view content. In either case, they say the process is simple; grab a device, press record, and then get to business.
That level of ease stands in stark contrast to how traditional VR porn has been filmed. In the past, making VR porn has long been a resource- and time-intensive process that involves professional-grade equipment, and costly post-production know-how.
If history is any indication, all of the pieces for the Vision Pro to become a porn machine, and reap all the benefits of one, are in place. Like any revolution, however, the road won’t be fully paved.
All Dressed Up, No Place To Stream
Despite how easy the process of making spatial porn is, there’s still very little content out there that one can actually watch. That’s due to a few factors — for one, the Vision Pro isn’t just new, it costs $3,500. The headset is likely out of the question for most people just looking for a new toy to watch movies, play games, or own a big, high-res, immersive screen to watch porn on.
Then there’s distribution — one of the biggest barriers, unsurprisingly, is a technical one. While one can easily record content in a 3D spatial format, the platforms that would host content — OnlyFans or Pornhub — haven’t caught up with the trend. OnlyFans, for example, doesn’t support uploading spatial video on its platform, and neither does Pornhub.
Inverse reached out to Pornhub to see if there are any immediate plans to support spatial video. The response? Not yet.
“While we currently don't have any major plans in the space, we look forward to bringing more new innovations and immersive experiences to online adult entertainment,” a Pornhub representative says.
Watching spatial video on a Vision Pro is simple, but distributing porn made in the format has its hurdles.
OnlyFans did not respond to a request for comment.
As a result of those platforming issues, creators like Damien and Diana are asking viewers to download files directly to their devices. To watch their content, they send a spatial video file via a WeTransfer link that goes directly into the Files app on the Vision Pro. It’s not a huge hurdle if you’re really intent on watching amateur VR porn on Apple’s headset, but it’s not as convenient as streaming.
According to Scott Camball, founder of the popular VR porn streaming site, VRSmash.com, it’s still too early to judge whether spatial video will have any impact on the streaming world, though it is already having an effect on demand for VR porn in general.
“With the release of Apple Vision Pro, there has been a greater demand for higher-quality VR Porn because the headset can display a resolution of 3,660 x 3,200 per eye,” Camball says. “Many of our producers are now shooting content in 8K resolution compared to the previous standard of 4K to 6K resolution.”
According to adult performers like Audrey Wright (NSFW), who’s in the top 3 percent of creators on OnlyFans, while the platform itself hasn’t shown any indication that it will embrace VR porn, there’s already been some interest from subscribers.
“I think if it were as easy as setting up your iPhone and filming it, the majority of creators would [do it].”
“I think if it were as easy as setting up your iPhone and filming it, the majority of creators would [do it],” Wright tells Inverse. “Probably a creator who already has a headset is going to be slightly more likely to dive in than someone who can’t view what they’re trying to create… If I were getting the request and it was easy instead of difficult to fulfill, I would do it in a heartbeat.”
Unfortunately, it may not be up to creators like Wright or even paying customers who’ve spent their hard-earned cash on a high-end headset whether spatial porn is a sensation or not. That could have everything to do with Apple itself.
Not Safe For Work
No technology is immune to becoming a facilitator of porn, Apple’s included, but historically, Apple has been among the most vocal opponents of adult content appearing anywhere near its lauded devices. In 2010, the late Steve Jobs made it abundantly clear how opposed he was to Apple being associated with porn in any way. In response to Apple’s role in the moral policing of the App Store, Jobs was quoted in an email saying:
“... we do believe we have a moral responsibility to keep porn off the iPhone… Folks who want porn can buy and [sic] Android phone…”
We reached out to Apple, but a spokesperson declined to comment for this story.
The attitude toward adult content hasn’t changed much since he died. The App Store still has a strict policy against apps that have explicit content in them, which is why the majority of iPhone users who use adult platforms like OnlyFans, for example, are relegated to a shoddy browser-based experience.
Steve Jobs was a vocal opponent of any association between Apple and porn.
So far, Apple hasn’t been any more permissive with the Vision Pro. Some customers who’ve shelled out more than $3,500 for the company’s cutting-edge “spatial computer” were dismayed to learn that when they tried to queue up VR porn on the headset — similar to how they would on a Meta Quest — their chosen content was unsupported.
Apple Vision Pro owners being unable to watch VR porn on their headsets may not be a mistake, either — it could be the result of a pointed technical omission on Apple’s behalf. The Vision Pro, unlike a Quest, has (by default) turned off WebXR in Safari, the interface through which XR and VR content is displayed in a browser. An Apple representative declined to comment on the reasoning behind that choice.
Users can work around that omission on Apple’s part by going into the Safari app’s Settings app and enabling the feature, but the reality speaks for itself: Apple’s Vision Pro isn’t a welcome home for VR porn. According to Malamuth, it’s unlikely that attitude will change.
“It’s bad publicity, and even though [Apple] may be aware of it, they will argue that [porn] has played a minor role or no role,” Malamuth says. “The politics will have that effect.”
As long as there’s a way to record porn with spatial video, there will be an audience.
Apple has complete control over its ecosystem in a way that very few technology companies do, but one thing it can’t do is tell people what to point their cameras at. Spatial video, as long as it’s a feature, can be used at the discretion of anyone with a new enough iPhone or Vision Pro. Clearly, some of those people want spatial porn.
“We’re betting on the future. We’re not going to make our money back right now, we knew that going in.”
According to Damien and Diana, even despite technical and distributive constraints, the demand for their home-brewed spatial porn has exceeded expectations.
“We finally have a real video up, and we’ve already sold more than 80 total with almost 0 advertising,” Damien tells Inverse, adding that almost all of those downloads were for the Vision Pro.
Like with anything, if there’s a will, especially a will as powerful as sex, there’s a way, and as a result, the couple believes the Apple Vision Pro has a place in the emerging future of porn.
“We’re betting on the future. We’re not going to make our money back right now, we knew that going in. This is not something where we’re like ‘Oh my God, we’re going to make millions,” Damien says. “It’ll be a slow rise, but after spending [some time] with the Vision Pro, there’s no question this is the future.”
