#26 10-06-23 05:23:11

richard

Administrator

Registered: 14-03-06

Posts: 3,395

Re: Abby Winters

And like the tag Visible Wetness

It can mean:
Wet (Clear)
Creamy (White)
Wet Sounds
Queefing

We don't use that tag for queefing.  If you've found a video incorrectly tagged, let us know on the Forum so we can fix it for everyone's benefit thanks!

al3xand3r5

Member

Registered: 13-04-17

Posts: 17

Re: Abby Winters

My point is, You ask what do other sites better than us? I say they promote their *Special* videos better which helps with more new members joining. And more models uploading videos with their *Special Trick*. And no *Special Trick* is not female friendly, Not at all. But i use it to make my point.

al3xand3r5

Member

Registered: 13-04-17

Posts: 17

Re: Abby Winters

The tag system on IFM is not specific enough. For example Juniper_A has eye rolling shaking orgasms. A thing users will kill for. But if you see her in a list of other models you will not see that. AW has a list with specific things which make it easier for users to find their fetish. But their list system is also not working well right now.

Thr tag system is quite a recent development and has provided a major improvement in searchability. Of course no system is perfect and compromises are inevitable.

The Inuit are said to have 50 words for snow. You may be the Inuit of the Orgasm!

Many other sites use more specific words for tags. If they don't want us to compare sites, Don't ask us to compare sites. This whole post is about comparing sites.

al3xand3r5

Member

Registered: 13-04-17

Posts: 17

Re: Abby Winters

My point is, You ask what do other sites better than us? I say they promote their *Special* videos better which helps with more new members joining. And more models uploading videos with their *Special Trick*. And no *Special Trick* is not female friendly, Not at all. But i use it to make my point.

Are there more squirting videos since the start of the squirting tag?

Yes? Thank you for making my point.

And are the older squirting videos being watched more than the videos around that date without specific tags?

Jesse_G

Member

Registered: 02-05-18

Posts: 43

Re: Abby Winters

As a contributor, I have to chip in on this conversation!

I have contributed to AW, but mostly to Feck.

I found that it was hard work

I remember I had to be filmed exercising for like 20 min whilst telling a story before I got to any actual shooting(!)

It was ... exhausting haha (!)

Not dissing AW at all or their contributors, just my preference is artful erotica. Also for viewing <3

I prefer the layer back and sensual approach to making art IFM style myself xx

My 2 cents

Jesse

lesevolve

Member

Registered: 15-09-22

Posts: 32

Re: Abby Winters

I'm sure some of you have heard already. Per official note on their forums, Abby Winters is "sunsetting."

smoothed

Member

Registered: 11-08-15

Posts: 604

Re: Abby Winters

at its peak (from the mid-noughts to the early 2010s) abby winters offered porn like no other, authentic and artful, genuine and well-crafted, and above all truly joyful.

that is something in short supply these days, in every aspect of our lives. thankfully, we can still find some happiness here at IFM.

all good things must come to an end. if and when a similar fate might befall IFM, I will be here till the lights go out.

Last edited by smoothed (10-07-23 03:56:52)

richard

Administrator

Registered: 14-03-06

Posts: 3,395

Re: Abby Winters

Abby Winters went to the top of the list of amateur websites (review sites) soon after they launched in 2001 (or maybe 2000?)  I worked with them in the early days, it was a lot of fun, two people who had no idea what they were doing, they just knew they wanted to make better porn.

Hangdog90

Member

Registered: 24-01-16

Posts: 1,640

Re: Abby Winters

Abby Winters went to the top of the list of amateur websites (review sites) soon after they launched in 2001 (or maybe 2000?)  I worked with them in the early days, it was a lot of fun, two people who had no idea what they were doing, they just knew they wanted to make better porn.

It's a wonderful thing, to have built up such a legacy, based on artistic values, both inbthe early days at AW and here.

Kudos.

maurice_B

Member

Registered: 02-01-17

Posts: 136

Re: Abby Winters

at its peak (from the mid-noughts to the early 2010s) abby winters offered porn like no other, authentic and artful, genuine and well-crafted, and above all truly joyful.

that is something in short supply these days, in every aspect of our lives. thankfully, we can still find some happiness here at IFM.

all good things must come to an end. if and when a similar fate might befall IFM, I will be here till the lights go out.

My feelings exactly.

AW was a wonderful place in the mid- to late-noughts. The content was amazing and the boards were lively, fun and highly addictive. This all changed in 2008 when it turned out that the mysterious Abby Winters, a ’30-year-old caring lesbian’ running the site, was in fact Garion Hall. All staff had been mandated to actively promote the hoax, and many immediately left once subscribers realized that they had been continuously lied to. I still believe that not being upfront about ownership was Garion’s one cardinal mistake. After 2008, the content remained good but the love was gone.

On the other hand, relocating the company to Amsterdam in 2010 – a highly disruptive move in so many ways – rather than closing down was an incredibly bold business decision in my book. (To this day I don’t fully understand why AW had to move house whereas IFM did not, not that I’m complaining.)

It was immediately clear to me that the site’s character would never be the same. Apart from the obvious fact that the notoriously bad weather and the high population density in NL make outdoor shoots a tricky proposition, there’s just a big difference between two lovely spunky Aussie girls (often old friends) chattering away in their mother tongue, and two non-native English speakers meeting for the first time, both visibly uncomfortable with discussing their sex life in English with a total stranger.

Which brings me to a third point: Many of the Aussie models at the time mentioned how sexually liberating they felt their experience at AW was, having grown up in a rather conservative society (not sure whether this is still true today, I’ve never been to Australia). In contrast, Amsterdam and NL in general is arguably the most socially liberal place in the world. Here, few women feel the need to be liberated, and opportunities to work in the adult industry abound. Predictably then, AW found only relatively few Western European models, and came to rely on the many young Eastern European ladies looking for better paid jobs than in their home countries. Now that the wage levels continue to improve in these countries, I would imagine that over time it became increasingly difficult to source new models to fit the AW paradigma.

Anyway, fingers crossed that IFM will be here for many more years to come!!!

Last edited by maurice_B (18-07-23 13:04:20)

richard

Administrator

Registered: 14-03-06

Posts: 3,395

Re: Abby Winters

Much of what you say about AW's decline had more to do with the changing socio-sexual landscape than anything else.  The women on IFM have changed too, they're not wide eyed and curious any more.  Look at the early  videos between Cle, Strawberry (Chloe), Liandra, Kesia etc.  The closest to that situation we've been able to capture recently was about 5 years ago with Lucy_P, Fith_B etc in Orgasm club. And they're great, but different.  I hate to use the word 'innocence' because that smacks of immaturity or naivetee, and believe me those girls weren't, perhaps 'untainted by the pornosphere' describes the early contributors.  The contribs over the past 10 years have been awesome in a different way, in a way I think will endure as the landscape has stabilised.  For contributors, the pornscape now is better than ever, they really can be self employed and do it entirely their way.

Don't be too hard on Garion about the lesbian founder myth.  It started when he was trading porn on newsgroups in the 90's and just grew - when's the right time to come clean?  He never expected it to get so big, AW rose to #1 amateur site within months of launch.  Are you really going to come out then and say "Um OK there's just this one thing..."  It became an uncomfortable fib and he was quite embarrassed about the whole thing.  Is it really any different to Walt Disney trading on the vision of someone who died 55 years ago?  Or KFC and Colonel Sanders?

Garion and I hoping to get together and record our memoirs from the time we met online in 98 through to him starting AW, my brief stint as his shoot manager before he helped me start ISM, a temporary rift in the mid 00's followed by their departure to NL and then conversion to an international officeless business model, while we stayed in Melbourne.  We're also going to talk to some of those early contribs, and in the past few weeks I've had the huge pleasure of catching up with Chloe, Liandra (at one time a harsh critic of both companies), Lillie and Wendy, who were shooting with us back as far as 2004.  They all have great memories of those days and the fact they're getting back into it (except Wendy due to mainstream career choices, though she's considering it still) says a lot.

Not sure it will ever come to light, but it will be given to the national library as a record of our experiences and insights into a unique 20 year period in Australia and particularly Melbourne, where between us we produced/published 80% of all the porn in this country, and I think to some degree helped shape amateur porn around the world ( I could name 2 successful companies that cloned themselves off AW).  I would hate to think that in 20 or 50 or 100 years when someone decides to do a study on the rise and fall of the Au porn scene up to the OF era - the amateur pron revolution if you like - the only documents they'll be able to find are newspaper articles about police raids and student unions protesting about our street posters, and some SWERF vitriol.

smoothed

Member

Registered: 11-08-15

Posts: 604

Re: Abby Winters

Much of what you say about AW's decline had more to do with the changing socio-sexual landscape than anything else.  The women on IFM have changed too, they're not wide eyed and curious any more.  Look at the early  videos between Cle, Strawberry (Chloe), Liandra, Kesia etc.  The closest to that situation we've been able to capture recently was about 5 years ago with Lucy_P, Fith_B etc in Orgasm club. And they're great, but different.  I hate to use the word 'innocence' because that smacks of immaturity or naivetee, and believe me those girls weren't, perhaps 'untainted by the pornosphere' describes the early contributors.  The contribs over the past 10 years have been awesome in a different way, in a way I think will endure as the landscape has stabilised.  For contributors, the pornscape now is better than ever, they really can be self employed and do it entirely their way.

It was definitely lack of access to feminist sex education that contributed to what you describe as "wide-eyed curiosity".  Thankfully we've come a long way since then. But the sheer novelty that pervaded much of the early stages of AW's and IFM's endeavour was very appealing. I would go as far to say that the inherently Australian trait of constant spirited gameliness really help foster than distinctive fun sexiness.

Don't be too hard on Garion about the lesbian founder myth.  It started when he was trading porn on newsgroups in the 90's and just grew - when's the right time to come clean?  He never expected it to get so big, AW rose to #1 amateur site within months of launch.  Are you really going to come out then and say "Um OK there's just this one thing..."  It became an uncomfortable fib and he was quite embarrassed about the whole thing.  Is it really any different to Walt Disney trading on the vision of someone who died 55 years ago?  Or KFC and Colonel Sanders?

This is an interesting point - and your references all allude to the capitalist drive. It surely did become risky to come clean when a fair bit of money was involved.

Garion and I hoping to get together and record our memoirs from the time we met online in 98 through to him starting AW, my brief stint as his shoot manager before he helped me start ISM, a temporary rift in the mid 00's followed by their departure to NL and then conversion to an international officeless business model, while we stayed in Melbourne.  We're also going to talk to some of those early contribs, and in the past few weeks I've had the huge pleasure of catching up with Chloe, Liandra (at one time a harsh critic of both companies), Lillie and Wendy, who were shooting with us back as far as 2004.  They all have great memories of those days and the fact they're getting back into it (except Wendy due to mainstream career choices, though she's considering it still) says a lot.

Not sure it will ever come to light, but it will be given to the national library as a record of our experiences and insights into a unique 20 year period in Australia and particularly Melbourne, where between us we produced/published 80% of all the porn in this country, and I think to some degree helped shape amateur porn around the world ( I could name 2 successful companies that cloned themselves off AW).  I would hate to think that in 20 or 50 or 100 years when someone decides to do a study on the rise and fall of the Au porn scene up to the OF era - the amateur pron revolution if you like - the only documents they'll be able to find are newspaper articles about police raids and student unions protesting about our street posters, and some SWERF vitriol.

I would love for this documentary project to come to fruition! Maybe even some kind of archival exhibition too. All the unseen rarities left in a box for years, now seeing light of day. I do not think it is an over-exaggeration to say that IFM and AW were seminal for porn on a global scale. And it would be just awesome if we could bottle at least a sliver of that early magic.

Hangdog90

Member

Registered: 24-01-16

Posts: 1,640

Re: Abby Winters

What an interesting and humbling post.

You may be interested in the link here to an academic book from 2016, Smutty Little Movies - which may already be in your library - about the transition from celluloid to home video in the United States porn industry.

It examines the cultural and legal efforts to conmtain, limit or eradicate pornography and seeks to situate adult video's place in the overall history of media.

https://archive.org/details/smuttylittl … 1/mode/2up

Last edited by Hangdog90 (18-07-23 16:35:24)

richard

Administrator

Registered: 14-03-06

Posts: 3,395

Re: Abby Winters

What an interesting and humbling post.

You may be interested in the link here to an academic book from 2016, Smutty Little Movies - which may already be in your library - about the transition from celluloid to home video in the United States porn industry.

It examines the cultural and legal efforts to conmtain, limit or eradicate pornography and seeks to situate adult video's place in the overall history of media.

https://archive.org/details/smuttylittl … 1/mode/2up

Such a book needs to be written about this era, for sure.

richard

Administrator

Registered: 14-03-06

Posts: 3,395

Re: Abby Winters

It was definitely lack of access to feminist sex education that contributed to what you describe as "wide-eyed curiosity".  Thankfully we've come a long way since then.

I have to disagree with that - it isn't for me to say and I will ask them about this, but I think sexually they were wide awake, though not necessarily hugely experienced, it was porn they didn't know anything about.

maurice_B

Member

Registered: 02-01-17

Posts: 136

Re: Abby Winters

Much of what you say about AW's decline had more to do with the changing socio-sexual landscape than anything else.  The women on IFM have changed too, they're not wide eyed and curious any more.  Look at the early  videos between Cle, Strawberry (Chloe), Liandra, Kesia etc.  The closest to that situation we've been able to capture recently was about 5 years ago with Lucy_P, Fith_B etc in Orgasm club. And they're great, but different.  I hate to use the word 'innocence' because that smacks of immaturity or naivetee, and believe me those girls weren't, perhaps 'untainted by the pornosphere' describes the early contributors.  The contribs over the past 10 years have been awesome in a different way, in a way I think will endure as the landscape has stabilised.  For contributors, the pornscape now is better than ever, they really can be self employed and do it entirely their way.

Very interesting insights there, thanks Richard. You’re right, of course – the innocence (for lack of a better word) of the early days is gone forever and the proliferation of platforms such as OF means that public sexual expression can take a myriad of forms, rather than having to adapt to a particular website paradigm.

Don't be too hard on Garion about the lesbian founder myth.  It started when he was trading porn on newsgroups in the 90's and just grew - when's the right time to come clean?  He never expected it to get so big, AW rose to #1 amateur site within months of launch.  Are you really going to come out then and say "Um OK there's just this one thing..."

I can see your point about timing, but re “just this one thing”: For the average subscriber purely interested in watching pretty amateur girls do their thing, this may have been trifle. For Garion’s core constituency, the enthusiastic subscribers who spent a considerable amount of their daily time on the boards providing valuable feedback and interacting with models/staff, it certainly wasn’t. The Abby myth was a central element of the site’s appeal, and (s)he was also all over the boards. The moment Garion decided to take his team to Vegas, making him very visible, was the moment he should have come clean. He could have explained what you have explained, maybe offered an apology to models and staff who had been forced to perpetuate the myth, and the dust would likely have settled after a few weeks. Instead, he alienated a hugh swath of core subscribers who, for lack of a possibility to interact on the AW boards on this matter, ended up ranting away and ridiculing him on an external forum, fueled by Liandra’s revelations. Subscribers felt bad both for having been lied to and for having been so gullible; models/staff felt bad for having deceived the very people they had intensely and intimately engaged with (if only online), and many disappeared overnight. This didn’t need to happen.

Garion and I hoping to get together and record our memoirs from the time we met online in 98 through to him starting AW, my brief stint as his shoot manager before he helped me start ISM, a temporary rift in the mid 00's followed by their departure to NL and then conversion to an international officeless business model, while we stayed in Melbourne.  We're also going to talk to some of those early contribs, and in the past few weeks I've had the huge pleasure of catching up with Chloe, Liandra (at one time a harsh critic of both companies), Lillie and Wendy, who were shooting with us back as far as 2004.  They all have great memories of those days and the fact they're getting back into it (except Wendy due to mainstream career choices, though she's considering it still) says a lot.

Just reading these names makes me feel nostalgic, and I’m glad to hear that in retrospect they feel good about their experiences.

Not sure it will ever come to light, but it will be given to the national library as a record of our experiences and insights into a unique 20 year period in Australia and particularly Melbourne, where between us we produced/published 80% of all the porn in this country, and I think to some degree helped shape amateur porn around the world ( I could name 2 successful companies that cloned themselves off AW).  I would hate to think that in 20 or 50 or 100 years when someone decides to do a study on the rise and fall of the Au porn scene up to the OF era - the amateur pron revolution if you like - the only documents they'll be able to find are newspaper articles about police raids and student unions protesting about our street posters, and some SWERF vitriol.

Aussie porn and ethical porn are synonymous in my book, and this is of course thanks to Feck and AW. I’m loving your idea and hope it will work out.

Btw, a year ago or so I happened upon your RedCheeks interview (https://podcasts.apple.com/id/podcast/4 … 0506601000) where you provide a lot of background on the Feck projects. Might be interesting for some people here.

acbarebear

Member

Registered: 29-04-22

Posts: 14

Re: Abby Winters

I tend to agree with some of the above.

I personally like the videos where the content contributor talks about their day or themselves. Food, friends, holidays, exercise etc... But more often than not there are videos that talk about sexual experiences or are about the guy that's currently ramming them. The party last night and the person the hooked up with. Even in videos with 2 girls they'll spend more time talking about their male sex partners.

I like watching videos where I can share a sexual experience instead of watching or listening about somebody else's. The videos have definately gone from following somebody around with a camera "day in the life" to a more calculated attempt to create "porn". In the AW forums in the old days some users didn't even like calling it porn.

I stopped watching "porn" a long time ago and AW / IFM are the only sexual related content I view. I like watching females explore themselves, the art of the female body and I like listening to what they have to say.

On a side note, I remember a long time ago on the AW forum a content contributor was upset at the prospect that people are pleasuring themselves to the material she was producing. That level of innocence is definately gone!

lesevolve

Member

Registered: 15-09-22

Posts: 32

Re: Abby Winters

There's certainly a greater business-mindedness to current-day content across the industry. It’s hard to fault the women for that though, as everyone involved should be on the same wavelength, in on the same take, aware that it's for money. Still, it's natural to feel for the older days. I think that  the acknowledgement of the business end has made it more difficult to find content featuring women who can get lost in the sex and connection and forget it's a job. It’s also, IMO, led in some instances o forms of content that I personally would describe as kitschy but are nonetheless very popular and therefore good for business. A similar but worse effect has taken hold in U.S. content too. Even if nicer/more genuine porn never had an AW-style moment in the U.S., content from sites here in the the states has still worsened, becoming even more...well, unrepentant garbage, to be frank, if you can believe it.

Hopefully, IFM and its related projects have many more years left. I still hope for a similar project in the U.S. There was Yanks.com once upon a time, but I was not aware of it at the time it was producing.  I'd like to see someone try again.

privignus

Member

Registered: 29-12-15

Posts: 607

Re: Abby Winters

Abby Winters say they will stop making new shoots: https://forums.abbywinters.com/vbulleti … inters-com

lesevolve, the right person might help you find what you are looking for but I don't consume a lot of porn videos and this forum has a 'no talking about competitors' policy

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in aspectu virginis mentem esse puram

richard

Administrator

Registered: 14-03-06

Posts: 3,395

Re: Abby Winters

Hopefully, IFM and its related projects have many more years left. I still hope for a similar project in the U.S. There was Yanks.com once upon a time, but I was not aware of it at the time it was producing.  I'd like to see someone try again.

Wait, Yanks has gone??

lesevolve

Member

Registered: 15-09-22

Posts: 32

Re: Abby Winters

The Yanks site is still up, but there are no more productions. Just recycling what already exists with new dates.

richard

Administrator

Registered: 14-03-06

Posts: 3,395

Re: Abby Winters

The Yanks site is still up, but there are no more productions. Just recycling what already exists with new dates.

Ok I just had a look and it did seem odd they had people on the front page we were shooting 7 years ago.  So, another one bites the dust.  They have one update billed as "Girls Out West", any idea what's going on there?

Interesting they say "100% female run".  Owned by a guy though.  Same gambit Ersties uses.

privignus

Member

Registered: 29-12-15

Posts: 607

Re: Abby Winters

Interesting they say "100% female run".  Owned by a guy though.  Same gambit Ersties uses.

Sigh, people are jerks.

I think kink dot com has resumed shooting on a small scale after years of just recycling old videos.  AFAIK Pink and White are still going and the Four Chambered Heart people.  So some ambitious porn companies are still shooting in the USA.

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Res est arduissima vincere naturam,
in aspectu virginis mentem esse puram

richard

Administrator

Registered: 14-03-06

Posts: 3,395

Re: Abby Winters

Pink and White licensed our Gentleman Handling videos, but I didn't know they shot their own content...

Where is good porn going to come from??

privignus

Member

Registered: 29-12-15

Posts: 607

Re: Abby Winters

Pink and White licensed our Gentleman Handling videos, but I didn't know they shot their own content...

Where is good porn going to come from??

I think they licensed Stoya's ZeroSpaces project after she shut it down.  Not sure how they relate to the original Crashpad project or the films like "Chemistry Eases the Pain" launched by the Pink and White / crashpad / pinklabel collective.  Its not my scene!

I think that some self-produced porn can be quite impressive these days but having to perform, and shoot, and edit, and deal with the web host, and market (on porn-hostile social media), and get your own snacks and drinks seems like a lot.  If you have to do your own laundry after you might as well be having plain old sex right

Last edited by privignus (21-07-23 06:33:17)

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Res est arduissima vincere naturam,
in aspectu virginis mentem esse puram