Sourced from VICE | September 12, 2022 By Samantha Cole
Sarai Minx in a Property Sex scene | Courtesy Property Sex
We’re keeping this PG-13 but…
The good folks over at Vice have uncovered a growing trend that gave us a chuckle about the term for spending tortured hours browsing Zillow and fantasizing about houses you could never afford in places remotely distant from one’s current tax bracket: real estate porn. And the practice has grown in popularity in the last few years as the economy crashed and people fled (even if only mentally) their apartments for picket-fence slash homeownership pandemic slash pipe dreams.
But. Yes. It turns out that actual, literal real estate pornography is a wildly popular and real thing.
Two common types of scenarios in this genre are where one person is renting and the other has some control over their living situation (landlords or property managers), which plays with an overt power dynamic. Porn has always lampooned real-life taboos, and with landlords exploiting tenants more than at any time in recent history, this certainly qualifies. The other scenario involves an agent and a potential buyer, in a more subtle negotiation of terms and power.
Adding another layer to it all is the background of the scenes: shooting locations and real houses most viewers will never obtain but love to obsess over anyway.
The genre capitalizes on the current real estate market — ie; the fact that anyone currently renting sans hefty savings account or generational wealth seems to have nary a fat chance in hell at home ownership — it’s tempting to assume that this is the latest porn trend but rest assured, it’s not. Given that porn often mirrors the current zeitgeist, some porn plots are simply evergreen!
Consider the 1980 porno Talk Dirty to Me, in which a real estate agent shows a house to a prospective buyer, and starts aggressively propositioning him:
““Feel this carpet, Robert. So sexy, so soft,” the female agent says to the home-buying, married man. “It is a nice carpet,” the flabbergasted buyer replies, as she shows him her carpet. “Why don’t you just sign these papers and get them out of the way, then we can have some fun?” she goads.
”
• Spoiler alert: The moves don’t work on him, but they do work on a nearby peeping Tom, who catches her after she’s rejected.
Let’s face it. The fantasy of a hot lady guiding you around an unobtainable house where no one’s home is not that deep. But there’s so much a director can do with the theme of real estate, whether it’s agents and buyers, or landlords and tenants, or roommates and roommates. To that end, production studio Property Sex has made it its mission to explore every possible combination, dynamic, and scenario that can be imagined within these confines, and has been dominating the genre since its start in 2016.
…We’re gonna stop here before things get too heated.
Go read the piece — it’s big wild. 😇
