Facebook set the standard for the latest wave of networking websites, which are all about community and personalized recommendations. So I suppose I shouldn’t have been too surprised when porno took the same route.

The result is Videobox, the pinnacle of Onanistic technology. You can use the preview engine to analyze a scene before choosing to download it in one of four resolutions – and when you’re done, you can rate your favorite cumshots so that it will recommend other, similar, cumshots to you, then go scouting for even hotter scenes with a comprehensive search engine that allows you to find only the Gonzo Handjob MILF scenes starring Cherry Poppens.

I’m used to Netflix and Amazon tracking my movie habits, but knowing that there’s a gigantic computer dedicated to helping me masturbate more efficiently is a little creepy.

But the most bizarre bit about Videobox is the community. For in every scene, no matter how depraved or tame, you are allowed to leave a brief review. And others, in turn, can “Thumbs Up” or “Thumbs Down” that review, giving you an idea of how your fellow pud-whackers responded to this scene you’re looking at right now. If there’s a bad review, others will respond, giving you an entertaining flame war.

Naturally, I’m fascinated by this. I thought I knew porno, but no; these guys are a dedicated bunch, throwing themselves into pornography with all the zest of trainspotters or birdwatchers.

First off, they know their actresses obsessively. I have a few favorites I like, but on Videobox men are using their encyclopedic knowledge of smut to correct the archives. “This is mislabeled,” someone will say. “The actress here is actually Zena Fatara in an early role,” Then others will chime in with how it’s a shame that Zena doesn’t do anal, and that it’s nice to see her here before she got her boob job, and hey, isn’t the guy in this scene HIV-positive, it’s a shame that they haven’t kicked him out yet.

It’s like a little Star Magazine for porno.

Second, they’re firm critics, discussing “performances” and dissecting them with the seriousness that a professional critic uses to dissect a ballet performance. The number-one failure a girl can have in porno, according to Videobox, is to be a “cum-dodger” – at the end, you are obliged to take the sperm joyfully, not to flinch from it. At the same time, there’s much disdain of the sad men who must resort to busting a nut by hand when there’s a beautiful actress here to finish him off. That’s betraying, you know, the craft.

But the men of Videobox also rate enthusiasm and movement. Strangely, looks aren’t as important as you’d think – a girl might not have the greatest face or the best body, but she’ll be reviewed well as long as she has that joie de vivre, that ability to put on a heck of a show. A certain grinding quality is, in particular, heavily requested. Silence in a female performance is death to a Videobox review.

There are also a lot of other traits that can kill a scene. They want guys to shut up so they can focus on the women. They are irritated by poor camera angles, or bad lighting. They are here to whack it, and the interruptions pain them. The biggest complaint they can have is spending their precious time downloading some big scene, waiting with erotic anticipation, only to be disappointed by the myriad of issues that can kill the Big Scene.

Strangely, reviews that bitch about how ugly the women in a given scene are tend to get, in the parlance, “neg-banged” all the way to the bottom of the page. And reviews that ask, “Why the fuck would anyone be turned on by this?” also tend to get neg-banged; often, the hearty defenses of the joys of, say, GILF porn or BBW scenes rise to the top of the review pile.

This confused me for a long time. You’d think this a community of porno fanatics would be harsh on ugly women (and, to be fair, sometimes they are). But by and large, the good folks at Videobox realize that they’re all here to indulge their inner kink, and recognize that attraction is an intensely personal issue. If someone says, “Why the hell do women have to get these stupid tattoos?” you can pretty much bet they’ll be at the bottom, buried under a lot of counter-reviews that ask why the hell you’re watching it, then.

What will get a harsh reaction? Sadly, any hint of male bisexuality; even the gang-bangs get positive-rated reviews that complain about having too many cocks. There was a 200-post thread alternately defending and berating a video where men licked their own semen out of… well, various places they’d deposited it, but still. They are riotously homophobic at Videobox.

Also, they don’t like boob jobs. Again, this isn’t something I would have anticipated, but a frequent complaint is of the “landing strip” of flat skin in between two grapefruit-sized breasts. Odd.

The quickest way to get neg-banged? Humor. The men of Videobox are serious, and trying to get a rise out of them that’s not in their pants will get you smacked down.

I find myself endlessly fascinated by it, because it’s really quite strange. This is an alien world, where the men are objectifying women (and the men) to an absurd extent, but it’s also very much the same kind of debates and objectification involved in people discussing Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt.

The reviewers are here to masturbate, and one senses they do it a lot, and they approach it with a focus on what gets them off. Anything that helps to do that is good, anything that detracts from that is bad, and they bring this attitude constantly in tiny, one-paragraph reviews that are like telegrams from an alien planet.

“I’m worried,” I said to Gini. “What if I get drawn in? Right now, I just skim because it’s so fucking weird, but what if I become one of those guys? What if, one day, I start keeping track of the names and realize that Marco1979 is full of shit, and start a running flame war with him across the pages of Videobox? They do it. I’ve seen them.”

“Then I’ll leave you,” she smiled.

“Thank God,” I sighed. “Thank God.”

(Tell me I'm full of it)