4. The unexpectedly forward massage therapist

A girl enters a massage parlor and is asked to undress by a strapping masseur. Once comfortably on the table, she's oiled up and given a cursory back massage before the man's wandering hands find their way under her towel. She declines to alert the Board of Massage Licensure, so he gets progressively bolder until they're having full-out sex on the massage table.

This, you could say, is a logical evolution from the good ol' Pizza Guy — a dream that there are attractive women who're so lonely that you pretty much just have to get them alone and they'll fuck your brains out. The authenticity factor is not neglected; these videos are often shot in the found-footage style, supposedly by security cameras that have been dutifully placed at sexy overlapping angles. (For optimum security, you know.)

5. The college sex-tape contest

DareDorm is one of a group of sites peddling sex tapes supposedly submitted to them by college kids, who will apparently enter literally any contest you put in front of them. They're offered cash prizes to submit the sexiest sex tapes and commonly use canned phrases mid-shoot like "Ooh, I hope I win!" like real college kids would. Except that most real college kids aren't well-endowed group-sex enthusiasts who know how to properly engage a camera mid-orgy. But as you can tell from all of these tropes, even in this reality-starved age, these conceits don't have to make sense. They just have to hold up a thin, sense-like veneer. This works fine, as long as you don't start wondering how these kids are going to do on their PoliSci finals until you're finished masturbating.

6. The spitefully submitted ex-girlfriend sex tape

I know what you're going to say, and yes, revenge porn is a real thing. There actually are men who post real pictures and video of their real ex-girlfriends online. But it's not actually that common, because it pisses people off. Case in point: a site called Is Anyone Up was notoriously built on real revenge-porn submissions. Its mere existence whipped the world around it into a flurry of lawsuits, death threats, and physical attacks. Eventually, even its sociopathic creator disowned it.

So revenge porn is one thing, but "revenge porn," as epitomized by ExGFs.com and its ilk, is different. There's a reason it's been allowed to exist for so long without a hint of blowback: these are not real ex-girlfriends. But again, there's the fantasy of taking advantage of women — and again, there's the feeling of authenticity.

Why are we so desperate for this idea of realness? Going back to the casting-couch thing, maybe the reason "porn hopefuls" are more appealing than "porn stars," even if there's no actual difference, is that porn hopefuls supposedly don't know that the videos are being shared. These purported ex-girlfriend tapes are attractive because, in theory, you weren't meant to see them.

In a culture where everyone seems to be performing all the time, we love unguarded moments of "real" passion or "real" arousal — even though the commercialization of those moments defeats the entire purpose. The new tropes: a boner-killing vicious cycle worthy of a Don DeLillo novel.