I was pretty fortunate, I think, to grow up just as the internet was coming together and new forms of content delivery opened up the possibility that anything, so long as there was enough demand in the global market, could be supplied.

But, I got to wondering: where would UMDers, had there been no internet, be today? Without the internet, I couldn't ever imagine talking to people about this, a non-mainstream fetish. My only thought would be to go to the local adult video store and ask them if they knew of anything, although my former self would probably have been too embarrassed to ever discuss such a thing with anyone.

I know we have some veteran, pre-internet fetishists on our board, so I would also like to hear their stories about how they got in the community before UMD and before the internet. Also, was there a community and what was it like?

That all depends on what you were into. Mud guys had it easy, since mud wrestling probably dates back to Mesopotamia. Wet stuff was also easy to come by through the mainstream adult industry. As for pies and slime, the magazine Splosh had been around, though I never lucked across it in my adult bookstores. We generally foraged amongst the garbage on TV, with VCRs at the ready to "capture some gold". Any pie/slime guy over the age of 35 had "a tape". My tape had the Natalie Wood Great Race scene (of course), some College Madhouse, and other gems from pay cable.

Eventually, there was a newsletter of tape collectors and traders and their archivist, Hurley Coward. They had a newsletter... "Magnum Report" or some such thing. Not sure... I came across that in the late 90's, on the internet.

I'd be interested to learn of the early days of Magnum Report, if it existed pre-internet.

-PYP

No, mud guys did not have it any easier than anybody else. As a horny teenager I scoured the TV Guide desriptions for any hint of muddiness, and probably wasted 75% of my allowance renting every scuzzy exploitation movie in search of muddy girls ... and out of all of that, after four or five years, I had ONE two-hour cliptape to show for it. ONE.

Then I went to college, got on the internet, and discovered Wamtec and Rob Blaine.

This was my experience, except I never ever got it all compiled onto one clip tape. It remains to this day in piles of old dusty, unlabeled VHS tapes!

I'd probably be still on the sofa with my lemsips *coff coff*


Seriously though I'd still be a wam model but would have contacted magazines and sold prints instead



Hugs from Sophie x x x

I wouldn't have gotten out of the dead end trap I was in. The internet has enabled me to move past my lack of education, as it is a meritocracy that rewards hard work and creativity.

For the most part.

For now.

I still have that first cliptape, and it still plays! Gradually digitizing the old stuff (including a zillion Wamtec tapes) and rediscovering a lot of good mainstream scenes.

I'd totally be the 1%.

@piesyespies. Splosh was very much an English mag and very hard to find even then, as it was only on sale in certain bookshops, not your average newsagent.
Before Splosh came along and let me know I was not alone in liking messy/muddy /wet girls, it was pretty much a looking out for reruns of black and white films - very early Tarzan (yes!) Jane got wet quite a lot - the original King Kong , where he sticks the girl under a waterfall, stuff like that , and of course the early silent comedies with pie fights in them. I don't remember seeing much mud in the sixties but then my memory is not what it was.
I do know the names WAM and sploshing had not been thought of back then, and getting wet or messy was not a topic I ever heard anybody discuss .
Also, stuff like custard for instance - you had to make it , actually heat it up in a saucepan from mixing powder and milk

So thank your God that the Internet exists and that a certain MM of our acquaintance created this site

What a great question!

Bigshipper & I have wondered about that from time to time. When I saw this, I teased him about the times I found pages of clay covered women torn out of my Vogue magazines and wondered WTF??

I also remember how much he looked forward to receiving his Messy Newsletter from Rob Blaine. Ok, he's gonna want to kill me now or punish me with pies again.

Just think, there are so many choices now that we can sit around and argue about the "right" way to do things.

Cheers,
Mrs. Bee

I'd probably be so hard up for "validation" of my fetish that I'd invent the internet just to see if anyone else thought the same way.

Seriously, though, I imagine without the internet brick-and-mortar porn shops would be about 5-times more prevalent than they are today. They would all be exiled to the "outskirts" of town (because moralist busybodies exist with or without the internet), but they would certainly have more departments dedicated to every niche fetish you can think of--even WAM. Professional WAM producers would have to be more ambitious since they can't just put their wares on the net and be guaranteed a worldwide instant-gratification market. There would be less material, but I think it would be better--even if it would come at a hefty price tag.

I think the mail-order and payment system would somehow get more sophisticated, though. I'm not sure how but I can't see people willing to wait 3-14 days for porn they ordered to arrive at their doorstep. Remember: every other great innovation in society was originally conceived with the goal of making naked women more accessible.

As for customers like you and me, I think we'd ultimately be more willing to browse for WAM in real life. Just about everybody--whether they want to admit it or not--want access to some erotic material. The internet just provides anonymity. If the anonymity is gone the desire is still there, so somehow society would be more open to asking in which aisle they can find the [niche fetish here].

Our family bought its first VCR in 1987.
From 1987 until I first learned of Rob Blaine's and MessyFun's existence
on 1994 May 26 (yes - I literally remember the exact date),
I had exactly 2 VHS videotapes that I kept for myself
onto which I crammed every single possible sexy - both wam and non-wam -
clip of women that I could get off antenna tv.

Wasted tons of hours renting crappy low-budget comedies
from videostores in the hopes of seeing that one good underwear or upskirt
or skirt-rip or mud wrestling or (most rare of all): pie-in-the-face scene.

Thanks to the internet, I can waste time much more efficiently!
Thank you, Mr Internet!

Picture Post was one source of muddy girls but only occaisionally The great thing about the internet was that it removed that awful isolated feeling of being a freak with no one else as "perverted" as you were Suddenly you were one of a number who shared an interest There were other people out there who shared whatever kink you had. If my own experience is a guide we owe the internet a great deal both in supplying material & as a contact medium

Mud and wetlook lovers had it "easy" in that their fetish was obviously "normal", common even. Hot chicks wrestling in mud was an acceptable event, put on to get your dick hard. Playboy had their "Wet and Wild" videos for the same reason. Mud and wetlook guys and gals knew they weren't alone. Until the internet, I had ZERO indication that ANYONE anywhere was turned on by old 3 Stooges reels. I was 23 when I found Messyfun.

-PYP

Were it not for the Internet an awful lot more of us would still think we were the only people in the world who got turned on by seeing people getting gunged, or by doing it ourselves. The real game-change the Internet brought to all kinds of areas of life was that it enabled people to form communities that weren't defined by physical location. All of a sudden like-minded people could meet even though they lived thousands of miles apart and would probably never meet in "real life".

In my case I'd never have seen adverts for companies like Messy Fun in adult magazines, as having no interest in nudity, I've never bought any porn mags, or watched any adult TV channels. I have bought Splosh but only found out about it via the Internet, would almost certainly never have heard of it otherwise.

What Joe said.

If it wasn't for the internet, then I don't even think I'd be into WAM! Thank God for the world wide web!

Prison.

Without the internets I would probably still think I was the only person on Earth turned on by pie in the face...and the only one with a ClipTape.
Of course now 99% of what was on my cliptape is sitting on Youtube.
And because of the internet I got to work for a Pie Producer for years and years. He lives 3000 miles away, so we never would have met otherwise. Ya, if not for the internet, I never could have explored this fetish the ways I have. Thanks Al Gore!

Al Gore is a pie producer? Sweet!