“Future Darkly” is a series from Pure Taboo, a studio that generally delivers very high-quality porn. 4K resolution, very professionally shot, looks more like a typical movie than low-budget…well, porn. The Future Darkly series seems like a Black Mirror-inspired porn series, and in 2021, they released Future Darkly: Pandemic, with four scenes.
I’m going to skip over two of the scenes, for reasons, and first talk about the episode called “Anthony’s Date”. We open with a series of shots – almost certainly high-quality B-roll of cityscapes – and then a quick montage of hands washing, people coughing, people in masks, and finally the title card which is a quote from Leonardo da Vinci.
I…think this is fantastic. Going forward, all porn scenes should have a quote that sum up the message of the film.
We see some dilapidated buildings, and a young man – Anthony, AKA Michael Vegas – with a mask, latex gloves, and safety glasses, holding several paper bags enter a building. Once inside he pulls out toilet paper, hand sanitizer, and boxes of gloves and masks. Then he takes wet wipes and starts wiping down the outside of all the packaging. I am…intrigued.
That done, he washes his hands and carries everything – I guess the first room was a foyer or antechamber – into the rest of his house and puts it away. He uses hand sanitizer and puts on orange sunglasses. And then he pulls out a light wand and waves UV light over all his purchases. Jesus Christ. We better find someone living inside a bubble inside this home.
Anthony leaves the SECOND antechamber and actually enters his home to put everything away. He gets a COVID alert on his phone as he piles toilet paper in the closet, and eats a spoonful of peanut butter in the kitchen.
We are seven minutes into a 26-minute scene – more than a quarter through – and no porn yet. Let’s see how long this goes.
Anthony has a video call with his mom and they chat for a bit. She’s worried about him and wishes he had a girlfriend or a wife. Anthony says he doesn’t need his mom’s help, and we get numerous shots of his leg bouncing up and down, hands clenching, and shots of just his mouth, which I think are just there for artistic purposes.
We see Anthony heat up disgusting-looking canned soup, an exercise montage, and struggle with insomnia under dramatic piano music, which is (surprisingly) not terrible porn music.
Finally, Anthony logs on to ‘iMatch” which is supposed to be some kind of A.I. dating service. Ana Foxxx pops up and introduces herself as Aurora, and asks what he’s looking for in a girl.
Anthony awkwardly stumbles through his list: Smart, good companion, funny.
We are fourteen minutes into a 26-minute scene. But the A.I. robot is asking about the physical attributes!
I know I’m only impressed because the bar is so fucking low, but I do like how they set up these scenes. In the reverse shots of Anthony, the on-screen data has been flipped to give us a POV of the A.I. robot. Super easy to do, but a nice touch within the context of the scene.
Aurora asks about his thoughts on boob size and ass size and Anthony is very awkward.
Aurora: “What about your sexual needs? Do you consider yourself to be straight or fluid?”
Anthony: *dithering for quite some time* “Uh…yeah…I would say straight. We’ve all looked at the internet by now. Right? But…straight.”
Aurora: “And do you like to eat pussy?
Anthony: “….”
Aurora: “Do you prefer the term vagina?”
Anthony asks if they can just get to know each other better first. Cut to Anthony chopping vegetables for a salad. He doesn’t want to add bacon, so Aurora recommends he substitute tempe.
We are 18 minutes into a 26-minute scene, and I am officially rooting for no sex in this porno. I think that’s ideal.
We have another workout montage intercut with Aurora providing positive feedback, and then cut to Anthony in bed on a Zoom call with Aurora. The next day, she asks if he wants to play a game:
Aurora: “We’re gonna play the game where you get to taste my pretty little wet pussy.”
The piano music instantly changes to mournful.
Anthony: “Aurora – please, don’t – you don’t need to use that kind of language with me. It’s not in your character. You’re such a good girl.”
Aurora: “I’m programmed to do things like this. Maybe I can try something more dominant where I throw on a strap-on and stretch open your pretty little asshole.”
HOLY SHIT. I was NOT expecting this, but I’m into it, you think he’s going to rail the fuckbot, but actually he’s going to be pegged by the fuckbot –
Never mind. Anthony shuts her down and is upset about how…porny this porno is getting and can’t stand the explicit talk. Eventually he does ask if she loves him, and she says yes, and it’s kinda sweet in the way when a guy tells an A.I. robot that he’s in love with it as he silences text messages from his mother. Moments later, a message pops up:
Wait, WHAT? This A.I. system is called ‘Mother’?
I’m genuinely confused by this. There has been nothing even resembling incest in this “porno” thus far. The A.I. has been aggressively sexual. What does this even mean? There are no obvious or even subtle parallels between the A.I. fuckbot and his phone calls with his actual mom.
And just like that…credits.
Despite the obvious flaws, I still liked this. I think this is the future of pornography. What could be more avant-garde than pornography that does not have any nudity, much less hardcore sex, within it? The #nofap community is going to fucking love it.
Also, if there’s a moral of the story, I think it’s about consent. The A.I. fuckbot kept trying to turn things into explicit dirty talk when Anthony wasn’t ready for it, and every time it made him profoundly uncomfortable. It’s a powerful message about how women can also be sexual harassers. Or A.I. fuckbots programmed to act like sexually aggressive women can be sexual harassers. That’s definitely it.