You know, my brother's girlfriend brought this up in a conversation about art once. She said that she had read that had it not been for the revolution of home media, (VHS and then later naturally the DVD) porn would have been continued to be screened in theaters and thus become a more accepted part of society. I mean, if you look at some vintage porn titles (of which I naturally know only what Ive researched, hrm hrm) you can actually spot some really decent titles, some better than the average movie that came out at the same time.
But with the VHS came consumption porn, so to speak, and now it's basically scenes with a certain theme piled together on one dvd, or sold separately online. It's masturbation aid, not an arousing entertainment. (Of course it was the former in the old days too, but not to the same, "private", degree) Boogie Nights is an excellent example of what happened at this time. A film well worth your time, if you havent seen it.
It's a very interesting thing to bring up when discussing art, especially when so many gamers are joining the discussion with a defense of their chosen media, to think that porn could have been considered art and even equal to movies, had things not happened the way they did.