What to do with a large amount of old porn DVDs?

March 30, 2007 3:24 PM

I have a lot of old porn DVDs that never get watched and are taking up space. How should I get rid of them?

You can't exactly give them to Goodwill, but I'm sure there's a way to recycle old porn. I'm a watch-a-few-times-and-archive kind of guy. There's any genre you could imagine, including the weird stuff. Thanks to the internet and the cheap Portugese porn industry, I probably have over 300 discs and their cases.

I could throw them out. I could also sell them, but is there a market for used porno DVDs? I'm just considering getting a 300-disc binder and putting the discs in there, stashing it away and discarding all the cases, but is that something you can take to the dump--300+ DVD cases covered in naked men, women and the other?

Creative ideas accepted, as well as altruistic ideas such as "porn for the morally-conservative" or something.

posted by anonymous to media & arts (37 comments total)

starting bid is $20 plus postage!
posted by jannw at 3:32 PM on March 30, 2007

Porn in the woods
posted by smackfu at 3:35 PM on March 30, 2007

Call a local dirty-movie shop and see if they buy?
posted by LobsterMitten at 3:36 PM on March 30, 2007

not that creative, but craigslist "for free?"

And yes, of course you could just throw the boxes in the trash. If you're that worried about being embarrassed, take them to a public dumpster somewhere away from your house.
posted by drjimmy11 at 3:36 PM on March 30, 2007

Freecycle?
posted by Luddite at 3:37 PM on March 30, 2007

Around here there are used DVD/CD stores that pay a buck or two for pretty much any CD or DVD you bring in. I don't see why they wouldn't do the same for porn DVDs.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 3:50 PM on March 30, 2007

You've tagged your question with "ebay", but you don't explain why you don't simply sell your goods there.
posted by Dec One at 3:52 PM on March 30, 2007

-list it on ebay or craigslist. Sell the lot or sell off parts of the collection by genre. I checked both and there seems to be porn listings. I don't know if it is collectible or specialized stuff, but people are listing it

- Does amazon.com sell porn? if so, list on their auction service or whatever it is called. You'll have to list each one individually, so that might be more trouble than it is worth

-Donate to local fraternity, LAN party group, etc.

- list for sale or for free+postage on a livejournal adult/porn enthusiast community or myspace adult lifestyle/porn enthusiast community (if there is such a thing)

-list on freecycle
posted by necessitas at 3:53 PM on March 30, 2007

Yes...if you choose to dump the cases, I would take advantage of this opportunity to play a huge trick on a nasty neighbor (or good friend who can take a joke) and fill their garbage can until it overflows!

Could you pass the DVDs themselves on to your future son(s), sort of like parents giving their children their old favorite toys?
posted by Asherah at 3:53 PM on March 30, 2007

Could you pass the DVDs themselves on to your future son(s), sort of like parents giving their children their old favorite toys?

Ew. What the fuck are you on? And when you say "old favorite toys" ... I hope you mean of the non-sexual varieties.

I like the joke idea, though.
posted by spaceman_spiff at 3:58 PM on March 30, 2007 [1 favorite]

If you live anywhere near me, I will take them. I think people usually recycle porn by passing it along to friends or interested folks, that's always what I've done.
posted by jessamyn at 3:59 PM on March 30, 2007

Spaceman: They were both joke ideas...and by toys I meant favorite books, legos, tinker toys. I think if the guy stashed it away it wouldn't be that odd, just think of how many kids thumbed through or stole their parents Playboys and Hustler mags.
posted by Asherah at 4:03 PM on March 30, 2007

My local FreeCycle has a 'must be family-friendly' policy.

So rigourously enforced that they once axed a post of mine offering sheets because I mentioned the pillowcases ranged from "unused, to 'suitable only for drowning kittens,'" but I digress...

(I am a fan of kittens, it was a joke, yes.)

If you put them on my local CL, you'd probably get a few bux for the DVDs, and a lot more from somebody like me for just the packaging. Rarely does one see such a gilded gag opportunity!

Just offer it in a Krusty-style box labelled "used-up pornography."
posted by kmennie at 4:20 PM on March 30, 2007

Dec One: Ebay has restrictions on adult material that might make it a little awkward.

Ebay might still be a decent option, though you might want to sort them by category so you have several listings of... I don't know, thirty or so? Depends on how much effort you want to put into it. But plenty of people would only be interested in one kind--they might not buy 300 DVDs of all kinds of porn (expensive, and they end up with a lot of porn they don't want), but they might buy twenty or thirty that are mostly the kind they like. You'd probably get more for them that way, too.
posted by Many bubbles at 4:25 PM on March 30, 2007

1. Create something out of the old discs, blog about it and get posted on digg
2. Put the porncraft on ebay
3. Profit!

Take all of the inserts out of the DVD cases, and reuse the DVD cases. Use the inserts to wallpaper a "Man room"
posted by JonnyRotten at 4:40 PM on March 30, 2007

"the other"?
posted by Flashman at 4:43 PM on March 30, 2007

jessamyn beat me to it, but she lives near me so maybe I can get a porn library card from her or something.
posted by terrapin at 4:46 PM on March 30, 2007

Alumni of my fraternity used to drop off boxes of the stuff when they would get married/have kids and were "asked" by their wives to dispose of said commodities.

They'd usually find good homes, end up as conversation pieces or end up projected in 30' x 30' goodness on the side of the sorority next door via a projector.

Also, try posting your vast collection on Craigslist as a 'barter' trade. I bet you'll get some interesting offers. At the least it'll give you a great 'One time when I had 300 porn DVDs...' story.
posted by ASM at 5:24 PM on March 30, 2007

Back in the 90s, my ex donated several hundred old Beta gay porn tapes to a university library some years ago. They went to a GLBT studies collection along with a Bijou Video print catalog from that era. We used to joke that someone had a lot of fun cataloging them.
posted by Robert Angelo at 5:35 PM on March 30, 2007

Oh right, you could call the Museum of Sex (212-689-6337) and ask them. I bet they get that question at least once a week.
posted by jessamyn at 5:39 PM on March 30, 2007

Used DVD Empire.com
posted by plokent at 6:41 PM on March 30, 2007

About 12 different places in my neighborhood (Castro) buy used porn DVDs.
posted by ClaudiaCenter at 6:50 PM on March 30, 2007

Isn't there a porn equivalent of Bookcrossing?
posted by maremare at 6:52 PM on March 30, 2007

I say put it in a paper bag labelled FREE PORN and leave it on a park bench.
posted by electroboy at 8:00 PM on March 30, 2007 [2 favorites]

My vote is for a treasure hunt. Bury the whole stash (or several categorized stashes) in some nondescript location. Then make a Craigslist post and send whoever requests more information a copy of a treasure map. Make sure you make the map as pirate-y as you can, using calligraphy, an elaborately illustrated rose, and be sure to use obscure references to natural land features instead of anything easily identifiable. If you can somehow utilize puzzles and riddles to complicate their search, all the better.

You should also stipulate that whoever successfully locates and digs up the booty(!) take pictures of their quest and send them to you. That should make for an interesting MeFi Project. Garrr.
posted by krippledkonscious at 8:20 PM on March 30, 2007 [1 favorite]

Many adult stores buy used (they will pay an incredibly paltry sum because they know you just want to get rid of it). If you want to just throw out the boxes it's just a few trash bags full. Chuck them with the regular trash over a few weeks.

Alternatively, are you in a college town? Hit frat row on weekend evenings with a couple grocery sacks full to give away and prepare to receive many, many free beers.
posted by nanojath at 8:31 PM on March 30, 2007 [1 favorite]

In the non-adult video universe, there are companies that sell huge batches of non-new-release movies to new rental stores. Hey, if you're going to advertise "Thousands of titles to choose from," those discs gotta come from somewhere, right? Presumably, the same can be said for adult video stores that have yet to open their doors.

The thing is, in order to reach these brand new businesses, you'd probably have to advertise in a publication or on a website perused by those in the industry. Not sure where you'd find such a thing.
posted by Clay201 at 9:53 PM on March 30, 2007

Just seconding the offer for barter idea. That could easily end up the most entertaining route, if not the most profitable.
posted by moift at 12:41 AM on March 31, 2007

donate it to a local fertility clinic, you'll be directly responsible for a lot of babies being brought in this world
posted by matteo at 4:35 AM on March 31, 2007

Stage a porno marathon for charity. Have people donate to sponsor watchers, and see how long people can make it. As each person eventually taps out, send 'em home with a dvd from the collection (since I doubt there'll be 300 folks willing to watch several days of straight porno, but there will be a lot of folks willing to try).
Advertise it in a student publication and give the proceeds to planned parenthood.
(Otherwise, just give 'em to me and I'll do that. I think it'd be fantastic.)
posted by klangklangston at 8:47 AM on March 31, 2007

Following up on Clay201's suggestion, AVN is the biggest sex-industry trade publication.
posted by box at 8:47 AM on March 31, 2007

I am imagining a cultural historian a mere 50 years in the future, reading a version of this thread on a treasured, rare ancient laptop with a flickering screen and groaning hard drive, screaming in frustration that no one bothered to archive material like this, material which uniquely reveals us and our society completely undressed in so many ways.
posted by jamjam at 10:17 AM on March 31, 2007 [1 favorite]

you might want to think twice before freecycling or craigslisting for free. First, you'll get a deluge of people emailing you asking you about the porn and when they can come get it. You'll have to coordinate a time, and then you'll have these people come by your house.

(And if your really unlucky, you'll get some aspiring doc filmmaker come by with a camera to interview the guy getting rid of 300 porn vids...)

Seems like a super-hassle. And given that you've posted this question anonymously, not such an anonymous solution.

I second the in the woods idea. you'll make some other anonymous person happy.
posted by kamelhoecker at 10:22 AM on March 31, 2007

First, you'll get a deluge of people emailing you asking you about the porn and when they can come get it.

Even worse, you'll get questions about what kind of porn. Like "Do you have any where the girls look really young?" Ick, ick, ick.
posted by smackfu at 10:33 AM on March 31, 2007

I like krippledkonscious' treasure hunt idea, but I would go a step further and do it as a geocache. Just make sure that if you do that, you leave notes indicating that it's for adults only.

Hell, with 300 discs you could do a spectacular follow-the-chain-of-riddles to get to the jackpot, where you leave one at each link of the chain.

It could be legendary.
posted by quin at 11:00 AM on March 31, 2007

Microwave.
posted by fourcheesemac at 3:54 PM on March 31, 2007

Just read this now, but really, do you not have ANY friends who would like 300 porn DVDs? I could probably name at least 5 people who would take them off my hands, though that's probably somewhat revealing about my character and friends...
posted by 999 at 3:56 PM on April 7, 2007