Porn Studio Starts Building X-Rated Snapchat Lenses, Encourages Users to Do the Same

Update: Snapchat removed the lenses in question following the publication of this story. Read our follow-up for all the details. Adult entertainment company Naughty America wants to use augmented reality to get the word out about its paid services. The company has begun to make Snapchat lenses featuring some of its models, and is teaching

Update: Snapchat removed the lenses in question following the publication of this story. Read our follow-up for all the details.

Adult entertainment company Naughty America wants to use augmented reality to get the word out about its paid services. The company has begun to make Snapchat lenses featuring some of its models, and is teaching its audience to do the same.

Naughty America shared three such lenses on its website (link not safe for work) for free this week. One of them features the 3D hologram of adult performer Stephanie West in lingerie. The other two lenses feature decidedly more x-rated fare, including a nude pole dancer and a male performer with full frontal nudity.

Paying members of the site have access to a handful of additional lenses, as well as holographic source data necessary to make AR filters. “We are giving the files away so people can make their own lense,” said Naughty America CEO Andreas Hronopoulos in an interview with Variety.

Related Stories

Characters from "Longlegs" and "Heretic" VIP+

2024 Was a Record Year for A24 and Neon. 2025 Will Be Tougher

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - NOVEMBER 07: Guillermo del Toro and Robert Eggers seen at a Special Screening of Focus Features' "Nosferatu" at Directors Guild Of America on November 07, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Eric Charbonneau/Focus Features via Getty Images)

Oscar Voters, Don’t be Scared of ‘Nosferatu’: Director Robert Eggers Explains His Gothic Horror Vision at First Screening (EXCLUSIVE)

X-rated lenses are likely going to cause some controversy, but Hronopoulos insisted that his company was playing by the rules. Naughty America is advising users not to publicly share their x-rated lenses, and not to publish them in Snapchat’s lens catalog. It also tells them not to use sexual imagery in preview images.

Popular on Variety

“We are just privately sharing these,” said Hronopoulos, likening it to the way Snapchat users may exchange personal pictures via the app.

Snapchat has in the past been a bit more lenient about nudity on its service than some of its competitors. Facebook’s Instagram in particular does not allow nudity on its platform, and has frequently been criticized for its arbitrary community guidelines, which for instance allow male, but not female nipples.

Snapchat, on the other hand, allows what it calls “nudity in non-sexual contexts.” However, the service prohibits accounts “that promote or distribute pornographic content.”

Regardless of these issues, Naughty America’s approach to not only make its own Snapchat lenses, but also encourage its audiences to do the same is noteworthy. In addition to providing its customers with holographic capture data necessary to build Snapchat lenses, it also put together a tutorial on how to do so.

Snapchat has developed a desktop app called Lens Studio that anyone can use to build augmented reality lenses for its app. The company said lenses built by its community have been used over 15 billion times.

Hronopoulos praised Lens Studio in his conversation with Variety, saying: “It’s an amazing piece of software.” He said he didn’t have any reservations about giving away files necessary to make lenses featuring Naughty America performers: “Who are we to say that we are the most creative?”

Read More About:

Jump to Comments

More from Variety

Most Popular

Must Read

Sign Up for Variety Newsletters

By providing your information, you agree to our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy.We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. // This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Variety Confidential

A Variety and iHeartRadio Podcast

ncG1vNJzZmiukae2psDYZ5qopV9nfXKFjp2goKGklrlwusSwqmirnpa9pLTArWSlnZ6osrR5z6ipp2WoYr%2BiwMSdZKeZpZy1tcWMmqSeqpmYrm59kWlqa2piaoJ2ew%3D%3D

 Share!