well it took almost 2 years of downloading at my own pace but i officially have every scene hard x has ever released in the highest possible quality. looks like i will be cancelling membership as 2 boy girl 1 on 1 scenes a month just arent worth it. if an occasional dp gangbang or blowbang was thrown in i might stay. but they arent nor will they be. i will just buy the 3 dvds they release a year for cheap a few months after each is released going forward and will continue to have the complete library. i cant justify 30 dollars a month. hell even a discounted price for 2 quality 1 on 1 scenes and a few of the scarce bonus updates that i like is not worth it.
^ I rejoined X Empire over Christmas and hadn't been a member there in about a year. I was surprised at how few updates there have been in the past year. I get that I may be seen as greedy, but my favourite "channel" there is Hard X and I may have downloaded 25 scenes. I downloaded far fewer on the other channels. With my membership expiring soon, I checked the site for updates yesterday (the first time I checked in a couple of weeks) and there were two scenes on the whole network that I downloaded. I tend to download a lot too, so it isn't like I'm fussy. It just seems that the production schedule is greatly reduced over what it had been.
hard x is pretty much the only channel i subscribed for also. i believe that would be considered the flagship of the xempire network by far. that is why i wish there would either be 1 or 2 more updates a month for hard x or the content type would include an occasional gangbang dp or blowbang. apparently, mason has made some sort of stylistic choice as to only shoot MF or rarely FFM scenes exclusively. it seems they expanded hard x into too many sub genres\sites. they spread themselves too thin with the niche sub genre sites when it all should just be under the hard x banner. the lesbian scenes and IR scenes should be merged back into just hard x and reduced. if a girl girl or ir scene happens then fine each one does not need a dedicated channel taking up money and shooting resources from the main website hard x.
^ My memory isn't what it used to be, and it never was very good, but I recall that Hard X was the first site and the only site for a while. The others were added later, and X Empire brought them all together. Am I remembering that correctly?
Regardless of that being right or wrong, like you, I've always viewed Hard X as the flagship of that network.
I also agree with you that not only has the frequency of scenes slowed, but many aren't particularly 'hard' any longer. We could always count on Hard X for blowbangs, gangbangs, anal, etc. The site feels tamer now. Maybe Mason has mellowed.
I'll still sign up, but likely not as often as I used to.
yep i am almost certain as you guys are that for a while it was just hard x. i think i may have even been an early subscriber for a brief period of time within the first year. i later rejoined and it had been expanded into xempire which at the time felt like they were trying to compete directly with blacked\vixen media group which was blowing up at the time and entering mainstream pop culture. xempire tried to create their own little version of blacked if i remember correctly then expanded into more niches after that even though none of them outside hardx really took off.
i asked this a year back and never got answered but does mason direct everything for xempire? even say the black on black sites content? or strictly hard x. that is still unclear to me.
^ Seems like a classic case of over-expanding and not being able to afford to finance enough content for all the offshoots with the result that the original site (HardX) takes the hit, withers and practically dies. Just wish they'd stuck with regular HardX scenes instead of over-extending themselves and ruining everything.
summed up nicely. i bet this is part of the reason we dont get gangbangs\blowbangs as the cost of the extra male talent to create those is too much when budgets are razor thin. i never thought it was a purely stylistic choice on masons part.
Just needs to go back to being HardX imo, the rest of the options are not doing anything you can't get elsewhere. Mason's quality of work when it was just HardX was miles better.
In the adult entertainment industry-particularly when it comes to intense acts like anal, double penetration (DP), and gangbangs-not fully embracing a hardcore style can create real shortcomings for viewers, performers, and producers alike.
pornography wasn't sex but fantasies of an impossibly hospitable world 12377 Posts 9/07
Posted - Jan 24 2026 : 8:55PM
Lol, what exactly are the shortcomings for performers? If a performer the stature of Emma Magnolia can make more on OF than shooting mainstream porn I'm not seeing a downside for the performers.
It might be unintended on Mason's behalf and it might be unusual altogether, but part of the sexual appeal for me about Mason's films is knowing that there is a woman behind the camera. Also, hearing her talk so matter-of-factly with the performers before the scene I find very exciting. If it was the usual male director I wouldn't but there's something about knowing and hearing a woman behind the camera that's a real turn-on and actually adds to the scene for me, especially when you then see how passionate and intense the scenes become.
has mason ever given a detailed interview discussing her overall change in style? her very early scenes for elegant angel were very hardcore and bordering on obscene material. the michelle raven scene with i believe he was named tony everyready where he sodomizes her with an empty beer bottle comes to mind. also, the alexandra quinn scene which may be from the same movie where she is essentially thrown around a parking lot naked. clearly the female performers were cool\willing participants, but it was pretty extreme stuff. she went from that to present day no longer even shooting dp,blowbang or gangbang. again, that may be financial but i am really not sure.
^ Good question and I hope that someone has some insight. Like you, I remember Mason's early days where here scenes were as you describe them. They leaned to the harder edge of hardcore where they don't now. My X Empire subscription is coming to an end and I'll likely wait a year before rejoining because there aren't a lot of updates overall, and some of those don't interest me.
After reading all the speculation, my first thought is that almost everyone has a boss. In Mason's case it's Gamma. They provide the budget, one that may well be insufficient to shoot more scenes. They may also exert editorial control. resulting in scenes that are toned down from previous works. It may just be as simple as that.
^ That's possible, but why would Gamma undermine a successful brand? They might do that if they wanted to let it wither and die, but I can't see them wanting that. While X Empire doesn't have the same cache as Vixen Media, they are well known and were/are a popular brand, especially Hard X. Also, it isn't like Gamma doesn't support harder edged porn because that's what Evil Angel is all about. I can't even see that Gamma would be undermining X Empire to promote Evil Angel because I'm confident in saying that both can exist. It's a sample size of one, but I never avoided subscribing to X Empire to give my money to Evil Angel instead. I was always happy to sign up to both. They are quite different approaches to harder porn.
Mason has been in the business a long time and maybe she's just winding down. That's always a risk, and maybe even an inevitability, for studios whose brand is one person's vision.
(Off topic, but Vixen Media Group seems to have successfully navigated Greg Lansky's departure.)
Like many others, I like a lot Mason's work. When she was at Elegant, she made films entirely devoted to a performer. I remember films such as Remy (the first one). I wish she would do the same now with XEmpire. My first choice candidate, although she might be along shot, would be Blake Blossom.
Well surely every scene of miss Blake Blossom is an attraction. She is simply Amazing. I love every damn curve of her natural body as well as her genuine sensual Californian temperament. This lady radiates pure sexuality and she has plenty of sexual energy to share with more than one lovers.
I think Gamma undermining HardX was intentional. These guys have done their research. HardX is hardcore porn. EvilAngel is extreme porn. Most porn users who sign up to watch HardX have probably come from softer stuff, and will eventually reach a point where the dopamine doesn't quite hit like it used to, so you go to see what's next, and that's where EvilAngel comes in. They do exist together, but they've made sure they're on different levels, in different categories. It's the business model. That's my conspiracy theory anyway.
But I do agree with your Mason point. Shooting porn for 20+ years is a long time. Maybe it's entirely her decision to wind down and who could blame her?
pornography wasn't sex but fantasies of an impossibly hospitable world 12377 Posts 9/07
Posted - Mar 29 2026 : 2:17PM
No need for pointless speculation. Mason has said that she now wants to shoot what the performer wants/fantasizes about. Her earlier films were more about her fantasies. A lot of performers have more vanilla tastes or at least don't like shooting rough for the camera. When Mason shot performers like Annette Schwarz who seem to authenically like it rough you got lots of rough, passionate sex.
pornography wasn't sex but fantasies of an impossibly hospitable world 12377 Posts 9/07
Posted - Mar 29 2026 : 2:24PM
There's nothing 'extreme' about Evil Angel unless you find scenes of women squirting coloured water and milk out of their butt 'extreme.'
I also disagree with your idea that watching porn drives a viewer to harder content. That is a facile claim of anti-porn activists. I've watched decades of porn and still prefer scenes of straight up fucking, I even find most anal boring. I have become more open to rough and BDSM porn but that's just having my mind opened to other sexualities by exposure to them. My preferences remain passionate fucking, no need for fadish circus acts.
^This is most likely just not true. People don't start watching porn with "I only like it if the woman looks like her asshole is in pain" but alot end up there.
You may not have progressed to dumber, more ridiculous stuff, but that makes you rare, to be honest.
Three of these scenes were released in Covid times and all feature talent that regularly shoots in Prague/Budapest and was probably purchased from a producer there.
There is a 4th scene, also released by the time with Lilu Moon ("Lilu Moon - Russian Superstar", Release Date 2020-07-03), which also fits that pattern.
^ Yeah, saw that too, and was wondering if genuine... But with the likes of who's retweeting it, sounds legit... (Abella Danger, Mike Quasar, Freya Parker, Seth Gamble...)
its hard to believe that every new girl has the same exact fantasy of 1 on 1 semi passionate semi gentle anal sex though. the scenes content the last 5 years has been completely stock stuff that the performers have shot dozens of other times already elsewhere. surely a few of the girls have fantasized and have done blowbangs and gangbangs for other companies and some have absolutely loved it. at the very least if mason is all about female performer fantasy there should be variation and new stuff the girls have never done. a ton of females both proffesional and amateur have fantasies of being with 2 men at once for example.
Posted - Jan 9 2026 : 12:37PM
