The pornography industry is in a sad state of affairs these days. If you’ve seen an adult movie recently, you know that the classic story lines that once defined the industry are no longer present. Gone are the films where the plumber responds to a leaky pipe call at the sorority house. Awkward boss/secretary foreplay is a thing of the past. Plot in general has been lobotomized from most adult movies these days; what you find instead is sex scene after sex scene with another sex scene edited in for a buffer.

You can’t blame the movie producers for this. If any industry has mastered the art of catering to their consumer’s explicit wants and needs, it’s the porn industry. They’re simply giving the consumer what they want, and the consumer wants the money shot. The same can be said for the majority of hikers today. A friend of mine came up from Atlanta for a few days in the mountains. This happens every couple of months; friends will visit from big cities and I’ll take them into the woods. They’ll bring beer and I’ll show them wildlife. It’s like a cultural exchange program. I was telling him about a hike along the Appalachian Trail near Roan Mountain. I described the elevation gain, the different ecosystems we’d pass through, the cultural history of the area, the rarity of certain species that can be seen along the way, but all he wanted to know was if there was a waterfall.It’s not just my buddy that craves the sight of water gushing over rocks and plummeting into dark, green pools. The majority of America is obsessed with the waterfall. Most of this country won’t even set foot in the woods if there isn’t the promise of at least a small set of cascades at the end of the hike. What’s one of the most popular tourist destinations in North America? Niagara Falls. What’s the most popular hike in the Shenandoah National Forest? White Oak Canyon Falls. Three guesses as to what’s at the end of that hike. In fact, all of the popular hikes in the Shenandoah lead to waterfalls. In the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the path that sees the most action is the Rainbow Falls Trail. Transylvania County, in North Carolina, hinges its entire tourist industry on the fact that it has more accessible waterfalls than any other county around. Did you know that there are at least 10 different waterfalls that are regarded as the Tallest Waterfall East of the Rockies? Just about every state in the region claims to have the tallest waterfall around. Why? Because that’s what Americans want. The waterfall is the money shot of the hiking world. It’s as if we, as a culture, are immune to subtlety. We can no longer appreciate the babble of a gentle brook-we must have the gushing of the waterfall. We can no longer be content with sitting on a rock surrounded by nature-we have to have a cliff to dive from. Subtlety be damned, we want drama. And short of getting attacked by a bear or losing your virginity to a wood nymph, a waterfall is about as dramatic as it gets in nature. I understand the desire. I’d like to see Niagara Falls someday, and nobody craves a naked shower beneath a wild, rushing waterfall more than me. But you’re missing out if you only want eco-porn. I hate to sound like a hippie who’s read too many books about Buddhism, but in order to truly appreciate the drama of a waterfall, you have to first pay attention to the subtleties surrounding it. I mean what’s drama without context? And what’s the money shot without the awkward plumber/sorority girl foreplay? Former porn star Graham Averill is associate editor of Blue Ridge Outdoors. He can be reached at graham@blueridgeoutdoors.com.