Porn driving virtual reality industry?

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As Oculus VR finally ships its virtual-reality headsets to the public, it’s heralding the potential of video games and movies — but it’s also quietly giving a wink to porn producers.

The Facebook-owned startup announced Monday that its new “Rift” headset has more than 30 games available as the first units ship this week, with 100 titles expected by the end of 2016.

Meanwhile, insiders say Facebook execs appear to be relying on another kind of content to drive demand for the Rift — namely, VR porn flicks.

To date, VR porn is viewed mainly on smartphone-powered headsets like the Samsung Gear VR and Google Cardboard. VR porn videos already number north of 1,000 from professional studios alone.

At industry conferences and in media interviews, Oculus founder Palmer Luckey has lately emphasized that the company will have an “open platform” for developers — porn producers included — even if Oculus doesn’t sell the smut on its official site.

This January, at the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas, execs from Oculus discreetly swung by a booth operated by Utherverse, whose VR porn sites include RedLightCenter and HoloGirlsVR.

“They said how impressed they were with what we were doing with VR porn,” said Utherverse Chief Executive Brian Shuster, who has cranked out 60 VR adult “scenes” and “experiences” to date. “They weren’t there to do anything except reconnaissance, but they’re certainly keeping an eye on what’s happening.”

That’s despite the fact that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who scooped up Oculus two years ago for $2 billion, likes to cultivate a squeaky-clean image as a family man and philanthropist.

Oculus reps didn’t respond to requests for comment.

“I joke that Luckey ought to give us a referral fee for every sale of the Rift,” says Todd Glider, CEO of VR porn studio BaDoink, which has already produced more than 50 VR porn videos — a number it expects to double this year.

“Companies like Oculus are not going to say, ‘Yes, we’re going to publicly endorse porn,’ ” Glider adds. “But behind the scenes, they have to be saying this is the driver.”

A nagging question for the Oculus Rift is what users can do with it once they’ve paid the asking price of $599, a tab that has struck many as surprisingly stiff — especially considering that the Rift doesn’t come with the high-end PC needed to run it, typically priced at $900 and up.

Ela Darling — a porn performer who started making VR porn videos in 2014 — thinks she has an answer.

Most VR porn is viewed on smartphones, which have scant memory, she said.

But with the superior processing power of the Oculus, “you can move back and forth, you can walk around, you can see from different angles,” she says. “It gives you a greater sense of presence and immersion.”

This story first appeared in the NY Post.