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No Slump For Sex Online
from the -lessons-of-the-virtual-sex-boom- dept.
Despite the explosion of sexual activity online, a Zogby survey found that 65.l per cent of respondents believed finding sexual fulfillment on the Net was "not likely." Duh.
These robust figures show just how hypocritical and schizophrenic America's attitudes about sex and the Net are, and how much the success of online sex sites reveals about the future of the Web.
In a l999 CBS.MarketWatch.com poll, 23 per cent of the people surveyed called pornography the Net's worst feature. It's certainly all most politicians want to talk about when it comes to discussing the online world. But somebody isn't telling the truth. A 1999 report by Alvin Cooper and Coralie R. Scherer of the California- based Marital and Sexuality Centre found that 75 per cent of those who enjoy adult Internet sites don't tell anyone about it.
The popularity of sex sites, especially during a so-called Tech Crash, ought to send a message about technology and applications that work online, or don't. Like Napster, sex sites offer genuine utility for millions of people who want sexual information and activity. Sex, like music and entertainment, is a universal human interest. Technology can make it easier for people to connect with these interests, and when that happens, the technology works. And the Net is rattling old taboos. Even though the number of people accessing sex sites has gone through the roof, the Cooper/Scherer report found that the proportion of sexual compulsives online parallels that in the general population. The hue and cry about the menace of cybersex addiction seems misplaced.
Law enforcement officials have also been reporting a dramatic rise in child pornography online, but there is no evidence that sex crimes are on the rise either, according to researchers and federal (including FBI) statistics. Is it possible that the availability of sexual material online gives people healthier and safer outlets for sexual impulses than were previously available?
The problem with the way media, politics, morality and the Net have gotten all tangled up is that the confusion makes it difficult to measure the real consequences of online sexuality, clearly a significant new social reality. The Net has, for the first time in contemporary history, given individuals the freedom to explore sex and sexuality, despite ferocious opposition to the idea from government, elected representatives, religous groups and much of media. Tens of millions of people can access sex sites, talk about sexual fantasy and practice, consider whether they're gay or straight, meet one another, indulge in fantasies, gather information, assume different identities. According to the Cooper/Scherer report, 87 per cent of sex- site users said they felt no shame or guilt. More than 60 per cent pretended to be a different age than they actually are; 14 per cent admitted that they made up other attributes; another five per cent assumed the opposite gender.
Some interesting conclusions emerge from all of this. Simple exposure to sexual imagery doesn't appear as harmful or destructive as many politicians, moralists, educators and others would claim, as they pass legislation requiring blocking and filtering. Nor do the clucking or the legislation seem to have much effect. Even while Congress passes profoundly stupid laws like the Children's Internet Protection Act -- which forces local schools and libraries to install filtering programs whether they want to or not in order to get federal aid -- the number of adult Americans accessing sites devoted to sex seems to be growing by the day.
Another pattern that's been developing over several years is also becoming more distinct: The Net works well as a corollary to non-virtual human behavior and activity, not as a subsitute. Messaging doesn't replace voice-to-voice communications like phones; free music doesn't stop people from buying CD's (which sold in record numbers last year); e-books aren't more attractive to most readers than the real thing. And sex sites and virtual sexual identities don't replace real sex.
Re:Katz is ...right? But you aren't. (Score:3)
My point is this: so many people are fond of saying things like ``human nature'' and ``human desire'' and try to apply some claim to humans universally. But often when people make claims like this they are very far from the truth. For example, there is a culture where it is accepted, no expected, that a boy suck his fathers penis and swallow its load. It is part of the boy's passage to manhood. The idea is that by accepting an important part of what it means to be a man from another man he is gaining that mans intelligence and power. So it's not fair to say that ``human nature rejects the idea of sex with children.'' Or another relavent example is the one I have given above. Or cannibals give another example. Or entire socities that are vegetarian; so it's not fair to say ``it is human nature to eat meat'' or ``we are carnivores by nature'' when there are groups of thousands of people showing that to be false.
Our sexual desires and our nature is dictated almost entirely by our own culture. Our attitudes towards sex, drugs, food, personal space, hygeine, alcohol, education and so on are different than almost all other cultures. When it comes to human nature, there are almost no absolutes, almost no universals and almost surely large sets of counterexamples to every sentence of the form ``it is human nature to do X.''
So here is how I would change what you said:
Well, yes, it DOES appear that Katz is right on this occasion. The only problem is that his conclusion is painfully obvious when applied to our society. Sex sells to most Americans. It almost always has, and it almost always will. Through good times and bad, Americans will almost always want to get laid.
Insider view (Score:3)
The metric used, counting the number of free sites and pay sites over two time samples, is almost completely unrelated to the the success or profitability of the industry. Unlike many non-porn dot coms, porn has historically been very protiable, but the profits per subscriber and per "amount of work" (nebulous, I know) are generally decreasing.
If you look at publicly traded companies that own or run porn pay sites, they've been hit as hard as the rest of the tech sector. New Frontier Media (NASDAQ: NOOF) [noof.com] which runs iGallery.net (which in turn runs tits.com [igallery.net], pussy.com, etc.) went from $12 a share in April 2000 to around $2 a share today. Private Media (NASDAQ: PRVT) [prvt.com], a major European porn publishing company which runs its own sites as well as has licensing deals with US net companies, went from $12.5 a share in April 2000 to around $6 a share today. Rick's Cabaret (NASDAQ: RICK) [rickscabaret.com], a Texas-based strip club company that runs several large sites, went from $5.50 a share in April to $2.25 a share today.
More intangible measures, such as profits per surfer signup, also seem to be falling. Exact figures aren't published, but some major companies are reducing their "referral fees" paid for advertising the sites. Cyberotica [cybererotica.com], the 1st or 2nd most visited for-pay porn site most months according to now-defunct PCDataOnline.com, has dropped their referral fees from $40 to $25 per "free signup" since last year. Smaller companies are following suit, and larger ones that are holding the line for competitive reasons are showing signs of financial strain. RJB Telcom, which runs the other top-visited pay site, Karas's Adult Playhouse [karasxxx.com], has held their referral fees at $35-$42 per subscriber, but has been a couple weeks late paying affiliates for several months. (Their difficulties initially stemmed from an expensive legal entanglement last November, but if they were as profitable as a year or two ago, they almost assuredly would have recovered almost instantly). Both companies are very well run, and grew from profits rather than IPOs...the publicly traded companies haven't shown any outward signs of profit problems, but their management is typically not as sensitive as the successful private firms in responding to market changes.
The boom in free porn sites, which Katz cites as a sign that the industry is doing well, may actually be the opposite, at least economically: the abundance of free porn is widely thought to be eroding the demand for pay sites, though there are too many factors at play to prove a causal relationship. For those who don't know the business model, free sites exist by running ads for pay sites, so the success of the two are intertwined. One thing most of the industry agrees on is that it's harder to make money in porn lately, whether from free sites or pay sites, and based on the few publicly traded companies dealing in online porn, investors are seeing the same thing.
Wireless Sex/Porn also rocketing (Score:3)
--
WolfSkunks for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.keenspace.com";
Re:OK then (Score:3)
UK Law (which strikes me as sensible) says that anything which is or appears to be child porn is illegal. Why?
Simple. If the fake is legal, it's almost impossible to prosecute the real thing as the instant defence becomes 'it's faked'. How do you prove beyond reasonable doubt that it isn't? You can't, in all honesty.
If you want to keep the real thing illegal and prosecutable, the fake has to be illegal too. A free speech advocate is almost certainly going to jump up and down on this, but this is the sort of thing which makes me GLAD Britain doesn't have absolute freedom of speech. It creates far too many problems and undesirable situations. For reference, I'm a Liberal Democrat [libdems.org.uk]. Slightly left of centre, basically.
Sorry Katz, but your logic is flawed (Score:3)
He cites a report from sextracker.com that the number of free adult Web sites grew from 22,100 in l997 to 280,300 last year. Sex-for-pay sites grew from 230 to 1,100 during the same period.
Notice the survey is up to last year. If you track the dotcom boom up until last year, you'll still find tremedous growth. It's the beginning of last summer until now has the market been crashing down so quickly.
All your other dated surveys were made before the dotcom crash. How do you know if the sex online industry isn't slumping now? What if all those horny guys paying the sex sites were the ones downloading porn at work, and now they that they're fired they don't have the bandwidth to stream video from hotnakedteenagechickz.com?
Re:Wireless Sex/Porn also rocketing (Score:3)
Porn on cell phone? How desperate are people... how much enjoyment can you get from extremely poor resolution grey pixelled porn? I can see people scrolling around the picture trying to imagine what it all would look like if it fitted on one screen ;)
For god sakes get a grip people! Then again, maybe I'm just getting old and have forgotten the thrill of recieving a seedy low quality CGA stip poker game on a disk from a mate at school...
Re:Katz again (Score:3)
Well that's your problem. Perhaps instead of trying to hide it from your kids, you should have age appropriate discussions with them, so that when they are exposed to sexual images they can deal with them.
Re:Wireless Sex/Porn also rocketing (Score:3)
I wrote a piece on this for the Wall Street Journal Online. If you have an account at wsj.com, you can find the piece at:
http://interactive.wsj.com/archive/retrieve@6.c
OR
you can get a longer, uncut piece at http://www.eroticabiz.com/.
consider:
-- 13 of the top 20 adult web sites are hosted by a handful of large, well-known public companies whose SEC filings never mention their adult clients: AboveNet, Digex (part of MCI), Exodus, Level3, UUNet (part of MCI), and Verio (owned by Japanese telecom
giant, NTT).
-- 19 of the top 20 run on Linux or some variant or precursor.
-- "Two years ago, our money came from e-commerce companies, ASPs [Application Service
Providers], ISPs, and portals", said Hall. "Today companies in those sectors are struggling and
mostly unable to pay their bills. Probably 20% of our mainstream customers have gone out of
business over the last six months, while only 2-3% of our adult customers have gone out of
business." Other hosting and backbone sources confirmed Nash's statistics with some saying that
non-adult customer loss was between 10 and 25% including those officially still on the books, but
not paying their bills.
What's more adult sites are also the most profitable. "An average mainstream customer at our
company spends $5,000 per month," said Hall. "An average adult customer spends around
$20,000 per month."
-- "I'd say that about 65% of the data transferred through the data center I work in is porn," said a
network engineer with Exodus. Other estimates of how much of the Web's total bandwidth that porn
consumes ranges as high as 80% but none put it lower than 40%.
Porn (Score:3)
Sex, or porn, might be the lowest common denomiinated message - the easiest content when content is a void. As Marshall MacCluan opined, as the medium expands, the message moves closer to it's lowest common denomintor -- which I would say is porn. I think we can witness small examples of this on cable TV -- the more channels we get, the more insepid the programming gets.
And on the web, the more URLs, the more porn. It's MacLuen's premis in action.
-z
Those numbers aren't far off (Score:4)
I work in a small town ISP in middle American right in the center of the Bible Belt. It's a pretty religious place being 98% christian (conservative guess), and we have more churches than grocery stores here.
A few months ago I ran a transparent web proxy on some of our lines to guage whether it would do us much good. While tuning the cache I noticed is that there is a -whole- lot of porn browsing going on. (No I didn't match any of that up to user info, I respect privacy as much as possible).
Out of curiosity I wrote a simple script to comb the cache and see what percentage of URLs were porn related, I made a list of obvious things to search for like 'breast, pussy, hotchicks.com' etc. etc. Not scientific by any means but it gave me a decent ballpark. At 10pm at night I was getting percentages in the 35-40 range, quite a bit more than I expected.
Availability of Kiddie Porn Healthy? (Score:5)
Re:Availability of Kiddie Porn Healthy? (Score:5)
First of all, I think you're on shaky ground when you make the arguement that an increase in the availability of child pornography online doesn't lead to a corresponding increase in the creation of child pornography. Name me one market that, when the demand for its product rises dramatically, doesn't respond with increased supply. A fixed number of kiddie porn images isn't going to make a potential sex-offender happy forever. Once he's seen em all a couple times he's gonna want more and someone's gonna abuse a kid to make it.
Furthermore, personally I find an arguement that, although not explicitly, maintains that it is ok because a relatively smaller number of children might be exploited compared to a society in which it's harder to get the material to be repugnant. Child abuse is one area in which I don't really find much room for acceptable abuse levels. One is already too many.
That said, I do want to say that I recognize the fact that some of us, for whatever reason, are attacted to things that might be illegal or socially unnacceptable by urges beyond our control. It is quite unfortunate for these people and I hope that they can find an alternative outlet for their attraction, however, the fact that it is beyond their control doesn't excuse the abuse of the childred (or whatever victims there may be). Sex must be consenual or it isn't sex so much as rape. I don't understand how being against the raping of children is equal to hunting witches.
Real reasons why porn is not a good thing (Score:5)
Some interesting conclusions emerge from all of this. Simple exposure to sexual imagery doesn't appear as harmful or destructive as many politicians, moralists, educators and others would claim, as they pass legislation requiring blocking and filtering.
First of all I want to say that I am all for free-speech and free-press. I don't believe that library computers should have censorware placed on them mostly because I don't think that it works and I don't want to be blocked from legitimate websites. The problem with this statement is that it paints all politicians, moralists, educators in a light of being completely conservative, stupid and incapable of understanding the real issue. Some of them don't, this is true, but to generalize all of them this way is unfair. I think there are real issues that should be addressed and are over-looked by both extreme conservative parties, and extreme liberal parties.
I would most likely be considered by this audience to be a "religious" person. But I'm not going to sit here and spout off that God said sex was bad and therefore we shouldn't look at porn, that's not the point (and besides God never said that, just an idea that is put forth by people who haven't actually read the Bible). The point is that contrary to Mr. Katz statement above, people who engage in sexual activity, be it porn (internet or elsewhere), or one-night stands, whatever, have less fulfiling long-term relationships. And I know there will be people who don't much care for long term relationships in the first place but it is proven statistically that people in long term relationships, especially marriage relationships are happier and lead more fulfiled lives.
There are more victims of porn than first meets the eye. First the people being photoed, erotic dancers, whatever, a lot of times they do these things willingly but because they feel they have no other way to make money. Of course there is the child argument which goes without saying. But I personally think what is most over-looked is partners/spouses of people looking at porn. About a year ago a married friend of mine asked me to come look at her computer (some problem with the Internet settings) in the course of working on it I discovered cookies and cached files from porn sites that her husband had been surfing. She was devistated. She felt like she wasn't good enough, that her husband didn't love her for who she is. In essence that women is a victim. I certainly would be upset if it was my girlfriend looking at these things, and I know she'd break up with me if she thought that I was. The victims can be the people we care about.
Finally we victimize ourselves. By looking at porn we buy into an unrealistic fantansy of strange women who show up out of nowhere and have sex with us. Come-on! That doesn't really happen, and we start evaluating people by those ideas.
Pornography turns people into objects of sex. Maybe I have high ideals but I believe that people should be judged as people. I know its rare but maybe its time as a society we change. Freedom shouldn't come at the expense of other's Freedom.
Flame away! :)
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
Re:Wireless Sex/Porn also rocketing (Score:4)
Impossible! (Score:5)
Then how did the report find out?!?! I bet they were all going through the MS Passport Service. ;^)
Bottom Line: Sex Sells (Score:3)
This is a good point, that bears some further discussion. Throughout history, whenever a new media is developed, someone immediately finds a way to use that media to deliver pornographic content. Here are some:
Photos [internetdump.com]
Daguerreotypes [internetdump.com]
Stereoscopes [internetdump.com]
Postcards [internetdump.com]
I'd say that people's desire for pornography has driven many technologies. Many people credit the adult industry with the rapid development of VCRs and portable video cameras. What do you think the number one use of Polaroid cameras is? Hint: It's not taking pictures for the bullettin board at work. Bottom line? Porn sells. Always has, and always will. I'd even be willing to bet that the race to create a good Virtual Reality program to perform complex, life-saving surgeries is being run with just slightly less vigor than the race to create a Virtual Reality program to give blow jobs.
Just wait until you goto an international college. (Score:3)
Another thing I don't understand. Why is sex considered such a bad thing that everyone wants you to avoid? But then when you hit 21, sex is suddenly a great thing you should be doing. It's like telling kids 2+2=4, then when they turn 21 2+2 really equals 6.
I'm posting this again as a non-AC
OK then (Score:5)
How do you feel about that?
Right on! (Score:5)
We all know, due to the birth rate, that at any given second, lots of people around the world are having sex. Even in the United States where pornography is looked down upon, folks are getting it on. Even here in Utah, where sex is *almost* as bad as taking a drink, babies are popping up everywhere. So its obvious, there is a whole lot of lovin' going on.
However, in many countries, this sexual activity is in the open: it is discussed, and it is celebrated. These people recognize that we are one of only two species on Earth that have sex for enjoyment, and they aim to get the most out of sex, as long as the innocent are not getting damaged by it.
But of course, here in the good 'ol US of A, we revert to our puritan values, and look down on anyone that openly exposes sexuality. The whole attitude of the United States can be summed up in the words of Helen Lovejoy dicussing the statue of David (from the Simpsons for the uninformed):
"It depicts body parts that, pratical as they are, are evil".
In other words, we know that sex is required for the survival of the species, but it shouldn't be enjoyed.
So we come to the Internet, which brings the whole world out in the open, and, hey, lookie there -- there is a whole lotta sex out there. To the rest of the world, this is normal and expected, but to Americans this is an "explosion of evil". Sorry, Mrs. Lovejoy - there is no sudden infusion of pornography in the world, it has always existed, and it always will.... you have just had your eyes closed for the last 200 years.
Re:Wireless Sex/Porn also rocketing (Score:3)
Cool! I can see a perfect device already...
A handheld, with a large, 32-bit color screen, a cell-modem/bluetooth/whatever, an mp3 player, tons of memory, video player, really good image software, and designed for one-handed operation.
Call it the Vice-Boy. You could sell tons of them!
-WSKatz is ...right? (Score:3)
I got your numbers right here... (Score:5)
They must mean they don't tell anyone but Alvin Cooper and Coralie R. Scherer.
Seriously though, nothing irritates me more than a researcher saying "Your numbers are wrong and mine are right because nobody will tell you the truth."
Blame the Puritans (Score:5)
I wonder what the results of this survey in a more sexually enlightened country like Denmark or Sweden would show? There would probably be less sexual traffic, but more people admitting to it.
Sex, like drugs and voilence, is partly so attractive because it is forbidden, and yet marketed so extremely. It becomes a vice to grab Joe Sixpack into a cycle on consumption, dissatisfaction, and consumption.
People like porn... (Score:3)
I live in Sweden. An earlier comment here said that countries like Denmark
and Sweden are more sexually "enlightened". Whether that is true or not,
I do not know.
However, a year ago or so, a swede mede a documentary film about the
pornographic movies that is shown in a swedish pay channel. In this documentary,
some clips from pornographic movies were shown. This lead to a huge debate,
and many people wanted to forbid pornography in tv. The documentary was
shown in the swedish parliament and everybody seemed very chocked;they
had offcourse never seen anything like that before!
So, what you could excpect was some law changes since "everybody" thought
this was disgusting. But what happend? Well, after the documentary was
shown in tv, the subscribers of this pay channel, where the pornographic
movies were showed, increased by 20% !! That clearly proved how it really
is. People do want porn, even if most of them don't admit it.
Now I'm from Sweden, but I'm pretty sure we aren't more of sex maniacs
then americans. The pornographic movies, for instance, were american like
99% af all pornography made...
So really, who are we trying to fool here? People want port!
Makes sense when you think about it (Score:3)