section heading icon     drivers of public nudity innovation?

This page considers debate about online adult content as a driver for commercialisation of the web and non-commercial activity.

It covers -

  • saviour of the net or sewer - perspectives on the role of online adult content
  • the engine of innovation - myth and reality
  • sex, shopping and broadband - visions of adult content as a driver for broadband, VOD and 3G markets
  • self-publishing, swapping and non-commercial activity
  • piracy

subsection heading graphic     saviour of the net or sewer


A critic thus claimed in 2000 that

The "dirty little teen nude vacation pool resort secret" of Al Gore's ostensible creation, the Internet, is that the so-called prosperity it is fueling, is actually being driven by American Baby Boomers' craving for smut. That's right. Pornography. Cybersex. In politically correct lingo, the Internet is now America's "personal choice for in-home sex-care providers." In fact, evidence now in the public record, demonstrates that what is actually driving the so-called "technology market," is a rock-drug-sex counterculture-inspired buying frenzy, which official government agencies factor into their fake economic figures.The "dirty little secret" of Al Gore's ostensible creation, the Internet, is that the so-called prosperity it is fueling, is actually being driven by American Baby Boomers' craving for smut. That's right. Pornography. Cybersex. In politically correct lingo, the Internet is now America's "personal choice for in-home sex-care providers." In fact, evidence now in the public record, demonstrates that what is actually driving the so-called "technology market," is a rock-drug-sex counterculture-inspired buying frenzy, which official government agencies factor into their fake economic figures.

As we have suggested in discussing the dot-com boom and domain name speculation, the "buying frenzy" was another episode in the long history of behavioural finance and shouldn't be attributed to iffy figures from government agencies or voracious demand for adult content. Few adult content providers were floated during or after the bubble; among those that were the differential between their prices and reported earnings were less than those for a range of dot coms such as Amazon.com or Yahoo.com.

subsection heading graphic     the engine of innovation?

Larry Kasanoff of Threshold Entertainment is reported as commenting that adult content was the first

in cable TV, it was first in home video and first on the Internet. So while we're all wondering what types of entertainment people will like on the Net, some guy named Rocco down the street is making $24 million a year selling porn. And not because he reinvented entertainment, but because he gave it to the public in a better way. So you know what? Porn is great for all of us. We should all study it.

Lewis Perdue's Eroticabiz: How Sex Shaped the Internet (New York: iUniverse 2002) was promoted with the claim that

Whether you call it adult content, smut, erotica or pornography; whether you consider it disgusting or titillating, the facts are clear that without business and technical pioneers in the online sex business, the World Wide Web would never have grown so big so quickly. Without consumer demand for big, bandwidth-hogging sex pictures and streaming video, Cisco would never have sold so many routers and Sun Microsystems so many servers. Without programming pioneers trying to perfect video streaming software that would deliver images of copulation and procreation to paying customers hooked up with a 28.8 kbps dial-up modem, it is unlikely that CNN would be effectively delivering news clips of global breaking news. Without sex-oriented chat and forums to sustain its early years, America Online might never have survived. The e-commerce payment systems that are so common today would be in a far more primitive stage of development, security and usability. Indeed, without advertising from sex sites, Yahoo! would be just another Web company with a bloody red bottom line.

Porn entrepreneur David Cruz similarly asserts that "expansion of the Web's infrastructure was largely paid for by porn revenue"

Companies like Amazon.com and Yahoo would have never made it if it weren't for the men and women who provided a compelling reason for people to go to Circuit City, buy a computer and sign up for cable modem service

In Australia Internet.au quoted a web developer as boasting

The technology used by the sex industry is definitely at the forefront of Internet development. The majority of technology passed on to the corporate industry has stemmed from the sex industry

with the claim that of $3 billion spent on Internet development, 80% "has originated from the sex industry". That is an interesting figure but one might question its derivation and meaning. $3 billion spent globally? In Australia? Over how long? And for what ... servers, software, wetware?

Frederick Lane, author of Obscene Profits: The Entrepreneurs of Pornography in the Cyber Age (London: Routledge 2000) argues that adult sites have been fundamental in building consumer confidence about online use of credit cards, finding ways to deliver multimedia over slow connections and otherwise being "at the forefront in technological advances".

It is a theme that has been uncritically embraced by the mass media, with USA Today for example claiming in 2004 that fucking Russian Family porn sex videos webmasters are

among the Web's most innovative and profitable entrepreneurs, but pariahs among mainstream business people. Online pornographers have been among the first to exploit new technology for more than a decade — from video-streaming and fee-based subscriptions to pop-up ads and electronic billing. Their bold experimentation has helped make porn one of the most profitable online industries, and their ideas are staples at Fortune 500 companies. ...

The industry is peppered with female executives and young male entrepreneurs who built businesses out of homes and balked at the prospect of working at a corporation.

"Porn is more aggressive and less bureaucratic than the mainstream," says Tucker. "Our time to market is less than two weeks, vs. more than a year in Hollywood."

Consequently, porn-site operators like Tucker are paid consultants to mainstream businesses, and their sites function as glorified test labs for emerging technology

Readers of the preceding pages of this profile might question broader claims that the adult nudity recreation content industry (in contrast to other industries?) -

has invested a lot of money into the future of technology. Porn sites have been dedicated to upgrading their servers and developing broadband capabilities to make access faster and easier for their users. In addition, virtual reality mechanisms can help the porn profits rise even more. The porn business is aimed at satisfying their customers, and unlike mainstream companies, porn business has more leeway to conduct technological experiments.

A greater model for consistent delivery of product, innovation, flexibility and attention to consumer concerns might—we think—instead be Amazon.com. Arguably the greatest use of the net for delivery of adult video has been the online mailorder function: consumers surfing sites to identify (and then pay online) for DVDs and videotapes that are delivered through the postal service or by courier rather than over the wires to their personal computers.

Lane argues that adult sites

are more adept than mainstream sites at getting and keeping customers. A main reason is that porn customers are more open to varied marketing techniques. Customers of adult websites are more tolerant of "blind linking" and an infinite number of pop-up windows. These marketing techniques are not so appealing to the customers of mainstream websites

More problematical is the claim that adult content operators succeed through "cooperation with the competition". They supposedly remain

... profitable by cooperating with rival sites. This is very different than other businesses on the web which fight to compete with their rivals. What pornography sites do is "share traffic." If someone doesn't find what they're looking for on the site, the site will send that person to similar sites. Because an affiliate network exists, the original site gets paid for sharing traffic.

In practice the online adult content industry appears to feature the same characteristics of market dominance, opportunism, marginal players and problematical ethics as other businesses ... and is beset by the same (if not greater) problems of consumer churn, denial of payment and hacking.

A perspective on consumer adoption of 'new technologies' for the creation/distribution of adult content is provided by historical perspective is provided by Jonathan Coopersmith's exemplary 1998 paper on Pornography, Technology, and Progress (PDF).

subsection heading graphic     sex, shopping and broadband

What of claims that adult content will drive consumer uptake of the next generation internet and telecommunication services?

It has been fashionable to predict that adult content will galvanise indifferent demand for broadband or 3G. One example is Interactive Consumer Broadband: Sex, Sport & Shopping, a report from UK group Analysys.

It argues that the residential market for broadband in Britain will be driven by demand for adult content, with Video on Demand (VOD) and games a long way behind. Scepticism about VOD is unsurprising, given disappointing trials in Europe, North America, Singapore and South Korea.

The report forecast that broadband erotica would be worth US$3 billion by 2003 on a global basis. A June 2002 In-Stat report estimated that adult content accounted for an 98% of global VOD revenue of US$460m. We note that little VOD is being successfully provided over the net and that a 2002 Jupiter MMXI survey claimed 47% of European users would "not even consider" paying for content.

In January Charles Prast of UK operator Private Media Group argued that adult content will be the "main driver of third-generation (3G) mobile services demand", according to Reuters.

In new technologies, adult services usually account for 80 per cent of traffic. It has been so with video, the internet and DVD. It is natural to assume it will be the same with mobile internet

Prast forecast that once 3G is established adult content will drop to about 20% of overall traffic. Analysts estimate that the value of the pornography market will be $70bn (£44bn) in 2006, and that $4bn (£2.4bn) of that could come from mobile services. It is however unclear whether consumers are going to consistently pay for blurry video on their mobile phones or download large amounts of video erotica via wireless to their laptops. In late 2002 online adult audio content provider Venetian Dreams launched "Screw Talk", a wireless streaming adult content service ... presumably the mobile version of traditional heavy breather services.

A 2003 report from Strategy Analytics suggested that "mobile adult-oriented services" might be worth up to US$1 billion by 2008. That figure would, however, represent around 5% of mobile entertainment service revenues and is less than half the value of the ringtones market in Western Europe in 2002. In 2005 it updated the report, forecasting an increase from US$1 billion in 2008 to US$5 billion by 2010. A 2003 European Commission study on Mobile Entertainment in Europe: Current State of the Art (PDF) reflected disagreement about demand, pricing, regulatory frameworks and costs.

The Can Adult Entertainment Save 3G? report from Ovum noted claims that global online adult content might be worth US$1 billion pa and that wireless devices such as PDAs rather than mobile phones allow discreet consumption.

That comment reflects suggestions that there's an untapped market for female consumers of adult content, who supposedly prefer to encounter erotica on their phone (while seated in a living room, travelling on a bus etc) rather than on a desktop.

In October 2004 analysts Yankee Group predicted that the US market for adult content on "handsets" will grow to around US$90m in the US and US$1bn globally by 2008.

In practice most 'm-porn' has comprised text rather than still/moving images and has distinctly retro production values. One critic griped that

the hazy pictures or text tales available for your porno-enhanced hand-held devices are mind-bogglingly lame. One of the truisms of the modern age is that pornography is often first to exploit new advances in technology. But maybe there should be an amendment: Bad pornography always comes first, out on the cutting edge.

Bad or otherwise, wireless delivery doesn't appear to have been sufficiently compelling to secure sustained consumer and investor interest and offset the concerns of mobile service operators. The most innovative activity appears to be wireless-based directory services such as the Erotiguide.

subsection heading graphic     self-publishing and swapping

In discussing Legal Censorship we suggested that there is considerable uncertainty about the dimensions of non-commercial adult content production, dissemination and consumption on a national and global basis. Comprehensive widely-accepted figures simply aren't available.

A recurrent theme in writing about the net is that it will revolutionise traditional publishing relationships, shifting power away from major publishers to individual authors and to consumers. It is unclear whether that shift has occurred in relation to adult content and whether it has had a tangible economic impact.

The emergence of 'self-pics' sites (which feature photographic self-portraits of predominantly under-35 Westerners in varying states of excitement and undress) is a new development and can be considered as akin to blogs.

Such sites don't appear to have eroded traditional markets for visual content and overall there appears to have been a significant consolidation over the past five years, with

  • major sites garnering most traffic (in the classical 'winner takes all' mode seen elsewhere on the web, eg search engines)
  • site operators realigning their business models towards 'premium' - ie subscription rather than advertising based - revenue models
  • reliance on facilities such as chat (eg free access to a personal profile but payment required for communication with the profile's owner).

Exchange of textual erotica through bulletin boards predates the web. We speculate that the proliferation of non-commercial 'alt' story sites has severely undermined the viability of traditional story collections (crudely printed on bad paper, exorbitantly priced and available by subscription or from adult shops). Figures aren't however available.

The impact of adult image newsgroups (over 2,000 on Yahoo alone) also isn't clear. It has been claimed that searching for adult content accounts for up to 30% of traffic on fileswapping services such as Gnutella (discussed here). Those figures are, however, uncertain and it is unclear whether there will be sustained growth. Opening up your computer to allow a stranger to search for music files is one thing; inviting entry to trawl for porn is perhaps another matter. The 2002 paper by Michael Mehta, Don Best & Nancy Poon on Peer-to-peer sharing on the Internet: An analysis of how Gnutella networks are used to distribute pornographic material covers a very small sample of video files but suggests that much P2P swapping is innocuous.

The net has provided a medium for proliferation of the 'slash' genre, ie fan fiction about the private lives of literary, film or television celebrities. If you are interested in what Captain Kirk and Mr Spock do behind the console when the crew has gone to be (or imagine a luxuriant erotic life for Harry Potter or Gollum) you will be able to find someone else's torrid prose - or contribute your own.

The genre has been celebrated by Henry Jenkins - author of Textual Poachers: Television Fans & Participatory Culture (London: Routledge 1992) but poses questions about trademarks, the moral rights of authors and of course restrictions on online content. FanFiction.net (sanitised in 2002 after complaints about explicit content) supposedly features over 73,000 Potter fanfics and has been identified by Nielsen as one of the stickiest (perhaps an indication that authors and readers should turn off the monitor, smell some fresh air and - dare we say it - get a life). Competitor FictionAlley.org features 16,000 fanfics with a 'community' of 24,500 registered users who have posted 563,000 fanfic-related messages.

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subsection heading graphic     piracy

Given the fuzziness of industry statistics, the nature of consumption and the shrillness of claims by some vested interests it is impossible to provide a comprehensive picture of

  • how much online adult content is being pirated by businesses or appropriated by individuals
  • who's copying
  • the impact of that copying
  • whether piracy of online adult content is a 'model' for other abuses on the net
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Miami Nude Beach Nudity, Please Read!

There's something liberating about the antic of being naked.  The freedom.  The exhilaration.  The lack of pocket lint.  Unfortunately, for most people the notion of nudity requires some rationale - no matter how silly that rationale may be.  Streaking across a football field. Skinny-dipping in a lake.  Mooning for the camera.  Photocopying your butt.  Playing naked Twister.  Flashing a nun after sixth-period class, hoping she didn't recognize you and isn't at this instant phoning your parents.  For most people, it's all about the naughty thrill of getting caught or exposing a private part.  But not for all.  No, for many it's perfectly routine, as normal and natural as, say, kissing hands or shaking a baby.

Nude beaches are the perfect denominators for these two groups, the puritans and the pure exhibitionists, the fakirs and the non-fakers. Think of it as a big game of strip poker where everybody has crappy hands.  The thing to remember is that nude sunbathing isn't about sex or exhibitionism - we'll leave that to the nudist colonies and Courtney Love.  Nude sunbathing is about elation and free-spiritedness (and avoiding wedgies and ugly tan lines).

I've made the trek to No Clothes Land many a time.  I've dropped trou in Europe, where it's no big deal - heck, even the Royal Family has displayed a boob or two (not counting Prince Charles).  Black's Beach in San Diego is world famous for nude sun worshipping.  And, of course, here in Miami, we have Haulover Beach.

One of the misconceptions about nudity is that every human body is beautiful (Right).  The key to inoffensive nude sunbathing is to do just that - sunbathe.  Do not play volleyball in the buff.  No grilling or barbecuing.  Even if your Playgirl's Mr. January, do not perform an oil and air filter change on your auto while naked.  An watch the jogging - you could poke somebody's eye out.

Nude beachgoers often have their social cliques and routines.  They picnic and fraternize, and they love to mingle.  Zoiks.  These people who sashay up and down the beach wearing nothing but a smile and a spare tire are the same folks you find in the receiving line at a wedding wielding a business card and a can of Binaca.

When I venture to Haulover, I stick close to my blanket or hit the water.  I don’t wander about.  It’s like you want to work the room, but there’s no place to put your hands and no appropriate place to hang your Walkman.  (Plus, you feel like you’ve gone to a party and everyone’s wearing the same thing.)  Personally, I happen to like being naked. It’s never bothered me.  I often get home from work, disrobe, and sit naked on my couch eating cereal.  (Did I just cross the line of too much information?)  Some people are uncomfortable naked.  I’m not.  What I do have a problem with, however, is being ugly and naked.  Statistics show that the number of people who enjoy nude sunbathing is proportionate to those who should put something on.  Like a tarp.  Or one of those tents that they use when they’re debugging a house.  That one of the reasons why I prefer the sanctity of my blanket.  I can feign sleep (or death, if necessary) should some naked old man approach me and start to discuss today’s undertow as he squats liberally in front of me.

Sunscreen:  I’d be remiss if I didn’t stress the importance of proper protection.  Those regions that rarely see the light of day are the first to succumb to the sun’s deadly rays.  Hence, watch your behind, or your buns will be toast.  As for – how do I say this politely – garnishing your weenie, yes, your little buddy needs sunblock, but remember, you’re in public.  There a fine line between safety and pleasure when applying lotion to Mr. Happy.  I’ve seen guys go at it like they’re greasing a fire pole.  So take it easy.  Don't make things hard on yourself.

When it comes to accessories, there are certain things you should and should not bring to a nude beach.  Telescopes and binoculars are definite no-nos.  You may think of this as a ball game, but I’m sure the Red Sox would beg to differ.  Likewise with a camcorder – carrying a video camera at a nude beach is the pervert’s equivalent of driving by a schoolyard with a van full of candy.  As for ready, avoid books with titles like Justice of the Piece.  Stick to Field and Stream, Reader’s Digest or the Gideon Bible.  Sunglasses are a must.  If you’re gonna ogle, at least do it behind your Maui Jims.

As for your random beach bump-ins, there are obvious encounters. Besides bodies that you’d rather not see naked, piercings are immensely popular.  Popular, I surmise, because they’re in places that wouldn’t necessarily be exposed at Publix (unless you shop at the new one by the bay).  I’ve seen nipples that look like parachute rip cords.

And below the belt, I’ve seen piercings that made me recoil.  (Come to think of it, I’ve seen coils down there, too.)  And little napkin rings.  And something called a Prince Albert.  I’ve seen less metal at a gun show.  And shaving.  Hmmmm.  Apparently trimming the hedges has become all the rage.  Some folks go for the close cropping; others like it smooth.  I haven’t seen topiary this creative since I was at the Botanical Gardens.

Nude sunbathing can be a kick, an exciting way to liven up an otherwise dull day at the beach.  For the ladies, it means being able to wear a sundress without worrying about unsightly strap lines.  For the guys, it means there’s no need to adjust the boys: it’s a wind sock now.  For all of us it means an escape, a break from our daily worries and cares, a moment’s freedom where less is so much more – except when it comes to that sunscreen.