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T A B L E__T A L K What buzzwords do you love to hate? Vent in the Digital Culture area of Table Talk - - - - - - - - - - R E C E N T L Y Social engineering, Web-style Let's Get This Straight The 21st Challenge No. 14 Results The cookie monster of Putnam Pit Service with an artificial smile - - - - - - - - - - BROWSE THE - - - - - - - - - -
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HAS THE WEB MADE PORN RESPECTABLE? | PAGE 1, 2, 3
Pornography has undoubtedly moved more into the mainstream. Would-be Playboy models cavort naked on Howard Stern's TV show; "The People vs. Larry Flynt" and "Boogie Nights" are box-office hits; women's magazines are chockablock with stories about "my life as a phone-sex worker." But does that mean that producing pornography has lost its stigma? "Pornography has acquired a certain pop-culture cachet, particularly in the last few years and especially with the rise of the Net," says Lisa Palac, the sex-positive author of "From the Edge of the Bed." "The old stereotype of someone who makes pornography as being a trench-coater, a dirty old man or a Larry Flynt, that's really changing. It started in the late '80s and '90s when women began getting involved with porn." There certainly are plenty of sexually liberated women and academics who are attempting to change mainstream thinking about the porn industry. "I think what's changing that perception is money," says Pauline Albamar, who started the successful site Babes4U after receiving two master's degrees from NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program. "Money is what defines things, and the fact that the sex business is making money online, the first industry to do so online, has really garnered a lot more attention and shift in attitude. Have people's ethics changed about sex? I think it helps if people like me, relatively young and intelligent women, have no problem making money off pornography -- then it does change people's perceptions." But despite the ministrations of the young-women pornographers and pro-sex feminists, making pornography is still considered dirty by the vast majority of the population: Just look at the indignant anger that has pushed upcoming legislation restricting adult content online. And while women who produce pornography often portray their career choice as a political act of sexual liberation and are "forgiven," male pornographers still seem more motivated by money than sexual politics. Since male Web porn entrepreneurs rarely perform for their own product, their role often reeks more of exploitation than exploration. More than half of the male pornographers I interviewed for this story were unwilling to use their real names. As most explained, they don't think pornography is wrong, but they don't want their future reputation to be tainted among those who do think pornography is sleazy. It may not be a shameful business, but they aren't proud of it either. "I don't want to be remembered as one of those who made his success on Web pornography," says Russ. "I want to be remembered as someone who brought, say, a commercially viable new form of education to intercultural relations. That would make my mom proud." It isn't easy to straddle the line between "respectable" work and pornography: One graphic designer, for example, who spent a year working for a large live-sex Web site, now finds it difficult to get employment with his portfolio of smut. Other pornographers also have "legitimate" businesses that they don't want associated with their sexual undertakings. Explains Daniel Wood, a former Geocities employee and computer consultant who is about to launch a site called "Cosmic Pussy," "I do have reservations about getting into the industry, because I have a reputation as a legitimate business owner that I would hate to have trashed. There is that stigma, that he's a smutty guy because he does porn. You lose a bit of respect by associating yourself with such things." The porn dabbler often doesn't even tell his family or friends, especially if an adult site is just one of several projects that he is working on. Those who do are sometimes surprised by reactions: Strauss, for example, found that while many of his friends cheered him on, there were others who were appalled, and some who even stopped speaking to him. Even in the liberal San Francisco Bay Area, home to Annie Sprinkle and Good Vibrations, there are still plenty of young people who find pornography exploitative and think that men who hire girls to produce lusty live action are "pimping." "As long as these guys say, 'Shh, don't tell anyone,' then we haven't elevated the role of the pornographer. They're still ashamed of it. If they're just doing it for money, they're just the latest in a long history of men who do it under a pseudonym and hide what they do from their family," says Palac. "Our perception of porn will change when people start admitting, 'Hey, I'm a writer and a journalist and I also operate an X-rated Web site and I'm proud of it.' When that happens we'll have reached a new level of how society accepts pornography." For now -- even though online anonymity and accessibility have spurred more men and women both to produce and peep at pornography than ever before -- it seems that the Web's dirty little secret is still considered dirty. The "Boogie Nights" image, like it or not, still pervades. "People just want to see each other naked doing stuff that's strange, and they'll pay to see it. It's been true for thousands of years, and will stay true for thousands more. And there will always be people who find it repulsive and have no tolerance for it," sighs Russ. He continues: "I wouldn't say my hands are clean, but I don't know anybody whose hands are."
Pornutopia lost The X-rated underground, insatiable for more clicks, is building a bold and bewildering new world of sleazy techno-tricks and "click-through farming." It could be the future of the Web.
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