One of the first (and most intriguing) things I’ve learned about the porn industry in the course of my research is its relationship with technology.
People in the adult and technology industries have long understood the symbiotic relationship between porn and new technology. Indeed, the biggest porn industry convention began as an outgrowth of the Consumer Electronics Show, and the two conventions still overlap in Las Vegas every January.
The most illustrative example of the relationship between porn and technology is the VHS vs. Betamax saga of the early 1980s. While it is generally understood that Beta was the superior format, VHS ended up dominating the market. Why was that? Porn.
As Steve Hirsch (head of Vivid, one of the largest adult film companies) explains, in the early ‘80s VHS tapes were selling for $50 each, while Betamax cost $55.
“Therefore we pushed VHS harder, and in that sense we did have something to do with VHS winning out…It was the adult industry who jumped right in and were putting movies on both VHS and Beta. We pushed the actual technology more than anyone else.”
Nowadays, the big question is whether Blu-Ray or HD-DVD will win the most recent format war. Once again, the porn industry is on the cutting edge and likely holds the power to decide which technology will dominate the consumer market. Here is more information about that.
Something that all this brings up for me is the question of why the adult industry is such a driving force behind technology. If we can take as a given that the industry is relatively fluid in its adoption of new technology, the more interesting issue to me is what motivates that drive for innovation.
The impetus seems to be an intense desire for privacy on the part of the consumer. Consuming porn has always been such a shame-filled activity that consumers will flock to any new mode of consumption that enables them more privacy. Think about the technological progression of the history: from stag loops to peep booths to movie theaters to home video to the personal computer/Internet to mobile technology. It just keeps getting more personal and more private, and as this happens the industry grows rapidly.
I began to wonder about other effects of this privacy-enabling technology. One particularly interesting and (in my opinion) beneficial effect is the new comfort many women feel in becoming involved in the industry as firm owners. While the social scorn heaped on sexual women will probably never go away, technology like the Internet allows women to participate in the industry while maintaining a level of privacy never before possible. And seeing as how more online businesses than brick-and-mortar businesses are women-owned (I confess this is anecdotal…I have no hard numbers), I think the privacy hypothesis has credence. Women can raise kids, work from home, and the community never has to know how they’re making their money. Pretty sweet deal! There are other factors that contribute to the increased involvement, of course…the barriers to entry are lower online, the segment is newer, etc etc. But I think women on both the consumer and producer side are responding to the highly-desired privacy new technology allows.
Sorry this is not an especially cohesive entry…just some thoughts I’ve been exploring.
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