Behind Closed Doors Sex Sells

The tabloid perception of the Net as a place populated by pornographers, teenage hackers bent on world domination and petty criminals can sometimes seem uncomfortably close to the truth. Recent statistics show that people pay out twice as much for online pornography as they do for all other subscription based Internet services combined.

Although it’s easy to get infuriated when the mainstream media portray the web as some kind of virtual Sodom and Gomorrah, there’s no denying that a lot of commerce on the Net is decidedly dodgy. The kinds of enterprise that operate in back alleyways and behind closed doors in real life are singing, dancing and stripping down to a G-string all over the web, and they’re raking in money hand over fist while other dotcoms are clearing their desks.

Why is it that activities that are relegated to the seedier parts of the real world are doing some of the web’s biggest business? The easiest answer is ‘because they can’, but there’s more to it than that. There’s more than just the anonymity of accessing porn sites while you’re sitting in your pajamas or the illicit thrill of having a flutter with your credit card while your partner watches TV in the next room. Why are some things acceptable on the Net when they’re forbidden elsewhere?

One of the reasons is that one culture’s clandestine pleasure is another’s bread and butter, and the Net is an International phenomenon. Betting is illegal in most US states but in Nevada, an exception to this rule, they turned a tiny desert town called Las Vegas into a garish city of theme-park dimensions dedicated to mammon.

All over the world there are enclaves where doing naughty things is the norm. In Amsterdam marijuana is available to buy and smoke in licensed cafes. It is estimated that in Hong Kong 60% of all software is pirated, while Bangkok is often referred to as the world’s sex industry.

The high incidence of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases has made cyber sex even more appealing. There are loads of sex-related sites on the Net. Not all of them are pornographic.

What all these places have in common, besides the obvious, is that the main consumers of the services they supply are almost always tourists. People travel thousands of miles to these places because they know that a blind eye will be turned to whichever morally ambiguous behavior they choose to indulge in. But why trek halfway across the world when all these illicit diversions can come to you?

It isn’t strictly the anonymity of the web that’s the attraction, and the ambiguous nature of International Internet legislation is a catalyst rather than a justification. The main benefit is that the Net lets you bring a little of the underworld into your own home, in conditions where you’re in control and where you can feel safe.

Sex Sells

The Net is filled with porn. You can’t switch on your computer without a pneumatic nymphet thrusting her extremities at you while a virus infects your hard disk, steals your credit card details, sells your children drugs, and burns down your house. The truth about sex on the Net is that while we all know it’s there, it isn’t really as obvious or insidious as Mr. Outraged thinks. You have to go looking for it. Statistics show a lot of Net users do.