Sex for Sale~Prostitution, Pornography and the Sex Industry (51 page)

The Expo, first and foremost, is a trade show where industry professionals from all over the world gather to network, unveil new products, make business
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deals, and market their brands. It is a place where new business relationships are cultivated and old ones solidified. The Expo also functions as an important promotional showcase and public relations event, both for AVN and the larger adult industry; it is an opportunity for members of the mainstream and alternative press to see, and by extension write about, new products, breakout performers, upstart companies, and the latest technological innovations to hit the industry. Public relations consultants are on hand to pitch stories to the press and point them in the direction of what is new and notable. Daily press releases are issued and a number of companies prepare press packets and provide sample products and DVDs to journalists covering the show. Finally, the Expo offers fans the opportunity to meet and interact with their favorite porn stars and performers. Most companies recognize the value of fans and use the Expo as an opportunity to thank them for their support. “It’s the fans that make talent into stars,” stated Expo spokesperson Shawn Devlin.15

There is an important synergy, then, that exists between these different elements of Expo culture. As Jason Maskell, a spokesman for Harmony Films explains: “We want the buyers, the press and ultimately the consumers to see

[our company] as the global producer of fine X-rated entertainment that it is.”16 In order to accomplish this, companies spend a great deal of money trying to outdo one another with elaborate booths, gimmicks, and giveaways as they jockey for the attention of distributors, retailers, fans, and, importantly, the press.

For many attendees,
sexual spectacle
is an undeniable part of the Expo’s allure.17 This is especially true for fans, a group that comprises more than half the show’s total audience. Most, although certainly not all fans, are men who travel to Las Vegas from all over the U.S. and other parts of the world, forking over $80 for a day pass ($200 for 3 days) and the chance to rub shoulders with industry favorites such as Tera Patrick, Jessica Drake, Joanna Angel, and Belladonna. A considerable part of the Expo’s visual spectacle is designed with fans in mind: the costly mega-booths, the presence of performers who patiently pose for pictures and sign autographs, the attention-grabbing gimmicks, such as girl-on-girl “make-out” sessions, the abundance of T&A, and free porn DVDs that are handed out at many booths (see Figure 12.1).

These strategies are all geared toward building and sustaining a loyal fan base and, if marketing experts are correct, boosting future sales and profits.

There is evidence to suggest that fans are playing an increasingly important role in Expo culture. The 2009 AEE, which I attended, offered a full slate of “fan seminars”—including “how-to” sex education workshops with sexpert author Jamye Waxman, who led a workshop on the female orgasm, and adult film star Nina Hartley, who talked to fans about how to
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achieve a fulfilling sex life. “Don’t try to have sex like a porn star,” she advised the crowd of about 50 people, as she emphasized the importance of fostering sexual intimacy, openness, and generosity. Not far from the seminar stage, FyreTV, a company specializing in home porn delivery that utilizes Internet Protocol TV (IPTV) technology, held fan contests that drew consistently large crowds to its main stage. Throughout the weekend, willing fans competed in pole dancing contests, wet t-shirt contests, and vied for the title of “Hottest Ass” and “Hottest Fan.” The size of the crowd, combined with its enthusiasm, suggested that FyreTV’s marketing efforts were a hit.

While fans flock to the main exhibition hall upstairs, a quieter, less frenzied, and altogether different expo is taking place downstairs in an exhibition hall reserved solely for members of the trade. Downstairs in the B2B (business-to-business) Marketplace, manufacturers and distributors display, for the benefit of thousands of retailers who attend the Expo, the latest
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in technologically innovative sexual gadgetry and products. Retailers have the opportunity to meet with vendors face to face, scout new vendors, make deals, network, and promote their businesses without having to elbow eager fans out of the way. Introduced in 2004, the B2B Marketplace has been an extremely successful addition to the business culture of the Expo, providing an opportunity for business-to-business networking that many attendees see as invaluable.

For Greg DeLong and Chris Clement of NJoy, a small company that produces a line of sleek, stainless steel sex toys, industry trade shows like AEE

are an indispensible part of growing their business, both in terms of sales and brand recognition. DeLong and Clement are mechanical engineers who, several years ago, decided to try their hand at making sex toys. “Our advantage is that we know how to make things . . . and the market is begging for new products,” DeLong told me. The business partners realized that consumers—

especially women—were looking for well-designed, well-crafted sex toys—a need that was not being filled by the mainstream adult novelty industry.

“People have been waiting for this,” DeLong continued. “They have been waiting for designers to come into the market.”18 NJoy—along with companies like Tantus, Fun Factory, Lelo, and OhMiBod—is the vanguard of what some see as a “new age” in the adult industry, where high-end products, lifestyle branding, and a new kind of business savvy is redefining the marketplace.

OhMiBod is an interesting example of a company riding the wave of this new age of quality and brand consciousness. OhMiBod is a vibrator that plugs into an iPod and vibrates to the rhythm of whatever music is playing. The concept behind OhMiBod is a relatively simple one: let’s bring music and pleasure together to create the ultimate “acsexsory”—a term trademarked by OhMiBod—for the iPod generation. (At the 2008 Lingerie Show, I listened to Justin Timberlake’s “Sexy Back” as OhMiBod, which I was holding in my hand, pulsated in sync with the song.) “Many of the vibrators that are on the market today are intimidating,” says Suki, OhMiBod’s creator. “This is why when it came to designing OhMiBod the direction was to make it extremely approachable by keeping the design elegant and making it intuitive to use. I want OhMiBod to be the first socially acceptable vibrator.”19 The idea of producing a vibrator that would be socially acceptable to women who might otherwise be intimated by the idea of purchasing a sex toy guided the development and design of OhMiBod. In only a few short years, OhMiBod has cultivated a brand identity as a hip, fun, and sophisticated vibrator—the kind of product, the company hopes, women will not be afraid to leave on their bedside table. As Brain Vatter of OhMiBod told me: “We are still doing
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warm-up laps in this industry when it comes to quality and branding.”

Despite this, the trend within the adult industry is in the direction of producing quality products that are well designed, durable, and pretty.

The Expo’s organizers work hard to ensure that the show evolves apace with an ever changing and expanding industry. This is perhaps nowhere more evident than in the trade seminars offered to industry professionals. Seminar topics run the gamut, from discussions of piracy and obscenity law to staying competitive in a changing marketplace and reaching female consumers. The seminars feature industry “gurus”—successful business owners, CEOs, distributors, and content providers from different sectors of the industry—

mainstream, fetish, the women’s market—who are invited to discuss various issues considered relevant and pressing to the adult industry.

One of the most popular forums is the legal seminar. Here, lawyers with connections to the adult industry provide business owners with updates on federal obscenity cases, discuss zoning ordinances, and outline changes to the 2257 Law, the record keeping requirement for producers of adult content, which is intended to keep minors from working in pornography. The laws that govern adult businesses are constantly changing, and the ability to keep up with these changes, even minor ones, can mean the difference between jail and freedom. As lawyer Jennifer Kinsley succinctly remarked: “Obscenity prosecutions are statistically the least likely, but statistically the scariest.”

Having a good lawyer, then, especially one with adult industry experience, is key for many businesses.

The Expo’s seminar series attracts fledgling entrepreneurs hoping to start their own businesses and seasoned retailers with 30 years experience who are looking for ways to maintain their profit margins in a rapidly changing marketplace. The workshops are a form of “professional development”; they offer attendees practical advice and tips about how to tailor their product mix, design their retail spaces and websites, and train their sales staff in order to run the best, and most profitable, business possible. The seminar series also provides an opportunity for industry professionals to stay abreast of the latest industry trends.

I N D U STRY TR E N D S

Several trends have gained traction in the adult industry in recent years.

Among them are the growth of the women’s market for pornography and sex toys; consumer demand for quality products and designer sex toys; the greening of the adult industry; and the mainstreaming of adult novelties.

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These trends have contributed to the re-branding of the adult industry, a point I return to later in the chapter.

Women’s Market

By early 2008, the women’s market for sex toys and pornography had become what many industry insiders considered to be the hottest growth market in the adult industry. “Women have dollars, believe me,”
Penthouse
executive director Kelly Holland told a standing room only crowd at the 2008 AEE,

“and they love to spend [them] on things they feel enhance their self-esteem, their intelligence, [and] their sexual lives.” Ken Dorfman, the National Sales Manager for Doc Johnson’s, one of the largest sex toy manufacturers in the world, used dollars and cents to make a similar point: “One guy shopping alone—average sale $8. Two guys, $12. But one female shopping alone—

average sale $83. Two females shopping together, $170.”20

What was until very recently a relatively small segment of the mainstream adult industry—the women’s market for sex toys and pornography—has acquired newfound economic and cultural cache, a development that has been noted by industry analysts, journalists and academics alike.21 Many adult-oriented businesses, from sex toy manufacturers and porn companies to adult retailers, are responding to this trend by recalibrating their business practices with an eye toward wooing women. Traditional “brick and mortar” adult retailers, for example, are removing their video arcades, painting their stores to make them lighter and brighter, hiring female staff, and placing a greater emphasis on quality products and customer service. They are softening the edges of their businesses and taming the often harsh and in-your-face representations of sexuality long associated with the adult industry, all in the hope of appealing to women and, ultimately, increasing their profits.

What the mainstream adult industry is only now discovering—that women watch porn, use sex toys, and are willing to spend money on both—

is not news for the dozen or so women-owned and -oriented adult businesses across the country. Retail businesses like Eve’s Garden, Good Vibrations, and Babeland, feminist pornographers like Candida Royalle and Tristan Taormino, and sex-positive sex toy manufacturers like Tantus and Vixen, among others, were cultivating the women’s market for sex toys and pornography long before women were identified as the consumer niche
du jour
. These companies brought a feminist voice and an alternative vision to the sexual marketplace.

They advocated for quality products, accurate sexual information, and for women to be taken seriously as both sexual agents and consumers, challenging the very idea of “business as usual” within the larger adult industry.

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Today, women’s increasing power—as entrepreneurs, cultural producers, and consumers—in an industry long associated with men, is nothing short of revolutionary. Turn the clock back 10 or 20 years and this was far from the case. It wasn’t just that female entrepreneurs often found themselves marginalized by the industry’s “old boys’ network,” but their perspectives and contributions were very often disregarded. When Candida Royalle first starting making pornography for women and couples in the early 1980s, she encountered difficulty finding distributors who were willing to place her videos in retail stores, because they didn’t understand what she was making: