When it comes to human sexuality, Americans tend to be among the more uptight people in the western world. It is a known fact that parent-child discussions of the facts of life are often lacking, and sex ed in schools is so wrapped up in political agendas that the plain facts seldom get discussed without any "spin." Media watchdogs howl about the baring of breasteses (however brief or "inadvertent") on non-premium TV during daytime and prime time. Computer games depicting nudity or simulated sex acts are plastered with warning stickers. Indeed, it seems that "mainstream" America is bound and determined to protect us from our genitalia.
It is also true that we're addicted to sex. When driving through the Bible Belt, it was with no small amusement that I saw 3 consecutive billboards that (no kidding) advertised: We Bare All, Jesus Is Lord, Walt Disney Family Vacations. In fact, it seems that along the highway I saw as many ads for strip clubs (couples welcome!) as I did dire messages about the state of your soul if you didn't accept Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, renounce sex and alcohol and vote Republican. Now, in all fairness, the strip clubs tended to be in out-of-the-way places, relegated to definite second-class status. Indeed, it almost seemed like a cancer people accepted had to be there, but not in their neck of the woods. But there's no question sex sells, and it seems there are more adult-oriented places of business every time I head down south.
Without commenting on the dichotomy so clearly apparent here, I'm here to state that which very few others want to admit publicly: the sex industry in general, and the pornography industry in particular, are far more beneficial than they are harmful. It took Larry Flint to determine the boundaries of the First Amendment: there's nothing saying you can't prevent minors from looking at adult-oriented material, and there's nothing saying you can't bar the depiction of illegal activities, but you cannot prevent someone from publishing material that depicts activity that is legal, even if it may be deemed morally offensive to some. Indeed, when talking about the boundaries of obscene materials, I believe it was the late Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun who famously stated that he couldn't define pornography (as opposed to art) but "I know it when I see it." And from a legal standpoint, that means exactly nothing. The lines are so blurry they can't even be defined in general terms.
Looking at pornography from a more practical point of view, the sex industry has formed the backbone of market sectors worth billions of dollars. Once upon a time, if you wanted to watch dirty movies, you'd have to go to seedy movie theaters which carried something of a strong social stigma with them if you were seen nearby. Pornographers were among the first to embrace videotape technology because it meant they could provide the porn without nearly as much of a social stigma. The VCR was available for purchase, the porn industry provided a lot of the early viewing material before Hollywood realized it could be such a cash cow. And there was a redux with the advent of DVD technology. Indeed, it was porn that pushed the early envelope for DVDs by being the first to utilize simultaneous multiple angles and similar advances.
In the Broadway musical AvenueQ, there is a now-famous song called "The Internet Is for Porn", which is about exactly that. And while the Internet was actually developed as a research and communications system for universities and the US military, it was the porn industry that transformed it into what we have today. Porn drove the development of secure online credit card transactions and provided the business model for other mainstream online businesses. It is no understatement to say that Amazon, ebay, Newegg, Paypal and practically every other e-tailer, bank and company that uses SSL technology and deals with secure personal information owes a quiet debt of gratitude to the porn industry. Porn may be the crazy uncle nobody wants to talk about, but make no mistake: the telecommunications and home entertainment industry owe a HUGE debt to the porn industry for daring to break ground and forge the path for more "mainstream" applications.
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