thumb|A model is placed in a restrictive position for bondage photographyThe
sex industry is the term given to the industry commercial enterprises which employ
sex workers in various capacities, generally relating to what is described as
adult entertainment which includes
erotica, as it comprises a number of forms of
entertainment not considered suitable for
children.
The
sex industry earns as much as $13
billion a year in the
United States and has been credited with driving
technological advances in popular
media, such as
home video and
DVD,
pay-per-view,
live streaming video and
video on demand. In the United States, the sex film industry is centered in the
San Fernando Valley of
Los Angeles. In Europe,
Budapest is regarded as the industry center.
Examples of the types of modern business operating in the sex industry include
Hustler (a monthly men's magazine);
SexTV: The Channel (a
digital cable television channel);
YouPorn (a
website that allows amateurs to upload porn);
Artemis (a mega-
brothel in
Germany); and
Ann Summers (a successful chain of
British sex shops).
Types of businesses
Adult films
The explosive popularity of the
videocassette recorder in the 1970s and 1980s led to unprecedented growth for the
adult film business. The portability of the
technology vaulted the availability of so-called "
dirty movies" beyond the realm of the simple
loops and
movie projectors of an earlier era to bigger
profits and
higher-quality production values. Every year,
AVN Awards—including categories such as Best
High-Definition Production and
Best New Starlet are given to selected adult film
Internet
The first home-
PCs capable of
network communication prompted the arrival of online services for adults in the late 80s and early 1990s. The wide-open early days of the
World Wide Web quickly snowballed into the
dot-com boom, in-part fueled by an incredible global increase in the demand for and
consumption of
porn and
erotica.
Adult Management and Staff
Many confuse those working in a management or staff position with those who are Adult Service Provider or Sex Workers. Nothing can be further from the truth. Those who manage or are in staff positions are in the higher levels of the adult business and do not participate in the sexual services for adults personally and often have no direct deals or view adult content.
Their role is to create business models, SEO (Search Engine Optimization), Traffic Trading, Press Releases, Negotiate contracts with other owners, buy and sell content, technical support, Servers, Billing, Payroll, Trade Shows and various events, Marketing and Sales forecasts, Human Resources, Taxes and Legal. Usually those in management or staff have no dealings directly with the Sex Worker instead hire a photographer(s) under contract who have a direct social network with the Sex Trade Industry and Sex Workers. Pornography is a product that management and staff in the Adult Industry professionally markets and sells to adult webmasters for distribution on the Internet.
Adult Service Provider
An
Adult Service Provider (ASP), or
Adult Sex Provider, provides sexual services for adults. This can include escorts,
call girls, prostitutes,
adult webmasters,
erotic dancers, the
independent contractors sometimes associated with brothels, and others who are generally referred to under the umbrella term
sex worker. These providers have been known to offer pastoral care and training at levels typically associated with blue chip companies to their staff.
Sex tourism
A depiction of a sex worker in
GermanyThe growth in
sex tourism has led to a corresponding growth in the sex industry in some countries. Illegal sex tourism with under-age boys and girls has become a notorious problem in poorer
Third World countries in places like the
Caribbean and
South East Asia. Legal (above the age of consent) and consensual sex industries make a significant contribution to the local economies of some urban centers. The
Hamburg Reeperbahn is a licensed and taxed prostitution zone serving tourists from all over the world.
Military
Sex industries tend to cluster around military bases. The
British naval port of
Portsmouth had a flourishing local sex industry in the 19th century, and until the early 1990s there were large
red light districts near American military bases in the
Philippines. The
Monto red-light district of
Dublin, one of the largest in Europe, gained most of its custom from the British soldiers stationed in the city; indeed it collapsed after Irish independence was achieved and the soldiers left. The notorious
Patpong entertainment district in
Bangkok, Thailand, started as an
R&R location for US troops serving in the
Vietnam War in the early 1970s.
See also
