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Is Live Sex On-Demand Coming to Hotel TVs?
LAS VEGAS, Jan. 16 — In the world of on-demand viewing of sexually explicit material, the next step could be the ability to watch live performers from the privacy of a hotel room.
That was one topic during a panel discussion here at Internext, an annual trade show for sex entertainment industry producers, marketers and payment processors.
Gregory Clayman, the owner of the live-action company Video Secrets, predicted that the industry would soon be selling not just videos on demand in mainstream hotels, but images of people having sex live over the hotels’ entertainment systems.
“We feel that live, right now, is coming of age,” Mr. Clayman said. “We are planning to make the jump to hotel rooms.”
He said that as television sets and computers merge into the same appliance, he saw no reason that live action sex would not get a place in on-demand services in hotels. Some existing Web sites already allow customers to send text messages to direct the performers.
Americans spent $1.6 billion last year for on-demand and pay-per-view video, according to JupiterKagan, a media research firm. It estimates that about a third of those sales were for sex films.
Anne Taulane, managing editor of Lodging magazine, who has written about the ways hotel chains require sex films to be edited and about groups that oppose any such films, expressed doubt that the major hotel chains would ever go along.
“That would be a hard sell to the big hotel companies,” she said in a telephone interview. “The porn offered now is a little more acceptable to the mainstream” than viewing live action over a hotel’s video entertainment system.
Panelists also praised Visa and MasterCard for new programs that have helped reduce disputes and refusals to pay for pornography ordered over the Internet by credit card.
“Verified by Visa has proven to be a real successful program,” said Gregory Dumas, president of GEC Media, a marketing firm. He and others noted that refusals to pay, known as chargebacks, are a serious concern and can drive companies out of business unless carefully controlled.
More than a dozen vendors offering payment-processing systems by credit card or online check all highlighted the quality of their systems to detect fraudulent purchases and reduce chargebacks.
After Mr. Dumas spoke, others said that a similar program by MasterCard was vital to reducing disputed and fraudulent purchases.
Several of the industry’s leading producers also expressed concern about recent federal government raids on their studios and about the need to block the access of minors to pornography.
Federal agents have raided a dozen or so sex film studios over the last three months seeking to verify the ages of all performers and off-camera employees and to examine records the industry is now required to keep. No arrests have been made and no charges have been filed.
Panelists also debated whether requiring a credit card to view a Web site screens out minors. At issue is whether minors might use the credit card of a parent or older relative to gain access to pornography.
One panelist, Michael Price, the owner of Price Communications, said that while significant players in the industry cared about these issues, “unless the government intervenes, I don’t see this industry policing itself.”
