Erotic
USA
The
following is a reprint of an article written in
the April 20, 1999 edition of Salon.com. The article
has been edited for relevent information.
Rough
Trade Show
Despite
Cyberdildonics and tantric sex swings, the sex
biz trade show Erotica USA is a decidedly unsexy
event.
-
- - - - - - - - - - -
By Albert Mobilio
Soft
lights, soft music. A glass of champagne, a spiked
dog collar and an enema. If this sounds like a
sexy combination to you, keep a voyeuristic eye
out for Erotica
USA, a sex biz trade show coming soon to a
town near you. The Erotica show just closed in
New York, where it sparked complaints from expected
sources like New York's hall-monitor mayor and
the Christian Coalition. Both denounced the use
of the Jacob Javits Center, a government-owned
convention hall, as a site for the propagation
of, well, propagation. Or at least the urge behind
it...
...Aside
from these tepid carnal visitations, this trade
show -- which will be moving on to South Beach
in Miami and Las Vegas -- was mostly about trade.
Jay Servidio runs Teleteria,
a porn Web design and programming company that
really wants you to profit from the Internet boom.
Jay and the gang at Teleteria will set you up
with a dripping wet Web site, provide you with
"live video streaming of girls, Asians, guys,
transsexuals, amateurs and dungeon," and
ensure you direct billing of "100% of the
commission." When I asked Jay how many porn
sites the Web could support, he launched into
his spiel with a button-holer's gusto. "Do
the math," he says. "There are 150 million
people on the Internet and only 30,000 adult sites.
Every day another 20,000 people sign up. Every
500 hits yields a membership, Christmas, Chanukah,
every day of the year." As if offering his
own ringing reply to the big question, "What
Is Sexy?" Jay bore down close on me and declared,
"Making money is simple." ...
...Erotica
USA very much wants to go mainstream. Even with
videos and magazines catering to female wrestler
buffs ("Steel Kittens"), submissives
("Bitch Mistress Magazine," "Trampled"),
foot fetishists ("Sole Desire"), enema
enthusiasts ("Flash Floods"), voyeurs
("Peeping Toms Get Spanked") and traditionalists
("Bald Beavers," "Ass Blaster"
and "Goo Guzzlers"), the message, says
Kimberly Chigi, one of the New York show's organizers,
"is that sex is healthy and there's nothing
dirty here." And she's right, unless you
think lucre is filthy. The overheard talk all
around the convention hall was about franchises,
turnkey sites, distribution networks, synergy
and "the power and profit of sell-through."
In the booth of the self-proclaimed "Baroness"
you found tourniquet-tight rubber clothes, but
whatever lubricity they began to cook up in your
autonomic nervous system was quickly short-circuited
by her poster announcing how we could learn how
to clean, shine and take care of our latex garments
from the Regal One. What is sexy? Well, money
can be, but cleaning up definitely isn't. How
those latex briefs and bras might get dirty is
what you want to explore at something called Erotica
USA.
salon.com
> Entertainment April
20, 1999
URL: http://www.salon.com/ent/feature
