Click here to return to Pornography and Internet Technologies

Phone Sex

Originally created to enhance communication between one another, the telephone has become yet another technological outlet that is utilised by the ever popular adult entertainment industry. Demonstrating just how strong the link is between new media technologies and the pornographic industry, phone sex alone has been thought to produce between US$750 million and US$1 billion in revenues each year (Lane, 2000: 151), which indicates that despite the differing mediums, the majority of the adult entertainment industry is still able to produce enormous profits. Much like the arrival of online pornography that guaranteed more anonymity, easier access and affordability when compared to the days of purchasing pornographic magazines, through phone sex “an individual interested in hearing sexually explicit material [can] do so without leaving the privacy of [their] own home� (Lane, 2000: 153). It is this almost instant accessibility that makes online pornography and phone sex seem attractive – the risk of being humiliated is no longer a factor that needs to be accounted for.

The phone sex business is both lucrative and competitive with businesses often charging between US$2.99 and US$5.99 per minute, with a number of isolated countries taking part in the business of providing the audio-text for these services due to the fact that a number of Western consumers indicate their “willingness to pay as much as $4 or $5 a minute to listen to phone sex� (Lane, 2000: 154).

Contributing to the further popularity of phone sex lines is of course the internet, which allows operators of smaller firms to display advertising that is more in-depth and interactive than a newspaper ad would be able to.

Furthermore, the presence of the internet is “making it easier for people with non-mainstream sexual desires to find services that cater to their interests� (Lane, 2000: 161), which again results in further profits for the phone sex business. The world of the adult entertainment industry is intricately linked, with the internet at the head of the ‘food chain’ – the emergence of such a technology has contributed strongly to the success of other businesses, in this case the success of phone sex lines and the online pornography market.

It appears that there will always be a connection between the adult entertainment industry and new media technologies, as the entertainment industry is “the first to embrace and make money from new media� (Toor, 1997:2) – the technologies and the industry go hand in hand and can be seen to even complement one another within the slightly skewed relationship. The success of the phone sex industry reveals that whilst as a sole entity they too are a profitable business, without the support of the internet this success would not be as prominent as it is today.

450 words

References

Gunter, B. (2002) Media Sex, London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. ISBN 0805837221

Lane, F. (2000) Obscene Profits, London: Routledge. ISBN 0415920965

Toor, M. (1997) 'Battle of Somm Puts the Focus in Internet Porn', Marketing Week [Online], vol. 20, issue 4, pg. 25. Available: Proquest: ABI/Inform Dateline, ID no: 11910315. [Accessed 19 Oct. 2004].

Jessica Ong 23:58, 28 Oct 2004 (EST)