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 Servidio 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 Servidio 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 Servidio 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/1999/04/20/erotica
Jay
Servidio is President of Teleteria,
Inc., a company that has been building and hosting commercial
and adult custom Web sites since 1994. Teleteria's
clients are located all over the world.
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