LAS VEGAS — from www.aolnews.com – The atmosphere is festive, and how could it not be when scores of naked or almost-naked women are turning the place into a real exhibition center and banners promote upcoming porno versions of “Avatar” and “Spider-Man.”
But behind all the giggles and surgically enhanced jiggles is yet another American industry facing a perilous time brought on by drastic changes in technology and an stagnant economy that has even prompted even the sexually ambitious to pinch pennies.
The porn business, convening at the Sands Convention Center in Las Vegas this weekend for the annual Adult Entertainment Expo, is feeling limp these days thanks to a plummet in the sale of its one-time cash cow, DVDs.
Websites that offer free downloads or views of adult movies and that allow amateurs to upload their own have forced this once seemingly invincible business to grapple with an uncertain future.
“They’re destroying us,” said Michelle Liss, sales manager of Fleshdrive, a company that sells flash drives preloaded with adult films.
“Business is down because of these sites and it sucks. I have friends who come up to me and they say, ‘Oh, my god, I saw this great site,’ and I say, ‘You realize you’re hurting my business?’ ”
The trade show itself is feeling it, too. About 170 exhibitors are here this year, down from more than 200 in past years. Attendance, about 20,000 people are expected, is about the same, but that’s partly because the show sells tickets to the public and Las Vegas already has about 150,000 extra visitors this weekend for the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show.
One of the real potential solutions for the porn industry’s troubles could, in fact, be found at CES: 3D television and 3D Blu-Ray DVDs. Hustler Video Group operations director Rob Smith is convinced that being able to deliver a unique experience in well-produced, three-dimensional porn could create an important new revenue stream.
“The industry has had difficulty monetizing its content on the Internet because a lot of content is pirated or just given away,” Smith said. “We’ve seen a decline in sales in DVDs, but we think 3D media will help us. Nature shows, porn and sports, those are the programs areas that people will want to watch in 3D.”
In flusher times, more porn purveyors were able to take the high ground of only showing adult films in which the performers use condoms during intercourse. Many have loosened up that restriction now, including Bruno Riccelli, owner of Palm Springs, Calif.-based Oh Man! Studios. He now films unsafe, or “bareback,” movies, to remain competitive with what’s available on the Web.
“Everyone wants to see bareback and a little more kink,” he said. “It was a difficult decision, but I had to do something. There is a lot of free downloading going on.”
While the industry doesn’t have a centralized group available to provide data on the decline in sales of DVDs or the cost of piracy and free content online, the story seems to be the same from every facet of the business.
Matt Weir, a buyer for two Déjà Vu Adult Emporiums in Las Vegas, groused that nobody “really’s come up with anything special” to combat the piracy problems and that brick-and-mortar stores are increasingly having to focus on non-film items like sex toys.
He also said that stores have learned they need to be cleaner, less sleazy environments in order to make female customers comfortable visiting.
“It’s lingerie, it’s toys, it’s lubricants, it’s books,” Weir said. “You can’t download a dildo, you know. And it’s the women are driving the traffic into the stores, so if a woman doesn’t want to come into your store, not only are you not going to see the toy sale, you’re not going to get her husband to buy the DVD either.”
Another problem for online porn vendors is that they can’t get into the most lucrative and fastest-growing area of the Internet, the marketplaces for smart-phone applications. Apple remade the music industry for the digital age via its iTunes store at a time when music piracy was a crippling problem. But the company does not permit the sale or distribution of adult content.
That has left folks like Maria “Snake Babe” Gara, owner of the Sex App Store, to create web-based applications separate from iTunes. Her “store” is really a series of web pages that sell adult photos and movies that is formatted to look like a smart-phone app, but it’s the closest thing the industry has.
“It’s corporate America, it’s the same reason Xbox, PlayStation or Wii don’t have adult games,” Gara said. “They have corporate people to answer to. If those people don’t want adult content, they just don’t have it. It’s just not the respected norm.”
One porn outlet that does seem to be doing OK is live video sessions that offer real-time, personalized virtual experiences between models and customers. “It’s not even the porn so much as the live interaction that is the draw,” said Leo Radvinsky, owner of MyFreeCams.Com. “That’s not something you can pirate.”