The Difficulties of Running a Sex-Inspired Startup
fastcompany.com
fastcompany.com
Certainly there are legitimate players, but you can't blame a payment processor or bank for not wanting to take high levels of risk.
Transaction fees are high but there are other cryptos. If the chargebacks are priced in to costs the sites could give a crypto discount to compensate.
You can buy these at many US supermarkets.
Either way, your customers have to get the currency somehow, and barely any of them will be bothered to. I suspect a lot of porn purchases are "heat of the moment", so to speak.
I'd not accept a job that only pays wages in bitcoin and in fact, it might violate minimum wage laws some places because you aren't paying in "real, government approved" money.
It isn't a morality issue (banks don't care) it is a risk issue.
Also, why won't they outright say they are concerned about fraud, much better than indirect responses they've been getting.
Not sure about VCs though, good point.
So much of the issues around this stuff would literally vanish overnight if we could just grow up in regards to sex and things involving sex. It's twenty freaking seventeen and we're still acting like it's this big scary thing.
Still makes the CC's fraud department do a lot of work.
It tries to keep a niche focus on "realistic" content produced by amateurs but considering most real sex doesn't translate well to video, I'm guessing it'll eventually be either just another low-quality amateur clip site or sacrifice authenticity for production quality and become a generic "for women" porn site.
For context, here is what distinguishes "porn" from "real sex" according to the website (obviously this list is not intended to be exhaustive):
* coming on women's faces
* no "hair down there"
* no foreplay
* no clitoral stimulation
* all women love anal
* dirty talk
I'm willing to wager creating porn without these qualifiers isn't a novel idea and that there are already existing websites offering that. None of these seem necessary or sufficient to distinguish between porn and "real sex" videos.
So, this is really about people drawing weird boundaries around what they find acceptable and labeling whatever's outside the boundary "porn". Mmm, so progressive.
Much of what is called "sex positivity" strikes me as suspicious for similar reasons.
Not huge money raised to be sure, but a good little business that's been growing pretty well.
https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/crave#/entity
https://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2013/09/19/50-shades-of...
Their company site: http://www.lovecrave.com/
The sex industry was under the scope of Operation Choke Point, an Obama-era initiative of the United States Department of Justice, which would investigate banks in the United States and the business they do with business in "edgy" categories, including pornography.
There are also a couple of adult crowd funding sites, eg http://www.adultxfunding.com and some more.
If porn is so denatured, and so misrepresentative of reality, why do people make it themselves, and then share it with others, while never getting any money or fame from it? There's no other explanation than they enjoy it. And there are SO many places on the internet where people do this. And you can find all the stuff that is supposedly sooo unrealistic that "normal" people don't do. Singles, couples, groups, women and men, all of it. All of it.
Why not just admit, hey, there's things I like and things I don't like, and sometimes people like things I don't, and vice versa. (I mean, I know why, but.)
Of course, they pivoted and ended up producing tech for movies and games, but porn was where they started.
It's not impossible to get investors for an adult startup (far from it), but it is hard to grow, as word of mouth and so-forth doesn't work so well there, for fairly obvious reasons.
It's like they're on the middle rung of the sex-positivity ladder, looked down upon by potential investors while themselves looking down at porn.
When we look at a professional football player play football, we never call it fake football. So why when it comes to sex we choose what is real and what is fake. I understand that very few people can have Sex like porn stars and very few women have the ability to look like porn starts. But why do we look down upon them and call them fake.
Gay porn invalidates your argument.
You could say "some porn objectifies women", or even "most porn targeted at straight men objectifies women", but making the claim that porn in general objectifies women is patently false.
Casual talk is not dealing in absolutes. We're not speaking in theorems and axioms. Even if someone says "people are idiots" they don't mean "X, for every X where X a person, is an idiot".
Note how they didn't even say "all porn": just "porn objectifies women". In casual speak even saying "all X does Y" is not necessarily intended to convey "absolutely all X". Just saying "X does Y" even less so.
>You could say "some porn objectifies women", or even "most porn targeted at straight men objectifies women", but making the claim that porn in general objectifies women is patently false.
No, it's perfectly OK (if a little beyond the point, see my other answer).
Here's how to read the phrase of the parent in casual conversation:
Porn objectifies women (when there are women in it -- DUH!). Most porn, that is -- some special snowflake outlier porn with women in it might not objectify them, and that's ok (DUH!). I'm talking about what generally happens, and what people actually get to see most of the time when they watch porn, not what some Peruvian feminist porn might show (DUH!). I also know there's animal porn, which obviously doesn't objectify women (DUH!)
In general, if how one interprets a conversational statement can be taken down by the addition of a few "DUH!", then probably this is not the interpretation intended by the original speaker. That's the "principle of charity".
It can do, it depends on context. When a statement is ambiguous, you have to infer meaning from context.
> That's the "principle of charity".
What about the "principle of unambiguous speech"? If a conversational statement can be taken down with a few "DUH!", people will try harder to be precise in their communication.
That's the whole art of casual conversation -- or any conversation for that matter, even the most rigorous scientific paper depends on millions of context-based assumptions.
There is a lot of explicit convention in science, it is not the same as general "art of casual conversation"; Scientists will likely have explicit qualification, and provide stats and data. More so for Law, were stakes are arguably even higher.
Anyway, in this case you made a absolute claim ("they don't mean") that isn't necessarily true. They can mean that.
How do you demonstrate that this isn't true, if is so subjective (an "art")? The answer, would be to incentivise clear, unambiguous language; at least in technical, specific conversations.
I made it in casual conversation myself. They can -- it's physically possible. But generally (statistically significantly) they don't.
I don't think so, and neither did the original respondent.
But I've never seen anybody mention say something about members of a group, ethnicity, nationality, whatever, etc in casual conversation and really mean it absolutely applies to everybody in that set with no exceptions (e.g. "Scots are stingy" or "Californians are into health").
And when I say "never seen anybody", consistent with my rule, I mean "I only seen very few do that".
So, I'm sure you can find some counter-examples. But do you really believe what I say is not true in the large majority of cases?
I believe what is is less important that what can be. Bitcoin/freenet/bitorrent is used heavily for shady and/or illegal business - that needn't be the case in the future.
"porn objectifies women" is a fairly loaded term, that incorporates, on average, a lot of assumption about what that means, and why it is relevant. The context is a large effort by certain groups, trying to prove porn is "harmful" - the objectification argument is the latest round of arguments against porn.
I fail to see the difference between "women are X" and "porn is X". Both are statements of the type "Y is X".
Furthermore, my point is that categorical statements in casual conversation mean "most, the majority etc", unlike categorical statements in formal logic.
>"porn objectifies women" is a fairly loaded term, that incorporates, on average, a lot of assumption about what that means, and why it is relevant. The context is a large effort by certain groups, trying to prove porn is "harmful" - the objectification argument is the latest round of arguments against porn.
Whether "porn objectifies women" is true or not is orthogonal to what I discussed here: that someone saying "porn objectifies women" doesn't mean "all porn ever made with no exception objectifies women" -- and thus their point can't be shut down with a mere counter-example (like several parent commenters here did).
But you said "something about members of a group". Y in the first case is a group (a population), Y in the second case is not.
Maybe statements about people, or groups of people, conventionally refer to the average, mean etc. but not necessarily about concepts such as "porn".
> orthogonal to what I discussed here..
Your last comment says "do you really believe.." so I stated my opinion in response to that.
You are cherry-picking an example when the speaker belongs to the category.
That doesn't make sense as an accusation, as that's the whole point of the activity: to objectify women (and men).
Porn, like casual sex, is about seeing the other person, and being interested in them, for a single dimension: sexually. Which is totally fine. Who said you should be interested in the whole package deal every time?
Maybe not have sex unless it's a relationship/marriage either? Men AND women do enjoy casual sex without any further purpose all the time.
Employment also sees the other person in one dimension: professionally. Traffic cops see the person in one dimension: how well they drive. Credit card companies see a other person in one dimension: what they do with their bills. All of those are objectifications: the other is a means to something. It's just because of being prudish and/or misunderstood feminism that specifically seeing the other in terms of sex (for casual sex, porn, flirting, etc), is considered especially heinous.
>Women look artificial with all these cosmetic surgeries. The whole thing looks artificial. Not to mention that it gives youngsters a very distorted view of how sex should be which is a whole other story by itself.
That's more like why it's "fake" -- not the objectifying thing.
In porn women are just objects. Or at least, in the mainstream str8 porn.
A world which is nobody's business between consenting adults.
>* I don't know about you, but I can't have sex without kissing my partner, even if it's a one night stand. I mean come on, women aren't just objects of pleasure.*
Is this based on the false premises that: (1) kissing isn't pleasurable as well, or (2) they don't kiss in porn?
>I mean come on, women aren't just objects of pleasure. They're human beings. What's wrong in treating them like so?
What's wrong is that it doesn't mean anything. Wanting to fuck someone (and just that) doesn't mean you treat them inhumanely or that there's no respect. What would respect entail? Asking about their life story?
I hope you're not serious. Respect means knowing and respecting boundaries. It means ensuring the other person feels safe and comfortable.
Where in seeking the other (or same) sex for pleasure and sex only did you see a lack of respect?
It's just a limited goal oriented interaction. It doesn't mean you beat them or cuss at them or threaten them or make them discomfortable.
It's like in some people's mind there's only love and cuddling and/or relationships where respect is possible, whereas casual sex is some unsafe and dangerous realm, if not close to rape.
Objectification is a very specific thing as regards sex. To objectify is to render less than human, to make something inanimate, lifeless. To have a single task, to be used as a tool. As a thing to be achieved or gained or possessed, bought and sold; a commodity.
Mainstream heteronormative porn mainly espouses a chauvinistic male point of view. In that view, women are usually objects. And since the women are the main subject of such porn, there's no focus on the guy, either - so both often seem like objects.
Porn in itself is an object, similar to a painting or piece of music. And also like art, the point is not to objectify the subject - it's to identify with the subject. What one does after that is particular to the person. Maybe you fall in love with the person on the screen? Hate them? Imagine a past lover who looks similar? Not everyone sees porn subjects as objects. Sometimes people want beautiful art, or escape. They don't necessarily want to see two machines banging into one another for an hour.
And when you want to just fuck, whether you are a man or woman or anything else, that's exactly what you want.
When you want love and cuddling and connecting, that's another story (and you can even be the same person that in other instances wanted to just fuck. In fact usually that's the case).
But somehow those that want to just fuck, and thus seek in the other just that, are supposed to be made to feel guilty -- even if the other doesn't mind, and wants just that themselves.
>Mainstream heteronormative porn mainly espouses a chauvinistic male point of view.
That's the whole point. Porn is about pleasure. The "chauvinistic male point of view" provides pleasure to the majority (mainstream) of males.
Porn is not about expanding your mind and connecting with the Other and the magic of the universe. It's also not about empowering etc -- any more than cooking is about empowering eaters.
> > Objectification is a very specific thing as regards sex. To objectify
> > is to render less than human, to make something inanimate, lifeless.
> > To have a single task, to be used as a tool.
> And when you want to just fuck, whether you are a man or woman or
> anything else, that's exactly what you want.
> But somehow those that want to just fuck, and thus seek in the other
> just that, are supposed to be made to feel guilty -- even if the
> other doesn't mind
> That's the whole point. Porn is about pleasure. The
> "chauvinistic male point of view" provides pleasure to the majority
> (mainstream) of males.
..... which is the entire point being addressed by the business mentioned at the top of the article. But anyway.....
> Porn is not about expanding your mind and connecting with the Other
> and the magic of the universe. It's also not about empowering etc
> -- any more than cooking is about empowering eaters.
Fantasies are personal. And if you mean the porn actors, they are paid and are into the whole thing (if they are not, that's of course another story). So what someone's fantasies are, is no business of anybody else -- and no one's agreement is required.
>And it's not so pleasurable to large segments of society who then become targets of behaviors learned from watching only this kind of porn.
Porn didn't exist when cavemen raped women. Besides, should we extend the same concern to video games, movies, literature, etc? How about we add violence to it? I, for one, wouldn't find it "pleasurable" to become target of behaviors someone learned in a street fighting video game or a FPS.
Being sexually harassed at work objectifies women.
Next time I open a porn video that features no women at all, I'll be sure to take a moment to appreciate how it's objectifying women.
Regardless of your false statement, porn objectifies everyone involved. That's the point of porn in the same way that hooking up with someone for a night and going about your business the following day objectifies both of you. There's nothing wrong with being sexually interested in someone else and nothing else.
Also, found on the website linked on the article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FV8n_E_6Tpc
For the same reason we call don't consider a role an actor portrays as "real".
Not only is the guy in the porn video not an actual plumber, but he probably could not care less about having sex with the lonesome busty housewife -- and especially not in front of a crew of 10, and following a specific formula until the final money shot.
It is still a perfectly valid sport (caveat: depending, of course, on how you define sport itself which can be a subjective matter) but if categorising things is your bag then I think it belongs more with synchronised swimming than it does with professional football.
(personal context: I've never been a WWE fan, though recreationally I do partake in catch wrestling from which WWE can claim some heritage)