More titillation on display! Hhmm, Ssemakula is indeed going mad!
james ssemakula <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
james ssemakula <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Women Tailor Sex Industry to Their Eyes
February 20, 2004
By MIREYA NAVARRO
Carlin Ross and Christina Head, a lawyer and a documentary
filmmaker in New York, recently teamed up to plot new
careers.
Among their first moves: Ms. Ross, 30, a general counsel to
dot-coms, this month restarted an adult Web site that
features "sex and love from a woman's perspective."
Ms. Head, 26, who has primarily covered subjects like
inner-city youth, hopes to produce and direct pornographic
films and television programming.
"It's all about empowering and educating women and, of
course, I enjoy sex," Ms. Head said. "We're women. We enjoy
sex."
Ms. Head and Ms. Ross are part of a growing cadre of women
who are selling sex to other women, in this case what Ms.
Ross calls "female empowered" adult entertainment - the
kind with plots, foreplay and cuddling in the afterglow,
the kind that is mindful of women 's tastes and suggests new
possibilities for women's pleasure.
Experts say demand by women - both heterosexual and lesbian
- is driving the growth of all sorts of sex-related
ventures, from stores, catalogs and sex toy companies to
adult Web sites, pornographic films and cable television
shows. At the same time, many women, they say, see the sex
industry as a legitimate place to make a living.
"Women have a voice now - `This is what I want and this is
how I want it,' " said Ms. Ross.
Samantha Lewis, president of Digital Playground, a DVD
company in California that produces pornographic films for
women and couples, estimated that women account for 40
percent of retail sales of Digital's movies, double what it
was just two years ago. At trade shows, she said, half the
fans are women, compared to maybe 10 percent five years
ago. "Women are fueling the growth," Ms. Lewis, 42, said.
While women have long been inv olved in the sex industry as
providers and consumers, their participation now has become
more of an economic phenomenon, largely because of the
Internet. In fact, experts say, the Internet has been a
major factor in unleashing women's interest in all things
sexual. Surveys by Nielsen/NetRatings, which measures
Internet audiences, have found that women account for more
than a quarter of all visitors to sites with adult content,
with more than 10 million women logging on to such sites in
December alone.
ComScore Media Metrix, an Internet research firm, has found
even higher female demand for adult sites - 42 percent of
all visitors in January - with the highest rates among
women ages 18 to 34.
The Internet also helps sales for other sex-related
businesses.
Toys in Babeland, a company founded by women to sell sex
toys and other sex products to women in 1993, with three
stores in Washington and New York, said online purchases
have boomed in the last four years, outpacing mail-order
and retail sales. "We're getting a boost from the way the
Internet allows privacy and from a shift in expectations
about sex, specially in women," Claire Cavanah, a co-owner,
said. "It's a whole new mindset."
As recently as a decade ago, the customer base for Adam &
Eve, a mail-order marketer of adult entertainment and
novelties, was virtually all male, said Katy Zvolerin, a
spokeswoman for the company, which is based in Charlotte,
N.C. Today, women account for 30 percent of the company's
catalog sales and 40 percent of Internet sales, she said.
More women in the business helps to generate more female
demand. Debra Curtis, a lecturer on anthropology at Salve
Regina University in Newport, R.I., said the
Tupperware-style demonstration parties of sex toys, where
women sit around with friends in a relaxed setting, help to
promote sex toys as fun and mainstream. The saleswomen make
the toys "imaginable," she said, for those who would never
have considered using them.
"The market is providing women multiple ways of being
sexual," said Ms. Curtis, who wrote a paper for the journal
Cultural Anthropology on the gatherings. "There are new
sexual repertoires, new rules and expectations, being
created. It's not just about romance. It's about increasing
sexual pleasure. "
Some critics are skeptical of what is driving the demand.
"Are they doing this to please the men or please
themselves?" asked Tamara Kreinin, president of the
Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United
States, a nonprofit group that promotes comprehensive
education about sexuality. " `Sex and the City' is
indicative of a certain comfort, but for most women it's
much less about sex and much more about the relationship."
Others say that embracing pornography is an unhealthy sign
that women are trying to imitate men's attitudes toward sex
rather than using their perspective to influence men's
behavior.
"The women's pornography I've seen is still pretty
blatant," said Diana E. H. Russell, a professor emerita of
sociology at Mills College in Oakland, Calif., and an
expert on sexual violence. "It's done in a more gentle way,
but it's still sex without any connection to other
feelings."
Female directors of pornographic films remain a small
minority, but they have become more common in the last five
years, industry experts said. One pioneer, Candida Royalle,
a performer who began directing in the 1980's, described
the woman's influence as steering away from mechanical
scenes and "an overabundance" of close-up shots to portray
"real bodies and sex that resembled more how women like to
make love."
While no statistics are available, Mark Kernes, senior
editor at Adult Video News, th e industry's trade
publication, said that more women are also seen among the
owners of adult video and novelty stores.
The business is attracting women like Alex Reyes, 52, a
hairdresser in Austin, Tex., who said she had never bought
a sex product - and had watched possibly two pornographic
films in her life - but who planned to open an adult store
in the fall next to her beauty salon. Ms. Reyes said that
as she cut hair she often heard her clients discuss the
lingerie, "edible stuff" and the sex toys they used.
After 30 years in the hair business, she said, she thought
her new store would be less demanding and more profitable
than her salon.
"Sex sells and there are many different forms," said Ms.
Reyes, who is single and has a 25-year-old son who she said
supported her plans. "I'm looking at one form."
Thousands of other women are supplementing incomes and
sometimes even becoming wealthy by selling sex pr oducts at
home demonstrations. Passion Parties, which is based in the
San Francisco suburb of Brisbane, Calif., is one of the
largest such companies, with 3,200 saleswomen. Patricia
Davis, the company's president, said that sales had grown
more than 50 percent in each of the last three years, to
$20 million annually and that 11 Passion Parties saleswomen
sold more than $1 million worth of products last year.
Elena Cruz, 28, a database administrator from Brentwood,
N.Y., who bought sex toys and lotions at two Passion
Parties over the last year, said she had "always been
interested but I never had the courage" to buy such
products before.
"I never had the guts to walk up and purchase something at
a store," she said. "The parties are more accessible and
more informative."
Many new sexual entrepreneurs say they are filling a void,
supplying female-oriented products that did not exist
before. Last month, Robin Adams, 3 2, and Micole Taggart,
29, published the first issue of "Sweet Action," a
pornographic magazine billed as "the official guide for the
boy-crazy gal." The magazine features "hot" but
normal-looking men and eschews how-to-please-your-man
articles for those telling women how to please themselves.
"The original intent was to make something for women that
they don't have," said Ms. Adams, a jewelry designer who
came up with the idea."We're very underrepresented in our
sexuality. We tend to get erotica and poetry, but porn is a
scary word for women."
In Austin, Ms. Reyes envisions "the new romantic sex shop,"
with "pinks and blacks and soft colors, music playing."
"I've dealt with women for years," she said. "Why would
they have to go through the Internet, hidden? I want it to
be a place where people wouldn't feel embarrassed. You
don't have to put on a disguise to visit."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/20/national/20FEM.html?ex=1078305817&ei=1&en=b6e9e85356521b36
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