I Watch Porn for the Furniture

Your counter-example would only make sense if the furniture and fixtures in the background of a porn movie were made *solely for the purpose* of being in that porn movie. But then, that would be like saying the furniture industry is part of the porn business– is that what you think?

As with the real world porn industry, SL’s adult entertainment businesses depend on a much, much, much larger economy to provide content, environment, and software, most of which is either non-sexual or sex neutral. It’s why I think the meme that 30% of commerce in Second Life is sexual is totally far-fetched.

Say a porn movie has a $70,000 budget. Things that are bought with that budget (clothing, furniture, video equipment, time on an Avid editor, etc) are part of the adult video industry because that is part of that movie’s budget, despite no one accusing Avid of being “a porn company”.

Same logic with adult clubs in SL. If an adult club is responsible for the consumption of $X (furniture, detachable penii, prostitution, gimp suits, whatever), that $X is considered part of the sexual economy of SL.

And yes, I had entirely too much fun writing this comment.

“If you sell a couch to a porn producer for use in a movie, that sale is part of the porn industry as far as I’m concerned.”

Wow, OK. I really don’t know what to make of that statement. By that logic, the electric and water bill paid while the crew is shooting makes PG&E part of the porn industry, too. For that matter, taxes paid by the porn company which went to finance F-16s that guarded the airspace above San Fernando Valley from Al Qaeda attack makes national defense part of the porn industry, too.

But seriously, an industry’s revenue is *what it brings in*, not what it spends.

But seriously, an industry’s revenue is *what it brings in*, not what it spends.

Does this hold up in Second Life? I didn’t see an analysis of earnings in your article.

Probably the guys paying taxes for shooting the film are claiming that the water, electricity and botles of coke used are expenses… So the specifical instances of said commodities used become part of the porn industry But that doesn’t mean that the electricity company is also, as they’re just providing a service. If they don’t pay taxes please forgive my ignorance on the subject

Seems to me there are two very different things being argued here, with the bringing in of the comment “an industry’s revenue is what it brings in, not what it spends.” That’s true, but I don’t see any discussion of revenue in your article. I see a discussion of commercial activity.

If a couch - virtual or real - is purchased by the porn industry for use in a porn film / strip club / whatever, then that transaction is commercial activity within the porn industry on the part of the purchaser, and the transaction is certainly related to sex. If rope is sold to a mafia hitman to tie up his victim, surely you consider that sale just as “crime-related” as if it had been a gun, even though the rope manufacturer did not intend and would not condone that use?

If the article in were disputing a statement that a certain percentage of SL’s economy consists of the *earnings* of the virtual porn industry, then your income statement would make more sense. But in terms of categorizing monetary transactions, if they’re buying lamps to hang in a strip club, yes, that’s a sex-related sale. Doesn’t mean every sale the lamp maker makes is, but *that* sale is.

“if the article in question…” I mean to say at the beginning of Para 3. Early morning typo.

The “meme” about 30% of transactions in Second Life being sexual was initiated by Reuben Steiger (then a Linden Lab employee) at last year’s SXSW conference in front of a panel audience. I was in attendance, and took notes. I object to the portrayal of this statistic as baseless, when in fact it came directly from Linden Lab.

I posted about this yesterday on my own blog (I don’t seem to be able to leave a direct link here), it’s worth reading the comments.

Actually, Reuben Steiger says this about his comment at SXSW:

http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2007/02/a_census_of_sec.html#comment-60068614

If I am the source of that oft-quoted and admittedly arbitrary, absurd and altogether meaningless “30%”, let me take a stab at explaining where it came from.

At last year’s SXSW, Peter Ludlow, gave a presentation pointing out the various unseemly bits of the Second Life economy. In it he discussed not only adult activities, but also griefers, and a variety of non-adult activities. As the token Linden in attendance, I was asked what percentage of the Second Life economy was “naughty” (isn’t this beginning to sound a bit like a Monty Python skit?)

I think what I said was something to the effect of “Naughty isn’t something that you can do an SQL query against” and then went on to say that there’s a healthy amount of it, just as in every promising early medium, the net included.

Hamlet, I have to admit that I think your argument is a little lame. Let’s face it, there’s adult content in SL. Does it matter what percentage it is?

I’ve blogged about this here:
http://secondthoughts.typepad.com/second_thoughts/2007/02/i_started_this_.html

As a former very unhappy neighbour of the Barbie Club (they kept so many avatars glued to their club on the pay-out dance-pads and sex rooms that often no one else could get on that sim), I can tell you that Hamlet couldn’t have chosen a worse example. The Barbie owner and partners did a lot of their own building or enlisted those who supply the porn palaces. To try to extract out of all these textures, buildings, and furniture items something that is part of a putative “non-porn” business is truly laughable. I said it’s like trying to focusing on the ads, articles, and bulk mail permit out of Playboy magazine and concluding that Playboy is only 5 percent about sex.

“Let’s face it, there’s adult content in SL. Does it matter what percentage it is?”

Yes, it matters.

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