Everybody agrees that this year’s adult entertainment expo was a bust. A limp show compared to other years, complete with an incomplete number of exhibitors and fans. On the day that the show opened to fans - where you can usually expect a line that reaches from one building to the other, you could actually see the end of the line, and you didn’t have to walk far to do so. And each year there seems to be one standout performance by a solo company (via their booth), but this year, not a single one. No Abby Winters (that was last year) and no Kink.com (that was two years ago), and nobody did anything that everybody was buzzing about, well, except for AEBN (very NSFW) who apparently had this machine that you put your dick in and it screws you like the girl on the film would if you were actually having sex with her.
Is is a sign of the economic times? As Sarah Palin might say, “you betcha!” But is it more than that? Has traditional porn gone the way of the VCR?
It’s hard to say if it’s just porn, although Cory Silverberg did write an interesting piece yesterday on the future of porn. In it he poses an interesting question; can we all be porn-ed out?
Hmmm…
Is this the end of porn as we know it?
While I’d like it to be the end of some of the porn as I know it, I don’t think we’ll have that much luck. What I do think is that a lot of consumers are porn-ed out when it comes to spending money on porn. Why buy the milk when you can get the cow for free?
Besides the financial woes of both consumers and providers, Silverberg ponders porn to a greater extent than I will right now. I’ll just say that frankly I’m surprised that there is still so much bad sex being made for camera, and I can’t fathom how the industry, or more like certain companies, have got away with so much for so long. But I don’t think it’s just porn. When I talk about the mainstream sex industry, I’m talking about the toy people too. There’s been a lot of cheap products made for people’s coochies (and more) for way too long, and it seems that those guys are taking a hit too.
Love LA, the un-porn sex show, was supposed to happen next weekend in LA. When I say supposed to it means it’s not happening anymore. It’s moving to the summer at a time when things might be better. But they might not be. Apparently toy companies received a blow this past week in Vegas too, and have decided that two shows too close in time, but not in proximity, wouldn’t work so well for them. Most of the companies that would be at Love LA are struggling because they’re small, independently owned and operated. But there’s also a lot of crap floating around the toy industry, and it’s not the flushable kind.
While Babeland tells Forbes.com that sales are great (and after this past weekend I do believe them), I don’t think that most of the industry can say the same. Of course, I’m only one sex educator in a sea of sex, but from what I’m seeing, the industry - all over - is suffering. However, unlike the larger companies, the ones that make the cheapest toys, it seems that consumers are looking for value when it comes to their vulva, penis or ass. That means quality counts, and a toy that can last a lifetime is being seen as a bigger bargain than a toy that can last a night. But then again, Tenga, my new favorite toy for boys, is both disposable and recyclable, and that doesn’t last.
Whatever happens to sex toys and adult films, one thing is certain, pleasure isn’t a fad. That being said, how much, or how often, people will pay for cheap, mass produced sex or sex toys, that fad might be fading.
Posted by jamye
