ISRAEL – A popular Israeli porn site is, of all things, making strides in Mideast relations. According to recent reports, Ratuv (Hebrew for “wet”) is a site specializing in producing adult galleries and titles which have overtly political themes. After discovering that the site may have voyeurs logging on from surrounding countries, including Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran and Iraq, site administrator Nire Shahar decided to create features which make the site more user-friendly for Arabs.
Ratuv now offers Arabic links for users from its neighboring countries. Shahar said that, since the upgrade, the site has received up to 100,000 hits a week from Arab countries.
“We were amazed to find a huge amount of our users from these countries,” Shahar told Variety. “We cannot accept money from many of these countries, so they can’t download the films. They can only look at the pictures.”
The films and pictures on Ratuv often depict soldiers in risqué situations. The site is not allowed to accept payment from Arab countries, due to Israeli law. Shahar said he has plans of moving the site to either Europe or the United States, to make it fully accessible to all users.
“Arab people usually see female soldiers in a bad situation, so there’s a lot of curiosity to see what Israeli girls look like without any uniforms,” Shahar told Variety. “We don’t make regular porn films. Our films parody the situation in Israel, so we look at issues like the elections here and Mossad. There is a lot relevance to the Arab-Israel situation.”
Shahar said he also plans on producing what some Middle Easterners might consider the ultimate taboo; Israeli-Arab porn. “We are interested in making films with Arabs and Israelis in them,” Shahar told Variety. “It’s something we can do to speak about the connection between two people, but it’s not going to be easy.”
