The Denver Post recently published the first installment of a group of reports focusing on the maturation process of adult entertainment. In the first story, the Post takes a look at attempts to mainstream adult by online communities like SuicideGirls.com.
In the article, Denver Post staff writer Douglas Brown asks the question, "Is pornography's long lurk in the shadows over?" He goes on to say that an entire category of entertainment, loosely termed "adult," has stepped into the sunlight, where it basks today, ripening and growing into a $12 billion industry, "a 21st-century Pornopolis."
"It's full of dukes and earls, countesses and princesses," writes Brown. Lording over at least part of this Pornopolis is radio disc jockey Howard Stern, who early on invited porn stars onto his show and gave what for many was their first exposure in the mainstream.
"He was really key, no question," Steve Hirsch, chief executive officer of Vivid Entertainment Group, told the Denver Post. "When he put adult stars on his show, there was a huge amount of people who listened ... and bought and rented movies."
The Pornopolis is SuicideGirls, not just another porn site bobbing in cyberspace, but an online "community," like MySpace or LiveJournal. Here, not just the SuicideGirls themselves but all of the hundreds of thousands of subscribers who pay for memberships can maintain online journals, post pictures, communicate and bond over their station in the SuicideGirls club.
To read the entire Denver Post article, click here
