Kink.com founder Peter Acworth is the subject of an in-depth feature in Sunday's New York Times magazine.
Entitled "A Disciplined Business," the article by Jon Mooallem calls Kink.com "arguably the country's most successful fetish porn company." Using Acworth's career as an an example, Mooallem traces the development of the online adult industry and examines social attitudes toward bondage and BDSM.
"It has long been noted that the San Fernando Valley is increasingly populated by strait-laced corporate managers and not by the oily, medallion-wearing men we once assumed," Mooallem writes. "But succeeding on the Web, or simply surviving its escalating demands, has required more sophisticated entrepreneurial types. With the Internet pushing porn discreetly into the homes of conventional consumers, making it more a part of everyday life and less seedy-seeming, the industry has been better able than ever to attract that sort of employee. That is, as pornography becomes a more mainstream product, it becomes an equally mainstream career."
Kink.com caused a stir in the media last December when it purchased San Francisco's State Armory and Arsenal for a reported $14.5 million.
In addition to Acworth and his employees, the Times interviewed AVNOnline editor Kathee Brewer, adult industry attorney Paul Cambria, director Ira Levine and talent agent Mark Spiegler, among others.
The full Times article can be viewed here (registration required.)
