If you’ve spent any time in a steam room, you know that a lot can happen in one. From reflecting on the intricacies of one’s life choices while taking off water fat to that oh-so-friendly grope from the hot guy sitting next to you, such intimate and thoughtful spaces can be great places for not only personal solitude, but camaraderie and connecting—not to mention starting up an adult Internet business.
Just ask the folks over at Horizontal Way, the company responsible for not only sites such as the immensely popular StallionMen.com, CumShotHotel.com, and BigCockSociety.com, but an altogether hot affiliate program (BigCashSociety.com).
In fact, Horizontal Way’s humble beginnings can be traced right back to a serendipitous meeting of the minds in the steam room of the spa at the Delano Hotel in South Beach, Florida. It was there that one Warren Zennon, a Canadian who’d relocated to the States, happened across a kindred spirit in Jerry Winthrop, a fellow Canadian who was just about to sit down on his own pair of glasses when Zennon fatefully intervened with a courteous “Hey, dude, you’re about to crush your own glasses.” That statement broke the ice for the two strangers: Zennon learned that not only was Winthrop a fellow descendent from Maple Leaf country, but that he was also an adult website designer prolific in the fetish niche. As Warren himself recalls, “A luncheon meeting was set up the very next day, and the rest is history.”
Inspired by the meeting, Warren decided to leave behind his job as a manager in the insurance business and create his own adult-oriented business. Horizontal Way was launched as the parent company, while BigCockSociety (which launched simultaneously) was its flagship site. Warren recalls that he had “no idea where to begin, who to contact, or what to do” in those early days, but gradually, with the ongoing help from his steam room buddy (“He taught me all the ropes,” Warren notes), he began to get the hang of it.
Over the years, Warren – who also doubles as a photographer for his sites – followed that successful site up with several others, including the immensely popular Society Series of niche sites (BlackStudSociety, LatinMenSociety, MalePornStarSociety, et al), HungBigContest.com (where members vote on well-endowed models) and, eventually, StallionMen. He even managed to snag the participation of highly sought-after model Zeb Atlas, who negotiated a deal for Horizontal Way to launch a well-received vanity site: ZebAtlas.com. According to Warren, that site led to “a flurry of contracts and website designs” – dubbed the Signature Series – with both established models (Raging Stallion’s Manuel Torres and mainstream model Ryan Le Bar) and those just breaking into the business (Magnum Boulder).
For Warren, making the switch to adult was a way for him to “snazz up” the industry with a little bit of Hollywood stargazing. “I could see that mainstream movies were becoming more daring and more explicit, and I wanted to bring a standard of excellence to the adult entertainment industry and, more specifically, to the Internet,” he says. “My plan was for the two areas to overlap more and more.”
Though Warren has yet to fully exploit the cinematic value of his content, he’s certainly off to a nice start. Employing a roster of highly regarded photographers, he presents his photo shoots and videos with only the best intentions. Horizontal Way marketing director, Mario G., says, “Everything we do has intrinsic value and is based in our fundamental beliefs of humanity, sensuality, and inherent good. We design websites that people come to, they like, and they stay.”
Mario attributes this to the company’s attitude toward its talent. “You can ask any of our models or employees about the respect they receive [working for us],” he offers. “Unequivocally, the answer is superb. We attract models who only will model for us; we have employees who will only work for us. We have excellent relationships with all our models, photographers and staff—they make us feel part of a big family.”
As for what makes the content in the Horizontal Way arsenal unique, Mario says it’s all a matter of personal taste. “We are focused on creating and building excellent sites with the kind of content that we like, and we refrain from chasing the top-selling niche of the day,” he offers. “We have very exclusive models and photographers, and, although we have tons of photos in our archives, we don’t sell our content.”
Mario is quick to point out that practically all of the content in the Horizontal Way network of sites is original (“about 97 percent,” he specifies), though he says that something far more important than mere exclusivity – and virtually unheard of in an industry seemingly hell-bent on removing the mystique from sexuality – defines the content: restraint. “We portray guys as people,” he says. “We don’t put sex in your face. Our sites are sensual first and then sexy. You wonder what lies beneath the guys’ clothes, and then we show you.”
Such things obviously keep surfers coming back for more, Mario says, but he also notes the importance of the faithful affiliates who also support the site—and he’s happy to trumpet a big round number when speaking of those affiliates: “Today we have more than 2,000 active webmasters who are promoting our sites,” he says, adding that the company is careful to maintain professional working relationships with other adult business folk. “We build strong relationships with those in the industry, and that is a key element of Warren’s philosophy.”
Carefully adhering to a strict business plan (which they politefully decline to reveal), the folks over at Horizontal Way are also mindful of keeping their ultimate goal in mind. “One of our biggest priorities in our marketing plan was to make our products very well known in the gay community,” Mario says. “I firmly believe we have succeeded. We concern ourselves on a regular basis with traffic and optimization.
“Our company has been visible for slightly over three years in the market, and we have one of the most valuable and extensive archives of original content,” he continues. “Being a well-known and respected company in the very short time we have existed is one of our greatest achievements. We are creative, and we are building niche websites that are helping individuals present themselves to the world. And we are constantly evaluating the marketplace and staying closely attuned to innovations and the future. The industry is changing with each and every day—which is something that we like.”
Both Zennon and Mario promise that things will continue to change at Horizontal Way headquarters, where the team is already busy creating the next sites to join the family. Those include AllMaleCams.com (a site devoted to guys with 10-inch-plus endowments) and Studcams.com (dedicated to “handsome, muscular, and well-defined” men, Zennon says), as well as many others. “By year’s end, we will have six new websites,” Mario says. Meanwhile, he adds, “In the near future, we expect to introduce new technologies to make our websites more interactive to our members.”
Mario in particular says he is looking forward to seeing where the company ventures next. “I’ve been in the Internet porn business for seven years, and through this time I saw many things happen,” he says. “All the new ideas and technologies awaken desires in me to be part of the adventure of the Internet industry. In my opinion, seven years is really nothing; I am still a humble beginner taking the first steps in a new technology.”
For his part, Zennon is also anticipating the technological advances of the future, though he is again quick to point out adult content’s origins in the cinema. “We need to remind ourselves that porn videos are movies,” he posits. “So the standards that apply to mainstream films should be the same ones applied to porn videos and content. I have the highest level of quality and excellence as the foundation for all that I do in the adult arena. I never thought about the money it would bring. I was and still am interested in the journey rather than the end result. I feel very strongly that if I can enjoy my projects and enjoy the creative, innovative, and visionary process, then the rewards will come.
“Adult entertainment is really no different than a lot of other fields,” he continues. “You need to apply the skills you’ve developed to this field as you would to many, if not all, the different fields of work out there: getting along with people, listening, showing respect, developing networks, developing a superb reputation, and bringing insistent attention to amazing quality. Competence and talent are also paramount in this field.”
Noting the importance of maintaining free speech and free enterprise in the age of the World Wide Web, Zennon asserts, “There is a march on in the world, and I want to be part of it. The Internet has presented each and every one of us to the world; the world is now truly our stage.”
