I used to hang out with Al Goldstein in Manhattan, in the days before Internet porn hit the scene. Goldstein lived in a mansion on 56th Street a few doors down from Bill Cosby. The neighborhood was one of the most fashionable in New York City.
Goldstein used to take comedian Gilbert Gottfried, porn legend Ron Jeremy, and a whole bunch of people out to lunch at the restaurant Mulholland Drive. He always picked up the tab, no questions asked. Goldstein had residences in Los Angeles and Florida, and I think he also had a place in Paris.
Now, some 15 years later, 71-year-old Goldstein, the founder of Screw magazine and the infamous New York cable show Midnight Blue, is living in an apartment in Queens, N.Y., paid for by magician and entertainer Penn Gillette. Goldstein is one step away from homelessness, and he worries that this summer he may "end up sleeping in Central Park."
How did this happen? What was the primary cause of his wonderful rise and horrible fall? In part, Goldstein readily will admit it might have had to do with hubris. But it was more than that. Another reason may be a sort of a generational misconception about the future: By failing to foresee marketplace trends—specifically pornography on the Web—the man who once had $11 million in the bank now is a million dollars in debt.
On the other hand, there's Peter Acworth, the owner of Kink.com. Kink caters to the bondage and BDSM-fetish porn market on the Internet. Acworth's company earned approximately $20 million in 2006, and Acworth always is looking for ways to utilize the newest technologies to advance his company and its product.
Recently, Kink.com began streaming live, 1080i high-definition video on its stable of websites. Acworth had 11 people dedicate themselves to bringing his hi-def vision into online reality using 30 hardware components. Even the big television networks don't yet stream high-def on the Internet.
Last year, Acworth purchased the San Francisco Armory for $14.5 million. The building is a 200,000-square-foot San Francisco landmark. Acworth bought the building for the purpose of shooting content, building rentable movie studios, using one level for office space, and perhaps putting residential units on the top floor.
So, here we have one pornographer who failed, while the other continues to succeed. Again, why? Twenty-twenty hindsight is 100-percent infallible. It's always easy to predict the future—after it's happened. Examining history, however, helps ascertain what lies ahead.
There is a special relationship between pornography and innovative communication technologies. The symbiotic dance began before Guttenberg invented the printing press. When man put quill pen to papyrus, images of couples engaged in coitus appeared. When still photography became the "newest fad" in the late-19th and early 20th centuries, pornographic images quietly—and abundantly—were circulated.
Perhaps the reason pornography and technology are so intertwined is that each generation believes it has "discovered" sexuality and new ways to communicate that discovery. These individuals embrace new media as the status quo for how their generation communicates ideas. Goldstein recently commented about pornography on the Web, calling it "impersonal." Perhaps for him, such advancements are impersonal.
Throughout the past 40 years, the business of pornography certainly has changed. It's gone from magazines to films to video to DVDs to video-on-demand on the Internet. Today's pornography is not a business for the squeamish, and I am not talking about content. I mean squeamish when it comes to moving forward with the next great technological process. Each previous medium had its place; however, the next revolution in technology always seems to reap the greatest reward for the marketers of adult businesses.
Perhaps one day, Acworth will complain about the advent of pornographic virtual reality, computer-generated and fictional sexual interactivity, and holographic models. He may say, "The models are just not real enough, and the whole medium is too impersonal." I doubt it, though. For my and Acworth's generation, embracing advances in communication technology is not the only way to stay afloat but the method to flourish economically. The rest just fades away.
SM Gelerman is an associate editor for AVN Online.
