It’s hard to think of a more attention-grabbing title than “Robots, Men, and Sex Tourism”—especially in the academic world.

Written by researchers from New Zealand’s University of Wellington and published recently in the journal Futures, the paper predicts that in the decades to come, humans will patronize robot-staffed brothels, freeing them from the guilt associated with visiting a flesh-and-blood prostitute. Perhaps predictably, it sparked a lively conversation about whether the sex industry could be automated—and not a little squeamishness about the whole idea of robot-human relations.

That at least some of us will be having sexual intercourse with robots in the future should be obvious by now. Somebody out there will make love to just about any consumer good that enters the home (and if that’s not the first rule of product design, it should be).

But will our robot-human relations be relegated to the bedroom, or will love enter the equation, too? Is our society headed in a direction that will support this transition? Looking at current trends, I’d say that the answer is a resounding yes.

Labels: child care, children, culture, Marriage, prostitution, sex, sex industry

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...The “escort” ads that ended up so embarrassing Goldman Sachs are only a small part of the puzzle. According to The AIM Group, which tracks such things, Backpage.com is the dominant player in the healthily growing “prostitution advertisement” industry online, generating some $26 million in revenues in the last 12 months. Other players in this market, with names like Eros.com and MyRedBook.com, added another $10.6 million in revenues to the pile. (The former big Kahuna in the field, Craigslist, reluctantly shut down its own adult listings in 2010.)

Porn — perhaps because it, unlike prostitution, is often legal — is a much bigger business online, though reliable numbers on the industry are hard to come by, and misinformation abounds. (Both proponents and opponents of online porn have reasons to exaggerate.) One factoid making its way around online, and even into the pages of Wikipedia, is that “the internet pornography industry has larger revenues than Microsoft, Google, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo, Apple and Netflix combined.” That’s just plain wrong. Several years back, the Adult Video Network estimated the total revenues of the online adult entertainment industry in the U.S. to be $2.8 billion; others in the industry suggest this may be exaggerated. (By contrast, Microsoft’s revenues in its most recent quarter were $20.9 billion.)

While $2.8 billion is nothing to sneeze at, porn is hardly the golden goose many assume it to be. CNBC suggested in a recent report that the porn industry “stands at a precipice as it heads into 2012,” with “revenue from films … shrinking, due to piracy and an abundance of free content on the Internet.”

Labels: culture, pornography, prostitution, sex industry

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Westpac has walked away from financing the “world's biggest brothel”, the proposed 42-room megaplex on Parramatta Road opposite Sydney University.

The bank had come under pressure to abandon its role financing the brothel project when BusinessDay revealed an investor presentation two weeks ago showing Westpac as the senior financier on the deal. National Australia Bank was also a financier. ...

Westpac declined to specific why it had withdrawn its offer but it had come under substantial pressure for its involvement with the deal since it was made public on August 1.

Labels: Australia, prostitution

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COMMERCIAL sex workers are set to compete in the 2011 Muvi TV reality show Ready for Marriage Three Extraordinary.

According to a statement from Muvi TV and Africa Unite TV, season three of R4M which will be launched on Sunday will include sex workers drawn from the nine provinces of Zambia.

The contestants would not only compete for the K90 million grand prize, but the show would also help them to transform and empower themselves. ...

In view of the desire to empower, cash prize consolations ranging from K5 to K7 million will be given to 15 eliminated contestants as capital funds for business or any proposed investments.

All 18 contestants will be offered a full-time job as well as personal counselling in survival, motivational and vocational skills.

Labels: Marriage, prostitution, Zambia

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Do you want to have an affair?

After hearing an ad on Howard Stern's radio show or seeing a schlocky commercial on late-night TV, you might find yourself on AshleyMadison.com—the premier "dating" website for aspiring adulterers. Type in the URL, and as the page loads a gauzy violet backdrop appears with a fuzzy image of a half-dressed couple going at it beyond a hotel doorway. "Join FREE & change your life today. Guaranteed!" ...

There's a lone genius—possibly evil and certainly entrepreneurial—behind Ashley Madison. His name is Noel Biderman, and he's the chief executive officer of Avid Life Media, based in Toronto. "Monogamy, in my opinion, is a failed experiment," he declares. It's unclear if Biderman actually believes this—he's married and has two young kids—but like Hugh Hefner before him the business he has created pretty much requires that he say it. Behind his desk, in an office so lacking in embellishment it almost looks like a hastily assembled low-budget film set, is a large flat-screen monitor promoting his company's flagship brand. It reads: "Life is short. Have an affair."

Adultery has been good to Biderman, but defending his product is a full-time job. The day before our meeting, Ashley Madison had blasted out a press release accusing Fox (NWS) of refusing to broadcast its Super Bowl commercial. When I arrived, Avid Life's offices were still crackling with outrage, with Biderman playing the role of the unfairly maligned business owner just trying to make an honest living. While Biderman scheduled calls with reporters from CNN, ESPN, and a Peterborough (Ont.) radio station called The Wolf to discuss the perceived injustice against his company, a film crew set up lights to shoot a segment for a documentary about the "science of sin." Down the hall, the 107 programmers, designers, customer service agents, and marketing folk who run Avid Life's six websites—including cougarlife.com, for older women seeking younger men, establishedmen.com, which connects "ambitious and attractive girls" with "successful and generous benefactors to fulfill their lifestyle needs," and hotornot.com, the 1990s throwback where people rate one another's photos—were plotting Avid Life's digital push into the future.

"How could I not be angry?" Biderman, 39, asks of the Super Bowl affront. ...

Avid Life is privately held, making its numbers difficult to verify, but according to the company, Ashley Madison has 8.5 million members, 1.3 million of whom have actually paid something. It now has a presence in 10 countries—the U.S., Canada, Australia, the U.K., Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Ireland, New Zealand, and Sweden—with plans to enter Italy, Spain, and Brazil in the next year. Not surprisingly, the majority of its users are men—an estimate on the site says there are seven of them for every three women. Based on internal projections, Avid Life is expected to generate $60 million in revenue this year and $20 million in profit. Almost all of that comes from Ashley Madison. ...

When I asked Biderman's wife, Amanda, what it's like being joined in holy matrimony with an anti-marriage entrepreneur, she let out a long sigh. "Really, the business itself doesn't match who he is as a person—it's not our lifestyle or value system or any of that," she said. "I mean, yeah, I'd love it if he were working on a cure for cancer. But it's a business, and that's how we look at it."

Labels: adultery, culture, gender differences, heterosexual couples, Marriage, men, prostitution, women

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The Washington Area Women’s Foundation points to this short video on human trafficking in the United States. One interesting thing to note is how these young women draw comparisons between their entrance into trafficking and cultural narratives surrounding heterosexual romance. “I just thought I was so madly in love with him, and he just made me feel safe. I didn’t have a dad figure, so he became my dad. And I loved him, too,” one girl says about a pimp; ” I hadn’t eaten that whole day . . . and if somebody offered me something to eat? Oh, they cared about me. And I thought, what greater way than a guy who can sweep me off my feet like Cinderella?”

Labels: culture, gender, heterosexual couples, poverty, prostitution, women

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More than 1,000 followers of a multi-religious sect in northern India have pledged to marry female sex workers who want to escape exploitation.

Young Hindu, Muslim and Sikh men have been queuing up at the Dera Sacha Sauda (Abode of the Real Deal) in the town of Sirsa as "wedding volunteers".

They say they are doing so to stop the women from being exploited in brothels.

They also claim that their move is part of a campaign to stop the spread of the HIV/Aids virus.

The Dera Sacha Sauda (DSS) is one of many religious sects operating in northern India.

Most take root by offering community services, social welfare and spiritual leadership but over time, as their followings grow, they often seek political influence.

Correspondents say that in religious terms, the DSS is hard to classify. Many experts argue that it is not, as some have said, an offshoot of Sikhism.

More than 1,200 DSS members have signed pledges to marry the sex workers following a call from DSS chief Ram Rahim Singh a little over a month ago.

Mr Singh commands a huge following of predominantly lower caste Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs across the states of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan.

Labels: Hinduism, India, Islam, Marriage, poverty, prostitution, religion, Sikhism

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