[etech] Analee Newitz: Sex laws drive innovation

By Richard Koman - March 15, 2005

porn.jpgEFF evangelist and techsex columnist Annalee Newitz is holding forth at on the history of the camouflaging of pornography and sex toys, and how this drives development of free speech and privacy technology. She starts with the equation: "Everybody wants porn + nobody will admit it + everybody loves tech = innovating ways to look without being seen."


She starts with talking about how yesteryear's vibrators were a kind of camouflaged technology. "I only use it for therapeutic purposes," reads an ad from 1910. In the 1920s, you saw porn showing people using vibrators for sex, when they were eventually outlawed, until they came back in the 1960s and 70s as actual sex toys.

One of the driving forces behind VCRs was the porn industry. The VCR became a way of camouflauging porn consumption. Before 1976 you had to go to a theatre -- local people knew you were going to theaters -- a very public experience. Now people could watch dirty movies in their own homes. The adult industry flocked to this new technology. A cheap way of disseminating porn.

Obscenity law. The standard is the Miller test, which says: it has to appeal to prurient interest; has to be offensive "based on contemporary community standards", and have no "social, literary, artistic or scientific value." Broadcasters are under "decency" laws which are stricter than "obscenity" law.

Before VCRs, porn called attention to itself much more (titles on marquees, people can see who's going to the theater, etc.). Now that it's a more private affair, you're going to have fewer complaints about it; it's less visible. The law pushed people towards the adoption of these technologies.

Meanwhile back on the Internet, quality wasn't very good. (She shows an ASCII art image from www.asciipr0n.com.) "Porn built the Internet. It's such an obvious use of the medium; because it's so private and widely available. It broke one of the prongs of the Miller rule (contemporary community standards): it's unclear what the "community" is when you're downloading and uploading to and from everywhere in the world.

Important obscenity cases:

  • ACLU v Reno (1997), which struck porn bans from the Communications Decency Act (the Internet can be indecent).
  • US v Extreme Associates (2005). This site may redefine obscenity on appeal.
  • Nitke is challenging obscenity provisions of the Communications Decency Act: what are "community" standards?

Private past/anonymous futures. It's likely that Congress could require porn sites to geographically locate users. So some workarounds:

  • prepaid porn cards
  • user-friendly anonymous proxies (Anonymizer)
  • Anonymizing networks like Tor ("Roger did not design this for porn; but it is my prediction that people will use it for porn.")
  • Anonymous IM - Off-the-record messaging: www.cypherpunks.ca/otr/

Annalee's bottom line is that "what's good for porn is good for free speech." And: "Today's porn tools are tomorrow's human rights protections."


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By Richard Koman - March 15, 2005 | Permalink | Comment | Category:
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Comments (4)

Lynne Jolitz:

Hey, so the open source movement has finally got a woman speaker - but instead of a real woman developer or researcher they've got a girl talking dirty. Wow! How enlightened they are...
However, this strange exhortation to love porn has nothing to do with the real reasons for why new architectures and design in technology are developed, nor does it speak to the motivations of the developers. Just because pimps and johns are ready to exploit any technology at any opportunity doesn't mean it has anything to do with innovation, provides any value to society, or has any lasting impact.
I doubt we'll soon see porn queens getting Nobel prizes, writing books of merit, or developing new solutions to problems of hunger, poverty, and injustice. But we will see lots of opportunists jump on the bandwagon as technology changes our society, proclaiming themselves as the "true" innovators as they gull the rubes.
This hucksterism has always gone on. After ten thousand years of civilization, it's amazing anyone sees this for anything less than some oddball carnival sideshow - briefly entertaining, somewhat freaky, and definitely unimportant.

Posted: March 16, 2005 10:58 AM

tom foremski [TypeKey Profile Page]:

Lynne, you make a fair point but I think there has been a widespread lack of examination of the effect of sex drive on driving certain markets.

Innovation in products and services only exists and survives if there are markets for it. The growth of the Internet and other technologies have clearly benefited from the large "adult" entertainment services sector.

The online adult entertainment industry has also been the prime innovator in many online marketing and advertising techniques. These include affiliate networks, pop-ups, spyware, advertising networks, and a host of other familiar and annoying technologies that made it into the mainstream.

And I've no doubt that the world's Geeks will one day succeed in creating a programmable bionic bedroom playmate, resembling either gender, and based on an open source platform so that there will be plenty of free or nearly free "behavioral" scripts to choose from :-)

PHP scripts will have a new meaning!

Posted: March 16, 2005 12:52 PM

Annalee Newitz:

If you're concerned about stereotypes of women in the high tech industry, I'd suggest that you not refer to the women who do participate in tech as "girls" who "talk dirty" merely because they are interested in obscenity law and technology.

You're simply reinscribing the very stereotypes you seem to want to undermine. With a cursory google search, you might have discovered that your "porn queen" has a Ph.D. from Berkeley, works as a policy analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and writes for national magazines about science and technology.

Thanks for your ongoing support of women in the technical field.

Posted: March 16, 2005 2:04 PM

Lynne Jolitz:

Sorry, Annalee - you can't have it both ways. You may have excellent credentials and fine writing skills, and you may be a wonderful person, but in the pursuit of catering to an audience, you've subordinated your skills and talents to sensationalistic drivel.
And yes, it's reasonable to catagorize it as a girl talking dirty, because that's the grabber for the audience. Unfortunately, they're not listening to you because of your PhD or your work at EFF - it's because you're a woman talking about sex at a tech conference!
If you're into using show biz gambits to get an audience, you should at least be honest about your methods, as any PhD from Berkeley is taught.
Can't blame you really for taking this tact to get an O'Reilly gig - so few women are ever featured. All this just illustrates how difficult it is for women to be taken seriously on an important subject that is impacting both Silicon Valley and the global economy.
But just because it is difficult to get a fair hearing doesn't mean that women have to give into an unfair situation. This is especially true for a representative of EFF, an organization that claims to support people battling unfair stifling of free speech, thought, and actions in technology.
So many women (and men) today find it difficult to hold together a career demanding unfair and ungodly hours, melding it with marriage or domestic partnerships, children, family, and community.
As to innovation, why don't you ask women who have really achieved innovative design, development, and technologies what drives them. You'll find it's like many of the men - a chance to achieve something new and maybe make a better world.
Maybe it's not as interesting as sex, but it's real life.

Posted: March 19, 2005 4:22 PM