ABSTRACT
According to the journalist John Tierney, throughout history, sex and the erotic have always had “a peculiarly creative impact on communications technologies,” sometimes a driving force in its innovation, but virtually always one its first and most successful uses. 1 The VCR, which was saved from sure extinction in its early days by the sales of pornographic videos, is a shining example. 2 But similar stories can be told about print, photography, television, and film—all technologies whose commercial success and everyday popularity were bolstered by their close affinities to this “most enduring killer app.” 3 And it is a mutually beneficial relationship, helping not just technology but the sex industry as well. As the scholar Brian McNair has put it, “No account of the pornography industry can neglect to mention the close connection between the spread of sexually explicit material in capitalist societies and the invention of new forms of information dissemination.” 4
