By Chauntelle Anne Tibbals, PhD

YNOT – The Phoenix Forum is an annual three-day-long adult industry business conference that takes place in the Phoenix metro area. The forum offers educational panels and talks, interesting product demos and extensive networking opportunities.

This year’s forum just passed, and I was lucky enough to attend. Now I must admit, although there was plenty of conventional and unconventional fun to be had (and have plenty of fun I did), my sociology nerd/industry scholar-self was most compelled by the panels. I attended quite a few, but two really stood out in my mind: Friday’s “Real vs. Hype, 2011” and Saturday’s “.XXX – Now What?”

During “Real vs. Hype,” a state-of-the-industry-type session, panelists were presented with a series of current processes and technological developments. After each concept was explained, panelists held up “Real” or “Hype” cards as they saw fit and discussion ensued about what might develop in 2011. Topics included the mobile market, tablet computers, consumer loyalty (Is it gone?) and cloud computing, among several other things.

According to panelists, mobile is completely real. Mobile devices are generally private and cannot be filtered or blocked in the way traditional computers can. Carrier service continues to be a problem for adult content; however, panelists were optimistic. As consumer confidence in adult products increases, demand for mobile content will increase as well. Carriers then will be more inclined to meet their customers’ needs across a broader spectrum of content categories.

Tablets are also completely real, according to the panelists. They agreed that as tablet technology refines and price points drop accordingly, many consumers will rely on the devices more heavily. Although panelists maintained that tablets likely will not replace traditional desktops or laptops, the technology warrants industry attention.

Consumer loyalty was a bit of a toss-up. According to the panelists, consumers can be quite fickle; however, some niche and specialized areas retain consumer interest. Consequently, developing specialized products and content to meet specific consumer desires was suggested as a good way to augment loyalty. Whether increased loyalty would balance a decrease in the number of available target consumers that seems implicit to specialization is less easily determined.

Clouds are considered hype for now, but they’re gaining traction. In my understanding, cloud technology is first and foremost about remote storage, which already is very real. Additional benefits, namely privacy, continue to emerge. Panelists seemed to agree that consumers are not yet aware of clouds and their potential benefits; however, since Amazon just launched some cloud something or other, that’s all likely to change.

I walked out of “Real vs. Hype, 2011” schooled on technology and with a very commonsense take-away message: Identify consumers’ wants and needs, then find ways to meet them. And be willing to innovate.

Now, while “Real vs. Hype” speculated about the future, “.XXX – Now What?” engaged one important aspect of the present: the dot-xxx sponsored Top Level Domain, which recently passed muster with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.

The panel brought together an incredibly diverse cadre of industry influencers, including CC Bill’s Ron Cadwell, Pink Visual’s Allison Vivas, GEC Media’s Gregory Dumas (who also serves dot-xxx registrar ICM Registry as a paid consultant), MiKandi’s Chris Lewicki, Wildline’s Chris Miller, ICM Registry’s Vaughn Liley, AVN Senior Editor for Technology Tom Hymes, and attorney and Free Speech Coalition Chairman Jeffrey Douglas. Wasteland.com’s Colin Rowntree moderated.
Needless to say, the room was packed with a crowd that vacillated between incredulous and moderately disgusted to downright pissed-off.

Issues discussed included cost (why so expensive?); IFFOR, the nine-member rule-making body responsible for shaping operating principles that will apply to dot-xxx domains; the Sunrise System, a two-stage URL-allocation process wherein entities may protect themselves and/or their brands … for a fee, and issues related to dot-xxx filtering.

Members of the panel who support dot-xxx repeatedly alluded to its business-enhancing qualities, but I was unable to get a clear idea of what exactly those are.

All the discussions and the interactions amongst and between the panelists, the crowd and Rowntree (who is fantastically snarky) were fascinating; however, I — sociology nerd industry scholar that I am — found the issue of self-identification most compelling. Let me explain….

Currently, it’s nearly impossible to define pornography. What’s pornographic or “adult” to one person or community may not be to another. Dot-xxx, however, removes this often-protective spectrum of ambiguity through self-identification.

By employing a dot-xxx domain, webmasters label their content “porn” … and thereby undeniably associate themselves with all the problematic, contentious, biased, warranted, fantastical, good, bad and ugly things the wider world has correlated with adult.

In other words, dot-xxx changes the conversation from “What’s porn to one may not be to another” (thus, ambiguity) to “Those with a dot-xxx have labeled themselves porn” (thus, relatively defined through self-identification).

This issue of self-identification and labeling is obviously complex, and many potentially disastrous results could arise from labeling oneself “porn” in an anti-porn world.

Which brings me to questions I had brewing during “.XXX – Now What?”: How will dot-xxx impact the industry’s space within the wider social world? More specifically, what is this sTLD going to do to the general public’s perception of the business?

Like it or not, the adult industry is just a regular old industry. Sure there’s that whole sex thing involved, but plenty of other similarly divisive industries exist without their own domain space. Dot-gun? Dot-liquor? Dot-motocross?

How will self-identification as “porn” and the resulting mandatory association with all of wider society’s associated contentions reshape the regular old business and industry aspects of adult?

Popularly known as “Dr. Chauntelle,” Chauntelle Anne Tibbals is a critical social commentator who holds a PhD in sociology from the University of Texas at Austin. Unlike other scholars who study the adult film industry, Tibbals spends quite a bit of time in and around her subject. For more of her perspective, visit the website PornValleyVantage.com, “friend” Tibbals on Facebook or follow her on Twitter.