WEBVTT - Chapter 7: Cybersex 0:00:07.080 --> 0:00:10.840 You know, hardcore. Like the word pornography has kind of 0:00:10.840 --> 0:00:13.920 a moving definition depending on who you're talking to. So 0:00:13.960 --> 0:00:16.279 it's kind of hard to define because I have my 0:00:16.360 --> 0:00:20.480 own personal definitions, but other people have other definitions. Some 0:00:20.520 --> 0:00:23.880 people believe that Playboy is pornography, and other people believe 0:00:23.920 --> 0:00:27.120 that it's not. Some people believe that I'm pornography, and 0:00:27.200 --> 0:00:33.320 some people believe I'm not. Danny ash Danny dot com. 0:00:33.360 --> 0:00:35.960 A website isn't a very marketable tool until the time 0:00:36.000 --> 0:00:38.960 modems become fast enough to provide for video on demand. 0:00:39.560 --> 0:00:42.319 When that happens, hotels and motels will change how they 0:00:42.360 --> 0:00:46.520 receive adult programming. That's when the industry will really take off. 0:00:47.680 --> 0:00:49.560 David James, Vivid Video. 0:00:51.440 --> 0:00:55.000 There are a lot of computer nerds emerging as porno kings. 0:00:56.240 --> 0:00:59.360 Bob Guccioni, founder of Penhouse. 0:01:01.120 --> 0:01:04.320 Sex sells if widgets sold as good as sex, I'd 0:01:04.319 --> 0:01:10.240 be selling widgets, but unfortunately they don't. Seth Worshowski Internet 0:01:10.319 --> 0:01:11.160 Entertainment Group. 0:01:18.920 --> 0:01:32.520 Welcome to Jena World. Welcome back to Jenna World. I'm 0:01:32.560 --> 0:01:39.760 your host, Molly Lambert. This is episode seven Cybersex. Jenna 0:01:39.800 --> 0:01:43.319 Jamison continues her mainstream media tour with an appearance on 0:01:43.400 --> 0:01:46.959 The Jerry Springer Show, the popular daytime talk show known 0:01:46.959 --> 0:01:50.840 for its provocative topics and confrontational panel segments. For an 0:01:50.880 --> 0:01:57.279 episode titled Jenna Jamison Sex Goddess, Jerry Springer, like Howard Stern, 0:01:57.720 --> 0:02:01.120 tries to back Jenna into criticizing the industry and saying 0:02:01.120 --> 0:02:04.800 it degrades women. Now a professional at this sort of thing, 0:02:05.160 --> 0:02:06.680 she refuses to take the bait. 0:02:09.480 --> 0:02:10.960 Do you like to watch? 0:02:11.720 --> 0:02:17.040 Well, you're gonna love this, Jenna. 0:02:17.560 --> 0:02:21.560 Welcome to the show, Jerry Spring talk show host. 0:02:24.840 --> 0:02:27.480 Jenna comes out in a low cut black catsuit with 0:02:27.520 --> 0:02:30.680 a gold white chain necklace and her trademark smoky eye 0:02:30.680 --> 0:02:34.359 and frosted lip, flashing peace signs and sticking her tongue out. 0:02:35.240 --> 0:02:38.040 Jerry starts a full court press, trying to get Jenna 0:02:38.080 --> 0:02:41.320 to admit she regrets her choices in life, but Jenna 0:02:41.520 --> 0:02:45.280 stands firm. 0:02:45.520 --> 0:02:47.480 Sex is supposed to be really intimate. 0:02:47.960 --> 0:02:49.240 I mean it's personal. 0:02:50.280 --> 0:02:53.200 It's not as intimate in the movies, that's for sure. 0:02:53.760 --> 0:02:56.120 It's very mechanical actually. 0:02:56.360 --> 0:02:59.120 Because you're getting directed there, I'm. 0:02:58.919 --> 0:03:01.840 Getting directed, and you're paying more attention to where the 0:03:01.880 --> 0:03:04.400 camera is or where you have to open up to. 0:03:05.120 --> 0:03:07.320 You know how that is, Jerry. 0:03:08.280 --> 0:03:10.680 But the more I do it, the better time I have, 0:03:10.800 --> 0:03:12.760 because you forget about those things. 0:03:17.360 --> 0:03:20.200 Jerry brings out more porn performers to join the panel 0:03:20.280 --> 0:03:22.840 and tries to push them into saying that doing porn 0:03:22.919 --> 0:03:25.919 is ruining their personal lives, but all of them say 0:03:25.960 --> 0:03:29.320 that's simply not the case, that work is just work, 0:03:29.440 --> 0:03:33.240 and real life is still real life. If anything, people 0:03:33.280 --> 0:03:36.880 in porn are more careful than civilians about keeping up boundaries. 0:03:37.680 --> 0:03:41.840 Jenna emphasizes that making adult movies might be an unusual job, 0:03:42.160 --> 0:03:45.400 but it's still a job with hours and regulations. 0:03:47.400 --> 0:03:50.280 I think the sex we have in movies is completely 0:03:50.320 --> 0:03:52.080 different than the sex I have at. 0:03:51.960 --> 0:03:52.880 Home with my husband. 0:03:53.480 --> 0:03:57.480 I'm making love with my husband. I'm intimate with my husband. 0:03:58.120 --> 0:04:01.480 We love each other. The sex I have with Mark 0:04:01.640 --> 0:04:04.360 is not anything close to what I have with my husband. 0:04:05.080 --> 0:04:05.920 That's my job. 0:04:08.000 --> 0:04:11.560 After Jenna and the panel repeatedly explain intelligently to Jerry 0:04:11.560 --> 0:04:14.520 Springer that they love their jobs and lives, can maintain 0:04:14.600 --> 0:04:18.600 intimate romantic relationships off screen and stand behind the adult 0:04:18.600 --> 0:04:23.200 film industry, Jerry still gives a pedantic final address that 0:04:23.360 --> 0:04:27.320 condemns them and porn. Jerry says, even if you don't 0:04:27.360 --> 0:04:30.039 care what other people think of you, the world will 0:04:30.080 --> 0:04:33.560 still judge you, and your life and relationships will be ruined. 0:04:34.200 --> 0:04:40.360 It's like he wasn't listening to anything that Jenna said. Meanwhile, 0:04:40.640 --> 0:04:45.240 in Ginger World, Vivid stardom, mainstream film work and headlining 0:04:45.360 --> 0:04:48.800 national towards exotic dancing have allowed Ginger Linn Allen to 0:04:48.839 --> 0:04:52.520 buy a six six hundred square foot seven bedroom home 0:04:52.600 --> 0:04:55.920 in Woodland Hills for five hundred and eighty thousand dollars 0:04:56.480 --> 0:05:01.600 and a LEXISSUV. The long friend ship and work partnership 0:05:01.640 --> 0:05:05.400 between Ginger Lynn Allen and Vivid Stephen Hirsch turns romantic 0:05:05.440 --> 0:05:09.000 in the nineties. It starts with sneaking around as he 0:05:09.080 --> 0:05:11.760 is technically still with his longtime girlfriend Wren. 0:05:14.000 --> 0:05:16.040 He kept telling Ginger he was going to have her 0:05:16.080 --> 0:05:22.120 move out, he was going to pay her off Wayne Allen, Ginger's. 0:05:21.640 --> 0:05:27.479 Father, Stephen Hirsch, and Wren have an acrimonious breakup. He 0:05:27.560 --> 0:05:30.640 pays out a big settlement to Wren that acknowledges her 0:05:30.760 --> 0:05:35.039 role in creating the Vivid Empire. Stephen Hirsch and Ginger 0:05:35.080 --> 0:05:38.200 Lynn Allen go public with their love and things quickly 0:05:38.320 --> 0:05:43.039 escalate into talk of marriage and kids. In nineteen ninety five, 0:05:43.200 --> 0:05:47.160 ginger Lynn purchases a five diamond gold band at Beverly 0:05:47.240 --> 0:05:51.000 Hill's jewelry store, twenty four carrots. She plans to propose 0:05:51.080 --> 0:05:54.000 to her boyfriend at a beach picnic, but gets so 0:05:54.200 --> 0:05:57.279 excited she brings out the small black jewelry case that night, 0:05:58.320 --> 0:06:01.920 but not everything is golden for Vivid's first megastar. 0:06:04.040 --> 0:06:07.920 He said yes, and then I told him something that 0:06:08.040 --> 0:06:12.240 changed his mind. Ginger Lynn Allen performer. 0:06:14.200 --> 0:06:19.039 She said, I'm pregnant. He gave her the ring back. 0:06:22.279 --> 0:06:25.680 Ginger Land gives birth on March thirty first, nineteen ninety six, 0:06:25.760 --> 0:06:28.680 to a son who she named Sterling Wayne Robert Allen 0:06:29.000 --> 0:06:32.039 an Aires. She withholds the name of the father on 0:06:32.080 --> 0:06:35.920 his birth certificate. There are whispers that Stephen Hirsch is 0:06:35.960 --> 0:06:39.080 allegedly paying ginger monthly child support under the table. 0:06:41.360 --> 0:06:43.080 You know you've really made it when people can print 0:06:43.160 --> 0:06:46.240 rumors about you. I'm really not going to comment on it. 0:06:46.360 --> 0:06:51.000 I'm not going to glorify this. Stephen Hirsch, Vivid video founder. 0:06:53.320 --> 0:06:57.080 Stephen went from a really sweet, assertive, nice young guy 0:06:57.600 --> 0:07:00.640 to very calculating. I think that when you go from 0:07:00.640 --> 0:07:03.359 a person who rolls pennies to start your company to 0:07:03.440 --> 0:07:07.919 being a millionaire or billionaire, you treat people differently. You 0:07:08.040 --> 0:07:11.320 forget where you came from and who you are and 0:07:11.360 --> 0:07:12.440 who was there for you. 0:07:14.880 --> 0:07:17.600 The Vivid girls who come after Ginger Lynn Allen are 0:07:17.640 --> 0:07:20.160 mostly not given the same level of star treatment that 0:07:20.200 --> 0:07:23.040 Ginger got, nor do most of them achieve her level 0:07:23.080 --> 0:07:26.680 of success. By the late nineties, the new Vivid girls 0:07:26.720 --> 0:07:29.160 have to sign away the lifetime rights to their stage 0:07:29.240 --> 0:07:33.880 names to Vivid for merchandise licensing. While Vivid contract girls 0:07:33.880 --> 0:07:38.120 still get star billing, they're allegedly underpaid. They get no 0:07:38.280 --> 0:07:43.080 royalties or residuals, no cut of the back end. Even 0:07:43.120 --> 0:07:47.960 though Vivid constantly recycles old scenes for compilations. Performers only 0:07:48.000 --> 0:07:49.920 get paid once upfront. 0:07:51.320 --> 0:07:53.200 You couldn't get me to be a Vivid girl again 0:07:53.280 --> 0:07:56.600 if you pointed a gun at my head. They want 0:07:56.640 --> 0:07:59.120 too much, They get everything. 0:08:00.240 --> 0:08:00.760 Vivid girl. 0:08:02.800 --> 0:08:05.720 A nineties Vivid girl named Diana Lauren gets paid a 0:08:05.720 --> 0:08:07.880 flat fee of a few thousand dollars for her work 0:08:07.920 --> 0:08:11.840 headlining nineteen ninety seven's Bad Wives for Vivid, which ends 0:08:11.920 --> 0:08:14.560 up making the studio a cool two point seven three 0:08:14.600 --> 0:08:18.680 million dollars. But there's a new way that performers might 0:08:18.720 --> 0:08:21.960 be able to take financial control and sell their own 0:08:22.120 --> 0:08:25.360 likeness without signing a bad contract with a big studio. 0:08:26.240 --> 0:08:26.960 The Internet. 0:08:29.640 --> 0:08:32.960 Everyone told me I should build a website about the 0:08:32.960 --> 0:08:35.600 same time my husband installed a new modem in our 0:08:35.640 --> 0:08:38.360 computer and showed me his company's website. 0:08:39.120 --> 0:08:40.120 The light bulb went on. 0:08:42.559 --> 0:08:45.320 The first person to cash in on the Internet's potential 0:08:45.360 --> 0:08:48.199 as a marketing tool to sell their own sexualized images 0:08:48.240 --> 0:08:50.480 online is a woman who goes by the name of 0:08:50.640 --> 0:08:56.040 Danny Ash. Danny Ash has amateur appeal. She sells herself 0:08:56.080 --> 0:08:58.880 as just a regular girl who wants to share some 0:08:58.960 --> 0:09:03.240 horny photos of herself off online for a reasonable fee. 0:09:03.320 --> 0:09:07.400 This concept will eventually flood the Internet, but at first 0:09:07.559 --> 0:09:11.480 it's just Danny Ash, her modem and her website, Danny's 0:09:11.480 --> 0:09:12.000 hard drive. 0:09:14.120 --> 0:09:17.000 I mean, the Internet is almost like a parallel universe. 0:09:17.679 --> 0:09:21.720 It represents every possible human thought, feeling, in emotion, both 0:09:21.760 --> 0:09:22.360 good and bad. 0:09:22.440 --> 0:09:23.280 It's all there. 0:09:23.640 --> 0:09:27.080 It's a mirror of us, and sometimes, you know, we 0:09:27.160 --> 0:09:29.040 don't like to see what's there. 0:09:31.480 --> 0:09:36.160 Danny Ash is born Leah Manzeri in Beaufort, South Carolina, 0:09:36.520 --> 0:09:39.960 a capricorn, she uses a fake ID to start stripping 0:09:40.000 --> 0:09:44.560 illegally at age seventeen in Seattle, Washington. When she's dancing 0:09:44.600 --> 0:09:48.319 at strip clubs, she starts using the stage name danny Ash. 0:09:49.080 --> 0:09:51.880 She has natural thirty two double f size breasts. 0:09:54.080 --> 0:09:57.280 I guess I'm an exhibitionist, but that's not quite true. 0:09:58.040 --> 0:10:00.240 Part of the reason is that I developed bread. It's 0:10:00.240 --> 0:10:03.520 at an early age, and breasts are a very sexualized thing. 0:10:04.120 --> 0:10:06.160 At an early age, I was getting a lot of 0:10:06.200 --> 0:10:10.559 sexualized attention. Eventually, I just felt that stripping kind of 0:10:10.600 --> 0:10:12.320 put all that stuff out on the table. 0:10:14.559 --> 0:10:16.960 At age twenty two, danny Ash moves to La to 0:10:17.000 --> 0:10:20.800 do lingerie modeling and shoot softcore. She continues to do 0:10:20.880 --> 0:10:24.640 exotic dancing and strip clubs across the country. On a 0:10:24.679 --> 0:10:28.520 tour date in Jacksonville, Florida, she's encouraged by one strip 0:10:28.520 --> 0:10:32.600 club's owners to dance fully topless, then busted by cops 0:10:32.600 --> 0:10:38.240 for violating local laws. It's a setup. She's arrested in 0:10:38.280 --> 0:10:41.719 Florida for prohibited conduct and fined fifty bucks with a 0:10:41.760 --> 0:10:45.400 guilty plea after the club's owners and her tour booking 0:10:45.400 --> 0:10:48.000 agent hang her out to dry on the toplessness charges. 0:10:48.600 --> 0:10:51.480 Danny decides she needs a career change where she can 0:10:51.520 --> 0:10:56.319 have more personal control. She wants to become a computer programmer. 0:10:58.360 --> 0:10:59.760 I'm a bit of a geek. 0:11:00.160 --> 0:11:03.760 Yeah, I'm a geek with big breasts. 0:11:05.120 --> 0:11:09.720 Danny starts going on usenet newsgroups, a precursor to Internet forums. 0:11:10.440 --> 0:11:13.319 Some of her softcore picks have been posted on usenet, 0:11:13.360 --> 0:11:17.559 and she interacts there online with new fans. Danny's husband 0:11:17.600 --> 0:11:20.200 works for the movie theater chain Landmark, and shows her 0:11:20.200 --> 0:11:23.640 the brand new Landmark Theater's website, which lists up to 0:11:23.720 --> 0:11:27.000 date information about what movies are playing at Wich theaters 0:11:27.080 --> 0:11:31.480 and when they're showing. Listing movie show times was previously 0:11:31.520 --> 0:11:34.360 the purview of local newspapers, and a toll free number 0:11:34.360 --> 0:11:36.480 called Movie Phone. You called to hear a man's pre 0:11:36.480 --> 0:11:39.319 recorded voice tell you when Polly Shores Jury Duty is 0:11:39.360 --> 0:11:43.920 showing in Van Nuys. The Landmark Theatre's website and the 0:11:44.040 --> 0:11:48.280 usnet newsgroups light up a big neon sign over Danny's head. 0:11:48.920 --> 0:11:52.240 There's a new way she can sell and provide personalized 0:11:52.280 --> 0:11:56.120 but limited access to herself. She won't have to work 0:11:56.160 --> 0:11:58.839 at shady strip clubs for owners that sell dancers out 0:11:58.840 --> 0:12:01.760 to the cops for a kickback. She won't have to 0:12:01.800 --> 0:12:08.280 be around customers physically at all. She will start a website. 0:12:10.440 --> 0:12:15.439 Danny ash reads an HTML manual and teaches herself rudimentary coding. 0:12:16.240 --> 0:12:19.439 In July of nineteen ninety five, she launches a website 0:12:19.480 --> 0:12:23.000 at Danny dot com called Danny's hard Drive, where she 0:12:23.040 --> 0:12:27.559 posts daily news articles and jokes. There's no paywall at first, 0:12:27.920 --> 0:12:30.640 just info about where to send fan mail or where 0:12:30.640 --> 0:12:34.600 to see Danny dance on tour. Then she starts charging 0:12:35.160 --> 0:12:38.960 fifteen bucks a month for membership. The main draw is 0:12:39.000 --> 0:12:42.320 an online directory of adult models with their own photo 0:12:42.360 --> 0:12:46.160 web pages, anchored by content of Danny and her double 0:12:46.320 --> 0:12:47.920 f breasts. 0:12:49.440 --> 0:12:52.040 I think that the average visitor to Danny's hard Drive 0:12:52.280 --> 0:12:55.880 is someone who's more of a fan, someone who's generally 0:12:55.960 --> 0:12:58.920 interested in knowing about the women they have fantasies about, 0:12:59.400 --> 0:13:02.840 wanting to have a more well rounded fantasy, a little 0:13:02.880 --> 0:13:04.600 more reality in the information. 0:13:07.320 --> 0:13:10.360 The site is so overloaded with traffic after launching that 0:13:10.440 --> 0:13:13.160 the server shuts down and Danny dot com has to 0:13:13.200 --> 0:13:17.319 move to its own server. In pioneering the business model 0:13:17.360 --> 0:13:20.840 for selling sex on the internet, Danny also pioneers a 0:13:20.880 --> 0:13:23.480 set of systems for doing so that she cashes in 0:13:23.520 --> 0:13:25.440 on by selling the tech to other people. 0:13:27.600 --> 0:13:32.200 Last year, Danny's hard Drive made six point five million dollars. 0:13:32.800 --> 0:13:36.320 This year we expect to make eight million. We've had 0:13:36.320 --> 0:13:39.400 to develop a lot of technology to support the business 0:13:39.559 --> 0:13:45.080 of Danny's hard Drive, streaming video technology, hosting technologies, credit 0:13:45.120 --> 0:13:50.120 card scrubbing technologies, processing customer service, and all of these 0:13:50.160 --> 0:13:53.480 things are now working so well that they have value 0:13:53.520 --> 0:13:56.880 to other companies, and we're beginning to market those technologies 0:13:56.920 --> 0:14:00.600 to other companies, and that's actually the largest area of 0:14:00.600 --> 0:14:02.120 growth in our business right now. 0:14:04.040 --> 0:14:07.400 Danny ash self frands herself as the most downloaded woman 0:14:07.480 --> 0:14:11.520 on the Internet. Her content is strictly softcore, which is 0:14:11.600 --> 0:14:14.720 less profitable than hardcore, but falls within her own personal 0:14:14.760 --> 0:14:18.679 comfort zone. She markets the site to lonely men who 0:14:18.760 --> 0:14:21.480 want to engage with a beautiful woman through the Internet 0:14:21.560 --> 0:14:24.280 who they could never talk to in real life, and 0:14:24.360 --> 0:14:28.240 for that privilege she charges them. 0:14:28.320 --> 0:14:32.040 I'm not a psychiatrist, but it seems to me the 0:14:32.040 --> 0:14:35.200 more you repress your sexual feelings, the more they're going 0:14:35.240 --> 0:14:38.040 to pop up somewhere else in a really unhealthy way. 0:14:38.800 --> 0:14:41.520 In our culture, we repress a lot of sex, and 0:14:41.560 --> 0:14:44.480 we repress our anger. And what you see coming out 0:14:44.960 --> 0:14:48.840 is a lot of violent pornography. And you know, it's 0:14:48.920 --> 0:14:52.480 my theory that that's a direct result of our culture's repression. 0:14:56.120 --> 0:15:00.080 By nineteen ninety six, the Internet sexual revolution is well underway. 0:15:00.600 --> 0:15:02.880 Just as VHS obliterated. 0:15:02.280 --> 0:15:05.720 Film and remade the eighties porn landscape, it's clear that 0:15:05.760 --> 0:15:08.239 the Internet will have a similar effect in the nineties. 0:15:08.920 --> 0:15:12.120 And while adult creators and consumers are excited about the 0:15:12.120 --> 0:15:16.160 new possibilities of the web, not everyone shares their excitement. 0:15:17.000 --> 0:15:20.040 The idea of photos and videos showing naked people and 0:15:20.160 --> 0:15:24.680 sexual content migrating online concerns a lot of folks who 0:15:24.800 --> 0:15:26.240 worry that kids will see it. 0:15:28.360 --> 0:15:31.320 There's no warning. You can gain access to any kind 0:15:31.360 --> 0:15:34.800 of material without any preparation. A twelve year old could 0:15:34.800 --> 0:15:38.000 have downloaded that same material. That's the part that really 0:15:38.040 --> 0:15:41.560 scares me. Ray Solar, founder of Safeserf. 0:15:43.040 --> 0:15:46.080 The most precious thing a child has is, of course, 0:15:46.480 --> 0:15:47.200 their innocence. 0:15:48.200 --> 0:15:50.400 Wendy Simpson Safe Surf. 0:15:53.480 --> 0:15:57.600 San Fernando Valley couple Ray Solar and Wendy Simpson set 0:15:57.680 --> 0:16:02.080 up the first restricted Internet browser called safe surf. Porn 0:16:02.280 --> 0:16:05.040 isn't the only thing that people are worried will disseminate 0:16:05.120 --> 0:16:10.040 unchecked online. There's also concern about hate speech, images of gore, 0:16:10.520 --> 0:16:14.440 and easily accessible bomb making instructions, which you can find 0:16:14.520 --> 0:16:18.440 at Easily Accessible bomb Making Instructions dot com. 0:16:18.600 --> 0:16:20.200 Vivid David James. 0:16:19.800 --> 0:16:22.520 Says he endorses a service like safe Surf, and that 0:16:22.600 --> 0:16:26.040 he agrees children should not have access to Vivid's new 0:16:26.040 --> 0:16:29.800 homepage Vivid dot com. 0:16:29.840 --> 0:16:31.800 We're not saying we want you to stop what you're doing. 0:16:32.160 --> 0:16:34.480 We want you to do it in a responsible way. 0:16:36.640 --> 0:16:41.160 Online sexual content is frictionless and fluidless. It can be 0:16:41.200 --> 0:16:44.240 accessed with one click of a mouse and closed with another. 0:16:45.040 --> 0:16:47.520 The promise of a portal into a world of sex 0:16:47.560 --> 0:16:52.640 that exists discreetly away from real life is well seductive, 0:16:53.640 --> 0:16:56.400 But even when the window closes and the computer shuts down, 0:16:56.880 --> 0:17:01.600 the web's tendrils still creep into offline life. One sided 0:17:01.680 --> 0:17:05.960 transactional content consumption relationships of the kind offered by creators 0:17:06.000 --> 0:17:10.120 like Danny Ash are neither real exactly nor fake exactly, 0:17:10.440 --> 0:17:15.520 but a third thing called parasocial. While people have long 0:17:15.600 --> 0:17:20.760 had parasocial relationships with celebrities, and fictional characters. The Internet 0:17:20.800 --> 0:17:24.320 creates these kinds of interactions between real people online and 0:17:24.359 --> 0:17:28.520 their customers or consumers. They develop a false sense of 0:17:28.560 --> 0:17:34.520 knowing someone, but it's a one way mirror. When general 0:17:34.560 --> 0:17:39.760 world returns, the Internet changes the world of adult content forever. 0:17:48.840 --> 0:17:50.479 Welcome back to general World. 0:17:56.600 --> 0:17:59.879 The issue of privacy is huge. The online sex industry 0:17:59.920 --> 0:18:02.160 is promise is you don't have to be peewee Herman, 0:18:02.760 --> 0:18:05.639 and we're in the age of aids. The websites are 0:18:05.680 --> 0:18:10.400 amazing safe sex, Alison Grippo, author of Netlove. 0:18:12.800 --> 0:18:15.879 By the mid nineties, the Internet is still just a 0:18:15.920 --> 0:18:19.280 tiny slice of the adult money pie. The bulk of 0:18:19.320 --> 0:18:23.159 the sex businesses eight billion dollars in sales, still comes 0:18:23.160 --> 0:18:27.800 from videotapes, magazines, peep shows, and softcore cable programming on 0:18:27.880 --> 0:18:33.240 channels like Playboy and Spice, But the Internet is growing rapidly. 0:18:34.359 --> 0:18:37.639 By nineteen ninety six, the online sector is netting around 0:18:37.720 --> 0:18:41.000 fifty one point five million dollars, with projections of two 0:18:41.160 --> 0:18:43.080 hundred million by nineteen ninety seven. 0:18:45.440 --> 0:18:47.720 We have customers who spend one hundred and fifty dollars 0:18:47.720 --> 0:18:51.440 a month up to six thousand. That's twenty hours a month. 0:18:52.240 --> 0:18:57.399 They fall in love. Barbara Bailey, owner of videophone sex 0:18:57.440 --> 0:18:58.960 site Pleasure Girls. 0:19:00.880 --> 0:19:03.760 Danny ash and others like her, clock early on that 0:19:03.800 --> 0:19:06.800 the Internet is quickly going to surpass all other forms 0:19:06.840 --> 0:19:09.520 of media. They're getting in on the ground floor of 0:19:09.560 --> 0:19:12.480 the next gold rush, racing to see who can get 0:19:12.480 --> 0:19:16.680 adult content online first, for what's being called hyper porn. 0:19:17.880 --> 0:19:21.760 But there's already an established precedent for the internet's sex business, 0:19:22.320 --> 0:19:28.640 a small, but concentrated, financially robust, subterranean cultural industry known 0:19:28.760 --> 0:19:31.359 as audio text or phone sex. 0:19:33.359 --> 0:19:36.440 What is the net. It's just a phone call with pictures, 0:19:37.440 --> 0:19:40.840 Tim Elliott, president of the Teleservices Industry Association. 0:19:48.040 --> 0:19:51.760 Phone sex was the first leap into interactivity. It's interactive 0:19:51.760 --> 0:19:55.080 in a way that video could never be. Everybody's moving 0:19:55.119 --> 0:19:59.000 to computers, but it's the same group of people. Stephanie 0:19:59.040 --> 0:20:01.240 Martin Babes for you website. 0:20:03.200 --> 0:20:06.679 The phone sex industry is pioneered by Gloria Leonard, the 0:20:06.720 --> 0:20:09.960 pornstar and High Society magazine editor we told you about 0:20:10.000 --> 0:20:15.000 in episode two, Gloria Leonard tapes herself describing the contents 0:20:15.040 --> 0:20:17.840 of the next issue of High Society as a recorded 0:20:17.880 --> 0:20:20.680 message that can only be accessed by calling a nine 0:20:20.720 --> 0:20:25.040 to seven six pay number. She realizes that charging people 0:20:25.119 --> 0:20:28.320 to hear dirty talk could become its own profit stream, 0:20:28.560 --> 0:20:32.600 like an audio peep show. She tells her boss, Carl Rudermann, 0:20:32.720 --> 0:20:35.879 that they should buy pay phone numbers for these dirty 0:20:35.880 --> 0:20:40.040 talk hotlines and then advertise them in high societies back pages. 0:20:41.160 --> 0:20:44.600 Phone sex lines take the interactivity of peep shows and 0:20:44.640 --> 0:20:48.439 cut out the physical component. Some operators follow a script, 0:20:48.480 --> 0:20:51.760 but there's a lot of room for improvisation. Phone sex 0:20:51.800 --> 0:20:56.200 calls tend to end abruptly when the caller finishes. In 0:20:56.240 --> 0:20:58.880 New York, there's a couple of companies running conference call 0:20:58.920 --> 0:21:02.439 hotlines like five five O Love out of offices in 0:21:02.480 --> 0:21:07.159 Manhattan Brownstones. But the biggest phone sex tycoon is a 0:21:07.200 --> 0:21:12.280 guy named Joel Eisenberg in the city of Seattle. Eisenberg's company, 0:21:12.359 --> 0:21:17.480 called Megaquest, controls eighty two entities providing phone sex lines worldwide. 0:21:18.760 --> 0:21:22.520 Joel Eisenberg is notorious for other non sex hotlines, like 0:21:22.560 --> 0:21:26.160 the nineteen eighty nine Dial a Santa scam, where Megaquest 0:21:26.240 --> 0:21:30.480 ran local infomercials on Seattle TV stations telling children to 0:21:30.520 --> 0:21:33.359 call a hotline posted on screen to talk to Santa 0:21:33.400 --> 0:21:35.760 Claus directly about their Christmas wishes. 0:21:36.720 --> 0:21:38.480 A good number of kids. 0:21:38.040 --> 0:21:41.159 Managed to call in and rack up their parents' phone bills. 0:21:42.320 --> 0:21:45.600 Despite getting busted by the IRS in the early nineties, 0:21:46.000 --> 0:21:51.120 Megaquest continues to thrive and Joel's son Ian Eisenberg, takes 0:21:51.200 --> 0:21:55.520 up working there too. But the Eisenberg phone sex dynasty 0:21:56.000 --> 0:22:01.280 will be usurped by an ambitious, cutthroat young interloper. His 0:22:01.440 --> 0:22:03.280 name is Seth Warshovski. 0:22:05.760 --> 0:22:09.160 Look at Viacom, Time Warner or the contents of Cablevision. 0:22:09.600 --> 0:22:11.679 All of them derive a huge amount of revenue from 0:22:11.720 --> 0:22:15.400 adult content, but they don't call Time Warner smut. 0:22:16.800 --> 0:22:21.320 Seth Warshovski an Ares is born in Queens, New York, 0:22:21.600 --> 0:22:25.280 the son of two Polish Jews. His father sells cable 0:22:25.320 --> 0:22:28.720 and his mother works in the insurance industry. When Seth 0:22:28.880 --> 0:22:31.560 is seven years old, his family moves from New York 0:22:31.640 --> 0:22:35.679 to Seattle. At age thirteen, Seth starts running an online 0:22:35.720 --> 0:22:40.280 bulletin board called dungeon Quest. Dungeon Quest's users pay him 0:22:40.320 --> 0:22:44.720 to access online adventure quest games. He says he charged 0:22:44.840 --> 0:22:47.399 two dollars a month for a membership and made around 0:22:47.440 --> 0:22:51.360 two hundred dollars a month. Watching TV late at night 0:22:51.440 --> 0:22:54.800 at his parents' house in the Seattle suburbs, seth Wwarshovski 0:22:54.880 --> 0:22:57.920 sees a thirty minute infomercial for one of mega Quest's 0:22:58.040 --> 0:23:03.200 phone sex hotlines. Now seventeen years old, Warshovsky is too 0:23:03.280 --> 0:23:06.240 young to legally call the number himself, but the whole 0:23:06.280 --> 0:23:09.879 thing makes a huge impression on him. Visions of dollar 0:23:09.960 --> 0:23:12.840 signs and sex hotlines start to dance in his head. 0:23:13.920 --> 0:23:16.320 Seth Wwarshovski drops out of high school and moves out 0:23:16.359 --> 0:23:18.920 of his parents' subourban home to an apartment in Seattle, 0:23:19.000 --> 0:23:21.520 where he works as a valet and side hustle, selling 0:23:21.560 --> 0:23:25.720 hand embroidered shirts to local stores and nordstrums. He tells 0:23:25.760 --> 0:23:27.560 people that he just wanted to go out and make 0:23:27.600 --> 0:23:30.480 his own fortune, but later admits that he ran away 0:23:30.480 --> 0:23:34.639 from home after coppying juvenile charges for unlawful issuance of 0:23:34.680 --> 0:23:38.000 a bank check and two counts of felony theft. In 0:23:38.080 --> 0:23:40.880 nineteen ninety three, he gets charged as an adult when 0:23:40.920 --> 0:23:43.320 he's caught trying to sell a stolen laptop. 0:23:46.720 --> 0:23:49.960 I was always fascinated by Ian. I always wanted to 0:23:49.960 --> 0:23:50.960 try to reach his level. 0:23:53.240 --> 0:23:56.040 By the early nineties, phone sex is a sixty million 0:23:56.080 --> 0:24:01.520 dollars a year industry. Sethwarshovsky befriends Ean Eisenberg, who brings 0:24:01.600 --> 0:24:05.000 him in to start learning the phone sex biz. Eanc 0:24:05.280 --> 0:24:08.240 Seth has no threat to the megaquest father Son phone 0:24:08.280 --> 0:24:11.200 sex Empire. He just thinks Seth is interested in the 0:24:11.280 --> 0:24:14.879 nuts and bolts. He doesn't realize he is training his 0:24:15.000 --> 0:24:19.760 own replacement. Sethwarshovski takes out a credit card and runs 0:24:19.840 --> 0:24:21.960 up a seven thousand dollars line of credit that he 0:24:22.080 --> 0:24:26.800 uses to start a hotline company called JNS Communications. Their 0:24:26.840 --> 0:24:30.400 first official hotline is one nine hundred Get Some. 0:24:32.359 --> 0:24:33.560 I still have that number. 0:24:35.640 --> 0:24:39.480 The technology is primitive at first. One nine hundred Gets 0:24:39.520 --> 0:24:42.400 Some leads callers to an answering machine service where they 0:24:42.400 --> 0:24:45.719 have to state credit card info. This sends an alert 0:24:45.800 --> 0:24:49.720 to Sethwarshovski's pager. Once their credit card has been run, 0:24:49.960 --> 0:24:52.560 the customer gets a callback from a dirty talking female 0:24:52.600 --> 0:24:56.639 phone sex operator. One nine hundred Gets Some charges forty 0:24:56.640 --> 0:24:59.840 bucks per sexy phone call and gets about sixty customers 0:25:00.119 --> 0:25:04.399 data start, which then rockets up to five hundred customers daily. 0:25:06.240 --> 0:25:09.719 He starts up more companies in LA and Canada with 0:25:09.840 --> 0:25:14.480 names like telecom development company running hotlines for long distance 0:25:14.560 --> 0:25:17.240 calls and psychics as well as sex. 0:25:19.440 --> 0:25:21.359 One of our psychics is a transsexual. 0:25:21.760 --> 0:25:23.639 She says, we can't put her in the same space 0:25:23.680 --> 0:25:26.119 as all the other girls because she can't handle the energy. 0:25:26.640 --> 0:25:28.600 It's going to interfere with her psychic vives? 0:25:28.680 --> 0:25:29.359 Is that what it is? 0:25:31.600 --> 0:25:35.919 As Warshowsky's phone sex empire grows and profits millions, he 0:25:36.119 --> 0:25:39.080 ends up locked in lawsuits with the Eisenberg family over 0:25:39.119 --> 0:25:43.080 a call automation system Megaquest says is proprietary. 0:25:44.240 --> 0:25:45.160 The phone sex. 0:25:44.960 --> 0:25:48.040 Hotline gold Rush hits a snag in nineteen ninety five 0:25:48.359 --> 0:25:51.479 when the Federal Communications Commission bans a type of number 0:25:51.840 --> 0:25:54.879 called ten triple X that guys like Warshovsky used to 0:25:54.920 --> 0:25:59.800 scam callers. Ten triple X numbers root calls through countries 0:25:59.800 --> 0:26:03.800