LA Times: Dot-Com Refugees Find Welcome in Porn Industry

From: Jim Whitehead (ejw@cse.ucsc.edu)
Date: Mon Apr 23 2001 - 14:47:22 PDT


You know Cobra Boy isn't active on the list when I'm the first one to FoRK
these bits.

- Jim

http://www.latimes.com/business/updates/lat_porn010423.htm

Dot-Com Refugees Find Welcome in Porn Industry

By RALPH FRAMMOLINO and P.J. HUFFSTUTTER, Times Staff Writers

     Displaced dot-com employees and nervous Hollywood technicians have
found an unlikely shelter from the economic downturn: the porn industry.
     Executives at the area's leading adult entertainment firms report a
surge of resumes and telephone inquiries from disillusioned techies, as well
as mainstream camera operators, grips and lighting experts who are worried
about strikes by Hollywood writers and actors.

...

     "We get bombarded with calls all the time," said Jimmy Flynt II,
director of marketing and public relations for Hustler, founded by his uncle
Larry. "The sex industry really isn't affected by the markets. Sex always
sells."

...

     Porn is becoming increasingly acceptable, especially among young
professionals. "At least I know my paycheck isn't going to bounce," said
Jon, 25, who asked that his last name be withheld. He jumped to take a Web
designer job at Vivid Entertainment Group after he was laid off last winter
from Los Angeles music start-up ArtistDirect Inc.
     His old job was the stuff of E-envy. Plush offices filled with chic
industrial furniture. Free concert tickets and all the CDs he could carry. A
kitchen stocked with hyper-caffeinated drinks and snacks.
     Cut loose during the Internet bust, Jon now toils in a Van Nuys
warehouse that just last week got a refrigerator, filled with the brown bag
lunches of a half-dozen other dot-com castoffs.
     "A friend of mine worked at Vivid and knew that I watched porn," said
Jon, who now spends eight hours a day digitally covering up female nipples
for the company's front-page, which entices visitors to pay for the full
peep show. "Besides, this is a dot-com. We just sell sex instead of CDs."
     Although he started full time in October, Jon hasn't told his family.
"My mom would kill me if she knew."



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Apr 29 2001 - 20:26:06 PDT