Sex and the Gods of Internet Marketing

 by: Linda Cox

Sex and the Gods of Internet Marketing

By Linda Cox J.A.M.G. (Just Another Marketing Guru)

Whenever I mention my occupation to a non-wired person, it seems to generate the same response:

"Isn't there an awful lot of porn on the net?"

The question floats toward me like a smoke ring and forms a halo around my face, framing me as a pornographer, nymphomaniac, and all-round corrupter of innocence.

I expect that from my mother, but it's not the public image I strive to cultivate. I never have a good response ready.

"Hmmm," I nod coquettishly, "I'll have to look into that."

The subtext of my vapid reply could be "Yes, the internet is a modern-day Gomorrah and I'm in it up to my quivering loins," or, "I really haven't heard that, but I'm so pathetically hard-up that I'm gonna race right home and look."

Neither is what I mean to convey, but the truth is probably just as perverse...

I've never really looked into sex on the net.

I always plan to, but I never do. I think I've always been very nervous about what I might find. Who knows? Maybe I myself would become corrupted - lured into the nether regions of psycho-sexual depravity and cyber-sensual abandon... never, perhaps, to return.

(I shudder at the thought... several times.)

Well, that sort of cloistered naivete is fine when you're just peddling software and minding your own business, but now that I'm prancing around like an e-marketing guru, I no longer have the luxury of ignoring so large and infamous a part of our venue.

THE DARING SEXPLORATIONS OF LINDA COX!

I have shifted into my Lara Croft/Wonder Woman Intrepid Female Explorer persona and I am now going to begin my Conradian trek into the internet's dark interior.

Wish me luck. Here goes...

Okay, I'm back. Thanks for waiting. I'm prepared to report now.

Yep, it seems that there IS some sexual content on the internet. (Drink, please.) Rather a lot, in fact. (Make it a double.) Funny I never noticed before. (Is it warm in here?) Actually, it's amazing there's room for anything else. (WHERE'S THAT FREAKIN' DRINK!?)

Here's what I learned...

1. I can never don my Lara Croft/Wonder Woman alter-ego again now that I've seen them locked together in alt.sex.binaries.lesbian.actionheroes in a bout of no-holes-barred lovemaking.

2. Acts I consider sexually extreme and taboo, many people consider warm-up.

3. I will never use a public restroom or changing room again. I will never wear a skirt in public again. I will never look at many salad ingredients the same way again.

4. Certain professions should strictly enforce a much earlier mandatory retirement age.

5. Everything is a sex toy to someone... EVERYthing.

6. I found Howard Sprague's private diary online. Goober and Floyd I always suspected, but Otis, Barney, how could you?

7. Bondage is a cottage industry. I'm not sure what BDSM is, but it looks pretty damn uncomfortable.

8. I accidentally learned how Vinnie, my pizza delivery kid, made ends meet before landing his present gig.

9. Some things are better left unshaven.

10. She-males are the damnedest thing since Mike the Headless Chicken.

THE GODS OF INTERNET MARKETING

Adult website marketers are the most in-your-face, take-no-prisoners, knock-down drag-out rock 'n roll marketers on earth. If I could sell software the way they sell sex, I'd be living on my own island.

IN PRAISE OF CENSORSHIP

Frankly, I very much oppose adult content on the internet. I think it should be legislated out of existence. Here's why:

Sex is the fire in the belly of civilization. If we allow it to become so commonplace that everyone gives up the hot and frenzied pursuit of it, then humanity will just go sit on the couch and watch pro wrestling. And then where will we be?

Sitting on the couch watching pro wrestling, that's where!