The adult movie business is a multibillion-dollar industry that is so powerful that it—not mainstream Hollywood—determines what technologies and trends in filmmaking and distribution make it in the marketplace. And with the Internet it is seemingly everywhere (and any parent who doesn’t closely monitor their sons’ usage of the Net is making a big mistake.)
But apart from the Net, the most lucrative locale for the purveyors of smut is hotel rooms, and a coalition of activists is demanding the hotel industry to cut their ties to it. Unfortunately, like a crack addict on the street, I doubt the hoteliers will be able to tear themselves away from such a profit center.
A coalition of 13 conservative groups—including the Family Research Council and Concerned Women for America—took out full-page ads in some editions of USA Today earlier this month urging the Justice Department and FBI to investigate whether some of the pay-per-view movies widely available in hotels violate federal and state obscenity laws. The coalition also is trying to draw attention to CleanHotels.com, a directory of hotels and motels nationwide that pledge to exclude adult offerings from their in-room entertainment service.
... Precise statistics on in-room adult entertainment are difficult to find. By some estimates, adult movies are available in roughly 40 percent of the nation’s hotels, representing more than 1.5 million rooms. Industry analysts suggest that these adult offerings generate 60 percent to 80 percent of total in-room entertainment revenue—several hundred million dollars a year.
Of course, the hotel chains defend their actions by calling their critics prudes and asserting the high-minded ideal of consumers’ freedom of choice. (Meanwhile, I’m thinking of all those icky hotel room beds and whatnot. Blech! CleanHotels.com indeed.)
Morality v. business
