The allegations that Chaturbate is providing a haven for men to solicit sex from under-age teens have prompted a wide-ranging debate in the adult entertainment industry. Adult entertainers, like those on Chaturbate, are prohibited by law from being personally involved in the content of their videos. But adult performers believe that while they do not actively participate in selling, posting or soliciting sexual acts, there are serious ethical issues that Chaturbate’s operators need to address.
There is no such thing as an “adult site” that does not allow access to the membership pages of sites of all kinds, but on adult sites, the same standards apply. It’s just a matter of what level of interaction with an adult performer wants from members. There are legitimate Chaturbate models who use the service as an avenue to develop relationships with fans, whether by “friends only”family” sections, or by allowing them to post personal ads in the open forum.
While performing adult videos is legal, it is not necessarily ethical to offer a way for men to solicit sex from women as young as 13, or even to allow them to post sexual acts in exchange for money. In the end, the failure to screen is the wrong call. On-demand adult video sites should be the purveyors of adult services, not intermediaries to try to bypass the legal restrictions.
Sites like Chaturbate have always allowed some sharing of personal information, but with the kind of privacy laws at play today, many of those features have been compromised. Some sites, like adult website adultswim.com, have gone so far as to ban membership to certain countries. This limits the range of experiences that can be had by users in the U.S. and other countries with similar laws. Consumers need to feel safe browsing around the Internet, and Chaturbate should have set up processes that discourage use of the site by those who seek to solicit sex from underage girls.
Despite the excellent success of adult video sites in making adult entertainment one of the most popular forms of mainstream media in the world, the adult entertainment industry has also faced a change in consumer trends in recent years. As more consumers turn to technology to access entertainment, the need for adult services has dwindled.
Chaturbate is one of the last well-known online adult sites. While it has expanded its website, it has also ceded much of its user base. This is bad news for the adult industry because the traffic volume is now squarely focused on social networking sites, rather than at the old style of adult sites.
These social networking sites are more tailored to the needs of younger users, and they have a very different design from the older style of sites. They present adult services in a way that is more family-friendly, and they also allow users to interact with one another in a more open manner. The makers of these sites are probably also eager to see these services succeed, and they have taken the opportunity to sell products to the audience by providing adult video shows and so on.
Since the beginning of the social networking sites, adult services have suffered from their relative youth and the simple fact that their basic website design doesn’t translate well to the new breed of social sites. Chaturbate is by no means the only one of its ilk to make this change, but for the most part, older sites have done so to give the younger adult services more time to grow.
Until more mature sites like Chaturbate come along, adult services will be largely restricted to those services with a clear vision and a strong product. There are a few exceptions, but it is still a smaller portion of the adult video industry. If you’re not a brand-new service, the odds are good that you’re already restricted from many of the features available to the younger services.
This does not bode well for the growth of mature adult sites in the near future. If mature adult services want to get the public attention they so desperately need, they’re going to have to play by the same rules as their much younger, much more important competitors. Chaturbate could stand to benefit from the same design changes that can improve the overall experience for adult users on social networking sites.
