Net Worth

13 Billion? 7 Billion? A quarter of a billion? What exactly is the number? The number being, of course, what the Adult Entertainment grosses yearly. In an industry concerned with size, it should come as no surprise that each year when the industry releases those figures, commentators – both pro and con – jump on them as proof of whatever point it is they’re trying to make. But Newsweek came out with an article last week that disputes the claim that pornography is generating the sorts of income that dwarfs most other industries. “Everybody lies about their numbers,” says Paul Fishbein, publisher of AVN (Adult Video News), the industry bible. In fact, the numbers, should anyone ever decide to be completely honest about the whole thing, are probably much lower. Some have estimated that it’s a lot closer to 2 billion than twelve. But that’s not even the real story. The real one is buried inside all those zeros – the industry is in a sales slump. The fact of the matter is there are simply too many people – amateurs with relatively cheap camcorders and a willing glut of porn star wannabes – and too many avenues for distribution (Read: The Internet) for the Adult Entertainment Industry to maintain the façade of these numbers. I suppose a correction was long overdue. And in some ways the truth can be liberating. Besides, working in an industry that makes even a couple of billion a year is still nothing to shirk out. And did I mention how many more people are making porn nowadays? If anything, that is certainly a silver lining.

--MOC BLOGGER