Eroticon has become one of the most hotly anticipated weekends on my calendar. Founded by Ruby Kiddell in 2012 to give erotic writers and bloggers the tools to hone their craft in a collaborative environment, this large sex writers conference held in Camden, London and has become a magnet for writers, journalists, bloggers and sex toy companies. The show has been so successful that there’s now an EroticonUSA, too.
I was lucky enough to recently attend the entire EroticonUK weekend — March 17 and 18 — which was packed with learning and demos of products and talks from some amazing guest speakers. You can read about all the cool gizmos and products I saw right here. Here are my notes and observations about “big conversations” below.
Big Conversations: Sex Tech
One of the prevailing themes of Eroticon is sex tech. A talk headed by Girl on the Net focusing on “The Future of Sex Tech” gave me a terrific opportunity to ask experts some of my own burning questions about where we may be headed.
Panelists for this particular talk included Calandra Balfour from LoveGivr, tech expert Daniel Cooper, Neil Brown from Decoded Legal (one of the only lawyers in the U.K. tackling legal implications of sex tech) and Stephanie Alys co-founder of MysteryVibe. The panel bounced around diverse topics, from the future of sex dolls to bitcoin commerce in the sex industry.
I asked what the panel thought of the recent announcement of VIRP (Virtual Intercourse Real People) at CamSoda. Models I’d spoken to had concerns that the tech would lead to a detachment from the human at the other end of the cam, and the panelists had some thoughts.
Read Katy’s take on VIRP here — “VIRP: A gimmicky luxury members can’t afford?“
Cooper told me he feels the way the VIRP videos are shot will be paramount to keeping the human element. He explained, “Some VR porn is shot in quite a detached way, and [the way the content is shot] is fundamental to keeping the human element in the experience. For example, shooting at face height and making sure there’s plenty of eye contact with the VR avatar helps [to keep the human element] immensely.”
Collectively, the panel felt the growth in sex dolls as used in VIRP camming is a good thing. They felt the sheer investment in such a large and expensive object – the doll itself – may indicate attitudes towards sex media and sexual development are shifting for the better. People are more willing to see their pleasure as an investment.
Girl on the Net commented that, in her view, if anyone tends to guide the sex tech revolution, it’s cam models. Models have a knack for making the tech work for them in the best possible way. She mentioned how she’d come across a hack to link a teledildonic butt plug to a video game to turn it into a rumble pack. This had, in turn, been picked up by other models to form a game league in their rooms.
Big Conversations: Age Verification
In stark contrast to the enthusiasm from “The Future of Sex Tech” panel, a legal tips talk featuring Brown picked apart the implications of the recent Digital Economy Act and online age verification.
Though the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) recently moved the start date of age verification back to “sometime later this year,” presumably in order to allow the organization time to fully work out where the boundaries of the age verification legislation should fall, the regulations are still certainly looming.
Once in place the law’s stipulations are finally in place, sites will have a three-month window for compliance. Brown explained that any site that makes pornographic material available on the internet to persons in the United Kingdom on a commercial basis will be obliged to have age verification – including webcam.
According to Brown, the only (currently) viable option around age verification uncertainties is blocking all U.K. IPs. This would obviously impact models’ income and is far from ideal — unless perhaps most of your traffic is from other countries. This goes for all types of contnet providers. Basically, if you’re selling anything “pornographic” online in or to the U.K., you are likely to need age verification on your site soon.
Brown suggested that enforcement of age verification legislation will be a “top down” approach, focusing on larger sites (e.g. high traffic tube channels) first and then working their way down to smaller sites. Regardless of this speculation though, once the framework is in place, if you’re a webcammer without age verification on your site, you will be non-compliant.
This also doesn’t mean that ISPs are going to sit around waiting for the BBFC to get to them. According to Brown, ISPs may well start to restrict non-compliant sites on their platforms. They are subject to notices imposed by the BBFC and may act ahead of time to avoid issues. With this in mind, cammers operating on large networks may well be covered by site operators. If you’re an independent cam model though, you’re going to have to handle age verification on your own.
The enforcement of age verification will likely be financial penalties for non-compliance. It’s not a criminal offence, so you won’t be landing a record, but those penalties are expected to be greater of £250,000 or 5% of qualifying turnover. There will be an appeals mechanism, and this will be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.
Also of note: Social networks aren’t impacted by age verification. Twitter, Tumblr and other similar sites are ancillary service providers and won’t be required to take content down. So, your social media should be ok.
You can read the slides from Brown’s talk at Decoded Legal.
I left Eroticon feeling like the U.K. sex industry is at a crossroads. The future of sex tech looks brighter than ever, with cam leading the tech revolution. The unceasing need to censor adult businesses, however, will seriously hamper the space — and possibly close some independent webcammers down.
Also check out part two, “Katy Does @EroticonUK — Cool Stuff On Point,” right here.
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Katy Seymour is a super-sex-positive writer in the U.K. who believes kink is life. Email her at katy@ynotcam.com.
Image via Lesley Watts
[…] attended EroticonUK. You can read about some hot trends and topics discussed at the show right here. In addition to writing work development and discussing industry issues, EroticonUK also boasts […]