The Online Sex Industry Sarah Quinn Style

The online sex industry is seen as the dark, adult and sometimes dangerous side of the Internet. It has many different aspects and is a large area of the world wide web. with each aspect comes arguments both for and against. It could be said it is one of the most debatable and controversial areas of the Internet, which taking into account the size of the web, that is striking.

Both arguments have understandable and valid reasons which have to be accounted for. My opinion however, is less technical and based mainly on a prime example I will reveal later on in this blog.

The main dispute I have with the online sex industry is the lack of security there is around it. Although computer companies are constantly inventing and upgrading software to protect minors from being exposed to such content, many sites and children have found ways to by pass any restrictions put in place. They fail to realise why these restrictions are actually there. In a world where children seem to be growing up faster and the time, this is simply going to far.

In newsagents, supermarkets and video stores across the country, there is a strict age limit when purchasing this "top shelf" material. Why should the Internet be any different. There are serious penalties for serving any minors with such material, though who gets punished when they are viewing the same, if not things of a far worse nature at home on the PCs?

I do not understand the real need for such material to be produced and published, the phrase "get a hobby" comes to mind when i think of those who use and make it. Yet how do we know that those being shown on the Internet are all consenting adults. In a society where celebrities (and role models) are climbing the fame ladder due to "leaks" of sex videos and naked pictures, we are almost immune to the fact that there may not always be permission for such images and videos to be published. With stories on crack-downs on paedophile rings all over the world, who can be 100% sure that what they are viewing is legal. For all they know, they could be supporting some of the most sickening and indecent acts of all, the rape of children. This cannot be accepted as just a hobby and interest of anyone.

Well, all of the serious stuff above really has dampened the mood so I'll finish off on a more funnier note.

It was 2006 and myself and my best bud Caoimhe (a.k.a. Chunk) were sitting in computer class in good old St. Louis Secondary School. As were were coming up to the Leaving Cert all the talk was on filling put our CAO forms and deciding on that "perfect" course for us. (i obviously didn't find mine then!) Anyways, Chunk and I were getting bored so we decided to look at the photos from the local hot spot in Monaghan, The Forum Nightclub.
Being as naive as we were, we typed in www.theforum.com (don't try this now) expecting to see some drunken photos of us from the previous weekend. Instead of our ugly mugs appearing on the screen, up popped some disturbing and unforgettable images of what you could describe as being the online sex industry at its best. At to top it all off, we timed it perfectly with the computer freezing due to all the pop-ups and loading images and of course out computer teacher walking round checking on us.
Well to say she wasn't impressed is an understatement! So we found ourselves with a serious telling off and detention. Of course she believed that we weren't actually looking any of that stuff up, it was more along the lines of us getting side tracked from what we were supposed to be doing. She didn't see looking up photos of a nightclub as being too educational!