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Titillation vs Pornography
(I'm feeling contemplative)
For a great while, people have been accusing LiveVideo of supporting 'porn' by apparently partnering and featuring a lot of scantily clad women on the site. The history of the domain name itself has caused some people to have greater suspicions, and some of the incidents arising as a result of the introduction of live video streaming to the site have also increased people's curiousity about the nature of it all.
I think the main thing connecting those dots is not LiveVideo, but just the people using it - and to a great degree those complaining the most.
First off, there is a confusion about calling much of what is seen on LiveVideo 'porn'. Look up the word pornography (from which the truncation 'porn' is derived) and you'll find that it specifies the graphic depiction of of sexual acts or erotic behaviors to incite a sexual response from the viewer. Basically it has to appear in some form that someone is 'getting off' and makes you want to as well. This is not what has been featured by LiveVideo and is not coming from those they appear to be partnering with. What we do see is titillation - a stimulation meant to arouse pleasure. Therein lies the truth here and begs another question:
What are you thinking?
When you see a young, athletic woman in a tight fitting outfit of some sort, are you thinking are you thinking it's beautiful because it's a body well kept with the shape of it's natural design - or are you just lusting after it?
That's the catch here.
Human nature for most is to go to the basest form of themselves when seeing the titillation. Instead of seeing someone who cares about themselves or is still undamaged by time, humans tend to go to the base instinct that such a being is a good reproductive candidate. Marketing people know that the more ingrained the reaction, the stronger response you'll get from your potential target. Basically, sex sells. They rely upon people to not use their higher brain to keep themselves from just following their lower regions.
So who's fault is it if you see these things that are not directly connected and put them together to form some grand scheme of drawing you in through sex? Being aware of something is one matter, being so agitated as to complain about it loudly is another.
The more realistic take on what's going on here is that LiveUniverse wanted a domain name that made good marketing sense relative to its content, and in this case matched well with it's own brand. The marketing folks thought it wise to use the ancient and constantly successful plan "sex sells" via titillation, and if they realized how the past use of the domain name might be seen to have a halo effect - so much the better. This is bound to attract some people who are prime targets for "sex sells" and are obsessed with sex, and because of the reactive nature of moderation in the LiveShows they have a chance to excite themselves by shocking others.
If you want to make the porn freaks go away, and want to get the titillation to fail, support the things you do want to see. Try to convince others to support things other than the titillation. You might change things, but humans are humans - so I doubt it.
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