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| I wonder if there is a strange, secret "Wizard of Oz" connection
between women who work at sex sites. Heather Corinna, the head
of Scarlet Letters.com claims that having to play a munchkin in
school scarred her for life. I swear I didn't know about her sordid past when I signed up to be Scarlet Letters' features editor. But it's true. I also played a Munchkin in the school play. I was about a foot taller than our titular Dorothy, which only adding to my personal humiliation. Perhaps the connection is this: After exposing ourselves like that, what do we have to lose by just exposing ourselves sexually? "Scarlet makes no bones about being open to women of all tastes and persuasions."That's my theory, and I'm sticking to it. I can't suggest a better reason I volunteered for this job. That's right, volunteered. And since it's an online, virtual sort of deal, I don't even get any of the perks that came with my previous, sex-oriented office job: the free review copies (read: sex toys), books, videos, and sexy pictures of models-to-be. So what's in it for me? And what's so great about this place in the first place? Woman owned There's really no place else like Scarlet Letters on the Web. Have you noticed yet that a lot of places claiming to be "women's sex sites," are essentially, beefcake sites? Yawn. Although there's an obligatory boy every issue, Scarlet Letters is different. "I've found a lot of sites that say that they're for women, but there's very little difference, except a piece of text that says, 'we're for women,'" said Jane Duvall of Jane's Guide, an adult web review site. So what's Scarlet's scoop? Well, besides the fact that the entire staff and over half its readership is women, Scarlet makes no bones about being open to women of all tastes and persuasions–kinky to vanilla, lesbian, hetero and bi. Scarlet is also heavily text-focused. Corinna started the site as an outlet for her fiction, which she describes as too tame for the X-rated market, but too sex-driven for the mainstream magazines. "Most of my pieces were based on people and relationships," she says. "And when you do that, it's really hard for sex not to come up." When she couldn't find a market for her frank yet literate stories, she started her own market. "The only problem with this scheme," she laughs, "is that I still don't get paid!" Straight talk Duvall notes that one of Scarlet's strong points is that: "Heather's sites don't talk down to you. They don't have that air of pretentiousness that you run into at other literate smut sites." And that's what I and others like about Scarlet Letters–it's accessible. Some sites, like the highly publicized Nerve, are high-quality for sure. But they're only interested in featuring well-knowns. "Those people are great," Duvall comments. "But I've already seen them. It's nice to have a place that's not afraid to showcase new artists and authors." OK, there is another thing: Scarlet Letters is pretty. "The woman has a great eye for layout," Duvall says. I haven't even gotten around to designing my own homepage yet, but I know what I like when I see it. Raking in the dough? If Scarlet Letters is so darn hot, why doesn't the girl pay me already? One of the challenges of online publishing is attracting advertising. You might not think this would be so, with a sex-oriented site. Sex sells, right? And sex on the Net is supposed to be raking in the bucks. "A lot of mainstream advertisers still think that sex is scary and evil."Turns out, that's a myth. The reality is a little more complicated. Corinna notes that although many people assume sex sites make a lot of money: "That's hitting the glass ceiling right now. The guys are still making the money, they own 50 different sites, and they don't really provide the content–they just keep the investors happy." Scarlet Letters is independently owned, with no outside source of funding. "We barely pay the bills," Corinna says. It also is hard to attract advertising. "Women surfers as a whole behave a lot differently than male surfers do; they're really loyal," Corinna says. "So if we have a regular reader, they're probably not going to want to go to many other adult sites. That leaves us with non-adult advertising, which is tough because a lot of mainstream advertisers still think that sex is scary and evil, and anything with sex in it will reflect poorly on their company." Yet when advertisers do take the risk, Corinna says, they are amply rewarded. Last year, Corinna started a new venture: Scarleteen.com, a teen-sex education site. The Pink Slip feature is committed to presenting sex information for teens with the message that "sex isn't all about emergency and trauma. If you educate yourself a little bit and take some personal responsibility, it's pretty cool and totally normal." (Scarleteen is a ChickClick affiliate). Scarleteen started out as girls-only, but it's recently been joined by a brother-site called Boyfriend. Perhaps this venture more than anything else convinced me to join Corinna's merry band. I'm tired of pretending that nobody has a sexuality, or an interest in sexual materials, until they hit 18. We treat sexual teenagers like untouchables and play "don't ask, don't tell." It was so refreshing to see a sex site that made a space and shared resources with those who are under 18. I knew Corinna was the kind of girl I was looking for, editorially speaking. Scarlet Letters is now into its third year of showcasing fiction, poetry, advice and elegant pictorials. I may be late joining the party, but let's make that "fashionably detained." I was busy in the world of print-based smut (but that's another story). I promise to make up for it. Lori Selke is the features editor at ScarletLetters.com. She's a former editor of On Our Backs, and her work has appeared in Girlfriends, Black Sheets and GettingIt.com. She lives in San Francisco. © 2000, Snowball.com. All rights reserved. |
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