Ray Van Eng (08/29/97)                          

It probably would not surprise many people that sex is the single most often sought after subject in cyberspace and the success of Net porn shops are wet dreams come true for proponents of electronic commerce. Many of these sites are big time money makers racking in untold millions of dollars a year.

But as the following story illustrate, sex really does make the world wide web and some people go around.

A couple from Switzerland traveling in the United States was captured in Buffalo, NY for selling child pornography over the Internet to U.S. agents posed as buyers. Police says the pair brought the goods onto U.S. soil from their homeland to make the delivery of 250 CD-ROMs containing thousands of images for $10,000.

Touring with them was their 2-year old daughter believed to be one of those children featured in the collection. The child was taken into custody by social workers and the parent was charged with conspiracy in committing a crime and transporting and selling child pornography. They face a maximum penalty of 15 years in jail and a $250,000 fine.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Martin Littlefield applauded the full cooperation of Swiss authority in cracking this case. He also said that the investigation is on-going.

Though it is well known that certain Scandinavian countries are big producers of child pornography and the U.S. is the biggest buyers, the sex business operates in all countries.

In Japan, the online sex trade is booming, according to a report by the National Police Agency. Many of these web sites are run by young people in their 20s and 30s wishing to make some extra income from selling adult content videos, magazines, dirty pictures and sex toys in cyberspace.

The police report indicated that of the 400,000 Japanese web sites on the Internet, about 14,350 of them are operating as pornography businesses. In the last two years, the authority has found 77 violations of the adult entertainment laws. The average profits from a porno site is 3.77 million yen ($31,949), though a more enterprising venture netted an income of 60 million yen ($508,475).

Though Net porn of one type or another is often frowned upon by authorities the world over, some experts believe that our natural curiosity and fascination with this intimate physio-psycological aspect of our being that has lead us to explore the subject in the cyber medium may be the next sexual revolution that could have some positive impacts on our lives.

For example, Al Cooper, clinical director of the San Jose Marital and Sexual Center pointed out that sexual subjects we discuss with each other online could lead to a better understanding of ourselves and meeting someone electronically before encountering the person physically could help establish a longer and more fulfilling relationship.

PC Meter which studies digital media usage has found that the vast majority of Net porn patrons are teenage boys. Like it or not, they are going to head to the Net to find out things that they may not be comfortable to seek out in the physical world.