Selling The Fantasy Or Scamming A Surfer?

[Lee]

So im wondering, we all sell the fantasy of porn, that is, the surfer joins a site because he/she imagines what it would be like actually fucking the model he/she is watching in a movie or in a photoset.

At what point do you think that selling this fantasy to the surfer becomes 'scamming' the surfer?

We all know that dating sites have a lot of fake profiles on them, there have been several lawusits dealing with this very issue in the past few months, penis enlargement also comes to mind, a lot of adult webmasters seem to think that it is morally reprehensible to sell penile enlargement pills, devices and guides to surfers.

My question is, what makes selling a fantasy 'wrong' and what makes it 'right'?

Is it right to sell a porn membership to a surfer when they beleive they could be in with a chance of getting laid like the models in the sites?

Is it wrong to sell a dating membership if the surfer beleives all the profiles on the site are genuine?

Is it wrong to sell a livecam show if the surfer has next to no chance of ever meeting the model?

Is it wrong to sell a penile enhancement product if the customer has no chance of enlarging their dick?

Im just trying to gauge how webmasters think when it comes to what is deemed 'right' and what is deemed 'wrong' in the industry.

So what are your thoughts? Where do the lines between right and wrong blur?

Regards,

Lee

[samebb]

Is it wrong to sell a penile enhancement product if the customer has no chance of enlarging their dick?

Your whole post their raises a lot of questions which would be hard to answer, bar one.

If you sold a product to somebody that didnt do what it promised to, whatever it may be, then thats scamming for sure.

[Dzinerbear]

One of the things that has always bugged me about porn is this:

A company puts up a site with a woman shoving a Coke bottle up her vagina. They pepper the tour with a few like-minded pictures. But the tour says "Thousand of Pictures." Now, they didn't say "thousands of pictures of women fucking themselves with Coke bottles" but the implication is there. I think that's wrong. And it just ends up with a lot of pissed off surfers.

I've never sold penis enlargement products since I know they don't work. I think it's just plain wrong to take advantage of men's short-comings this way.

I think it's wrong to bombard people with e-mails they didn't ask for and it just puts a huge blemish on the whole industry.

I think it's also wrong to sell other medicinal products that just shouldn't be administered to people without the proper advice of a doctor.

And I think if you don't know what a hairy bear is then you shouldn't be trying to sell them. A skinny man with four hairs on his chest isn't a hairy bear. Fuck off trying to scam traffic to your site. Again, you just end up with a lot of pissed off traffic.

Scraper sites that just steal everyone else's written content to scam good search engine rankings are also wrong. This is making a buck at any cost. You potentially cause problems for me and you don't give the surfer what they want.

Unfortunately, there's no lack of people who will cross just about any line to make $35 a sale. I could go on and on. I think there's more wrong with this business than there is right. There are a lot of good people in the adult business, but they just get buried beneath all of the crap, the scams, the spammers, and the carpet baggers.

Michael

[marcjacob]

I think in porn we bend the truth. I mean how many of the guys in the straight boy sites really are straight? Most of porn is bollocks. Theres a big difference between that and lieing about how much content you have or what type. Saying a guy is straight when hes gay is fine if its believable. Calling a twink with 2 hairs a bear is not fine. Thats where i draw the line.

I started doing pills, dont now because the ratios were not there for me. I dont know if they work or not. I guess if they have no benefit at all then its not good to sell them.

[CorbinFisher_BD]

Don't expect to see anything change anytime soon when many of the sites with the most misleading tours (examples of things Dzinerbear mentioned, such as a theme or reality approach that applies to perhaps one or two of the actual videos but is otherwise just crap) are the ones paying out the highest PPS payouts to affiliates.

So many affiliates eagerly line up to score $40-$60+ PPS referrals by sending people to some fabricated bogus reality site and land that quick, big check, without thinking about what they might be doing to the longterm earning potential of their site. Sure, they're earning some hefty PPS commissions but they're also turning those surfers in to people who will never again trust a single site that affiliate promotes and likely never again earn that affiliate a commission.

*shrugs*

[robin]

Interesting question and one that many of us think about on a regular basis. I know I use it as a measure when I'm evaluating affiliate programs to promote.

I think it becomes a scam when you blatently and knowingly deceive or attempt to do so.

But I would also say that there's no absolutes.

For instance...I have over the past three or four years heavily promoted dating sites. And I'll continue to do so. It's how I met alot of great guys and how I met my partner of 7 years.

I should note though that I try to be very selective of who I partner with when it comes to dating sites.

livecams: I don't currently push that angle but I've never considered the possibility that one would use such a service as a way to meet the guy or girl behind the cam. I've always looked at it as a glorified peep show.

Penis and sexual health enhancement products: For the most part I stay away from them BUT I do know for a fact that some sexual enhancement products do indeed work.

For the past couple of years my partner has been using a couple of products that do indeed increase his stamina and libido.

Occassionally I've talked about these products to other people. If it was available through a store or program that I'm affiliated with I'd be marketing those specific products without hesitation.

In my mind, marketing anything successfully involves telling good stories or fantasies.

Buying a case of brand x beer won't usually make you a popular, sexy stud unless there's a beer drought. But selling the idea that it'll liven your next party and have the girls swarming all over you, might remind you to pick up another case of it for the weekend.

Anyway, just a few of my thoughts on the matter.

[longboardjim]

..."making fantasy a reality!"...

we all have sexual fantasies , some may happen and some may not , it's up to porn to "bridge the gap of the imagination" till then.
it's not like some barely legal 18yr old is going to come over to my house anytime and lay on my couch stroking his dick while working a dildo vigourously in and out of his a** (not that i have given any thought to this sick and twisted fantasy and/or actually paid a model to enact this simply to make money off the content produced)

sincerely ~ ..."careful what you covet!"... :fool:

[Squirt]

My question is, what makes selling a fantasy 'wrong' and what makes it 'right'?

A lie is subverting the truth.

Fantasy is it's own truth in the mind of the subject.

Selling a fantasy as a subterfuge is wrong as you are subverting the truth and not delivering what you promise to the subject.

Selling a fantasy when, with common expectation, the subject knows it's a fantasy, is fine. (i.e. One of my sites caters to somnophilias who fantasize that my content is real even though they read the front page disclaimer stating it's only fantasy)

But what's 'right' is relative and what's 'wrong' for me may be 'right' for you.

For some their moral imperative is that whatever puts money in their pockets is ok while others are driven by a different understanding of the world around them.

[gaybucks_chip]

I agree with Squirt on this.

These are my personal views. I'm not saying that they are the "correct" views or that others are wrong, just that this is the way I'd like to treat others and the way I'd like to be treated.

If you're selling a fantasy, and clearly aren't implying that the fantasy could become reality, I don't see a problem.

So a webcam site that's marketed as a webcam site or a solo site marketed as "read about this model's life" is fine. If the solo site says "You could be one of __________'s best friends and invited to fuck him" and the model has no interest in meeting any of his fans, that's not OK.

If you're selling penis enlargement products that you know or reasonably should know don't work (which means *all* pills and such) then you're defrauding the customer. That isn't OK.

If you're selling memberships to dating sites and you know (or have reason to believe) that a bunch of the profiles are fake, then you shouldn't be selling that site. Of course, *every* dating site has fake profiles where the 300 pound guy puts up pics of someone 10 years younger weighing 150 pounds less... I'm not talking about that as much as where the *site owner* is putting up fake profiles.

Of course, deception isn't remotely limited to the adult industry. Huge corporations also do this crap all the time, and the loser Republicans seem uninterested in enforcing the laws already on the books to prevent it. But that doesn't make it right.

My preference is to do my best to market fairly and honestly, try to ensure the surfer (or affiliate) has a great experience, and walk away saying "Wow, those guys are good people. I will come back and do business with them them again."

[SPACE GLIDER]

One of the things that has always bugged me about porn is this:

A company puts up a site with a woman shoving a Coke bottle up her vagina. They pepper the tour with a few like-minded pictures. But the tour says "Thousand of Pictures." Now, they didn't say "thousands of pictures of women fucking themselves with Coke bottles" but the implication is there. I think that's wrong. And it just ends up with a lot of pissed off surfers.

I've never sold penis enlargement products since I know they don't work. I think it's just plain wrong to take advantage of men's short-comings this way.

I think it's wrong to bombard people with e-mails they didn't ask for and it just puts a huge blemish on the whole industry.

I think it's also wrong to sell other medicinal products that just shouldn't be administered to people without the proper advice of a doctor.

And I think if you don't know what a hairy bear is then you shouldn't be trying to sell them. A skinny man with four hairs on his chest isn't a hairy bear. Fuck off trying to scam traffic to your site. Again, you just end up with a lot of pissed off traffic.

Scraper sites that just steal everyone else's written content to scam good search engine rankings are also wrong. This is making a buck at any cost. You potentially cause problems for me and you don't give the surfer what they want.

This should be some kind of document. "The Precepts of Porn" or some such

[Jasun]

Is it wrong to sell a livecam show if the surfer has next to no chance of ever meeting the model?

this is the only one I'm confused by.

We have live cam shows on our site all the time, and we would fire a model if he met with a member in real life.

I don't see how selling cam shows would lead the surfer to believe that he would get to meet the model.

but the rest, I'm totally with..

I remember a while back, we had a sponsor here at GWW that was selling penis enlargement programs, and when we called into question the morality of selling things that dont' work, the owners all pounced on us and said we probably all had small dicks. (I posted a pic of mine to prove otherwise).

[Squirt]

I remember a while back, we had a sponsor here at GWW that was selling penis enlargement programs, and when we called into question the morality of selling things that dont' work, the owners all pounced on us and said we probably all had small dicks. (I posted a pic of mine to prove otherwise).

Link please :bunny:

[weloveboys]

Dear Lee, good topic.
I have only one unswer, just promout only product that would like to buy yourself.

[tombarr]

Is it wrong to market sites where the tour is only designed to capture a certain genre of traffic only to dump them in a generic members area that has little to no bearing on the fantasy they were sold?

It's ony a numbers game anyway...a certain amount will retain if you throw enough content at them......so it's just numbers.....isn't it?

[d@sexinc]

I think at the end of the day, we're just selling fantasy, no matter if it's still images, streaming videos or live shows.
Every member you have will give you a different answer as to whether or not you're delivering on what your tour is promising. Some will think they may have a shot and getting laid by a model in your site, some will just jerk it to some pics for fun, others will just enjoy the content as a whole, and some will bitch and complain when a model used by the graphic designer for the tour isn't in the members area, or at least, prominently displayed in the members area.

To surfers and members, we do both. We sell the fantasy, and we scam the surfer. Unfortunately, you can't please everyone all the time.

Dave