Philly Sex Coalition goes live
"I try to cover everything, fetish and kink, dating, LBGT," says CJ Asher
The sex business isn't what it used to be. Though porn profits funded the fast expansion of cable TV and the Internet, the business now suffers (like movies and live music) from a glut of free video, and direct-to-consumer sales. Performers and suppliers have been thrown back into live venues, events, networking, tie-in paraphernalia, and other physical events and material transactions, to make ends meet.
Which helps explain the Philly Sex Coalition. "The businesses need to work together to benefit their own self-interest," says C.J. Asher, a genial Philadelphia accountant, real estate investor and blogger who promotes events and reviews adult-entertainment clubs (Unveiled Magazine lists 66 clubs in the area, 4,000 nationwide.)
Asher and like-minded sex capitalists say they have recruited 50 local businesses -- porn sellers, clubs and burlesque shows (old-school, with nipple pasties, still something of a Philadelphia specialty), sex-toy shops and sexual-health organizations, tattoo parlors and therapists, swingers' clubs and the edgier bridal boutiques -- for a Sex Coalition kick-off meeting, invitation-only, at a Sugar House Casino restaurant later this week.
Entertainment will include comedian Rachel Fogletto, who calls herself "a pretty sex-positive person. I have a lot of friends who are sex workers, which is not always looked at in a positive way. It's just as valuable as any other job and should be respected. So I'm happy to contribute to this, even if it's just telling jokes."
A few nationally-known sex businesses -- Exxxotica porn trade shows, producer HotMovies.com -- are based in the Philadelphia area. But much of the $250 million-plus that locals spend on porn and other legal sex businesses (a figure Asher pro-rated from national estimates) flows out of the region, to producers in Los Angeles and other cities, Asher complains.
Counting establishments and head-counting club staff (he is, after all, an accountant), Asher estimates as many as 10,000 people work at least part-time in the region's "gentleman's clubs" and other sex-related enterprises.
Asher took to blogging "to build an audience" after drawing on his longtime patronage of South Philly's Club Risque for backround in his self-published novel, Quarter Past Midnight.
Like what? He cited last year's proposed Pennsylvania State House Bill 262. "In an effort to fight sex trafficking -- which is a thing to fight -- they wanted all dancers to register. And then they added a requirement to put six feet between the dancer and the patron. Which has nothing to do with fighting sex trafficking!"
Asher has traveled the country for his blog, interviewing sex business bosses such as Dennis Hof, owner of Nevada's state-licensed Bunny Ranch brothel, and Kelly Holland, the new owner and chief executive of Penthouse, which is trying to stay in business by offering pornography with higher production values.
In conjunction with the launching of the Philly Sex Coalition, Asher is donating $500 for the Philadelphia-based ” March to End Rape Culture (corrected) and is looking into other public-interest alliances.
























