Hilton has previously been on The National Center on Sexual Exploitation’s “Dirty Dozen” list, which highlights 12 “mainstream organizations contributing to sexual exploitation.” How has Hilton supposedly been contributing towards sexual exploitation? By offering guests pay per view, in-room porn.
Hilton will be following the lead of other hotel chains, like Marriott, Ritz-Carlton, etc., in removing pay per view in-room porn. The timing of this policy change will be as follows:
- As of September 1, 2015, adult pay per view content will not be permitted in new or renewed vendor agreements
- As of July 1, 2016, adult pay per view content will be removed from existing agreements and discontinued at all properties worldwide
The National Center on Sexual Exploitation has issued the following statement regarding this change:
“We want to publicly thank Hilton for its decision to create a safe and positive environment for all of its customers,” said Dawn Hawkins, Executive Director of NCOSE. “Hilton has taken a stand against sexual exploitation. Pornography not only contributes to the demand for sex trafficking, which is a serious concern in hotels, but it also contributes to child exploitation, sexual violence, and lifelong porn addictions. The National Center on Sexual Exploitation applauds Hilton Hotels for recognizing these harms, and is glad to announce that Hilton Hotels will be removed from the Dirty Dozen List.”
On one hand I feel like the actual reasoning here has more to do with the lack of demand for pay per view adult content, given that it’s 2015, after all. The timing of this coincides with Hilton rolling out free Wi-Fi for all Honors members… coincidence? 😉
At the same time, it’s interesting that Hilton is only eliminating adult content, and not other pay per view content. When Marriott eliminated pay per view porn in 2011, they claimed that it “coincided with a pending shift to new, in-room entertainment technology.” Yet, interestingly enough, they only eliminated the adult section of their pay per view section, and not other content. As far as I know the “shift to new, in-room entertainment technology” isn’t limited to just porn.
What do you think Hilton’s actual reason is for eliminating in-room porn? Are they responding to social pressure, or simply responding to the lack of demand for in-room pay per view adult content? If the latter, has the demand for pay per view porn shifted more than the demand for other pay per view content?
Interesting stuff!
Speaking as probably the only owner of a major adult entertainment company that is a daily devotee of this blog, I can say this is non news for us. The revenue stream from hotel PPV is so tiny at this point, we haven't lost a minute worrying about it.
As Lucky hinted, hotel guests use wifi (or 4G) to consume our wares, they don't pay $17.99 for a PPV title anymore.
Mark & Pavel, great comments.
For those of you that are asking "who pays for porn" and "I can just use the hotels wifi to get all the porn I want," do you really think the morality gestapo are going to disband once the Dirty Dozen has capitulated to their demands? The problem with bullies is they can never be placated. They keep coming back for more.
Give it some time but their next campaign...
Mark & Pavel, great comments.
For those of you that are asking "who pays for porn" and "I can just use the hotels wifi to get all the porn I want," do you really think the morality gestapo are going to disband once the Dirty Dozen has capitulated to their demands? The problem with bullies is they can never be placated. They keep coming back for more.
Give it some time but their next campaign will be to have all hotel chains block access to (what they deem) inappropriate websites, much like corporations do.
That's a good first step. Now on to banning non-organic produce from the room service menus. :)
Who the hell pays for in-room porn movies in 2015? That reminds me of this Family Guy episode; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdE0bm0TMkI
America: where we want to arm elementary school teachers to prevent massacres but God forbid anyone might watch naked people getting it on.
The National Center on Sexual Exploitation use to formally be called "Morality In Media". Changed their name in 2015.
From Wikipedia: "MIM also works through constitutional means to curb traffic in material they consider obscene and uphold what they view as Judeo-Christian standards of decency in media."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morality_in_Media
"I know Hilton has just been getting pounded and pounded over this…"
Hey, we're talking about the Hilton chain, here. No need to drag Paris Hilton into this... ;-)
This has been a long time coming. I know Hilton has just been getting pounded and pounded over this...
People still pay for pornography?!?
What kind of wacko group is this? Carl's junior is on the list? The department of justice? Certainly after all these other heavy hitters on the dirty dozen list are taken down, the problem will be solved, right?
priceless headline indeed
No use for the morality police, especially when they co-opt real gender equality issues like human trafficking. Did some digging on this National Center on Sexual Exploitation, and that exactly what they are. Videos of sexy people doing sexy things to one another may or may not incorporate exploitation (it's very situation dependent), but to paint an entire industry with a broad brush is poisoning the well. I knew that this group was BS when...
No use for the morality police, especially when they co-opt real gender equality issues like human trafficking. Did some digging on this National Center on Sexual Exploitation, and that exactly what they are. Videos of sexy people doing sexy things to one another may or may not incorporate exploitation (it's very situation dependent), but to paint an entire industry with a broad brush is poisoning the well. I knew that this group was BS when I saw them add the American Library Association (a well-known anti-censorship group) to their Dirty Dozen list. What you won't find on their website, however, is any anything that promotes a sex-positive message or any discussion of erotica that they don't find offensive.
As for Hilton dumping pay-per-view porn; whatever. People who want to watch it have other options, namely via the wi-fi connection in any of it's hotels where the ISP hasn't blocked the sites, or via their own personal cellular connection.
The Department of Justice is on their "Dirty Dozen List"??? wtf?
Boring stuff. With lots and lots of porn available for free everywhere on the internet, folks no longer need to spend the money on PPV to watch it. On the other hand, regular movies, especially notable, classic, new arrivals, or blockbuster movies should still attract a lot of interest because, for example, bored family units on the road might want to watch such clean movies together, and running into options to purchase PPV porn while...
Boring stuff. With lots and lots of porn available for free everywhere on the internet, folks no longer need to spend the money on PPV to watch it. On the other hand, regular movies, especially notable, classic, new arrivals, or blockbuster movies should still attract a lot of interest because, for example, bored family units on the road might want to watch such clean movies together, and running into options to purchase PPV porn while searching for non-porn in front kids or mixed company may not be so kosher. Also, anyone who is on the road and wants to see a good movie would likely prefer to watch it in HD on PPV than as a low-res streaming video on a laptop [also only HH Diamonds have high-speed internet for free]. Porn at low-res us just fine ;-)
So the decision to get rid of PPV porn makes sense. It is no longer titillating because it isoutdated stuff.
On the other hand, if you want to provide some truly exciting news about Hilton, you'd let your readers in on the not so secret: the highly lucrative Fall/Winter promo that HHonors just unveiled!
Of course Marriott was first. J. Willard Marriott was a devout Mormon, who served as the head of a major LDS field office for many years. Surprising that he didn't take chocolate and booze out of the minibars at the same time.
Hilton takes a "hard" stand...? Well played sir, well played indeed. I love your blog more every day!