Adult documentary

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

An adult documentary is a website about issues related to human sexuality. It is not a pornographic website, although it may contain images of a graphic nature. The goals of adult documentaries are generally to help educate, inform, and raise awareness of particular sexual issues, and may also include questionnaires for research on a particular sexual issue.

Adult documentaries are generally not suitable for children, but they often contain information that can be applicable to teenagers as well as adults. Some sites offer separate sections for younger teens as an adjunct to their main site.^[1]

Adult documentaries often encourage participation from the public, especially while a site is in its beginning stages. This has led to some controversy, as a wide range of sexual activities and practices are often documented. Activities that are in conflict with certain moral or religious beliefs often may spur debate.

1 Overview
2 Topics
3 Concerns and criticism
4 External links
5 References

[edit] Overview

An adult documentary is difficult to classify in most mainstream web directories and search engines. Due to the nature of their sexual content, they are often mistaken as entertainment or pornographic sites. However, many visitors to adult documentaries are often seeking something other than entertainment^[2], such as information on a wide variety of sexual topics or discussions with other individuals. Adult documentaries do not conform to the general stereotypes and expectations of websites about sex.

Although they can be labeled "adult" due to the nature of their content, most adult documentaries do not require the reader to be of a certain age. However, it is generally understood that the content of the sites is intended for an audience that is mature and responsible. For this reason, some sites have sections specifically for teen readers.

[edit] Topics

Although adult documentaries are in a broad sense all concerning sex, most explore more complex and detailed issues, such as masturbation, sexual orientation, specific sexual techniques or methods, the politics and philosophies of sex, personal sexual histories (biographies), and theory, among many others.

[edit] Concerns and criticism

The most common blanket criticism commonly cites morality as the issue of the complaint: "A significant number of people believe that freely documenting sexual ideas and behaviors leads individuals to such problems as: moral decay, sex addiction, infidelity, increased homosexuality, premarital sex, and various other moral issues." ^[3]

These concerns can be caused by a lack of professional monitoring or the availability of instant and unreviewed publishing, such as Internet forums or public online chat. While websites may enforce restrictions on their contributors regarding what they write,^[4] it is true that inappropriate content may be published.

Concerns about under-age children viewing or participating in adult documentaries is usually a major concern for both opponents of adult documentaries and their editors or webmasters. There are no fool-proof ways to verify the age of participants on free sites or to prevent under-age individuals from viewing inappropriate content. However, some sites have taken the approach of redirecting viewers who voluntarily indicate their age to more age-appropriate pages, either a subset of the site or an unassociated other website.^[5]

Another concern may be with a site's advertisers or sponsors, as they are generally companies selling sexual products or services. Some popular sites have discontinued working with financial sponsors, instead relying solely on reader donations—however, generally only sites with high levels of web traffic can support themselves in this way.^[6]