Adult entertainment going high-tech

LOS ANGELES - Pornography doesn't come in a plain brown wrapper anymore. These days, it's full-color, interactive DVD and live, streaming video sex over the Internet.

The computer is changing the adult entertainment industry, as it has everything else. As technology's gone mainstream, smut has been going high-tech.

That was clear Sunday at the annual Erotica L.A. consumer show at the downtown Convention Center. Booths hawking CD-ROMS or sporting banners for Web sites were cheek-by-jowl with those offering smut magazines, latex sex toys and fetish clothing.

Fans who lined up to pose for snapshots with bosomy actresses could go home and access their favorite stars' Internet sites.

Adult entertainers these days don't just talk skin, they talk bandwidth and click-throughs.

Brooke Hunter, whose movies include ''Car Wash Angels,'' performs live via the Internet for paying customers. She's planning to start her own Web site.

''The entire world is a dot-com,'' she said.

Some adult Web sites take in $20,000 per month, Hunter said.

The Internet might seem a threat to the $4 billion-a-year videotape porn industry. After all, there's instant access to porn in the privacy of your home. But those in the business disagree. The Web has thousands of sites offering any type of adult entertainment. But most charge a fee, and anyone wanting to download a photograph - let alone a video - to a home computer can have a long wait.

Marat Spolan, 25, of Los Angeles, estimated he obtained only about 5 percent of his adult entertainment content via computer.

''A computer takes time,'' he said. ''There's download time involved. Every page requires time to waste.''

On the other hand, adult movie producers are using Web sites to sell their products to a wider audience and make money from libraries of older videos that have vanished from stores.

To some extent, porn demand is driving the industry's Internet technological progress, said Joy King, a spokeswoman for Wicked Pictures, a San Fernando Valley adult movie producer.

''People want to see these products,'' King said. ''And they want to be able to see them in their homes, as opposed to going to, say, a store, which some people consider seedy.''

Smut has gone so high-tech that some Web sites have search engines so consumers can designate exactly what they want to see, and with whom.

''Anybody who thinks they don't need to get into this technology ... won't be in the business for very long,'' King said. ''It's the future ... where all media is going.''

Porn stars have their own sites where fans can e-mail them, find out about their latest films and live appearances.

A company called Bodyscanscom, Inc. is even using digital design technology to create 3-D revolving photographs of porn stars for Web sites.

''Their fans can see 'em from any direction - zoom in, zoom out, stand 'em on their heads,'' said Dick Cavdek, president of the company.

''You know the best part of it all? Some of these girls, once they get scanned, they will never age. Their bodies will look perfect forever. They can still be selling their image when they're 80 years old.''

Some consumers say they prefer the old-fashioned videotape.

''I sit on a computer all day long at work ... I don't even get into my computer at home,'' said Sue Kile, 43, of Pomona. She also worries about her children being able to access porn sites.

A major concern - as with any Internet business - is fraud.

''I'm still not comfortable ... to give my credit card information to them,'' said Costas Ipsaro, 29, of Los Angeles. ''If it's free, I see it.''

Norman Baccash, owner of Blowout Video and DVD Sales in San Diego, is considering adding in-store computers to help customers search titles. But he rejects the idea of creating a Web site.

For one thing, it costs to advertise to reach people amid the clutter of adult Web sites. And because they sell across state lines, the sites are vulnerable to zealous porn prosecutors, Baccash said.

''I don't have the issues of worrying about the damn government coming after me,'' he said.

The adult entertainment industry also has jumped at the new DVD technology. Digital Playground makes a ''Virtual Sex'' series that boasts Surround Sound and built-in parental lock to keep the kids from accessing it. The DVDs sell for about the price of a video game, at about $30 to $50, and like games they are interactive.

''You want to be able to choose the girl, the position, you want to be able to switch (camera) angles, if her want her to be innocent or nasty ... That's what we've accomplished,'' said Ali Joone, company president.

The future might be even more high-tech - almost science fiction, Joone speculated.

''Maybe you can tap into the nervous system and experience the whole sex with someone without even leaving the room,'' he said.