0006030146
DETROIT FREE PRESS
000604
Sunday, June 04, 2000
METRO FINAL
1E
MITCH ALBOM
Copyright (c) 2000, Detroit Free Press
WEB PORN LEAVES GUYS YELLING 'GAK'
When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that's ...
Gak.
Yes. Gak. The latest word in love. Well. Not really love. Marriage. Well, not
really marriage. Bliss. Marital bliss. Maintaining it, that is. Which is where
Gak comes in.
Gak is a new phrase for when a wife confronts her husband over a credit card
bill for Internet porn.
"Gak!" goes the husband. "That's not mine! We're being swindled! Someone has
our credit card!"
At which point the sympathetic wife, bolstered by her love for her husband and
her concern over their financial future, calls the credit card company and
demands that the fraudulent charges be removed.
And the credit card company -- not wanting to lose customers -- immediately
obliges.
Until now.
American Express, citing millions of dollars in disputed fees, announced that
it is no longer accepting transactions from any adult site.
The Gak factor, it says, is too high.
"We've examined the digital adult content industry," a spokesman said, "and
there was an unacceptably high incidence of disputes."
(By the way, don't you love that phrase? "Digital adult content industry"? So
much nicer than "smut.")
The thing is, this isn't about fraud. And it isn't about credit cards.
It's about getting caught.
Racy hieroglyphics
Getting caught with dirty pictures is as old as, well, dirty pictures. I'm
pretty sure somewhere back in ancient Egypt, there was a guy in his cave,
checking out the risque hieroglyphics, and the wife yells down: "RAMSES! WHAT
ARE YOU DOING?" and he quickly throws sand at the wall and says, "Me? What?
Nothing!"
(Or remember Woody Allen's movie "Bananas," when he tries to purchase a smutty
magazine by burying it in a bunch of serious periodicals? Only when the clerk
rings them up, he can't find a price on the dirty one, so he waves it and
yells, "HEY, AL! HOW MUCH IS ORGASM?")
Now, I must confess, I have never been into the whole Internet porn thing.
First of all, I'm in the word business. Do you know how hard it is for me to
take something called HotBabes.com seriously?Also, I'm embarrassed. Not by
nudity. By my computer skills. I am so bad with the mouse, I am liable to
think I'm clicking to some beautiful blond and wind up on a farm animal. With
my luck, an armadillo.
But obviously, a lot of guys are heavily into the heavy breathing. Estimates
are that on-line porn is a billion-dollar industry.
Except when it comes to paying.
Then, all of a sudden, nobody uses it. In fact, so many men deny they did any
nasty clicking -- "Me? What? Nothing!" -- that Amex is turning its back on a
ton of money.
And how often does a credit card company do that?
Banding together for porn rights
Naturally, the porn business is upset. In fact, members of the Adult Internet
Trade Association formed a lobbying group for better treatment from credit
card companies.
"It is imperative that the adult community band together," an industry member
said.
Funny. I though "adult community" meant people mature enough not to titter
over dirty pictures.
But the porn industry has always been inventive. These are the folks who gave
you brown paper wrapping. They also steal reputable Web site addresses, hoping
you will accidentally surf them, which is why clicking on TheLoneRanger.com
could mean shots of Trigger you never dreamed of.
So I was not surprised that a certain XXX company has already come up with an
alternative to Amex's problem.
The answer? Adult Internet cards. They work like phone cards. You buy them at
a store, they give you a certain number of minutes, when the card is up the
minutes are up and there is no tracing them. Problem solved.
Never mind that the bigger problem -- why men need to smother themselves with
porn -- is not addressed. All this industry really cares about is that the men
keep clicking, and the guilt goes away.
No more Gak.
Or as they say in the computer biz, Wham, bam, thank you, RAM.
Contact MITCH ALBOM at 313-223-4581 or albom@freepress.com. Listen to Mitch's
radio show, "Albom in the Afternoon," 3-6 p.m. weekdays on WJR-AM (760).
THIS ELECTRONIC VERSION MAY DIFFER SLIGHTLY FROM THE PRINTED ARTICLE.
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