Vegas hosts Internet sex convention

Angie Wagner

Wednesday, Jan. 12, 2000 | 9:58 a.m.

Retired school teacher Jean Winslow looked a bit out of place as scantily clad women passed by her, chatting about Internet sex. But Winslow is just as much as part of the industry as the transvestite next to her.

The 67-year-old and her longtime friend, Mike Price, sell adult videos and marital "education" shows on the Internet.

"There's money to be made," Winslow said Tuesday as she and Price walked the aisles of the ia2000 show - a convention devoted to selling sex over the Internet.

Peddling adult videos is a far cry from teaching music in San Diego, but Winslow and Price, a former attorney, knew they could make money doing something their friends don't even know they do.

"Sex sells," Price said. "Times are changing."

Sex indeed does sell, if the more than 5,000 business people looking to strike deals at the convention was any indication. They browsed the products and services of some 200 exhibitors.

Girls who barely fit in their shirts and some who didn't roamed the show floor promoting their websites. One girl wore just stickers to cover her breasts. Transvestites were plentiful and nude pictures of women were plastered in almost every booth.

"Internet fulfillment," one booth advertised. "Cheap sex" boasted another.

In a city where hardly anything raises eyebrows, an Internet sex convention might not attract much notice. But there was so much nudity and nasty-sounding websites at the convention that it could even make Las Vegas strip clubs seem mild.

Internet sex is a booming business that Congress has had a hard time trying to regulate because of the cheap access and worldwide reach. In 1997, the Supreme Court ruled that Congress' effort to keep pornography off the Internet violated the First Amendment. The 1996 law made it a crime to put "indecent" or "patently offensive" words or pictures online where they could be found by children.

But no one here appeared to have second thoughts about selling sex on the Internet.

"To us it's a business. It's a business of buying and selling. It's just that we have unique products," said Hal Tupler, owner of Action USA, a Las Vegas company that sells CD-ROMS that have links to 500 adult websites.

"I don't gamble. I don't drink. This keeps my mind active," said Tupler, who also manufactures Las Vegas souvenirs.

And the girls who make the Internet sites money by showing off their breasts and everything else don't seem to have any qualms about shedding their clothes for anyone to watch.

"Sometimes we even forget the camera's there," said Avian, 25, who is one of five local strippers who have their every move broadcast over the Internet on LasVegasStripperDorm.com.

The girls live in a house and have their rent, bills and food paid for. They make money by going into chat rooms with paying customers. It's $4 a minute for a private chat room and $16.95 a month for access to the website.

The stripper website claims it's different from other voyeur sites because customers can actually meet the girls at local strip joints and request a lap dance.

"It's good money and we meet a lot of nice guys out there," Avian said.

The convention ends Wednesday.