Death of the Sexy App?

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They said it best in Avenue Q: the internet is for porn.

The stats are all there if you'd care to look for them... Internet pornography is a $2.5 billion industry in the U.S. alone. 25% of search engine requests are sex-related. And according to Neilson Online, one quarter of employees visit internet porn sites during working hours. (I guess "hard at work" just took on a whole new meaning)

But the dark underbelly of internet activity has recently been pushed into, then back out of, then back into the limelight. First by the growing popularity of sex-related apps to surface on the iPhone, then by their apparent expulsion from the App store, and now by the rumours of an "Explicit" section, created solely for their dirty, dirty selves.

It's a lot of back and forth from Jobs and Co. But for a company that essentially turns the internet into a handheld device, it was inevitable. And the conflict is simple: just like that one naive lady-puppet from the broadway show who was oblivious to all the World Wide Wanking going on, Apple's female clientele were apparently both alarmed and disturbed by the growing trend of busty babes making appearances on their phones (and the phones of their young children.)

It's always amusing to watch technology clash with our basic human needs, and in a way, you can blame evolution. Our minds evolved in stages—the more primitive regions responsible for sexual impulses often overpowering the more recently evolved logic centers. But luckily, this classic Battle of the Sexes appears to have been peacefully resolved, at least for now.

Now if you'll excuse me, that Chippendales App won't launch itself.

- Brit Trogen