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Splashing into fountains or pools on a whim as lovers or children do, or removing your shoes in public may not seem reason enough to grab a video camera and click 'record,' unless the filmmaker's eye has a motive.
To some viewers, the ever cliche "children playing in water on a hot day" scene is fair game for fetish
websites. Same too for a man resting his 'dogs' on a public park bench after a hard day's work...voyeurs are
watching with mini-cams rolling in order to share your experience with their communities online.
You may be doing nothing sexual or erotic...but to the filmmaker's community...your actions tap into his or her sexual fetish.
The United States government is subjecting websites, which specifically host pornographic content, to new
decency
rules handed down by the Department of Justice. The government's efforts against
website pornography are aimed at: Protecting under-aged viewers from both seeing the content and from being
seen in the content. Their next aim was the fetish community.
The White House went so far as demanding from search
engine company Google Inc., to turn over keyword searches to federal agents in order to find sexually
explicit
websites they may have missed with standard words of sexual play. Google declined the White House's request.
But there is more to sexually explicit material than the "obvious" on or offline, which is what the White
House was attempting to pin-down. And the new venue for
fetish pornography is only a click away from the family's home computer...for free.
Website 'You Tube,' youtube.com, launched one year ago in February 2005 as a consumer media company for which
anyone could
share videos using a simple, compressed format online. You Tube says it serves up 15 million videos each
day and registered users upload 20,000 videos per day.
Whatever type of video format the author produces, he may upload the video clip and You Tube technology saves it
as a
compressed flash file.
Registered users may e-mail each other, vote
for video favorites, bookmark videos, or email a video link to friends. Video artists may prohibit public
viewing of
their creation, upon upload, or select it for public sharing and search engine crawl.
When Think & Ask first reviewed You Tube in October 2005, the
range of videos available were --for the most part-- rated G (general audiences) with a few falling into PG
(parental guidance suggested.) It did not appear, at that time, that You Tube videos were in any way sexually
explicit.
Many videos reviewed in October were produced by teenagers having
fun with friends while playing sports or mimicking rock musicians Karaoke-style.
Would be Martha Stewarts showed how to cook, clean, and arrange flowers. Skateboarders captured their leaps of
heroic passion across suburban landscapes, usually crashing to the pavement; actors performed brief skits (some
of which were mini-films with background music and credits,) pets played with their owners for the webcam and
performed original tricks; and family outings left the backyard to seek immediate stardom online for eyes of
millions worldwide. Children smiled for videos and put their own fantasies into play using sock puppets or
plastic dolls.
Cute, boring, creative, instructive: Some videos had large followings based upon user votes and comments. You
Tube had launched a phenomenon on the Internet that invited users of all ages to grab a video camera to shoot and share.
But a few months passed, and the videos available have taken-on a new flare for fetish pornography.
"YouTube also reserves the right to decide whether content or a user submission is appropriate and complies with
these Terms of Service...such as, but not limited to, pornography, obscene or defamatory material."
---You Tube Policy Statement
You Tube prominently posts its submission guidelines, which include:
While the Department of Justice regulations require sexually explicit websites to identify users, it also requires a record that both viewer and those photographed are not underage. The rules only apply to websites hosted in the United States.
You Tube is hosted in California and in November 2005, the company completed a $3.5 million round of private equity funding from Sequoia Capital.
But at this time You Tube's business operates on a free-for-all model, even though the rules ban publishing obscene material and pornography, according to its policy statement.
During the week of 19 February, Think & Ask logged links going into You Tube from Google, All the Web, Yahoo and alternative crawlers, and we visited the website to test keywords.
You Tube was hosting a variety of fetish porn as well as hard-core pornography.
Fetish websites and message boards were linking directly into You Tube videos of which fetish members had found to be "hot."
On You Tube, some obvious keywords offered no surprises; "naked" offered some skin videos, user-created keyword "lesbian" offered at least 24 (out of 994 in total) sexually interactive scenes between two women.
Type in the word "wet" and results numbered at 760, but one video at the top of the results may have even surprised those in the pornography business.
One You Tube video found (and captured by Think & Ask) showed both male and female genitalia "in action" engaging in anal intercourse. The video also displayed a website address with a URL (itself) too offensive to rename here. It was submitted by the user name THORO and had been live for seven days. [Video No.4 on the accompanying image.]
Think & Ask submitted an online query to You Tube's support line about this video in particular.
Within a few hours the video was gone from You Tube. However, at 2:10 p.m. 26 February THORO posted another sexually explicit video with frontal and rear intercourse.
THORO did not use keywords with the second video and filled-in the title with semi-colons. On 27 February the new video remained in cache on the site, but clicking the link resulted in a server failure.
While 'wet' also returned people acting for the camera in titles from 'getting wet while swimming' to 'singing in the rain.' Innocent though it seems, those video links too had captured the attention of a wet clothing board based in Great Britain.
Videos also included a dozen or more wet t-shirt contests showing women's breasts in action. One video showed a woman wetting herself for the camera, posted by user S41GCRH435. Another video showed a woman removing her clothes to background music. [Videos No.3 and No.5 on the accompanying image.]
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Feet and fetish came up as a user-created keywords on You Tube, terms that appear to mean what they say.
Results displayed videos of both; individuals on solo exploration of their nylon or white socks and or bare feet (two male videos explored feet using one's tongue,) and at least one video showed two men fully engaged with each other while exploring their feet, posted by You Tube user WILSONBLACKSOCKS. These were linked from foot fetish message boards offline from You Tube. [Videos No.1 and No.2 on the accompanying image.]
Meanwhile, the keyword "sex" doesn't return the same results. With some 4,300 results for that word, a sampling reviewed by Think & Ask showed no sexual content.
Think & Ask contacted You Tube for comment on this story, but website representatives did not respond to e-mails or phone calls by press time on 27 February 2006.
At least 240 blog sites as of 26 February had "favorite" fetish pornography videos on You Tube and provided direct links into the video website.
A message board calling for "swimming in clothes" based in Brighton, Great Britain, directed users to videos of both boys and a man in wet clothes on You Tube. Unlike the other websites linking into You Tube, Wacky Wet World, advised members to "keep it clean," and it did not appear to host sexually explicit content.
Think & Ask contacted Stefan Stukenberg of the website to verify its policy, but he declined to comment for this article.
The website's information section reads, "Established in October 1996, Wacky Wet World was created by the web designers of intereliant as a protest against internet censorship. Rather than showing adult content, they [we] did the opposite and published some photos of fully clothed people, but soaking wet."
One member on Wacky Wet World provided instructions to other members: "At youtube click videos. You will see a bar and next to that, a box 'search videos.' Click the down arrow then click 'search users.' Enter 'maarq' in the bar, then click search. Good wet messy clips."
Other posts linked directly into videos of men splashing in fountains or jumping into pools wearing clothing, and public pool scenes where people are pushed into the water, or shower scenes where the filmmaker soaks his or her clothing.
The Wacky Wet World pages did not have a registration process. Think & Ask contacted one of the board's members and through e-mail exchange, he wrote that "getting wet [in clothes] is part of having sex."
He said he is 31-years-old and he asked not to be identified publicly by name or location, but explained, "Being wet in clothes is a very erotic experience and seeing other guys getting wet in their jeans and socks and Nikes is what brings most of us together on Wacky Wet."
He said that he hopes one day to "find a boyfriend into getting wet with clothes. Until then at least I have the pics and videos" that he finds online and "on You Tube. The guys splashing in a fountain was the hottest thing I've ever seen."
Links for other watersports boards (not the swimming type) have linked into You Tube as well for men who watch women performing urinating-acts while wearing clothing or diapers. [Video No.3 on the accompanying image.]
Gay male socks and shoe fetish websites and message boards have posted links to videos exposing those items favored by their members. One member on Male Feet.com pointed to a You Tube video showing "a rock hard video where a guy plays with his white socks, sniff." [Video No.6 on the accompanying image.]
For the week ending 26 February Think & Ask found only active links to You Tube from searching dozens of adult sexual and fetish message boards. One website listed a directory of 74 links to 'children' on video for those who are into "the scene." Of these boards, mostly all of them had disclaimers or adult warnings prior to entering the website, and some required a registration process before messages displayed.
Through adult message board links --at least four-dozen sexually explicit videos-- on You Tube, were still available at press time, the oldest of which dated back to December 2005. The only exception appears to be the one THORO video Think & Ask reported through You Tube's online form.
According to You Tube's policy; "YouTube will remove all Content and User Submissions if properly notified....YouTube also reserves the right to decide whether Content or a User Submission is appropriate and complies with these Terms of Service for violations other than copyright infringement and violations of intellectual property law, such as, but not limited to, pornography, obscene or defamatory material."
Name Withheld
Tyler Brown
George Clements
"...Acting against anything they might perceive as sexual in nature on the behalf of 'the children' is a lame attempt at hiding their secret desires for activities they choose not to participate in, for whatever reason. This social malfunction happens only in the United States...In the rest of the civilized world, sex is a natural function of life, equal in value to eating or sleeping."
Drex Davis
"I'm very concerned about the irresponsible use of media, particularly as it affects minors."
---Reader's Comments---
Reader's comments were edited for brevity.
Fort Lauderdale, FL
"I admit I spend too much time searching these fetish sites, and now YouTube is bustling with wet clothes fetish activity. But the community would chastise me to no-end if I ever said 'our fetish' is a problem. Wet guys can't admit that what we are doing is ruling our lives. Yep, I'm doing it too because while I spend time 'fantasizing' on WackyWet with pictures of other wet guys, and meeting up with wet guys, my wife and children wonder where I am...physically and mentally."
Ohio
"Biggest money maker on the web is porn, why not just accept it and set-up your own porn site and become instant billionaire? You could change Think & Ask to Trick & Tell. YouTube make you jealous 'cause they beat you to it?"
San Francisco, CA
"...I tend to think [this article] is much ado about nothing...I suggest you write an article about the people who are outraged by the content of YouTube and ask how they are monitoring (or, in this instance, not monitoring) their children's access to the internet. They need to stop being whiny and pointing fingers and start being responsible for parenting. This 'art' seems to have been lost for the last couple of generations. They seem more bent on having government (or other uncaring entity) raise their children for them, complaining bitterly as each has failed to accomplish this task to their liking. Get a grip!
Mesa, AZ
"Thank you for your YouTube investigation. I had already written my senators and congressman about youtube.com. The first time I visited (on a friend's recommendation) to look for some video interviews of music artists I liked, I was met with a barrage of hardcore pornography, all of it freely accessible to minors...
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