Sex.com

Sex.com. Could you ask for a better porn domain name? It doesn’t get much more direct than that. Plus, this is the first thing that all teenage boys ever type into their browsers the moment they finally get some alone time with their computers. It should come as no surprise, then, to learn that this domain name was at the center of one of the most fiercely contested legal battles of the 21st century.

This domain name brought with it so much legal drama that journalist, Kieren McCarthy was able to write and publish an entire book about the court cases. The result was 2007’s bestseller, the aptly titled, Sex.com. I won’t bore your little brain with all of the details of this court case (not that I could, there’s a whole book’s worth of details to cover). Go buy the fucking book if you want all the nitty-gritty.

Basically, though, what happened was, the founder of Match.com, Gary Kremen registered the domain name through Network Solutions on October 18th of 1995. He didn’t do anything with it immediately, though, opting instead to focus on building his now multimillion-dollar company, Match.

Later that year, though, Network Solutions decided to fuck Kremen over by selling the domain, without Kremen’s permission, to one, Stephen M. Cohen. Cohen allegedly purchased the domain through nefarious means of criminal fraud and misrepresentation. Cohen then turned Sex.com into some shitty ad dump that actually received 25 million visits per day. Cohen, needless to say, made fucking bank.

Kremen, the Match guy, did what any of us would do … he took Cohen’s shady ass to court. And a five-year legal battle ensued. Ultimately, the judge ruled in favor of Kremen and ordered the domain name be returned. Kohen was also hit with $65 million in fines. Cohen then also did what any of us would do in his situation, and he fled to Mexico. From there, he was a fucking an idiot and continued filing court appeals.

They eventually busted Kremen in Tijuana for immigration violations (funny to see that work in reverse, huh?), and he was turned over to US authorities, spending a year in custody. Now Kremen claims to be living in destitution and has yet to pay up a cent of his fines. Kremen has, since, been found guilty in several court cases and now his brother and others are also implicated in allegedly helping Kremen hide money. Kremen is still at large.

Whoever said an internet domain name court case story couldn’t be interesting is a dumbass. That shit is gold. Someone should start making that into a movie. Not a porno, a real one, dipshit. I smell an Oscar.

In the end, though, Kremen just ended up selling the domain name in 2006. For a whopping $14 million. Which makes it the most expensive domain name of all time. The site, however, did not become the Sex.com that it is today until 2012, branding itself as the Pinterest of porn.

Porny Pinterest

And there couldn’t be a more apt description of what Sex.com is today. It is undoubtedly a porny Pinterest. Existing as an enormous archive of porn pics and gifs, you can browse content forever and “pin” anything that catches your eye. This way, you can easily return to content and start organizing your own porn collection (for all of you porn connoisseurs out there). With just a few clicks of a mouse, you can curate as many pinboards of high-quality porn images and gifs to be found on the web.

But that’s not all you can do on Sex.com. Not only can you create and curate your own pinboards, but there’s a bit of a social media aspect to it too. You can also subscribe to the boards of other users, re-pin images and gifs to your own boards, “like” stuff, and comment on it. Sex.com seems to be one of the better examples of porn – social media hybrid sites that I’ve ever seen.

Sex.com has clearly taken influence from Pinterest in other ways as well. Not only are most of the functionalities the same, but the site’s design and layout is strikingly similar too. Actually, strike that, it is damn near a mirror image. Scroll through hundreds upon hundreds of images and gifs over a white background and pin whatever you like. In fact, the only notable difference between the two sites is the fact that Pinterest employs an infinite scroll (new content loads once you reach the bottom) and on Sex.com you have to click through pages. For this kind of site, to be honest, I think I would prefer the infinite scrolling, but, who knows, maybe they would have faced a lawsuit if they just ripped off every aspect of Pinterest.

Great Design, Some Cool Customizable Features

Sex.com also offers up some features to help customize your experience. For one, at the very top of the page, you can toggle gifs to be on or off. Maybe you find them to be distracting while you browse. Personally, I don’t see what harm they could do … if anything, they just enhance the experience! But to each his own. You can also choose to filter what kind of content comes up (Photos, Videos, or Gifs), in case you just want to see one type and fuck the rest. Plus, you can choose how content is sorted (Popular this Week, Popular this Month, Popular this Year, Popular All Time, or Latest).

However, if you don’t feel like browsing the site in this way, there is also a handy site menu bar at the top of the home page (under the search bar in case you have a particular keyword in mind). From the site menu bar, navigate Sex.com by clicking on Home, Videos, Pics, Gifs, Categories, Sex Cams, Sex Stories, or Sex Games. The latter three will bring you to 3rd party sites, but they don’t seem to be spammy; all appear to be legit sites for those three things.

Hovering your cursor over Videos, Pics, and Gifs will give you an extremely elaborate and cleverly designed dropdown menu—a huge translucently gray sub-menu will appear, not obscuring your view of the content below it, but giving you enough options to very easily browse every corner of the site. On the whole, I fucking love this site’s design. It is beautifully minimalistic and user-friendly; everything about it is clear and easy to find.

A Couple Major Flaws…

The one major downfall for me, though, when it comes to the Sex.com site design is more of a functionality issue than anything else. Clicking on a picture or video or gif will redirect you to a whole new page, as opposed to enlarging the content in the foreground. This seems like it would be the obvious way to view content, allowing you to click on something you like and continue browsing when you are done enjoying it. Especially since most of the content to be found on Sex.com is the kind of stuff you just look at for a few seconds. It’s a little disappointing, but I think I’ll live.

Another thing that seems to be glaringly missing to me is the fact that you cannot message or follow individual users on Sex.com. This is something that stands out more than it might on other similar sites, probably because they explicitly compare themselves to Pinterest, and both of those things are crucial aspects of Pinterest. I don’t know why you wouldn’t want to allow your users to be able to interact more directly. In fact, I’m going to go as far as to say that every adult site should allow its users with more direct interaction. We need to be creating opportunities to get laid wherever we can, people!

In addition to all of that, Sex.com still has ads. This seems like a bold move for a site that has such a sketchy background, particular when it comes to the use of ads. However, I will say that the ads are far from the worst I’ve ever seen on a porn site … they are relatively few and far between. But still. Come on … Well, shit, to be fair, they did buy the domain for $14 million, so maybe we can give them a pass on that one. They might still be paying that shit off.

All in all, Sex.com is a great place to go to browse for new photos, gifs, and videos. In my personal opinion, it might not be the best thing out there for just some good old fashioned fapping, but definitely a good way to look around and potentially discover some new girls, sources, or videos that you never knew you liked. I say give the Pinterest of porn a try for yourself and see if it’s right for you.