Would you work for an "Adult" Company?

Question

Although I try to distance myself from web-oriented work nowadays (unless I need the money) I've received a number of emails from clients wishing for me to help design and develop online solutions for adult websites. Hell, when I was 17 I was asked to help design an adult website that I would not legally be able to view.

After talking to a few Software Engineers and Flash Developers I have heard that there is a lot of interesting work in the adult industry for those who like to work with new technologies. Have any of you worked for a company dealing with adult/pornographic content? Did you enjoy it? If you haven't would you ever consider it?

More than anything I find it interesting to see how others would view the offer, whether you would be afraid to list it on a CV/Resume, how interesting the work would be, how you think future employees would see you and whether you believe that they would judge you for working in a dirty industry.

Answer 1

Based on what I've heard, the only real benefit is technical, because you'll always be working with very limited resources, high amounts of traffic, and constant attack attempts. Normally the pay isn't great, and it can be difficult to list this on your CV later (though not always).

Either way, I'd suggest really investigating the nature of the company before considering any offer that they may make you. Their ultimate ethics, and not the ethical nature of their product, may ultimately be the turn-off factor for such a job.

Answer 2

I think this is something that you will have to ask yourself for several resasons:
1) Enjoyable is a subjective measure, what I find fun, you may not and vice versa.
2) Your own ethical/moral/religious beliefs will play a major factor here.

Now to answer the quesions:
Have any of you worked for a company dealing with adult/pornographic content? Yes
Did you enjoy it? No
If you haven't would you ever consider (doing it again added to make it more relevant) it? NO!

More details as requested:

It's good to hear from someone who has worked for a company dealing with such content. Would it be possible to clarify in your post how the job was and how you felt about it, as well as whether you told family or friends about your work

Did I tell Family or Friends? I never, didn't tell them, I just don't brag about it. I'm an adult I know that my family wont entirely be happy but at the same time, my parents cant ground me and that was before I was married so no problems there.

Now days, I don't like the Porn industry, was never a fan of it, but at the time the job paid well, and I needed the money.

My website states that I/We don't do porn sites, and we don't list the one I did as a reference. If you look at the site my name is not on it, I don't manage the maintenance, I don't have a support contract with them.

Like I said in my initial post it depends on how you fell about these sites, I don't like them, and I think they are a plague of the net so I will not do one again.

Another update for the updated question:

When I hire someone I don't care much about the content of the website as I do the work, If I am trying to hire a designer then I will look at the design not the content, if a developer then I'll look at code. But it should be noted that if its an 'adult' website then I won't look at it so as a designer it would just be a wast of space on the screen/page because it could be the best design in the world but I won't look at it anyway.

Answer 3

Are you willing to put "developed and maintained XXX website" on your resume?

Not me.

Answer 4

A good friend of mine worked in the adult industry. He developed a system in php to generate a complete adult site. It compiled content, generated scripts for the site itself, scripts to connect to micro-payment things, web-cams, text-message services and whatnot.

Customers just had to make a choice what they want, he wrote a config script and - presto - another porn site appeared on the www.

The code-generation part was very interesting and we've talked more than once about that. I was doing code-generation at that time as well, but on a different level. I wrote low level assembler code and he did scripts. Nevertheless a lot of the problems we faced at our job where quite similar in nature, so we had a good knowledge exchange.

He had a very interesting job, and afaik the salary was very ok as well.

Long story short: I'd never expected the work for adult stuff to be that interesting and challenging. Seems like once again one should not judge a book by it's cover.

Answer 5

Adult industry does not mean that people run around naked and have all sorts of weird intercourse practices all day. In the end, they are normal companies, so for me it boils down to the questions that are just natural for every job:

• Do they have interesting work?
• How are the people you're gonna work with?
• How is the pay?
• Is it a company I'd like to have on your CV? (Even if you remove it afterwards out of fear to get a new job, but just for yourself)
• Are they professional?

Answer 6

I would be worried about the impact on my resume personally, partly because lots of recruiters and HR directors would be worried about showing the decisionmakers anything about this (call it the Disney effect).

There's a similar trouble in other vice industry (for example, designing slot machines or online poker) though pr0n has the worse stigma.

You didn't clarify what your skills and experience was, but how interesting or challenging can a job like that be? I would assume that unless you're working for a major company that runs hundreds of sites and then you can apply your generalization and abstraction skills, it wouldn't be too interesting.

Answer 7

I was offered a project on an adult site. Initially, I agreed to do it but after a couple hours of introspection, I decided it just wasn't something I wanted to be involved with. Just the fact that you're asking the question to me says you shouldn't do it... Working on porn sites is for guys who when they first get the offer think, "SCORE!". The rest of us would just feel dirty after a couple days.

Answer 8

My wife said no already. I wouldn't do it unless you are okay with people you know, or will know, finding out. There are plenty of other places to work that are using new technologies.

Answer 9

If you want an answer as to how it would affect your future career, ask some HR professionals. They may help ease your mind, or confirm your fears.

Answer 10

As someone who has worked in the adult industry, a job in an adult company is like a job in a non-adult company except there's just more nudity. Do you still need to get things done? Yes. Do you have responsibilities? Yes.

I'd further argue that working at an adult company taught me more about what is and is not sexual harassment than working at a Fortune 100 company has ever taught me about what is and is not sexual harassment.

Answer 11

If offered a project for an "adult" business, I wouldn't evaluate it any differently than any other potential client. If it sounded like a (technically) interesting project with a reasonable timeline given its scope and would pay decently, I'd take it and, if not, I wouldn't.

I do also consider the ethics and business practices of my clients to determine whether they're someone I want to be associated with, but I don't make any assumptions on those grounds based simply on the industry they work in. I know from experience that there are unethical, sleazy anti-spam companies and I am fairly certain that there are ethical, well-mannered porn producers as well.

Answer 12

Will the effort you put forth make the more elegant and efficient, or more coarse and burdensome? Will it make the world smarter or more base? Will it lift people up, or will it degrade them?

In short, will it make the world a better place, or will things going on being the way they are? You must be the change you wish to see in the world. I made this call a long time ago, vis a vis adult industries, and the answer was no, because I wanted to be able to look my wife, mother and baby girl in the face and tell them that I was proud of my work.

Answer 13

Hmm... Big can of worms there. To be honest, who can say working for a tobacco company is moralistically better, you are pushing a product that sells cancer in a box. Or a pharma company that sells drugs that have side effects, or legal practices (patent cornering) that stops "no name" drugs from being affordable in Africa. Or a government that implements trade barriers that starve out cottage industry in a foreign country to get products from a larger country through basically slave labour. Or a Church organization that has self centered motives. Come on.. anyone can take a moral high ground on anything, and everyone has a different opinion, some more or less on any given subject, and of course there are varying moralistic views in any society at any given time in history and relative to that societies development at that time. Which also leads to the arguement when was a moral more "accurate", it all is a moving target, day to day, society to society.

Obviously I am much more pragmatic to this issue. I think work is work, otherwise they would not have to pay you to do it. Michael Stum takes the most pragmatical approach to decision making on if you should or not take a job, reguardless of who it is for. Yes you may have to take into account other peoples perspective later in your career, but then they should be judging you on your ability to do a job they need done, not how you acquired the skills to get it. Would you want to work with someone that wouldn't hire you based on valuable experience and training. Least of all, lets not forget what the biggest industry(by far) is on the internet, and likely because of that, more work can be found. Hypocritical views at this point in time are quickly becoming a thing of the past, as lines between right and wrong are more and more becoming blured, and the grey area in between is getting larger.

Only you know what is comfortable for your life decisions, and the way your life operates, and what lets you sleep at night. And that too can change over the course of your life.

When(not if) we get to the point of iPhone apps being not nannied by Apple, do you not think the tsunami of porn apps will be huge, and the money making opportunities are beyond that of any "twitter" app? (think in app purchases) Control the decisions you can make and career decisions based on gained skills, return for time(the only thing we have in this life we cannot get back) and future possibilities, and how you want to "spend" your life(most of your day/life is working). Also one has to realize this is the one aspect of humanity(sex) that will never go away. Period.... or the human race disappears. :) How one can not be pragmatical about work is really beyond me, I am getting paid, not making some moral decision, or I would have to apply morality onto an informed decision on any company I would work for then, and no company is totally void of some negative impact somehow, as profit is more easily made through taking advantage of something, somewhere, or someone. .... "let those that cast the first stone..." not religious but a good saying ;) from a pretty popular writer/writers ;) IMHO Enjoy life on your terms, how ever is best for you. (Yes all generalizations are generally flawed)