I'm just wondering if there are any restrictions with hosting and displaying adult content on websites. A website I'm building will have adult toys and lingerie sold on it. The most nudity on display would be of topless women in skimpy lingerie. Is this kind of material allowed by most hosting providers? What providers do/don't allow it? I know I should ask providers directly for a definitive answer but I thought I would just throw this question out there because I've not dealt with this situation before. Has anyone built a site on this theme? What advice can you give and what host did you use?

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As long as there is nothing illegal ie. underage then you should be fine with most hosting providers.

We wouldn't allow hardcore porn on our shared hosting at the moment, for example.

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There would be nothing hardcore or illegal, most nudity would be some topless lingerie models and adult toys etc. I might host the site with your shared hosting service Blacknight if this content is ok. Response from alternative host today was no to nudity, so topless lingerie models would need to be censored or not included and I'm not sure if my client would have a problem with censoring the images.

But isnt the grey area of "what is pornographic" also likely to come in to question?

Would an image of a woman showing all her bits (like they do in Hustler) be considered pornographic or is the "safe" image similiar to those from Playboy (nude but not shall we say, overexposed)

Pornography - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - makes for the strong case that unless its specifically related to a sex act, then it is possible for a free for all

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You would pick the extremes
Hustler is probably best classed as porn, while Playboy is erotica

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So at its most basic level images similiar to Hustler would be classed as unsafe, while Playboy type images would be accepted?

Ok then - would blacknight accept such content on their servers then?

Yes and no.

As you know from previous conversations we've had on various mailing lists, blogs, forums etc., Irish law in this area is a mess.

If you ignore the law there are also societal issues to deal with. While it may be 2007 I still get the distinct impression that Ireland as a society is still far too prudish compared to many of our European neighbours.

So, what can I say?

Online sex shops are valid businesses, so I have no issue with us hosting them. As long as they aren't posting hardcore content that any child could access then I don't see a problem.

For anything more mature / hardcore I can't see an obvious issue with hosting it on our network , but I'd be very wary of hosting it on a normal shared server.
I don't think the local church would appreciate being on the same server as an Irish version of Playboy

Don't forget that the adult entertainment industry has always made money online, whereas everyone else has been struggling They're often targetted by hackers and denial of service attacks etc.,

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I think the easiest way to define pornography is if it gives you a boner, it's pornography.

Unfortunately some people seem to think getting aroused is a bad thing, so "pornography" has a bad rap.

Although I don't think children should be exposed to porn, I think worst case scenario they'd get aroused. Children don't think like we do: they don't think sex and nudity are bad.

Also, I've been messing around with adult websites for about 12 years (used to run a really really really big one) and I've never had any hacker problems whatsoever.

The whole porn thing is so overblown and twisted it's really sad.

Maybe so, but until someone takes a test case it's a grey area

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It also depends on where your gonna host it. With most US hosts any type of porn hardcore or softcore is ok as long as you have either the copyrights or permission to host it.

In Ireland nearly all hosts forbid hardcore pornography so thats a no go.