Sex.com

Sex.com—the world’s most hotly contested and sought-after domain name of all time. I’m not even exaggerating for effect. It’s true. In fact, there was so much competition for this domain name that the legal battles for its ownership were investigated and reported by journalist, Kieren McCarthy, and ended up filling the pages of an entire book called Sex.com, published in 2007.

I won’t bore you with all of the details regarding the controversy and history behind the most desirable domain name (and for good reason) of all time. If you want to know the whole story, go buy the book. If constantly watching porn hasn’t entirely rotted your brain out yet that is. It likely has bigger words in it than “cunt,” “cock,” “tits,” and “ass.” So, I don’t know … sounds like it might be outside of your reading level.

At any rate, what basically went down was that Gary Kremen (the founder of match.com) registered the domain, sex.com with Network Solutions in on October 18th, 1995, but didn’t do anything with it, as he focused primarily on building Match. Later on in 1995, Network Solutions, without Kremen’s permission, transferred the domain name to Stephen M. Cohen, who persuaded Network Solutions to give him the domain by means of misrepresentation and fraud. He then built an advertisement-heavy site that got 25 million click-throughs each day and made a killing.

Kremen, naturally, took Network Solutions and Cohen to court. After a grueling five-year legal battle, the judge ordered in favor of the plaintiff, returning the right to the domain name to Kremen. Cohen was slapped with $67 million in fines. Cohen, though, the slippery bastard that he is, fled to Mexico when arrest warrants were issued, where he (stupidly) continued filing appeals to the court.

Eventually, Cohen was arrested in Tijuana for multiple immigration violations and was turned over to US authorities, after which he spent a year in custody. He has still, to this day, not paid the $67 million he owes and claims to be living in poverty. Evidence has continued to pile up against Cohen and courts have ordered multiple times over since 2006 in Kremen’s favor.

It has been alleged that seven people and twelve companies were complicit in helping Cohen hide the money. Of these suspected individuals are his brother, daughter, ex-wife, and former lawyer. A court case against Cohen’s brother is currently ongoing.

Now if that isn’t the most interesting domain name story I have ever heard, I don’t know what is. Who knew property law could be so exciting? Somebody should definitely get on turning that into a movie, though. It could definitely be a blockbuster if done right!

The story is not quite done with either. Kremen, even after his long and arduous court battles regarding sex.com ended up selling it. In 2006, the domain name was auctioned off and was bought for a reported $14 million, making it the highest-priced domain name of all time (maybe Kremen needed a way to pay all those hefty legal bills). The site did not become the sex.com we see today until it relaunched in May of 2012, advertising itself as the Pinterest of porn.

Pornterest

And that’s exactly what sex.com is—porn Pinterest. Or, as I like to call it, Pinterest for men. Consisting of a truly massive archive of pics, videos, and gifs, Sex.com allows you to browse and “pin” your favorites to your profile for easy access later (also a convenient way to organize). Create multiple pinboards of the best porn content to be found on the web. Make as many different pinboards as you like and organize it however you see fit.

In addition to finding great images, videos, and gifs to pin to your own pinboards, you can also follow other users’ boards, re-pin content to your own boards, like content, and comment on it. Sex.com is truly a hybrid site—one half porn site, one half social media imaging site, resulting in a truly unique porn experience.

Clean, Minimalistic Web Design

As far as the site’s layout and design is concerned, it looks a lot like Pinterest. Almost identical, actually—just a white background with a bunch of thumbnails and gifs to scroll through. The only two major design differences between Sex.com and Pinterest are that, on Pinterest, you have infinite scrolling, while Sex.com uses pages; and Sex.com has a menu bar to help you navigate the content, whereas Pinterest does not.

If you’re anything like me, you just find gifs to be too distracting in your search for quality content (just too much commotion to really focus on what you’re looking at); if so, you will be happy to learn there is an easy-to-find option for people like us on Sex.com. Simply turn off gifs with a button located above your feed. And, boom, just like that, enjoy a distraction-free search for the highest-quality images and videos on the web.

From this menu bar, easily jump to anywhere on the site. Want just videos? No problem—hover your mouse over the “videos” tab to find a drop-down menu that lets you select between a huge list of categories, or “Popular this Week,” “Popular this Month,” “Popular this Year,” “Popular All Time,” or “Latest Pins.” You’ll also find the same dropdown menu for “Pics” and “Gifs.”

Or maybe you’d rather just browse by category. Well, that’s an option too. Also on the menu bar are “Sex Games,” “Sex Stories,” and “Sex Cams.” Clicking on “Games” will bring you to Adultgamepass.com; “Stories” brings you to lit-erotica.com, and “Cams” brings you to a third-party cam site that my adblocker keeps zapping before it will even open, so these tabs definitely aren’t going to be where the site really shines.

Some More Points for Porn Pinterest

Having said that, though, outside of those few links that take you to other sites, there are no ads to be found on Sex.com. Which, as I’m sure you already know, is great fucking news. This is kind of a no-brainer to me, though, given the domain’s sordid history (particularly when, for years, it was just an ad click-through site and not much else). It would be really fucking dumb, I think, for Sex.com to use ads at this point in its history.

In addition to being able to “like,” re-pin, and comment on content, you also have the option to click the image and be brought to its original source. This feature makes Sex.com not only a great place to share sexy videos and pictures with the world, but also a great resource site. Looking for another place to find even more images and videos? Sex.com will bring you right to it. Right below your selected picture or video, you will also be given a list of related content to choose from, easily letting you fall right down the porno rabbit hole.

Found an image or video online that you think the Sex.com community absolutely needs to see? Upload it and share it with everyone. Or, if you’re feeling really brave, upload pictures of yourself or your girlfriend getting fucked. See how many pins and likes you get. I love sites that allow for such a high level of interaction and user activity. I think it really takes a porn site to that next level. Plus, the more naked chicks that post themselves online, the better, am I right? Just don’t overload Sex.com with your nasty ass dick pics, please. Nobody wants to see that shit…

No Messages!

One feature, though, that is glaringly missing from Sex.com—especially since they went through the trouble of comparing themselves to Pinterest—is that you cannot follow or message fellow users. On Pinterest, you can, which is one of the things that people appreciate about the site; it’s what elevates it from a simple imaging source aggregator to a true social media site. Sex.com, in all of their efforts to be ‘the Pinterest of porn’ has somehow neglected to include this feature.

The addition of messaging capabilities would totally revolutionize this site, and, I’m guessing, generate even more users who want the opportunity to possibly chat with hot chicks who also like porn. Without it, Sex.com feels just a little bit too limited. Sometimes a simple “like” or a re-pin just isn’t enough to tell someone that you truly appreciate their content. And, who knows, maybe that single message of appreciation could lead to getting a sexy lady’s phone number. I mean, probably not, but you should still have the possibility, damn it!

All in all, Sex.com comes very close to truly being the Pinterest of porn. The site is cleanly designed and easy to navigate, I like its level of customizability and the option to upload content, it’s one of the very rare ad-free porn sites out there, and there are tons of high-quality photos and videos to choose from. It would be even better, of course, if they offered some messaging capabilities, but, hey, no site is perfect, right? Except, of course, for theporndude.com. But we can’t all be this great. Happy fapping, fuckers!