Arabs surf Israeli porn sites Owners of Israeli sex sites report high percentage of entries from Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. The hit: Clips starring female soldiers and Mossad women
Adar Shalev
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict apparently does not disturb and even encourages Arab internet users from consuming kosher Hebrew porn. Operators of a number of porn sites report that between two and 10% of their users arrive from Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Jordan, Egypt, and the Palestinian Authority. Some websites even go as far as offering services in Arabic.
Nir Shahar, who manages the Israeli porn website, 'Ratuv' (wet), said that his company produced porn movies that have typical Israeli themes featuring female soldiers, female Mossad agents and policewomen.
It turns out there is a high demand for such content even in countries that are defined as "enemy sates." The most popular video clip among Arabs, "Code name: Deep investigation," is described as "a parody dealing with the Vanunu affair with agents investigating the affair using erotic means."
In the past several months we see an increase in traffic from countries that have no diplomatic ties with Israel including Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Egypt," Shahar said.
Due to the demand, Shahar added an Arabic version of the site. "We received many thank you messages from Arab surfers. Many of whom asked if the female soldiers really serve in the IDF," he said.
Looking at photos
"We get hundreds of hits from surfers that live in countries where porn is prohibited," said Gil Naftali owner and operator of another Hebrew sex site, SexV. "We don't have an Arabic version because users log in to watch photos and video clips that require no explanations."
According to site statistics, last month there were over 2,000 hits from Riad, the capital of Saudi Arabia. The average time a Saudi surfer spends on SexV is 17:23 minutes.
Data also shows that 10 percent of the visitors to the most popular sex site in Israel, Domina, are Arabic speakers. "That is because we offer content in their language," said Tzahi who operates the site.
Nothing seems to stop the porn-consuming Saudi, not even technical difficulties: "In many places Israel is blocked, at times the entire suffix ".co.il" is blocked. Users connect through proxy servers and reach us that way," he said.
The motive behind these initiatives is purely economical, and by means the desire to connect people through the international language of porn.
"Israeli and Arab surfers do not communicate on the website. Ideology? No, it's purely business," Tzahi laughed. "Porn will not bring about peace but at least we get some money out of our enemies' pockets."