Porn, Phil and philanthropy

Can pornography and philanthropy go together? For Phil Harvey — head of Adam & Eve, one of the leading American ‘adult entertainment’ companies, and president of DKT International, a global charity into which he pumps part of his profits — they do. DKT, by the way, stands for Dharmendra Kumar Tyagi, an early champion of family planning in India, who designed the “inverted red triangle” symbol. Tyagi popularised family planning in the 1960s using what is now called social marketing in a big way. Harvey was in India for five years as a CARE volunteer supplying food in famine-hit Bihar and was friends with Tyagi.

“I named DKT International after Deep Tyagi,” Harvey, 75, recalled in a brief interview while he was in Kochi to speak at what was billed as the “first global healthcare meeting” on “Social marketing and franchising.” Harvey is reckoned as a social marketing guru.

Social marketing, which combines elements of commercial marketing with societal goals, aims at behavioural changes in communities. It is mostly used in the health sector — for campaigns such as birth control, HIV and lifestyle change — by governments and international NGOs. India’s family planning campaign with its massive advertisements, subsidised or free contraceptives supply and public awareness efforts was one of the best early social marketing initiatives.

In an article in Huffington Post , Harvey notes: “The social marketing of contraceptives was conceived by Peter King and his colleagues at Calcutta’s Indian Institute of Management in 1964. The idea is simple enough: If cigarettes, tea, soft drinks, and other branded products reach consumers in virtually every remote region of the world, why not contraceptives?”

Back in the US from India in the late 1960s, Harvey had enrolled for a master’s degree in family planning along with Tim Black, who later set up the Marie Stopes International, a reproductive health company many people identify with abortion. While in university, the two young men started an innovative business, which later developed into a major marketing tool: they sold condoms through mail order. In 1970, they launched Population Services International that provided contraceptive products and services. For seven years, Harvey was the executive director of PSI.

He later started Adam & Eve, one of the largest adult entertainment companies in the world that sold products online and by mail order. Pornographic films, vibrators, condoms, sex toys and other adult-pleasure products brought in huge profits to Harvey who skilfully used social marketing techniques to push the products worldwide. He is rated “one of the most influential figures in American sex industry.”

But the entrepreneur-philanthropist contributes a significant part of the ‘porno profits’ to DKT International, which has operations in 20 countries. DKT runs family planning and anti-HIV programmes in many countries and provides highly subsidised condoms, pills, IUDs and other contraceptives to millions — using social marketing techniques.

Using money made out of porn movies and vibrators to fund philanthropic projects might sound odd to most people. But, not to Harvey. “Don’t you think there is a moral conflict here?” “Not at all,” he told Business Line . “On the contrary, I am proud of it.” He elaborates: DKT helps millions of people in poor countries in Africa and Asia; it supports family planning initiatives; and provides reproductive healthcare products and services. “I am proud of my contributions to the sexual healthcare of so many people,” he says. As for the pornography business: “Every human being has the right to sexual enjoyment.”

Harvey is well-known for his long legal battles against the US government and right-wing establishments over pornography, family planning and abortion. (He has written a book titled The Government vs. Erotica. ) The curbs on family planning and pornography, he always stressed, were unconstitutional.

He is a big supporter of abortion of unwanted pregnancies. Referring to the death of Indian dentist Savita Halappanavar after a miscarriage in an Irish hospital when doctors refused to do abortion on her last year, Harvey said: “Every woman has the right to do what she wants to do with her body,” he said. “It is up to her to decide what happens to her body.” (He is the author of Let Every Child Be Wanted. )

Birth control through social marketing is a great strategy. “More than a third of couples in the developing countries get their contraceptives through social marketing,” Phil Harvey points out.