Ted, the plush teddy bear character in Ted, is certainly crass and offensive. But could he, in the eye of the right beholder, also be considered sexy?
Neil, the owner of fetish site Clips4Sale.com (NSFW), certainly hopes so. The entrepreneur, who has asked not to be identified by his last name, reached out to director Seth MacFarlane about buying the physical Ted and his rights for advertising purposes.
“No, we wouldn’t let [our content creators] use Ted as part of their productions,” he said. “It’d be more of having Ted on the site for advertising, promotion, stuff like that.”
Neil and his employees got the idea to ask for Ted after watching the movie preview in their Tampa, Fla. office. However, the company has long discussed the value of having a furry mascot to bring to conferences like FetishCon and Exxxotica Expo.
“At a lot of [porn conventions], we’ve seen this furry guy in a big costume, bound with handcuffs and being led around,” he said. “It’s always really popular. People always want to take pictures, and sit on his lap. We don’t know if it’s even a boy or a girl in the suit but it’s always a big hit.”
Neil said he thought displaying Ted on the site and at his convention booth might help Clips4Sale become an even bigger hit with furries and plushie fans.
“We don’t know if Ted could be a sex symbol for the plushie community, but we could find out if we had Ted at our booth, and discovered if plushie porn producers want to be associated with Ted and our site. We won’t know unless we pursue it.”
Among the furry porn that Clips4Sale currently offers, none of the fur suits or stuffed animals taking part in sex acts are recognizable.
“There is no real plushie mascot you would know,” Neil said. “You can’t just use Barney in a porno without getting sued. Most people make up their own. Right now we have some panda bears, a weird looking rabbit that’s kind of demented, and other stuff.”
While Neil assured the Daily Dot the Ted used in the movie won’t be physically violated if the transaction takes place, he can’t make any promises about recreational copies of Ted that might be manufactured. (Clips4Sale is a porn hosting site, not a creator, but Neil said there are many regular porn companies working with the site that may request the rights from him, a request he would likely grant.)
“Our initial thought was to use Ted for advertising, but once producers know we have the rights, who knows what requests might run our way. Lots of people could be into it, so lots of porn companies might want to use him. You never know what these guys might think of.”
Founded in 2003, Clips4Sale boasts 25 million visitors every month. It may owe its success to its emphasis on niche fetishes. Neil told the Daily Dot that tickling, foot worship, bikinis, and wrestling are especially popular, even though many of the videos don’t show any nudity.
For that among other reasons, Clips4Sale has reached out to Hollywood multiple times in the past, including celebrities like Lindsay Lohan and Octomom.
“It’s funny with Octomom. We offered her money to do stuff on our website, were denied, and a year later she did porn for somebody else. We guess she didn’t need money as much until now,” he said.
Neil estimates that 90 percent of the celebrities he reaches out to don’t even respond, and he understands that they don’t want to be associated with porn. However, he’s still optimistic for a response from MacFarlane.
“I can imagine he probably wouldn’t sell to me. It’s pretty far fetched to get rid of something that’s a part of the movie, but always worth a shot. Whether this happens or not, we’ll still be able to get some publicity.”
Photo via Universal Studios
