Annalee Newitz at eTech 2005 talked about some interesting facts: how sex drives innovation. The Silicon Valley Watcher gives an account of this:
She starts with the equation: "Everybody wants porn + nobody will admit it + everybody loves tech = innovating ways to look without being seen.". She starts with talking about how yesteryear's vibrators were a kind of camouflaged technology. "I only use it for therapeutic purposes," reads an ad from 1910.(...) One of the driving forces behind VCRs was the porn industry. The VCR became a way of camouflauging porn consumption. Before 1976 you had to go to a theatre -- local people knew you were going to theaters -- a very public experience. Now people could watch dirty movies in their own homes. (...) "Porn built the Internet. It's such an obvious use of the medium; because it's so private and widely available"
Yup, sex, as well as video games and militarty stuff appear to be what drives tech innovation...