ALERT: CNBC Documentary "Porn: Business of Pleasure" Airs Tonight

It's usually news when the mainstream media decides to take on porn; most often, it's not so good.

Starting tonight, though, CNBC, the cable business network, is offering up a documentary program that actually might be promising, even quite progressive.

Titled Porn: Business of Pleasure, the special is designed to take what they call "an inside look" at how the industry is surviving (or not surviving) the economic pitfalls of late, and it interviews both performers (such as Jesse Jane), producers, and executives alike.

The website promoting the special includes a slideshow featuring highlights of the program, which will begin airing on CNBC starting at 9 PM EDT, with repeat broadcasts at 10 PM and 1 AM EDT.

They also promise frequent rebroadcasts in the future, so check your local listings, as the saying goes.

The Kink.com vs. Matt Smith Saga Continues: Mz Berlin Gets Forcebly Outed

You will recall all of the controversy a while back over an online dustup between the BDSM website Kink.com and the San Francisco-based "alternative" paper SF Weekly over an article by reporter Matt Smith which claimed that Kink.com was receiving California "taxpayers' money" to fund "torture-based violent pornography". The fact that the funds were actually used to train cinematographers and photographers in general and was provided through a third party did not dampen the enthusiasm of Smith's attempted moral sex panic....and it did have the desired results, since the state program did pull its funding for the training.

You will also recall that several porn performers and models who did work for Kink.com also came forth to defend their particular craft and themselves as more than just "torture victims" and to explain the difference to Mr. Smith between nonconsensual torture and consensual ritualized sex.

One such performer -- Mz Berlin -- is now feeling directly the effects of being targeted for her sexuality and sexual choices...personally.

I wrote a much more extended piece with supporting linkage over at my own SmackDog Chronicles blog, due to time constraints I will simply cut and paste the highlights from there.

One performer whom spoke the loudest in defense of her work for Kink.com was Miz Berlin (warning, link NSFW), who is a specialist in the BDSM genre on her own behalf; she used the pages of her blog (NSFW) to rip new orfices on both Farley and Smith for conflating nonconsensual abuse and consensual desire.

Well…Matt Smith didn’t take such insults lightly…he issued a smarmy and snarky rebuttal (in two parts) basically restating his ideology and calling out his critics as irrational, thin-skinned perverts who were misconstruing his motives and distorting him into a “censor”. Along the way, he misattributed a quote to Violet Blue that was actually written by performer Lorelei Lee (remember, this is Violet the Sex Columnist, in case you haven’t noticed); and managed to mangle a phone conversation he recalled with Miz Berlin into a “shouting match” (which she denied in a subsequent comment to Part 2 of Smith’s article.)

But that wasn’t nearly the worst of it…not even close. Turns out that in his zeal to smear Miz Berlin, Matt Smith crossed that proverbial line that is supposed to respect autonomy and human decency. In the rebuttal article posted to the SF Weekly, Smith had revealed Miz Berlin’s real name and hometown.

The name was taken down after Miz Berlin protested….but the reprocussions of the unwanted outing has now come back to haunt her.

You see, Miz Berlin has a family who resides in Shreveport, Louisiana, and a young daughter who lives with her father (Miz Berlin’s husband) there.You can guess what happened when her real name was plastered online…and when her husband discovered her occupation. That’s right, Clones…he’s now seeking to use the child to punish her for her sexuality.

Quoting directly from an article posted in Salon.com’s Broadstreet describing the whole saga:

Smith wound up (NSFW) interviewing Mz Berlin for a follow-up story. In which — despite her express wishes to the contrary — he evidently tracked down and printed her real name. (That version of the story has since been taken down.) When he asked why she didn’t want her name used, Mz Berlin told Broadsheet today, she said, “Because I get naked for a living.” Having her name out there, she said, would make her feel unsafe.

In more ways than one, as it turned out. (Okay, now this is the story.) Mz Berlin’s ex-husband in Louisiana, she says, used the SF Weekly story to make the case — successfully — for erasing her right to visit their 8-year-old son.

Before now, she had unlimited access — and a much more amicable relationship with her ex. His stated concern: her safety, and their son’s. Sure enough, Mz Berlin was in London when the story with her name ran. “I’m in a foreign country, and all of a sudden people are calling me telling me they’re in my yard,” she told Broadsheet. (Fortunately, she had just moved; the yard callers were actually at her old address.) He also says that he thinks what she does is immoral, and that he plans to use that in court if necessary. (She was not doing this work when they were married. He since learned of it but, she speculates, hadn’t realized the scope or extent until now.)

“This is not a pity party. I realize that I put myself out there. I chose to do the interview. I choose to do porn,” Mz Berlin told Broadsheet. ”But I meet people a lot who have seen my asshole before looking in my eyes, and the exposure of my name truly made me feel scared. It’s the most violated I’ve ever felt.” She adds: ”The whole custody thing just makes me so angry. It should never have been questioned.” In that regard, she feels her ex is overreacting.

Her ex says the only way he’ll allow custody rights again is if she moves back to where he lives in Louisiana. Meanwhile, Mz Berlin intends to change her legal name in order to re-protect her identity.

Just another case of how sex performers are treated as third-class citizens, I'd say.

Mz Berlin is fighting the charges, but faces the usual mountain of legal fees; so she has set up a fund for her supporters to donate....you can find it here.

Monica Foster Breaks Down The 411 On Getting Into Porn With GettingIntoPorn.com

There are many ways and many approaches into getting into the adult entertainment media....some good and some not so good. For many women (and not a few men) who are thinking about getting in porn, the experience is usually through the seat of their pants...quite literally. Although there have been attempts in the past to provide guidance to women entering the industry -- such as the original Pink Ladies Social Club of the 1980's formed by activist porn women (including Nina Hartley, Angel Kelly, Jeanna Fine, and others); as well as the "Porn 101" video that was originally offered during the 90's by Sharon Mitchell and AIM (and which also happened to feature Nina as well) -- for the most part the most that many women have in preparation for adult has been on-the-job training, which might not be the best way to learn about the pitfalls and benefits of being an adult performer.

Fortunately, more and more active performers are beginning to speak out and mentor to wannabe starlets and performers alike about the risks and benefits.

Monica Foster happens to be one of them...and she has parlayed her own experiences in transitioning from an erotic dancer to a full-time adult XXX performer into a website (GettingIntoPorn.com) geared towards educating women and men interested in getting into the industry.

Ms. Foster's site is very much comprehensive, and pulls no punches on what she thinks about the state of the industry and the expectations and benefits for newcummers. From the enclosed Flash video where she explains why she decided to launch this site and examines her own experiences -- good and bad -- in porn, to the enhanced breakdown of everything from establishing your "pre-porn" mindset and foundation to finding an agency to promote your talents to dealing with issues in shooting a scene; Monica really does an excellent job of providing the tools needed for interested persons to make informed decisions about doing XXX videos and other explicit sexual media.

And she manages to do this without the usual preaching and moralizing about how porn should only be this way or that way; she simply states the facts as they exist, and leaves it up to the viewer to consider her own destiny. She does allow for her own personal beliefs and perspective as a Black female porn performer, which is very much refreshing considering the usual lack of visibility amongst Black women in porn.

Monica's site is backed up by an associated blog, a MySpace page, and a series of videos available on YouTube.

Anyone who wants an honest, yet positive and accurate guide into getting into "the industry" should go immediately to Monica's site....it is more than worth the time.

Odds and Ends

Generation Sex

An article on "Teens and Porn" was just published in my local alt-weekly. I was expecting the worst based on the often-panicky subject matter, but the article was surprisingly fair, and features interviews with Marty Klein and Neil Malmuth. (No doubt the antis will consider the article biased for not interviewing "experts" like Ann Simonton, Diana Russell, and Judith Reisman.) Even more surprisingly, Malmuth is actually quoted accurately for once, as opposed to the usual BS that his research "proves" porn leads to aggression.

Check it out.

Rob Black and Lizzie Borden Sentenced

The Extreme Associates case (which I covered in more depth here) draws to a close with the sentencing of owners Rob Zicari and Janet Romano to a year in the Federal pen on obscenity charges. It was a relatively light sentence compared to what they could have gotten, but it still represents the jailing (and financial ruin) of two people for mere expression of offensive imagery.

In an added development, the prosecution decided to make the last day something of a show trial, packing the courtroom and declaring the sentencing a victory for women's rights. [sound of head hitting desk]

As much as antis try to put forth the idea that porn represents a dominant "status quo" porn culture, actions like the above reveal otherwise. As blogger Orlando C recently wrote concerning BDSM:

This is not how the state treats a group it approves of; nor a group they want to crush. It is how the state treats suspect but plausibly harmless minorities. And it is important to note that a large number of BDSM practices are, in fact, illegal in most states. Generally no effort is made to enforce, let's say, assault charges for a consensual flogging, but it is still illegal. Its legal status, therefore, resembles homosexuality in the twilight of the sodomy laws.

FBI vs Deep Throat

In a peripherally-related story, the Associated Press has used the Freedom of Information Act to uncover documents related to the FBI's attempt to stop the distribution of Deep Throat in the early 70s. Apparently, this 498-page document represents only 10% of a larger FBI file on Gerard Damiano, most of which is still classified. The case actually reached the highest levels of the FBI (including, ironically, Mark "Deep Throat" Felt) and reveal something about the still-misplaced priorities of the FBI immediately following the Hoover and COINTELPRO era.

It would be nice if we could finally relegate these kind of government actions to the "bad old days" file.

Blog Roundup: Performers Speak Out about STDs and the Porn Industry

In so much of the mainstream media coverage of the recent outbreak, what is conspicuous by its absence are the voices of performers, who, after all, are the ones in the trenches that ultimately suffer the effects of STDs if they're transmitted in the making of porn. Thankfully, many current and former performers blog, and a number of them have had quite a bit to say about the recent outbreak and what steps the industry should take. They have a variety of positions on what needs to be done, but all represent a far better informed position than I'm hearing from the current crop of public health officials and activists.

Without much further ado:

Renegade Evolution: Porn and Condoms
Nina Hartley's Journal: HIV In The News
Audacia Ray: HIV outbreak in the porn industry
Belladonna on Safer Sex and the Industry
Marie Luv Tells Why She's Quarantined
Monica Foster: [1], [2]

AbbyWinters Raided!

Well, if there was ever an answer to the question, "Why defend porn? Why does it need defending?", it certainly came in the form of reports on the Somebody Think Of The Children blog and XBiz of a police raid on the offices of GMedia (owner of AbbyWinters.com) and the arrest of owner Garion Hall. Thankfully, the raid ultimately didn't amount to much, with Garion Hall being released without charges, no other arrests, and with no seizure of equipment. But one has to ask, given the generally high regard for AbbyWinters and related sites as progressive porn, as well as the supposedly more enlightened attitude toward sex work in Australia, how did it ever get to the point where this company was raided?

While AbbyWinters is highly regarded for its progressive and ethical stance in porn production, its has for several years been a target of the likes of Gail Dines and Robert Jensen who seek to fundamentally attack the idea that there could ever be a such thing as "feminist porn". Based on rumors I've seen posted, GMedia and related companies are also the site of fair amount behind-the-scenes squabbling and dirty laundry among the producers and staff, several of whom have left after conflicts with Garion Hall. There has also been ongoing controversy over shadowy founder and chief photographer "Abby Winters", who is probably not a real figure, but is presented as such by G Media, leading to accusations that this is once again an alt-porn company falsely creating a "woman-owned" image. And most notably, there was the very public break by GMedia model Liandra Dahl, who came to see AbbyWinters and the other Aussie alt sites (such as IFeelMyself) as not meeting her ideals of what a feminist porn site should be.

Unfortunately, what should have remained an argument in the porn, sex-positive, and feminist communities found its way into the the Australian right-wing tabloid The Herald-Sun, which in late 2007 published a sensationalist pair of hit pieces against G Media in late 2007. (Liandra Dahl, for her part, turned up most recently in the comments at the Somebody Think Of The Children post, rebuking the Herald-Sun for its coverage and the police for their raid.)

After that minor tempest, AbbyWinters largely stayed out of the spotlight, except as part of the lager controversy around proposed internet censorship in Australia (thankfully defeated). However, Keith Moor, the Herald-Sun yellow journalist responsible for the earlier hit pieces, was not about to let the story go and went to the Victoria Police with "evidence" of that Garion Hall was luring naive teenage girls into pornography and shooting illegal content. Apparently, there is some case for the latter "legal" claim, in that Victoria, Australia has the exact inverse situation to California and other US states, in that brothel prostitution is legal, but apparently producing porn isn't, though the latter laws against porn are rarely if ever enforced. (Example #999 of how arbitrary and random laws regulating the sex industry are.)

This was enough for the Victoria Police to launch an "Operation Refuge" against GMedia, which in the end netted – exactly nothing. I'd say Garion Hall should take a tip from Sharon Mitchell and sue this Keith Moor idiot, but perhaps its best to let sleeping dogs lie. However, this does serve as a prime example of how those of us on the anti-anti-porn side are not just a bunch of paranoids defending a "powerful" industry – anti-porn ideology still has the backing of law enforcement and the state and can be unleashed against anybody creating sexually explicit media, whether its Max Hardcore or Abby Winters. Its also far too easy for one overzealous activist or yellow journalist to get a witch hunt like this going. All of which is why so many of us pointy-headed sex-pozzies continue to agitate for an end to remaining laws censoring porn or prohibiting its production.

One more note – while researching this post, I found the Victoria Police actually have a feedback page that says: "What are your thoughts on current Victoria Police initiatives? Let us know - Leave a comment"

The Vampires Strike Back

Evidently, with the gang at County Health at least temporarily sidelined by that inconvenient retraction of earlier false statements issued yesterday, Cal-OSHA, which shares the same "mandatory condoms at any price" approach, has decided to act unilaterally in an attempt to impose their standards through some kind of administrative fiat. They laid the groundwork for this yesterday by playing Elliot Ness at AIM's main Clinic. Read all about it via the L.A. Times:

Health officials inspect clinic that serves porn industry

Tired of waiting for a response from the Adult Industry Medical Healthcare Foundation about a positive HIV test for a performer, state investigators make the surprise visit.

By Kimi Yoshino

June 18, 2009

Tired of waiting for a response from the San Fernando Valley-based health clinic where an adult film actress recently tested positive for HIV, state health and safety investigators Wednesday performed a surprise inspection of the medical offices and this week will issue subpoenas demanding access to patient records.

Since the HIV case was disclosed last week, public health officials and AIDS advocacy groups repeatedly have criticized the Adult Industry Medical Healthcare Foundation for not cooperating fully with county and state authorities and for protecting the industry by withholding the name of the production company that filmed the woman without a current, clean test.

The state also is seeking information about 18 additional HIV-positive cases that the clinic has reported to Los Angeles County health officials since 2004. The county did not investigate those cases and has no information on whether they involved active adult performers or how the transmissions occurred. AIM has said that the latest case involves the first active performer to contract the disease since a 2004 outbreak shut down production for a month.

"We were unaware of all of these cases until recent reports came out," said Dean Fryer, a spokesman for the state Division of Occupational Safety and Health. "That's why we wanted to get into the clinic. We wanted to interview staff that work there. We wanted to look at records. We want to understand this."

The agency was prepared to obtain a court warrant to gain access, but when investigators arrived at the Sherman Oaks facility Wednesday afternoon, clinic officials let them in and cooperated.

"The response was fairly good," said Amy Martin, special counsel to the Division of Occupational Safety and Health. "They allowed our people to do a walk-around. They allowed them to speak to employees. There was no exchange of documents yet. There will be in the future and we'll see how that goes."

Sharon Mitchell, the former porn star who opened the clinic in 1998, could not be reached for comment.

The clinic's attorney, Mark Levinson, said, "It's strange that this happened at this particular moment, but it's their right and we have nothing to hide."

He said he could not comment on requests to turn over documents until he receives the subpoenas.

In statements on the clinic's website, Mitchell repeatedly has maintained that the clinic is following all laws. She has said that the actress and her two sexual partners have been barred from work, pending additional testing. The partners haven't tested positive.

Mitchell has told county officials that the clinic, which was sued for breach of privacy after the 2004 outbreak, is awaiting final, confirmatory test results and legally has up to seven days to report the information.

But state health and safety officials didn't buy that.

"If you're going to err, err on the side of caution," Martin said. "Don't say let's wait another seven additional days and meanwhile, let's go make some more unprotected films. . . . We think they're creating a hazard by sending people into a known unsafe work practice. They're who the industry relies on to stop the people from working."

The industry has long held that its practices are safe. Producers say that no performer is filmed without proof of negative tests, which should be taken every 30 days, according to industry standards.

That is not adequate protection, Martin said, because the disease might not show up in tests for days. The only protection is condom use, she said.


So, other than disrupting clinic operations and attempting to intimidate the entire porn community, the purpose of this fishing expedition would appear to be the beginning of an effort to use whatever flmsy excuse they can to compel the whole industry to do sex the way they tell us or face random inspections (of which there can never be very many because they lack the funds and personnel to properly regulate the thousands of industries already under their jurisdiction) and fines and other administrative penalties where they see opportunities. That's clearly what they were seeking yesterday - opportunities.

As it's already be established, by the admission of our friend Dr. Fielding, that the so-called "undisclosed cases of HIV in the porn community" weren't really in the porn community at all, Cal-OSHA's spokesman Dean Fryer's claim that: "We were unaware of all of these cases until recent reports came out," and that they are the reason "... we wanted to get into the clinic. We wanted to interview staff that work there. We wanted to look at records. We want to understand this" seems pretty flimsy. Those cases, as we know and as County Health now admits, were not industry-related, and the last time I checked, Cal-OSHA didn't have authority to regulate people's behavior in their own bedrooms.

But the real object of their interest is pretty obvious, and directly related to the single HIV case detected on June 4. In the words of Cal-OSHA's chief condom crusader Amy Martin: "If you're going to err, err on the side of caution. Don't say let's wait another seven additional days and meanwhile, let's go make some more unprotected films. . . . We think they're creating a hazard by sending people into a known unsafe work practice. They're who the industry relies on to stop the people from working."

Of course, AIM has already quarantined the tiny group of contacts from the single established HIV case discovered on June 4, and in any event, AIM doesn't "send" anybody anywhere. AIM monitors, reports, traces contacts, makes notifications and recommends action. That's what it was created to do and that is the extent of its abilities.

But somewhere in those records that Cal-OSHA seeks by court order, hoping to override California's medical privacy laws (for the greater good, of course) these officials want to find specific information about the infected performer, and where, when and with whom she worked. This would pave the way for levying fines against the company that shot her wiithout a clean test. Martin and her friends read the papers and know the other cases waved in the wind by Dr. Fielding and his pals are unrelated. That's just a cover for the obvious objective of pinning down a culprit in this affair and making an example, which they will try to expand to include the entire industry.

Anyone doubting that that is the goal should re-read Martin's parting shot:

"The industry has long held that its practices are safe. Producers say that no performer is filmed without proof of negative tests, which should be taken every 30 days, according to industry standards.

That is not adequate protection, Martin said, because the disease might not show up in tests for days. The only protection is condom use, she said."

Cal-OSHA has previously fined a production company for creating a workplace hazard during the events of 2004 and I have no doubt if they turn up what they're looking for, which may or may not be possible from trolling the paperwork of an unspecified number of AIM's clients and whatever other information AIM's contact tracing activities may have generated, that the agency will act against the company in question.

How far they can go beyond that is not Their intention to extend what powers they legitimately enjoy to try and impose universal condom use in porn without the benefit of specific enabling legislation by pursuing sanctions against purported safety regulation violators in an effort to intimidate everyone else into adopting their preferred approach is clear enough from Martin's statement.

This did not happen in 2004, when there were demonstrated workplace HIV transmissions and fines were successfully imposed on producers, so it's pretty doubtful that they'll get what they want, other than somebody's head to hang on their office wall, out of this latest show of force.

The overwhelming majority of producers who have followed AIM's recommendations and never had an HIV incident on any of their sets are quite likely to go on doing what they've been doing, just as they did after 2004.

However, the invasion of AIM's facilities by the inspectors, the attempt to discredit AIM's methods and the disruption of AIM's operations pretty much confirm worst suspicions about the agency's secondary goal of undermining confidence in the existing safeguards, even if no workable replacement yet exists.

Can this blatantly political exercise of state power succeed in making things worse for everybody? To some extent, by compromising AIM's confidential relationships with its clients, it already has. But how far it can really go from there would appear headed for some kind of juridical determination.

There are legal limits to CAl-OSHA's reach, and the standard they wish to force down all our throats having been created for a different industry without consultation with those to be subjected to sweeping new rgulations most likely exceeds the agency's authority.

It looks like we're going to find out.

In the meantime, Amy Martin can pursue her agenda at taxpayer expense to whatever end while the industry continues to do what it has been doing all along: operating as normal under AIM's accepted testing protocols.

The ugly way in which Martin and her gang have conducted their campaign deserves whatever push-back it's going to get, but the end result is unlikely to have much impact on the broader operations of porn producers. Existing laws don't support a single state agency's desire to dictate massive new regulations by administrative fiat, and the laws that will enable them to do so aren't going to be enacted for reasons that have been previously discussed at interminable length.

More showboating, more grandstanding, more strong-arm tactics and no substantive change in anything. That's what Cal-OSHA's latest door-busting at a health care clinic amount to. They should know by now that these things don't go down well around here. Bigger government entities with much more impressive powers at their disposal have been using those same tactics for years in efforts to regulate porn content through criminal prosecution. They get some heads now and then too, but the rest of us go on according to our own best judgment, and I'm betting that these arrogant bureaucrats are going to run into some pretty stiff resistance when they try to prevent us from engaging in our lawful production of adult entertainment.

But I'm sure they'll keep on trying.