Helping Norma Jean
Angela KeatonAt Large Representative
Libertarian National Committee

A big beautiful tent full of libertarians. Join Libertarians for Arts, Entertainment and Culture.

Friends of Freedom:

Norma Jean Almodovar, the Libertarian Party of California's 1986 candidate for Lt. Governor and author of Cop to Call Girl, is facing some serious challenges. Since she has gotten out of prison where she was incarcerated for a victimless "crime," Norma Jean has difficulty finding work given both her record and courageous activism. In addition, Norma Jean's husband is in frail and failing health. A proud libertarian activist, she is struggling to ask for much needed help. Given the family's strong objectivist leanings, a traditional fund raising appeal would be inappropriate. However, you can do the following:

*Norma Jean has significant knowledge of Quark and Adobe software. You have an affiliate newsletter. Hire a layout editor who shares your values.

*Add a link to International Sex Worker Foundation for Art, Culture and Education. Contributions are tax deductable and help educate the public on the realities sex workers face under our current laws.

*Interview Norma Jean on your blog, webcast, podcast, cable access or micro broadcast. Her story is one woman's struggle against corruption and injustice.*Norma Jean is a talented artist. With the holiday season upon us, please support your libertarian artist. They are your values embodied in song, storyline and style.

If you would like to contact Norma Jean, please write her at normaja@webuniverse.net. She has led a one woman battle against the LAPD. For that alone, we give thanks.

In liberty, Angela

Degrading?

As a precursor to my eventual full book review of Robert Jensen's Getting Off, I wanted to post an excerpt from the chapter entitled "Pornography as a Mirror," in which Jensen colorfully describes scenes from several porn movies in order to drive home the point of how awful and misogynistic all porn is.

With all the porn Jensen has watched (for research purposes, you understand), one can only assume that he summarized these particular movies because they're the most effective at validating his thesis - and the most likely to garner a reaction of shock from readers. So what's the deal with this...?

A scene from Delusional, a 2000 release from Vivid:

Lindsay, the film's main character, is a woman slow to return to dating after she caught her husband cheating on her. She says she is waiting for the right man - a sensitive man - to come along. Her male coworker, Randy, clearly would like to be that man but must wait as Lindsay explores other sexual experiences, first with a woman named Alex, whom she meets online and assumes is a man. Later, after Alex and Lindsay have sex with a man in the kitchen of a restaurant, Lindsay is finally ready to accept Randy's affection. He takes her home and tells her, "I'll always be there for your no matter what. I just want to look out for you." Lindsay lets down her defenses, and they embrace.

After kissing and removing their clothes, Lindsay begins oral sex on Randy while on her knees on the couch, and he then performs oral sex on her while she lies on the couch. They then have intercourse, with Lindsay saying, "Fuck me, fuck me, please" and "I have two fingers in my ass - do you like that?" This leads to the usual progression of positions: She is on top of him while he sits on the couch, and then he enters her vaginally from behind before he asks, "Do you want me to fuck you in the ass?" She answers in the affirmative. "Stick it in my ass," she says. "I love the way you slide into my asshole. ... Deep in my ass. ... I'm coming on your cock in my ass." After two minutes of anal intercourse, the scene ends with him masturbating and ejaculating on her breasts.

So, wait. Where's the degrading part in that scene?

It just sounds like sex. And by some people's standards, pretty vanilla sex. Even for people who would consider it at the kinky end of their personal spectrum, due to the dirty talk and assplay, I really can't imagine anyone finding it degrading who didn't have bigger hang-ups about sex in general. In fact, the only part of that excerpt that I see as degrading to women in any way is this:

Lindsay lets down her defenses

Note, that's not a line from the movie. Those are Jensen's chosen words to describe the onscreen events. I find it very telling that he uses language which casts the woman in the passive role, and the man in an active, even conquering role, with the implication of sex being a conquest and women having "defenses" which must be "broken down" by men.

This is, of course, the sexual script that's reinforced by the dominant culture day in and day out, to the detriment of everyone. This skewed view of gender roles (as Figleaf would say, women as the "no-sex" class) is exactly what Jensen claims to be opposing. Yet with a few words, he's revealed volumes about how entrenched he still is in sex-negative cultural norms.

[Cross-posted at Being Amber Rhea]

New Federal anti-sex work legislation passes House

A new version of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TPRVA 2007/11) just passed the House (as H.R. 3887) and is now on its way to the Senate. While it contains some laudable legislation combatting forced labor and child soldiering, it also, once again, targets voluntary sexual labor by conflating it with forced prostitution and sex trafficking. It contains a very sweeping section outlawing "sex tourism" (the section in question can be found on pages 69–72 of the text of the bill), which it basically defines as any movement over into or out of the United States for purposes of performing or purchasing "illicit sexual acts", which includes any and all commercial sexual services. Existing legislation prohibits traveling abroad to purchase sex with minors; the new legislation expands this to include sex with consenting adults, even in countries where this is legal. (For example, an American who buys sex in an Amsterdam brothel would be subject to Federal prosecution back in the US.) Notably, it also criminalizes travel to or from the US to sell sexual services as well. (For example, a Montreal escort who travels to an American city to sell sex would be further criminalized under Federal law, in addition to existing local law.) Basically, it resurrects the Mann Act and internationalizes it.

Maxine Doogan of the Erotic Service Providers Union posted about the legislation over Bay Area Indymedia. Lisa Roellig, also of ESPU, has this to say over at Bound, Not Gagged:

TVPRA 2007/11 passed the house Tuesday. Below is the link for anyone who has the time to read it in in its entirety. The sections relating to the sex industry clearly conflate all sex work with sex trafficking and the consequences for all workers in our industry I believe could be quite horrific. I believe the passage of the TVPRA 2007/11 through the house should be considered an emergency and all workers and allies should mobilize before the legislation gets to the Senate for a vote.

I want to know if the porn industry has had any concerns with this legislation. In reading the legislation, I believe sex workers who work on camera have every reason to be as concerned as the sex workers who work “off camera.”

The most troubling aspect of this legislation is that not only does it conflate all sex work with sex trafficking but also that for the way our industry operates, where workers are frequently crossing borders to work, be it national or international, the potential for massive arrests and long periods of prison time are very distressing. Note, up to 10 years for the worker and up to 30 years for the support staff.

Anybody else feeling this?

Roellig raises an interesting question about how this affects the porn industry and porn industry workers, since porn models often travel internationally for the purpose of having sex on camera. Under present American legal interpretation, hiring somebody to act in a porn movie is considered distinct from prostitution under the legal precedent established by California v. Freeman; however, this decision is not binding outside of California (even though porn is shot in quite a few other US States) and is not binding on the Federal government. Hence, the Federal government could very well use this legislation to come down on porn production involving an international cast. (I've also heard some suggestions about attempting to apply Lawrence v. Texas to commercial sexual encounters, but as of yet, this is an entirely untested approach.)

The area of international anti-trafficking legislation is an area where "porn lobby" groups like the Free Speech Coalition have been really asleep at the wheel and needs to be more on top of.

Writing one's Senators and asking them to remove the "sex tourism" section and similar sections of the bill as harmful toward sex workers and criminalizing legal, consensual behavior might be worthwhile, though considering the sexual conservatism of most politicians and the overwrought rhetoric of prostitution abolitionists, changing politicians minds on the subject is a long shot. But then again, hearing more "I support sex workers, oppose the criminalization of consensual adult behaviors, and, BTW, I vote" messages from their constituency might just plant a seed.

Oh, and one other thing struck me about this legislation – about a month ago, I was listening to a story about problems in Iraq with Blackwater mercenaries, about how they were guilty of outright war crimes, but nobody in the US government can figure out their legal status, that is, whether they're under jurisdiction of Iraqi or US military or civilian law. Yet, when it comes to the simple act of buying sex, something that's legal in much of the world, suddenly sweeping international jurisdiction is real easy to come up with!

More of AK Getting Off on "Getting Off"

Having now read Chris Hall's excellent review of Robert Jensen's Getting Off over at Sex in the Public Square (and greatly anticipating the lovely Amber Rhea's forthcoming review of same) has really brought up some points that I failed to address in my initial "review".

For starters, to quote this excerpt from Chris's review:

He does not, of course, ever say that we should just cloister ourselves and live lives of sexual abstinence. But when he does try to give solutions to the nightmare world that he depicts, Robert Jensen’s words lose their fire. His description of a positive sexuality is vague and bloodless, and speaks little of sex as a physical act but in semi-mystical terms about light and mystery and touch. It’s bland and dull, but even worse, it gives little in the way of practical advice. In the 90’s, I came away from reading sex-positive writers like Carol Queen and Susie Bright with sophisticated ways of thinking about safer sex techniques, talking honestly about limits, and what consent was and wasn’t. All that I get from Jensen is an admonition that we should try to make sex be more about light, and less about heat. (And god help me, I’m still not sure what that means.)

It took until this morning before reading that graph when it really did hit me: what Jensen means by his version of a "bloodless sexuality" that contains "more heat and less light" is similar to what the cultural feminists of the 1980s described as a "feminist sexuality" that would be imposed as much on women as on men. In that vision, sex would be concieved as much less a physical pleasure and more of a transcending, supernatural presence which would somehow go beyond the experiences and sensations of the individuals; more of a sprirtual and universal experience in communal bonding than any individualistic physical act. Of course, such a transcendent phonenom would be totally shorn of such "patriarchial" nonsenses as erections, body fluids, or even orgasms; such trite physical sensations would be whisked away by the sheer revolutionary outer-body experience that "feminist sex" would produce in men freed from their evil "patriarchial" ideas of power and domination. It's almost as if Jensen and his radicalfeminist mentors see his crusade against "masculinity" and the porn that he alleges is the foundation behind it as the key to ending world war, hunger, economic and social inequality, and most other ills of the world.

The problem with such a utopia, though, is that it comes dangerously close to an equally restrictive and "transcending" view of sexuality: that of the Religious Right.

It is no accident that the social conservatives have so appropriated much of Jensen's core theory about male sexual rapicity towards women; albeit with the aim of supporting and abetting their own traditional sexual morality of restraining sex within the act of procreation within marriage. The contraposition of the "liberating" and "beautiful" and "uplifting" power of what they call "the marital act" when "two become one" (or "when two become one") in the conception of a child, with the "ugly", "selfish", "compulsive", and "addictive" acts of sex for physical pleasure alone; has been a stable of conservative and traditionalist thought about sexuality since time immortal. Strangely enough, it has now been appropriated by the most sexually conservative feminists as a means of "protecting" women from the "male gaze", but with an added twist: "personal intimacy" and "emotional integrity" within codependent monogamy has replaced hetero marital procreation at the top of the privileged and sacred pyramid.

The emphasis may differ with each movement: the antipornradfems seek to regulate the supposed out-of-control nature of male sexuality at the hands of the "patriarchy"; while the fundamentalists target what they perceive as the threat of unbridled female sexuality in defiance of "God's law" (or "Allah's", or "Yawheh's" or any other deity of choice). But the effect is nevertheless the same: to inprision and restrict men's and women's sexual choices and impose a rather strained, exclusive, and repressive system of sexual regulation and choice by the use of shame and guilt (and with the full power of the State as a backup just in case the "gentle persuasion" and "conciousness raising" doesn't elicit the changes sought).

That such a reactionary concept of sexuality can be passed along as "progressive", even "Leftist" is one of the utter tragedies of this book....almost as much as the complete denial of female sexual agency that lurks just underneath the surface of Jensen's jerimiads.


The other thought that reared its head at me was about the individualistic approach that Jensen takes in his activism towards men who might be suspect to his illogic. He seems to see progressive activism as most of the culturalist Left and liberals of the 1970s do: as a means of consciousness raising of people already with "privilege" to confront, accept, and then repudiate such privilege and see the world as their apparant "victims" of such racial or gender or imperial privilege would. (Call it the "Walk a mile in their shoes" type of movement, if you will.)

This kind of activism sounds all well and good at first...but it ultimately suffers from the same flaw that most culturally-based movements falter on: the inability to take on fundamental physical institutions of inequality; and the confusion of individual acts of cruelty with institutional acts of inequality. Rape may be a universal crime of sexual anger and rage directed by men towards women (but don't forget anti-gay hate, either!!!), and certainly may be exploitable as part of larger hate campaigns against certain groups; but that doesn't change the basic fact that rape is for the most part an act of extreme violence done by an individual (or group of individuals) against an individual person.

Conversely, as much as many people might find facials or double penetration or anal sex "demeaning" and "filthy", the fact remains that even loving and caring and committed people can engage in such activities and find them personally upliftiing, or simply arousing. The difference is in the overall political and cultural outlook of whomever is making the prejudgment about such acts; not in the acts themselves.

On the other hand, though, laws specifically created to restrict and constrain sexual expression and behavior amongst consenting adults do far, far, far more damage to progressive activism than any of the dire consensual sex acts that so excise Jensen and his radfem mentors. Not only do they literally invite the State to intervene in matters of personal sexual tastes and asthetics that are better left to individual choice and free will; but they are the ultimate gateway to justifying more explicit political censorship.....the kind that has been traditionally used against the Left and against liberals in general for time immortal. Can't Jensen see the connection between McCarthyism and the anti-"homosexual menace" movements of the 1950s?? The intimate links between White supremacism and religious bigotry and sex crime so starkly seen in the castration and lynching of Black men (and rape of Black women) during the Jim Crow years??) The undercurrent of sexual bigotry and fear underlying the current memes against "illegal aliens" (read, anyone Latin@ who isn't a paid agent of the GOP or not useable as a slave for multinational corporations)?? The antiabortion movement and the attack on basic women's control of their own reproductive systems and all the "sluts get what they deserve" rhetoric??

Maybe Bob Jensen with his doctorate and his upper-middle-class background can overlook all this...but I as a working-class Black man certainly can't.

There are far, far more important issues of racial and gender and economic inequality -- and the institutions of capital and State that buttress and reinforce such inequality -- for liberals and Leftists to tackle; it is a distraction and a ruse and a dead end to get caught up in baiting and hating men for having impromptu erections (and women for getting damp panties and engorged clits) at the mere sight of imagery that doesn't fit a narrow ideologue's personal squicks. Save the hate for the rapists and true misogynists who earn it....and work the energy someplace else more fruitful than getting into every man's boxers....and every woman's panties.


[Cross-posted to The SmackDog Chronicles]

Emily Sander (aka Zoey Zane): Sex Hate Claims Another Individual

If you ever needed to know why this blog needs to exist, than this latest bit of tragic breaking news should make the issue as clear as ever.

This comes directly from the Zoey Zane website, straight on the heels of the report of her confirmed murder and abandonment (with a tip of the hat to James over at the Adult Sites Search Yahoo! group).

http://www.zoeyzane.com

We currently are working with a local bank in Kansas to setup a reward fund for the capture of Isreal Mireles. Please check back to this url for updated info.....

18-year-old Emily Sander was a college student from Kansas who was missing for nearly a week after Thanksgiving weekend. She was last seen leaving a bar in El Dorado, Kansas about 30 miles from Wichita, with a man identified by police as Israel Mireles, 24 years old, authorities said. El Dorado police found evidence of foul play after entering Mireles' hotel room where he was living. A nationwide hunt went on to find Emily. Emily was a beautiful, young spunky girl - 5'3" at 105 pounds. She had shoulder length brown hair and blue eyes that could light up the room. She had just started college and was looking forward to getting her degree so she could move back home to Texas where all her friends and family were.

Sadly, Emily's body was found 50 miles East of where she was last seen with Mireles, on Thursday, November 29, 2007 around 2:30pm near Toronto Lake in Kansas. Emily's life ended too soon. Her case was quickly updated to a homicide, and a nationwide manhunt is now under way for Mireles and his 16-year-old pregnant girlfriend, who both started on the run just after Emily's disappearance, known to be heading South. Mireles was driving a 2007 Ford Taurus rental car, which turned up Tuesday, November 27 in Texas, just near where he had family. Authorities believe that he is either trying to cross the Texas border to Mexico, or have already crossed the border. He also has family ties in Mexico.

It truly saddens us to see, in this day and age, that we still live in a society that ridicules a women for doing something that is completely legal. There was some incorrect information leaked to the press yesterday by a unknown individual named "David Thomas" claiming to have information about Emily's "Porn" career. We want to set the record straight. Emily was a solo nude model whose site went live September,25 2007. She was exactly that - a solo girl. There was no interaction between Emily with any Male. It was just Emily, her fun-loving personality, and the camera. We decided, a day before the media reports came out about Emily's "porn" career, to take down her website out of respect to Emily and Emily's family. We were unaware if Emily's family knew of the site and didn't want to add any unneeded stress or burden to them. The last thing we wanted was for her case to turn into a "missing porn star" case, which is exactly what the media turned it in to, which sadly took away the focus of Emily's disappearance and the importance of finding Isreal Mireles.

Of course, it surprises me like not at all that the tabloid media is playing up the "innocent girl corrupted and killed by porn" angle, it's the only way they know how to get ratings these days.

And it doesn't surprise me one bit either that all the usual antipornradicalfeminist posse will exploit this case as a wedge to indict and convict all porn and all the men who consume it for the apparant individual crime of Isreal Mireles.....that is the only way THEY can seem to keep their myopias afloat.

And....no freakin' surprise that some will attempt as is the usual to try to pin the blame on Ms. Sander/Ms Zane for her own death...as if her chosen hobby, her body piercings, her love of sex, or her choice of drinking partners had anything to do with the nature of her far too premature death.

(Don't even try, ByrdBrain....this blog is not a free carrier.)

All I care about is that a woman who hasn't even begun to live her life has had it taken away from her tragically, suddenly, and horribly.....and the real culture of sexual fear and loathing and sex-hate -- the REAL culture of death -- has claimed another victim.

Only God and the criminal justice system will ultimately judge Isreal Mireles....but untill we get over ourselves and accept that young women should be fully free and responsible to make their own choices with their own bodies, sexually or otherwise, and have those choices respected and accepted....then the ultimate judgment will fall on all of us who watch all this happen and merely blink and nod in response.

This, ladies and gentlemen and 'ye of transgender, is what sex hate ultimately leads to.

Presente, Ms. Emily/Zoey.

[Crossposted also to The SmackDog Chronicles]

Thoughts, Prayers and Condolences to Vanessa del Rio....

...who just announced that her mother passed away last Thanksgiving after a long illness.

Thoughts should be forwarded to her official Yahoo! fan group:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ViaVanessadelRio

BTW....Slightly Off Topic....Memo to "Da Henchwoman...

...ahhhh, Ren...you rock the house like no other, and I appreciate you giving me the time and the dime profusely....

..but, could you PLEASE, do me a big favor and update the BPPA blogroll link for the SmackDog Chronicles to my current blog?? You still have the old link put out, which is out of date.

http://ajkenn-rgclub.com/SDChronBlog2dot3/index.php

Wouldappreciateitokthanxcyabye :-)

How NOT To Win The Heart Of A Porn Girl'

One part of the nature of being a female sex performer is in indulging the fantasy of being sexually desirable and available. It's basically one of the base requirements for being successful, even after the implants get old and the quick-hit gigs slow down.

Obviously, men and women tend to respond to such sexual stimuli with the fantasy of wanting to have sex with their favorite performer. In most cases, when both sides treat each other with respect and understand that it's just a fantasy; it can be not only very fun, but quite arousing.

Unfortunately, for a few folks who have a...shall we say, twisted view of women who do porn and sex work, the fantasy tends to be taken a bit too seriously...and venture out into dangerous and threatening ground. Then it is less a harmless fantasy and more like verbal attempted rape, and even stalking....and has done much to not only sully performers' opinion of their fans, but also feed the typical stereotypes of antipornradicalfeminists.

Case in point: One of my favorite porn starlets recently recieved a particularly nasty (and not in the good way, either) email from a "fan" (the quotes are deliberate, for reasons that should be obvious) reacting to her MySpace blog. For her protection and safety, I have redacted her name from the email, and I will not give out the blog location; but if you know the women whom I have memberships with, I figure that you will obviously figure it out on your own.

U have a wicked Oral Fixation?? Yes u do...like no other dirty ass slut...u
are the fuckin Whore of Whores!! The fuckin Tramp ass Queen of this shit!!
Dirty..and nasty..and filthy..and just what I fuckin lust after.. I am going 2
make u lust me baby.. I am going 2 make u lose your fuckin mind.. u big titty
bitch.. u have had a lot of dicks..but u have never had mine.. Oral Fixation..?
My cock..in your mouth..spells the greatest face fuck this world has never
known.. get your asshole stretched..get your tits plucked..and get your tight
ass pussy torn 2 shreds when u fuck with me.. I am Blasphemy baby..do not think
I do not know who the fuck u are.. u are a star..and I am the sun.. and u will
not get any rest..even after I am done.. I am going 2 wear that pretty pussy of
yours out.. and when we cum..we will cum 2gether..and we will change the
weather..because I never..enter any pussy..and fail 2 make the bitch cum at
least twice! u are fuckin with the baddest [target of hate redacted]..I am
nothing nice.. and never will be.. now dream about me..u fuckin slutty ass whore
of a bitch!!

Now, this nonsense might play well at a JM Productions site/message board or with some other hardcore "gonzo" outlet, and there may be some women who might even dismiss such talk as classically over the top lust....but in this case, the targeted starlet was startled and frightened enough to ask the question, "Why is it that some people think that they can talk to women that way??" She noted that she has gotten similarly hateful emails before from such "fans"; even enough that she thought about pulling all her non-paid sites and blogs in protest. Fortunately, the men who are the regulars to her blog were quick to respond and repudiate this "fan" as a brute, an asshole, and a braggart who probably couldn't back up his harsh talk with action; and reassure her that most of her male fans do respect her as a performer and as a person.

But it does make me wonder as a sex-positive porn fan and activist what it is that makes people like this "fan" go so hyperagggressive and so over the top. Is it the lingering deep clash between the body being turned on by sexual images and the mind still caught up in such negative stereotypes of "bitches" and "whores" and the still popular myth that women who do porn have no worth other than the sum of their cunts and anuses?? Is it just that some men will forever turn into sheer asshats at the sight of a naked lady who shows off her love of sex?? It's one thing -- and perfectly normal, in my view -- to want to fuck a gorgeous woman who offers her body in public....but, "to wear that pretty pussy out"?? To "get your asshole stretched...your tits plucked...your tight-ass pussy torn to shreds"??? Kinda extreme, if you ask me.

Moe than likely, this fool simply picked the wrong girl to brag about his sexual "prowess" with; and hopefully he gets his sorry ass filled with buckshot so that he remembers not to make that same mistake again. I only hope that the men out there who happen to be real and genuine fans of porn and sex work will show a bit more respect for the women who make their desires possible. Just because they happen to enjoy showing themselves off doesn't mean that they aren't still human beings worthy of empathy and respect. Even if they do have "oral fixations."

2008 Sex-Positive Journalism Awards Now Seeking Entries

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Chris Hall Dissects Bob Jensen's "Getting Off"

Chris Hall over at Sex in the Public Square has now posted his review of Robert Jensen's Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity;

A couple of excerpts follow:

Jensen, on the other hand, sees pornography as part of the “sexual exploitation industries” which include stripping, phone sex, and prostitution as well as the McPorn that comes out of the San Fernando Valley and the amateur sites that pepper the web. Jensen is a well-known activist and writer on other progressive causes, specifically racism and anti-war politics, and he sees his opposition to porn as the logical extension of that work (and vice versa). Men who are interested in social justice, he argues, can’t use pornography or patronize sex workers without betraying those principles at a fundamental level.

To Jensen, pornography is a mirror, a dark and violent one which few can bear to look into without flinching or deceiving themselves about what they see there: “Pornography forces women to face up to how men see them. And pornography forces men to face up to what we have become.”

The first two-thirds of the book are spent looking deeply into the mirror of pornography and the ethical problems that Jensen finds in its creation and its use. It is a personal narrative as well as a political treatise. For any man writing on pornography, either pro- or anti-, it could hardly be any other way; one thing that most men have in common is that we started out our sexual lives with porn. However we feel about that, it’s almost an inevitability, and now with the internet, is even more so than when Jensen saw his first pornographic magazine in the early sixties, or when, in the seventies, I found my dad’s Playboy magazines, filled cover-to-cover with naked Farrah Fawcett wannabes. It is, in a way, a language that we all speak, no matter how we feel about it, and so it’s even more urgent that we be able to speak honestly and openly about it.

[...]

Jensen starts immediately with some sleight-of-hand regarding pornography. In explaining where he wants to go with the book, he says very specifically that he's going to focus on a textual analysis of the content of mass-produced heterosexual pornography. In short, the main product of good old Porn Valley. In itself, that seems like a fair strategy. It wouldn't be illegitimate for a literary critic to write a book focusing on post-war hard-boiled fiction instead of writing about every subgenre of mystery fiction from The Murders in the Rue Morgue to Carl Hiassen's latest. But we would expect such an author to draw conclusions about the style of Jim Thompson vs. Raymond Chandler — not about Arthur Conan Doyle's place in Victorian culture. The conclusions that Jensen draws from his narrow survey, in contrast, are sweeping in nature about how sexually explicit imagery affects our views of ourselves and others. Jensen's conclusions are not a critique about the mentality of Porn Valley, or of the specific kinds of porn that Porn Valley pecializes in, but are an assault on porn as a genre. Porn isn't a good thing made bad by greedy and stupid people. It's just rotten to the core.

Thirty years ago, Jensen might have been able to get away with that. Both the production and the audience for porn were more homogenized before every American home was equipped first with a VCR and then with a PC linked up to the Internet. More importantly, the conversation about genders and sexualities was much more homogenized. In those days, there were men and there were women; there were gays and there were straights. But some remarkable things have happened in the last twenty years or so; sexual politics has become radicalized in a way that Jensen and his ideological allies couldn't have imagined back then, and seem unable to appreciate even now when they're staring those radical notions straight in the face. We're now faced with the notion that gender isn't just x and y, but z or xy or yz *x or any number of other combinations. The notion of orientation as binary and immutable is considered by many of us not only as antiquated but repressive. Sex workers now demand the right to call themselves feminist without calling themselves victims of their work. Queer and feminist activists now look at power play of all kinds as a part their sexuality that enhances, rather than opposes, their radical politics. And women actively create and critique porn, not just for men, but for themselves.

[...]

Robert Jensen's passion is reserved for visualizing women's sexual pain. Never once does he turn that passion the other direction to look at the possibilities for women's sexual pleasure. There is not, in the end, so much difference between Jensen and the most misogynist, exploitative porn director; neither can imagine the sexual role of men as being anything other than to fuck, nor can they imagine women's roles as being anything other than to be fucked. And that's why, regardless of my doubts about mainstream porn, I can never, never imagine aligning myself with Jensen and his ilk. Because at the heart of his arguments, I see the same misogynist bullshit that I want to excise from pornography.

By all means, go and see the full review ASAP.

If only she were naked...

Long time no post.

But I just ran across this, and am entirely creeped the fuck OUT now.

http://www.recl usiveleftis t.com/?p=685

(take out the spaces.) (poss trig -- the video shows graphic footage of verbal abuse and beating)

These people see a horrific video of a woman being degraded, insulted, and finally beaten, in which there is no sexual content at all, and all they can think of is "that's BDSM porn?" I quote from a comment quoted in the post:

Feminists would no longer be unanimous that scenes of him saying all those hateful things to a woman while doing specifically sexual violence to her on film were abuse. Some would defend it as sexual freedom. Some would praise it as transgressive BDSM erotica and therefore pro-woman.

The one thing I want to ask these people -- really, really want to ask -- is why everything is porn to them. Why everything is BDSM. I don't get it at all. It almost seems to me like they *want* these things to be porn. Like they *want* them to be sexual.

And that terrifies me. It terrifies me much more than the thought even of someone unapologetically hoarding and collecting pornography depicting mock torture and watching it over and over.

Because these people are sexualizing real abuse. And for all their indignance, I don't know why they would do that. It's like they're wishing she were naked, wishing she were being raped here, because it would serve their ends.

And how creepy is it that if it were depicting rape and beating, they would be watching it (over and over if my hunch is right), commenting on it, reproducing it, linking to it, pointing at it over and over to prove them right?

The Rising Tide of "Leftist" Sex Hate: Bob Jensen's "Getting Off"

Those who have read this space know fully well my opinion about Robert Jensen and his antipornography activism, as well as his repeated attempts to slander and convict men of merely having sexual feelings and desires that he considers too “masculinic” and “antifeminist” (meaning the antipornradicalfeminism of the likes of Dworkin, MacKinnon, and Sam Berg).

What really galls me, however, is that far too many self-styled progressives and leftists, so unconscious of their own sex ignorance and loathing about sexuality, are so willing to fall for his sophistic analysis and deep guilt-tripping disguised as “feminism”.

Case in point: Jensen’s latest tome on the evil threat of porn as the tool of “masculinity”, titled Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity, recently recieved a major endorsement from the executive editor of the progressive news service Alternet.org, Don Hazen; who explained in an introduction to a posting of an excerpt from Jensen’s book how he was converted from a traditional liberal libertarian point of view to Bob’s APRF vision:

Part of my thin king on pornography has been shaped by seeing what is on the
Internet myself, and part, by reading Robert Jensen’s powerful and provocative
book, excerpted below: Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity.
Jensen has convinced me that something as powerful as the porn industry and its
sexual extremism must not be kept under the rug due to liberal
shoulder-shrugging about the First Amendment. The porn industry should not enjoy
our collective denial in terms of its real-world impact on women — and men —
simply because we might be berated by first amendment purists or be
uncomfortable grappling with complex issues of sexual expression.

Never mind the fact that the actual “real world impact” of explicit sexual expression might be a bit more diverse and much less “extreme” than what Hazen sees through Jensen’s rose-colored spectacles…or that there would be no mention of “First Amendment extremism” or fears of “First Amendment purism” when the subject turns to things like opposing federal snooping and wiretapping of innocent citizens, or opposition to the war in Iraq, or organizing unions or even gender discrimination…..nope, in the mind of Hazen and the others who run Alternet, Jensen and the APRF (aka, the “feminist”) point of view is the only logical and true vision.

And what a narrow and tunnelled vision that Hazen and Jensen support, too. To buttress his notion of how far low porn has become, Hazen whips out the old tired and true “gonzo” card, as if this is the only form of sexual expression that exists these days:

One phenomenon in porn is the ascension of Gonzo films. There are two
styles of films — one are features that mimic, however badly, the Hollywood
model of plot and characters. But the other, Gonzo, has no pretensions, and is
simply the filming of sex acts, which, Jensen writes, while also occurring in
features, are “performed in rougher fashion, often with more than one man
involved, and more explicitly degrading language which marks women as sluts,
whores, cunts, nasty bitches and so on.”

The Gonzo films, which have come to dominate the industry, also
emphasize the newer trend of sexual acts, which include: double penetration —
anal and vaginal — and ass to mouth, or ATM, where anal sex is followed by stic
king the penis in the women’s mouth. In addition, many of these films include
men, often in multiple numbers, ejaculating into the faces and mouths of the
women performers. The women usually swallow the semen, but also can share it
mouth-to-mouth with a female partner. For Jensen, the most plausible explanation
of the popularity of these acts is that women in the world, outside of
pornography, don’t engage in these acts unless forced. “Men know that — and they
find it sexually arousing to watch them in part because of that
knowledge.”

As Jerome Tanner, porn film maker explains, “One of the things about
today’s porn and the extreme market, the gonzo market, is so many fans want to
see much more extreme stuff that I’m always trying to figure out ways to do
something different. But it seems that everybody wants to see a girl doing a
double penetration or a gang bang. … It’s definitely brought porn somewhere, but
I don’t know where it is headed from there.”

Mitchell Spinelli, interviewed while filming Give me Gape, adds:
“People want more. They want to know how many dicks you can shove up an ass.
It’s like “Fear Factor meets ‘Jackass.’” Make it more hard, make it more nasty,
make it more relentless.”

Now, aside from the total fallacy of quoting porn producers and insiders as the literal Gospel in saying what men who buy these videos (or who simply download them, legally or not, for free) really want from them; there is the total and complete ignorance of what exactly “gonzo” really is. Actually, the term simply describes sex videos that feature sex unemburdened by plot; nothing about the particular acts involved. A film featuring a single couple engaged in conventional sex without plot would be considered “gonzo; as much as a video of an mulit-person orgy featuring traditional fucking and sucking.

Now…there certainly in within the genre of “gonzo” the more extreme and exotic subgenre which does include some of the acts that so inflame (arouse???) Jensen and Hazen; including double anals, double vaginals, bukkake, creampies, facials, and AtM. It is certainly open to debate whether women performers are being ”coerced” into performing them, or whether these particular acts are being promoted as things women should do in private (forgetting, of course, the possibility that some women might even — horrors — LIKE such acts done to them in private). But to conclude from that that fans of such acts are merely expressing their total hatred for the women performers — nay, heaven forbid, ALL women — merely by watching and getting off on viewing such acts is simply bizarre. The “extreme” market is just that; one market in a field of many in sexual media; and hardly representative of the majority of the hardcore sex genre. The overwhelming majority of sex videos are those featuring either (1) single women stripping and masturbating, usually with sex toys; (2) women having sex with one or two other women (i.e., “girl/girl” or “Hot Lesbian Action”, never mind if they are really lesbian or bi, or merely curious); or (3) a single woman having sex with her significant other (boyfriend, husband) or a male friend that she already knows and respects enough.

Of course, since Jensen has already clearly stated that he considers even the more conventional images of women in porn to be innately “misogynistic” because even the softer images degrade and dehumanize women by reducing them to “sex objects” and “fucktoys”, I guess that any discussion of the heavier and kinkier brands of “gonzo” are basically totally moot…or simply agitprop to convert the more gullible liberals and “leftists” to his agenda.

And, of course, it wouldn’t be a Robert Jensen essay without the obligatory detailed description of a “typical” gonzo scene, as well as him (and by proxy, Hazen) imposing his (their) ideology on the performers, whatever they may actually think. Quoting again from Hazen’s intro:

Jensen clearly decided in writing his book that the often overwhelming
reality of the behavior and values of the porn industry must be experienced by
the reader, at least in written form, to understand what the issues are. Thus,
in the book, he describes porn scenes, quotes dialogue in the porn films, and
includes interviews with porn actors to help capture what they are thin king.
Some of this is a little hard to take. Here is one example:

Jessica Darlin tells the camera she has performed in 200 films and she is
submissive. “I like guys to just take over and fuck me and have a good time with
me. I’m just here for pleasure.” The man who enters the room grabs her hair and
tells her to beg the other man. She crawls over on her hands and knees, and he
spanks her hard. When he grabs her by the throat, she seems surprised. During
oral sex, he says, ‘Choke on that dick.” She gags. He grabs her head and slaps
her face then forces his penis in her mouth quickly. She gags again.The other
man duplicates the action, calling her a “little bitch,” Jessica is drooling and
gagging; she looks as if she might pass out. The men slap her breasts, then grab
her by the hair and pull her up. Later in the scene, “One man enters her anally
from the rear as she is pushed up against the couch, The other man enters her
anally while his partner puts his foot on her head. Finally one grabs her hair
and asks here what she wants. ‘I want your cum in my mouth,’ she says. ‘Give me
all that cum. I want to taste it.’ “

Jensen writes, “In researching the porn industry, one of the most difficult
parts is writing about the women who perform. Men see women in porn films as
objects of desire (to be fucked) or ridicule (to be made fun of.) When porn
performers speak in public they typically repeat a script that emphasizes that
they have freely chosen this career because of their their love of sex and lack
of inhibition.” Nina Hartley is one former porn star who frames her experience
in the porn industry as empowering — a feminist act of a woman ta king control
of her own life. But Jensen notes that while “we should listen to and respect
those voices, we also know from the testimony of women who leave the sex
industry that often they are desperate and unhappy in prostitution and
pornography but feel the need to validate it as their choice to avoid thinking
of themselves as victims.”

The fact that Jessica Darlin is actually an actresses enacting a scene in a movie, which involves a particular theme, and openly states that she has no problem whatsoever doing such scenes (of course, she must either be lying or under the spell of that evil male choking and spitting on her!!); seems to be lost on both Jensen and Hazen; certainly they would not think that when Michael Douglas and Glenn Close did that sex scene in the elevator in Fatal Attraction, they were really representing the real feelings of women and men, would they???

And we all know about how Jensen and other APRF’s really feel about Nina and other women who do happen to defend their right to make porn…right, Sam???

Oh….and Nina’s not a “former porn star”, Bob…she is still quite active in making and producing video; and has even enjoyed a sort of renaissance in the subgenre of older mature sex performers (also known as the “MILF” and “Cougar” subgenres). But I’m sure that she can defend herself better than I ever can….if you would ever allow sex-positive criticism of Jensen in your site, that is.

Moving along, we see Hazen practically spill his own seed in tribute to Jensen’s brilliance:

So that you understand, Robert Jensen is a true radical. His positions on
masculinity, race and pornography are way out of the mainstream. He thinks that
concepts of masculinity make men less than human and should be junked. “Men are
assumed to be naturally competitive and aggressive, and being a “real man” is
therefore marked by the struggle for control, conquest and domination. A man
looks at the world, sees what he wants and takes it.”

In writing his book, he turns to one of the most vilified feminists,
Andrea Dworkin, as his guide. One of Dworkin’s books, Intercourse,
enraged many readers. “In it, Dworkin argues that in a male supremacist society,
sex between men and women constitutes a central part of women’s subordination to
men. (This argument was quickly and falsely simplified to “all sex is rape” in
the public arena, adding fire to Dworkin’s already radical persona.)” But Jensen
embraces Dworkin for best understanding pornography and notes that “her love for
men was so evident.”

[…]

Jensen’s book is a serious effort to deconstruct pornography and
connect it to the society in which it grows and, in some ways, dominates. He
addresses in detail the arguments that justify porn and the research that may
connect porn to violence. His narrative, interwoven in the book, is about a
lonely journey to shed the straight jacket of masculinity, and the pain and lack
of acceptance that goes with the territory as he relentlessly pushes his ideas
into the public domain.

In the end, the book grapples with a fundamental question. “If pornography
is increasingly cruel and degrading, why is it increasingly commonplace instead
of more marginalized? In a society that purports to be civilized, wouldn’t we
expect most people to reject sexual material that becomes ever more dismissive
of the humanity of women? How do we explain … increasingly more intense ways to
humiliate women sexually and the rising popularity of the films that present
those activities?” Jensen concludes: “… this paradox can be resolved by
recognizing that one of the assumptions is wrong. Here it is the assumption that
the U.S. society routinely rejects cruelty and degradation. In fact the U.S. is
a nation that has no serious objection to cruelty and degradation.”

Robert Jensen is on a quest. And he has taken a major step forward in
his journey in producing a book that the reader can’t run away from or casually
dismiss. It is filled with facts, data, intelligent observation and analysis, as
well as examples of the raw product of an industry gone gonzo. I know this may
sound like a cliche, but I guarantee that after reading this book, almost no one
will think about pornography in the same way again.

I’ll just let you wander through and behold the magnificance of such bullshit for a while. You wonder then why progressive activism in the US is in such horrible shape???

And then, Hazen turns the floor over to Bob for an excerpt from his book….and it it so typical classic Jensen sex-hate and loathing. And well deserving of another fisking….but that will be anon.

[Crossposted as well to The SmackDog Chronicles]

And For An Added Pile-On.....

....I reset an earlier debate involving myself and Nina Hartley to add to the piling on of discussion on Sam Berg and her latest treachery:

The SmackDog Chronicles: Sam Berg: Stalker of Women (Especially Women Who Don't Share Her Sex Fascist Vision)

Ren on Sam Berg

Rather than repost the whole thing- I'll just go with the link.

FOXNews Porn: Right-Wing Hypocrisy Meets Left-Wing Puritanism

There are a great many ways to hate on the FOX News Channel if you happen to be a political progressive like I am.

There's the consistent browbeat of right-wing propaganda thinly cloaked under the brand of "Fair and Balanced News". The revolving door between certain luminaries and commentators of that network and the Bush/Cheney administration-cum-Mafia. Bill O'Reilly. Sean Hannity. Tony Snow. Bill O'Reilly. Bill "Bomb the shit out of Iran and Syria" Kristol. Neal Cavuto. Bill freakin' O'Reilly.

But...for some progressives out there, that alone isn't quite enough....they would like to expose Fixed Noise (to use Keith Olbermann's classic gloss....although for this particular story, Bina Becker's acronym of "FUX Snooze" would be more appropos) for something entirely different.

As a peddler of porn.

What's that, you say??? How can a right-wing media outlet like Faux News be even remotely involved with an industry that most of their base viewers would find beyond the pale???

Easy, says Robert Greenwald, who was the producer of the documentary Outfoxed which was one of the first exposes of FOX News' corrosive impact on the public at large: They use gratituous sexual images and "misogynous and innapropriate" sexual media to attract their audience to their news and information programs.

Greenwald has been a busy man of late pushing his "FOX News peddles indecency while attacking it" meme: he has released film clips over at YouTube (one example of which appears here) depicting how everyone there from BillO to Neal Cavuto to the regular news programs splatter gratituous T&A (and even the occasional blurred XXX image) into their news coverage. He has developed a spoof website (foxnewsporn.com) to promote his efforts; He recently wrote an article for the "progressive" daily Alternet.org promoting his efforts (and claiming that his video clips were "censored" by both YouTube and Digg by not being linkable; kinda not true since I just linked his clip two sentences ago); and he has gotten significant airtime, even to the point of scoring an interview segment on MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann.

Most of his case consists of replaying clips of where some FOX luminary prattles on about the "sexual decline" and "moral decay" of the country...while images of pretty risque and suggestive sexual activity (or merely sexy images) fill the background screen.

For instance, there is BillO moaning and groaning about the infamous Carl Jr's hamburger ad featuring Paris Hilton doing her Jenna Jameson imitation and nearly mounting her car and having multiple orgasms over their hamburgers....while Paris winds and grinds uninterrupted in the background.

Or, in another BillO segment, another attack on "secular progressive San Francisco (read, "homoSEXual") values", as represented by the annual sex freakery known as the Exotic Erotic Ball....complete with detailed coverage and footage of said acts of freakery from a journalist who was there. (Apparantly, BillO skipped last years Folsom Street Fair, so he wasn't able to report on that particular alleged atrocity of "secular progressive" values.)

Or...there is a "breaking" story about an alledged sexual assault over at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles...a perfect excuse for gratituous T&A shots at Hugh Hefner and his stable of bikini beauties frollicking about nearly nekkid.

Or...how about another "breaking story" scaring the viewers about rapists running amok during Spring Break....featuring strippers and thong-clad dancers flashing their naughty bits (pertinent parts electronically covered, of course).

Or even today, on Cavuto's program: a warning about strip clubs "enticing pre-teens"...complete with some pretty saucy pics of said patrons to entice....errrrrr....scare them.

All this, Greenwald asserts, proves how corrosive FOX News is to the body politic; and they must be stopped by any means possible, up to and including media boycotts.

Now, being a prime Fixed Noise hater myself, I normally would be willing to add my support to anything that piles them on. But I just can't hitch myself on this campaign, for the following reasons.

First: This is nothing new with Rupert Murdoch. He is well versed in the art of using skin and sex to bait the trap to get consumers; how else did he make his millions with his tabloids in Great Britain (see the Page 3 Girls) or with his FOX cable network (Married....With Children, anyone???). And as for BillO....well, we'll just leave him to Andrea Mackris' tell all book (which probably won't appear on FOX News anytime soon).

Second and more importantly: Although it is certainly right and proper to spell out the hypocrisy of Fixed Noise playing both sides of the sex media street (remember, Murdoch paid Judith Regan big bucks to sell Jenna Jameson's tell-all biography two years ago, even as he also paid BillO and other assorted columnists to diss her as an ignorant slut), I'm wondering whether Greenwald's real beef is with FOX News or with the sexy images they appropriate...for he doesn't make too clear that he's really not more offended by the behavior of the images than he is by FNC. There are loads of loaded commentary about "indecency" and "gratituous sex" in his documentaries, and there is a not-so-subtle plea for the viewers to "do something" about the images...as if Fixed Noise's more normal political crimes aren't worthy of censure enough.

And thirdly: most of the "pornographic" images that so grieves Greenwald aren't really that porographic or even softcore: they range from refined Girls Gone Wild video excerpts of young girls carvoting, to women lounging in bikinis, to brief titty flashes and thong-clad booty shaking, to women kissing (the Madonna and Britney Spears liplock at the 2002 American Music Awards is featured as one example of FOX "indecency"); to the occasional interview with porn starlets. One wonders from watching this whether Greenwald is really condemning FOX for being right-wing hypocrites...or for showing such evil "misogynistic" and "objectifying" images in the first place. I tend to think more of the later..which would make him only one step removed from antipornfeminist "leftist" fanatic Nikki Craft, who attacks more hardcore porn with pretty much the same theme (though with Larry Flynt as her primary Great Satan rather than Fixed Noise).
The way I see it, why is it that some liberals and "progressives" are so willing to play the Puritan protectionist card as a means of promting themselves and their pet causes?? The notion of attempting to split your enemy amongst genuine Puritan populist and "libertarian" lines may be one attraction (read that to mean getting the real religious Right folk foaming about the "conservative establishment"); perhaps Greenwald really wants to attract authentic social conservatives to progressive causes as well; and sees attacks on establishment outlets like FOX News and their "indecency" as a bridge to such a right-wing populist constituency.

But this is a dangerous game of tit for tat that not only legitimizes and reenforces the most reactionary sexual beliefs as "progressive"; it also mistakes scapegoating of legitimate consensual and harmless sexual imagery and expression with more effective political analysis and organization.

All this campaign proves to me is that conservatives have no monopoly on using sexual fear and loathing as a wedge to import their particular ideology; and that some progressives and liberals need just as much to check themselves and their antisexual myopia. FOX News is bad enough as a politically obtuse, racist, right-wing media organization as it is; there is no need to pile on at the expense of innocent sexual expression.

[Cross-posted over at The SmackDog Chronicles (BTW, memo to Ren and Belle: Update the SmackChron link in this blogroll..please??? OKThanxbye. :-)]

Right ON

I linked to Dacia’s latest post about “feminist porn” in my del.cio.us links yesterday, but I had such a “yes yes YES that’s IT!” reaction to it that I feel compelled to quote liberally here…

To me, making feminist porn is not about what is actually shown on screen and much more about what is happening on the production end of things. This is very clearly an expression of my years working in the sex industry and working for sex workers’ rights, but like Petra says in the beginning of this paragraph, “our tastes on what we find sexy in the bedroom or on film differ.” We can have a whole argument about the nurture and nature of “taste” - but I don’t think liking or not liking specific acts can make or break a feminist.

I don’t care if porn shows a woman masturbating by herself (like in many of the Abby Winters photo sets and videos), a woman fucking a guy with a strap-on (like in The Bi Apple, a woman enthusiastically sucking cock (like in Erika’s films), or a pregnant woman getting fucked up the ass with a baseball bat (like in Belladonna’s Fucking Girls Again). What I do care about is: does that performer want to be there? Is the director/producer respecting her needs and paying her appropriately? Did she get blindsided by requests for acts she doesn’t want to do?

The answers to those questions determine whether or not the porn is feminist, sex-positive, and ethical for me, not what is happening on screen.

Do you get it now, people? Do you? I still do not know why this is a difficult concept, but clearly it is. And so these things must continue to be said, emphatically.

I might write more about this later. I need to crawl into bed now, though, because I got up at 6:00 a.m. on a Saturday.

[Cross-posted at Being Amber Rhea]

The New APRF [Maoist] Meme: Buy Porn, Kill a Muslim

I'm sure that you have heard about how the usual right-wing antiporn groups are now targeting the US Military for apparantly defying Congressional laws against porn being sold at military bases.

It got me to thinking, though....how would the antipornradicalfeminists on the "other" side attempt to spin the issue to their advantage??

Well, I need not wonder any longer.....get a load of this pamphlet which equates consuming porn to killing Muslimwomen...courtesy of APRF whackoid Phyllis Chesler the Maoist International Movement:

http://www.imperialismkills.org/fliers/islamofasc2.pdf

I suppose that the many Muslim (and other non-religious folks in Iraq and other Middle East countries) who were victims of "Amerikan" imperalism don't really count for these MIM whackjobs....nor the fact that most of those who finance and support the killing of "Muslims" are as violently and militantly antiporn as they apparantly are.

Oh....and "wimmin" jill off to porn too...will they be held accountable for their role in genocide?? Oh, I forgot...most of those women OPPOSE the war. Too bad....it's the jerking off that is the real issue, I guess.

Just one more standing monument to APRF extremist collusion and ultra-Maoist lunacy, me thinks.

[Tip of the hat to Doug Henwood over at the Left Business Observer mailing list (lbo-talk) from where I got the link to Chesler's MIM's lunacy.]

UPDATE (11/8/o7) I owe a sincere apology to Phyllis Chesler for originally attributing the pamphlet to her; following the links provided at the bottom of the pamphlet let me to the Maoist International Movement site, which featured an attack on Chesler for being not "radical" enough and too "Western" for their particular sectarian tastes. I have made the proper revisions in this post to correct the record.

Chemistry 3 (wherein I pretend to be a porn reviewer)

A few weeks ago, Tristan Taormino sent me a copy of Chemistry 3, her latest film. Rusty and I watched it off and on whenever we had a free moment, and finally finished it before we left for vacation last week.

Chemistry 3 won Best Gonzo at the 2007 AVN Awards. I found this interesting because a lot of people equate gonzo with degradation and, basically, all the 'bad' in porn. But Chemistry is closer to the real meaning of gonzo than all that other stuff people equate with the term:

Gonzo pornography is a filming style of adult video. It is characterized by a filming style that attempts to place the viewer directly into the scene. The name is a reference to gonzo journalism, in which the reporter is part of the event taking place. By analogy, gonzo pornography puts the camera right into the action -- often with one or more of the participants both filming and performing sexual acts -- without the usual separation characteristic of conventional porn and cinema.

What I liked about Chemistry 3 was that it included lots of laughter and a generally laid-back, not-forced feel. That's the whole point, of course; the three guys and three girls could fuck whom they wanted, when they wanted, and had cameras on hand to film as much of it themselves as they wanted.

There were also several "confessionals" with the different performers, where they talked about their personal preferences, their experiences in the adult industry, and a variety of other topics. When I saw Ren's comments about porn companies putting "behind the scenes" stuff on DVDs, I immediately thought of Chemistry 3. The entire film has the feel of those behind the scenes extras. And I think that's important - a lot of folks could stand to be reminded that people who work in the adult industry are, well, people. Shocking, I know; but porn performers have likes and dislikes, interests and opinions, and parts of their lives that don't involve fucking - just like the rest of us.

To anyone who goes around spouting off at the mouth about how horrible and exploitative porn is, I'd recommend watching Chemistry 3. The women aren't getting slapped around and referred to as bitches and sluts, and at no point does anyone have a bored, going-through-the-motions look on his or her face. If you watch Chemistry 3 and call it degrading, to me that says that you think sex on the participants' own terms, where everyone is enjoying themselves, is degrading.

Oh, and for that matter - because why end with snark? - I recommend Chemistry 3 to anyone who wants to see some good porn. Always Aroused Girl is even having a contest at her blog where you can win a copy. If I were some kind of pseudo-professional porn reviewer with a rating system based on stars or thumbs, I'd give Chemistry 3 the maximum number of those.

BREAKING NEWS: 2257 Regulations Delared Unconstitutional by Sixth US Appealate Court

The story from XBiz.com, with a special bow down to Violet Blue via Tiny Nibbles and Fleshbot:

http://xbiz.com/news/85586

CINCINATTI — The 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled today that the federal record-keeping statute 18 U.S.C. 2257 is unconstitutional, holding that the law is overbroad and facially invalid.

Attorney Lawrence Walters told XBIZ that the court’s opinion, while a very significant victory, is not the final word on the question of 2257’s constitutionality and cautioned that adult webmasters should not view it as the end of their 2257 concerns.

“Generally, you have to be very careful with reacting too rashly to any opinion,” Walters said. “This is a panel ruling, and it is not final. The government could ask for an en banc rehearing by the full circuit, and they can appeal the decision.”

Walters also noted that the decision only applies to the portion of the U.S. that is covered by the 6th Circuit – namely, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee.

The good news, Walters said, is that the government’s options in getting the opinion overturned are all “long shots,” and he said the court’s reasoning in the opinion was very sound.

“The judges on this panel are renowned for being tremendously bright and it shows through in this ruling,” Walters said. “There’s no doubt that the 1st Amendment arguments here were strong, and the court recognized that the law clearly sweeps in too much protected speech, and there are just too many problems with the law, generally.”

The court’s decision came in the case Connection Distributing vs. Gonzales, a case that reaches all the way back to 1995, when Connection, a publisher of swingers-themed magazines and websites, first challenged the constitutionality of 2257. Following a long history of rejections and appeals, the path eventually led back to the 6th Circuit court of appeals, and today’s ruling.

Writing for the majority, Judge Cornelia G. Kennedy stated in the opinion that the court’s hands were tied in terms of trying to impose any limiting construction on the statute that would comport with the intent of Congress, leaving Congressional amendment of the statute the only option for rendering 2257 constitutional.

“The plain text, the purpose and the legislative history of the statute make clear that Congress was concerned with all child pornography and considered record-keeping important in battling all of it, without respect to the creator’s motivation,” Kennedy wrote in the opinion. “There is, therefore, no narrowing construction.”

The government argued in the case that 2257 was aimed only at conduct and not speech. Had the court accepted this argument a lower standard of review would have been applied, and the court may have ruled that 2257 was a valid regulatory statute. The court rejected the government’s assertion that 2257 merely regulates conduct, however, in very direct fashion.

“This argument is unpersuasive,” Kennedy wrote. “While the government is indeed aiming at conduct, child abuse, it is regulating protected speech, sexually explicit images of adults, to get at that conduct. To the extent the government is claiming that a law is considered a conduct regulation as long as the government claims an interest in conduct and not speech, the Supreme Court has rejected that argument.”

Kennedy also noted that the child abuse, “the actual conduct in which the government is interested, is already illegal.”

“Child pornography, while speech, can be considered more like conduct because the conduct depicted is illegal, and if that illegality did not occur, no images of child pornography would be created,” Kennedy wrote. “Adult sexual conduct is not illegal and it is in fact constitutionally protected … The regulation of visual depictions of adult sexual activity is not based on its intrinsic relation to illegal conduct. It is, therefore, a regulation of speech, because both the photograph and the taking of a photograph ‘bear … [a] necessary relationship to the freedom to speak, write, print or distribute information or opinion.’”

Kennedy said the court was not unaware of the serious scourge of child
pornography — it just believes that there has to be a less burdensome option for
attacking the problem.

“We do not belittle the despicability of child pornography, and we appreciate the difficulties faced by the government,” Kennedy wrote. “There are a myriad of limitations available, however, that would reduce the breadth of the recordkeeping requirements and would more narrowly focus on the government’s interest and therefore remove some of the protected speech from the statute’s coverage. Such limitations have been suggested by witnesses who testified before Congress and by the plaintiffs here.”

Ultimately, Walters said adult webmasters and business owners should take a “wait and see” approach to the ruling, but there’s no question that the ruling should be counted as a victory in one 2257-related battle, even if it is not the decisive shot of the overall war.

“People should treat this as a step in the ladder towards total invalidation of 2257,” Walters said. “It certainly provides a roadmap for future arguments, as well.”

J. Michael Murray, the attorney for Connections Distributing, was not available for comment at press time.

Considering that the ruling applies only to the Sixth District's immediate jurisdiction and that it has no bearing on another suit currently ongoing involving The Free Speech Coalition's efforts to neuter 2257 nationwide, it nevertheless is a huge victory...and probably the beginning of the end for these regs.

Maybe we can finally have some sanity in this country concerning sexual expression after all??

Government report on 'extreme' porn

So I've ranted briefly about the Criminal Justice Bill in the UK, and the legislation contained therein to make it illegal to possess certain images the government deems 'extreme', which reads like this.

To 'back up' these proposals, the Home Office set up a Ministry of Justice report on 'the evidence of harm to adults relating to extreme pornography'.

Not the most thrilling of documents...

Authors: Catherine Itzin, Ann Taken, Ruth Kelly (all anti-porn feminists)

My problems with this, and why it says nothing more about why this legislation is necessary or justified:

1. They're using old research, most of it not relating directly to the 'extreme' images that are soon to be banned.

2. Their reading of Donnerstein (the only research I've read directly myself) is based upon non-extreme pornography. Donnerstein found that a far greater number of men watching 'violent' pornography were likely to identify themselves with the victim than the aggressor.

3. This paragraph:

"Contrary to expectations, it was found that in 30 of the 48 primary studies included, the content of the extreme pornographic material used was described in graphic detail. Direct quotes of these explicit descriptions have not been repeated in this report because the nature of the material was 'too extreme'. Instead it has been described in more neutral terms. This has been done to avoid the risk that these descriptions would function as extreme pornographic material for the reader, producing sexual arousal and orgasm to material that depicts or enacts serious sexual violence, explicit serious violence in a sexual context or explicit intercourse or oral sex with an animal (bestiality)."

So now it's apparently dangerous to read this potentially lurid report in case we find it so erotic we have to have a wank???

WTF, Brit government?

I guess porn really does lead to violence....

Bond set for woman accused of killing boyfriend

[...]

On Sunday morning, Strowder allegedly found at least one CD with nude photos of women and confronted Martin in their home about 10 a.m. She then allegedly got a gun and shot him multiple times, including twice in the head, according to prosecutors. The 54-year-old man was later pronounced dead on the scene, the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office said.

[more]

Porn reviews without any of the bullshit

Susie Bright has launched a new project: the Random Honest Porn Review blog. It's a site where people can submit reviews of porn, new or old, from all across the vast porno spectrum. And for $5 a month, Susie will even send you porn to review! Hot damn!

According to the site:

It doesn't matter if the movie is new or old, famous or unknown, terrible or eloquent.

Watch the darn thing, from beginning to end, and write us what you think.

There's a handy form to submit your porn review. It doesn't get a whole lot simpler than that.

In response to...

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Way to go, asshole...

Porn Star arrested on rape charges.

Thanks, fuck head porn dude. Thanks a lot. Thanks for making what some of us are trying to do here so much easier, you stupid, stupid bastard. If you are guilty, I hope they throw the goddamn book at you and split your face with it. What the hell are you thinking? Contracts. Use them. Sober filming. Do it. You fucking asshole!

Those Words Tell You...

...very little, actually.

Over at her blog, Ren linked to this screed by Heart, on porn and what it "really" depicts, means and says:

Blonde whore forced to suck c*** then f***ed!!
View Movie!!
http://***********

....The 11 words at the top of the page tell us what pornography is about. It is about men forcing their bodies inside of and onto the bodies of women. It is about men forcing women to do things they do not want to do. Especially, the words communicate the interest men have in watching women being raped. We all know a woman is depicted in the film those 11 words advertise, but she is a dehumanized woman. She has no name; she is a generic “blonde,” a generic “whore.” The understanding and agreement between the maker and advertiser and the consumer of pornography is that nobody cares about the names, identities or lives of “blondes” or “whores” or any other woman being raped by men in pornography and nobody wants to know any of that. The agreement is that the porn consumer should be free to order up a constellation of body parts and the pornographer should stand ready to provide them. The agreement is the pornographer will provide images of rape and violence which humiliate and degrade already-dehumanized women whose names we do not know. The agreement, especially, is that this will be sexually titillating and exciting to the consumer. This is what real men want to see: “blondes” and “whores” being raped. Available for cash, at the click of a link.

I responded over at Ren's and thought it might be interesting to Xpost here:

I just... if these people had a shred of objectivity I'd just say to them

"okay, so I read that line ("Blonde whore forced to suck cock, then fucked," given that the context is *ACTING* not real force) and have absolutely no negative reaction to it and possibly a positive one. If the reaction is supposed to tell me all I need to know about how truly vile porn is, then what happens when my reaction is not the expected one? What happens when I'm thinking it would be hot to watch her, or to be the one doing the fucking, or to be her?"

The only answer they can give really is "you're fucked in the head," which is really not convincing to me given that pornography is such a successful industry. It seems really, well, freaking ODD that an entire industry would spring up out of misreading women's pain.

Yeah, there are sadists in the world or various stripes. And yeah, we've all got a cruel side. But wow are you saying something weird about humanity (okay maybe just about men omg wtf I said it I'm defending men take away my sister card now) when you're assuming that entire industries centered around sexuality function on stirring up dormant sexual sadism.

ETA: Actually, yes, I can see industries designed to stir up aggression, and I do think that rough porn is in part designed to do that (I still suspect it's also partially about shock/spectacle, "oh my look at THAT!", and not always consumed or produced with only aggression in mind.) But to me, stirring up aggression and stirring up hate are not the same thing. Wanting to forcefully fuck is not the same as wanting to rape.

Of course for some people those concepts are linked, and of course that's worth thinking about. And it's understandable to hold the position that if they're linked at all in anyone whatsoever, then it's irresponsible to create any media appealing to this. I don't hold that view -- I don't think media producers of any kind are obligated to never create anything that might have a bad influence on the worst of humanity -- but it's not an internally incoherent one.

What is incoherent to me is the notion that we all ought to react the same way to media, such that anyone senses upon seeing it what the truth about it really is.

I tend to think that when something stirs up a lot of debate, that's because there's a complicated phenomenon at hand, not because most of the world has blunted its instincts.

Divides

I have a question for the het men reading.

I've noticed that several of IACB's comments on porn mention a division or difference between, as he puts it, "fans of girl/girl" and "fans of guy/girl." This surprises me, as every mainstream porn movie I've seen has included scenes involving women having sex with women and scenes involving women having sex with men.

But from the way I read (and very possibly misread) IACB's comments, there are two distinct subsets of audience, and they don't like and want to see the same things. They're described as two camps, sometimes even two feuding camps, in an odd way.

I don't think there's anything odd about preferring one to the other, or even preferring one exclusively, but I can't say I've ever seen or heard this mentioned by any other straight male porn user that I've known. I always had the impression most liked both, and some had a marked or even an exclusive preference.

So... how does this work? Do most men choose a side? Do few people watch, or like, both?

Is Porn Turning Awful?

Found this link through Amber, I believe. Basically a fellow (I think?) who's become tired of porn, thinking it's become the sort of thing anti-porners complain about and despairing of finding anything good. He offers a point-by-point list of his grievances, and I thought it might be interesting to compare it to some of my tastes.

Bear in mind I've not seen any movies in years... I'm mostly of the Netpornious Moocherious species ;)

My needs are simple, I think.

• Normal looking people who at least look like they're having fun.

Define "normal." Right off the bat this worries me. Personally I had an anti-implants thing for a long time, and I still worry about pressure to get them. But I'll never think quite the same about them after a transwoman friend called me on it once when I was mocking someone's implants. I think there has to be a way to talk about both personal preference and problematic pressures (whee, she alliterates!) without setting up a hierarchy of bodies. As someone with a surgically modified body myself, I really ought to have been more sensitive to this from the beginning.

As far as looking like they're having fun: yeah, I agree there.

• No one looking at the camera.

I prefer this too. It's very odd to me to see people who are having sex look away.

• No movies that describe the women as sluts, whores, or bitches, or use the words "molest" or "gang" on the cover.

I suspect this is a personal trigger. For me, I don't really mind it. I'd like to see "slut" embraced in a more positive way, as it is say in BDSM circles where it's often clearly not an insult. But I'm not against the use of it at all.

"Bitch" is silly to me at best and anger-inducing at worst. I'd turn off the sound if I heard that, but probably not the video. Mute buttons + sexy music are your friends, kiddies.

As far as "molest," that one never bothered me. And "gang" just sounds intense and kinky to me.

• No anal, please. Nothing against the act itself, but it's not particularly aesthetically pleasing

*blink* *blink*

*slight pause to say MOAR PEGGING PLZ*

Moving right along...

• Not a big fan of the camera-between-the-legs shots anyway, or the extreme, can't-get-any-closer-or-she'll-swallow-the-camera closeups. I'd rather see the whole body and the lovers' growing arousal.

I actually really like those. I'm not big on the subtlety of growing arousal being the only experience. This IS about watching fucking, after all.

• Woman-woman scenes that looks like they might be enjoying it. You know, with kissing and maybe even some foreplay before they whip out the 20-inch double-headed dildo or try to go up to their elbows.

I'm not a big fan of kissing. I like probing people's mouths with my tongue, but there really isn't a way to depict that on camera well. Forget it.

And... again, this is about watching fucking. Why do I want to see The Hair-Stroking Swoony Story of Lesbian Love, here?

I mean, I get the idea that what this person wants is more context, and I'm for that... but for me, good context doesn't come from buildup of story. It comes from being present in the moment. It comes from liking sex with other women, rather than doing it boredly to entertain males.

All the better, as far as I'm concerned, if being present in the moment means hard ramming fucking.

The one thing that bugs me about mainstream girl-girl scenes, aside from We Are Obviously Bored As Hell Hets is the cunnilingus. In order for the camera to see anything, they have to... vaguely point their tongues at vulvas.

Much as I like seeing vulvas (closeups are joy!)... get your face in there, people! I may feel sad your head's in the way, but at least I know the sex is real. If you want you can do some of the side-tonguing because you know I'm looking. But please, if the I have the tip of my tongue loosely resting on a labium thing is gonna be the main event, just (as much as I hate to say it) skip to the penetration, because there's NO POINT.

• An entire movie without silicone or implants of any kind. Try it, I dare you.

See #1.

• Women who don't feel obligated to stick their entire tongue out of their mouths whenever they kiss or lick anything.

Yes.

• Look, if you show me a guy pulling out of a woman's ass and moving around to her mouth, which seems to be the trend these days, you've lost me. Forget it, I'll turn the thing off and go watch cartoons. I mean, eww.

I'm not interested in that either, but I don't see any reason for eww unless I've reason to assume that there was no cut so he could clean his cock off. If there wasn't one, yeah, I cringe. If I have no reason to believe there wasn't, well, *shrug*

• Women that aren't made up to look underage or like an 80's hair band groupie.

Not my taste either on those. Though the schoolgirl thing, as a whole schtick, I'm beginning to find somewhat cute.

• Guys that look like someone you might not run away from on a dark night. Or a sunny afternoon.

Yeah, better looking guys would be nice.

• Lighting that makes the actors look soft and sexy instead of plastic and poorly shaved.

Oh, are we still on the soft shit? While soft light is flattering, I don't want cutesy-poo washy lighting. Goddess save us all from that.

• Sounds that weren't dubbed or forced. I'm sorry, no one moans with ecstasy while they're giving a blowjob.

You don't know many subs who love cocksucking, I don't think.

• People grateful to get oral sex instead of standing there looking haughty and all conquerery.

Any particular reason why both together is a bad idea, here?

• Movies that don't have the same sex acts, in the same order, every time.

True.

• And, hardest to find of all...playfulness! I have absolutely no interest in watching people fuck who look too fake, too insensitive, too shallow, or too scary. Don't fun people fuck? In front of a camera, I mean?

Yes, I'd love to see more playfulness in general as well.

The fascinating thing to me about this post is the sheer vanillaness of the way this person talks. And that if he is a man, his tastes are so much more soft and sweet than mine are. Where the stereotype is, y'know, men aren't for the cuddling and the foreplay and all. Especially not in their taste for pr0nz.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against soft and sweet personally. A lot of it is quite good-mood-inducing. But I have a hard time understanding why most porn should be like that. When I want to see porn, I want to see sex, not the intricacies of other people's foreplay.

Intricate dances of desire work better for me in lit -- and even there, too much coy courtship dancing and I lose interest (unless it's one of those rare gems that is worthwhile both as a story AND as smut, with rich characters whose lives I want to know more about regardless of the sex.)