Today the manufactured conflict between the publicity hounds at AHF and the bureaucratic Mandarins at County Health went another round, with the county issuing a dismissive press release in response to AHF's lawsuit supposedly intended to compel county agencies to enforce condom use on porn sets.
In turn, AHF sent forth a thundering missive accusing the county of not caring about the health of young performers.
Clearly, as both parties are using the whole performer health issue as a political football without regard to the actual consequences to performer health that might result from their carefully staged bickering, it could fairly be said that neither cares a flying fuck about what happens to porn performers and are putting on a show worthy of P.T. Barnum to keep public controversy regarding this topic on the boil.
You will note here that, while basically saying it's not their problem, the public sector offciials don't pass up the opportunity to recycle the same cherry-picked stats regarding the "epidemic" of STIs among porn performs, while generally minimizing the threat this represents to the public.
A little poison for everyone in this ginned up dispute: Especially like the unsourced editorial pitch for mandatory condoms packed into the final graph, which re-states AHF's position by carefully assembling bits of previous statements from DPF.
Where were these PR hacks previously employed, Pravda?
AIDS Healtcare Foundation: LA County Doesn't Care About Young People in Porn
LOS ANGELES -- The AIDS Healthcare Foundation issues a press release stating: "In Eye-popping Legal Demurrer, LA County Lawyers 'Stupid Enough' to Show Complete Disdain for Well-being of Young People Appearing in Porn as Well as Disregard for Health of the Public-at-Large"
The press release goes on to say: "AHF is requesting that the [LA] County take action within the adult film industry only. As set forth in the petition, the adult film industry employs approximately 1,200 adult film performers at any given time. (Paragraph 9 of the petition.)
The population of Los Angeles County is approximately 9,850,000. Thus,
AHF is seeking that the County be compelled to take certain actions in regard to less than .01% of the population.... Plainly, the public need here is minimal."
In response to AIDS Healthcare Foundation's (AHF) legal petition for a writ of mandate to compel Los Angeles County's Department of Public Health to fight the spread of sexually transmitted diseases in the porn industry, County attorneys have filed an eye-popping demurrer that shows the County's complete disregard for young people working as performers in the $13 billion porn industry as well as revealing a strikingly blase attitude by County officials toward potential County-wide general public health ramifications of serious infectious diseases, including transmission of several debilitating sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV.
The County's legal motion was filed last week in response to AHF's July 16th legal petition for a writ of mandate against the County's Public Health Department on the 'condoms in porn' issue. (NOTE: AHF separately filed workplace safety complaints late last week with Cal/OSHA--California's Department of Industrial Relations, Division of Occupational Safety and Health--the state's health and safety regulatory and watchdog organization, asserting that 16 production companies endangered its workers in nearly 60 condom-less adult films they produced, shot and distributed. Those complaints remain under review by state health and safety officials.).
"We knew that Los Angeles County didn't care about young people who appear in porn, we just didn't think they were actually stupid enough to say so in print, as they did in their legal response to our petition for a writ of mandate to require the County's Department of Public Health to enforce condom use in the production of porn," said Michael Weinstein, President of AIDS Healthcare Foundation.
"The County should be ashamed of its actions--and the attitude represented in its legal response--to the industry-specific and general public health concerns raised in our legal petition."
"In its petition, AHF is requesting that the County take action within the adult film industry only. As set forth in the petition, the adult film industry employs approximately 1,200 adult film performers at any given time. (Paragraph 9 of the petition.)
The population of Los Angeles County is approximately 9,850,000. Thus,
AHF is seeking that the County be compelled to take certain actions in regard to less than .01% of the population.... Plainly, the public need here is minimal."
Andrea E. Ross
Senior Deputy County Counsel
Case #BS 121665
For the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health
"To County health officials, I simply ask what rises to the level of a public health concern, either for these individual at-risk actors working in the industry or for the greater Los Angeles public-at-large?" asked Weinstein, adding, "There is no firewall between porn performers and the general public."
"We are asking that Los Angles County lawyers and public health officials enforce various laws regarding public health and that they take concrete action to combat an outbreak of communicable diseases within a known population--which County officials could do by requiring condom use on adult film sets," said Brian Chase, Assistant General Counsel for AHF.
The lawsuit was filed in Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles (Case No.: BS121665), Thursday, July 16th and seeks a Writ of Mandate "compelling the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health to discharge its ministerial and non-discretionary statutory duty to combat an acknowledged epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases stemming from production of hardcore pornography in Los Angeles County."
AHF filed the lawsuit after exhausting all other methods to compel the County to fulfill its obligation to protect the public's health in the wake of the mid-June revelation that an actress working in the adult film business had tested positive for HIV. At that time, AHF had urged the County to better monitor HIV and STD prevention in the region's adult film industry--and require condom use--or to shut down porn sets.
Since the June 17th reporting of the latest HIV outbreak--and the subsequent report by the LA Times that as many as 22 porn performers may have tested positive in the last five years--no action has been taken by the County to halt the spread of STDs on LA porn sets or to conduct the proper and legally-required public health follow-up with those thought to be infected.
At the time of the filing of the lawsuit in July, AHF's Weinstein noted, "The Department of Public Health has a responsibility to try and control the spread of STDs in LA County--particularly in a commercial venue--yet the County has not taken a single step to address this serious public health threat. As an HIV and STD medical provider, it is our obligation to pursue County action on this issue."
According to figures cited by DPH, there were 2,013 documented cases of Chlamydia among LA porn performers between 2003 and 2007. In the same period, 965 cases of gonorrhea were documented. Many performers suffer multiple infections. In the period April 2004 to March 2008 there have been 2,847 STD infections diagnosed among 1,884 performers in the hardcore industry in LA County.
DPH attributes the epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases in the porn industry to a lack of protective equipment for partners, including condoms. The agency recommends condoms be used during production, but has never taken steps to ensure their use, or to protect the performers who are essentially required to endanger their health in order to remain employed.
A sanctuary for supporters of sexual free expression and the adult sexual media.
Oh, now we have this nonsense:
ReplyDeleteThe agency recommends condoms be used during production, but has never taken steps to ensure their use, or to protect the performers who are essentially required to endanger their health in order to remain employed.
Oh, really??? Because we all know that porn performers are under such pressures to perform bareback lest they get sent into exile in Slovenia or Australia or South Beach some other Gommorah outpost. Because there's no such thing as girl/girl only porn, or solo porn, or simply shooting scenes for your personal paysite and finding somebody off the street to engage in sex with.
Because Cali is right now so freakin' broke that they can't even pay their school teachers with actual checks...but they can certainly afford raids to crack open confidential medical records to feed their vendettas.
Because they are so willing to risk infecting real life porn performing women from excessive condom usage (Remember what Nina has said about the dangers of micro tearage from friction due to latex condoms during porn shoots??) just to score their free condom ads and profits for Durex??
Memo to LAHCS: Where's the equal concern for workers in conventional jobs who are threatened with loss of job if they complain about THEIR health and safety concerns? Oh, I forgot...there are no workers because thanks to your refusal to resolve your financial problems, they were all LAID OFF!!! Sucks for them, I guess.
Anthony
Have you seen this yet?:
ReplyDeleteMEDIAite: Did Advocate.com Kill an Article to Please Its Porn Industry Bigwigs?
The above article in turn links to an article the pulled article in question by Matt Siegel, "Business Before Pleasure" about HIV issues in both the straight and gay industries. It contains some inflammatory quotes by Weinstein, which is part of what got it pulled in all likelihood, but also quotes Ernest extensively.
The Mediaite article speculates that The Advocate dropped the article it also owns several gay porn magazines. Which seems like rather large speculation to me.
Oh, and the latest bullshit from Shelly Lubben:
ReplyDeletePink Cross Foundation: Porn Industry Being Crippled
She's quite open about the fact she's out to bring down the entire industry.
It seems pretty clear that she doesn't understand the legal situation as well as she thinks she does, since she states that porn production is illegal everywhere in the US except California (supposedly being legally prostitution everywhere else – though she also missed the fact that prostitution is legal in two states), and hence getting rid of porn in California would legally eliminate porn from the US. I could think of a few porn producers in far-flung parts of the US who would beg to differ in that regard.
IACB:
ReplyDeleteJust checked out that Mediaite article...it looks like they confused the Weinstein presser where he released the DVDs of the 16 porn production companies (all straight) and assumed that they were somehow connected with the gay porn conglomerate which sponsors The Advocate, thus assuming that it was that connection which shut down Seigel's article.
My own view, though, that it was more Weinstein's mouthing off -- especially at Larry Flynt's family -- that raised enough of a threat of a libel suit to have the Advocate think twice, Too bad, because Siegel's article is pretty even handed and decently straight forward.
Here's what I just posted as a comment to that article:
Before I make my main comment, allow me to praise Matt Siegal for his article, which was, in my view, very fair and balanced to everyone.
However, some of the infrerences assumed in Mr. Gotkin's piece is woefully mistaken.
First off, the comments by Michael Weinstein that probably caused the article to be pulled by The Advocate were, to say the least, highly insulting and dangerously close to libelous....and typical of his usual hyperbole used to sell his message of mandatory condom usage.
Secondly, one cannot compare adequately the situation in the straight porn industry, which has a stated policy of preventing HIV/STI infection through frequent testing and peer pressure; and the gay porn media, which pretty much assumes a high rate of infected performers and uses condom usage to ease the threat of infection of non HIV+ performers. The former methods used by the mainstream "straight" sex media have for the most part been very successful, especially compared to the rate of infection in the general population; but that doesn't make the occasional breaches -- such as the 2004 outbreak resulting in 4 performers being infected, or the latest "outbreak" in June resulting in one performer being infected -- any less tragic for those involved.
The fact that certain HIV activists and personalities are exploiting the "crisis" to pursue their own agendas does not in any way mitigate the fact that there is sizable debate on whether mandatory condom usage in straight porn would be either effective or necessary, and whether those performers who choose not to use condoms for whatever reason should be browbeaten into submission.
It should be also noted that all of the 16 companies cited in the Weinstein/AHCF suit are "straight" hetero companies with no afilliation whatsoever with gay porn. So, my guess was that the article was pulled for fear of libel/slander charges...which was, in my view, unfortunate due to the high quality and evenhandedness of the rest of the article.
Also....there has been some distortions and outright lies put out by many of the mandatory condom advocates concerning the rate of spread of STI's within the mainstream porn industry...claims that have been proven to be wildly overdone and outright false.
Ernest Greene, in his capacity as an spokesperson and presiding official at the Adult in Medical Foundation, has posted over at the Blog of Pro-Porn Activism a lenghty rebuttal to all of the charges laid at the "straight" porn industry on the issue of mandating condoms. It would be a pretty good idea to read his side of the story here before jumping to any conclusions.
Anthony
Good response. Did you leave that at Mediaite or Unabashed Queer?
ReplyDeleteOh, DAMN. How STOOOPID can this woman be to believe the crap she spews??
ReplyDeleteShe does know that producing consensual adult porn in the privacy of your own home IS perfectly legal in most jurisdictions, right??
And, that the workplace safety regulations that she claims that the law requires porn shoots to follow apply equally to ALL workplaces....right??
And she still quotes that "16 performers have died of HIV since 1994" canard even after it's been blown to bits...and that nonsense that "the largest audience group of viewers of porn are ages 12 to 19"...and that "65% of all female porn performers are infected with herpes, an incurable disease". Never mind how she got that stat considering that AIM doesn't do consistent testing for that STD, or the fact that herpes for the most part contain no symptoms and is usually curable by taking a couple of days off from work....but, since when did truth get in her way??
Donna Hughes and the folks at Coalition Against Trafficking could take master classes from her on the subject of hacking propaganda. In fact, I can just see these two whackjobs hooking up for their next censorship campaign...I'm shocked that Hughes hasn't recruited Lubben already. They certainly do go together like...you know, stank on shit.
Anthony
Good response. Did you leave that at Mediaite or Unabashed Queer?
ReplyDeleteThat was left at Mediaite. No reason to leave anything at the other place...though I may repost Siegal's article at the SmackChron for future reference.
Anthony
Well, this solves at least one mystery. I happened to be busy for the single week Matt's article was up and I missed it. I kept looking for it on The Advocate's site after that and it never turned up.
ReplyDeleteWhich is a sad thing, because I agree it's pretty even-handed, as I knew it would be from talking to Matt. He's that rare kind of reporter – the good kind. He asks tough questions, but he really listens to the answers. He doesn't care who doesn't like the outcome. He wants the facts. We could use a few thousand more like him.
To correct a couple of other matters raised by this side-bar to the main story, AHF's fishing expedition at the video rack did turn up a couple of bare-back gay porn companies, so they did not restrict their attempt to enable Cal-OSHA to pursue complaint-based investigations entirely to het producers. The common thread in the products on which they based their petition to the agency was a lack of visible condom use.
This blowhard Weinstein claims to be "incontrovertible evidence" that the videos they viewed were made without condoms. As I've already explained in some detail, as evidence, an edited video is anything but incontrovertible. If we can take out fifteen minutes of a guy masturbating prior to a money-shot and make it look like he just pulled out and came, we can "disappear" all kinds things from the finished image. In fact, I've shot scenes in which the performers used condoms and after editing, it still looked like the guy pulled out and came two seconds later. Welcome to the digital age, Mr. Weinstein.
And the putative concern on the part of Advocate management that Larry Flynt might sue over another mud-ball slung by someone who has been tossing them his way for some time seems overrated as a motive. Larry has a very thick skin and doesn't even sue those who accuse him of having molested his own daughter. He doesn't waste his time or his money litigating over his reputation.
On the other hand, Larry now has a particularly personal reason to hold a lasting grudge against Weinstein, and if he ever reads that redacted quotation, I don't doubt that he will. The claim that Flynt just watched his wife Althea waste away from AIDS and didn't care is indeed shameful – to the person making the claim.
In fact, Larry loved Althea profoundly and was stricken by her death as by nothing else in his entire rocky life, even including the shooting that paralyzed him. Althea's disease was contracted from needle-sharing, not sex, and couldn't be less relelvant to the current issues, as Weinstein well knows. Althea was never a performer and though she and Larry were both pretty promiscuous during his pre-shooting days, Althea's death came long after the end of that period and was totally unrelated to his work in porn.
Larry has his own reasons for opposing mandatory condom usage in porn, and he's shared them quite publicly, on the op-ed page of The L.A. Times back during the hysteria of 2004.
So worries over litigation growing out of any nonsensical babbling by Weinstein seem far-fetched.
However, the possibility that gay porn companies, who come in for unusually close scrutiny from Matt's piece, may have had some influence over The Advocate's decision is more realistic. The straight porn industry is always under scrutiny, but certain practices widely accepted in the gay porn industry, such as so-called "sero-sorting," are almost never discussed anywhere. His boldly detailed examination of what can only be considered an extremely controversial set of informal standards much riskier than those in het porn could certainly have given his editor pause.
ReplyDeleteIn my conversation with him, we reached agreement that both systems, gay and straight, have holes in them when it comes to disease prevention. However, the idea of simply trusting gay performers to own up to their immune statuses and handing out raincoats might well upset a lot of The Advocate's readership as well as its advertisers. It's a myth, utterly exploded by the RAME stats, that gay porn is somehow safer than straight porn, and much is invested in the myth.
I'm saddened by not surprised that Matt's excellent work was buried underneath that collective denial.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete"Donna Hughes and the folks at Coalition Against Trafficking could take master classes from her on the subject of hacking propaganda. In fact, I can just see these two whackjobs hooking up for their next censorship campaign...I'm shocked that Hughes hasn't recruited Lubben already."
ReplyDeleteI don't know about Hughes and Lubben, but it looks like Lubben, Judith Reisman, and the other Donna Hughes (the former Donna Rice) are major players in an upcoming "human trafficking" conference in SoCal. (link) (link)
The press copy for this isn't too subtle:
"Human trafficking threatens national security. Drug cartels are involved. Human traffickers using witchcraft on their victims. Extremists linked to porn. Child abduction is organized? Child prostitution is rampant in America? Nearly 800,000 children reported missing per year IN AMERICA. Human trafficking has become the second biggest money-maker in the world and threatens national security.
Using witchcraft on their victims? 800,000 missing children per year falling into nefarious hands? Sounds to me like somebody is recycling 1980s-era Satanic Panic nonsense to me.
I also notice that the above press release is from Christian Newswire. Which unlike the similarly-named ChristWire seems to be the real thing. But funny how close parody and the real thing are, ala Poe's Law.
ReplyDelete"Human trafficking has become the second biggest money-maker in the world..."
ReplyDeleteSo, what's the biggest?
Oh, and about those 800,000 missing children each year that these cranks would have us believe are all trafficked into the sex industry.
The Department of Justice breaks that frightening statistic down in some detail, rendering quite a different picture:
797,500 children (younger than 18) were reported missing in a one-year period of time studied resulting in an average of 2,185 children being reported missing each day.
203,900 children were the victims of family abductions.
58,200 children were the victims of non-family abductions.
115 children were the victims of “stereotypical” kidnapping. (These crimes involve someone the child does not know or someone of slight acquaintance, who holds the child overnight, transports the child 50 miles or more, kills the child, demands ransom, or intends to keep the child permanently.)
Each one of these cases is dire in its own way, all traumatic to the child at best and many leaving lasting consequences devastating to whole families.
But it would appear that about 115 of them were committed with criminal intent. That would be about .01%.
To put that number in perspective, about 200 children each year are killed by their mothers in this country, also according to the D.O.J.
It would appear, purely on the numbers, that children face a much greater risk at the hands of their mothers than at those of child traffickers;
But somehow I can't picture Shelley Lubben and Donna Hughes rolling out a big, well-publicized conference on the danger of maternal filicide.
When the facts don't fit the ideology, the facts must be wrong.
Or...if you don't have the facts to back up your ideology, then simply invent some, or just simply lie your ass off.
ReplyDeleteAnd it seems that Shelley Lubben might have gotten caught trolling for facts...and might just have been the source for that AP article slandering Vivid for having HIV+ performers.
Keep in mind that this is just a rumor, and consider the fact that the main source is a porn gossip blog....but if this does turn out to be true, then Lubben's bridges with the porn world have definitely been permanently broken.
LukeisBack.com: Shelley Lubben Lying To Start Trouble For Vivid?
Basically, it features one former porn starlet turned born-again fundie defending Vivid against Lubben's charges and claiming that Shelley used her name without her permission and solicited others for the AP story using a form email.
WOW...can she get any more typical??
Anthony
Interesting, and entirely consistent with Lubben's M.O.
ReplyDeleteUnlike her, however, I try to avoid making baseless accusations and then strong-arming others to back them up.
Therefore, I will contact the operator of the site in question and see if I can verify the identity of the posting party.
More to come on this breaking story.
Shelly Lubben has responded over at
ReplyDeleteLuke is Back
Awaiting some confirmation on the validity of the original claim at L.I.B.
ReplyDeleteMeantime, Lubben has rolled out her usual fawning flatterers to furiously deny that she would ever engage in such tactics and reaffirm her towering virtues.
Of course, her site's links to a white supremicist Web site are predictably dismissed as incidental, just like those to exodus ministries.
I'm not surprised that these unsavory affiliations don't trouble Donna Hughes, who is an unabashed reactionary hiding behind a dubious claim to radical feminist sympathies.
But I would think such links would at least momentarily trouble leftist radical feminists who have welcomed Hughes into their sacred circle and, on occasion, linked to Lubben's outfit as well.
Of course, given the primacy over all other concerns rad-fem doctrine gives to the destruction of sex commerce, the mere fact that someone is anti-choice, racist and bitterly opposed to gay rights doesn't necessarily disqualify that person as an ally as long as said individual has a "correct" position regarding "pornstitution."
Kelly Holland, a long-time porn director I like and admire, dismisses the whole lot, whatever banner they're flying today, as "neo-con feminists."
However, I'm going to go a step further and suspend Godwin's Law in the face of the unsavory facts on the ground.
Radical feminism is to feminism what National Socialism is to socialism – a deliberate false-flagging of a totalitarian ideology as liberationist.
In other words, a big lie. And do I have a problem with commenting on what is or isn't feminist by virtue of being a man?
Critical thinking knows no gender, race, religion or age. I don't have to be black to know what the KKK stands for.
"Of course, her site's links to a white supremicist Web site are predictably dismissed as incidental, just like those to exodus ministries."
ReplyDeleteI was reading the thread, and I don't see any evidence that she supports white supremacists. What I did find is that there is a contingent on Stormfront that definitely likes her, but I see no evidence that she's ever outreached to those folks.
The white supremacy links seem like too much like of a stretched guilt-by-association to me. On the other hand, her ties to Christian anti-sex extremism are very real, and underlined by that conference I linked to.
Yeah, I just saw that bit of sockpuppetry over at LukeIsBack.com....kinda sickening to see how a site that makes its earning off the backs and naughty bits of porn performers allows the enemy so much of its own space to destroy them.
ReplyDeleteIf the White supremacist and ex-gay links don't prove how fascist Lubben is, then how about the link to none other than Melissa Farley's Prostitution Research website...the one where they are gifted in the art of grabbing "statistics" out of their backsides to prove the innate evil of "pornstitution". But...I'm sure that we will hear not a damn thing from the likes of Sam Berg or the other shriekers at the GenderBorg about their open collusion with an active social Teabagger. No, sireee....that's just an evil leftist male conspiracy.
Another interesting notion: Could the "JJ" that Lubben noted in her rebuttal as the source of what she called the falsehood of the form letter campaign possibly be...Jenna Jameson?? She was at one time Vivid's main featured contract performer, and she has basically left the industry and has been rumored by some outlets to have found religion...though not nearly as toxic or abrasive one as Lubben represents.
Anthony
No, I'm pretty sure she's talking about Jersey Jaxin. And in that regard, I feel like I came in in the middle of a conversation and missed a lot of context, but it kind of sounded like there was break between Jaxin and Lubben. I could be wrong, but I'd like to hear the backstory, in any event.
ReplyDeleteIn that case, I now sit, as it were, corrected, and duly apologize to Jenna and her fans for indirectly implicating her in this shitstorm.
ReplyDeleteBut...it is interesting when one of her followers doesn't quite tow the party line, now doesn't it??
Anthony
OH, but this is getting more interesting by the second.
ReplyDeleteI discovered the thread over at Stormfront where they pay their hosannas, so to speak, to Lubben for being an activist against the allegedly "Jew-run" porn industry. While it is true that she doesn't directly link to these knotheads, I don't see any denials or repudiations of 'em at any of her sites, either. Even Michelle Bachmann and Ann Coulter would recoil at the first sign of anti-Semitism....so why doesn't Lubben woman up and do the same??
Oh...and guess which other site is recommended by the Stormfront dudes for their fighting efforts against "the Jews"??? Why, yes, that would be the Antipornography Activist blog. Way to go, ladies....you must be proud to have such strong "allies" and promoters. Will Maggie Hays and the GenderBorg be next??
BTW..this will be the first and LAST reference by me of Stormfront here on this here blog. Reading their filth makes me want to firebomb their headquarters....for starters. And I'm mostly a "free speech" kind of guy.
Anthony
Well, I'll just go ahead and link it and let people draw their own conclusions:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.stormfront.org/forum/showthread.php?t=557442
Now, I'm going to wait and see how long it takes for any "leftist" rad-fems to come forth and denounce these cretins.
But I won't be holding my breath.
I don't know. I just don't see the fact that Shelly Lubben hasn't denounced (or even acknowledged) the fact that a white supremacist board has spoken well of her as much evidence of anything. It would be different if she was actively courting that crowd, but I see no evidence of that. A lot of people have fans they'd probably rather not have.
ReplyDeleteI certainly don't feel a constant need to distance myself from not very nice people who happen to like porn. Or from people like "The Colonel" (link) over at the LukeIsBack thread with his slut-shaming and misogynistic "lying whore" rhetoric, even if it is about Shelley Lubben. Well, I guess I distanced myself now, in any event.
Lubben isn't exactly shy when it comes to denouncing people, including former supporters who criticize her. The praise she recieves from a number of right-wing Christian ministries that are anti-gay, anti-choice and otherwise politically toxic as well as the enthusiasm of her fans over at Stormfront may or may not mark her as a political extremist, but her failure to distance herself openly from such beliefs despite many opportunities to do so is "problematic" at best.
ReplyDeleteMy personal guess is that she's just a hustler, mainly in this for the money and publicity, and will accept accolades (not to mention money) from any source.
Right-wing extremist or self-serving mountebank, in no way is she the noble moral exemplar she would make of herself. She's just another parasite who makes her living off porn while excoriating it, and I give no quarter to such individuals.
We take the high road. They fight dirty.
We're losing.
Done with that. We're always on the defensive, trying to disprove their accusations.
Let them do some disproving for a change.
Oh, I agree, go on the offensive. But make criticisms that are solid, not stuff that's easily brushed aside as empty mudslinging. And I'd say the conference she's putting together with Judith Reisman exposes many connections with dodgy ideas and figures, albeit, in the extremist Religious Right rather than among white supremacists. (Which really are largely not aligned with each other – the pro-Israel stance of much of the religious right and the often non-Christian orientation of white supremacists being a huge faultline on the far right.)
ReplyDeleteAnd two, there's also the glass houses argument – I'm sure that somebody would be quick to bring up Noname Jane's association with a white supremacist figure, even if it was largely a weird publicity stunt.
Here's the thing, For me, this is not a hobby. It's a war and I'm in it. I didn't start it, but that doesn't matter now. The other side apparently doesn't think "hollow-mudslinging" is such a bad tactic, and they've certainly been able to make a fair amount of that mud stick, as anyone who reads the things said about me on anti-porn blogs knows.
ReplyDeleteSo right now, I'm not too interested in conducting this fight by Marquis of Queensbury rules.
Until Lubben publicly denounces the Stormfront jackbooters and indignantly refuses to accept any contributions from anyone associated with them or sharing their opinions, as NION was forced to do by the rad-fem gang regarding Larry Flynt, she stands convicted of collusion by her silence.
If you're reading this, Ms. Lubben, prove me wrong. Show the courage of your faith by going over to Stormfront's site and telling them, as Taryn told you, "Thanks but no thanks."
Okay, how about this email exchange with Taryn Thomas from a couple of years back:
ReplyDeleteHi Taryn,
My name is Shelley Lubben and I am a former porn actress who reaches out to girls in the porn and sex industry the past three years.
Recently, MTV Producers approached me and asked me if they could film my current work of helping girls out of the porn industry.
If you visit my (MySpace) profile you will see I help girls leave the porn industry and assist them as they rebuild their lives after porn. The reason this appealed to me is because I could help many MORE girls if my work was filmed on TV. I want to start a foundation to help all girls in the sex industry once the TV show is up and running.
I looked at your profile and thought I would ask you if you are interested in being filmed as well. They are looking for girls who want to leave a life of porn and make a better life for themselves. They want to follow the girl’s story so you would be in a main role on the show. They will be offering pay as well you will be on a mainstream TV series and get much exposure and many better opportunities than what porn could ever offer you.
My heart is to see girls escape porn and live the lives they were meant to live. All porn offers is pressure to do sex acts, hooking, drugs, abusive men, risking your life everyday to catch sexual transmitted diseases and cervical cancer and possibly miscarriages. I personally caught Herpes a non-curable disease, have had three miscarriages, cervical cancer and an ectopic pregnancy. Yes porn and prostitution ruined my life for many years but I have been able to rebuild my life and now it’s my heart to help other girls.
I absolutely believe you were made for much greater things than porn.
Let me know if you are interested.
And if you are not interested, I wish you all the happiness in the world!
Much love to you,
Shelley
PS: Please check out my profile to get to know me.
Starts out pleasantly enough, and offers inducements of money and attention calculated to attract the vulnerable personality type Lubben mistakenly assumed Thomas to be.
Rather predatory and pimp-like, no?
Didn't work very well in this case.
Thomas first responded with a cordial attempt at dialog:
Hi Shelley:
I respect what you are doing, but I feel you are saying things about the porn world that are not entirely true. I don’t know when you were in porn or what happen in your career to make you say these things about the industry. In my time in porn I have never once been to a set where the director has offered me drugs or alcohol. Nor have i ever seen a girl shooting up, smoking crack, sniffing coke, drinking etc on set. And I am sure it does go on but I have never seen it nor do i want to.
Honestly if i did see that on set or if i was offered it i would walk right off set. Simply bc of the fact I am sober now for a year and six months do to a small relapse I had last year after being sober for 4 years. At this time I am making my comeback into porn after taking almost 2 years off and want nothing more to continue with my porn career and be even more successful than before. During my two years off I did not struggle I went to cosmetology school, & real estate school and had a normal job working a pharmacy tech like I did before porn.
Also was able to live comfortably bc of all the money I saved working in porn. Right now I am actually working with a producer (mainstream) to film a documentary on my return to porn and my family in general. I am fortunate to have come from a upper class family, with a good up bringing. I feel the need to tell you all this bc you only seem to want to shed light on the bad things in porn instead of focusing on the bad and good. I think it’s people like you that make out industry look so bad when it’s really not. So I think you should try to shed light on both sides now that’s an idea!
Taryn
Sounds reasonable, but as we'll see, things went south fast from there.
Not at all pleased with Thomas's counter-proposal, Lubben fired back with a thinly-veiled blackmail threat:
ReplyDeleteTaryn,
You are lying. I am being very nice not mentioning things about you publicly because I respect you. But I know quite a bit about you. More than you can imagine. Are you sure you’ve never done drugs on the set? Hmmmmm.
This time, Taryn was a bit less amiable in her response:
Shelly,
I have never met you in my life nor do I wish to. You emailed me out of the blue. You are now making false statements about me, and have about the industry for sometime. Please do not email me again. I am very happy with my life and career. And will never be apart of your cause. I am for porn 100% till the day I die. Again do NOT email me again.
Thanks Taryn
This is by no means the first, last or only attempt by Lubben to gather sheep into the fold using any means necessary, including the electric prod when they resist.
That's who we're dealing with here.
Gloves off.
And I'd say from that exchange that the above is exactly what should be publicized about Shelley Lubben.
ReplyDeleteThe truth sticks!