Thursday, March 27, 2014

Why People Living In Glass Houses With Busted Septic Tanks Shouldn't Talk Sh*t About Others: Mike South Exposed As A Hypocrite...And WORSE

Blowback can be a real bitch sometimes. There is a saying: The things you do and say will come back on you, like bad food. Whichever end it comes out of, however, says a lot about you.

For amateur porn producer and profoundly loud critic Mike South, that saying is even more prescient today, in the wake of current events.

Michael Whiteacre over at The Real Porn Wikileaks has been running a fine series of articles there exposing South for the hypocrite and double talker he seems to be.

Most of you know Mike South as one of the most verbiose critics of the Free Speech Coalition's testing protocols and of certain performers in the Los Angeles-based porn industry. Along with his protege, "President" Rob Black, he has been on a rolling campaign from his North Georgia base to support the drive to mandate condoms in all porn shoots, while all along smacking his lips about how superior he is in locating and shooting talent.

Needless to say, that "superiority" took some major crotch blows this week, thanks to Mr. Whiteacre and TRPWL.

It began with an expose post last week where TRPWL relayed the story of a performer named Jessica Chase, whom had attempted to shoot some porn with South in Atlanta for his websites (and for possibly creating a website for her), only to experience all sorts of hell. The actual article goes into full detail of what Ms. Chase endured; here's just a brief sample:

Jessica Chase picks up the story from there:
I go down there with him, we stay at Lindsey Lovehands (who is a sweetie). Come to find out, she had no idea that we were supposed to be shooting (only South knows how that happened as he set up the shoot because it was for [our] website). She and I get it together the next day and do our two shoots (one for her site, one for mine).

I let South know I was upset when I found out that there were no more shoots. So I ask, “What shoots do I need for my site that I can actually do?”

“Oh, a bj video,” he says. I’m like, “why didn’t you bring this up when I had a room full of guys, one being a male friend when I shot the Bukkake for you?” I didn’t get a straight answer other than,” You can shoot your bj video with me.” I declined, due to the fact that he is supposed to be a producer, not talent, and frankly I’m not stupid, so I angrily left Florida and returned to Ohio.
And so it was that Mike South didn’t get his blow job.

As for the matter of the COD package sent via UPS, unsurprisingly there’s more to that, too:
About half-way back I remember my company airbrush tanning equipment is at his house, where I had stopped to follow him to Florida. He had ridden his bike, so I took my airbrush equipment etc. out of my car to make room for his stuff. I text[ed] him to let him know, to which he said that he would ship it COD to me once he returned home from Florida.

He found he had to pay money to ship his photography stuff, etc back to his house, as he couldn’t fit it on his bike, and thus began a huge Mike South tantrum. This tantrum included not giving UPS correct addresses his nor mine, even after I told him my address again and what needed to be done.
The article provides support through emails and texts provided by Ms. Chase to TRPWL.

For his part, South simply dismisses Ms. Chase as a "bimbo" and a "dumb bitch", and responded to the original article with his customary "Consider the source".

Problem for him was, that was just a foreshock, albeit a decently sized one. Yesterday, came the proverbial follow up, and it was The BIG ONE in comparison.

In the follow up piece, Whiteacre expounds on Jessica Chase's travails with Mike South to reveal what could be one of the greatest hypocrisies of all time: The man who incessantly attacks the porn industry for not meeting his high standards of HIV/STI protection, not only doesn't follow his own standards, but actually violates them with impunity.

Turns out that in those shoots that Ms. Chase did with South for his sites, he only used a quick instant swab test (OraQuick) for HIV, provided for by the male "talent" (who was also not even paid for their efforts, BTW), instead of the expanded testing regimen (HIV-Hepatitis A/B/C-Chlamydia-Gonorrhea-Syphilis) required by the FSC-PASS protocols. And..he didn't ever require condoms, either.

In fact, for one particular shoot, South allegedly even blew off the fact that Ms. Chase's testing period had lapsed beyond the 28 day period, and told her not to retest, though she offered to do so, because he didn't deem it necessary....because there was no "penetration" in his scenes. "Penetration" in this case refered to vaginal and anal sex; the scene actually shot was a "blow bang" featuring oral sex and facials.

It would be deliciously ironic were it not for the fact that the same Mike South was blasting out posts galore busting LA's porn scene for not mandating condoms and doing more to protect their talent from the apparent STI pandemic that was supposedly ongoing. Or, that the same Mike South had the sac to label as a "moron" and an "idiot" a 30 year veteran of porn and a certified registered nurse whom had more knowledge about STI prevention on the ground than he could ever get.

But, even all that pales to the most ironic aspect of all this: the entire point of the South/Black/AHF condom mandate campaign is to effectively destroy and dismantle the FSC-PASS testing regime and replace it with mandatory condoms reinforced by "local" decentralized testing that would be "free" and based on the OraQuick HIV swab method...in short, the very system that South used against Jessica Chase.

Never mind that the proposed CalOSHA "bloodborne/sexually transmitted pathogen" regulations would also ban facials and require condoms for oral sex acts as well (unless the performers involved take Hep C vaccines and are cleared by approved medical personnel); I guess that South would probably consider that a win since that would shoot down competition for his amateur porn market. If those regulations were adopted by his own state's OSHA, though, South would be out of business....and let's not also forget the fact that Georgia isn't exactly a porn friendly state, either.

And as for South's claim that his "commom sense" approach would beat across-the-board universal testing in screening out STI+ individuals....well, I'll just let Michael Whiteacre hit that knuckball of a lie out of the park in conclusion (bolded emphasis added by me):

And how does Mike South claim he prevents STI transmission on set?
No system is perfect but common sense goes a long way….maybe that’s why in 20 + years in this industry not one person on any of my shoots has ever contracted any kind of STD. Ever.

But then I won’t shoot just anyone either, I have an interview process and if I don’t like her answers (or his) I don’t care how hot they are I ain’t shooting them.

I can’t think of a girl I didn’t stay in touch with for quite some time after we shot, but that’s because (partially) I interview most of them in person at least twice prior to shooting so we kinda becomes friends.

So, Mike South claims he has special powers: the ability to determine someone’s STI status, or their scene partners’ risk of contracting an STI, based on talking to them twice.

As I told South at the time, “Those are anecdotes, Mike, not data, You know better. It also assumes the performers in question actually know where they caught it and/or desire to tell you. That’s not science and it’s not logic either.”

Setting aside the fact that, without a universal testing AND monitoring/surveillance system that could access records of the test results of all performers with whom he worked both before AND AFTER they worked with him, South could not possibly know for certain whether any of his performers had ever contracted an STI.

Does South honestly expect anyone to believe that 20 years ago when, for example, he shot scenes in hotel rooms at adult conventions, when testing was not what it is now — and new talent went from room to room shooting scenes — some performer showed him even a one or two-day old test, and he can somehow be 100% sure that “not one person on any of [his] shoots has ever contracted any kind of STD”?

People lie about their STI status, people can be mistaken, people can fail to get a follow-up test, etc — it is exceedingly difficult to determine where a sexually active person who is doing scenes contracted an STI, or transmitted an STI – but it is scientifically impossible to know this if one can’t look at a tests for EVERY performer before and after the scene. People walk around with STIs for YEARS without knowing they even have them.

And when Mike South tells people not to bother getting tested, they WON’T find out.
It was just this kind of "Trust us" mentality that led to Marc Wallace, Darren James, Derrick Burts, Mr. Marcus, and Cameron Bay/Rod Daily. And if folk like Mike South get their way and get to dismantle the testing protocols that have worked, there will be plenty more.

Sunday, March 16, 2014

How To Destroy Your Reputation And Alienate An Entire Industry In One Day: The Horrible MindGeek/Twistys TOTY 2014 Fix

This isn't necessarily the normal bit of subject matter for BPPA, but since we cover the industry as much as we defend it, it's important to tell the tale when we think it is doing wrong as when it warrants defense.

The adult Internet is now in full flame over the events of the last two days concerning the former glamcore website Twistys.com, and their apparent railroading of their most recent Treat of the Year contest to reward one of their owner's contract models at the expense of the actually deserving models.

The Real Porn Wikileaks' crack (no, not that kind, folks) reporter Michael "Deep Throat" Whiteacre is on the case with a full synopsis of the sitch posted there...but for you, here's the abbreviated story:

Twistys was one of the most successful "glamcore" porn sites, which featured women doing mainly solo and girl/girl scenes, which made them different from the usual boy/girl and "gonzo" sites like Brazzers and BangBros, which were owned by the conglomerate Manwin.

But then, Manwin ousted their original president, rebooted themselves under the name MindGeek, and bought out Twistys, bringing in new management. And, apparently, they concluded that glamcore wasn't their cup of tea, and that Twistys should be bought to heel and introduced to the porn ticky tacky formula of cheap profits and b/g scenes.

Which brings us to their recently completed 2014 Treat of the Year contest, which was supposed to be a fan-voted election where members of the Twistys forum would have the final say in selecting a winner and a runner-up. The prize was a cash award and a paid trip to Costa Rica to do a rip-roaring scene.

Given Twistys sterling reputation, plenty of their models and former TOTY winners turned out to show out for the votes.

Ultimately, the voting concluded, and a winner was announced. Nicole Aniston got the most votes, and was awarded the prestigious award. The runner up, OTOH, wasn't so simple...and that's where I turn the mic over to Mr. Whiteacre:

According to Alexandra, after the voting ended Rob informed her that Nicole Aniston had received the most votes, and Vanessa Veracruz had come in second.

Elle, he said, had come in third, beating Sophia Knight — also a girl/girl-only performer — by one vote.
"Rob" refers to the now former production manager at Twistys (more on that anon). "Elle" is model Elle Alexandra, who, like Vanessa Veracruz, is a strictly girl/girl performer.

Two sources inform TRPWL that Aniston, who had not shot boy/girl content in some time, agreed to work with a male performer in Costa Rica on the condition that Twistys bring Veracruz on the shoot as well.

Veracruz told TRPWL that she worked very hard on this year’s contest — arranging giveaways of DVDs and 8×10 photos.

“I put in a lot of time and effort to connect with fans on a daily basis,” she said.
Alas, all that effort was cast aside by the Twistys upper management, because $$$$ (emphasis added by me):

Rob reportedly took to the forum to post that Aniston was the winner and Veracruz the runner-up specifically because he didn’t want the MindGeek brass to pass off boy/girl performer and Mindgeek contract star Madison Ivy — who had placed fifth at best —  as the contest’s actual runner-up.
Eventually, however, management indicated they would compromise: seeking boy/girl content, they would bring Ivy to Costa Rica, but would still honor Veracruz’s standing as legitimate runner-up.
So, the model who paid a considerable cost in time and money to actually finish second in a model contest must defer to the model who finished at best out of the pack, because promoting your contract model overrides a fair vote in your own contest?? That would be outrageous enough in any form.

But even that "compromise" was apparently not good enough for MindGeek/NewTwistys, because...

That was everyone’s understanding until this morning — when the Twistys site saluted Aniston as Treat of the Year, and Ivy as runner-up.
 And to further emphasize MG/NewTwisty's sudden urge to send the "We make and remake the rules here, sluts" message:
And, in what appears to be a bit of proactive damage control, the link to the Twistys forum — which is overrun with complaints about the contest — was removed from the Twistys homepage.
Turns out, MG had arranged for Ivy's shoot in Costa Rica well in advance of even the TOTY vote; they even paid to fly her to the shoot location before making the announcement of Madison's "win". Apparently, the faux MENSAs who now run MG must have thought that Madison Ivy, who is legitimately popular and well honored as a performer, would get more than enough votes in any contest to win. But, when their lack of knowledge and familiarity with the history of Twistys and their glamcore legacy came back and bit them on their asses, they responded like most big conglomerates when faced with a rebellion from one of their subsidiaries: Crush it like a grape and reestablish your power...and then destroy the evidence.

The backlash has been predictably swift and deep. Vanessa Veracruz, the scorned and jilted rightful runnerup, is firing back at MG/NewTwistys with a #BoycottTwistys campaign, seconded by many of her sister models. Others, like Elle Alexandra, have fired their own volleys back, saying that they would never model ever again at that site. (In Alexandra's case, not by choice, since NewTwistys revoked and canceled her upcoming shoots following her complaints.)

NewTwistys' "So sorry, we are out of fucks to give; we run our own company and stay your asses out of our business" reaction certainly don't help defuse the situation, either. They managed to banish all critics -- including even some past TOTY participants and winners -- from their forum....and then, they even shut down the forum itself, claiming "ongoing maintenance". Riiiiight. Also, "TwistysRob" resigned his post in protest, and now operates his Twitter account under a new name.

This is exactly the kind of corporate idiocy and disrespect for the models/performers who create the content for companies like MindGeek and Twistys that allow the likes of Gail Dines (remember her??) and Shelley Lubben the tiny bit of legitimacy to slam the porn industry as a meat grinder. It's even more unfortunate because MindGeek/Manwin has actually done positive things for the industry through their contributions to the Free Speech Coalitions's PASS protocols, their support for improved talent STI testing, and their opposition to the condom mandate campaign.

Maybe it's time for a new Danni Ashe to emerge to show the Porn Industrial Complex how it should be done. I have my idea for who could step up to the plate....but that's only me.



Saturday, March 15, 2014

Gail Dines' Allies: Judith "Bat-Ada" Reisman Goes WingNut Daily Against AHF, Condom Mandate

[Originally posted to Red Garter Club Blog, condensed and edited for posting here.] 

There is a saying; Be careful of who you lie with, because you just might get bitten in the ass. Unless, of course, ass bites are one of your most cherished fetishes.

Remember the name "Judith Reisman"? She had recently joined forces with sister fundie Shelley Lubben in a You Tube video taped at a recent porn convention, where Shelley was actively trolling for new fresh recruits to scam for her Pink Cross faux ministry or ex-porn starlets.

Before then, "Dr." Reisman was well acclaimed as a crackpot right-wing "scholar" who focused her antiporn activism on the calamitous impact of porn on the synapses of its user through "erotoxins", as well as her usual crackpot opposition to any form of sexual activity not approvable to her Christian fundamentalist sensibiities.

You may also remember "Dr." Reisman from her legacy of going from being a script writer for the old-school children's TV show Captain Kangaroo (an eye-roller of its own, considering that Mr. Captain himself, Bob Keeshan, was a openly activist liberal) to becoming an antiporn "feminist" activist who blamed adult sexual speech for causing child sexual abuse, pedophilia, rape, and other degradations to women and children. In an essay that was posted to the 1970's antirape radicalfeminist anthem, Take Back The Night, she maligned the three founders of print porn media -- Playboy's Hugh Hefner, Penthouse's Bob Guccione, and HUSTLER's Larry Flynt, in no particular order, as "Hitler, Stalin, and Goebbels". She then parlayed that pub into an appearance giving testimony to the 1980's Meese Commission On Pornography, where she got to pontificate on the cosmic danger of Playboy pushing child porn to impressionable youth through its...cartoons.

So...how does this connect with Gail Dines?? Well, Reisman's "scholarship" on the negative impacts of porn has been used, reused, and used over and over again by Dines and her associates over at Stop Porn Culture to make their case for censorship of all sexually explicit material. Also, Shelley Lubben has often used Reisman as a go-to source for some of most classic rantage about the destructiveness of porn on those who perform it.

Even better than that, Dines and SPC have been more frequently using Reisman's "scholarship" as a means to unite the antiporn "feminist" and traditionalist Religious Right "obscenity" movements with the anti-sex work "abolitionists" in connecting porn and prostitution/escorting/oncall sexual services/sexual commerce as "sex trafficking".

Plus (and here's the kicker to all this), Dines has been attempting to glam her way into the debate over mandatory condoms in porn by positively citing the efforts of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation to force performers to use condoms and other "barrier methods" as a means of containing an alleged STI/HIV "pandemic".

Never mind that the efforts of AHF come from a fundamentally different paradigm of making money off condom sales....ahhhh, I mean, protecting the jobs of crossover HIV+ performers who would be otherwise prevented from performing in the "straight" porn industry due to the current screening/testing regimen imposed by the Free Speech Coalition's PASS protocols. And, never mind that AHF's core constituency happens to be the very gay male community that has been truly wrecked by the HIV pandemic, albeit there is vast opposition even there to what some feel is AHF's hamfisted approach to selling condoms as "behavior modification", as opposed to treatment or development of a vaccine to cure HIV. To Gail Dines, anything that can be used to slam porn as "corporate capitalist" mass rape and abuse of women is a good thing.

Except, with Judith Reisman, she may have bit off just a bit too much.

Michael Whiteacre of The Real Porn Wikileaks alerted me to an article which ran today over at the very, very ultra right-wing site World Net Daily, which most folk would much prefer to call "WingNut Daily" due to its predisposition to the most bizarre conspiracy theories known to mankind. You know...Birth certificates? Madrassas? Agenda 21/ACORN? "Obama is a Muslim Socialist"??

Anyways..the article pretended itself to be an attack on the notion that condoms are the most effective means for gay male folk to protect themselves against STI's, including HIV/AIDS. It preferred the old tried-an-true method of gays giving up their nasty, sinful, disgusting "buggery" and coming home to Jesus Christ and the joys of heterosexual monogamy and procreative marriage..or facing the full brunt of criminalization through anti-sodomy laws. The article also called for good, God-fearing families of people suffering from HIV, and/or the relatives of people who actually succumbed to HIV/AIDS, to be able to file class action suits against "pro-gay" organizations for lying about the true nature of condoms failing to protect their users from contracting HIV.

Further, the WND article claimed that anal "sex" (yes, the fright quotes are included, because to the author of the piece, penises should never, ever attempt to even touch the tender anal passages of any other person, especially not another man) is not subject to the wonderful protection of more Godly acts like "natural" vaginal sex, because the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) allegedly never approved the use of condoms for anal penetration.

The author's evidence for this?? Citations from a "study" from a right-wing Hawaiian state senator named Bob McDermott, attempting to oppose a sex education program in that state that was used by a whopping 12 schools, which called for the usage of condoms as a barrier protectant for PIV and anal penetration. That study took note of the disclaimer that the CDC had not endorsed the use of the original condoms for anal sex due to the risk of breakage and the inflexibility of anal passages.

A single line quote from Rep. McDermott condenses the point concisely:

“Genitals are sexual reproductive organs,” McDermott told EAGnews, “and the a– isn’t that.”

Don't you just love how fundie rightwingers are so quick with cursing, and just as quick with masking it?

The payoff paragraph in this is whom the author recommends to be sued:

A class action lawsuit by AIDS victims and their loved ones would rock the world – a suit based on the fact that condom pushers have for years dispensed false, deceptive claims about how the product protects – or fails to protect – the health of sex participants. The reality is that everyday condoms are manufactured and approved for natural, vaginal sex, not anal “sex” – they are not effectively designed to protect from disease those people who engage in sodomy.

Such a lawsuit should target the AIDS Heathcare Foundation, Planned Parenthood and a myriad of teachers and school systems, too many to count, that have taught that anal “sex” (traditionally termed “sodomy” or “buggery” under British-based legal codes) as not so different than natural coitus.

A right-wing antigay organization targeting AHF for representing HIV+ gay folk isn't really news, of course. Until you find out that the author of that piece happens to be.... (screenshot, please)

WingnutDailyReismanLede
[click on thumb to link to article]

Yup....you read right....THAT Judith Reisman. Gail Dines' go-to source for "feminist" analysis against porn. The artist formerly known as "Judith Bat-Ada" who was so trusted by radfems that she scored a essay in one of their classic anthologies. The one connection between the whacked-out Hard Right and the radfem antiporn "Left". THAT Judith Reisman.

And now, the same Judith Reisman who is now attempting to ride the wave of antiporn/anti-sexwork activism, and link it with the anti- "sex trafficking" and "porn addiction" movements, and bring her old-school historic antigay bigotry into the mix.

Gee...I wonder what Michael Weinstein would be thinking once he reads this? Or, the "radicallesbians" now totally committed to this "alliance"? Or, for that matter, Professor Dines herself, since she constantly rails about her movement being nicked falsely as palling around with reactionaries. Or...is World Net Daily now simply her newest ally in the fight against The Great Porn Capitalist Conspiracy, and any talk of a "progressive" antiporn "feminist" movement merely just a ruse to cover up the usual sex-hate against anything not linked to procreation or "mutual love"?

I suppose we will all have to see for ourselves, right??