tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385392963347857134.post5643849356517723128..comments2023-10-23T09:51:37.441-05:00Comments on Blog of Pro-Porn Activism: Measure B Was Only A Missile, CalOSHA Drops The NUKE: Draft Of New Porn Regulations Released, And It's As Bad As It Gets..And WORSE (UPDATED)Renegade Evolutionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17905949172886730262noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385392963347857134.post-35802184176587918632013-10-19T00:55:13.582-05:002013-10-19T00:55:13.582-05:00There will be no variances allowed in the regs. Th...There will be no variances allowed in the regs. The regs will either be struck down as irrelevant to the workforce involved or they'll simply be ignored. As part of the creeping prohibitionism responsible for everything from the inability of BDSM web sites to get credit card processing to Amazon's ongoing purge of self-published erotica to the Cinemax's rather loud proclamation of the intent to back away from softcore programming we will end up living with the Cal-OSHA's on-the-books restrictions as a nuisance that can't be entirely avoided in creating what you make. There won't be a lot of investigations or big fines, nor will their be anything resembling widespread compliance, but after living with decades of potential federal obscenity prosecutions hanging over all our heads we're not going to just throw it in because some state agency might, under just the right circumstances, hit you with a fine. All these measures, endorsed by good progressives like the folk at CounterPunch, really add up to the liberal version of the FRC's agenda.<br /><br />Of all the big, stupid things the porn industry did when times were good, the biggest and stupidest was its failure to cover its left flank. Porno has no friends anymore. Fans are not friends. They're not going to take political positions that require outing themselves as porn wankers. What made Miller v. California and everything that followed it possible was the - perish the thought - libertarian liberalism of everyone from Barney Rosset to Gore Vidal to Kenneth Tynan. They're all gone now and those who have inherited their seats at the left-of-center table are more interested in identity politics than in individual liberty, which they now regard with suspicion as no more than a thin scrim to cover the ongoing evils of patriarchy. <br /><br />How did this happen? We let it happen because the guys who run the porn business aren't very smart, know nothing important about politics and can't tell their allies from their enemies. A charlatan like Michael Weinstein and a demagogue like Gail Dines can easily shame these First Amendment apostates into throwing us under the bus to make themselves seem less like Hugo Schwyzer. We needed those people and we did nothing as an industry to keep them onboard. <br /><br />So now we will continue to work on as we always have but with more anxiety over the remote but not unimaginable prospect of getting hit with a big fine for doing what we've always done. The genuinely liberal harm reduction systems put in place to make our work safer will be degraded by a general decline in confidence inspired by loud-mouthed losers like Rob Black and Mike South and the work of making porn will, in fact, become more dangerous for all but those lucky few who will be uplifted by the handful of remaining big producers who still sell into what's left of the sexually adventurous sub-cultures now abandoned by the SDP faction of the left that once embraced their attempts at enriching their sex lives and now rejects that as just "the corporatization of sexuality."<br /><br />I've warned of this happening for years. Nobody listened. How happy are they now?Ernest Greenenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385392963347857134.post-33191075606663321242013-10-18T23:35:09.667-05:002013-10-18T23:35:09.667-05:00Sorry, Anthony, But I guess we're in the same...Sorry, Anthony, But I guess we're in the same club - unpublished by Counterpunch, with no reason given.<br /><br />The post-Cockburn Counterpunch is awfully protective of Dines, isn't it? One day, we're going to find out what's really going on.Sheldon Ranzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04458885781941849341noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385392963347857134.post-71727767097197563952013-10-17T08:42:46.076-05:002013-10-17T08:42:46.076-05:00Gents..I'm pretty much resigned to the fact th...Gents..I'm pretty much resigned to the fact that CounterPunch probably won't publish my response to Dines...but that's OK. Their loss, not mine.<br /><br />I saw something where Dan Neal of Immoral Productions is attempting to negotiate a variance of the proposed regulations which would spare the worse of the regulations. I don't know whether he was or will be successful with this, or whether the industry will come out in full force to challenge these regs whenever (if ever) they are approved..but at least there's some bit of resistance.Anthony Kennersonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00103420620416144653noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385392963347857134.post-25594993994176856112013-10-17T01:30:08.239-05:002013-10-17T01:30:08.239-05:00While I'm not optimistic about Anthony's p...While I'm not optimistic about Anthony's piece appearing on CounterPunch, I'm rather more confident that what we'll soon see here is a replay of what happened when Obama didn't blink in the face of The Tea Party. <br /><br />I wonder what all the mouthy sudden mandatory condom converts are going to say when this whole thing implodes.<br /><br />I would remind them before they spill any more pixels on Twitter that in the entire 30 years I've been in this business someone has been threatening to bury it every single minute. Ed Meese was going to bury it. Ira Reiner was going to bury it. John Ashcroft was going to bury it. Gail Dines was going to bury it. <br /><br />And yet here we are, still legal and still very much alive. Based on the win-loss record, I know how I'm betting.Ernest Greenenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385392963347857134.post-68873234141259767282013-10-16T22:54:31.980-05:002013-10-16T22:54:31.980-05:00I could be wrong, but I've been watching this ...I could be wrong, but I've been watching this whole circus at close range and it seems to me that the show's about over, or as they say in Variety, El Foldo in All Venues.Ernest Greenenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385392963347857134.post-54419664608769108412013-10-16T21:52:46.063-05:002013-10-16T21:52:46.063-05:00Ernest, I hope you're right.
Anthony, any upd...Ernest, I hope you're right.<br /><br />Anthony, any update on your article for Counterpunch?Sheldon Ranzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04458885781941849341noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385392963347857134.post-21713975385314809732013-10-16T19:10:56.763-05:002013-10-16T19:10:56.763-05:00No cause for panic here. One of the objections to ...No cause for panic here. One of the objections to Cal-OSHA's initial attempts to impose the blood-borne pathogen standard was that it was written for the health care industry and wasn't specific enough for porn. That it took about a year for the agency to even draft these new regs gives you some idea of how eager they are to get back into this mess, which is not very.<br /><br />No doubt their pals at AHF and The UCLA Working Group have been putting the squeeze on them to get this happening, as it appears increasingly likely that neither the legislature nor The Ninth Circuit will bend to AHF's wishes. Cal-OSHA is the last line of defense for all this idiocy, and a weak one at that. By their own admission, the agency's investigative process is complaint-driven and only employees have standing to invoke it. I don't think they relish the prospect of a jurisdictional battle over the employee status of porn performers and will restrict their actions to responding to complaints from snitches AHF will attempt to plant on porn sets.<br /><br />The result will be some wasted time and taxpayer money, but this is more a nuisance than a threat.Ernest Greenenoreply@blogger.com