HIV Porn Panic Returneth: The Latest HIV Gay Porn Scare, And The AHF/CalOSHA Attempt To Stoke Peak BS For Their Condom Mandate

Well...2014 was indeed the year of the attempted HIV Porn Scare, with the AB 1576 campaign going down in flames before the California State Senate....but I did say then that it would not be the last attempt by those wanting to impose condoms on porn shoots to attempt to shake the hive.

And this week, they almost got their panic. Almost, that is.

This whole story starts in September of this year, where an unnamed gay porn performer somehow managed to score a shoot in a gay video in Nevada while he was HIV+, and managed to infect at least one other gay performer in the process.  Note the qualifier here: a gay shoot. Bookmark that one, really, because it will come in quite handy later on.

Update: After further review of CDPH's alert, I rephrase that last paragraph: the original performer had tested negative, then performed unprotected in two shoots within the two week period where he unintentionally infected at least one other performer. Still, the question remains of the length of time between his last negative test and the shoot, as well as how he got infected to begin with. Also, the second performer was infected in a subsequent shoot, not the original.

Now, the second performer was ultimately confirmed to have gotten infected in spite of confirmation that he had been tested and cleared of HIV previously prior to the fateful shoot. No confirmation yet, though, has been made of how soon either performer was tested prior to shooting that scene; but it was confirmed that the test used was the more traditional ELISA antibody test. That's the HIV test that is 100% accurate when the antibodies are present, but also with a latency period of nearly 3 to 6 months where the antibodies can mask themselves in the bloodstream during seroconversion without detection. Bookmark that fact, too.

And remember, all this took place in September. Yet, it wasn't until THIS WEEK, that California's Department of Public Health managed to put out a public alert warning people about this transmission of HIV. Three months, y'allz. Here's a screenshot of the alert; the original is available from the CDPH website as a PDF file.

A few hours after that was released, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation (that's right, folks, they're still at it, even after their legislation was booted out of the Cali State Senate) released this press statement essentially declaring their usual total victory in the condom mandate fight. Then again, Michael Weinstein is not known for avoiding microphones when it warrants his greed.

Some high/lowlights of the peak bullshit spewing from AHF's "statement":

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--In a report released earlier today, the California Department of Public Health, Occupational Health Branch says that it has documented the on-set transmission of an HIV infection from an adult film performer thought to be working out of state (in Nevada) to another performer the individual worked with. The case involves a male performer who was filmed performing with other male performers. The newly infected individual initially tested HIV-negative in California after what was on–set exposure out of state (shooting films without condoms or protective barriers); however, two weeks later, the individual in question then tested HIV-positive. In mid-October, the Free Speech Coalition (FSC), the adult industry trade group, instituted a moratorium on adult industry filming due to reports of an industry-related infection—due to what is most likely this latest HIV case. The filming ban was lifted by the FSC the following week.

“This is not AHF or supporters of condoms claiming that an HIV transmission occurred on the set of an adult film. This is California’s Department of Public Health and OSHA Occupational Health officials who vetted the performers' blood samples with the CDC and concluded after genetic sequencing that this HIV infection occurred on set,” saidMichael Weinstein, President of AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF). “For years adult film producers have claimed that performers who have tested HIV-positive while working in the industry did not contract HIV in the industry, but became infected through exposure in their personal lives outside and away from adult film sets. This new case puts truth to the lie that the industry has promoted year-after-year, years that sadly saw several additional performers infected while working in the porn industry.”California health officials confirmed the on-set transmission after sending blood samples to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), which genetically sequenced (genotyping and phenotyping) the virus found in the performers involved, and matched it to an adult film actor the infected performer worked with. 

The adult film industry concedes that it did have three (3) confirmed on–set transmissions in 2004 after a male performer who had worked in adult films in South America returned to the U.S. and resumed filming adult films in Los Angeles—subsequently infecting three female partners on set.

Since 2004 there have been numerous other cases of performers testing HIV-positive while working in California’s porn industry, including cases in 2010 (Derrick Burts) and 2013 (Cameron Bay and Rod Daily). However, despite the largest-ever OSHA fines levied against the adult film industry in the Cameron Bay case, porn producers continue the spin that these individuals did not contract HIV on set in the industry, but in their personal lives.

“There is no proof that any of these HIV infections over the past decade have not occurred on set other that the porn industry’s word, with the general public and health officials relying on the industry’s own self-reporting,” added Weinstein. “This is a tragic repeat of last year, and of 2010 as well as previous years. Won't we ever learn?”

Pretty much the usual Whinesteinian boilerplate distortion...and still way, way, way off.

Nevertheless, other outlets picked up on the story with the same distortion: the Associated Press wrote a version that conveniently reprinted AHF's version of the truth, which got picked up by such esteemed online media outlets like Gawker and the Guardian.

And even Shelley Lubben's Pink Cross Foundation ministry couldn't avoid piling on with their own touchdown dance, either.

Problem with all this is: they only got one side of the story. Here's what they missed:

Remember when I said that the affair took place in a gay male porn shoot in Nevada? With only gay male performers? Well, in case you forgot: in early October, some health care authorities investigating that particular case alerted the Free Speech Coalition that there was a possibility that the infected performer may have crossed swords (so to speak) with an active "straight" performer whom had used the far more stringent testing protocols used via FSC's PASS system. The PASS system uses a far more accurate and far more effective test, Aptima, for detecting HIV. Unlike ELISA, Aptima can detect traces of the HIV virus within 6-10 days of initial serotransmission. That's 6-10 DAYS, not 3- 6 MONTHS like ERISA. 

The response by the FSC was to declare on October 15th an immediate 3-day moratorium on porn production (later extended an additional 2 days) while the active performer was tested along with all of his first-generation contacts since his last clean test. This is the standard protocol for all of FSCPASS' testing whenever there is a threat of infection.

Thankfully, that active performer and his contacts were found to be free of HIV or any other known STD; and on October 20th, the FSC lifted the moratorium and allowed production to resume.

The fact that no "straight" performer had been infected by this action, or the fact that even the contact had taken place in a venue that didn't adhere to FSCPASS protocols, must have been known to CalOSHA staff when they issued that "alert" last Monday, right??  RIGHT???

At least Weinstein's rantage can be excused by his one-sided moralism and his greed for condom dollars. But, what the hell is CalOSHA's and CDPH's excuse? Have they allowed Weinstein and AHF to anally fist them (figuratively speaking, of course) so much that AHF is now running their department? If this is any precursor of the rules for "barrier protection" that they want to impose on adult production nationwide, then the industry is really farked beyond rescue.

Then there is this claim by AHF in their "statement" that the second performer was in fact tested and found negative prior to that shoot, and that fact blows away the excuses of the anti-condom mandate crowd. Right....sure...really. If the test was an ELISA test as it probably was, then the question remains: how long was P#2 (or even P#1) tested before shooting? 

More importantly, for my benefit: was the shoot condom optional, as most gay shoots are now, due to the essential bargin made to hire and shoot not only bareback porn, but also porn featuring HIV+ performers? If condoms were indeed available, why didn't either performer take the necessary precautions? Hell, even Cameron Bay was actually offered a condom in that infamous Kink.com shoot. (And need I remind you that AHF booster Derrick Burts was infected in a condom-only shoot in Florida??)

Maybe this post will get through as fast as all the AHF/CDPH propaganda bullshit has..or not. In any case, someone needs to wake up and deliver the whole story behind this before it metasizes into another condom mandate scam.

See also this article over at The Real Porn Wikileaks, and this FSC statement released yesterday clearing up the entire issue of FSCPASS protocols being used, misused, and abused by AHF and CDPH.

Sigh....Another Month, Another HIV Porn Scare, And Another False Flag

I know....the blog has been kinda sparse of late, because of both a lack of news and my night job interfering with my ability to post on issues. My sincere apologies for that.

This past week, though, was more than enough to break out of the mothballs with yet another potential HIV scare delivered at the adult media industry. Fortunately, like most of the previous scares, it has a somewhat happy ending, but not without its controversy.

On this last Wednesday, the Free Speech Coalition stunned the industry with a rushed announcement that a "precautionary hold" on porn production would be imposed for three days, pending the outcome of testing for a possible HIV infection that may have took place outside of California. The semi-moratorium, shall we call it, was precipitated on an alert by an unidentified state health care official that a perfomer (probably ex-performer, though that status was unclear) that had been confirmed with HIV who didn't use the protocols of the PASS system of testing, might have had sexual contact off set with another performer who did regularly use the protocols. This triggered the usual procedure of testing both the current performer and all his first-generation contacts, as well as this "precautionary" moratorium as a stopgap.

Keep in mind, this is different from the usual procedure regarding FSCPASS protocols, where a full moratorium is declared whenever there is a positive or reactive HIV test, pending the results of confirmatory and first-gen tests. In this case, the semi-moratorium was declared as a precaution, so that testing of the individual performer and his recent contacts could commence. Since the Aptima tests that FSCPASS uses generally posts results in 48-72 hours, it was thought that 3 days would be enough of a period to perform the testing...hence, the brief length rather than the full 2-week moratorium.

The only fly in the ointment, figuratively speaking, was that one of the first-gen contacts of the performer was not originally available for testing due to being out of the state/country....so everything had to pushed forward through the weekend. Hence, FSCPASS on Saturday announced that the "semi-moratorium" had to be extended through Monday to tie up the loose ends. Michael Whiteacre of The Real Porn Wikileaks gives a thorough explanation of the reasons for the delay here, in response to critics.

Thankfully, everything seems to have turned out OK, because yesterday afternoon, FSCPASS announced that everyone had been cleared, the performer pool had not been contaminated, and that the moratorium was officially lifted; allowing production to resume.

Nevertheless, there has been some grumbling from the usual sources that: either FSCPASS acted too soon to lift the moratorium before the risk could be fully accessed, because people can lie to officials about their sexual contacts; or all this was a ruse to fill FSC's coffers.

Personally, I have my own druthers that this was all a false flag campaign by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation's usual groupies to contaminate the adult performer pool, and use the resulting fear to once again sell the condom mandate. The fact that AHF shill Isadore Hall used the brohaha to announce his intentions to run for a California State Senate seat (Hall is term-limited out of his current Assembly seat), is just a bit too coincidental. Also, Shelley Lubben has briefly diverted from her crusade miming Belle Knox to pass a comment about another "scare".

In any case, all's well that ends well....I'm guessing, though, this won't be the last attempt to game the system by far.

Ahhhhh....OOPS!! (And Hallelujah!!!) Latest Performer Test Was False Positive; Moratorium Lifted

For those of you who were just itching to write more of your panic screeds about the latest HIV panic in porn due to a initial "reactive" test of a performer last Wednesday? Fire up your shredders, please.

The confirmatory tests came in today for the affected performer....and it all turned out to be...a false positive.

The original sample that produced the tainted results was retested; as well as a fresh sample. Both came up negative for HIV (and I suppose, the rest of the panel).

Also, all the 1st generation contacts of the performer who were tested came up negative as well.

With that, FSCPASS has closed the book on this "scare", and lifted the moratorium on production imposed on Wednesday.

Here's FSC's full announement:

Yesterday’s potentially positive HIV test by adult performer was a false positive. The performer does not have HIV.  Additionally, the first generation performers who were tested proactively have also come back negative. Production on adult film can resume safely.
We understand that a moratorium is nerve-wracking for performers and difficult for producers. However, it’s essential that when it comes to performer safety, we err on the side of caution. We thank the producers, performers, agents and doctors who worked together during this difficult time for maintaining the moratorium, and for quickly helping establish a list of first generation contacts. While this was a false positive, it is always essential that we remain vigilant in concern to performer health.

The moratorium and testing system has enabled us to prevent any transmission of HIV on an adult film set for over ten years. While opponents of the industry often use our periodic moratoriums as evidence that adult sets are not safe, quite the opposite is true. Moratoriums have and continue to enable us to prevent HIV from being transmitted between adult performers.

Again, we thank everyone who worked so diligently and concertedly to protect performers during this current moratorium.

 So, once again, the FSCPASS system is proven to work. And, once again, certain town criers hoping for another crisis to push their agenda are wiping the egg off their face. AGAIN.

Either way, we can now exhale and celebrate.

And Away We Go Again: Another Potential HIV Scare, Another Moratorium...Another Nail In The Coffin For Condomless Porn??

Here. We. Go. AGAIN.

(August 28, 2014) – Free Speech Coalition (FSC), the adult industry trade association, called for a production moratorium today after one of the testing facilities in its PASS testing system reported a possible positive HIV test for an adult performer.

“There was a positive test at one of our testing centers. Confirmatory tests are not yet back but we are taking every precaution to protect performers and to determine if there’s been any threat to the performer pool,” said FSC CEO Diane Duke.

“We take the health of our performers very seriously and felt that it was better to err on the side of caution while we determine whether anyone else may have been exposed.”
The next steps will be to perform additional tests, determine a timeline, and identify any first generation partners.

“We want to make sure all performers are protected. The performers’ health and safety is the most important thing,” Duke added.

As of this notice, FSC calls for all production to halt immediately, until further notice.

As this only broke yesterday afternoon, speculation is running rife about the identity of the affected performer, how or if she got infected (or whether or not this may be a false positive), and whether or not the impact of this new moratorium will be enough to undercut performer solidarity in favor of mandatory condoms. However, the following is known information, based on actual verifiable sources (and documented over at The Real Porn Wikileaks blog):

1) The initial reactive test results were preliminary; confirmatory testing has been done on the affected performer and all her 1st-generation on-screen partners, with results due to be released later today at the earliest.

2) At least four major performers have been verified to be part of the 1st gen quarantine list, and have been tested. That does NOT mean that they are indeed infected, just that they have engaged with the performer most directly isolated. Since 2004, it should be noted, there has not been one case of any performer getting infected with HIV on set.

3) According to Michael Whiteacre over at TRPWL, the affected performer is in her 30's, has performed for around a year in adult, has maintained a regular two-week testing regimen with FSCPASS (including a full panel of testing at the beginning of the month), and is romanticaly involved with another performer.

(Per BPPA policy, we do not and will NOT ever reveal the name of any potentially infected performer or 1st gen partner without direct permission or until they themselves feel fit to reveal themselves publically. Any attempt to reveal such info via comments or linkage on this blog will be immediately deleted and/or redacted.)


Not surprisingly, all the usual peanut gallery rogues are at their loudest squawking tones about how this latest "infection" proves once and for all that only condoms can protect performers from HIV; and that the FSCPASS protocols are an abject failure for HIV prevention. Then again, they were pitching the same BS for the last two or three "outbreaks", and they were proven so wrong.

At least this time, there are sane voices out there calling for calm and solidarity.....the newly formed performers' group Adult Performers' Advocacy Committee (APAC) released a timely and well structured statement on the latest scare that deserves reprinting in its entirity for its depth of common sense and reason in the face of the fear and psycho terror that must be affecting a lot of LA performers.

APAC is requesting that all adult performers honor PASS’s call for a moratorium and treat each other with compassion and respect during this time.

When an industry moratorium, especially one related to HIV, occurs, performers are often concerned about their health, the health of their co-workers, their financial security, and public perception of the porn industry. Fear and mistrust are understandable reactions. Desire for facts and belief in rumors when no facts are available are also understandable reactions.

The only facts available at this time are that a positive HIV result has been reported to the FSC and that a call has been made to stop all production while a confirmatory test is done.

The Adult Performer Advocacy Committee’s mission is to support the safety, happiness, and well-being of individual performers, and our community. Therefore we stand against blaming specific performers for contracting HIV, and we encourage them to take steps to ensure HIV- negative scene partners are not exposed. We also firmly stand against any homophobia (ie blaming “crossover” performers or gay studios) in a time of industry moratorium.

APAC is asking all performers to refrain from exchanging body fluids during this moratorium. This includes girl-girl only performers, trans performers, “gay” performers, queer performers, and “straight” performers, and includes performers based out of Los Angeles, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Miami, New York, and anywhere else adult productions are shot in the United States or with performers who have recently been here. This also includes trade shoots and recreational activities.

The blending of gay and straight performers; transgender and cisgender performers; queer, homo- and heterosexual sexualities; is an increasing reality in our industry. There is no “gay” or straight” industry, even if there are straight and gay audiences.

HIV is not transmitted by gay people to straight people, it is transmitted from a positive partner to a negative partner by very specific sexual acts that are not specific to sexual orientation.

This request to honor the current moratorium is made for the safety of our community as a whole and for your safety. Regardless of your feelings towards the FSC or any other entity in the adult film industry, we believe this is the right thing to do.

APAC is also asking fellow performers to show compassion towards each other and to our unnamed peer who is currently waiting for the results of their confirmatory test. Their entire life has just been turned upside down and shaken. Any one of us could be in that person’s shoes. Think about what it might be like to be in those shoes before you point fingers, throw accusations around, or tweet about who you might guess they are.

As performers, it is our responsibility to understand how HIV is transmitted and to show care for other performers. At APAC, we offer resources on HIV and STI education and a private, performer only platform for performers to support and discuss concerns about moratoriums with each other.

Moratoriums are an opportunity for performers to be a voice of reason and stability about sexual health, to educate ourselves, and to show care for each other.

When moratorium-related concerns turn into anxious blame or trying to figure out whose “fault” it is, performers are pitted against one another.

When these concerns are instead played out as care for one another, our industry and the community of performers becomes stronger.

APAC encourages performers to reach out to their existing support systems, and to remember we’re all in this together and should be able to lean on each other.

Personally, I think that this is the direct effect of laws like Measure B coming back to bite some asses hard by driving performers underground into less safe ventures. A part of me that's more into conspiracies might see the hand of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation in all this, paying and supporting "moles" to infect performers "off-the-clock", or introduce HIV+ "crossover" performers into the adult performer pool in order to poison it, and use the insuing panic and terror based on the fear of an outbreak and the loss of livelihood during the moratoria period to push their "condoms only" agenda. (That's solely MY opinion, not reflective of anybody else here at BPPA.)

But, that's not important right now. The real thing at the moment is to remain calm and await the results of the testing, and then act accordingly as to what the legitimate level of threat really is. This could be bigger than what took place in 2004 with Darren James; it could also be a false positive. Or, it could be just like many of the other "outbreaks" we've seen these last two years: an isolated off-the-clock event that was caught before anyone else got harmed.  What we will see, we will see.

"Curses....BAHLOCKED AGAIN!!!" AB 1576 (AHF/Isadore Hall Sponsored Condom Mandate Bill) Placed "In Suspense" By California Senate Committee (BREAKING STORY)

Well...it seems like it took a bit longer than comfort allowed, but it appears that common sense and reality will prevail again.

The California Senate Appropriations Committee, after hearing testimony on both sides about Assemblyman Isadore Hall's bill (AB 1576) which would have mandated condom usage and testing for all porn shoots in that state, has placed the bill "in suspense", effectively killing it for the session.

Hall was there to testify for the bill, along with both Cameron Bay and Rod Daily, the two principals of last year's HIV scare. Representing the forces against the bill in testimony were performer Lorelei Lee (backed by a petition signed by nearly 650 performers in opposition), and adult attorney Karen Tynan repping the Free Speech Coalition, among other dignitaries.

Obviously, this is a breaking story, and reaction is coming fast and furious. I'll add more details and update this post as events warrant and more information is revealed.

For now, please go over to The Real Porn Wikileaks for Michael Whiteacre's live posting of the hearing, and reactions thereof to the decision to effectively table AB 1576 for the session.

See also XBiz.com's writeup on the hearing here.  XBiz did note that the committee is scheduled to reconvene on August 15 for what could be a final resolution of AB 1576. Four "aye" votes would be needed for passage on to the full California Senate. There was no vote today, because the committee chair made the decision to place the bill "in suspense". 

HIV Porn Panic 2013: "All Clear" Given, Moratorium Lifted As Of Today, Sayeth FSCPASS....But, What About The Peanut Gallery Skeptics?

Well, that was a short, sweet, and thankfully brief little panic.

Last night, the Free Speech Coalition's PASS announced that the final remaining test of all first generation performers whom had shot with the performer whom had been recently infected with HIV had come up negative, like all the other tests. Thusly, it was now safe to lift the moratorium on porn production that had been imposed last Friday, and resume shooting as of today (December 13th).

In addition, FSCPASS announced that the date for acceptable tests for clearance to shoot had been rebooted to December 5th, in accordance with their protocols that production cease for two weeks after any possible exposure to HIV.  Since the infected performer's last shoot was on November 21st, the two-week latency period would fall due on Dec. 5th. (The actual positive test was confirmed on December 6th; the Aptima HIV test used by FSCPASS has a 7 to 10 day latency period for catching infected DNA. FSCPASS allows for a 2 week period for additional coverage and protection.)

So, once again, the system worked exactly as planned, and people should be celebrating...right??

You'd think so...but, there is a minority but growing number of skeptics around the porn disapora who aren't so sure that lifting the moratorium this soon is a good idea.

Their basic argument is that the Aptima test might be well and good for initial detection and screening, there is that small chance that it may miss someone who has the HIV virus running dormant, and if that person is cleared for shooting and infects someone else, you could get a disasterous outbreak. To them, the proper protocol should be to follow up with reinforced testing of the first-gen partners in two weeks following the initial Aptima testing, and then even further testing in six to eight weeks just to be sure that the HIV virus is completely removed from the system.

And some critics of FSCPASS even go further than that; they believe that the costs of not shooting are too great, and that FSCPASS has way too much power to control production in the midst of a crisis...so, they argue that production should continue while the protocols are being followed....as long as condoms are used.

Both arguments have some bit of merit, but ultimately they both fail the smell test for me.

Argument #1 might have more merit if the dominant tests used for STI's was something like ERISA, an antibody test that did tend to miss out early cases; but Aptima has been proven to be very accurate in the screening and detection of acute cases of HIV. Plus, the new 14-day testing protocol imposed by FSCPASS all but eliminates the latency period where someone can get infected before testing and sneak through the cracks of the tests. It should also be remembered that the HIV testing protocols used by FSCPASS also include ERISA and Western Blot assays in addition to Aptima, for full coverage.

Another note is that while it is technically possible, there has been no recorded case -- even with the multiple HIV panics this year -- of any first-gen performer being cleared initially but testing positive in followup testing while shooting. Indeed, there has not even been one case, not even since the original "outbreak" of 2004, where a performer has even gotten infected on the straight side of the industry directly from a porn shoot. (And in that one case, Darren James brought his HIV infection in from the outside. No, Derrick Burts doesn't count, either, because his infection occured in a condom-only gay shoot, though allegedly not while actually shooting.)

Argument #2, on the other hand, was the argument thrown out by Porno Dan Leal after his attempted coup against FSCPASS in bucking the moratorium: "Because Immoral Productions is condom only, and none of their models were part of the first-gen list, they should have been allowed to shoot; and condom-only shops should be able to shoot content during the moratorium period. Performers gotta eat and pay their bills, you know."

That sounds more less like a concern for safety, and more a concern about not getting paid; and it also sounds like a surrender to the Condom Nazis over at the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, who would gladly exploit such a division to say that even industry giants think that condoms are the best form of prevention, so why not just make it mandatory and abolish bareback sex altogether??

It also ignores the basic fact that my friend Ernest Greene has argued repeatedly: you cannot have mandatory testing and mandatory condoms together, because California antidiscrimination laws do not allow for the removal or even the screening of employees for HIV. AHF's argument has long been that with condoms, you don't need testing to begin with, because barrier protection really is the only legitimate form of protection from STI's..and "safe sex" can be pretty hot, and anyone who doesn't like condoms are simply putting performers at risk of death and destruction. One look at the HIV/AIDS death toll of gay performers on their side of the industry (where condoms rather than testing is the default) will dissuade most people of that fallacy.

Thankfully, there seems to be developing a sense of unity among performers and the industry, mostly because they are finally fed up with being AHF's punching bag for the past three years, and also because after three scares this past year, the sense of urgency to do something before AHF and CalOSHA overrides them has finally soaked into their brains. Let's hope that this unity lasts by the time the next panic hits...which, if I know AHF's deep pockets and ability to buy their own instigators, probably won't be too long coming.

The Rebuttal Too Smart For CounterPunch To Publish: Whereas I Rebuke Gail Dines' Bullshittery

 [Since it is apparent that CounterPunch has no intention of publishing my response to Gail Dines' recent screed at their website, where she attempts one more time to malign and distort the facts of the latest HIV porn scare, as well as attempts some drive-by pot shots at her critics, including yours truly (in the process butchering the name of my personal blog), I thought that it would be a good idea to share with you the essay that I had prepared for them. The original is still up over at my Red Garter Club blog, but I figure that since industry pros read BPPA a lot more often then my personal blog, this might be an interesting read. Do with it as you will, folks.  -- Anthony]

A Rebuttal From The "Red Garter Belt" 

How Gail Dines Fails Miserably On The Latest HIV In Porn "Outbreak"

by Anthony Kennerson


Perhaps I should be grateful to Professor Gail Dines that she mentions me, or at least my Red Garter Club blog (no belts involved, I'm afraid), in passing as part of her latest essay regarding the current HIV scare in the Los Angeles-based pornography industry. Having been one of her most trenchant critics from the Left, and being both a fan and consumer of mainstream porn and an unabashed supporter of what some decry as "sex-positive" feminism, it doesn't surprise me at all that she would tend to avoid folk like me if at all possible.

The problem is, though, that Professor Dines seems to have an inverse relationship with the art of fact checking, and a continuous habit of letting her antiporn ideology get in the way of interpreting facts that don't mesh perfectly with her beliefs and assumptions about porn and its performers, producers, and consumers. This latest essay, I'm afraid, is simply an extension of those previous habits.

First, let's review the trigger mechanisms that spawned all this. In mid-August, a porn performer named Cameron Bay was verified to have tested positive for HIV, the virus associated with AIDS, through the industry's regular testing protocols. Later that week, her long-time boyfriend, Rod Daily, also a on/off again performer, but operating on the gay side of the industry, announced that he had gotten infected with the virus as well. After a two week period of testing of first generation shooting partners of Bay turned up negative, an imposed moratorium against shooting porn scenes was lifted after two weeks....but was reimposed again on September 9th after a third performer was verified as having tested positive for HIV. "Performer #3", as we will refer to her, has been verified to be intimately related with both Bay and Daily, having worked with them prior to entering the LA based industry in early June. Subsequent testing of all her partners have turned up no further infections; and based on that, the second moratorium was lifted on September 22nd. (WARNING: embedded link NSFW)

Meanwhile, the mega healthcare organization, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, under the direction of its president, Michael Weinstein, has been doing its best to exploit the panic of these infections as a wedge to advance their crusade for destroying the screening and testing system that the mainstream porn industry has been using for the past 10 years, and replacing it with a system based on mandatory condom usage and other means of "barrier protection". In effect, AHF and Weinstein wants the "straight" side of the porn industry to adapt the policies of the gay side, in which it is assumed that HIV-positive performers should be allowed to continue to shoot content, and that seromatching HIV+ performers as well as condoms are the more effective approach to preventing mass infection. Given as much as a 30% rate of seropositivity among active gay male performers, and nearly 117 deaths from gay male actors striken with HIV/AIDS in the past 10 years (as compared to only 2 confirmed infections from shoots from the "straight" side during that period), it's an open question which system has proven more effective.

But, AHF's efforts have also been reinforced by some "sex-positive" health activists and reproductive health specialists, who say that requiring condoms in porn shoots would go a long way towards their efforts in non-judgmental sex education of the masses, as well as having a positive effect by "mentoring" the common folk in the repetition of good behavior.

In addition, some of the more avant garde backers of the alternative erotic subgenre known as "feminist porn" have latched on to promoting condoms as both a prominent selling point of "hot safer sex" and establishing a more progressive and eco-friendly sexual ethic. Not all of them have gone fully towards supporting a legislated condom mandate as AHF does advocate, but many have decided to use the present crisis as a boost for their own promotion of "condom only" ethics.

One such person is long-time sex educator and feminist porn producer Tristan Taormino, who announced last week that she would in the future require both testing and condoms for anyone performing in her future shoots. This week, she was joined in her stance by another esteemed female producer, Nica Noelle, who announced her own condom only conversion on the pages of Salon.com.
While both Taormino and Noelle have been generally praised for their conversions and stances within and outside of the industry, there has been some concern over whether the timing of these conversions would serve to divide and conquer and supress legitimate questions about the effectiveness of condoms as a sole barrier against HIV, as well as the aftereffects of undercutting the present screening/testing system that has served the industry well.

Nina Hartley, perhaps known to CounterPunch readers as one of the most eloquent advocates for sexual expression, feminist porn, and sexual safety, as well as being a 30 year veteran of the porn industry as an actor, director, and producer, has posted a very effective essay in which she explicitly makes her case that the condom mandate would be counterproductive in STI prevention, that AHF's crusade is more likely to make porn production less safe by driving performers underground into more dangerous venues, and that true performer choice on whether to use condoms on porn shoots should be left to the actual performers rather than outsourced to legislators or other self-identified "experts".

Hartley's husband, Ira Levine (also known under his producer alias of Ernest Greene), is a decorated porn producer and director under his own right, as well as having been one of the architects of the screening/testing system for the mainstream porn industry during his tenure at the Adult Industry Medical (AIM) Foundation. (Both Greene and Hartley have served on its Board of Directors.) AIM was ultimately driven under due to the efforts of AHF and other pro-condom mandate groups; its functions have been taken over by the Free Speech Coalition through their Performer Accessibility Screening Services (henceforth PASS or FSCPASS). It is the latter which monitors and maintains the current screening program, which uses the latest and most accurate testing assays to isolate and screen out infected people from the performance pool. Both Greene and Hartley were also collaborators and supporters of Taormino who have been respectfully critical of her position change on condoms; see Greene's critique over at the Blog of Pro Porn Activism. (Disclosure: I am Chief Editor of that blog, and Ernest Greene is a regular contributor and commentator there.)

I have posted my own respectful critique of Taormino in two parts at my own Red Garter Club blog, and that is probably what flagged Dines to add me to her hit list, albeit without mentioning my real name and butchering up the name of my blog.

But, that I can forgive and toss out as a case of a rush to print or simply not enough sleep or the rush of deadlines. What can't be so easily forgiven is Professor Dines' slips of half truths and outright misassumptions about the actions taken place, and her rewriting of facts to fit her ideology.

For starters, she attempts to use Cameron Bay's remarks at the September 18th press conference hosted by the AHF as the gospel truth when it comes to the porn industry's alleged abuse of women. That's right, Professor, that would be September 18th, not 19th...you were just one day off.

But that pales compared to the slipshod factchecking that immediately follows:

Last month porn performer Cameron Bay tested positive for HIV, and since then three other performers have come forward, making a total of four who have been diagnosed with acute HIV infection. At first the porn industry expressed sympathy, but now they are circling the wagons and sharpening their knives, going after the infected performers who took part in an AHF press conference on September 19.

That would be partly true that four performers who were HIV+ did speak at that presser. Problem was, the four that did speak weren't the four that Dines implies were affected. Cameron Bay and Rod Daily (whom Dines neglects to mention until just in passing later, and never as Bay's boyfriend) did indeed speak....but the other two HIV+ former performers to speak were Darren James and Derrick Burts..who just so happenn to be paid employees of AHF as well as being the respective Patient Zeros of the 2004 and 2010 porn HIV "outbreaks".

Weinstein did bring forth two former performers -- one live, one via teleconference -- who made a claim that they were HIV+ due to the current "outbreak", but they made no attempt to verify any evidence that they were indeed affected at all.

The "live" addition, a gay male model named Patrick Stone, testified that he had heard of his supposed "infection" from an email sent to him by PASS saying that he was HIV positive...in complete contradiction of stated PASS policy which states that any positive testing performer be physically recalled for followup testing and counseling and informing possible partners. Stone also claimed that he had tested negative in subsequent tests, and was awaiting final testing before declaring his original results as a false positive.

The other "addition" was an unidentified performer who claimed that he had been infected "nearly six months ago"...but gave no other information about where he got his positive test or how he got infected.

For all it seems, these two new additions were just plants by Weinstein to artificially inflate the casulty count in this "outbreak" and scare people into supporting his condom mandate crusade. Yet, Dines simply accepts their claims as fact and recruits them as supports in her general war against porn.

Dines' attempt to recruit Cameron Bay as the prototype victim now under attack by the Vast Porn Corporate Lobby is equally fascinating for the misassumptions and outright lies spilled forth in almost every paragraph. For someone who claims to do detailed research, Professor, would it be a bit of a stretch to actually get FSC CEO Diane Duke's name correct?

After essentially plagarizing Kathleen Miles' Huffington Post reset of Bay's telling of that infamous shoot for Kink.com's Public Exposure,  Dines riffs thusly:

Following the press conference, The Free Speech Coalition (the lobbying arm of the porn industry) did what most industry organizations do: blame the victim. According to Diana Duke, the CEO of FSC, “While producers and directors can control the film set environment, we can’t control what performers do in private. We need to do more to help performers understand how to protect themselves in their private lives”. That the performers contracted HIV in their private lives is now the official line of the porn industry. Mouthing almost the same words, Steven Hirsch, CEO of Vivid Entertainment, is quoted as saying, “Unfortunately, we can’t control what people do off-set”.

What evidence does the industry have for making such claims? According to Mark McGrath of the AHF, “In order to definitively prove how HIV was transmitted, you would need to do detailed molecular analysis of the HIV strains of known cases. This includes genotyping the viral strains, determine nucleotide sequences, then compare these sequences phylogenetically to comparable sequences from available reference strains.” Of course, no such research has been done by the industry; it has been too busy digging up dirt on the performers.

Considering that all subsequent testing of all performers working with Cameron Bay since her last negative test have turned up negative with NO new infections, the conclusion that she got infected from activity outside of porn might have a bit more relevance and truth than what Dines will allow. Then again, if you are willing to get your information on HIV serotransmission from someone like Mark McGrath, whom is one of AHF's chief ideologues for the condom mandate, and who has been implicated in paying Derrick Burts' legal charges among others, then I guess that the truth would seem fungible.

As for Dines' attempt to turn the Public Disgrace shoot into the Point Zero of the current outbreak....well, it doesn't turn out so well. Turns out that the performer who did get his penis cut (by Bay biting down too hard, no less), did in fact offer to step aside before continuing with the scene and allow Rod Daily to fill in and complete things...but Bay decided to continue on, saying that as long as he wasn't hurt, it was all good. And, that performer -- named Xavier Corvus -- has tested negative multiple times since that shoot, as has the only other performer that Bay performed sex on (a blow job).

And, her effort of accusing The Real Porn Wikileaks of a smear campaign against Cameron Bay and Derrick Burts? Nice try, but no cigar...I'll just reference you to TRPWL themselves for that defense. (Warning, potential link NSFW)

But the real cynicism comes when Professor Dines attempts to give a left-handed smack to Tristan Taormino for her change of heart. Keep in mind that Dines has no love lost for "feminist porn" in general and especially "sellouts" like Taormino in particular, since she sees that genre as simply window dressing that cloaks the supposedly far more popular body-punishing "hate sex" that men use to degrade and humiliate women. Nevertheless, any port that can help exacerbate the storm is a good port for Dines:

Not surprisingly, Taormino, the only porn producer who has acknowledged that there may well be health risks on porn sets, is now being hung out to dry as a traitor to the industry. She was until last week the golden girl of the porn industry because she branded herself as a fun, cool, hip “feminist” who could build a female consumer base (even though she has been filming condom-free anal sex scenes for a decade and seems to have shown no concern whatsoever for the health risks until now). Now the industry is after her like a pack of wolves, arguing that her condom-only policy is a cynical PR ploy aimed at building an image of herself as a feminist pornographer who cares about performer safety.

Ernest Greene, a well-known director of violent porn (Roxie Loves Pain, Jenna Loves Pain, McKenzie Loves Pain) and one-time Taormino collaborator, wrote a scathing article accusing the latter of jumping ship because “she tacks with the political wind however she perceives it to blow”.  Similarly, the blogger Red Garter Belt Club denounces Taormino for putting “her own personal enrichment and political posturing above the principle of defending true performer choice and the actual facts and merits of protecting performers,” but doesn’t actually explain how performers are better served by having unprotected sex.

Ummm, Professor Dines??  I do not and did not "denounce" Ms. Taormino; I respectfully disagreed with her position for the reasons I stated in my posts. The same goes for Ernest Greene....though, considering your natural hatred for him and his wife Nina Hartley (Oops, I'm sorry...did I say some bad words, Professor??), I perfectly understand your confusion of critique for "trashing".

And, so sorry, Professor Dines, but nowhere in either parts of my posts do I defend "unprotected sex"; since I happen to believe that performers themselves, as should people in real life, should be the ones to best define how to protect themselves based on their own individual situations. Or, does Dines think that even married couples who are totally clean and monogamous with each other should be forced by the State to use condoms just for the sake of sex education?

BTW....BDSM porn is not "violent", and cherry picking three titles out of the hundreds of erotic BDSM movies that Greene has done over his 25 years of production merely because they contain the word "pain" in them, does not say much about Professor Dines' expertise. At least, nothing other than her lack thereof.

I suppose I should be pumping my chests for being mentioned as one of the industry heavyweights since I moderate BPPA and own Red Garter Club, in spite of not only not receiving ONE RED CENT from the porn industry, and actually paying $50 a month of web hosting fees to keep my blogs alive.
However, that's far from the issue, and I'd never deny Gail Dines her right to make as much money off her book or her activism, however hypocritical she may be calling herself an "anticorporatist". Or, a "radical feminist", in spite of defending a woman whom has a verified criminal record of abusing other women and threatening a fellow sex worker with "gang rape". Or, a supporter of mandated condoms as a "performer choice", in spite of defending a former gay escort whom still can't explain how exactly he managed to get infected on a condom only gay male shoot. (Warning: embedded links NSFW)

Then again, I'd much rather be working poor with integrity and decency and mutual respect, than to get rich off lies and deceit and distorting facts to fit groupthink.

And at the very least, I get the names right. It's called "owning it", Professor Dines. Some of that would do you some good.


[Anthony Kennerson is a part-time blogger on progressive and sexual expression issues who blogs on his off hours when not working his night job. He is the Chief Editor of the Blog of Pro Porn Activism (http://bppa.blogspot.com), and operates his own Red Garter Club Blog (http://www.redgarterclub.com/RGClubNetwork/rgclub3dot2).]

Nina Hartley Speaks Out On The Latest HIV Porn Scare (Or...How Truth Is The Only Lysol For Rumor And BS)

[A slightly altered version of this essay was posted to my Red Garter Club blog last night; it is reposted here with some slight alterations to fit BPPA standards, with full permission and approval of both Nina Hartley and Ernest Greene.]


Lots of ink and pixels have been used up in commentary and analysis of the latest HIV in porn scare...and while it does seem for the time being that Cameron Bay and her boyfriend Rod Daily are the only ones directly impacted with their HIV infections, the repercussions of their actions are still being felt throughout the porn disapora.

As expected, the usual suspects are exploiting the tragedy to promote the usual myopia that only by mandating condoms through government fiat will there be true protection of performers. Others are also filling their publicity hound quotas through the usual gay baiting of crossover male performers, or the selective demonization of the system of testing that once again proved effective at its main goal of screening and preventing a mass outbreak.

Given all that, it is very important that people with actual facts and experience be allowed the space and the publicity that apparently is all too often given to the likes of AIDS Healthcare Foundation and their associated shills and rumorists such as Rob Black or Gene Ross or Mike South or Monica Foster. (Note, this is Anthony naming names here; send all complaints straight to me, not Nina or Ernest or anyone else.)

On that note, I give you this extended response to the entire situation that Nina Hartley gave to her Fetlife board last night, for which she and Ernest have given me permission to repost here. Anyone wishing to seperate truth from rumor and facts from BS propaganda, and actually listen to what performers really say rather than just parrot them to fit personal agendas, would be advised to read and take in every word of what Nina says.

The original comment at Fetlife can be found here. I also crossposted it over here at my Red Garter Club blog, adding some embedded links to supporting articles where relevant. Otherwise, it is as Nina originally wrote it.

Read and learn, folks.

Okay, back as promised to take this one on. It’s complicated and will need some explaining, so please bear with me, because this is one of the most important challenges our industry has faced and we need to clear the air around it as much as we can. It won’t be easy because that air has been pretty thick with misinformation and outright lies for a long time.

First, I’d like to address my thanks to the first contributors here:

@ashe58,

Cameron Bay has acquitted herself bravely and ethically and the terrible things that some have said about her remind us, sadly, of how badly stigmatized sex work still is. I can’t even bring myself to address some of the cruel and stupid attacks that have been made on her, so I won’t. I do think that she’s being a bit hard on herself in characterizing what happened to her as a result of irresponsible behavior. It was human behavior which is unpredictable and not always wise, but that doesn’t make it irresponsible.

It is a fact, and hardly a new one, that HIV has been with us a long time. New research suggests it existed in isolated pockets here and there forty years ago. Unless and until a vaccine is developed (and BTW, Aids Healthcare Foundation, the outfit largely responsible for creating not only the current controversy surrounding porn industry STD safeguards but also the more complex and error-prone system of safeguards we have now than existed before they made porn their favorite target, resolutely opposes funding for HIV vaccine research “because it will divert funds from treatment for existing cases,” which are the source of AHF’s $200 million per year income) that HIV is here to stay. It exists in the general population and no matter what safeguards are used, there will be occasional cases in the porn talent pool. There is no 100% fail-safe protection against HIV transmission, condoms included (read the label on the condom box if you don’t believe me because the manufacturers recognize the impossibility of making foolproof barriers), and porn performers possess no special immunity.

All evidence so far, including Cameron’s own courageous testimony, suggests that she contracted the virus through a personal contact not related to her work in the industry. All her professional partners since her last clean test in late July have tested negative and there is no reason to believe that new infections related to hers will appear in the porn talent pool. Medically speaking, female to male transmission of HIV, though not unknown, is rare, as the virus is mainly passed through blood and serum products (like semen) and present in only trace amounts in saliva and vaginal fluid. It would have been unlikely for Cameron to have infected any of her onscreen partners even during the window period between her last clear test and her first positive. Fortunately, she wasn’t working much at the time and her contacts were few. They’re out of the woods already and the industry has gone back to work.

I would question the assertion that newer, younger players are engaged in more irresponsible behavior than their predecessors. If anything, the events of the past couple of years have brought the issue of STD transmission very much to the front of all our minds and while there will always be those who behave recklessly, I still shoot scenes a couple of times a week and have close relations with many partners of differing ages. My impression is that, as a group, they’re far more risk-aware than their “civilian” counterparts. Whatever gets said on social media is not to be confused with fact, which depends on evidence rather than endless repetition to attain credibility.

I’m not quite sure what you mean when you refer to “risky behavior” when no sexual behavior can ever be risk-free. I’ve always disliked the term “safe sex” because physical intimacy with any other human being is not without risk and can never be truly safe in all ways. A jealous partner bursting in on a clandestine assignation and shooting the participants is a risk with a certain percentage of probability, fortunately not the highest but not negligible as risks go. There are various precautions that can be taken against the transmission of STDs but NONE are 100% effective. I’ll try and break that down in greater detail as we move on here, but the indisputable truth is that sex is not a risk-free activity; never has been and never will be.

As a sex educator, my initial response won’t come as much of a surprise. I think what’s needed is accurate and complete information for every sexually active person. The systematic destruction of comprehensive sex education in our public school systems by the relentless attacks of right-wing religious fanatics has endangered all young people and needs to be reversed. We need to teach ALL young people what the physical and psychological risks of sexual activity are in a science-based curriculum through public education. Equip them with the information they need to decide what level of risk they find acceptable and what methods of protection of the many out there suit their individual situations best.
That the industry is “taking a black eye on this” has nothing to do with the industry’s own practices, which are extremely meticulous when it comes to STDS, but rather because political groups with self-serving agendas keep punching us in the face for things that are simply untrue, as the punchers well know.

The fact in this case, as was true in the big “syphilis scare” of a few weeks ago and last summer’s “HIV scare” (which turned out to be yet another example of a personal situation that had no connection to the porn industry beyond the fact that one of those involved worked in it briefly) and even true in the two documented cases of on-set HIV transmission back in 2004, which were the only such cases in het porn since we began comprehensive testing in 1998, is that our hazard mitigation system worked brilliantly, exactly as it was designed to.

STD testing does not prevent STDs. That’s not its purpose. It serves as an early warning system to exclude from the talent pool those trying to get in who are already infected with some contagious condition and alert us as quickly as possible if anyone who passes the initial screening later contracts such a condition. Because we test for not only HIV, but also gonorrhea, Chlamydia, syphilis and hepatitis A and B at least once a month (the industry standard will soon go to twice a month to narrow infection window periods even further) contact tracing when a positive test for any of the above turns up is quick and effective. Performers agree to participate in an industry-wide database that other performers, producers and directors can access by computer to establish that any performer’s test data is clear and up to date. If the tests come up otherwise, the testing facilities contact the performer to come in and re-test immediately, provide contact information and begin treatment and counseling immediately.

There have been all kinds of false rumors spread about this system, but it has proven itself amazingly powerful for over a decade. During that time, the L.A. based het porn industry has turned up a total of two work-related infections in our entire talent pool. To put that in perspective, Los Angeles County, according to its own health department, has recorded nearly 30,000 new HIV infections during that same period.
Considering the age and demographic of porn performers, despite disingenuous claims about the danger we pose to the general public, it would appear that they pose a greater danger to us. Indeed, in the current case, it would appear that the virus was transmitted from the outside in, as the statistics would suggest.

Those who judge Cameron for doing what millions of others do, no matter what they may claim to the contrary, which appears to have been exposing herself to risk with a personal partner she trusted, are contemptible and I feel nothing but compassion for the additional burden she bears of absorbing all that hostility from people who should know better. She appears guilty of doing something human and will pay the highest price of anyone involved for having done so.

In terms of what the industry can do to make itself safer, no system is beyond improvement and improvements are being made. For many years, since Sharon Mitchell, Ernest and Dr. Steven York first established AIM, the community based, performer operated testing and treatment clinic back in 1998, and we relied on the PCR-DNA test for HIV proteins, which was absolutely the state of the art throughout that period. There’s been a lot of loose and downright dishonest talk about how this test works and how it’s distinguished from the “free” tests offered by various walk-in clinics.

The oldest and most common test, the ELISA, searches for HIV antibodies in the blood. It’s the gold standard in one respect. It never throws a false positive. If you have HIV anti-bodies in your system, you’re infected and your body has begun fighting back. However, you can be infected and contagious for up to six months before anti-body production begins. New infections are the most dangerous, as the body’s defenses haven’t mobilized against them yet, and viral loads for new cases can exceed 100,000 before ARV treatment is begun. That’s why it’s imperative we catch new cases sooner.

The PCR-DNA test looks for viral proteins in the blood, which show up no later than two weeks after infection. Two weeks vs. six months is clearly a superior standard. But we haven’t just accepted it as the best there is. Recently, we’ve moved on to the Aptima test, which is based on PCR-RNA analysis and is even more reactive sooner than its predecessor. The Aptima is now the only test whose results are accepted in the PASS database, where a clean result is required to certify a performer as available for work. Does everyone cooperate with this protocol? You bet. Any director or producer who puts a performer to work without that clearance is inviting major liability and performers as a matter of on-set etiquette show their test results to anyone they’re going to work with before doing so.

So one thing we’ve done is to upgrade the quality of the HIV test. We’ve also added some new tests to the panel we do. Hepatitis A and B, as well as syphilis and trichomoniasis are now standard along with the other conditions for which we had previously tested. We are also testing now for HPV, the virus that causes genital warts, and vaccinating those who test negative with Gardisil to make sure they stay that way.

We have not added either Hep C or herpes and there’s a lot of talk about that. The thing is that neither is a reportable STD. Hep C is transmitted blood-to-blood primarily through needle sharing among IV drug users, who are extremely rare in our community. The CDC does not classify it as an STD and clinics aren’t required to report it to health authorities as such. It’s a nasty, often fatal, disease, but it’s not a risk for single-contact sex performances and the hysteria drummed up around it by the Usual Suspects is medically indefensible.
As for herpes, it’s transmitted skin-to-skin and can be passed by contact at any part of the body. Condoms do little to reduce the risk (as is also the case with bacterial bugs like Chlamydia and surface viruses like HPV) and barriers won’t stop it. Indeed, since 70% of the adult population would test positive for either Herpes A or Herpes B according to the CDC, the harm reduction from testing would be minimal.

Remember what I said about it being impossible to create an entirely safe system. An error rate of zero is impossible, so you enter this business with some assumption of risk. We minimize it very effectively but we can’t promise to eliminate all risk.

That is true of any job. According to The Bureau of Labor Statistics, the ten most dangerous jobs in America are:

1. Fishing
2. Logging
3. Aircraft piloting
4. Refuse and recyclable material collection
5. Roofing
6. Structural iron and steel work
7. Construction
8. Farming
9. Truck driving
10. Mining

There are clinical deaths in significant numbers associated with every one of these trades.

Since porn was legalized in the U.S. 40 years ago there hasn’t been a single job-related fatality on any porn set. Even mainstream film loses half a dozen stunt players a year. Is porn completely safe? No. Is it dangerous in the way any of the jobs listed above are? Hardly.

But why wouldn’t mandatory condoms make it even safer?

It’s a logical question but the answer is counterintuitive. Porn sex is a performance. It’s not like the sex most people have at home. Depressingly, Masters and Johnson found in their groundbreaking studies a few decades ago that the average American couple typically completes an act of sexual intercourse in about eleven minutes from foreplay to orgasm. That’s a sad thing and the subject for a post all its own, but it tells you nothing about what sex on a porn set is like.

Typically, because we shoot multiple angles on multiple positions, in addition to shooting stills, wrangling lights and cameras and other gear and dealing with technical problems of all sorts. It takes about two hours to shoot a good hardcore scene. Condoms were never intended for that kind of industrial use. Hard-ons come and go. Condoms roll down, come off, dry out, split and otherwise fail on sets about 30% of the time. I know this because I work mainly for Adam&Eve, one of the companies most supportive of performer choice when it comes to condom use, and Ernest and I have shot miles of condom footage. We’re left with little confidence regarding the efficacy of condoms for this application.

And speaking personally, I can tell you that they have, for many female performers, a serious drawback. I’ve taken a lot of crap for saying this in other places, but facts just refuse to conform to PC ideas of how things should work. Condoms, no matter how lubricated and how designed, create more internal friction on a woman’s intimate anatomy than human skin, with which it’s evolved to tolerate contact. All-condom players, and I’ve known many of them tend to turn up at clinics with raw internal tissues and multiple surface infections. This we call “condom rash” and it’s more than an annoyance. Intact tissues are the first line of defense against infection. If your insides are compromised by friction burns and low-grade bugs of whatever sort, you’re that much more vulnerable to whatever might be turned loose should a condom fail.

Those who have never worked as performers love to dismiss this as bullshit urban legend. Those who do that have zero experience with the realities of shooting a hardcore scene. Condoms make everything take longer. They make everything less comfortable for male and female players. They can’t be trusted to operate as intended. They create conditions conducive to contagion. These circumstances are unique to porn and I wouldn’t suggest the general population abandon using condoms, though I do think testing for non-sex-workers is still an excellent idea and recommend it highly, if only for your own peace of mind.

The safest sex you can have, on or off camera, remains sex with an uninfected partner, and this is where things get dicey. I ask those who favor mandatory condoms in porn this question: If you knew you were HIV-, would you knowingly have intercourse with someone who is HIV+, condom or no? Anyone who honestly answers yes to that question has a very different notion of safe behavior from mine. I prefer to know that anyone I have sex with has been tested with the best available methods and carries no communicable disease. In fact, I accept no less for either work or play. I see a current test or intercourse doesn’t happen.

Given all this, why is there such a huge battle being fought over this issue here in Los Angeles?

The answer is political. Epidemiology, as any doctor will tell you, is a highly political form of medicine. There are always those willing to use the threat of epidemic to push some other kind of political agenda having nothing to do with health.

In this case, Aids Healthcare Foundation, the largest HIV service organization in the world (and a stakeholder in the world’s largest condom manufacturer, BTW) has taken it upon itself to come after the porn business in order to force condom use on performers who overwhelmingly prefer to make their own choices of protection methods and bitterly oppose the idea of having government agencies tell them how to do their scenes and protect their own health. This has been a big generator of publicity for AHF, which not only hauls in $200 million a year but pays its director, Michael Weinstein whose face has become so familiar from this controversy, over $600,000 a year to act as its front man. It’s a huge enterprise that claims non-profit status but is currently under investigation by Los Angeles County for Medicaid fraud.

Mr. Weinstein et al think that Porn, by showing barrier-free intercourse acts as, in his words: “commercials for unsafe sex.” He and his supporters in the UCLA working group and at Cal-OSHA think that porn should be compelled by law to make safe sex commercials. Sorry, but this thing called The First Amendment not only prohibits censorship, it also prohibits compelled speech. If AHF wants to make porn with condoms to push its own ideas about sex, it has more than enough money to do so. What Measure B and all of AHF’s other machinations cannot do is force pornographers to include content in their products that they don’t want there.

Yes, money is a factor for both sides of this dispute. The porn buying public overall doesn’t want condoms visible in the picture because it detracts from the fantasy of perfect, carefree sex they pay to indulge. The one company in het porn that requires condoms (and that company, which gets a lot of head-pats from AHF and others only requires condom use for its contract performers and not for any of the day players they use in their many, many other scenes) is uncompetitive in DVD sales by its own admission and makes most of its money off cable softcore, in which condoms aren’t an issue. No company that has attempted to market all-condom products to het audiences has managed to stay in business.

Likewise, AHF also has a dog in the fight. Not only do they manufacture and sell condoms, for which they would force us to make commercials, but they also make no secret of their willingness to “consult” for a hefty fee in instituting an all-condom protocol in the porn industry. AHF has sued its way into lucrative consulting jobs like this before. When Pfizer first introduced Viagra, AHF “offered” to consult with the company so that Viagra users would be properly advised of the risks of unprotected sex with this new product. AHF wanted $5 million for that service. Pfizer declined. AHF sued them for $50 million alleging unsafe marketing practices. Pfizer caved on the consulting deal. The lawsuit mysteriously faded away. Now Viagra commercials carry teeny-tiny little disclaimers warning consumers that it doesn’t protect them from HIV or other STDS. That’s what Pfizer got from AHF for its $5 million, along with immunity from litigation.

See, we know all about AHF’s litigation practices first hand. Internal emails between Weinstein and AHF’s chief counsel Bryan Chase (this has all been posted online if you care to check it out) decided early on that the effectiveness of our existing system as administered by AIM was the Number One obstacle to AHF’s political ambitions and had to be destroyed if AHF’s claim that performers worked without protection was to be made credible. Toward that end, AHF used tax-free funding to hire AIM’s lab messenger as a spy to dig through AIM’s operations in search of dirt that could be used against it. AHF and Cal-OSHA initiated a series of nuisance litigations against AIM, a tiny non-profit NGO that tested at cost and often barely had money to keep the lights on at the clinic, leading to AIM’s ultimate bankruptcy. AHF did its best to create the threat, not previously there, upon which they built the Measure B campaign that’s raised millions in funding and made them constantly visible in the media at the expense of increasing my risk.

The Free Speech Coalition, the industry’s trade organization, which answers mainly to producers, stepped in to help create a new database to replace AIM’s, which has been very helpful in the Cameron Bay case to be sure, still does not operate a full-service, centralized clinic of its own. It depends for reporting of test results on the cooperation of private clinics that don’t all have the same methods of testing and reporting, which leaves us with a less effective means of monitoring the entire talent pool simultaneously and opens the door to possible test report fraud because of lack of uniformity in the reporting forms used. This opens the door to new dangers that have already been hinted at in recent months by confusion over confirmatory tests for suspected STD cases conducted at different facilities.

Thanks, Mr. Weinstein, for your demonstrations of concern for all of our wellbeing. That you enjoy virtually no support among actively working performers should tell you something. But no, absent all tangible evidence to support it, AHF has now filed a complaint with Cal-OSHA against kink.com simply because that was the last place where Cameron Bay shot a scene, even though at the time she shot it her tests were still all negative.

Should Measure B remain on the books, much less be extended to the entire state of California as AHF would like, the result will be an erosion of the testing system. The great advantage porn in California enjoys over other forms of sex work in other places is its legality. We can call 911 if we have an accident or an altercation on set (not that these are common occurrences by any means) and not get arrested for doing so. If we are named as contacts in a potential contagion pool, we can be asked to confirm that we were or were not contacts without admitting to violating the law because we didn’t use condoms, and in admitting this, subject our employers to potential legal consequences that would put them out of business.

The result of this is already obvious. We used to pull permits from L.A. County so we could get production insurance and shoot legally in a state where doing so is not prohibited. We used to tweet from sets talking up the projects we were working on.

Now we’re back to shooting in secret without permits and asked to keep our cell phones off because we know that the gang from AHF is monitoring some of our feeds and using that information to try and organize set inspections.

This is all going to be sorted out at great expense in court eventually. Last week in the first round of FSC’s challenge to Measure B, the judge chose not to take up the constitutional issue of compelled speech, but stripped Measure B of most of its enforcement powers on the grounds that they would require what amounted to a blanket search warrant of all sexually explicit shoots without a warrant, which the judge viewed as trampling all over The Fourth Amendment. Both sides have already appealed.

Meanwhile, this battle rages in the media on sites like this one to the detriment of people like me. I like being in a legal business. I like being able to shoot on nice locations in the open without fear of arrest. I don’t care to go back to clandestine operations for a perfectly legal business. And I don’t trust those trying to push their program on me to protect my health as well as I can and my fellow performers will if left to do so as they have been for the last dozen years.

Do I think the industry bears no blame in all of this? Hardly. Contrary to accusations certain people loooove hurling at me that I’m an enormously wealthy shill for the producers (yeah, right, so where’s my check, boys?); I have my share of gripes with them. Ernest and I warned the leadership of the FSC six months before AIM was put out of business that this would happen if those who could afford to resist AHF’s malicious lawsuits failed to do so. They failed to do so and AIM closed. We also warned them they’d face political challenges from AHF for which they were unprepared. They paid no heed and ran a truly inept campaign against Measure B, which was qualified for the ballot with questionable petitions that should have been challenged but weren’t. Instead, showing a complete ignorance of L.A. politics, the FSC campaigned against Measure B in a Democratic, pro-labor, pro-regulation stronghold with arguments about lost revenues, lost jobs and lost tax money that would have gone over much better in Orange County than in bright blue Los Angeles. And instead of letting performers speak for themselves, which they do most articulately and from the most immediate personal concerns, they let the producers do the talking to the media. Swell idea. Everyone loves porn producers, right?

This is and has always been about our health and safety as performers and frankly I don’t think anyone else has much standing to address it. Between them, our friends and our enemies have managed to make us less safe and less able to earn our livings and there’s no good outcome in sight. AHF will never back off for as long as they can get airtime with their crusade. We will never effectively push them back until we let performers and doctors take the lead for us and stop whining about lost revenues when lives are at stake.

And until this issue is resolved, you’re going to see every isolated case like that of the unfortunate Ms. Bay turned into a political football by people who don’t care a bit about her, me or any of us.

It’s a long post, and I thank those who took the time to read it. When next you’re confronted with all the usual lies, half-truths and distortions that have been spun around the real issue of performer safety, feel free to quote Nina Hartley, former AIM board member, RN and sex-worker advocate when you let the hot air out of their dishonest and cynical propaganda.

There are lives at stake here, including mine. Nobody should be playing politics with them.

Gail Dines Raises The Bar Of Mount St. BS To New Heights: The #2257 Issue

[Originally posted at Anthony's Red Garter Club blog]

[Updated....scroll to bottom.] 

Did you really, really think that Gail Dines would not parlay her recent alliance with the US Department of Justice into more publicity for her antiporn efforts? And, did you really, really think that her "friends" over at CounterPunch would not aid and abet her efforts by giving her their bandwidth to spout her crackpot junk science about porn and "corporate profiteering"?

WRONG...and WRONG.

For those of you not in the know...Gail was summoned by the US DoJ to be one of their key witnesses in defense of the 2257/2257A regulations, which require porn performers and producers to provide federal authorities with detailed information about performers in order to verify that they are of legal age to shoot sexually explicit material. Last week, federal district Judge Michael Baylson ruled that the regulations were mostly legal and justified, throwing out a challenge by a group of performers and producers through a lawsuit that had been filed by the Free Speech Coalition, one of the main legal support groups for the adult industry. (An appeal to the Third US Appelate Court is enniment.)

As we all know, Gail Dines is not known to be silent when things go her way....and yesterday [8/1] she used her usual perch over at CounterPunch to strut and squawk about the ruling and how it marks a significant victory against the "corporate lobbying" efforts of "Porn, Inc."

Basically, it's the typical Dines boilerplate...except with the volume of bullshit jacked up to, shall we say, a thousand.

Hate to do this -- AGAIN -- but her latest essay deserves another run through the Great Red Garter Fisk Machine.

Before we begin, though...you will notice that for this essay, Gail saw fit to include her husband, Daniel Levy, in this broadside. That's new for her, since she mostly owns her broadsides by herself (when Robert Jensen's not sharing the byline). He's credited in the CP piece as an "expert consultant", and the director for an org called "Center For Sustainable Enterprises And Regional Competitiveness", based at the Univ. of Massachusetts-Boston. Wait, screech, hold up a damn minute...isn't Gail supposed to be such a Marxist that she rejects corporate enterprise as tainted by the "patriarchy"/"porniarchy"? But, since this is CounterPunch, I guess for this case that including her hubby would upgrade her "leftist" anticorporate cred a tad.

So much for the prelims...here we go.

Corporate lobbyists suffered a major defeat recently when Philadelphia-based US District Court Judge Michael Baylson upheld federal regulation 2257, which requires pornography producers to maintain documentation that performers are at least 18 years old. The Free Speech Coalition (FSC), the porn industry lobbying group, had challenged 2257 on First Amendment grounds claiming that the law is overly burdensome and chills free speech.

This case highlights how porn has become big business, flexing its political muscles to fight regulation it sees as costly with wanton disregard for the consequences. At the same time, like other industries confronting controversial issues, the porn industry has tried to burnish its public image by promoting itself as a good corporate citizen that can be trusted to self-regulate.

Note from the start how Gail totally objectifies (irony in that) the individual performers and producers who launched the lawsuit against 2257 in the first place, reducing them to the level of eunuchs for the Free Speech Coalition, whom has always been elevated in the cracked head of Dines to be the porn equivalent of Monsanto, Goldman Sachs, and Apple. Never mind that even the FSC's lobbying budget wouldn't pay a day's salary of George Zimmerman's lawyers, or that not even the porn performers themselves see the FSC as the sole representative ageny for defending the industry. Most of the legal work is done by independent unattached lawyers to begin with; and since there is no true organization of porn performers or Adult Performers Guild where performers can pool their resources in defense of their profession, much of the legal status of porn is more of a crap shoot based on the local attitudes and the willingness of the authorities to lay off the whip. In short, the FSC will not be comparable to Porn Harms or the Family Research Council, let alone the Business Roundtable or ALEC, anytime soon.

Nowhere is this cynical behavior more blatant than in the case of the porn industry-backed non-profit group Adult Sites Against Child Pornography (ASACP). ASACP was founded in 1996 by the porn industry and claims that it “battles child pornography through its CP Reporting Hotline” and is “dedicated to online child protection.” Yet the same industry has spent many years trying to undo the very regulations that attempt to shield children from being exploited.

The FSC, a non-profit that is “the trade association for the adult entertainment industry,” is actually in bed with the ASACP. Both organizations have similar membership and funding from porn industry players across the value chain from producers to online distributors and webmasters. For example, Manwin, the largest multinational porn conglomerate in the world, was the FSC Benefactor of the Year in 2012 and the only diamond donor to ASACP. XBIZ, a major porn industry association, held a joint fundraiser for FSC and ASACP at its awards ceremony in January 2013 at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza in Century City. FSC itself is a member of ASACP.

Because, you see, only an antiporn authoritarian like Dines would consider it "cynical" that people who have been legally burned and destroyed by trumped up fake charges of "child pornography" would form an organization dedicated to the reduction of illegal underage exploitation, and even offer their services to aid law enforcement in aggressively tracking and eliminating whatever illegal underage exploitation actually exists. Also, the fact that FSC contributes to ASACP, and that Manwin contributes to both FSC and ASACP, only proves that the industry is pretty deeply concerned with fighting against illegal use of the underaged in sexually explicit media...but why let that truth get in the way of a good slanderous smear?

So....where's the hypocrisy of this? Here's where Gail gets real.

Why is the overturning of 2257 such a priority for the porn industry? To answer this, we need to go back to 2002 when the Free Speech Coalition had its first major victory, in the Ashcroft vs. Free Speech Coalition decision. Arguing that the 1996 Child Pornography Prevention Act -  which prohibited any image that “is, or appears to be, of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct” – limited the pornography industry’s free speech, the FSC succeeded in narrowing the law to cover only images of actual minors. The path was cleared for the porn industry to use legal-age performers but make them look much younger.

A great etology of fiction, I'd say. Someone might want to remind Gail that the original challenge to the 1996 act passed by Congress was not only from the FSC, but also from a cacphony of artists, performers, and civil libertarians who shared the FSC's core belief that the original law was woefully overbroad in covering not only actual children, but also "virtual" images which could have been interpreted by some authorities as encompassing "kiddie porn". Also, the original decision by the SCOTUS only struck down the two provisions of the 1996 law that specifically dealt with "virtual" images of "kiddie porn"; it did not challenge any of the existing laws concerning actual exploitation of real underage folk.

But, all that is inmaterial to Gail, since she wants to exploit this bit of successful "corporate lobbying" as a hook to her main thesis as to why porn should be banished....errrrrrrr, why 2257 is still desperately needed to reign in those nasty porn lobbyists.

Following the Ashcroft decision, Internet porn sites featuring young (and very young-looking females) exploded, and the industry realized that it had hit upon a very lucrative market segment. Our research demonstrates that “teen porn” has grown rapidly and is now the largest single genre, whether measured in terms of search term frequency or proportion of web sites. A Google Trends analysis indicates that searches for “Teen Porn” have more than tripled between 2005-2013, and teen porn was the fastest-growing genre over this period. Total searches for teen-related porn reached an estimated 500,000 daily in March 2013, far larger than other genres, representing approximately one-third of total daily searches for pornographic web sites. We also analyzed the content of the three most popular “porntubes,” the portals that serve as gateways to online porn, and found that they contained about 18 million teen-related pages – again, the largest single genre and about one-third of the total content.

Let us ignore for now the research fallacy of using a 1996 SCOTUS decision as a direct cause of events occuring nearly 10-20 years later, and focus on the "teen porn" phenonemon that so disturbs Dines to the point of apoplexy.

First off....hate to break this to you, Gail, but the law states that intent does not matter when it comes to legal adults consuming legal adult porn featuring legally-aged men and women; you can dress a 50 year old man in Pampers and that will still not make him 17 years old. The fact that some adult women may "look" like they are underage matters about as much as the crackpot theory that since some performers "look" like they are in pain when they are in the state of orgasm in their sex scenes, that proves that they are really being raped and abused.

And this nonsense about "teen porn" being the #1 profit leader for porn?? Really?? You mean that the MILF/Cougar phenonemon, the "Sex Teacher" craze, the Hollywood porn spoof factory, and the rise of the Internet and free amateur porn has no juice whatsoever in driving the profits of adult media??

And also...maybe Gail would benefit from actually analyzing who actually does the searching for "teen porn", since she would probably find that the overwhelming majority of the searchees are...surprise!!!....TEEN ADULT BOYS who get off on sexy girls of their similar age group. Not Lolita seeking dirty old men, Gail...young adult boys who probably want girls who don't fit into the old porny stereotype of fake boobs, fake hair, and fully shaven hoohas.

Naaaahhhhh....Gail's right; it's just evil men seeking their potential rape and abuse targets to jerk off to in their basement dungeons.

And speaking of stereotyping....get a load of how Dines describes "How Porn Uses 'Underaged Girls' To Pander To Pedophiles And Make Lots Of MONEY!!"

The pornographers use a variety of methods to make female performers look much younger than 18. In place of the usually large-breasted, heavily made-up women that populate much of Internet porn, teen porn sites are filled with young-looking females with petite bodies, small breasts, makeup-free faces with hair in braids or pony tails, surrounded by such childhood props as stuffed animals, bed sheets with flowers, and backpacks with cartoon-character motifs. It is not uncommon for the females to wear school uniforms, have braces on their teeth, and knee-high socks as they engage in hardcore sex.

First..."the pornographers", Gail?? You mean, porn producers and performers are of only one mindset, not actual individuals with diversity of sexual desires and tastes? Unlike, say, radical antiporn "feminists"??

But this is the true hilarity of Gail not only jumping the shark (actually, she passed that marker a long time ago with the "porn makes men force women to wax their pubes" smack), but now actively riding the EF6 Sharknado. So, if you happen to have a small body and real, small breasts and actively perform in porn, you must be underaged. Right, Professor....I'll forward your concerns to Rebecca Lord and Michelle Lay and Jayla Diamond and Carmen Valentina. If you wear braces or braids or ponytails and perform in porn, then you must also be underaged, too. Is that clear, Dana deArmond?? Melissa Dawson?? I mean, we all know that only pedophiles watch porn where the girls play schoolmates going after the hot teacher, right?? And, of course, we just can't have the pure and innocent Hello Kitty enterprise tainted and corrupted one bit by nasty slutty porn girls getting DP'd or 69'ed while flashing their Kitty nails on cam..amirite??

Even I, one of the staunchest Gail Dines critics this side of Jordan Owen, would not assume that Gail would degenerate this far to think that the only people who consumed porn were either old trenchcoat-wearing wannabe pedophiles or 15-year-old pubescent boys...or that such a thing justified forcing 35 year old porn performers to "show their papers" under threat of heavy fine or jail. But, absolute power can absolutely corrupt.

So, how does all this relate back to Judge Baylson's ruling?? Here's how Dines concludes her "essay":

The age documentation requirements of 2257 represent a key component of a legal struggle to prevent child pornography, especially in an age of fragmented and globalized production. Even though enforcement has been lax and software packages to manage 2257 compliance are available, the industry claims that it’s all too expensive and burdensome. Like the garment industry facing outrage over sweatshops, the porn industry wants to self-police. This “just trust us” approach helps resolve the paradox of the good cop–bad cop strategy of the industry’s twin non-profits, ASACP and FSC. If the industry wants to self-police, it needs to win the public’s trust that it can act with social responsibility AND challenge governmental regulation. But as Judge Baylson ruled, when a powerful industry is willing to do whatever it takes to maximize profits, self policing is not enough.

Once again, Gail attempts to seduce her logic to the CounterPunch audience by comparing the porn industry to "sweatshops"....something she actually attempted to do in her testimony before Judge Baylson intervened against it. And how interesting that Gail quotes the fact that "enforcement has been lax", especially since one of the principal pillars of Baylson's ruling is that porn performers and producers should have nothing to worry about enforcement of 2257, since it hasn't been enforced through inspections since 2008, and no inspections are planned in the future by the DoJ!!
Now, there have been some who have made a case that the approach of the FSC using "excessive and burdensome" regulation would be better served with a broader approach focusing on the potential impact of 2257 on a far broader range of free speech and expression. See here and here.

That debate, though, is irrelevant to what Dines is attempting in her slander of both FSC and ASACP as co-conspirators in keeping the dirty profits of "Porn, Inc." going at the expense of its "victims". As usual, Gail is appropriating Left populist anticorporate rhetoric as a crutch to sell her program of ultimately banning porn off the face of the earth...but if she can't get an outright ban like she favors in Iceland or Ireland, or David Cameron's porn filtering scam in Great Britain (which, BTW, Gail has been notoriously silent on staking a position for or against), then I supposed she's willing to settle for censorship by paperwork asphyxiation via 2257 until her radfem antiporn crusade gets a more stable political footing in the US.

It would be laughable it not for the stakes for freedom of expression here in the United States. And it would be farcical, were it not for "left" journals like CounterPunch enabling the fascist tomfoolery of Gail Dines while denying actual voices within the adult media who are far more worthy of their legacy any voice of rebuttal. It's past time for pro-porn voices from the Left to actively respond to this, before Dines' mountain of bullshit consumes them into irrelevancy.


UPDATE (8-5-13):

Heh...didn't take long for ASACP and the FSC to respond to Dines' smears, didn't it? Just posted today over at XBiz.com:

The Free Speech Coalition and ASACP both have come out in staunch opposition to an article published last week by political news website CounterPunch.com that says that the porn industry has tried to burnish its public image by promoting itself as a good corporate citizen that can be trusted to self-regulate.

The article, written by Gail Dines, who testified for the government in the FSC's challenge over 18 U.S.C. §§ 2257 and 2257(a), and professor David Levy, who chairs the University of Massachusetts' Department of Management and Marketing, focuses on the supposed might of the adult entertainment industry and the behavior by the two trade groups, specifically when it comes to prioritizing efforts to overturn the federal record-keeping law for producers.

[....]

 
Dines' and Levy's CounterPunch article has run afoul with leaders, as well as supporters, of the FSC and ASACP.

ASACP Executive Director Tim Henning told XBIZ that the authors' hit piece has "unfairly characterized" the ASACP, the FSC and the online adult entertainment industry in general.

"Dines’ campaign of misinformation misses the fact that legitimate adult entertainment producers do not object to verifying the age of their performers at the time of production, but in the case of 2257, may have objections over details that are unworkable in the digital era, even if they were suited to yesteryear’s world of print-based publishing," he said.
 
"Disturbingly, Dines considers ASACP to be an example of blatantly cynical behavior, mistakenly tying the association to what she calls efforts 'to undo the very regulations that attempt to shield children from being exploited,'" he said.

"ASACP has never sought to fight regulation, but rather seeks to shape it in realistic and workable ways that serve to protect at-risk youth, without imposing unrealistic burdens on publishers due to legislator’s misunderstanding of today’s digital media ecosystems."

Diane Duke, who leads the FSC as its CEO, echoed Henning's take on contents of the CounterPunch article and said that Dines' "extremism will work in our favor in the long run."

"Gail Dines is, and always has been, anti-adult entertainment," Duke told XBIZ. "We knew going into this trial that Judge Baylson would likely rule against us as he had previously ruled.

"Our goal was to build a solid case for appeal. Dines dismisses the good work of ASACP and the FSC around industry self-regulation in an attempt to support her pro-censorship agenda."

Dines, of course, has been active through the years trying to set an agenda to decrease the "pornification of the culture." The professor of sociology and women's studies at Wheelock College in Boston also is a founding member of Stop Porn Culture and author of Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality.

Calling the CounterPunch piece article "biased," Henning noted that the ASACP, formally known as the Association of Sites Advocating Child Protection, is not about providing lip service to stakeholders but about providing concrete solutions that help digital media publishers, institutions and parents work together to keep children out of and away from age-restricted materials.

"[C]ountless consumers view the ASACP logo as a sign that a site does not contain content depicting underage performers, shielding the viewer from inadvertent exposure to this material and providing trust in the product," he said. "This symbol is widely sought out by consumers as a sign of assurance, representing businesses that are committed to doing the right thing when it comes to protecting children."

 I wonder if CounterPunch has some good libel lawyers??