On AB 332, Courage Vests, And The Potential Growth Of Haz-Mat/PPE Fetish Porn

If it wasn't so serious to threaten a legal industry, it would be hilarious.

Last week, the California Assembly's Labor and Employment Committee debated and ultimately sent to the full Assembly AB 332, the attempt to extend the reach of the mandate for porn performers to wear condoms and other forms of "barrier protections" against STI's to the whole state, rather than just the city of Los Angeles (via statue) or jurisdictions of Los Angeles County (thanks to Measure B).

The discussion was pretty intense, with the AIDS Healthcare Foundation represented not only by bill sponsor Isadore Hall, but also by representatives from AHF who testified for the bill; while on the other side, porn performers, producers, and the Free Speech Coalition making the case that the mandate was overbroad, overreaching, and counterproductive to protecting performers.

In the end, though, the bill was sent to the full Assembly on a 5-1 vote, punctuated by a, shall we say, passionate closing speech by Assemblyman Hall in which he channeled all his verbal skills -- accented by probably the ever fattening wallet from AHF contributions -- to motivate the committee to "put on their courage vests" and move this bill on.

That's right, Clones, you heard it correct:  "courage vests".

Because, as you know, it takes genuine courage for an esteemed person like Isadore Hall to pocket all that AHF money to become their new shill and promoter for subsidized condom ad placement on free porn stes....not to mention all the kickbacks he'll be getting for securing AHF's gravy train of NGO funding.

And, what tremendous sac it takes for Mr. Hall to get out in front of the most important issue of our time, especially when "lesser" issues like the continuing HIV/STI pandemic in the broader African American and Latino community can be pushed aside and dismissed for the glory of forcing adult performers to wrap up. Because, as you well know, young impressionable folk only learn about proper sex education and harm prevention from watching porn, not from outreach from medical professionals or proper sex education in schools. Forcing 25-30 year old adult performers to wear rubbers is far more important here than actually distributing condoms and other protective propylactics to the broader public..or, even better, actually seeking cures or vaccines that could potentially prevent STI's from spreading. But, that wouldn't be quite as good for the business of imposing morality, now wouldn't it??

But, maybe this isn't just about exploiting a moral sex panic to destroy a legal industry, or simply special interest groups getting paid off the forced labor of others. Maybe there is something more primal going on with this push for infantilizing porn performers.

Like, you know....Haz-Mat porn fetishes??

Work with me on this one...how do we know that the real reason why Mike Weinstein and his crew are so obsessed with this legislation isn't that they all have secret fetishes for Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)?? I mean, there are fetishes much more freakier than nutting off on those green aprons, goggles, and face shields, but what's to say that Hall, Weinstein, and company are actually sexual visionaries sensing a potential new and hawt sexual subgenre to mine for instant cash? I can see it now: the instantaneous signage of AB 332 into law combined with the release of the first "safe sex" classic epic, Fifty Shades of Green: Love In The HazMat Room. 

 But, all sarcastic smack aside, folks....the fact remains that AB 322 is a false solution in search of a misplaced problem, and it's passage will not only drive a legal industry underground and threaten the health of actual people; it will also codify an ill-place assumption that scapegoating a minority of performers will somehow help the majority. And, you don't need a "courage vest" to understand that.


See also Lydia Lee's (fka Julie Meadows') outstanding post here, and Mark Kernes' post at AVN here.

Why This Blog Still Matters: Stephanie Swift's Conversion To The Dark Side, and Refuting An Anonymous Hater's Stupidity)

When I first joined this blog when Renegade Evolution created it in 2007 out of a desire to see pro-pornography/pro-sex viewpoints get their own vehicle to refute and balance out the distortions and lies put forth by antiporn activists (both the feminist "Left" and Christian fundamentalist Right varieties), I posted an introductory essay which explained why I thought that being "pro-porn" (or being anti antiporn) mattered so deeply to me. They remain as true today as the day I first wrote them, when I was merely a contributor and full-time commentator:

In my view, the majority of porn that is out there merely depicts sexual activity amongst humans that real people already enjoy immensely; whether mere acts of beautiful women and handsome men masturbating and touching and groping and tasting and kissing; or whether it's a full blown orgy of mass fucking and sucking; or whether it's merely a couple finding each other's hot buttons. Unless you are of the view that the activities themselves are somehow "immoral" and a threat to "society" and "civilization", it would be highly hypocritical, in my view, to come down on the written or displayed depictions of consensual and mutally pleasurable sexual activity amongst adults.

Plus, those who are so quick to condemn porn so gravely miss the most important reason for its existence: to turn people on and get people off. In a world that can be quite lonesome, cruel, and unfeeling, anything that allows a lonely soul or two or fifty even some minimal measure of pleasure cannot be so bad after all....as long as no others are harmed by his/her actions.

 Since that time, this blog has gone through plenty of changes. Some of the original founders, such as Trinity, Amber Rhea, and Verte, have dropped out and moved on to other venues; the founding mother Ren Ev got so burned out by all of the controversy that she basically has opted out for the safety of her own blog; and while many of the other original contributors like Ernest Greene and Iamcuriousblue will comment on occasion, it sometimes feels like this is a one man (or more appropriately, a one 'Dog) show, especially since Ren Ev granted me the powers of head admin in April of last year. There was even a time during a relatively slow period when I was at my lowest point when I even considered just leaving and shutting the place down due to what I perceived to be a lack of interest.

Then the HIV/Porn Scares of 2009 and 2010, Shelley Lubben, Michael Weinstein, and The Great Condom Mandate Debate arrived to rekindle both my interest and the debate over the legitimacy of porn in general...and business picked back up enough for me to continue on.

And, thankfully, this blog has become more and more a go to place for a point of view that usually doesn't make the rounds of porn debate circles.

Even better is that it seems that the acceptability of porn has began to make some fundamental strides in the real world, too. The recent media circus over Charlie Sheen and his "goddess" Bree Olson (not to mention his past history with porn/erotica starlets) has brought forth the immense popularity (or noteriety, depending on your POV) of porn's reach, as well as the recent loving testimonials of actress Cameron Diaz -- who openly stated her love of porn in a recent interview on Jimmy Kimmel's TV show -- and the recent victory of the porn-positive opinion in the recent Cambridge Union debate in England.

Nevertheless, it remains a long battle for people like us who see pornography as a potentially positive social and societal good to overcome the prevailing prejudices and assumptions about both the performers who create and produce sexually explicit media and the people who eagerly consume it.

I'll just give you two examples of what we are up against, and why we need to continue the struggle, so to speak.

When updating this blog this morning with commentary on the Shelley Lubben documentary post, I came upon a drive-by comment by an anonymous user that usually wouldn't find the light of day here, since it is not our perogative to give people who demonize and deligitimize us any more platforms than they already have. Nevertheless, his comment does say quite a lot about the prevailing attitude that folk like him have deep inside towards people like us, and just before I vaporize it to the Internet ether it belongs, I'll give it a bit of analysis. This was originally supposed to be a comment to Iamcuriousblue's initial post to the blog, "Why I'm pro porn..".

Not every Pro-Porn person is stupid...but every stupid person is Pro-Porn... So, if you are talking about a kid who knows her/his mom just have sex with all the men she met?? do you think that sexually positive?? porn people is selfish because they always talk about human rights, pleasure, etc...but there are so much people out there who want to have a great kid who make a good history of their country, not just to have sex with people.....So, that is why I said, only stupid people is Pro-Porn.

  Once again, I wouldn't even post this nonsense, except to show what kind of mentality we are up against here. You can literally count on both hands and run out of fingers on all the usual assumptions and strawpeople that our Mensa relies on to prove our "stupidity". Of course, porn starlets aren't the only ones who engage in sex with different men; in fact, I'd bet that outside of the job they are paid to do in performing sex scenes, most performers are strictly monogamous.  Heck, many performers are even monogamous within the scope of their jobs, only performing with their significant others or with women. (Funny how girl/girl sex escapes our commentator's mental grasp...I guess that he would see that as an asset for his voyeruism??) Besides, if a woman in or out of porn decides that she wants to engage in pleasurable sex with more than one person in her life, and she's willing to protect herself, what is it to us to deny or criticize her for that?? Even if it's more than one man at once??

And, oh, how funny, this "make a good history of their country"...as if porn starlets or sexually active women aren't capable of being successful outside of their sexual exploits. I mean, I guess that Nina Hartley only slept her way to earning that magna cum laude degree in nursing at San Francisco State University, right??  And, Vicky Vette's success in her early life as a mid-level executive and home builder prior to her entering the adult industry was only a myth in her brain, because she can only function when she's on her knees sucking Scott Nails; dick...am I correct,  Anon?? And, what about the many performers whom actually served their country in the military prior to entering adult...are they merely reducable to a bunch of silly sluts, too??

Maybe Anon needs to stop projecting HIS stupidity onto others and actually talk to and listen to active performers before he shoots his mouth off next time.


But, fools like our Anonymous usually come a dime a dozen, fueled by their willfull ignorance and refusal to open their minds to the world. Far, far more problematic and injurous are the progeny of so-called "rescue organizations" who exploit the same misguided beliefs and assumptions to exploit the many varied experiences of performers in order to both promote a reactionary, neo-Puritan agenda, and to get paid.

I don't have to reset the antics of Shelley Lubben since you know plenty about her....but you might not quite know about the XXXChurch.com ministry.

Founded by Craig Gross around 2008, this organization sells itself as a hip, cool, vivacious youth ministry who, like Lubben's Pink Cross Foundation, glams around porn conventions and awards shows attempting to sell their message of redemption and salvation from the evil dangers of porn. They also include a seperate ministry known as X3, which claims to "save" formerly promiscuous women back to a "Godly" life of sexual "restraint". In effect, they are the "ex-slut" equivalent to the "ex-gay" ministries, and their damage to psyches and escape from reality is equally recorded and appalling.

Unfortunately, they, like some sexual predators, will sense enough of a weakness from someone whom has suffered legitimate injury or psychological harm to be able to turn him or her against their better sense. Such is the case, I'd say, with Stephanie Swift, who is the latest former performer to fall victim to (or, if you have a different point of view, be saved by) the clutches of Gross and the XXXChurch.

Swift's story is indeed not a particularly happy one: an Hall-of-Fame performer who gained superstar status during the middle- to late-1990s with over 370 videos to her credit, she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2009, and began chemotheraphy treatments between then and the end o 2010. Apparently, while undergoing the therapy, she had a distinct change of heart and philosophy, and XXXChurch was able to impact her beliefs enough that she became "born again" and repudiated her porn past.  The fact that the industry had pulled together to raise thousands of dollars to help her recovery apparently didn't factor into her ennui, since she doesn't even bother to mention such generosity; only claiming that "having breast cancer saved her life". As if porn had anything to do with her contracting breast cancer in the first place?

Ms. Swift was quick to join XXXChurch.com upon her "salvation", and they didn't take long to publicize their newest convert with a vengence; a section of their website dedicated to Swift includes not only a brief written testimony, but also a video clip where Ms. Swift shares her joy of being "saved" and converted to "the blood of Jesus" via Craig Gross' organization.

Now...this is in no way intended to be an attack on Ms. Swift or her personal conversion of faith; like many women who find comfort in religion at times of stress, she is totally entitled to her views and beliefs, and she deserves nothing but the best wishes for her recovery, both physical and emotional.

On the other hand, though...the role of XXXChurch and their methods of targeting impressionable performers for shaming and humiliating, and especially for distorting and denying the legal experiences and beliefs of other performers not so willing to feel shame for their profession or their personal lives, is more than worthy of analysis and even some derision.

Until recently, XXXChurch was though up to be the "good cop", feel good style of ex-slut evangelism, at least compared to the more ham-fisted, Bible in your face, off-the-wall, fire-and-brimstone approach of Ministeress Lubben. Recently, apparently due to either the competition and publicity of Lubben or the recent HIV scares, they have become far more aggressive in both their pursuit of candidates for conversion and their hard sell techniques.  In particular, they have launched campaigns targeting active church members on their supposed "addiction" to porn, and how "porn addiction" negatively affects both individuals and the society as a whole. (During Super Bowl XLV Sunday, they hosted a campaign called "Porn Sunday", where they targeted churches throughout the country with testimonials from NFL players and coaches about the damages caused by "porn addiction".)

Their ministry is equally as aggressive in targetting young people who they consider to be especially receptive to their message about sexual shame and denial and the wonders of "modesty" as well as the alleged dangers of porn and mastrubation and all other forms of un-Godly sexual acts. The same webpage that featured Stephanie Swift also included another "story of grace" where Gross describes how his efforts to "save" Montana Fishburne from her recent porn outtings were taken to heart by another "18 year old girl" (funny how they are all "girls" even though legally they are adult enough to make their own choices, right??) whom supposedly was devastated when nude photos she did of herself on the Internet ended up becoming public against her will.

That in and of itself would not by much of a problem...except for the fact that like Ministeress Lubben, Gross and his gang are more than willing to stretch more than a few facts in order to sell their message of salvation from sexual sin. Lydia Lee (the former Julie Meadows) actually did a decent analysis of some of the more outlandish claims about "sex addiction" and porn's alleged connection with same, and came up with and throughly debunked some wild inaccurate claims. One such example:

• 4.7 million Americans visit porn sites in excess of 11 hours per week

If I Google “how many Americans visit porn sites,” the first link talks about privacy on the internet, the second talks about how the FBI uses fake hyperlinks to snare child porn suspects (bravo there!) – validating the first links suspicions about privacy? – and the third talks about how an adult entertainment company evaluated the backgrounds of people buying porn and, as it turns out in February 2009, anyway, more conservatives and religious people bought porn than anyone else. Benjamin Edelman at Harvard Business School states,

“Some of the people who are most outraged turn out to be consumers of the very things they claimed to be outraged by.”

This is the kind of thing that I find usually happens when I’m left to research other’s information.

Our interest, though, is in XXXChurch's essential denial that any porn performer could have an expierence or history in porn other than dire slavery or sin or shame. For obvious reasons, Gross' crew simply reduces the experiences of women in porn to its least common and most destructive denomination, as nothing less than the Devil's trial by fire. Apparently women whose experiences in porn were a bit more positive and fullfilling than Stephanie Swift's was are simply rejected as either tools of the Devil in need of prayer and shaming to convert them to "God's love", or simply dismissed as mindless sluts who deserve all the pain and hurd they're supposed to get...and the eternal damnation in Hell as well. Never mind that there are active performers in porn who are also regular churchgoers (Mary Carey, the former nominee for governor of California being an example), and there's also those performers/models whom have suffered tragic, traumatic life-changing situations and not quite moved to blame them all on porn or their sex habits (model Taylor Stevens currently fighting her own bout of cancer, for example). None of them will manage to make Craig Gross' salvation list...and that's quite unfortunate for him.

Of course, there are those performers who absolutely stand by their decisions to do porn; who see their profession as not only a decent job, but also an empowering, even liberating influence on their personal
sex lives...not to mention the nice paycheck and the means to explore their sexuality and their exhibitionism. Problem is, though, these women don't quite get the attention or publicity of the tragedies and tales of "defiliation" and destruction and salvation through Jesus (or through radical feminism) that dominate the conventional wisdom that flows from the dominant media. A few brave souls attempt to sell the idea that porn can be just as much a source of public good and liberation as it can be a source of tragedy...but most likely, they are simply shouted down by the fierce volume of anger from the antiporn crowd...if they are even allowed a place to speak to begin with.

And that's the main reason why BPPA exists today...to offer at least one more place where those who believe in the positive potential of porn can at least have a microphone to speak our peace. We may not have the money of XXXChurch or the stridency of Shelley Lubben or Gail Dines or the censoriousness of the GenderBorg radfems or the Morality in Media cartel...but we do have the commitment to accuracy, truth, and pleasure on our side. And sometimes, that all that counts.

As for the XXXChurch...well, I'll let Lydia Lee have the last word on them, since she says things so well.

What did irritate me about the confession (or testimony, if you will), was the point where she said that if there had been someone from the industry encouraging her not to do porn, she would have listened. I’m sorry, but I can’t think of a more disingenuous statement. People in pornography are in it because they want to be there. It’s too easy to blame an anti-porn porn person for not warning her. This gives kudos to XXX Church for being present at an adult convention. This may not be the blatant Lubben testimony of “The Devil made me do it,” “modern day slavery,” “I have herpes but God cured me,” schtick, but it still takes responsibility and transfers it onto someone else. I have so many mixed feelings right now. Sad because she feels she has to publicly insult an industry that made her a super star, heartbroken that she suffered sexual abuse, disgust that XXX Church is stooping to the same Lubben-esque standards of exploiting the model for more publicity and donations, anger that the general public does not know, especially by videos like this, that the majority of industry people are not seedy, weird losers that prey on people, and resolve to finish The Devil and Shelley Lubben and point at the exploitative organizations that mirror the porn industry. Pornography is a blatant and honest exploiting of the body. Honest! It does not lie about glamour, it does not lie about STDs and risk, and anyone in the world would tell you that. You don’t have to be from the adult industry to know that it’s not glamourous and that there is risk of STDs. That is the dumbest argument these ridiculous people pose. I lost a childhood friendship for wanting to get into the industry. I had no illusions about my choice to be in porn. And what did losing that friendship teach me? That she wasn’t really my friend. But these people exploit the soul. They exploit the darkest elements of human nature and offer salvation through your endorsement and donations, but they lie in order to do it, and I will take the adult industry over these heathens ANY DAY! I feel dirty visiting their sites, I feel gross watching them and listening to them. I wish Swift the best in her life, but I’m grossed out by these people and their tactics and the way they infiltrate an honest industry and use it because no one knows better. It is the most misunderstood and least exposed legal industry. They want it to go away so they can attack homosexuality and single mothers and all the things that don’t fit into a picture posed by a book they couldn’t possibly understand because of how old it is and how many times it’s been translated. They are obsessed. They suffer from addiction. Addicts need an addiction, and if you give up one, you have to replace it with something else, because that is the nature of addiction. Now their addiction is religion.

I’ve already heard some pretty gross things about Craig Gross. I won’t publish it because I was told in confidence, but believe me, he’s in the same league with the Lubbens of the world. I wrote about him on Mike South’s site, and I don’t care how many people like him. He is an enemy of truth. And again, I’m not against spirituality, but I am against the mass hysteria these people promote and perpetuate, and I don’t believe the man that I have read about would agree that idol worship and judging and giving money to people who promote such things is the only way to experience salvation. You know what I would like to see? Someone from the industry not sell out and kick it around just because they need a new gig. If Stephanie is happy, great, but the blame-shifting is sickening. It just smacks of bullshit to me. The industry rallied around her to raise money for her. I can’t tell you how many internet posts I saw about fundraisers and how many “Help Stephanie Swift” announcements… Certainly her fans were supportive? Did she talk about that in the video? No. No love. No love at all.

If only more performers could be as up front and unabashed as Lydia Lee. THAT, my friends, is why this blog keeps going...and thanks to women like her, will keep going strong.

HIV Porn Scare 2010: The Coup d'Twit Edition -- AIM Gets Its License Pulled {Temporarily]; The Lubben/Weinstein Alliance Reacts Like They Found Dubya's WMD; And Derrick Burts' Escort Skeletons Are Exposed [Updated]

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HIV Porn Scare 2010 Redux: "Patient Zeta" Outs Himself...But Does His Story Pass The Gloryhole/Swiss Cheese Test??

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Shelley Lubben's Pink Cross Scam Gets More Exposure...Plus, How AHF, Shelley, and UCLA Almost Pulled Off An "Ambush"

OK...just when you thought things couldn't get more whack concerning the UCLA "conference" on condoms in porn, more facts come piling on.

A blogger named Cameron Rowe has now published what he calls an expose on Shelley Lubben and her organization, The Pink Cross Foundation, basically building on the work of former porn performer Julie Meadows (aka Lydia Lee) in exposing the shadier and slightly less friendly shadows of that org. The first two parts dealt with Lubben's credentials as a porn performer (she lists 30 movies to her credit, but others have reduced that number to only 12); and her creds as a minister (her degree allegedly comes from a "diploma mill" that was once banned and sanctioned in the state of Conneticut, and her ordination is from a group that mostly consists of a "mail drop").

Part 3 goes more into the financial nuts and bolts of the PCF, and it relies heavily on the publically disclosed 2008 and 2009 Federal tax returns that PCF filed in order to maintaiin their 501(c)(3) tax exempt status as a non-profit charitable organization. A sample of Rowe's findings:

 A charity website and a commercial website are not supposed to be a marriage due to IRS rules. However, thepinkcross.net redirects to shelleylubben.com, but only thepinkcross.org is listed on the tax return. On thepinkcross.org, some article does link to shelleylubben’s website and her new book.  Shelley Lubben’s bio on thepinkcross.org does link to her site. 

[...]

The big item on this tax return is that Shelley Lubben took $24,250 in compensation, which is 37.6% of gross receipts. It is the single biggest expense. The charity spent an extremely large $1,971 on financial assistance and gift cards, which is 3.1% of gross receipts. So, based on their accounting, 96.9% was spent on administration.

The better business bureau (BBB) recommends no more than 35% of gross receipts spend on Line 14, 15 of a 990 tax return. The federal government recommends, under CFC (Combined Federal Campaign), only 25%. So, 37.6% is above both the BBB and CFC. Some new charities can be higher if administration and fundraising goes over that percentage. The tax return does not say how much was spent on fundraising.

[....]

The Pink Cross Foundation did lobbying last year but on Section IV, Question 4, they said they didn’t. This is a lie and if they did they have to fill out a Schedule C should be completed and is open to public inspection. This allows the IRS to determine of a charity can retain a 501(c)(3) status. It is known they tried to influence legislation, attended a California subcommittee, or committee, on that proposed legislation. Failure to fill out this form by lying and saying no lobbying was performed could cost them their 501(c)(3) status. Also, if you spend more than 20% of your gross receipts on lobbying, you may have to pay a tax or lose tax-exempt status.

Use of volunteers, mailings, advertising, direct contact with legislators, has to be accounted for on Schedule C. The Pink Cross Foundation did mail at least one legislator since I remember seeing the document. The video of the hearing did have at least one volunteer.

This is a red flag. Of course, if the IRS claimed, “Tax evasion”, Garrett Lubben is responsible since he was listed as the person supposed to sign it. It is interesting the tax return with lies on it wasn’t signed by the President, Shelley Lubben. The 2008 return she signed. On the return, Ms. Lubben claims to be the “president” but is “executive director” on their website. Which is it?

[...]

Does thepinkcross.net belong to Pink Cross or Shelley Lubben? The website address does redirect to shelleylubben.com. According to WHOIS, ownership is hidden. Pink Cross does not appear to be trademarked so this could be legal. However, it really should go to thepinkcross.org not her personal website just for reasons that there is no conflict of interest between a commercial endeavor and a charitable one.

Rowe also hits hard and deep on the PCF's alleged assistance to those former porn performers seeking help getting out. Citing Julie Meadows' revelations on the so-called "Recovery Assistance Program" application, Rowe essentially asks the same questions that Julie and yours truly asked when this first was exposed:

Why not just tell someone up-front you can’t provide something? Most of this they aren’t providing in full anyway. This is a draconian program. Get a job and we’ll help. Give up any money porn owes you or we won’t. So, you got screwed by porn and have to give up the pay? Pardon the pun. Or, and you will be accountable to some mentor of Pink Cross. What does Pink Cross do if you have a spouse in porn but you only want to leave? No idea.

The application also wants your real name, driver’s license, porn star name/names, SSN (why exactly?), DOB, address, know if you are eligible to work in the United States, and know if you have been convicted or pleaded guilty to a felony in the past five (5) years. Needing a copy of your SSN card before they approve you isn’t right. They also want to know what that felony it was as well.

Apparently Shelley and the PCF never heard of the HIPPA law..except when they throw it at AIM when they want to release porn performers' medical records to the authorities for their own purposes.

There is so much more over at Rowe's blog...it makes for a fascinating and troublesome read.

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The second big news is that Shelley did manage to post her reassessment of her appearance at the UCLA "condoms in porn" conference.  Needless to say, her version had some interesting deviations from most other's recollection of that debacle.

But before that, we get this from Michael Whiteacre on how the UCLA conference sponsors attempted to cook the debate in their favor by ambusing their critics (posted earlier as a response to my earlier post here):

The organizers of the UCLA School of Law panel ACTIVELY PLOTTED to keep adult industry members away, and I can attest that it is true. This event was not promoted at all. Google and Yahoo searches turned up nothing. I stumbled upon a reference to it in the calendar on Shelley Lubben’s site two days before the event. She listed the name of the event, the location, and gave the start time as 11:00 am. I passed the info on to Free Speech Coalition, and Diane Duke essentially “bullied” her way onto the panel. FSC also alerted AVN. The next day (the day before the event) AVN mentioned the event, and it also popped up on Darrah Ford's blog (listing the start time, correctly, as 11:30 am).

Shelley Lubben must have been told to not promote the event, because after FSC (and AVN) called over to the organizers, citing Shelley’s website as how they heard about it, the start time on Shelley’s site was mysteriously ALTERED to 2:00 pm (which is 50 minutes after he event had to end so that a scheduled class could use the room). That altered start time is still on her website as I write this. I must conclude they called her to complain, and Shelley’s instinct, as usual, was to distort the truth. She takes a kernel of truth, and then twists it to serve her needs.

This panel was plotted as a way for a cabal of likeminded interests to add another all-star meeting to their roster, try out their propaganda on a small test audience, and hopefully get a few quotes to use for self promotion. That I helped out them, and take the fight to them, is a badge of honor for me. But the real praise belongs to Mr. Marcus and Diane Duke, who knowingly walked into a turkey shoot.

Lubben's take on the event was, shall we say, just a bit different. Some excerpts, taken from a comment left at Julie Meadows' blog this morning:

“When questioned on how she knew these consequences came from porn and not her six years of prostitution before she entered porn, Lubben replied, “I never had STDs until I did porn. I had protected sex as a prostitute. I didn’t do as hard of (sex) acts in prostitution. I never did anal until I got to porn.” Although Lubben states unequivocally that prostitution is still horrible, porn is worse.”

“Diane Duke of the Free Speech Coalition (FSC) who was there on behalf of the producers defended the industry’s current testing system as ‘remarkable’ but it was pointed out that testing ‘does not prevent anything.’ Current porn star Mr. Marcus, a 17 year veteran of the industry who has appeared in over 50 gangbang movies and who is known for his brutal acts in porn, showed up to defend the industry – yet in a meeting that was filled with testimony of violence against women and damage to the reproductive health of women, it was hardly convincing.”

“No other porn performers showed up to defend the industry – which is the norm for public debates. Why do porn actors rarely show up? There have been several state and local meetings in the last two years and yet only a handful of porn stars have ever showed up. Mainly producers and lawyers for the industry show up at these meetings. Why is that?

“Mr. Marcus spoke of a need for ‘more education’ in the industry. We agree on that point. No woman should go into porn on the false promise that they will be kept safe, or that the porn industry is concerned about the health and safety of their employees. They say they are, but their actions speak otherwise. Just two weeks ago, Diane Duke wrote an article in the adult industry trade magazine titled, “FSC: On the Forefront of Fighting for Your Bottom Line.”

“Who is fighting for the health and safety of these people? Certainly not the industry. But we will! Not only that, Pink Cross demands that the entire industry be shutdown until it is in compliance with state law. The current workplace health and safety laws must be enforced. The porn industry is currently operating illegally. We also know that the porn industry is full of rampant disease and thrives on illegal activity such as drug trafficking, prostitution and brutality against women.”

I really don't know what's funnier or more pathetic: Lubben attempting to spin the deliberate attempt to stone her critics as a legitimate debate; her slanderous attack on Mr. Marcus as "known for his brutal acts in porn", as if his real reputation as one of the most woman-friendly and pro-pleasure performers means nothing at all; or, her smack about porn being a haven for "drug trifficking, prostitution, and brutality against women"....and full of "rampant disease", completely discounting her own history as sex worker who regularly practiced unsafe and possibly illegal sex practices on her own both before and after her short lived career as a porn actress.

Of course, this is the same Shelley Lubben who regularly  blows out faked-up stats like "90% of all women in porn are diseased and prostituted" and who gleefully prints nonsense like "[..] ...porn starlet Nina Hartley, whom has contracted clamydia 4 times in her career....' ; as if her 12 videos and the backing of "God" can overcome 26 YEARS and actual activism for safer sex and authentic women's pleasure.

Oh...and Shelley??  Nina's bachelors degree in nursing from San Francisco State is REAL. Don't hate.

The Great HIV Porn Scare: All Bark, No Bite...Again (Also, Exposing Shelley Lubben's Fraudulent Scam)

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