Euro Porn Ban Update: Cooler, Smarter Heads Prevail; Porn Ban Language Striken Down....For Now

Well, maybe the European Parliament might not be so bad after all.

Here's the breaking story from C|Net:

Today, 625 members of the European Parliament voted 368-159 in favor of passing a report aimed at stamping out gender stereotypes in the region, with 98 abstaining. However, the controversial "porn ban" section of the proposal was rejected.

This vote forms a majority opinion based on Europe's voting politicians, from which the European Commission can form legislation. Such a law would again be voted upon, and become legally binding in the 27 member state bloc of the EU.

Because the opinion of the Parliament has now been made, it will be extraordinarily difficult for the Commission to draw up similar porn-blocking legislation only to pass it back to the Parliament for another vote.

Unfortunately, while the attempt to directly ban porn was defeated, there still remains some controversy over the interpretation of what was passed, and how it could potentially spawn future attempts at censorship of sexual media. Again, quoting C|Net:

These porn-blocking proposals, initially introduced by Dutch Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the Socialist Party Kartika Tamara Liotard, were buried within a report titled "Eliminating gender stereotypes in the EU," which was first submitted to the Parliament in early December. The report no doubt had positive intentions as a bid to close the gender inequality gap in the region by developing awareness and effective measures to reduce the prevalence of gender stereotypes in education, employment, and the media.

However, controversy quickly stirred because the report included such wide-ranging and ill-defined measures as calling on the European Union to reaffirm its position on an earlier resolution for a "ban on all forms of pornography in the media," as well as giving Internet service providers "policing rights" over their subscribers.

Amendments to the report removed certain explanatory text, but not the references to the previous resolution that was passed by the Parliament, which called for a blanket ban on pornography in the region in 1997.

While the explanation was removed, the effect was not, according to Swedish MEP for the Pirate Party Rick Falkvinge.

He explained that a "split vote" was called on to delete the sentence -- "which called for a ban on all forms of pornography in the media" -- but in spite of this, the 1997 resolution remains referenced, and therefore the call to ban "all forms of pornography in the media" remains intact.

Falkvinge said that striking out this text "has no other effect than deliberately obscuring the purpose of the new report."

But to make matters worse, when a handful of MEPs called on their citizens to e-mail their representatives in protest, the parliament's own IT department began to block these e-mails en masse from arriving in politicians' inboxes.

Pirate Party member Christian Engström, who first brought the news to light, called the move an "absolute disgrace", and said that he would complain to the Parliament's president about this "totally undemocratic practice."

The irony was that the method used to block the opposing emails was to label the phrase "gender stereotypes" as spam....on International Women's Day. In a proposal supposedly geared to attacking "gender stereotypes".

It'll be pretty interesting to see the response from folk like Gail Dines on this one. She's not known to take rejection too kindly.

The rest of Europe, at least for now, can freely exhale a sigh of relief.

More Lying From The "Yes On Measure B" Crowd....And A Bit Of Slut-Shaming, Too (Or, We Are All Pornographers Now)

[This is a continuation of my last post on the scummy tactics of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation and other proponents of Measure B, the proposed condoms-in-porn mandate. For background, read my previous post.]

The blog SmartVoter.org just posted at their site the full voter guide to the proposed Measure B ordinance up to vote in Los Angeles County, including all of the arguments and rebuttals by proponents and opponents. I've posted some of the statements previously, but here are, just for recording's sake, the statement in opposition to Measure B, as well as their rebuttal to the pro-B arguments.

First, their original argument (with signatories attached):

Measure B is a ridiculous waste of tax dollars.

It would throw hundreds of thousands of your tax dollars, every year, at an imaginary threat.
It would send government inspectors, at full salary and benefits, to adult film sets to ensure actors are not only wearing condoms but rubber gloves, goggles and lab coats. This is money we need for real public health threats.

Measure B's backers falsely claim a health threat in the adult film industry. Every single actor is tested at least monthly. In 8 years, not one has contracted HIV on a set anywhere in the U.S. In fact, by driving film productions underground where there is no testing and no industry regulations, actors would be less safe, not more. Moreover, the Department of Public Health warns that Measure B would expose the County to expensive lawsuits + wasting money needed for real public health risks.

While we are wasting tax dollars for no reason, we are also driving a vital source of jobs out of state. The adult film industry employs thousands of people out of L.A. County: not just actors, but lighting and sound engineers, caterers, craftspeople, etc. This is exactly what we do NOT need during this recession.

Measure B is a ridiculous waste of tax dollars, kills thousands of jobs, is unnecessary, and does nothing to protect public health.

Vote NO on Measure B.


STUART WALDMAN
President of VICA (Valley Industry and Commerce Assoc.)

DR. PETER MIAO
Infectious Disease Specialist

DIANE DUKE
CEO Free Speech Coalition

PAMELA J. BROWN, Ph.D.
Professor of Economics

RANDALL WEISSBUCH, MD
Physician

Of course, you will recognize Diane Duke of the Free Speech Coalition and Dr. Peter Miao of Cutting Edge Testing as part of the signatories.

And here's their rebuttal to pro-Measure B arguments:

Safe sex practices are a good idea. However, they shouldn't be forced on adult film actors. Our individual rights have been fading fast since the Patriot Act.

Do-gooders such as New York Mayor Bloomberg seek to create a nanny state where our behavior is increasingly regulated for our own good. Bloomberg decreed that people must buy soft drinks in small cups, because they could become obese if they bought larger sizes. Measure B declares that adult film actors would have to wear condoms during filming. This isn't much different than regulating the size of soda a person can buy. Do you like the idea of busybodies forcing people to do what is healthful for them? If not, vote NO.

Measure B would destroy the adult film industry in Los Angeles County, and it's quite a big industry here. Film producers tried using condoms during the HIV scare of the 1990s, and people refused to watch the movies. So will the producers just stop making these films? No. They will likely move to areas where they have the freedom to make the kinds of films they want to make, most likely to other counties or other states.

Measure B also creates an expensive government bureaucracy at the same time as budgets and services are being cut. Do we really want our tax dollars paying for government agents to go to movie sets and look at how sex acts are being performed? And would the film producers who get permits for their shoots now even bother in the future, if they are being faced with all these new regulations?

Whether you agree with the supporters of Measure B or not, it's a bad idea to impose their standards through force of law. They may regulate your business or your sex life the next time around. Vote NO on Measure B.


NANCY C. ZARDENETA
Chair, Libertarian Party of Los Angeles County

PAMELA J. BROWN, Ph.D.
Professor of Economics

RANDALL WEISSBUCH, M.D.
Physician

JOHN URIBE
Civil Liberties Attorney

TED BROWN
Small Business Owner

Note the reference there to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's proposal to ban the sale of large servings of soda pop, on the notion that such sales lead to obesity.  Never mind that all that would do is allow wealthier people to buy their soda in bulk to bypass the law, and that the enforcement would be selectively limited to poorer people, or that such a law would probably not reduce obesity nearly as much as, say, taxing soft drinks higher accross the board or even making healthier products more accessible to poorer folk.

Now, I may not personally agree with the libertarian slant of that argument, and would argue much more about how the proposed mandate would affect the right of the performer to choose for his/herself how to protect themselves.  But, I'm not an LA County citizen, nor am I getting paid for promoting the opposition.

But, that is a mere trivial beef of mine.  The response of the Measure B proponents, on the other hand, just isn't. Exhale and fine tune your BS sensory apparatuses before you go to the next paragraph.

Comparing drinking soda pop to the immediate risk of infection with a sexually transmitted disease on the job trivializes the threat facing porn performers. The current outbreak of syphilis in the porn industry is living proof that having sex in adult films without a condom is a clear and immediate threat to the health of these performers and our community.

It is widely accepted that when you are on the job you are afforded protection that you may or may not choose to exercise in your own home. If you wish to make home repairs without gloves or a hard hat that is your own business. When you get paid to perform a task, workplace health and safety rules apply. Porn is a legal industry. Performers are paid to perform and they are entitled to the same on the job protection that every other person enjoys.

Measure B makes clear that no public dollars will be spent to enforce condoms in porn. All of the costs will be carried by porn producers. Sex acts in your bedroom are a strictly private matter. When filming is done for money it is a public matter. Why should people or even animals that appear in Hollywood movies be protected and the young people who appear in porn be abused?

The fact that many porn producers break the law and film without permits is not a good reason to do nothing to protect any performers or our community from disease.

Vote Yes on B!

JEFFREY R. KLAUSNER, MD. MPH
Professor of Medicine, UCLA

RICHARD G. POLANCO
Senator Richard Polanco (Ret.)

PAULA TAVROW, Ph.D.
Director, UCLA Bixby Program on Population and Reproductive Health

MICHAEL WEINSTEIN
President, AIDS Healthcare Foundation

MARK ROY MCGRATH, MPH
Public Health Analyst, UCLA

Let us break this bit of hyperbolic bullshittery down, shall we??

1)  "Comparing drinking soda pop to the immediate risk of infection with a sexually transmitted disease on the job trivializes the threat facing porn performers."

Wait...you mean that only porn performers transmit sexually transmitted diseases and then spread them to the general population?? Just like only poor people gulping down Coke and Pepsi spread diabetes to the population at large?? Of course, Weinstein has no problem with the pandemic of obesity or diabetes (and the high content of soft drinks with high fructose corn syrup which does tend to lead to more sugar addiction than usual)...but why even go there in the first place??

And also....most studies show that the threat of STI's in porn is actually a bit less than the threat in the general population, mostly because the industry actually does test for most STI's, and because in general performers are actually more conscious of their private behavior and are willing to make proper safety procedures to protect themselves...and to properly treat themselves on the chance they do get infected. There are actually greater threats of STI transmissions from "down low" public street park encounters by closeted fundamentalists than there are from shooting porn...so why isn't the pro-B crowd going for mandating condoms in public parks or even churches??


2) The current outbreak of syphilis in the porn industry is living proof that having sex in adult films without a condom is a clear and immediate threat to the health of these performers and our community.

Actually, it's more like living proof that AHF and the condom mandate proponents are completely full of shit.

The original syphilis outbreak took place in Budapest, Hungary, last June/July, and at its peak claimed approximately 100 performers in Europe; but really didn't kick in so much in the US until Mr. Marcus revealed his story of contracting the infection in May, and attempting to cloak it away and alter his tests until he was revealed in September. Most of the infected performers have undergone the required treatment and are now back performing, and there have been no reports of infection since last month. Also, when it did cross over to the US, the most that could be found was that the LA County Department of Public Health had confirmed that they had 9 cases of performers whom had contracted syphilis and were being treated. Stangely enough, the Free Speech Coalition had confirmed only TWO infected performers (Mr. Marcus included), and they reported that the other confirmed case was from a condom-only gay performer.

There was a sizeable blowup within the industry about whether or not those who were not infected with syphilis would be forced to endure the penicillin antibiotic treatment, which does indeed pose some minor threats, or whether they would have to face a 60-90 day waiting period before testing using the popular RPR test. However, the FSC and their partners APHSS did discover an alternative test that required only a 14-day waiting period, and offered that as an alternative for those not wanting the antibiotic treatment.

But even with all that, surely Weinstein (or whomever penned that sentence out of their ass) probably are smart enough to Google that syphilis can be spread just as likely through sores in the mouth or face, and that condoms alone would not prevent the spread of that infection. In fact, how does he know that many of the infections in Europe weren't in shoots requiring condoms??

Oh. and there is also this inconvenient fact that syphilis has been able to thrive in the larger population of LA County without the need for porn performers...whether wrapped or not. To quote Michael Whiteacre in a comment to a post at AdultBizLaw.com:

Syphilis cases in California rose 18% from 2010 to 2011, according to new data released by the state Department of Public Health — the adult industry is not the cause of this rise, it is a victim of his massive failure of California’s public health institutions.

Of course, mandating condoms for everyone engaging in sex in real life, rather than just those performing in porn, wouldn't quite do the trick, wouldn't it??


3) It is widely accepted that when you are on the job you are afforded protection that you may or may not choose to exercise in your own home. If you wish to make home repairs without gloves or a hard hat that is your own business. When you get paid to perform a task, workplace health and safety rules apply. Porn is a legal industry. Performers are paid to perform and they are entitled to the same on the job protection that every other person enjoys.

That is one of the few unabashed truths in their "rebuttal"...and even that is twisted around beyond recognition. Of course, plumbers and home repair professionals do have strong workplace protections to deal with occupational hazards, and some of them have detailed procedures for especially hazardous work, such as asbestos-tainted material removal or other forms of hazardous waste. But, the regulations are closely related to and adjusted to the particular hazard they face, and they are crafted with the full input of the workers in mind.

Engaging in sex on screen is indeed performing, and while it is similar to the way that people engage in sex in their bedrooms in private, it is plenty different. When you engage in sex in private, you probably don't have a set of hot lights and a camera/film crew all up in your bra and panties, and a director yelling and screaming to change positions every 5 minutes so that they can get "the perfect shot"; or, if you happen to be the male talent, a director up your jock telling you to stay hard and keep your edge until HE says you can cut loose with your "money shot". No one is saying that there shouldn't be some sembulance of standards of safety when shooting a sex scene, or that there is no justification for health and safety standards.

The problem is, though, that porn, like any other form of creative art form, relies on putting out an enhancement fantasy of real sex...and most porn consumers/watchers have spoken loud and clear that they will NOT buy condomized sex. (Notice I said "most", not "all"; there may be a market for "safer sex" out there, but it is generally restricted.) Merely asserting an audience is out there or can be invented through government fiat simply doesn't make it so.

Besides that. Measure B gives no leeway to even homegrown cam sites or even private owners of home websites the option of not using condoms; it simply MANDATES that they be used: and if you want to even tape a sex scene in LA County, you have to buy a permit which requires you to wear "protection", or face invasive raids from the Condom Police, stiff fines, and even jail time. Plus, those permits won't be cheap, because....well, we'll get to that soon.


4) Measure B makes clear that no public dollars will be spent to enforce condoms in porn. All of the costs will be carried by porn producers. Sex acts in your bedroom are a strictly private matter. When filming is done for money it is a public matter. Why should people or even animals that appear in Hollywood movies be protected and the young people who appear in porn be abused?

 No public dollars??  You mean, the money exercised by the County of Los Angeles from forcing producers of porn to pay for permits, insurance, and the salaries of government officials to inspect them for condoms is not "public dollars"???  Riiiiight..and the excise tax on cigarettes and tobacco isn't public, either?? Well...at least Weinstein didn't call porn producers "pornographers" here...or was that just a slip up??

"When filming is done for money, it is a public matter." But if it is done for free and no condom is used -- or if a condom is used and summarily breaks -- and HIV or some other STI is spread, it's none of our business, right?? Only the "pornographers" and the porn performers should be coerced to become guniea pigs for "safer sex" as a means of "role modeling" the rest of the impressionable public, I guess.

And..."young people who appear in porn be abused.."?? Yeah, because we all know all dem stoopid sluts can't be trusted to think and decide to enter porn for themselves...they must be "sex trafficked" in by those cigar-chomping, trenchcoat-wearing dirty old men with the 70's mustaches who trick them with candy and dreams of Hollywood success if only they'd just lie on that casting couch!!

Paging Shelley Lubben, me thinks??

5) The fact that many porn producers break the law and film without permits is not a good reason to do nothing to protect any performers or our community from disease.

Remember that before the City of Los Angeles passed their version of the condom mandate earlier this year, the only requirement for a permit was that you pay a fee to FilmLA, the board that supervises movie filming in the city. There actually was no requirement for condoms or any other form of protection....until AHF invented them for both the LA city law and Measure B. Also, the LA city law is still subject to legal challenges, pending the outcome of the county ordinance.

And, as for Weinstein and the pro-Measure B's concern for "our community"??  Well that is shown quite starkly in their current billboard campaign, as you can plainly see:

Yep. 

Never mind that they have used and exploited the experiences of "pornographers" like Darren James, Derrick Burts, and Shelley Lubben to promote their ordinance.

Never mind that they actually have gained some support from actual "pornographers" such as Brittany Andrews and Katja Kassin, as well as luminaries in the porn world who have been outspoken critics of both AIM and the FSC (such as Mike South and Gene Ross).

(And oh, by the way...you probably don't want someone like Monica Foster on your side, either.)

And...never mind that everyone from Republicans and Libertarians to even staunch Democrats and liberals have spoken out against this proposal, and that medical experts of all -- and no -- political persuasion(s) have seen the hypocrisy and counterproductiveness of Measure B.

Nope..in their mind, either you are with them, or you're with "the pornographers".

I'll simply let Dr. Chauntelle Tibalis of Porn Valley Vantage get the final word on this, because she says it so well:

Really? The “pornographers” say? That’s the game you’re gonna play, AHF? Reeeeally?

Thank you, AIDS Healthcare Foundation for shaming “pornographers” in this way.

Thank you, AIDS Healthcare Foundation for using donor funds – monies that I’m sure were given to your “own self-created social enterprises” under the auspices of working to “rid the world of AIDS” (quotes from AHF mission statement here) –  to shame “pornographers” in this way.

Because I know that’s what you’re doing!! I know what you’re really saying with this ad is “Eww look at these evil nasty people who say ‘No on B’ – pornographers!! Ewwwwwww!! They’re too gross and awful to know anything about what they know, and you don’t want to be associated with Them, do you?”

How dare you?

How dare you, an organization that claims to want to help so many oft-shamed-throughout-history and continuously marginalized communities, how dare you behave in this manner?

How dare you rely on stereotype, myth, and urban-legend horrors born from decades of speculation and misinformation about “pornographers”? How dare you engage those cultural fictions in such a manipulative manner? How dare you pass judgement on working, tax-paying members of LA County (and the human community as a whole)? How dare you dole out shame-by-proxy to everyone even obliquely associated with porn? How dare you?!!

You know what they say: you can talk shit when you’re perfect (or something like that)… and I’m far from perfect… so guess what I’m doing right now, AHF? Shaming you!! But I’m not gonna pull out stereotypes and slurs to do it. I’m just gonna call attention to the fact that I know what you’re up to.

Shame on you.

In.  FUCKING.  Deed.

Please, citizens of LA County....don't fall for this bullshit.  VOTE NO ON MEASURE B.

Kayden Kross. BADASS. Fine ASS. SmartASS. (Literally.) And, All Up In Measure B's Grillz.

Today, there was an Internet social media protest action launched by former performer/current producer Stephen St. Croix, in which numerous performers, producers, and fans formed a flash mob to promote two YouTube videos he had created as part of the campaign against Measure B, the Los Angeles County proposed initative to mandate condoms for porn shoots there. Unfortunately, due to prior work commitments, BPPA wasn't able to actively participate in this action....but we wholeheartedly in spirit and in solidarity support St. Croix's efforts to inform the public on the dangers and misdirections of Measure  B. For those of you wanting to see the two video ads, here they are:

Original vids can be found here and here. 

But...if that isn't enough to convince you of the demerits of Measure B, then perhaps a testimonial from an active porn performer will do??

May I then present the powerful testimony of Kayden Kross, which was posted today to XBiz through her insider blog, The Dish. I will simply repost it in its entirity and let you read for yourself, because it says what needs to be said.

— but about Measure B

If you’re reading this you should care. If you’re reading this you should care because I am a pornstar and you are reading one of my blog pages. You’ve probably whacked it to me. If this is not the case, please change that. I’ll wait.

And I’ll assume from here forward that anyone reading has whacked it to my porn, or at least taken a quick glimpse, and not whacked it. If the non-whacking is my fault, I apologize. Beside the point though, the whacking. Please notice — in a quick mental shuffle through the Rolodex of my porn — the conspicuous absence of condoms in my scenes. They are not there. I did condom scenes in my first movie, and that turned out to suck major monkey balls. The added friction the condoms caused over the course of the shoot was ridiculous. The condoms were not a birth control measure. They were, theoretically, an STD protection. But all the performers were tested. So in my first movie I was protected from STDs that my coworkers didn’t have.

In the next movie I opted out of condoms, and have ever since. Six years I’ve been doing this with a perfect testing record. The system has worked for me.

And in that time, yes, performers have caught gonorrhea. They have caught chlamydia. When this has happened they have taken antibiotics and a week off and then returned to work, good as new. They have not caught HIV. Not a single case of HIV has been transmitted on one of our porn sets in the entire time I’ve been in this industry, and some years before that. Not one fucking case.

And yes, people in the industry have caught HIV off set, in the wild. They have been flagged by the testing procedures and removed from the pool of performers available to work. But they have not transmitted it on a porn set to other performers.

And, yes. There is the recent bad business of this syphilis scare. One of our own faked his test and continued working knowing he had it. That’s shitty. We bungled that one bad. Shitty shitty shitty. Two people caught syphilis this way. With all the bungling. They had to take antibiotics.

And the industry reformed its testing measures to better control against this happening in the future.

In the wild, on average, there are around 2,150 new cases of HIV reported in Los Angeles County each year. This is possibly because there are a lot of people having sex with a lot of other people without verifying one another’s STD status. We are not those people. We’re verified. We are card-carrying motherfuckers.

And who wants to see condoms in porn anyway? Porn is fantasy. It is fantastical with fantastically crazy situations wherein incredibly unlikely women with incredibly unlikely breasts suddenly fall to their knees over men who have their own incredibly unlikely anatomy at the slightest provocation. Never mind the lack of realism behind the perfect shaves and the matching lingerie these women all sport, bent over as they are, waggling their asses with spontaneity. Surely this really happens. Surely women just go around like that, clean-shaven and in designer lingerie, with designer breasts, twenty-four-fucking-seven, horny out of their minds. We beg you to suspend your disbelief in porn. We practically grovel for it. We push limits that would make even a puppet show retch — everything from the dialogue to the story holes to the errors in continuity that are just positively and irreverently savage. But… Measure B would have us get all real-world on your ass and strap a condom on the unlikely dicks and remind everybody sitting at home that fantasy time isn’t very fantastical at all because in the real world there is heartache and death and disease and — god forbid — pregnancy?

Fuck that.

Porn is legal because it is protected under free speech. Free speech protects expression. Measure B wants to force us to amend our free expression to include their message about safe sex.

You know about safe sex, right? Because you’re not twelve? Well just in case, here’s the long and short of it:

Sex is the biological function of procreation. As such, procreation sometimes happens. Condoms will help prevent that, as will birth control pills, spermicide, tube tying, and more extreme measures.

STDs are those diseases that are primarily transmitted via sex, although they are not limited to sexual transmission. The nature of communicable disease by definition requires it to be shared between organisms. It must be communicated — by blood or by semen, by air, by skin-to-skin contact, by snot or by spit or by tears — by something. So yeah, sex will bring a person in contact with a lot of these things. All of them, if you’re an avid deepthroater. Sex is messy and in your face. It’s arguably the only acceptable way to interact with two ends of a digestive system that isn’t your own without a medical license. But yeah, condoms will prevent some communicable diseases with 85% accuracy if you use them exactly right. Having sex with people who have been medically verified as not infected with sexually communicable diseases will also prevent this. So will abstinence. Your best bet, though, is agoraphobia.

So now you know that condoms are an option in safe sex. You are a responsible adult. You will make your choices from here.

But we are not responsible adults, obviously. Because Measure B would like to make the choice for us.

Consider this: Do you remember High School Biology? Remember the concept of Spontaneous Generation and how Louis Pasteur disproved it with the squiggly-necked flask that microbes couldn’t get through? Maybe I’m the only one who remembers this because back then I liked textbooks instead of people. But anyway he proved that things don’t spontaneously generate. They don’t just arise out of thin air. And remember that paragraph I wrote a couple of paragraphs ago? I talked about how diseases must be communicated. And remember that other paragraph, up higher, where I talked about how all performers are tested? We are tested every fifteen days now. It used to be every thirty. And I hate needles. The point is that diseases don’t arise within porn. They are brought into porn by contact with partners on the outside.

And yet porn is treated like disease starts with us and we bring it to you people.
No. Disease ends with us. Maybe we’re doing the local population a small favor. Because we, for the most part, have an open and honest line of communication about STDs. STDs don’t carry the stigma for us that the general population associates with them. We talk about it. We’re on the frontlines and it is in our economic interest to stay disease free, not to mention we’re vain about our genitalia. Most STDs are silent. That means that for the most part people don’t know they have gonorrhea or chlamydia. HIV takes a while to manifest. Stage 1 syphilis is a single painless bump. The general population only knows there is something up if there are symptoms, and even then, they don’t always do anything about it. They definitely don’t go stick a godforsaken needle in their arm every fifteen days even though needles give them that scary-sinky feeling they get on the rides at Six Flags that drop too fast. Or again, maybe that’s just me. But anyhoo, in the general population, STDs travel silently. We porn performers are the variables that light them up. If one of us contracts an STD from one of you we catch it fast and we fix it fast and most of us then go back to you (not you-you, but the hypothetical sexual diseased person I am creating for this example. You know what I mean) and you, the hypothetical carrier, are alerted and told to fix it and then you, the hypothetical carrier, stop spreading it. See what just happened there? We are the end of the line.

Imagine if that one of our number who faked his test had just gone on in the real world instead. Not only would he have never tested, but it would have spread on silently, and those people who he spread it to would have spread it, and on and on, and then eventually someone would have had the sense to go to a doctor once Stage 2 flared up on his balls like one of Moses’ plagues. But that person who went to the doctor would have been so far removed from the original source, the incubation period being what it is, and the stigma being what it is, that the person would probably would have treated it silently and gone on with life, and the others would hopefully have done the same at some point, but not before infecting more people, or maybe they would never have treated it and just gone blind and insane. That is an option. Also known as Stage 3.

You’re probably reading this at work, right? If you’re paid hourly this math will be easier, but if you’re not, break it down. How many hours of your day today will be taken from you in the form of the cash you traded them for by the government. I mean taxes, of course. And then the government, being what it is, will reallocate your money, which is a tangible manifestation of your hours of your life that you traded doing what hopefully you love, but very likely don’t love. Some of the reallocation will be nice. Roads and schools and people not holding you up with machetes and taking your lunch money on the way home from work. These are good things. But some things… some things are not good things. Some things get your money by running a propaganda-driven campaign that the government buys into and then funds (with your money).

Like what is happening with AHF (AIDS Healthcare Foundation). AHF is the force behind Measure B. They are a non-profit foundation that possibly doesn’t profit because profits are diverted to Michael Weinstein in the form of a really ridiculous salary, plus perks. A salary to the tune of $366,096.00 as reported on his 2010 income taxes, to be exact (plus additional compensation that is hard to get a figure on). AHF will benefit greatly if this Measure passes. It is in their best interest. If it were in the interest of the performers it seeks to regulate, the performers would be the ones getting behind it.

And because a lot of performers are not behind it, Measure B has decided that it will cost California $300,000 (which is, to the budget’s credit, less than Michael Weinstein’s salary) annually to enforce it. That’s California, just to be clear. You know, the broke state. The one that already needs more dollars from you as it is. So under Measure B, they’d need to find dollars to send officers to porn sets to babysit, to watch hard dicks, specifically, to make sure, the whole time, that there is a latex barrier between the one willing adult participant and the other. Someone will be paid with your money to do this.

And also, because it’s a capitalist system, as in a free market system, a lot of porn will simply cease to be produced in California under Measure B. Because the market for porn with condoms is almost no market at all. So these businesses will likely move or close down. Either way, they stop paying taxes in California. You know, that broke state. There is talk of Nevada, some other states. I thought about what I would do in Nevada. Gambling bores me and I’m asocial. Nightclubs scare me. Magicians aren’t magical. I cannot live there. I thought about it, and I thought, No, that would suck. No offense, Nevada.

And there are people like me who agree with the Nevada thing. Where do their jobs go? Those people like me are people like you. They have families. Some have kids. They’re rooted in the cities they live in. They’re not all performers. They’re caterers and lighting crews and audio technicians and editors and PAs and producers and make-up artists and directors and agents and copywriters and receptionists and on and on. That’s a lot of fucking people with a lot of fucking jobs in this state in an industry where job security is precarious as it is. Piracy. Remember that? There was a worldwide recession, you may have noticed.

But if none of this appeals to your logos or your ethos, let me appeal to your pathos. Imagine yourself whacking it. Obviously I’d like to insert a case here re: why you should whack it to my porn but you can whack it to anything, almost. It is your imagination. So you’re whacking it, see. Maybe it’s the only free five minutes you get out of this day, because your kids are screaming and they need things and your wife needs things and your boss needs things and there is always traffic and emails piled up and taxes due and smaller bills and the dog needs a check up or maybe you do or maybe your grandmother does and the news is scary and you have dry cleaning to pick up, things to mail, a million petty endless errands and maybe today you’ll get them all done but tomorrow you’re going to wake up and start it all over again, and its been going like this for years, this adult life, and you have five fucking minutes to yourself. And you just want to whack it. So you’re tucked away in the bathroom stall or behind the closed door of your office or maybe you’re in your car parked behind an alley — you’re anywhere — and you have five minutes to whack it before the real world sinks its real world teeth in and pulls you back. And you start scrolling through the available porn and everything is condoms, fucking condoms everywhere with their hospital smell and their real world reminders and the funny bunching they do. You dig deeper. You’re looking for a scene with your favorite chick, or not — doesn’t have to be a chick and doesn’t have to be your favorite, it’s your call — so you’re looking for one scene you can really enjoy in your five fucking minutes of reprieve. But you don’t find it. Your five little minutes of pure selfish happiness, your you time, is slightly diminished by this. Imagine that. The real world creeping in on that last bit of sacred space.

Vote No on Measure B. 

— This message brought to you by a girl who would like to maintain autonomy over her vagina. 

The 25-year-old, Sacramento native is among the most sought-after actresses in adult today. The winner of the 2011 XBIZ Award for Acting Performance of the Year for her role in "Body Heat" is currently exclusive with Digital Playground and has been making adult movies since 2006. She is the only starlet in porn to have had exclusive contracts with Vivid Entertainment, Adam & Eve Pictures and now Digital Playground.

An itenerary of posts opposed to Measure B can be found over at Julie Meadows/Lydia Lee's blog here. Also, check out Steven St. Croix's powerful personal testimonial against Measure B here.

 

Porn Panic 2012 Continues: From Inevitable Tsunami To Spring Shower: LA Condom Mandate Committee Asks For 90 Day Extension Due To "Complexities"

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Porn Panic 2012: The "Weinstein-Lubben Model" Expanded To Homemade Webcammers; Plus, AHF Volunteers To Become The Official "Condom Nazis"

Just in case you thought that it couldn't get any worse, it gets much worse.

Mark Kernes has now posted at AVN.com his recounting of yesterday's meeting of the LA City Council committee involved in enforcing the condom mandate law, and it confirms two disturbing developments that I first mentioned on my update to my original post.

First off...there is this exchange that is documented between Immoral Productions chief "Porno Dan" Leal and  FilmLA VP Todd Lindren regarding the scope of the new law regarding personal webcamming.  Remember that Leal's company was paid a surprise visit by LAPD Vice the night before, and cited for not having a valid permit under the new law.

The first speaker was Immoral Productions owner Dan "Porno Dan" Leal, who informed the Group that one of his independent contractors had been given a citation by one of the eight members of LAPD's Vice Division who arrived at the location, for shooting a live webcam show without a permit. Leal explained that since the citation has been issued because the show, which was not yet under way when the police arrived, was being done for commercial profit or gain, he surmised that every webcam performer in the city would not be required to get a permit from FilmLA, and asked the FilmLA representatives if that was correct?

"It has been consistent that any commercial production, including webcasts, needs a permit," responded FilmLA's Lindgren.

"So any webcam show shot by anyone in the city of Los Angeles will now need a permit, is that correct?" Leal asked.

"Has always needed a permit, right," Lindgren corrected him.

"Ergo, any married couple shooting in their house, who's shooting a webcam show for profit or gain, which by definition would be every single person that shoots webcam, would now need a permit, is that correct?" Leal pressed.

"Under the city ordinance, if it's for commercial purpose, it needs a permit," Lindgren stated.

"And therefore, they would need condoms under the new regulation, is that correct, that logic?" Leal continued.

"We're in the process of developing that specific—and I can't answer that question," Lindgren responded.

At that point, Santana cut Leal off, stating that the comment period wasn't supposed to include a question-and-answer dialog with Group members, leaving Leal to finish by stating, "We will be happy to comply with whatever the city decides to do."

In other words, it isn't just about intimidating the big studios into wrapping up anymore; it's about forcing condoms on everyone who does any form of adult sexual media for profit.

Indeed, it isn't even about condoms, come to think of it...since the new law now extends the requirement of a permit to include even homemade adult webcamming -- and remember, the new Cal-OSHA regs could potentially require "barrier protection" (read, dental dams and gloves) for girl-girl and even solo scenes) as a means of "protection" -- that means that ANYONE who does an adult webcam in the city of LA is now liable to be required to apply for a permit, or face stiff fines and even jail time.

Now, whether or not the city has the means or the will to enforce this equally on all is a legitimate issue, but the fact remains that the city now has that hammer with which they can stomp anyone not meeting Mike Weinstein's or Cal-OSHA's rigid standards of "protection".

And then, there is the real issue with the collection of such information in the filing and handling of permits. What about the risk of a potential permitter having their information exposed and used as blackmail against them, or exploited by antiporn groups wanting to banish them "for the sake of the children"?? And, what about the very real threat of public exposure of private cammers as a means of shaming them, or outing them to their families?

Anyone who doesn't see the potential mass violation of basic privacy and sexual liberties inherent in this law is either dense or blind. But, hey, they're all just ignorant sluts, and this is for their own good and protection, so who cares??

Of course, the folks who put forth this law in the first place will always complain that even that is not enough, and will volunteer their services to drop the hammer down that much stronger. Witness the testimony of the only AHF representative at this meeting, Mark McGrath, as documented by Kernes:

AIDS Healthcare Foundation's (AHF) Mark Roy McGrath spoke next, and began by claiming that during the investigation of the  2010 Derrick Burts HIV infection, the LA County Department of Public Health had no problem identifying "all the production companies, all the secondary producers... in quick, short order," charging that those companies "continue to violate California law, they continue to act as outlaw entities, and we feel that... it's time that this industry act with legal responsibility and show a modicum of corporate citizenship."

McGrath claimed that the law "does not distinguish between content, but on acts," adding that, "they can create any content they want that's simulated. This law is specifically looking at infectious disease transmission and exposure." (Of course, most adult content fans won't buy simulated sex, but that's not something that worries McGrath.)

While noting that neither he nor AHF is "happy with the draft language," he asked, "How is it going to be logged? How are we going to conduct these investigations? If the fire department and police camn't do it, where are we going to do a Request for Proposal?"

Of course, several prominent adult industry members have suspected all along that part of the reason AHF got the new ordinance put on the books was to eventually offer its services to the city as the only official "condom inspectors," so it will be interesting to see which entities respond to McGrath's suggested RFP.

First off...I thought that the 2010 outbreak featuring Derrick Burts took place in Florida, right?? And that there was really no investigation by either FilmLA or Cal-OSHA, but from the LA County Department of Public Health, which AHF had already dismissed as "stonewalling" to begin with??  (And, dare I mention that even Burts admitted that he was infected in a shoot where condoms were already used??)

And of course, McGrath would say that it's only about acts and that if producers wanted to show authenticity, then they could always rely on simulated sex. Yeah, right...like everyone's going to move over to late night Showtime or Cinemax to get their fix of losing bareback sex.

But, it's the last sentence that is the most important: since AHF obviously doesn't trust the LA Vice squad to enforce their condom mandate the way they want, they wouldn't mind getting paid by the city to do the enforcement themselves.

WOW...outsourcing the enforcement of a public law to a private for-profit entity....that'll go well, and won't be abused. Like bloody hell, it won't. Ask the victims of the original Porn Wikileaks.

To put it simply, this is the Swedish Model for sex work applied to porn, shifted a tad, and then jacked up to heights unknown. Julie Bindel and Gail Dines would proudly support this...and I'm sure that Gail will give her blessings next chance she gets to post a CounterPunch essay. Only thing missing is the "Real Men Don't Buy Bareback Porn" ads and celeb endorsements.

Neoliberal antisex censorship. Just like right-wing fundamentalist antisex censorship....but neoliberal.

Seriously, we have GOT to fight this. To the fucking WALL.

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.

"The Devil And Shelley Lubben" (A Whiteacre/Lee Production): The Definitive Takedown Of A Fanatical Lunatic (Updated)

[Updated....scroll to bottom.]

Well....what was once potential is now officially real and visible.

The previous post had promised an expose/documentary of Shelley Lubben....and today, Michael Whiteacre and Lydia Lee (aka Julie Meadows) have delivered on thei promise with the first two episodes of their documentary.

Needless to say, "The Devil and Shelley Lubben" packs the full punch.

Episode 1 gives us the background of the method behind Ministeress Lubben's madness regarding her views on porn and her history as a sex worker turned fundamentalist antiporn activist in denial of her own responsibility for her own actions and words.

Episode 2 goes into Lubben's pet theories about how porn inevitably leads to abuse and disease and rape, using testimony from active and former performers (including Nina Hartley and Lydia Lee/Julie Meadows herself) to directly and forcefully repudiate all of the memes she has sprouted and promoted. It also includes one of the co-stars of one of Lubben's videos refuting forcefully her claim of being "raped" in the shooting of said video.

You can find the episodes both at Mike Whiteacre's YouTube channel and at Julie Meadows' blog....but in the interest of full exposure, I will also post the vids here after the jump.  They are THAT damn powerful.

Just listen in and pass your own judgment.

 

Update (2-16-11):

The virus -- or, should I say, the antivirus -- seems to be spreading far and wide. Here's a sampling of the blogs/sites which have either reposted or commented on the Lubben documentary so far:

Julie Meadows' Blog (appropriate, since she co-produced the damn thang)

Michael Whiteacre (via his YouTube channel -- see above)

Dr. Chantelle Tibbals (Porn Valley Vantage - PVV)

Danny Wylde (Trve West Coast Fiction)

Monica Foster (via her blog)

Luke Is Back 

ZZ Insider (Brazzers) 

Tiny Nibbles (Violet Blue) 

Vicky Vette (via her VickyatHome Blog) 

A special shoutout goes to Mark Kernes Tom Hymes over at AVN, who just posted a very detailed summary/synopsis of the first two episodes.

 Bonus: A website has now been set up where you can see the entire collection of the documentary, as well as the preparatory trailer.

TheDevilAndShelleyLubben.com

One additional note: Jessi Fischer over at The Sexademic, whom also posted the vids at her site as well, is scheduled to debate Ministeress Lubben this weekend over at Cambridge University in London. Good luck, Jessi..and break her legs.  Figuratively speaking, of course.

As more sites/blogs post the series, or when the next set of vids comes out, they will be acknowledged here.

Update #2 (2-20-11):

Well..it seems that Shelley's peeps aren't too happy to have people outing her..because they complained loud enough to YouTube enough to have them pull Episode 2 from view.

Interesting that they focused more of their ire on the second episode, which was much less personal, than the first one??  Maybe it was because they didn't like the competition from folks like Nina Hartley, Melissa Monet, Lydia Lee, and Kayden Kross??

But, never fear, Clones...Mike and Lydia weren't born yesterday....they had a backup plan.

If the video doesn't appear, you can still find it here:

The Devil And Shelley Lubben" Episode 1 (Blip.tv)

The Devil And Shelley Lubben" Episode 2 (Blip.tv)