The Big Lie Campaign For Measure B Ends With The Grandmama Of All Lies: The "Porn Stars Have More STI's Than Nevada Hookers" Smear

Tomorrow is Election Day, folks...and while most of the country will be busy enough with the spectacle that has been the Presidential campaign, folks in LA County will be putting the fate of the local adult industry literally in their hands with the proposed condom mandate proposal Measure B.

I have to say that whatever doubts I had about James Lee and the Citizens Against Government Waste have been absolutely doused by the yeoman efforts he and his group have done in leading the opposition to this proposal. With not much time and with a fraction of the budget that the AIDS Healthcare Foundation has to pour into the pro-B campaign, and with none of the organized support of the political establishment in LA County (save for the opposition by the local Republican and Libertarian parties), they have done a tremendous job of raising awareness and organizing performers to defend their rights. I tip my hat to you for that, win or lose.

Plus....gotta do a shoutout for Sean Tompkins over at The Real Porn Wikileaks, Michael Whiteacre, Mark Kernes, Dr. Chauntelle Tibalis, Lydia Lee, Steven St. Croix, Kylie Ireland, Kayden Kross, Amber Lynn, Tanya Tate, Rebecca Bordeaux, Maggie Mayhem, and a whole host of other producers, performers, reporters, and other assorted glitterati for their efforts in educating the public on this legislation and how it will basically destroy the industry without any positive impacts on actual STI infections. It's amazing how political ideology tends to melt away when faced with a shared threat from outside.

It is to the measure of the principled opposition to Measure B that the proponents have been forced to engage in nothing less than distortions of facts and outright lies and cooking up of stats in order to sell their vision of a condomized industry "protecting" performers while driving them underground into less safe parameters and venues.

But, nothing beats the desperate final flail that AHF attempted to pull on the public this last weekend.

On last Friday, AHF and their champions at the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health released their contraption of a "study" of infection rates of porn performers during the past 11 months; concluding that the rate of infection for chlamydia and gonnorhea among performers was greater than not only the infection rate amongst LA County citizens as a whole, but also greater than the rate of infection of prostitutes working in Nevada's legalized brothels.

The study was released by an organization calling itself the American Sexually Transmitted Disease Association; and while the complete report is hidden behind a paywall, the abstract of the report pretty much gives away the ideological bias (bolding added for emphasis):

Background: Undiagnosed sexually transmitted infections (STIs) may be common in the adult film industry because performers frequently engage in unprotected oral and anal intercourse, STIs are often asymptomatic, and the industry relies on urine-based testing.

Methods: Between mid-May and mid-September 2010, a consecutive sample of adult film industry performers recruited from a clinic in Los Angeles, California, that provides medical care to performers was offered oropharyngeal, rectal, and urogenital testing for Gonorrhea, and rectal and urogenital testing for Chlamydia.

Results: During the 4-month study period, 168 participants were enrolled: 112 (67%) were female and 56 (33%) were male. Of the 47 (28%) who tested positive for Gonorrhea and/or Chlamydia, 11 (23%) cases had been detected through urogenital testing alone. Gonorrhea was the most common STI (42/168; 25%) and the oropharynx the most common site of infection (37/47; 79%). Thirty-five (95%) oropharyngeal and 21 (91%) rectal infections were asymptomatic. Few participants reported using condoms consistently while performing or with their personal sex partners.

Conclusions: Adult film industry performers had a high burden of STIs. Undiagnosed asymptomatic rectal and oropharyngeal STIs were common and are likely reservoirs for transmission to sexual partners inside and outside the workplace. Performers should be tested at all anatomical sites irrespective of symptoms, and condom use should be enforced to protect workers in this industry.

Keep in mind that this study was taken during four months during 2010, when the main testing agency at that time for the industry, the Adult Industry Medical Foundation (AIM), was under attack by the very forces (namely, AHF and the LA County DPH) now saying that their testing procedures were (and by extension, those of the newly formed APHSS system are) totally inadequate for detecting and treating STI's, and that only mandatory condom usage and other forms of compulsory "barrier protection" would offer the highest form of "protection" for performers.

Even without that caveat, the holes in this argument can be spotted, and are enough to drive a whole fleet of Mack trucks through.

First off, 47 of 168 performers testing positive for chlamydia or gonnorhea still leaves 121 performers (72%) who tested clean of those STI's. In short, in a supposed "high-risk" industry where porn performers are assumed to be mindless sluts who fuck and suck anything that moves, 7 out of every 10 performers still manage to protect themselves and stay disease free without the need for condoms. Wouldn't you think that if testing was as much a failure as this study would assume, the rate of infection would be far greater than that??

Plus, as Michael Whiteacre has noted repeatedly, this "study" gives no background on whether those performers who were infected got infected on set during scenes, or through outside activities...or, whether they actually did perform scenes after their infections were caught. And, it may be that many of those who were tested and found to be infected didn't even perform any scenes until they were adequately treated, or were people just entering the industry engaged in their first test.

There's also the possibility of the same performer being tested multiple times in the same period through repeated follow-up testing, but being counted as seperate and distinct infections for the purpose of deliberate cooking of the stats to beef up the ideological case. Goodness knows, AHF and the Condom Nazis over at LACDPH aren't known for that, now aren't they??

Then, there is the distortion about the method of testing involved. The current testing regimen (and the former one used by AIM) utilizes urine sampling for their testing of chlamydia and gonnorhea (with oral swabbing available upon request of the tested performer); yet the "study" claimed that the system was flawed by not detecting oral or anal infection via swabbing of the throats or anuses of performers. At best, it's a call for broadening such testing to include oral and anal swabbing; but, that's not what AHF and LACDPH paid the producers of that "study" to promote; so, they just use that stat as just another club to slam the industry into compliance with the condom mandate.

Or, as Hymes and Kernes points out succintly in their debunking of the AHF/ASTDA "study":

Perhaps worst of all, the study is utterly disingenuous when it describes how and when performers get tested. Fully cognizant of the fact that performers are not allowed to perform on the overwhelming majority of porn sets without a valid test that is no more than 28 (or 14, depending on the studio) days old, the authors nonetheless included in their study 51 performers—nearly one-third of all performers tested—who had not worked in an adult film for more than 30 days, making the time and place of their exposure impossible to pin down, and very likely not on an adult film set at all.

That percentage is extraordinarily important, considering that of the 168 "adult performers" who took part in this study, only 47 (28 percent) had at least one undiagnosed STD—and that's 2 percent less than the number of performers (30 percent) who hadn't made a movie in at least 30 days, and whose infections, if they had sought film work while still infected, might very well have been caught by the normal industry testing, especially if they had any specific complaints and requested that an (optional) oral swab be taken and tested.

And also keep in mind that many performers even require a clean test as recent as 2-3 days before they accept someone to perform sex scenes with...so if anything, the industry is even more stringent about screening for STI's than even the 14/28 day period that is the "gold standard". In other words, how many of the 48% who were found to be infected were also part of the 33% who had not performed for at least 30 days prior to getting tested? Again, this may support expanding testing to better catch orally and anally based infections, but that's not on the scope of AHF's agenda..so it's simply ignored in favor of pushing Measure B. Nice diversion there, Mike Weinstein.

The main distortion, though, that has gotten the attention of the media, is the comparison of porn performers in LA County with Nevada brothel sex workers, who are claimed to be much, much safer due to the wonders of mandated condoms and government regulation.

Problem is, though, that in Nevada brothels, it is the clients who are required to use condoms, not the sex workers themselves. Also, the prostitutes who work in the brothels are subjected to far greater regulatory scrutiny while they work there; including far-reaching restrictions on whom they can have sex within their workplace, and strong discouragement of sexual activities outside of the brothel. Plus, they are screened for disease even before they are even allowed to work in the brothels to begin with. You simply can't compare them to porn performers, who do happen to have outside personal sex lives and, outside of their occupation, do in fact have intimate and personal sex lives.

Unless, of course, you are under the misimpression and assumption that by fiat ALL porn performers are by definition the embodiment of the caricature of the late and dearly departed John Holmes: namely, mindless promiscuous sluts who can't think of anything more than where their next daily or hourly serving of dick or pussy comes from, until they are either claimed by "the wages of sin" that inevitably comes with defying God (or the Goddess) or find the religion of Shelley Lubben (or Gail Dines) and "save themselves".


Nevertheless, the publicity accomodating the "study" has had some impact on some public opinions...in particular some progressive personalities whom had originally came out against Measure B. One in particular is Ana Kasparian, blogger and YouTube diarist connected with Cenk Uygur's popular progressive network The Young Turks, whom originally came out opposed to Measure B last week in a video..but was convinced to flip to the other side by one of her colleagues, Jayar Jackson, following the release of the AHF/ASTDA "study" via the Huffington Post.

This is in spite of the fact that contrary to the notion of porn being a right-wing libertarian outlet of "rugged individualism", there is actually a genuine diversity of political ideological positions within the community of porn performers and producers. For every Jenna Jameson or John Stagliano, you will find a Nina Hartley or an Amber Lynn; there are quite a few porn performers and producers who are staunch liberals/progressives or even centrists as there are "libertarian conservatives". Of course, personal political ideology should not affect the quality or the merits of the arguments for or against Measure B; but the fact that so few progressives have seen fit to even take a stand for or against this initiative speaks wonders about the broader Left's lack of education or commitment on core issues of sexual freedom, sexual civil liberties, and respect for personal choice. (A strong criticism of the TYT turnaround and of the "study" can be found here.)

The other blowback from this "study" is the newly created propaganda campaign by some of the original propaganda boosters of the condom mandate to distort the claims of the opposition and launch personal adhominen attacks on their opponents. One such propagandist is Tim Tirch, who has been well known for his drive-by slanders against all who oppose the AHF agenda, and whom had actually been exposed as a serial troll who menaced blogs picking fights with particular condom opponents. Over at Cindi Loftus' Luke Is Back blog, a commentor ID'd as "XXXMed" (and whom is suspected to be Tirch) has been posting guest editorial posts maligning opponents of Measure B with, shall we say, very personal attacks. One such editorial went after Nina Hartley and her husband Ernest Greene (whom, as you know, is a frequent contributor to BPPA and one of the principled opponents of the condom mandate) for hypocrisy in their current stances, since they were during the 1990s both advocates of condom usage. (That Nina and Ernest's stance back then was predicated on the lack of a testing and screening system for STI's that does exist today, and that both have consistently defended the voluntary use of condoms as well as the discouragement of more high-risk sexual acts more suspectible to STI's, seems to escape the synapses of this fool.) More recently, "XXXMed" has been involved in an exchange of posts with Mark Kernes in which the former has defended the AHF/ASTDA study as legitimate proof for mandating condoms, implying that Kernes has been "trivializing" the rate of STI's among female porn performers, and that he slandered a rival testing agency to AIM by implying that they were the source of performer tests in the aformentioned study. (One of the authors of that "study" just so happened to be the founder and lead doctor of that testing agency.  See the original Kernes story for background.)

But, the greatest revelation about this latest final propaganda push is how it reveals the shifting goalposts of the condom mandate campaign, and how it conflates different STI's for blatant propaganda purposes.

Remember that the main spokespeople for Measure B just so happen to be the last two performers who happened to contract HIV...namely, Darren James and Derrick Burts. Of course, the fact that there has been NO instance since 2004 of HIV being transmitted on set by a porn shoot in LA County (remember, Burts has admitted he was infected in a Florida gay male set where condoms were actually used; and James has been reported to have been infected on a trip to Brazil just prior to the infamous shoot where 4 other performers were infected with him) really messes up the meme of an HIV pandemic. So, here comes Plan B: expand the STI "panic" to include other infections like chlamydia and gonnorhea, which were tested as part of the former AIM regimen....except that unless you cook the books to invent multiple infections, you can't prove that that exists, either. So, onward to Plan C: simply invent a crisis by implying the lack of testing of other STI's such as Hepatitis C or HPV or herpes, and then scream about how the "pornographers" are putting wimmen's lives AT RISK because they care more about their money or the "selfishness" of the consumers than about public safety. (Because, of course, the lives of gay men who already suffer from STI's in spite of already using condoms is inmaterial to the proponents of Measure B.) And, if all that fails, exploit the recent syphilis scare to seal the deal...never mind that syphilis can be easily spread even with a condom through mouth sores that condoms can't even cover.

Note also the essential fact that unlike HIV (or herpes or HPV) chlamydia and gonnorhea are mostly asymptommatic infections, in which those infected usually don't even notice any known symptoms of the infections (sores, rashes, pain, swelling, etc.) Therefore, you really can't even tell if you even have the infection until it shows up in testing. The fact that most of those in the study who were infected were also found to be asymptommatic raises a real question about the entire logic of the study: How could they know that those 3 out of 10 performers who were infected actually were infected on the job?? Or, do they just ASSUME that they are, in order to justify their premade biases and conclusions?

It simply shows that ultimately, underneath all the flowery cover of "concern" about "protecting performers" and all the firery rhetoric about "the pornographers", it all comes back to the same pile of bullshit that sex workers have had to endure for far too long. The essential argument of Measure B proponents can be reduced to this:Porn performers who don't dance to our tune are simply too stupid or too slutty to be able to fend for themselves as consenting adults, so we saviors of the State just have to act as their virtual parents and save them ourselves through condoms. Oh, and make us a shitload of money through packaging of condom sales and buying off whole government agincies, too...because what sells better than "safer sex"??

Again, people of Los Angeles County, please don't fall for this nonsense.

I'll leave you here with Michael Whiteacre's comment response to another attempt to distort the record.

That’s right – an old misanthrope in Georgia who can’t even spell “y’all” correctly (and who still contends that AIM made a $90 profit on a $110 / 120 test) has all the answers about the L.A. porn industry.

What the hillbilly Phony Libertarian does’t seem to grasp is that we Americans have certain inalienable rights and liberties by default. Those defending their rights against an attack need not convince anyone of anything. The legal BURDEN is on those trying to infringe upon those rights to establish the requisite state interest.

Every issue, every controversy of public consequence, is a balancing act in which the pro’s and con’s must be weighed. Competing interests must be balanced.

However Michael Weinstein is an authoritarian with an absolutely totalitarian worldview. To him there are no competing interests — you can hear it in his rhetoric: this is “simply” a matter of workplace safety, or public health, or whatever. He will not deign to consider any arguments about counterbalancing, and he brooks no dissent.

When it comes to people’s rights, to constitutionally protected liberties – he doesn’t wanna hear about it. The first amendment, and the liberties protected under Lawrence v. Texas, DO NOT MATTER to him — he doesn’t even think they’re part of the calculus. Weinstein is totally single-minded — as all authoritarians and fascist dictators are. He TELLS US what the problem is, and he prescribes the solution by decree.

And stooges like Mike South HAND THE WEINSTEINS OF THE WORLD THE ARGUMENT.

1) In order for the government to act, to restrict people’s CONSTITUTIONALLY GUARANTEED AND PROTECTED rights and liberties, the government must demonstrate a state interest.


2) The government ONLY has an interest in things it can PROVE.
It is essential to understand these two points.
AHF is attempting to use workplace safety laws as the means to attack the adult industry, and to infringe upon the rights of performers and producers, but AHF clearly lacks a clear understanding of how these rules work as a matter of law.
If a performer who its a sexually active person has contracted a common STI such chlamydia, gonorrhea, HPV or herpes, there is NO WAY to prove that it was contracted on set. These infections are comparable to the flu. Only rare infections, things such as the HIV virus, can be traced to a patient zero.
In the end, all that this new study shows is that, x number of performers sought testing / treatment over that 4-month period. The data does NOT show what IF ANY number of performers WORKED while infected, or contracted an STI while AT WORK. The authors ask voters to ASSUME that these infections may all be traced to workplace exposures — and the fact that AHF and the authors of this study have made the comparison to STI rates among Nevada brothel workers is also instructive.
Nevada brothel workers often live on the premises and, per the house rules, are prohibited from having sex outside the prostitute/client relationship. In this regard they represent a separate and distinct population from the surrounding general population, much like the incarcerated, or military personnel confined to a base.
Adult performers, by contrast, are not a population separate and distinct from the rest of the population. Performers are a SUBSET of the general population. LA County performers are members of the population of LA County. They interact with the rest of the population, as well as with each other, off set.
Regardless of one’s profession, NO test can demonstrate that a common infection was contracted by a sexually active adult at work. Correlation does not equal causation. If the government cannot prove that work was the cause, it lacks the requisite state interest to ban an entire type of work.

And remember, Clones...this isn't just for porn sets, either; it's for webcammers, homemade porn sites..even married couples making porn vids for their own pleasure. In other words, it's about EVERYONE.

I don't need to say it, but I'll say at anyway, Los Angeles County peeps...Vote NO on Measure B. Don't let these fascist lying bastards win.

Porn Panic 2012: A Primer On The Facts As Opposed To The Hype: Ernest Greene Redux (Via 2009 "Scare") -- Part 1

There has been certainly  a lot of confusion and throwing around of statistics and claims and counterclaims surrounding the upcoming November vote in Los Angeles County regarding the move to impose mandatory condoms and other such "barrier protections" on porn performers.

Proponents of the measure say that the existing testing regime using screening of performers and once-monthly (now twice-monthly) testing has been proven to be a failure due to back-to-back-to-back "outbreaks" of performers getting HIV, as well as an alleged "epidemic" of other STI's such as chlamydia, gonnorrhea, syphillis, Hepatitis B, Hepatatis C, and HPV, which they say are affecting the industry; and that only mandating condom usage will redress the problem and protect "worker safety". Proponents also cite the supposed benefits of mandating condom usage for porn performers in the general context of promoting  "safer sex" amongst the general population; intimating that since porn has a disproportional influence on the developing sexual habits of impressionable youth, it should be coerced by government fiat to promote such "safer sex" practices as a means of "mentoring" young people into more "responsible" practices.

While all those intentions may be based on well-meaning goals and incentives (and some may be based solely on simply taking out competition and privileging those more economically more able to profit from a condomized regime), opponents of the condom mandate like me have stated that the measure simply attacks a straw problem that does not exist, uses a nuclear bomb when a precise scapel would be more appropriate, denies the choices of the very performers they claim to want to protect, undercuts the very cause of  promoting "safer sex", and ultimately, decimates and violates the rights of innocent people who's only crime was to engage in sex in ways not approved by certain elitists.

There are other objections that have been raised to the LA County ordinance (and a similar law that was passed covering the City of Los Angeles), such as the fact that it would essentially intervene in even private, monogamous coupled affairs where filming their sex scenes for mere personal pleasure rather than profit could still require both the expensive purchase of a permit to even tape their lovemaking, and even require the use of "bloodborne pathogen protection" as well as condoms, even if the couple was certified to be STI-free and never engaged in risky behavior. Others will cover those objections in other venues.

What I intend to do here is to reset an earlier HIV-in-porn "panic" to reveal exactly how much this latest condom mandate campaign has become nothing much than the latest in a series of "sex moral panics" designed to exploit popular prejudices and assumptions about porn performers and sex workers and sexually active/assertive people in general to fuel sexually regressive and highly reactionary legislation.

The template I will use is an article that was posted here on this blog on June 14, 2009 by BPPA contributor/co-founder emeritus Ernest Greene (aka Ira Levine), recounting an earlier "panic" that took place at that time in which a performer was found to have tested positive for the HIV virus. The subsequent brohaha set the foundation for the ultimately successful campaign against the Adult Indistury Medical (AIM) Foundation, which until 2011 had been the principal agency for testing porn performers, as well as the ongoing campaign for the condom mandate. I will add relevant annotations to Ernest's commentary, as well as some context to the present day, as I go along.

It should be noted that at the time of the original article, Ernest served (as did his wife/partner, Nina Hartley) on the executive board of AIM, and was instrumental in the formation of the testing regime they used up to their untimely demise due to mainly the efforts of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), the California state branch of the Occupatonal Safety and Health Administration (Cal-OSHA), and the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health Services (LACDPHS). These three organizations also happen to be the main proponents of and boosters for the condom mandate.

Latest HIV-in-Porn-Panic: Rumor Control Central Re-Opens for Business

As readers of this blog already know, a female porn performer tested positive for HIV earlier this month at the Los Angeles clinic of the Adult Industry Medical Health Care Foundation (AIM), of which I am chairman of the board emeritus after six terms as a board member, starting with the organization’s formation in 1997. Though I’ve given up blogging as a hobby, the sensationalistic press coverage by local media and irresponsible fear mongering by public officials and anti-porn partisans in the wake of this development cannot go unaddressed.

The current situation has long-term implications for public health and public policy reaching beyond the parochial concerns of the porn industry, those who support it and those who oppose it. The ghoulish glee, complete dishonesty and utter disregard for the potential consequences to actual sex-workers in the attempt to politicize a single, isolated episode with which rad-fems and self-styled porn experts have seized upon this thing is disgraceful and says much more about them than it does about us.

For those implications to be considered rationally, there must first be some clear-sighted recognition of the known facts of this particular case. I’ll try to provide them, and then I’ll offer my perspective on the spin they’ve been given and my own best assessment of the correct course of action for the industry itself and for the greater community of which it is a part. I do not pretend to objectivity in this matter. I don’t have that luxury. I make my living as a pornographer and I am married to an active performer exposed to the same risks as everyone else in the long-term talent pool here, where the majority of porn in sold in America is made.

"Here", of course, refers to California and the Los Angeles region, where indeed most porn videos are produced..although, secondary markets such as Las Vegas, San Francisco, and Miami are emerging as challengers.

For brevity's sake, I will skip over Ernest's recollection of the 2009 case in detail; you are perfectly free to link to the original article if you wish to reset that case. Instead, I will jump forward to the reaction to that episode.

The lies started, as they so often do these days, with unsubstantiated reports from remotely involved parties appearing on porn gossip and chat sites. Perhaps the most harmful of these lies was that the infected performer was given a false negative result from her June 4 test by personnel at AIM prior to working on June 5.

This didn’t happen. It couldn’t have because her results did not come back until June 6, as laboratory reports conclusively establish. While AIM’s testing protocols are not foolproof, as nothing wrought by human hands can be, clinic procedures absolutely forbid clinic staff from discussing pending test results with anyone, including those tested, until the lab reports are in. These rules were observed to the letter in this case.

Another false accusation spread around the ‘net claimed that AIM made no attempt to stop the performer from working while her test was still pending. AIM has no legal authority to forcibly prevent anyone from doing anything. However, the importance of voluntary compliance with AIM’s testing and quarantine procedures is well understood throughout the industry and when the positive results were verified, the infected performer’s contacts have honored AIM’s request to refrain from performing until all re-testing is completed. Again, that is how the system works, and it worked quickly and effectively this time as it has in the past.

If that reminds you of something, Clones, then you remember went down last year with yet another HIV "scare", where a performer in Florida appeared to have tested positive for HIV, only to find out that the source sample used for his original diagnosis was tainted. He was retested under a different regimen and found to be HIV negative. However, the nature of his original tests, as well as the rumor that a major production company had allegedly allowed him to perform scenes during the arbitration of his original tests, potentially "infecting" many others, let to widespread chaos and rumors running amok. It wasn't until the Free Speech Coalition, through their then newly formed Adult Performer Health and Safety Services (APHSS), officially released the itenerary and etology of the tests, and verified the false positive, that passions ultimately cooled..but not before AHF and Cal-OSHA and antiporn activists like fundamentalist Christian ex-porn starlet Shelley Lubben were able to exploit the situation to their own advantage and further boost the condom mandate campaign.

And speaking of AHF and Cal-OSHA and LADPHS...here's where they come into the picture.  Onwards, Mr. Levine...ahhh, I mean, Mr. Greene:

But vicious as these distortions of reality were, their sources were already well known for their hostility toward AIM’s voluntary harm-reduction approach and knowledgeable insiders viewed them with the skepticism these sources have richly earned by their past behavior.

It wasn’t until the Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles County health officer Dr. Jonathan Fielding, Cal-OSHA spokesman Dean Fryer and Aids Healthcare Foundation President Michael Weinstein got into the act that the bigger and much larger and more ominous falsehoods were put in general circulation.

Fielding is a long-time adversary of AIM’s whose department has a history of harassing and defaming the organization dating to well before the 2004 cases. Fielding’s hirelings have attempted to obtain confidential medical records of AIM’s clients, made threatening calls to AIM clients in efforts to intimidate them into giving information his department has no legal right to collect and publicly accused AIM of “stonewalling” his department’s attempts to investigate STI transmissions in the industry, though he knows as well as we do that California law is extremely specific regarding what we must report to government agencies and what we are forbidden to report to anyone. Members of Fielding’s staff have heckled AIM board members, myself included, from the floor at public forums unrelated to his agency’s mission and Fielding himself has lied to my face in his office in front of two other AIM board members and two members of his own staff regarding his intended recommendations to the state legislature prior to the investigative hearing into the 2004 cases.

And yes, that would be the same Jonathan Fielding that is currently setting the terms of enforcement for the upcoming LA County condom mandate, should the voters of LA County pass this initative. Government bureaucracy is so much fun when you can play both sides of the street and get paid, isn't it??

But none of Fielding’s cynical machinations sinks to the level of his false assertion, trumpeted by The Times, that AIM has “concealed” an additional 16 HIV infections in the industry since 2004. In fact, eleven of those cases involved male performers in gay porn who are not part of AIM’s client base and who do not test with AIM and four were private citizens not affiliated with porn who sought testing at AIM for personal reasons. As required by law, all HIV infections detected by AIM were reported to Fielding’s department, which is how he comes to know about them, but were not disclosed to AIM’s heterosexual porn industry clients because they did not involve het porn in any way. And yet The Times reported this deliberate and heinous distortion of the truth under the blaring headline: “More Porn HIV Cases Disclosed.” In point of fact, there is no way AIM, Fielding or anyone else can know that the cases involving the gay performers were porn-related, as AIM does not monitor that population. But then again, The Times also characterizes mainstream porn as a $12 billion dollar a year industry, an unsourced figure frequently repeated in mainstream media and universally scorned as a ridiculous exaggeration by industry insiders.

 While the LA Times was ultimately forced to retract that stat back then, it remains a central, core foundation of the condom mandate's proponents' ideological offensive...though the exact number sems to expand depending on who's blasting the mic at the moment. "18?? Wait, Weinstein/AHF/Cal-OSHA says 24!!  No, he's wrong..it's actuall 36, Shelley sezs!!" And, of course, I won't even get you started on the outrageous claims of how much porn actually sells...since any number from $800 million to $88 BILLION can be thrown around.

Also, the exclusion of gay performers having contracted HIV, and the radically different system that is being employed by the gay side of the porn industry does have some major bearing on why some folks are so hot on the idea of imposing condoms and wrecking the existing system of testing and screening. But, I'm getting a bit ahead of myself; you'll see that anon.

Meanwhile, Cal-OSHA’s Fryer alleges in the same story that “AIM Healthcare has never been cooperative with us and our investigations,” because AIM has obeyed the law and refused to give out client information to agencies not entitled to said information.

And then there’s AHF’s Weinstein, who has characterized the porn industry overall as “a poster-child for heterosexual HIV transmission” and proclaimed that: “This industry screams for regulation. Cal-OSHA needs to require condoms be used in any film. Yesterday.” Weinstein has organized picketing in front of Larry Flynt’s offices to demand that the straight porn industry adopt mandatory condom use and has refused to meet with industry representatives to discuss the reasoning behind the current standards. He is what is colloquially known as a hothead.  

A "hothead" who also happens to be very successful at shaking down major companies and government for lots and lots ANNNNNNNND LOTZ of cash, as well as incentizing his formula of condoms and treatment in lieu of other means of protection, even if that stand in the way of actual solutions. Not to mention, a nice killing for Lifestyles and Trojan and Durex.

And as for the "mentoring" aspects of the condom mandate??

All these individuals, and a few converts they’ve made at the margins of the industry, support a truly mad plan by Fielding’s deputy Dr. Peter Kerndt to implement state-legislated regulations requiring condom use throughout the industry that would make it illegal to distribute sexually explicit materials created without the use of condoms, even though Kerndt himself admits that digital post production effects could theoretically render it impossible to determine after the fact whether condoms were used or not.

If these individuals were mainly concerned with the health and safety of performers, their views might at least be worth a second hearing, and their methods, while still questionable, would at least be well meant if misguided.

 And here is where the game is given away.  (Bolded emphasis added by me.)

But their real objective has nothing to do with performer safety and everything to do with porn content, which they regard as setting a bad example to viewers following safer sex precautions in the viewers’ private lives. Kerndt makes his priorities crystal clear in his 2007 jeremiad published by the Public Library of Science: “The portrayal of unsafe sex in adult films may also influence viewer behavior. In the same way that images of smoking in films romanticize tobacco use, viewers of these adult films may idealize unprotected sex. The increasingly high-risk sexual behavior viewed by large audiences on television and the Internet could decrease condom use. Requiring condoms may influence viewers to see them as normative or even sexually appealing, and devalue unsafe sex. With the growing accessibility of adult film to mainstream America, portrayals of condom use onscreen could increase condom use among viewers, thereby promoting public health.”

Riiiiiiiight. Because "unsafe sex use" was absolutely no problem before porn came along, and because only porn performers and people taping their sex habits for personal pleasure are/were the ones spreading all kinds of nasty STI's and HIV into the civilian world.  As if the HIV rate of transmission didn't really explode until the VCR, the Internet, the camcorder, and the 3G/4G digital phone allowed people to sext and flash their naughty bits and pass bareback porn betwen each other in an instant. And, of course, people who actually HAVE "unsafe sex" in actuality have been doing so without the aid of porn for centuries, and yet it seems that they have far less of a risk than the gay male porn population, which has had the unmitigated hammer drop on them due to the nature of the HIV virus..and whom also happens to enforce mandatory condom usage in spite of that.

But, if it makes "safer sex" hotter and more sellable to the public, nothing much else matters, I guess. All personal freedoms and choices pale before "protecting the public".

This is basically Weinstein’s line as well. They want to empower the state to punish porn producers for not requiring condom use because they regard the depiction of sex without barrier protections as unhealthy viewing for the audience.

Unfortunately, in the service of that goal, they’re quite prepared to put at risk the performers they claim to be protecting.

The actual method to that madness, I will get to in Part 2 of this essay.

 

Why AHF Might Want To Consider Putting Gail Dines On Their Payroll: The War On AIM And....JM Productions???

[Updated...scroll to bottom.]

There are some who still think that the AIDS Healthcare Foundation is sincere in their motives about protecting performers through their condom mandate.

And then, there are the rest of us, who see them for what they are: a backdoor antiporn censorship group who hides behind a rainbow just to get paid.

More proof of the latter??

Gene Ross over at AdultFYI just posted a reprint of an email that AHF chief counsel Brian Chase sent to AHF President Michael Weinstein on April of 2010, in which Chase describes what he imagines to be the best media strategy to get the Adult Industry Medical (AIM) Foundation out of business. You will remember, of course, that AIM was ultimately driven out of business in 2011 due to the concerted efforts of AHF's nusiance lawsuits, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health's investigations, and the newly found requirement of a permit for non-profit organizations.

But at the time of Chase's email to Weinstein, the effort was just starting, and ideas for a media campaign to smear AIM for its alleged lax attitudes towards the alleged HIV/STI pandemic affecting the industry were only being fleshed.

So, what in particular did Chase have in mind for ambushing AIM?? How about linking them to a particularly gruesome "misogynous" porn site, like, say, JM Productions??

Keep in mind, also, that right about this time, AHF was already attempting to wax AIM through the lawsuit filed by Diana Grandmaison (you may know her better as the mom portion of the mother-daughter team of "Desi and Elli Foxx"), claiming neglect by AIM for the public release of her personal medical records to one of Donny Long's (he of the original PornWikileaks fame) message boards.

Apparently, though, that wasn't enough for Chase, who.....ahh, hell; I'll just let the email speak for itself.

On April 16, 2010, Brian Chase the assistant general counsel for Aids Healthcare Foundation emailed Michael Weinstein. AHF was looking for various ways to discredit AIM and the porn industry. Chase [pictured left] wanted to use Diana Grandmaison aka Desi Foxx [center] as a puppet in their production. But Chase also wanted to go after Jeff Mike, the owner of JM productions.

Chase suggested that AHF begin targeting Mike because he was volatile and likely to same something dumb to the mainstream press.

"I don’t think it would confuse our press strategy to go after both AIM and porn companies," Chase writes Weinstein.

"I think it would have the opposite effect. If we make the suit it all about AIM, they can try to portray themselves as the little nonprofit clinic that’s just trying to keep the girls healthy. We know that’s a lie, but it is difficult to rebut in a sound byte.

"If we go after JM Productions at the same time we attack AIM, we link AIM to JM Productions. Suddenly they aren’t just an innocent clinic serving sex workers - they are scum who are enabling the horrible abuse of women - we can frame the issue and ramp up the ick factor exponentially.

"JM produces series like 'American Gokkun' where women swallow ejaculate from hundreds of men, and 'DP Virgins' where each actress has unprotected anal and vaginal double penetration," Chase continues.

"They also produce a series called 'gag factor' where women sometimes vomit because they can’t breathe while giving oral sex. They have a series featuring women being anally penetrated bareback while the man shoves the woman’s head in a toilet. Let AIM try to defend that.

"Check this out this quote from JM Productions’ website," Chase goes on to say.

"'Watch as faces turn blue from a lack of oxygen in this throat fucking masterpiece. Each whore is brutally throatfucked for your viewing pleasure. Every cock is forced down virgin throats balls deep, and ever cum shot must be swallowed.'"

"If we just sue AIM, then it’s all about privacy rights and medical records (yawn). If we go for both, we show that AIM is just another cog in the machine that brutally abuses these girls without any regard to their emotional or physical well-being.

"Plus the owner of JM Productions is a lunatic. He fought off an obscenity prosecution a few years back and he loves to shoot off his mouth. When the press goes for the industry’s side of the story, they will probably get some great soundbytes from this guy - which will cut into any efforts AIM makes to defend itself in the press.

"Sharon Mitchell will have some well-crafted soundbytes from the FSC, but the folks at JM Productions will just say whatever they want, which could be great for us."

Now, when reading this, keep in mind that this is the same Michael Weinstein who was selling bareback gay sex videos at his thrift stores, and who probably would have no problem at all making money off gay porn selling the same throat-gagging, "body punishing", "brutal" sex.

But what fascinates me the most is that for someone who claims to only want to protect the performers, AHF sure sounds like another well known antiporn feminist activist I've heard of; one who spouts pretty much the same BS in pretty much the same language.

Maybe at their next presser, for maximum boostage, Weinstein should have both Shelley Lubben and Gail Dines at his side to rail against the evil porn industry and how they are simply abusers and exploiters? It would be a hell of a lot more truthful than their paternalistic pandering to be all "concerned" about protecting women performers.

Not to mention, covering up for crossover HIV+ performers..but that's another story I'll leave for others to tell.


Update:  


Oh, but it just gets better...in a followup post at AdultFYI, Gene Ross reveals an earlier email sent by Brian Chase to Michael Weinstein, in which Chase attempts to recruit Diane Grandmasion (nee Desi Foxx) to the campaign against AIM.

Hey Michael,

Dee Grandmaison [Desi Foxx] is the former adult film actress who now works with the Florida Coalition Against Human Trafficking. She is the one who is willing to be a plaintiff against AIM.

We may also be able to help Dee sue her former employer directly. The California Private Attorney General law gives employees pretty broad power to sue for breached labor laws – and under some circumstances it allows a single employee to sue on behalf of other employees to recover huge fines (most of which end up being paid to the state).

Dee worked for JM Productions, which is a prolific studio that churns out very unsafe gonzo porn. The owner is a real scumbag and he is very outspoken. He would make a great villain. If we can go after JM we could highlight a very unsafe workplace, and possibly get some $$$ for the bankrupt state government.

Dee and her daughter worked with some of the talent agents we complained against yesterday. We might want to have them file complaints as well.

Can we fly Dee out here, or can I fly to Florida to visit her? I think we need to have a face-to-face meeting in the near future.

This is fascinating in so many ways.

First, how in the hell did Diane (get the name right, Mr. Chase!!) Grandmaison go from not only being a full-time in house escort (even going as far as recruiting her own daughter into hooking as well), to becoming a spokesperson for an anti-prostitution abolitionist group so quickly??

Secondly, the fact that she did some scenes with JM Productions means...what?? That they forced her to do those nasty scenes of bukkake and deep throating?? Other than the usual antiporn agitprop, exactly how would that be credible in a court of law..and what would AIM, who only tests performers for STD's, have anything to do with that?

But here's where it gets real good. This email was dated before it was discovered that Desi's medical records had been leaked to the public via the original PornWikileaks. Yet, AHF's counsel decided not to pursue any action against Donny Long or his gaggle of groups involved in the raid of AIM's database, but instead focused their laser beam stun guns exclusively on AIM, aiding Grandmaison's ultimate lawsuit against the latter for the release of her records. (Ultimately, the FBI would be called in to launch a more comprehensive investigation, the results of which remain unknown.)

Two conclusions are inevitable from this.  Either AIM is really that incompetent with their databases, or there was a mole working for AHF (or maybe Pink Cross) who was sneaking personal records to PWL for smearing purposes.

Could it be that Weinstein, Lubben, and PWL might have been working together in collusion to entrap AIM (and by extension, the industry), and Diane Grandmasion was simply the pawn in their scheme??

And of course, getting money for "our bankrupt state government".  Yeah...but not without our 20% cut. Nice to see Chase remembers the fundamentals: do good, and get paid.

How To Run A Smear Campaign: The AHF War On Porn..Errrrrrrr...Condom Mandate Campaign EXPOSED Via Email Dump

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Sex Wars (The Beltway Edition): AGUS Holder Whacks Out DoJ Obscenity Task Force; Wingnutters In Congress ERUPT: "Not So Fast, Hombres!!!"

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MacDworkin Redux

A piece of legislation that has largely flown under the radar of the free speech and pro-sex advocates passed through the Minnesota Senate this week. The legislation proposes a ban on MN government business travelers from staying in hotels that offer premium porn channels, at least those offering what the legislators are defining as "violent" pornography. Note that this has nothing to do with MN State workers purchasing porn viewing on the state's dime, which is presumably already prohibited, but represents a state-mandated boycott of lodging that does not meet the "clean hotels" designation. (There is an exception in the legislation for state business travelers who cannot find a "clean hotel" in the area they are traveling in, however, they are also required to provide written proof to that effect.)

Clearly out to win some kind of Orwell award, the bill's sponsor, Democratic State Senator Tarryl Clark stated, "This bill is not about policing personal choices. The bill is about taking another step in reducing sexual violence in our society."

Also, proof that the usual suspects from the Stop Porn Culture crowd have had an influence here, Minnesota Coalition Against Sexual Assault executive director Donna Dunn notes that the legislation is meant to target material that "show[s] degrading and body-punishing sex".

Further details here, here, here, and here. Text of the legislation here.

What stands out about this legislation is that it has not come from the usual suspects on the religious right (though the "clean hotel" list in the US is maintained by these groups) nor is it justified on "decency" grounds. Rather, the bill was sponsored by a Democrat, lobbied for by a coalition of feminist anti-sexual violence groups (specifically, the Mens' Action Network (who maintain a page on the subject here), the Minnesota Coalition Against Sexual Assault, and, notably, the Minnesota Department of Health Injury and Violence Prevention Unit), and specifically touted as prevention of sexual violence. More chillingly, a document by the MDH Injury and Violence Prevention Unit, "The Promise of Primary Prevention of Sexual Violence: A Five-Year Plan To Prevent Sexual Violence and Exploitation in Minnesota" specifically highlights porn and "sexual objectification" as a causal agent in sexual violence and recommends legislative and other state-sponsored strategies against it.

If this kind of thing coming out of the great state of Minnesota sounds familiar, one needs to go back some 25 years to the heyday of the Dworkin/MacKinnon Ordinance, which was first passed by the Minneapolis City Council in 1983 (though vetoed by the mayor, who recognized the legislation would clearly lose on constitutional grounds). The language of the present legislation comes right out of the earlier Dworkin/MacKinnon legislation. While the authors claim that legislation does not target all sexually explicit material shown at hotels, it broadly defines the targeted material as follows:

"pornographic image or performance" means a sexually explicit image or performance that objectifies or exploits its subjects by eroticizing domination, degradation, or violence.

(Also, as is typical of the hypocrisy of such legislation, while it broadly defines a wide range of pornographic content as "violent" by definition, violent non-porn movies shown on hotel movie channels, such as Saw or Captivity, get a free pass.)

Unfortunately, there seems to be little sustained opposition to this legislation (other than from the hotel lobby), and the Minnesota ACLU website doesn't see fit to mention it. The legislation has a good chance of passing, though how it will stand up if challenged in court is less clear – the bill uses the same ideologically-loaded language struck down in Booksellers v. Hudnut. I urge readers in Minnesota to write their legislators and raise awareness of this issue.

Meanwhile, in Texas, a bill passed last year charging a $5 per head "pole tax" on strip-club patrons is scheduled to go before the Texas State Supreme Court this week. What is notable about this legislation is that it too was passed on grounds of "preventing sexual violence", mandating that the tax be used to fund anti-sexual violence groups. While this may seem non-problematic on the surface, it once again, mandates a direct link between the sex industry and violence against women, and proposes a sin tax as a partial solution.

Like the Minnesota legislation, the Texas bill was sponsored by a Democratic legislator, State Representative Ellen Cohen, and backed by a coalition of anti-sexual violence groups. It should also come as no surprise that Robert Jensen was one of the consultants on this piece of legislation and that a women's center at Jensen's institution, University of Texas, is one of the proposed recipients of the largess of this tax.

More here, here, and here.

While these pieces of anti-porn legislation are a great deal less far-reaching than many earlier anti-porn legislative efforts in the US, or current ones in some European and Commonwealth countries, such legislation is clearly meant to set a precedent. Laws specifically linking pornography to violence against women that might stand up to constitutional challenges may be used as justification for more far-reaching legislation in the future.

How To Smack Down A Troll (Antiporn Pseudofeminist Division)

Here's yet another example of how antiporn feminist lunacy gets around the Interwebz.

Avedon Carol is well known for both her unabashed progressive/liberal/Left viewpoints and her opposition to censorship, especially censorship of sexual media. As the head of the London based group Feminists Against Censorship, Avedon has been on the forefront of battles against both religious- and feminist-based attempts to censor sexual media for quite a long time...even during the days of Dworkin-MacKinnon and the Meese Commission. Therefore, like other infidel feminists, she gets the occasional cold brush treatment from the usual crowd of antiporn "feminists".

A recent example is taking place at her blog, The Sideshow, where in passing Avedon did a brief endorsement of a recent anthology titled The History of Pornography (edited by Patricia Davis, Simon Noble, and Rebecca J. White), which she described as an "non-idelogical" and "dry" piece. Nevertheless, she gave the anthology a begrudging approval:

But I couldn't find anything particularly wrong with it from a quick scan. Possibly a good primer for someone not familiar with the basics.

Such a view was not shared by a reader named "Mathilda", who decided to use the comment page to attempt to correct Avedon on her "error" in judgment.

Regarding: "The History of Pornography, I would not consider this to be a good primer for someone not familiar with the basics as the authors paint a rather rosy, inaccurate, and one-sided picture.

In the discussion of the movie: "Deep Throat", no mention is made of the fact that the actress Linda Lovelace performed this act under duress.  

She testified before the 1986 Attorney General's Commission on Pornography in New York City, stating “When you see the movie Deep Throat, you are watching me being raped. It is a crime that movie is still showing; there was a gun to my head the entire time.”

Also, there is no reference to "Pornography for Women" and the many excellent female pornographers such as: Petra Joy, Erika lust, etc,  who cater exclusively to the authentic sexual fantasies of women (For example, many scenes that include cunnilingus, threesomes - one woman, two men etc.)

The important distinction between Features and Gonzo is not discussed.

Finally, child pornography, or the more apt term, sexual abuse of children, is completely ignored.

According to the Internet Watch Foundation, the recent trend has been for more brutal images and severe torture of children whose ages are getting lower and lower.

A more appropriate title for this paper would have been: "The History of Pornography for Heterosexual Men".  [posted by "matilda" on 3/13/10 @ 10:34 PM London time]

You get the picture...do you??

Avedon attempted a quick response:

The place of Deep Throat in the history of pornography has nothing to do with how Traynor treated Linda - although her story would fit neatly into a detailed history of marital abuse in the 20th century.  Don't confuse the conditions under which a worker is employed with the product itself - it's like pretending that because many people who work in the food industry are treated badly, food itself is evil.

Internet Watch Foundation is an organization formed by ISPs to try to finesse the government's power to shut them down (I was there - in fact, I was the person who made the mistake of explaining to them that they had no legal recourse other than to fight to change the law or cave in).  It depends on keeping fears about internet content stoked for its authority (and the income of its paid employees).  It does not have a record of being a reliable source for information about pornography, on or off the internet.

Commercial child pornography has played very little role in pornography itself, since it has never been a significant draw in the industry.  Also not mentioned in the article is the outrageous (and fully-documented) list of outright lies used to promote the idea of the vast influence of child pornography and to bring in horrific laws that have destroyed many lives over a threat that does not exist - and in fact, the laws themselves have endangered and harmed more children than they could conceivably protect.

As noted by the authors, there simply wasn't room for exploring the kind of detail you think was important, anymore than there was time for exploring the kind of detail I think is important - such as the role attempts to suppress porn play in creating sexual violence. [posted by Avedon on 3/14/10 @ 4:49 AM]

 Good enough....but upon reading this, I decided that the record should be cleared regarding the charges involving Linda Lovelace, especially considering Sheldon Ranz's excellent work regarding her history.  Thusly, I entered the debate head first:

And, consideing the charge implied that Linda Lovelace was forced to perform those acts she performed for Deep Throat: In her latter years just prior to her death, Lovelace essentially repudiated many of the charges she made concerning coercion involving making porn. She has also insisted that any abuse she suffered at the hands of Scott Traynor was entirely his alone, and that no other porn performer ever abused or coerced her. She even went on to accuse her antiporn suitors who were encouraging her to make those claims at that time of double-crossing her. [posted by me on 3/14/10 @ 10:16 AM]

Rather than attempt to rebut the facts, Mathilda decided to resort to the last gasp of trolls: denial and divergence of attention:

It was her husband Scott Traynor who held a gun to her head during the filming of Deep Throat. [posted by Matilda on 3/14/10 @ 10:31 AM]

Which proves....what??? He held a gun to her head everywhere, and undoubtably abused her..but what does that have anything to disprove Lovelace's own words??

Then, Matilda decided to aim her guns of scorn at Avedon directly, invoking all the usual GenderBorg saws and insults that are lobbed regularly at infidel women who don't march in perfect goosestep with their ideology:

Don't confuse the conditions under which a worker is employed with the product itself - How cruel! Using your logic, we should not concern ourselves with the millions of innocent children, young girls, and women that are forced into the sex trade by means of violence as it's all about delivering a product to men. You're definitely not a humanitarian, are you Avedon.

As for the Internet Watch Foundation, although it does have a history of overstepping its boundaries, checks and balances are in place. The IWF is currently the only watchdog in the UK for suspect online content. While its website cites several areas of interest, almost the whole of the IWF site is concerned with suspected child pornography. This organization has rescued many children from abuse. Surely you're not against that. BTW, can you provide a link for the outrageous and fully-documented list of outright lies used to promote the idea of the vast influence of child pornography. Also, please specify which laws have destroyed many lives and have endangered and harmed more children that they could conceivably protect.

That said, what's your view on child pornography? How extensive is it? Should we just ignore it or must something be done about it?

As for your last paragraph, it appears that pornography for women is such an unimportant detail. It's all about men with you, isn't it? If I may borrow Lambert's quote, you're a feminist like Zola's Nana was an actress.  [posted by Matilda on 3/14/10 @ 12:22 PM]

Note the attempt by Matilda to qualify her basic fundamentalist antiporn agenda with fawning support for "pornography for women", basically a house of straw that is used to mask her agenda of pillorying actual women in porn, and anyone who would defend them.

The debate essentially degenerates from there; I will simply repost here the exchange that resulted.

[From NomadUK]
Using your logic, we should not concern ourselves with the millions of innocent children, young girls, and women that are forced into the sex trade by means of violence as it's all about delivering a product to men.

If you read Avedon's response in that manner, then you're simply being deliberately obtuse and have little of value to say. But that's been fairly clear from your past posts, so, no surprise, really.

2 days ago, 10:46:09 AM

– Flag – Like  – Delete – Edit – Moderate

[From Matilda]
To suggest that one should not confuse the conditions under which a worker is employed with the product itself is like anathema to me if one wishes to call oneself a progressive. It immediately brings forth images of all kinds of abuse such as sex slavery, child labor, and sweatshops to name but a few. Avedon could have worded it differently to get her point across more effectively and humanely.  For example, if she had said: "Although I understand and share your concern about the abuse suffered by Linda Lovelace while making the movie Deep Throat, her story is separate from "The History of Modern Pornography", then at least, she would have given the impression that she cared about women. As it stands now, Avedon Carol comes across to me as someone who is hostile to authentic female sexuality and who does not give a flying fig about achieving sexual equality and freedom for women. That's not my idea of a feminist. Show me you care about women, Avedon.

2 days ago, 12:18:35 PM

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[From Avedon]
No.  You come across as someone who wants to make up shit to accuse me of because I don't happen to share your penchant for blaming the wrong things for problems in society.  Your little mini-screeds are littered with false assumptions - not just about me, but about the subjects you claim to care about. 

When you care enough to do as much research on these subjects as I have, you will stop being such a loose cannon and, one hopes, have something to contribute to the debate.  Until then, you are just wasting our time.

2 days ago, 12:34:50 PM

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[From Matilda]
Again, you provide no links for any of your claims.

In case you don't know, your blog is like an open book, no false assumptions on my part. Obviously you are lacking in knowledge about pornography for women. But not to worry. I'm an expert on that topic. Let me link you to some sites that will enlighten you. Porn movies for women - this will give you an idea what authentic female sexuality is about. My favorite female erotic cinematographer is Petra Joy. She calls her movies "Artcore", rather than "Hardcore". And rightly so. The hot sex scenes in her movies are artistically presented. From reading your blog, I can tell that you appreciate art. Petra Joy's movies will therefore definitely appeal to you if you enjoy watching authentic female desires and fantasies. 

If you wish to know more about what women don't like about mainstream porn, there is a good discussion in the comments to this article.

2 days ago, 2:32:20 PM

– Flag – Like

[from Matilda]
If you really wish to understand what I mean by sexual freedom for women, and women's right to enjoy their sexuality without shame, read the following.

The Night of the Senses" is an annual event where "Erotic Oscars" are handed out to creative talent. It celebrates diversity. The venue offers many different play rooms where people can live out their sexual fantasies. When Petra Joy attended one year she decided to be a voyeur. She narrates one of her most memorable experiences.
"Another room, another world. I hear a woman's loud moans. They draw me in. Her moans are not high but she groans with pleasure almost like an animal. When I step into the room I see men, lots of men surrounding a kind of metal bed. All I see of the woman is her raised hips and pussy. She is being fingered slowly and deeply by just one guy and watched by all the others. The guy's eyes meet mine. He appreciates and enjoys being watched. This is so different from the group wank scenario of a "Bukkake" party. The guys are not here to degrade the woman. The guys watch a woman being pleasured. And they know they are lucky to witness this intimate moment - a glimpse into the world of infinite female sexual power. A woman receiving total pleasure without shame. She is not serving but being served. Pleasured by one man and adored by the others. To me it felt like a temple of worship to female lust. Deep wet and roaring. And a shiver goes down my spine". Source

2 days ago, 2:40:04 PM

– Flag – Like  – Delete – Edit – Moderate

So, if we are to believe Matilda, she isn't really censoring porn, just attacking "mainstream" porn as merely a tool of men possessing and raping women, while offering an alternative "porn for women" that will essentially liberate women and break the cycle of male violence while affirming "authentic" female pleasure. Riiiiiiight...and the ex-gay fundamentalist preachers just love gays, too.

Here's how I responded to Matilda's latest nonsense:

Ahhhh.....first of all, Matilda, I have read about countless women who have performed bukkake.  It may not be for everyone, but it's not the universal "shamefest" that you take it to be...try actually asking more than a few women who have done it. It's only sperm, not battery acid.

Secondly...you talk all this smack about "female sexual power", but would you ever support the many females who are in mainstream porn who have openly testified that they have been empowered positively by their participation in it?? Would you grant the same mantle of authority to the likes of Nina Hartley, Candida Royalle, Madison Young, Sasha Grey, Dana DeArmond, Jane Hamilton, Lisa Ann...and I can name so many others?? Or, is only "female sexual power" simply restricted to those who follow your personal ideology? With all due respect to Petra Joy, she isn't the only person who can speak for herself.

And thirdly, comparing "mainstream porn" which is still basically a legal product consumed by consenting adults, with child porn, which is, last time I checked, still illegal, says far more about your biases and cracked opinions, Matilda, than it ever does about Avedon.  Besides, Avedon doesn't defend porn uncritically; she just defends the right of free adult consensual sexual expression.

Oh...and just quoting from Lovelace's Meese Commission testimony that "Chuck Traynor had a gun at her face while making Deep Throat" is simply misleading. In both of her biographies, Deep Throat and Out Of Bondage, Lovelace makes it definitely clear that NONE of the actors and performers in that movie coerced or harmed her during the taping of that movie, and she insisted that not only was it her decision to make the movie, but that the sex scenes were welcomed by her as a distraction from the abuse that she was getting from Traynor at the time. And, as I commented in my OC, in her later years, she even repudiated that testimony, saying that she was just saying that to please her fair-weather benefactors in the antiporn movement.

I'll go along with Avedon on this one. Bring facts, not anecdotes.  [posted by me on 3/15/10 @ 1:15 AM]

What Matilda did bring in response is simply breathtaking. I'll just let you be the judge.

You [moi] said: Would you ever support the many females who are in mainstream porn who have openly testified that they have been empowered positively by their participation in it?? Hahahahaha
Oh, you guys just love to delude yourself, don't you. Show me an article that talks about men claiming that cunnilingus empowers them and we'll carry on with this discussion. I'll tell you what empowers women - sexual equality, socialize women from the day they are born that they should cherish their sexuality and enjoy it because it is good, healthy and natural. Let's do away with the madonna/whore syndrome, shall we and then talk about empowerment.

BTW, here's a good article that mentions Sasha Grey - the author who states that, she is the porno industry's public relations wet dream come true, interviewed her while he was watching one of her porn movies. He's asking her questions while she's moaning in the movie saying:
“I want to be your sex slave, I want you to hurt me, I want you to make me cry. I’ll do anything, anything at all, whatever you want, I’m such a fucking whore, I need to train, I need to be broken, I want you to fucking hurt me.” .." Patriarchy has trained women well to say what men want to hear, acting like the good little captives they are.

Mainstream porn is all about women pleasing men. I've been researching this topic for about a year and a half and I honestly don't know which is worse - the images or the text. By far the worst effect of porn is that it has turned the men who watch it into sellfish uncaring lovers. As a result, many men and women have lost the ability to live with each other in peace. In the next post I've provided some links that discusses this issue in greater detail.

As for Linda Lovelace, it was in her last two biographies that she claimed she was abused during the filming of Deep Throat.  However, believe whatever you wish. All I can say is that the acts she performed in that movie were not normal.

Finally, I've been reading Avedon's blog for quite some time now. She must be a nice person and is obviously very knowledgeable about many topics. However, as far as human sexuality is concerned, Avedon Carol only says what men want to hear. I don't fault her for it because many very intelligent women and other feminists do the same. The need to please men is bred into women's bones. It requires herculean strength to break free from this mould and to tell it like it is.

Anyway, peace be with you. 

[Yesterday, 6:17:32 PM]

Forget about the fact that my point wasn't about men and cunninglingus, but women liking bukkake. Let's go straight to the attempted smackdown of Sasha Grey, who can certainly and has often defended herself against similar slurs and insults.

The actual article Matilda referenced (the original link is broken) goes to an interview that Ms. Grey did for Adbusters.com reporter Douglas Haddow that was included in a rambling essay on how porn affected Maddow's generation. The words used by Matilda was actually a partial script of an anal scene Sasha did in a movie titled Sasha Grey Anal 1  That's right, Clones: a script of a scene. No reflection on Grey's normal sexual habits, or even her usual alt.porn roles; just one particular scene acted out. Just like the actors like Petra Joy whom act out similar scenes in their supposedly "woman-positive" porn movies.

Only antiporn ideology would suggest that Sasha Grey's performances reflect anything upon the users or even the performers, any more than people who watch "feminist porn" automatically become progressive feminists, or even antiporn feminists.

And then there is the whiff of arrogance: someone with a year of "research" experience empowers herself to speak for, and deny self-will and autonomy to, women performers who have been in the business for years and years. Not to mention, an anticensorship activist who has been on the front lines for well over 20 - 30 years. All because.....they want to please men.

Finally.....the acts that Linda Lovelace performed were "not normal"?!?!?!?  Really??  So, fellatio isn't "normally" acted out by women on men?? I guess that muff-diving, penile/vaginal sex, facials, external pop shots, and sex with anyone other than your significant other is also considered not "normal", then, Matilda?? Never mind that all those acts are performed not just in porn, but in REAL LIVE by REAL LIVE people every single day???

But....we are supposed to believe that all of the acts performed in her favored "porn for women" ARE real and reflect the desires of REAL women??  As if existing female performers in porn right now aren't capable of experiencing "real" sex in their own private lives??

Yeah....Matilda's different from a right-wing fundie imposing their narrow attitudes on others. She may claim the title of "feminism"...the way Sarah Palin does.