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

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LA Porn Panic 2011/2012: The Series Continues: Mike Weinstein Gets His Condom Mandate Initiative On LA Ballot For Next June

Things are now about to get real, folks.

Yesterday, Michael Weinstein of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation released a press statement and had a press conference announcing that his proposed initiative mandating condom usage for all porn shoots in the greater Los Angeles area had gotten past the necessary 48,000 signatures to appear in the ballot for June of next year.

The presser was done to coincide with World AIDS Day (yes, because you know that only porn stars and gay men get HIV/AIDS, get it???) and to give Weinstein yet another chance to play verbal roulette with the truth.

Using his dedicated front group, the oxymoronically acronymed "F.A.I.R" ("For Adult Industry Accountablilty"), Weinstein was all a flutter about getting his precious initiative going, even with the progress of Cal-OSHA's making their own regulations on mandating condoms and other "barrier protections" for porn performers against their stated will.

So much so, in fact, that he wasn't even willing to wait until the vote next June; he wants the L. A. City Council to use the sigs to enact the proposal NOW. As in, before Chiristmas.

Don't believe me??  Here's a direct quote from the AHF press release (via here):

“Producers of adult films are required by California Code of Regulations Title 8, Section 5193 to use barrier protection, including condoms, to protect employees during the production of adult films,” said Brian Chase, Assistant General Counsel for AIDS Healthcare Foundation. “However, many producers of adult films in Los Angeles consistently violate the worker safety provisions of this Code. In addition, pursuant to Section 12.22(A)(13) of the Los Angeles Planning and Zoning Code, producers of all films within the City of Los Angeles, including adult films, are also required to obtain film permits. Such permits issued may contain conditions ‘consistent with public health, safety and general welfare.’ We believe the city already has the authority to tie film permits to condom use—this ballot measure will allow Los Angeles voters to weigh in and make certain this happens.”

 And here's a direct quote from Weinstein himself at the press conference, as captured by AVN's Mark Kernes (full article here):

Perhaps the most important point for the adult industry, aside from the announcement that AHF had apparently collected more than enough signatures to put its mandatory-condom initiative on the ballot in June, was the claim by AHF president Michael Weinstein that if city clerks, doing a random check of petition signatures, find that the initative has qualified for the June ballot, that enacting an ordinance needn't wait for voter approval.


"At that point [after the signatures have been checked], the city council will have 20 days to enact the ordinance as is, or else it will go to the June ballot," Weinstein said. "We're very confident of victory in the election. Certainly, we think it is primarily the responsibility of the city council to enact this measure, and we hope that their consciences will be pricked and they will do the right thing and do that, but we're perfectly prepared to move forward.... We will be making an announcement shortly about actions we're going to take to move the agenda along at the county level as well."

 Of course, Weinstein seems to have forgotten that the second the condom mandate even becomes law, it will be hit with a tsumami of lawsuits challenging its legality...never mind the fact also that I'm guessing that LA doesn't have anywhere close to the funding to effectively enforce such a broad-reaching law. But, then again, all those potential condom dollars from Lifestyles and Durex must still be affecting his brain cells.

To further buttress his case, Weinstein bought out his crewe of sycophants and "several former actors" in the adult industry" (at least, that's what his press statement promised)...which turned out to be two actors. But oh, how interesting they were.


Testimonial #1 was from none other than Derrick Burts, the eye of the 2010 "porn scare", who waxed real good about how easy it was for him to get all kinds of STI's from unprotected sex and how only condoms would have saved him. (From Kernes again)

Burts, who "works alongside the AIDS Healthcare Foundation" and claimed to have been infected with chalymdia, herpes, gonorrhea and HIV after performing in adult movies (straight and gay) for just four months, opined, "I think it's very safe and fair to say that in this industry as a worker, when you're not wearing barrier protections, the likelihood of you getting an STD is extremely high."

Perhaps more interesting was Burts' claim that, "One thing I always point out time and time again, is that testing is not enough because there's too big of a time frame where we can go out and have sex with someone in the general public—you know, a lot of performers, female performers go out and have sex in the general public—male performers as well—and we go back to work on a porn set and we can easily spread that before testing again."

Ahhh, yes...the old "we porn stars are just too slutty to protect ourselves, so we need the State to intervene for our own good and jam condoms down our throats" card. Funny, but having someone who managed to infect himself in a scene WITH A CONDOM INCLUDED, who openly boasted of being an active bisexual swinger, and who even managed to use a negative AIM test to pimp himself for Rentboy.com, is hardly the best person to use to promote sexual restraint. (Also, go here and here to see more of DBurts playing fast and loose with the facts.)

The other former actor to take advantage of AHF's crying towel was Darren James, whom at least has a bit more cred as the centerpiece of the notorious 2004 HIV outbreak that actually did claim 4 female performers (Lara Roxx included).Like Burts, James pitied the fact that his life essentially changed after his HIV infection, and naturally, he blamed not having a condom on during the scene:

"People are going to buy porn regardless," James argued. "The fans that I've seen on the street, they could care less. They just want to see performers. If that means that a guy can't use a condom, you get a better actor that can use a condom... It's gonna sell. Don't believe all the directors talking about—they try to use every kind of scapegoat they can to get out of it, but it all comes down to the same thing: You gotta stick by the condom. The condom is the only way because just testing—that's what I thought: Just getting a test was saving me. And look at me now: I'm HIV-positive. The tests don't mean nothing; it's after the fact."  (excerpted from Kernes)

So, Mr. James...why weren't you willing to stick to your own words when you had that tryst in Brazil before doing that scene?? Or..why didn't the obvious anal sores on Lara Roxx's buttocks raise the red flag that something was more than a bit wrong and that maybe it should have been time to bail out?? Viruses don't invade by themselves, you know..you have to get them and spread them.

And don't even begin to start me on the claim that James and/or Roxx might have been infected before that infamous shoot, due to they shooting in Canada..see this story.

The other spokesperson there was Brian Chase, AHF's chief legal counsel, who riffed on how the condom mandate would be enforced if the initiative was ratified or passed. Apparently, he thinks that FilmLA, the organization that permits movie shoots in Los Angeles, can be induced to enforce the law:

"Everyone knows that when you go the city to get a permit, that permit comes with some conditions," Chase stated. "If a mainstream film studio wants to get a film permit and there's going to be pyrotechnics, then they have to have safety measures; they have to have the fire department involved. When you get a construction permit for your house, that means you've got to follow all the rules regarding workplace safety for construction workers. It's the exact same thing in the adult film industry. We have regulations saying that when workers might be exposed to the threat of disease, they have to be protected with barrier protection. In the context of adult films, that means condoms. This is a law that already exists, but this industry seems to believe that it's above the law, that it can just ignore the law and get away with it. It can't, and we're going to continue to do whatever we can, including going to the voters, to put pressure on this industry to start protecting its workers."

 Yes. but FilmLA does not have a charter to impose rules for condoms on porn shoots, and I don't see LA giving them the money to do so (otherwise, that would be called an "unfunded mandate", which is a no-no politically). But, Chase and Weinstein have an out for that: just let either the LA County Dept. of Public Health or Cal-OSHA take over the enforcement. The former, though, wants out of the condom police biz altogether after being burned far too often, and the latter already has enough powers through fines and raids (and is currently seeking to change the regs to force the mandate via "barrier protection" enforcement".

Just as interesting as who was there, though, was who was absent.

Like, for example, any active current porn performer, even though there are more than a few who do support the idea of more condoms in porn.

Also...no females this time; you'd think that Weinstein would want to avoid the stigma of having men lecture female performers on protecting themselves.

But the biggest absence of this drama?? No Ministeress!!!

Apparently Shelley Lubben has become much too radioactive for even the folks at AHF to recruit her ministry for propaganda's sake, thanks to the allegations that "Madelyne" (the former Michelle Avanti) raised against her and her Pink Cross Foundation. Either that, or Shelley's decided to focus her audience for her book on her fundamentalist Christian roots, and palling around with a liberal gay organization would get in the way. (Not that she's not doing her deeds en rogue, her YouTube page just put out a video of the presser, albeit altered to make it seem as if she was there.)

And if you remember, Clones, Shelley and Pink Cross was all over the original presser in June announcing the initiative; she even had her present protege Jan Meza pose in the background.Whether this is a permanent break or simply part of the strategy of divide and conquer, we shall see.

In any rate, maybe it's time for the industry to get past their differences and pull together and fight this nonsense. It's only your profession, you know.

A "Stench" of Anti-Porn Myopia: Starring Gail Dines and Featuring: "Damaged Genitals"?!?!

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More Hot Air from the Windy City

So last month I posted about the meeting between Robert Jensen and Tom Dart, the Chicago-area sheriff and anti-prostitution crusader. This grandstanding prick is now making headlines suing Craigslist in federal court in an attempt to force them to drop its "erotic services" section entirely. Story here and here. Bound, Not Gagged posts a response from SWOP Chicago here.

His argument is that advertising prostitution online is promoting a "public nuisance" and should be banned on that basis. Evidently driving more prostitution back out onto the streets (which is what is likely to happen if internet prostitution is curbed) doesn't come under this guy's idea of "nuisance".

I also notice from one of the videos of Dart's press conference that the anti-prostitution group CAASE was part of it. And CAASE, in turn, is a group that has worked quite closely with Melissa Farley in the last few years and who's "Alliances" page is pretty much a laundry list of the usual suspects from the "progressive" anti-porn and anti-prostitution milieu.

I point to the latter, because I'm so sick of hearing how anti-porn radical feminists are a marginalized group that doesn't exercise real political power. Once again, very real links to powerful players in politics and law enforcement who are doing their bidding is revealed here. The antis, both Right and "Left", have real power in the real world (power that in the opinion of those of us here at least, does real harm to real people). Its about fucking time they owned up to that power.

Some Hot Air from the Windy City

One of the favorite anti-porn radical feminist talking points is that porn and porn culture represent the "status quo" and that the radical feminist movement is marginalized and without political power. The counter-examples, of course, are legion, ranging from Dworkin and MacKinnon's role in the Meese Commission hearings to present-day radical feminist-inspired legislation against prostitution and pornography in places like Sweden and the UK.

The latest example comes in the form of a press release from DePaul University College of Law, advertising their upcoming "Valentine’s Day Distinguished Family Violence Lecture" (you really can't make this stuff up), which features an appearance by everybody's favorite sensitive radical feminst guy, Robert Jensen, appearing along with the sheriff of Cook County, Illinois (Chicago and environs), Tom Dart, who will be speaking on "pornography's impact on crime":

Dart will explore pornography’s impact in key areas, including crime, and highlight recent initiatives designed to address sex trafficking in Cook County.

Dart is described on his website as a "rising star in Illinois politics" (not exactly something to brag about these days) and a former legislator turned law-enforcement official. Among his accomplishments as sheriff:

Under Dart’s directive, the Sheriff’s Police have initiated a variety of stings, crackdowns, and investigations of criminal activity. He has been in the forefront in breaking up dog fighting rings and presided over the arrests of prostitution rings that use the internet as their advertising arm.

The press release also adds that Dart will be leading an "all-male panel" following Jensen's lecture. For the most part, this is the same-old same-old, hearkening back to the days when crusaders in law enforcement, clergy, and the upright men of the city met about stamping out vice. What's different, is that now the role of clergy is played by a radical feminist man with pretensions of being "prophetic".

Pornographers as the "status quo"? Show me an example where somebody from the porn industry is having a similar meeting of minds with politicians or law enforcement officials and maybe I'll entertain the idea. Until then, I think those of us in the reality-based community will tend to believe otherwise.

And For An Added Pile-On.....

....I reset an earlier debate involving myself and Nina Hartley to add to the piling on of discussion on Sam Berg and her latest treachery:

The SmackDog Chronicles: Sam Berg: Stalker of Women (Especially Women Who Don't Share Her Sex Fascist Vision)

The New APRF [Maoist] Meme: Buy Porn, Kill a Muslim

I'm sure that you have heard about how the usual right-wing antiporn groups are now targeting the US Military for apparantly defying Congressional laws against porn being sold at military bases.

It got me to thinking, though....how would the antipornradicalfeminists on the "other" side attempt to spin the issue to their advantage??

Well, I need not wonder any longer.....get a load of this pamphlet which equates consuming porn to killing Muslimwomen...courtesy of APRF whackoid Phyllis Chesler the Maoist International Movement:

http://www.imperialismkills.org/fliers/islamofasc2.pdf

I suppose that the many Muslim (and other non-religious folks in Iraq and other Middle East countries) who were victims of "Amerikan" imperalism don't really count for these MIM whackjobs....nor the fact that most of those who finance and support the killing of "Muslims" are as violently and militantly antiporn as they apparantly are.

Oh....and "wimmin" jill off to porn too...will they be held accountable for their role in genocide?? Oh, I forgot...most of those women OPPOSE the war. Too bad....it's the jerking off that is the real issue, I guess.

Just one more standing monument to APRF extremist collusion and ultra-Maoist lunacy, me thinks.

[Tip of the hat to Doug Henwood over at the Left Business Observer mailing list (lbo-talk) from where I got the link to Chesler's MIM's lunacy.]

UPDATE (11/8/o7) I owe a sincere apology to Phyllis Chesler for originally attributing the pamphlet to her; following the links provided at the bottom of the pamphlet let me to the Maoist International Movement site, which featured an attack on Chesler for being not "radical" enough and too "Western" for their particular sectarian tastes. I have made the proper revisions in this post to correct the record.

"Protecting women"

Twenty years later, The Handmaid's Tale is just as relevant as ever, if not more so.

From an excellent online study guide:

The sub-theme of this tangled debate which seems to have particularly interested and alarmed Atwood is the tendency of some feminist anti-porn groups to ally themselves with religious anti-porn zealots who oppose the feminists on almost every other issue. The language of "protection of women" could slip from a demand for more freedom into a retreat from freedom, to a kind of neo-Victorianism. After all, it was the need to protect "good" women from sex that justified all manner of repression in the 19th century, including confining them to the home, barring them from participating in the arts, and voting. Contemporary Islamic women sometimes argue that assuming the veil and traditional all-enveloping clothing is aimed at dealing with sexual harassment and sexual objectification. The language is feminist, but the result can be deeply patriarchal, as in this novel.

There is nothing new, much less revolutionary, about infantilizing women in the name of "protecting" them. It's a tactic used by fundamentalist religions around the world, and one feminists should be able to spot a mile away.

Image that?

It seems that a APRF is annoyed that "us idiots" linked to her in a post. Nevermind there was no attacking of this person, no slander, merely noting that she had linked to NPNH, which she is allowed to do...

I find it odd that when one points out strange bedfellows, they become, flat out, idiots...

Interesting...

Also, yep, emails continue between NPNH's Adam and myself...I'll keep you posted.

NPNH...

For those who ask what the endless pissing matches with NPNH have to do with feminism (though this blog is, of course, not only about porn and feminism), I just wanted to post a brief reminder that NPNH did, at one point, get linked in a Carnival of Feminists:

The wonderful Sparkle*Matrix takes apart the apologetic Myth of Porn and the Cathartic Relationship, by means of an analogy to chocolate and some scary data. NoPornNorthampton notes the underrepresentation of women in the media, remarking on how silence can be construed as lack of dissent, rather than as a result of the difficulties in speaking that the powerless have.

Sparkle*Matrix's post is also impressively thin on logic, in my personal opinion (while I see the point of comparing a woman to a consumable, and it's a very common one in certain radfem circles, I find that whole analogy shaky. To truly consume a person, one would have to kill her.

But my larger point is the linking to NPNH. While I strongly suspect that many anti-porn radical feminists do (or would if they bothered to take a long enough look) disapprove of some of NPNH's tactics and justifications, here again we see anti-porn radfems allying with people who have the same goal for very different reasons.

NPNH is one of those groups that latches on to feminist criticism of porn as one of many reasons they can round up to convince people to hate porn. It sits right alongside reasoning that has nothing at all to do with feminism. As Belle has said before, NPNH seems to be more about garden-variety NIMBYism than radical feminist analysis of women's oppression.

I still can't for the life of me understand why many APRFs are so, well, okay with allying with people who have the same goal but only on a completely superficial level. How the hell can, for example, NFAM link to Enough is Enough, whose founder is also behind the unabashedly religious-based and anti-gay Protect Kids without exploding from the cognitive dissonance?

On the one hand, well, yeah, if your own base of activism is small you will have to look the other way at some things. But on the other: okay, now that you've won, once your allies can turn their efforts to other indecencies like, oh I don't know, lesbian nonmonogamy, what's your plan? Can I see it, judge it, hear it?

Or are you still caught up in TheoryWorld, where somehow political "activism" against pornography isn't actual lobbying or working for bans, but a strange and creepy kind of "education" that does... well, as far as I can see, Jack Nothing to change society as a whole or shut down the industry?

....And Just In Case You Are Tired Of It, Still MORE From NPNh...

...straight out of Ren's blog, where she lays down the gauntlet at Adam Cohen's nonsense:

Now, this was my reply, which hasn't made it up on his post yet, so I shall share here...

"Adam, I have no problem with people trying to keep "adult businesses" out of their neighborhoods, especially strip clubs and the like, especially in small towns...People have the right to do that, attempt to keep them out. For instance, where I live, all sex oriented businesses are restricted specifically to commerical/industrial zones via the laws, hence, most strip clubs are in club districts, where they are hardly noted amdist the REST of the bars in the area...and most of our sex shops/porn stores are discreet, clean, and and not anywhere near residential neighborhoods....I also note that study is close to 20 years old....when a great many areas in the midwest, especially industry towns, were in the midst of a huge economic slump, crack was a major epidemic, and I wonder just how much that (rather than the wicked, wicked porn stores) had to do with the crime rates...And I live in a damn metro type area...big city to be exact, and I can tell you, people have more to worry about than the little store on the corner that sells smut and vibrators.
You cannot and do not have the right to babysit adults, however, and if they want porn, they right now, in this country, have a right to it."I mean come on...in 1989 we all still called Russia "The Soviet Union"...things have changed since then...
And really, don't get too flattered, NPNH, you aren't the only reason I made the PPA blog, trust me...Charlie was more the inspiration for that originally....

Ren continues on:

I would like to take you up on this thread: If people want to advocate harsher safety measures in the sex industry, better working conditions, for better treatement by law enforcement, making access to net porn harder for kids to get, things of that nature? That shows me they not only care about the people working in the business, but they care for the people who should not be looking at porn and whatnot...those are the folk who I actually think care about peoples "feelings"...

Then Ren responds to some suggestions that Cohen makes that would almost suit his purposes of bare tolerance of porn; Ren's response as posted follows for each one; and I have added some annoted comments of my own.

AG: I have some suggestions for improving the working conditions of porn performers. How do these strike you?

On porn shoots, a public health officer should be required to be present during filming. The pornographers would pay a fee to the city for this.

Ren Ev: Sure, that would be great, but chances are the "fee" would come out of the performers pay...and the health dept would probably have to hire a hell of a lot more employees, which comes outta tax dollars...I mean, are you just talking about for CA porn valley films, or every porn shoot in America? Cause i can tell you, porn is filmed everywhere.

AK: That wouldn't be such a bad idea....except that are you going to charge enough of a fee or offer such an public health officer enough support to actually do such a job?? And..will you be providing full insurance coverage for porn performers to offset the cost of such a bureacracy??


AG: Porn performers should be required to be regularly tested for all STDs they might reasonably be at risk for contracting.

Ren Ev: Nowadays, that is actually pretty common, testing for almost, if not ALL, STD's... from hep to herpes to aids, even if the companies shooting don't require it, a lot of performers see to it on their own.

AK: Ahhh...ever heard of the AIM Health Care Foundation?? They've been at the center of HIV/AIDS testing for adult performers for the past 10 years or so...and their tests are pretty standard and comprehensive.....and mandated by most performers. Other thing: what about those who simply run their sites away from Silicone Valley...how do you regulate them enough to test them??

AC: Condoms and other protective devices should be required when they will reduce the risk of disease.

Ren Ev: I think more prevelant condom use would be wise. I do not think, however, if performers who test clean should be required to use condoms if they do not want to...for instance, many porn stars are married to other porn stars...should Otto Bauer have to wear a condom whenever he does a scene with Audrey Hollander, his wife?

AK: Condom use should be promoted and encouraged?? Yes, indeed...by progressive health professionals and individual porn performers who choose voluntarily to promote safer sex. Condom use mandated by the government merely to serve the prevailing ideology??? I don't think so...especially since most conservatives would oppose such use as promoting "promiscuity" anyway.


AC: Excessively risky practices such as "ass-to-mouth" should be prohibited from commercial productions.

Ren Ev: Nope. AtM is something people do in their own bedrooms, as well as countless other forms of anal play which inovle a tongue or mouth touching or even penetrating an anus. I don't agree with banning certain sex acts if people are willing to perform them, and if, yeah, real people also do them, and all forms of anal play, including AtM, do actually occur in some peoples bedrooms.

AK: I second that with a "Hell no"....acts that people willingly perform in their private lives should be allowed to be seen on screen; just because some might get squeamish at the sight of AtM or double vaginal doesn't mean those who can perform it safely should be banished. What's next, Adam...should romantic scenes involving BDSM also be banned due to promoting "male violence and submission" of women??


AC: Performers should have the right to revoke their consent to the distribution of their image, up to, say, 30 days after filming is complete.

Ren Ev: I'd say two weeks.

AK: Make it one week for me, since most porn shoots only last one or two days, anyway; and most of the details of what will happen should be worked out before the contract is signed, so there should be no surprises for the performers. If they don't want to perform the act, they can just walk away and not get that paycheck.

AC: I welcome any other suggestions you might have.

Ren Ev: Well, if we are, in theory, going to send health officals, independent security people would be good as well, to insure no one is forced into anything. But, like the health official, that's a pipe dream. I, personally, think that the minimum age of consent for participation in hardcore (as in, involves penetration) porn should be raised to 21.

AK: Here's one of the few cases where I respectfully dissent from The Henchwoman. In my view, raising the legal age for performing in hardcore to 21 is a bad, bad idea; because it puts the blame on young adults who are considered old and mature enough to vote, old enough to be drafted to kill and be killed in war, and old enough to face adult penalties if arrested on felony offenses....but not considered mature enough to make informed decisions about their own bodies and about engaging in sex for pay??? Plus, what's to say that if the legal age is raised, then our already anti-sex culture decides that 21 becomes the new 18, and that since 21 year olds are considered not mature enough to handle the stresses (both physical and mental) of being sex actresses and performers, that perhaps we should raise the age even higher??

I respect Ren's concerns that young adults don't always think about the consequences of their actions and that a more mature attitude would be enhanced by waiting a bit later to engage in porn or sex work....but it still reeks of paternalism to say that one particular group of people should be considered not able to handle themselves in some matters but not in others.

But, that's only my opinion, of course.


Anthony