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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Lesson In Anti-Porn Liberal Hypocrisy From AlterNet

It is pretty funny to see how liberals who are the most exercised about the innate evils of "mainstream porn" (or, as they also put it, "male-oriented porn") attempt to square their personal squicks with their political rhetoric.

Lately in some portions of the liberal-left press, much has been written or posted online about finding the perfect "alternative" to "mainstream porn", as a means of avoiding or sidestepping the heated issue of censorship, while attempting to replace such allegedly harmful, disgusting, and misogynistic material with content regarded as more "progressive", more "humane", and more "sexy".

As usual, the repository AlterNet is among the primary boosters of this strategy, allowing for the likes of Robert Jensen and Gail Dines to go off on the evils of porn, while simultaneously allowing others to promote "alternative" forms of erotica.

Unfortunately, to that end they sometimes will tend to cut corners and undermine the original founders to their political agenda.

Such a case I discovered today, when going through my Twitter account and discovering a reccommendation to an article that was posted last week to AlterNet titled "Is Hardcore Porn Played Out? A Site Showing Real People's Orgasms Give A Sexy Alternative".

The article, credited to a writer named Cherry Trifle from SeXis Magazine, consists of an interview with the owners and founders of a site called Beautiful Agony, which features basically porn shot from the neck up, promoting "real people having real orgasms", and specifically emphasizing shots of the performers/participants's faces when they come. The site basically invites participants to submit for pay their own videos, which are then published at their paysite.

In the interview, BA's founder, Richard Lawrence, explains why he developed his site and how he feels it to be different from "mainstream porn":

Cherry Trifle: You say that these videos are documentary, rather than performance…

Richard Lawrence: I think one of the biggest problems with the porn industry is that it doesn’t do a good job with its responsibility as a sex educator; which it is, regrettably—and not just for adolescents. Plenty of grownups have more sexual experience, in fact way more, through porn than with partners. As hardcore porn becomes more mainstream, people are developing these ridiculous notions of what women like, or what men like, and what people look like, or what is acceptable sexual behaviour.

I recently met a woman in her late 20s who told me she didn’t like anal sex, but had been doing it for years because she thought it was expected of all women, just as she’d seen in all the porn DVDs. And isn’t it incredible that not all women like to have five guys come in their face at once? In gonzo porn, it’s shown that all sex acts have their price, and so does every woman, as the host picks up a “random girl” from the street and peels off $100 bills in the back of a van. In fact, through running Agony, I have come to despise [traditional] porn rather than just be bored with it; porn could do so much to enhance sexual relationships, yet overwhelmingly, [porn] works against them through the depiction of sexual practices without context or informed consent.

There is a whole other side to Beautiful Agony that many people overlook, the section called “Confessions.” In these interviews or self-filmed revelations, the “Agonees” tell us—usually very frankly—all about their sex lives, and their stories are often remarkable.

One of my favorites is the well-spoken 20-something who decided to try out her new sex toy on the commuter train home, only to find that the lock on the bathroom door didn't quite work, much to the astonishment of an older lady passenger… After listening to a few of those stories you start to take a bit more notice of, well, things.

Notice how Lawrence simply restates most of the antipornfeminists' major critiques of "mainstream porn": that it disregards emotion and "love" for the quick facial; that it depicts sex outside of "context" (presumably, of love or emotion, as if lust or sexual pleasure isn't a legitimate emotion in and of itself);  that it degrades the performers by not requesting their "informed consent" to perform those acts; and that it reduces sex to a commodity to be exchanged for quick cash.

The only difference between Lawrence and Gail Dines, though, is that rather than censor porn outright as Dines and other antipornradfems would support, Lawrence would rather people discover and find his site as a supposedly healthy, "progressive" alternative that would improve human sexual relationships...though with the implied hope that if enough people do cross over, "mainstream porn" would wither away and die on its own.

Now, there's nothing wrong with encouraging alternative visions of erotica or supporting alternative means of sexual media, and I begrudge Mr. Lawrence nothing on his vision of erotica. What bothers me, though, is that like the antiporn radfems, he takes a very distorted view of what "mainstream porn" actually is and consists of, taking the widely maligned "gonzo" style as representative of the ONLY popular form of the genre of explicit sexual media.

Apparently, Mr. Lawrence wasn't around when Candida Royalle came out with her "feminist porn" label of hetero hardcore (via her Femme Productions series) which featured very real performers having very real orgasms and the same deemphasis on facials in favor of PIV shots (although, she had plenty of below the waist shots). And what about the recent rise of "alt.porn", which also bucks the trend of "gonzo" by offering girls that defy the supposed "male-oriented" stereotypes of big fake boobs and fake orgasms?

My real issue, though, is in the distortion that was used by AlterNet in posting the article at their site to begin with.  The actual SeXis site is far, far, more inclusive regarding sexual ideology....in fact, none other than Nina Hartley has a regular Tuesday podcast there.....and last time I checked, she was still taking facials and doing at least some anal. Indeed, the original title for the interview was slightly different from the spin that AlterNet took: Capturing The Face Of Orgasm: In & Out With Robert Lawrence, Founder of Beautiful Agony.

Whether it was the AlterNet publisher's decision to use the more...shall we say, direct byline for reproducing that interview, or whether Ms. Trifle gave them the approval to alter the title; it certainly sounds as if AlterNet distorted the article to support their agenda of going after "mainstream porn" while sidestepping the calls for "censorship:.

And the AlterNet agenda is not so veiled by other articles referenced in the piece, with titles such as:

"There's More To Sex Than Just A Cum Shot: What Men Need To Unlearn From Hardcore Porn"

"Why Men Fake Orgasms"

"You Like That, Baby, You Like That? Has Porn Made Men Bad At Sex?"

"Why I Quit Working In Porn"

Not exactly the "men are beasts and rapists" rhetoric of Maggie Hays and Kathleen Barry, but not that respectful of their free choices and ability to respect women, either.

Perhaps the folks at AlterNet would prefer to actually talk to and listen to a few men who are into "mainstream porn" before they decide to pass their judgments.