Trading A Crackhead Ford For A Benz With Plenty Of Booby Crack: Could Nikki Benz Really Become Toronto's Ciccolina??

Porn and politics is always a combustible mix as it is.

But one element that has been more than lacking is the thought of porn performers IN politics. At least, not in North America.

Of course, the worldwide template in the 80's/90's for practicing porn performers actually representing in office was Illona Staller, the Hungarian porn performer known and loved in Italy as Ciccolina, who later parlayed her XXX fame into two terms as a member of the Italian Parliament under the libertarian Radical Party.

There have been a few other passing attempts at mixing pro-sex politics with politics, such as Australia's Sex Party and Anna Arrowsmith's run for British parliament...but other than that, most attempts to bring more progressive views of porn into political bodies have fallen to the dominant Puritanism of our time.

In the United States, the closest you could find to a porn performer attempting a political run was Mary Carey's PR attempt to sell her Arnold Schwarzenegger parody, thinly disguised as a run for California governor during the 1990's, resulting from the recall of incumbent Gray Davis. Unfortunately for the libertarian Carey, that didn't turn out so well even in the PR aspect; nevertheless, she has survived and thrived in her more natural environment as a porn performer.

Times have progressed, however, to the point that social media have greatly improved the popular reach of porn performers; and combined with the popularity of hardcore porn political satire (see Sarah Palin pilloried by Lisa Ann in the Who's Naylin Paylin series), has increased greatly the possibility of a breakthrough in porn performers seriously challenging to serve in office.

Given the common stereotyping of porn performers as airheads more interested in the next blowjob than creating jobs, it would take a stupendously smart and savvy, as well as sexy, woman to shatter that particular glass ceiling and assume the position of pioneer.

Someone, you could say, like Nikki Benz.

The native of Toronto, Canada, and long time performer, feature dancer, and owner of her NikkiBenz.com website (part of Vicky Vette's Vette Nation Army network), is on track to file official papers this week in order to launch her campaign to oust her home city's incumbent mayor, Rob Ford. (See Update below.)

That would be the same Rob Ford, people, that has graced Toronto's City Hall for the past 4 years under nonstop hilarious wacky controversy after controversy. You may have heard about those rumors of him smoking crack cocaine in his offices (those are true), or his mouthing off against charges of sexual harassment of his staff because "I get enough pussy at home" (also true); or even the reports that he went on drunken spurts with his buddies, even going as far as driving drunk, and even having the brass to make YouTube videos of his exploits under the influence.

Now, in most cases, getting caught smoking crack and Moellering* up behind the wheel rolling 1.7 BAC would be enough to get your ass run from office. Problem is, Canadian law somehow prevents impeachment or removal of officials from office, so the Toronto City Council was reduced to curtailing Ford's powers and shifting some of them, as well as his staff, to his Deputy Mayor, Norm Kelly. Ford, though, is still very popular with that conservative segment of the electorate that really digs populist Right strongmen not afraid to ruffle the feathers in favor of "less guviment" and lower taxes; and he decided that he wanted to serve for another 4 years by filing last January for reelection.

Before Wednesday, Ford faced 54 challengers from diverse parties for reclaiming his seat. Benz becomes candidate #55.

Now, it may be said that she's not really serious about campaigning for Toronto mayor, and that this is all nothing more than show and blow to enhance Nikki's already towering career as a porn performer. Her first campaign "commercial" was really a 30 minute spot hosted by the porn site Brazzers.com, to which Nikki has shot several scenes sans clothes. However, she certainly sounds like she's in it to win it, because she sounds like she is truly fed up with Ford's act and that at the very least, she could do far better to reinhance Toronto's tarnished reputation.

And...I'd say she'd look a hell of a lot better sitting in the Mayor's chair than Rob Ford ever did.

Here's a vid of Nikki announcing her bid for Toronto's Mayor, released via Brazzers.com:

UPDATE (6-3-14): Nikki's quest for nomination took a slight detour last week, due to some minor paperwork malfunction. Seems like she didn't have a valid local license in order to qualify for the position, so her paperwork was rejected. Nikki confirmed that she would still be able to qualify with the proper credentials by this week, so the campaign appears to be still go on unabated.

Nina Hartley Layeth The Smack (And The Damn Truth) Down On Antiporn-AntiSexWork Jabronae @ Desiree Alliance 2010 Keynote Speech

I always knew there was a reason people call Nina Hartley "The Goddess of Sex." After watching this speech, they should also call her something else: "Madam Freakin' President." (OK...without the "freakin'" part.)

Last week, Nina gave the keynote address at the annual Desiree Alliance Sex Worker Conference in Las Vegas; discussing everything from the struggle to make her voice heard as a sex worker/pro-porn advocate to a thorough analysis of the forces invieghed against her and her activist sex worker associates.

I could give an analysis of the speech...but since Nina has a way of rendering analysis moot by her own eloquence and passion, I figure that reposting the speech (and the ensuing Q & A) would be more than suitable enough.

The original speech was posted by sawbuckfilms via their YouTube channel yesterday; a sincere thanks to them for giving permesion to repost it here. I have also posted the speech over at my own SmackDog Chronicles blog, too.

Adult entertainment legend/progressive sex educator Nina Hartley giving the keynote address at last week's Sex Worker Conference sponsored by the Desiree Alliance in Las Vegas (via YouTube, h/t to sawbuckfilms)

Fl Gov. Official Fired due to marriage to a porn star...

I hate to say this , but yeah, filed under typical.

I'm not very surprised by this, but I am somewhat surprised considering next to CA, FL produces probably the most pornography in the US. I was just there, aside from rather conservative Orlando (home of DisneyWorld!), porn and such seems to be pretty much tolerated in FL and seen as, well, a business...as do various other forms of adult entertainment. What even makes this more disgusting and unfortunate is it seems like this fellow was good at his job....

HIV-in-Porn "Outbreak" Update: Revenge of the Whiners

Seems like some people are kinda upset that the latest HIV porn "outbreak" in LA didn't quite turn out as planned. All that posturing and blustering about a major outbreak that would send in the regulators...and only ONE performer ends up confirmed as infected. (Not even the other performer who performed with Patient Zero ended up contracting the virus.)

Oh, but it must suck real bad to be a member of the chorus who was so sure that they were going to exploit the outbreak for their own political agenda of imposing draconian measures through the state of California.

So much so, in fact, that now they are attempting to force themselves on the health authorities anyway.

The story from XBiz.com:

LOS ANGELES — The AIDS Healthcare Foundation has filed suit against Los Angeles County public health officials, claiming they have not made any moves to require condom use on the porn set.

At the heart of the suit, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation has asked Los Angeles Superior Court to order condom use or take other "reasonable steps" to put a crimp on the spread of disease.

County health officials, the foundation says, are obligated to carry out California's §120175, which essentially empowers officials to take action relative to the prevention or spread of communicable diseases.

Michael Weinstein, president of the Hollywood, Calif.-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation — one of the largest community-based HIV/AIDS medical providers in the nation — told XBIZ last month that health officials “have been asleep at the switch with regard to monitoring HIV and STD prevention and testing in the region's porn industry.”

Weinstein also said that Los Angeles health officials are “afraid of the industry."

“The industry wraps itself in the 1st Amendment,” he said. “It has much too much power in the halls of Sacramento and the county defends them, or they just don't want to take responsibility.”

The suit is more than one month after revelations made clear that an adult film actress tested positive for HIV and county health officials released data that 18 HIV cases and more than 3,700 cases of chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis have been reported since 2004.

Those numbers were revealed by the AIM Healthcare Foundation, which monitors sexually transmitted diseases for the industry.

Ahhhh....actually, that last sentence isn't quite right, XBiz; those numbers were revealed by the Los Angeles Times in their attempt to smear the adult industry; AIM later rebutted them by informing that those numbers included mostly gay men who were infected with HIV outside of the hetero porn industry; plus private users not affiliated with porn whom had used AIM's testing services for their own purposes. Factoring in those caveats, the actual number of porn performers infected with HIV after the Darren James/Lara Roxx outbreak in 2004 is....exactly ONE. As in, Patient Zero from earlier this month.

While that was going on, I'm sure that plenty of "civilian" folks in LA were getting infected with STI's....a lot more than the one person who more than likely missed her regular testing period and got infected from outside. But, hey, can't let the truth get in the way of a good crusade, can't you, Mr. Weinstein??

Maybe your folks and the Durex condom company can get their paid employees to picket Larry Flynt's place again, ehhh???

Either way, it's going to be very interesting when and if they decide to enforce that code and attempt to enforce that law...I'm sure that the countersuits are already being planned.

I guess that Cali being broke isn't going to stop these fools, isn't it??

UPDATE: The AHF has just released a press release to the public announcing their lawsuit against the LA County health officials; I can't find the original link, but a copy is available through the Luke Is Back blog here. A press conference is scheduled for tommorow; I'm sure that Weinstein will be on his rant bigtime.


UPDATE #2: Amid all of the promotion of mandatory condom usage in porn, here is an article that attempts to bring some evenhandedness and context to the controversy. Monica Shores just posted over at the excellent blog Carnal Nation an essay that debunks the arguments for mandating condom use, and shows the hypocrisy of those who speak with one voice and behave the opposite.

[....] Everyone’s blogging about the best ways to combat the spread, speculating on what mistakes spurred such high numbers, discussing how to care for those already infected. The Internet’s on fire with HIV debate, alright, but only to the extent that it involves porn—because every aspect of the sex industry presents an exciting new way to be self-righteous and point fingers. That’s perhaps the most important point to keep in mind when examining the recent fracas; critics often seem to care less about HIV as it affects the general public and more about how it will allow them to criticize and police pornographers.

[....]

The line that consumers won’t buy porn made with condoms is by far the most common reason given by adult industry spokespeople when pressed to explain their lack of latex. Lux Alptraum wrote a strong indictment of consumers who criticize the choices of porn companies while supporting those same choices with their purchases, and she’s right that there’s a strong disconnect occurring between what Americans profess to care about and what values our behavior indicates. How can the call for mandatory condom use on adult film sets be so vociferous when we still allow our politicians to allocate massive amounts of tax dollars for abstinence-only education, an approach which often spreads lies about condom effectiveness? Why are we so eager to police the behavior of this select group of adults when we’re not even willing to provide our teenagers with the necessary information to choose condoms in their personal lives?

Sex workers are often the target of social anxiety about morality and disease, and this recent situation seems to be no different. While some individuals calling for increased condom use in porn films (Audacia Ray, for instance) are speaking out of genuine concern, much of this recent discussion reeks of hysteria and scapegoating. The LA Times was the first to report the claim that there had been 16 undisclosed cases within the adult industry, misinformation they retracted five days later with the explanation that those positive cases were of individuals who may not have been working in porn at the time. In this same article, Dr. Jonathan Fielding, Los Angeles county’s health officer, was quoted as saying “The system we have and the laws we have do not facilitate the kind of contact tracing and verification that we'd like to see.” This statement is ominous verging on terrifying for those who fear public exposure as an individual with HIV, or punitive action should they have worked while positive.

[....]

The adult industry, in addition to defending their current procedures, has pointed out that this push for more policing of the industry feels born out of the disregard with which the industry is held rather than an understanding of performers’ needs and OSHA’s capabilities. Thomas Roche painstakingly attempted to untangle all the he-said, she-said aspects of this drama, and after considerable legwork, arrived at the conclusion that this recent positive test result is not necessarily an indication of failure with the current AIM procedures.

Underneath the blaming and moralizing, there’s the crucial question of what workers themselves want, and why. Nina Hartley and Belladonna have both come out in support of testing and emphasized their desire to keep their sex scenes condom-free. They say that the friction from condoms during long filming periods decreases their desire, thereby affecting their performance, and more importantly, chafes and tears sensitive vaginal tissue.

The full article, which can be found here, is more than worth a read.

The Kink.com Wars, Round II

This just in from my home city – the California Employment Training Panel nixes Kink.com technical staff's right to participate in free Bay Area Video Coalition technical training, something available to multimedia employees working for a wide range of for-profit and non-profit employers. The stimulus for this was a request for information by SF Weekly columnist Matt Smith, the process of which tipped off the state that Cybernet was a porn company, and apparently Cal ETP has rules against funding adult-sector employees.

However the real scandal came when Smith, far from contrite about having just deprived a number of multimedia workers of further job training, wrote a rather nasty hit piece in his SF Weekly column. Using none other than Melissa Farley as his only source for the article, he is quite pleased to have stopped "torture porn" company Kink.com from receiving supposed taxpayer funding. He then goes on to revive Melissa Farley's rather sickening comparison between Kink.com and Abu Ghraib and the accusation that they pay poor desperate models to be abused. Topped off by the usual platitude found in so much anti-porn writing these days that Kink.com "passes itself off as hip".

Violet Blue has the full story here:

On Wednesday, SF Weekly's Matt Smith took his torture porn fantasies beyond the realm of safe, sane and consensual to gloat over how his actions caused Kink.com to get screwed out of legitimately earmarked BAVC job training funds, threatening a community training program that Smith, himself, has benefited from to the tune of 184 hours.

Here's the situation: Smith recently submitted an inquiry about Kink.com to the California Entertainment Training Program (ETP). He received a response from the ETP's general counsel, which said, in part:

"Since learning about Kink.com through your Public Records Act request, ETP has informed BAVC that it will no longer reimburse the cost of training the employees of Cybernet."

and then removed Kink from the list of subsidized applicants, kicking Kink out of the nonprofit Bay Area Video Coalition (BAVC).

As tempting as it is to immediately scapegoat Smith for this, you can't -- after all, all he did is submit a public records request. It's not as though he attempted to incite a harmful scandal simply for the purpose of writing about it.

It's Smith's actions following his request that are deserving of scrutiny. The resulting article, "Whipped and Gagged," is infused with (unrepentant) and sensational anti-porn bias, with accusations that Kink is soaking up taxpayer dollars to create "torture based pornography" and "depicting sexualized torture". Despite the one-sided commentary and airtime Smith devoted to local anti-porn feminist Melissa Farley's two-year-old comments repulsively comparing Kink's product to Abu Ghraib, he certainly knew his way around Kink's websites and content enough to frill up the Fox News-style hit piece.

According to BAVC's Director of Training and resources, Mindy Aronoff, Smith more than nonconsensually screwed the pooch with his biased reporting. Aronoff stated, "Mr. Smith's lazy attempt to jump on the "bad government spending" bandwagon is dangerous in its disregard for this bigger picture and the economic realities of our state. His questions of government spending and censorship are an unfortunate case of reactionary sensationalism that could threaten the ETP program at BAVC."

[Read more]

Another rather yellow aspect to Smith's journalism is the issue of "taxpayer funding". His spin is that taxpayer dollars are being used to fund the production of porn. First, the taxpayer dollars he mentions are a specific payroll tax that all employers in the State of California pay into, Kink.com included. This payroll tax goes to specifically fund employee training programs through various local projects, among them the Bay Area Video Coalition, who in turn provide training for employees to upgrade their skills. Until recently, multimedia employees of Cybernet (the umbrella company behind Kink, that also includes some non-porn production work) received this subsidized training the same as any other SF multimedia worker.

Some Background

For many years, San Francisco (by which I mean the city proper and not the whole Bay Area) has been a town with only one major daily newspaper (the San Francisco Chronicle), but with two competing "alt weeklies", The Bay Guardian and SF Weekly. Bay Guardian is a local independent paper, has its roots in the 1960s, and is definitely leftist in its editorial leanings. Its articles are often politically slanted, but also, they wear their politics on their sleeve and you at least know where they're coming from. SF Weekly is part of the Village Voice/New Times Media chain, has a more liberal-to-centrist slant, at least superficially has less "spin" in its articles, but like many centrist news sources, often has real problems with hidden bias. Matt Smith has been the paper's main columnist on local politics and he quite openly has an axe to grind against the progressive faction in SF politics. The two papers have been at war with each other for over ten years, with the Guardian having recently successfully won a lawsuit against SF Weekly over undercutting practices used in getting advertisers.

As far as sexual politics go, over the last few years, the Guardian has leaned sex-poz (like the majority of the SF progressive community) and even sponsors the Sex SF blog. SF Weekly originally was also characterized by the relaxed attitude toward sexual politics characteristic of this area, but several years ago, took a decidedly different slant. In 2006 it ran an article bashing Cake parties (and borrowing heavily on Ariel Levy's Female Chauvinist Pigs), followed soon after by another article by the same author bashing Maxine Doogan's fight against the SF "john's school" program. In 2008, the paper was a major source of opposition to to prostitution decriminalization initiative Proposition K. The have been quite outspoken through all of this in their opposition to sex worker rights activism, and frequently quote Melissa Farley as their go-to source for the bottom line about the sex industry. Smith's latest column simply continues in this unfortunate tradition.

For all its sex industry- and sex-poz-bashing, it is notable that SF Weekly, like Bay Guardian, runs back page ads for strip clubs and massage parlors, as well as escort classifieds.

A Heartening Response

The silver lining to this situation is that the response to the article over the last few days has been overwhelming negative, with more than a few people taking specific aim at the use of Melissa Farley as the article's source. The comments thread for article is up to over 60 comments, almost entirely anti-Smith. A number of (mostly) local bloggers have also weighed in taking Smith to task. In addition to Violet Blue's takedown of the article in SF Appeal, SFist, Sex SF, The Sword, Carnal Nation, and even the Reason magazine blog have since taken a smack at this piece. (Addendum: whippedandgagged.blogspot.com just launched to track other articles and posts responding to the article and controversy.)

My (main) response from the comments thread:

Unfortunately, it seems that Matt Smith and SF Weekly has allowed itself to become a mouthpiece for the cranky and crank-ish neoconservative feminism of Melissa Farley. First with its jingoistic anti-Prop K stance last year and now with the rhetoric displayed in the article.

To my mind, the relevant question about CETP is whether its being used as a form of corporate welfare or whether its truly a jobs-creation program. If its the former, then I don't think either Kink.com or, say, KRON should be getting that subsidy.

However, if it is genuinely a job-training program in multimedia, then it should make no difference whether the employee is going off to a well-paying job for a design firm or a porn company. (And lets get away from the red herring that this has anything to do with forcing the poor into porn modeling – we are talking about production-end jobs here.) You have moral problems with pornography? Well, too bad, a lot of people have moral problems with advertising (pick up a copy of Adbusters sometime) and I don't see a call for ending government funding for training to enter that industry. And your "first amendment expert" aside (who was using what was already a bad piece of legislation – the NEA attack on Karen Finley – as a defense of this), I really don't think its the government's business to channel trainees into one form of media over another, especially in a way that constitutes blatant viewpoint discrimination.

The absolute low point of this article is the inflammatory language calling Kink.com "torture porn" and repeating Melissa Farley's disgusting comparison between Kink.com and Abu Ghraib (rhetoric that really dishonors the victims of Abu Ghraib). Farley-esque rhetoric about "giving people money if they'll agree to being on camera while being stripped, bound, impaled, beaten, and shocked" is pure nonsense. Kink.com films people practicing BDSM and many of the models for that company are local "players" from that same scene. Last I checked, BDSM was already something some people consensually seek out, in fact, its not unknown for someone to pay some of the advertisers in the back pages your newspaper to do *to them* some of the very things that are depicted on Kink.com. Ironic, that.

An unfortunate response was made by one particular article commentator (who also seems to be connected with an anonymous flyer circulated around the Castro) demanding the article be dropped and Smith be pressured to retract the article. This call, of course, is hugely self-contradictory from a free speech standpoint and seems to have no support beyond the original commentator who circulated it. (And fact a few people on this side of the fence, myself among them, specifically have denounced it.) Nonetheless, Matt Smith has latched onto this comment and spun it into a "pornographers are trying to censor me" post on his blog. This, apparently is his only response to the whole controversy.

4/25: This just in – Mz Berlin, an SF fetish model who has done a lot of work for Kink.com has challenged Matt Smith to an open dialogue/debate and he apparently has accepted. What form this will take – blog, print media, or live public debate is still not clear.

ALERT: Obama's "Pro-Porn" DOJ Nominee

(Hattip to the Good Vibrations blog, The Perverted Negress, and Reason magazine's Hit and Run blog.)

The last time we blogged about Obama's DOJ appointments and free speech implications, it was concerning the new president's disappointing choice of Eric Holder for Attorney General. However, there seems to be somewhat better news afoot in Obama's choice of Deputy Attorney General, David W. Ogden.

If this name doesn't ring a bell, its probably because, like many in this part of the blogosphere, you don't follow right-wing media sources, who are all in a tizzy right now over his nomination. He has largely not garnered much mention in the mainstream media, either. Among the more notable source gunning for him are "morality" wingnuts like Fidelis.org, Judith Reismann, Focus on the Family, and the American Family Association. The source of their ire is Ogden's "pro-porn", "pro-abortion, and "pro-homosexual" stances. And it appears, there's some basis for the "pro-porn" (or, at least, pro-free speech) label, as Ogden has, while in private practice, represented porn companies like Playboy and Penthouse, and earlier, while a clerk for liberal SC Justice Harry Blackmun, authored several memos denouncing "moral majority types" and their attacks on free speech. He is also on record as having opposed expanded 2257 legislation, for which some of the usual suspects are branding him "pro-child pornography". Patrick Trueman, a religious right activist and the Bush Administration's cherry-picked anti-obscenity prosecutor, calls Ogden "everything the pro-family movement has fought against".

If a lot of this sounds too good to be true from our side of the political fence, it very well may be. During his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary, he backpeddled quite a bit on his prior positions, stating that the legal opinions he wrote while defending porn companies were those of a hired gun and not indicative of what his stances might be while working for the government. And his earlier denouncement of "moral majority types" he apologized for as youthful "immaturity", though whether he was backpeddling on his opinions or simply his rhetoric is not clear from the news sources I've seen.

Still, given the current political client, I think Ogden is the best we're going to get and hopefully somebody with the political will to maintain strong free speech protections in a political atmosphere where such rights are under attack from both the far right and some sections of liberalism and the left.

Like many sources in the free speech blogosphere, I feel like I've really dropped the ball with this story. The usual suspects on the moralist Right have been stepping up their political machine against this guy for months, and this is the first time I've ever heard of him. (Note to self – follow Religious Right sources more closely, even if radfem chest-beating seems more immediate and in-your-face.) He had a confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week, and I'm unclear as to whether he still needs to be confirmed before the full Senate or what are the other steps to confirmation. But I think the Good Vibes blog had the right idea in that its really a good time to contact your Senators with letters of support for this nominee, and point out that you support free speech and sexual autonomy and you vote. The other side is definitely active on this – don't let them create the impression that they speak for the entire public.

Stormy Daniels May Run For US Senate From Louisiana: Our Cicciolina, Finally???

The news has been buzzing today about the speculation that porn starlet Stormy Daniels may decide to take a run at the Louisiana US Senate seat currently held by Diaper David Vitter (the one who got busted being on the client list of DC Madam Deborah Palfrey).

Being a Louisiana native and resident as well as being a sexual and social progressive, I'm routing for her to succeed, or at least dust Vitter enough so that he gets booted in the general election.

But...the notion that an actual porn starlet could even have the slightest chance of occupying one of the highest political seats in the land does have its merits and opportunities.

The closest we have come has been Mary Carey's abortive run for the governorship of California, which was more of a publicity stunt than anything else and really didn't have much of a chance.

Daniels' run, however, has strong backing from the grassroots, and in recent interviews given, Stormy has hinted that she is deadly serious about going after Vitter, especially for his sexual hypocrisy.

This could get...well, interesting, to say the least.

Note: I've posted a much more in depth introspective on Stormy Daniels over at the SmackChron.