Feminist Carnival of Sexual Freedom and Autonomy #1

The first Feminist Carnival of Sexual Freedom and Autonomy went up today. It includes contributions from BPPA contributors Ernest Green, Ren, Anthony K, Amber, Trinity, and myself (both here and, mostly, on our own blogs), plus many others in the blogosphere 'sex-poz posse', both well-known and less so, and including some interesting new voices in the sex-poz/sexual autonomy/whatever scene. This carnival will be an ongoing monthly thing, so if you're interested in submitting a post, keep your eye on the FCSFA website, where calls for submissions should be posted.

From Silicone Valley to...."(Not-So) Limp-Dick"???

Don't look now, but it seems like South Florida may be becoming a second mecca for porn production, perhaps even becoming a serious alternative to LA as far as marketing and production of sex work goes.

This article that I discovered at the TampaBay.com website explains the whole deal of how the sex media and sex work is steadily blowing up in the Sun Coast and South Beach....and the possibility of, favorable court decisions pending, there could be a serious alternative developing to Silicone Valley (aka, the San Fernando Valley in Cali) as a production center.

Tampa Bay.com: Tampa's newest porn star? It could be you

An excerpt:

Snicker if you must, but Tampa's adult film industry — and Florida's as a whole — is no joke.

An October cover story in the Adult Video News examined Florida's burgeoning role in the adult film biz, crediting a wealth of talent, a permissive attitude toward nudity (especially in South Florida) and a "healthy and vibrant strip-club scene" for creating a de facto "East Coast branch of the San Ferndando Valley's near-monolithic Porn, Inc."

But when it comes to porn, you're not likely to hear local chambers of commerce crowing about industry growth. Hundreds of Florida adult Web sites prefer not to advertise their location, lest they draw the ire of community leaders.

It happened with Voyeur Dorm, a site featuring college-age babes lounging around a West Tampa house. Claiming the site violated local zoning standards, city officials wanted it shut down. Voyeur Dorm argued that the "business" at hand was actually taking place in cyberspace, and therefore not subject to local ordinances, and it won. The city appealed the decision all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, but Voyeur Dorm still came out on top.

Still, conflicts like these are why the adult industry carries on mostly outside the eye of the public. And for amateur pornographers, that can pose a ton of legal problems.

Take the case of Clinton McCowen, a.k.a. Ray Guhn, who ran a few successful adult Web sites from outside Pensacola. In 2006, McCowen was arrested on charges including racketeering, obscenity and prostitution.

Prostitution?

Yep. Authorities say McCowen and partner Kevin Patrick Stevens paid women to have sex on camera, which, when you get right down to it, does sound a lot like prostitution.

But it's not prostitution, say porn advocates. It's art.

Seriously.

"If it has artistic value, then it's not obscene," said St. Petersburg attorney Brandon Kolb, who's running the show at Porn Camp. "You're not hiring people to perform a sexual activity. You're hiring people to perform their interpretation of a theatrical role."

Don't laugh. In 1989, the California supreme court ruled that participants in an adult film were doing it solely for the money, not their own sexual gratification, and therefore couldn't face prostitution or pandering charges.

The case, California vs. Freeman, helped solidify the state's status as a porn mecca. In the years since, officials elsewhere have been loath to pursue similar charges against porn producers, lest their states become similar hotbeds of X-rated action. That's partially what's at stake in the Ray Guhn case, which will go to trial in late June.

"If we get a decision like they got in Freeman," said Larry Walters, McCowen's Orlando attorney, "that would clearly open up the floodgates and allow the creation of adult material without fear of prosecution under prostitution laws."

If that happens, watch out — Florida's under-the-radar porn industry might suddenly take center stage.

Hmmm....didn't our fearless blog founder just get back from a roadie in Florida today??? Just a coincidence, no doubt.... ;-)

Wow! Some Good Sense on Prostitution in the MSM!

I'm always a bit reluctant to discuss forms of sex work other than porn on this blog for fear of creating the false nexus of "pornstitution" so dear to the hearts of APFs. But I think readers here will appreciate the straightforward rationality of this commentary that ran, of all places, on the op-ed page of today's LA times. I'm sure the incoming fire directed at the author for writing it and the editors for printing it will be withering, but truth stands up well under fire, and this author clearly speaketh the sooth:

www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-kelly13mar13,0,7422832.story

I don't know how this one sneaked under the wire, but I'm grateful it did.

And around the blogs today....

The big sex work news of the day was, of course, anti-vice New York Governor Elliot Spitzer being caught with his hand in the very same honey-pot he crusaded so publicly to keep a lid on. Of course, Bound, Not Gagged is all over it, and providing some excellent coverage and commentary. Also with spot-on commentary is this post from our own founding henchwoman Renegade Evolution, and this from Susie Bright.

Since this scandal hit the news, the media has been all over contacting high-profile sex workers for their perspective on the sex industry, especially the high-end call-girl/powerful client end of it. There was a very good interview with Audacia Ray on the New York City public radio Brian Lehrer Show. (I also have quite a bit to say in the commentary thread following the audio of the post – shameless self-plug.) However, much of the desired level of conversation by members of the mainstream media hasn't exactly been so high-minded, and in at least a few cases, the interviewers have essentially played the role of cheap johns, wanting simply some salacious statements to sell copy, and barring in advance any discussion of the bigger issues. (Readers of this and other porn and sex work blogs may recognize a pattern at work here when it comes to the relationship between sex workers and the larger media and entertainment industry.) In a rather exemplary display of principle over publicity, Audacia Ray writes that she turned down an interview with MSNBC for this very reason. Audacia, you rock!

On another topic, "Thomas", a guest blogger on Feministe has just posted on the death of Shannon Wilsey, aka Savannah. (No, its not an anniversary of any kind, just a subject he felt like talking about.) On one hand, he's pretty right on the money with his pointing out that a lot of the male celebs who she played around with couldn't be bothered with her when she was in need during her life, nor even bother to show up for her funeral after her death. (Exception: Pauly Shore, of all people – otherwise, a variation on the same pattern of behavior toward sex workers as I was talking about earlier.) The flip side of the piece is a certain moralistic tone the piece takes "These were young women with few prospects. The patriarchy dangled a wad of bills in front of them if they would put on sexual performances for men. Then it treated them like shit when they took it. Sex objects, objects of curiosity, objects of scorn. To which I would add, "objects of pity and condescension for feminists".

First, she was not completely alone toward the end of her life – she was actually pretty close to a number of other porn performers and people in the industry. (Albeit, quite a few others despised her as a prima donna.) The Feministe piece ignores this in favor of the "exploited by the porn industry she hated" angle. Second, for all of the very real demons Shannon Wilsey clearly had, the whole passive victim of The Patriarchy script we see at work here really doesn't do her story any justice. For better or worse, Shannon Wilsey played a very active role in remaking herself into Savannah, first as a celebrity groupie, then as a top porn star. Shannon/Savannah was someone with great sexual charisma, an exceptional "hottie", and like anybody with an exceptional ability or gift, had a lot of her self-image wrapped up in that. In the end, probably too much, but nonetheless, she was who she was, and those who dismiss her as a mere victim of male objectification or empty hedonism and little more do nothing to honor her memory.

Labor Organizing in the Sex Industry - Hopes and Realities

Lisa has been raising some excellent points here recently concerning the need for formal organization among porn workers and sex workers in general, who she rightly sees as having more in common with one another than they do with anyone else, despite some individual differences.

I commend her for her passion and courage in pursuing this goal and think it has important possibilities that need to be explored and considered by all of us. I also think there are some significant differences between making porn and other kinds of sex work that pose particular challenges to the organizing process. 

There have been several previous attempts to unionize performers and all have failed so far, beginning with the ugly rebuff Nina and others got from SAG when they first tried to join that existing union twenty years ago. 

If that effort had been successful, how different things might have been for all of us. Alas, we'll never know. What we do know is that subsequent attempts at union organizing from within, most recently Mr. Marcus's efforts to assemble a performers' association just a couple of years back, have unraveled in the early phases.

Back in the day, when a handful of producers controlled the small number of active production companies, and thus the employment prospects of every player, it was downright risky to even whisper about the possibility of unionization of the talent pool. Even as cautious an approach as The Pink Lady's Social Club which  Nina, Porsche Lynn, Hyapatia Lee and a few other top names tried to form as a regular discussion group, met with direct threats from major company owners of collective black-balling. This kind of heavy-handed union-busting wouldn't have been tolerated in any other industry, but given porn's just-legalized status at the time, and the particularly shaky ground it occupied in L.A. county prior to the Freeman decision, there wasn't much of anyplace to turn for support from the outside. And that's all the sadder for the fact that the much smaller industry of that time, with far fewer workers concentrated in a much tighter geographical area, would have been far easier to assemble in one hall than the sprawling, disparate community we have now.

In a rabidly competitive atmosphere of hundreds of video companies and thousands of Web sites spread out all over every place and legions of short-time players coming and going in a matter of weeks, months or a couple of years at most, the bad bosses of old have pretty much gone extinct (good riddance IMV) and no producer has the power to prevent other producers from hiring anybody they want. A popular player who is good in front of the camera can always find work, regardless of who does or does not like him or her. 

That's all good as far as I can see. Having been a part of this industry's first, abortive try at creating some kind of collective response to the threat of HIV, I was on the receiving end of some incredibly ugly and vicious tactics at the hands of various underlings whose employers saw what we were doing as a nose under the tent for unionization. I even got a phone call from a "friend" who had been talking to some other "friends" of his who worked for "a certain kind of company" and just wanted to pass along a "friendly" warning that such talk could be bad for my health. I suggested he pass back to his other "friends" an equally "friendly" warning from me that I was pretty good with a .45 and not too shy about using it if some mooks with baseball bats decided to meet me in a studio parking lot after a late-night shoot sometime, as my "friend" implied might happen. When old-timers wax nostalgic about those times, that's what I remember, so good-bye to all that and happily so.

However, now we face a different set of difficulties. The very thing that has reduced the power of major producers has also diffused the potential power of organized labor in porn. A large, transient workforce with no long-term stake in the well-being of a business in which they know they won't be present long presents a daunting organizing challenge. Unlike strippers, who tend to work for long periods at particular clubs, or escorts who may move from agency to agency but remain in the seem locale, porn performers come into this business very young and don't stay here for more than a couple of years in most cases. They don't see themselves as having a common concern with the the welfare of others like themselves, who they tend to view as competitors for the same gigs rather than brothers and sisters in the same situation. 

The root problem is that most performers see themselves as small business operators rather than workers. This isn't just a fiction cooked up by company lawyers to avoid the burdensome regulations that apply to regular employment. Performers really are independent contractors. They may work for more than one company in a single day,  five in a week, twenty in a month, a hundred in a year. If they run into something they don' t like on a particular set, they just walk off the job and tell their agents not to book them for that specific company again. To the extent that people in this age and educational demographic have any politics at all, they tend to be libertarian in the extreme. They just want to be left alone to make their money and have their fun and, when they figure out how, move on to some other line of work before the phone stops ringing. This is hardly comfortable terrain for aspiring labor organizers. The question such organizers face, as they would from any group of workers, is "what can you really do for us that we can't do for ourselves?" In many industries, the answers are fairly obvious, because there are common conditions that those who possess particular skill sets work under in an atmosphere of limited employment opportunities. Solidarity is more easily built where there is a sense of common disadvantages around which to organize.

In porn, every company has different policies. Every shoot has different pluses and minuses. Every day presents a new set of ups and downs. And by the time you've been around long enough to see any connection among these things, you're probably almost done here. 

Moreover, the economics of legal porn are hugely different from those of other forms of sex work. For one thing, as I've discussed earlier, porn performers face no significant threat of prosecution persuant to making their livings. They work, get paid and go home without worrying about the cops. And the money itself is pretty good and pretty steady for as long as it holds out, which in a young sex worker's mind equals prosperity and independence. The notion of sticking around to set down roots, buy houses, raise families and someday retire on a pension is as fanciful to porn performers as it has traditionally been to hard-rock miners, another group that has never been successfully unionized. Unlike shift-working coal miners who inherit a dangerous family trade from which they see no ultimate escape, metals miners, from way back to the gold rush era, have tended to see themselves as prospectors who would one day strike it rich and never swing a pick again. 

Porn players almost all have long-range ambitions outside of what they're doing now. Many aspire to become directors and/or producers themselves, as quite a few have, ranging from John Stagliano to Jenna Jameson. On many key issues, such as regulation of working conditions, performers may well identify with their employers' values as much as with those of other workers. 

Then there's the flake factor. We're dealing with a very youthful workforce that often doesn't show up on sets where they have checks waiting, much less for the tedious, time-consuming tasks inherent in starting any kind of effective labor organization. That requires a long attention-span and a view over the horizon. It's harder and less satisfying, at least in the early phases, than simply partying away the ugly memories of a bad day on the job. After all, tomorrow's job may be a lot more fun, whether or not the performer does anything to make it better or worse individually or collectively.

Okay, so that's the strategic map upon which an unionization battles would be fought. It's not encouraging to contemplate, but neither is it insurmountable. The SEIU faced some very similar problems, greatly aggravated by the fact that much of its potential membership was in this country illegally and didn't speak English. They too were transient, unmoored from specific trades and invisible on the radar of mainstream media and politics, except as punching-bags for demagogues of the sort who bedevil porn workers. And yet the SEIU is now one of the most visible and influential unions in the country. Woe betide the politician or employer of whatever rank who crosses it.

Entertainment industry unions of other sorts have overcome similar hurdles. Writers, actors and directors in film and television are also competitive with one another, work mostly independently, seldom have regular employment from ongoing sources and experience great class disparity in their own ranks. At any given time, for example, the WGA has about 90% of its membership out of work, while the other ten percent is often extremely well compensated and may also have one foot over the fence into management. Yet we just saw the WGA stare down the producers over new media residuals in time for Oscar night.  Directors, actors and crews have managed to unionize successfully, while musicians, for example, have not, mainly I suspect for the same reasons porn performers haven't. They don't understand the long-term need.

Perhaps the model in the film industry, which is more trade guild than classic trade union, would hold some promise in our branch of the ent biz. Frankly, if this were going to be my cause, which it can't be for many reasons at this late date, I'd start with the crews. They are fewer in number, their terms and conditions of employment more homogenous, their stays in the industry much longer and, given how few of them have the technical skills needed to maintain a steady flow of new production, potentially more powerful than performers. They may not see what they do as sex work, which it only tangentially is, but they do see it as labor and the conditions under which it's practiced - long days, unreliable and inconsistent compensation, dangerous and unhealthful working environments, no benefits of any kind, short or long term - only inspire griping at present, but could eventually rile them to the point of making something of it.

Consider this, from a producer's point of view (and yes, I am a producer, which is one reason why the traditional union model excludes any direct assistance from me), crews are far more intimidating than performers. If a performer fails to show or decides to quit, I can just call an agency and have a replacement on the set in an hour. If my camera operator quits, I'm fucked. There are maybe a dozen guys in the whole business who could shoot what I need shot, and ten of them are probably already working for one of my competitors that day. So much for that shoot.

One thing I do not see, sadly, is performers as a group making common cause with other sex workers, whether strippers, escorts, massage parlor workers or street walkers. There is a cultural problem inherent in this climate that makes that an unlikely outcome. As I've explained before, most porn performers don't want to be seen as sex workers but rather as entertainers (while I think a good case can be made that other kinds of sex workers are also entertainers, with smaller audiences to be sure, but nevertheless, and might do better by viewing themselves as such). They fear for their legal status if they cast their lot with those who work even closer to the edge of prohibition, and for those performers who also provide in their off hours, the risks involved are real. 

And even for those who don't, the psychological barriers to accepting that what they do is sex work, whatever its called, are hard to overcome. It's one thing to play a whore on TV, quite another to face one in the mirror each morning. That takes a degree of self-actualizing fortitude that may be very hard to come by in this environment. Identifying with the oppression and the struggle of less privileged sex workers is not a pleasant thing to contemplate for someone who prefers to see him or herself as a "star." 

This is a wedge that APFs effectively drive between us all the time. They love to go on and on about how a lucky few of us get all the rewards while vast numbers of "enslaved, brutalized, prostituted women" suffer all the miseries into which our visible good fortune has seduced them.  

Somehow, we need to take that wedge out of the hands of those who want to see sex work abolished and those who profit by keeping it divided and powerless. Between them, our common enemies make a formidable opposition to be conquered, and before we can take them on, we have to rise above our own misgivings from within. 

This is going to take some doing, but I believe it is doable in some form.

Invitation to a Rumble (The Remixed Version)

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Invitation to a Rumble

Nina Hartley Bringing The Fire To "THE" OSU (YouTube Video Clip)

This was from the porn debate at The Ohio State University last year....the one that Ernest said that she was promised airtime from ABC, who then stoned her for the Yale Sex Week debacle.

Perhaps this is why Gail Dines and the antiporn fascists want no debate with her...as sweet and professional she can be, she does have the occasional short fuse that can blow up in your grill at the wrong time if you set it off.






Nina Hartley at THE Ohio State University (via YouTube) -- hat tip to Ren, Lisa Roenig, and Amber Rhea

(Oh...and slightly OT memo to Buckeye fan: What is up with "THE" OSU?? Like, you need to distinguish yourself from Ohio University??? LOL

Upcoming online forum on sex work, trafficking, and human rights

For Immediate Release

Contact:
Elizabeth Wood
Phone: provided upon request
Email: elizabeth (at) sexinthepublicsquare (dot) org
Co-founder, SexInThePublicSquare.org
Assistant Professor of Sociology, Nassau Community College

Sex In The Public Square Presents:
Sex Work, Trafficking, and Human Rights: A Public Forum

New York, February 20, 2008 — Ten prominent sex worker advocates, writers, researchers will be publicly discussing the issues of sex work and trafficking from a human rights and harm reduction perspective, February 25 - March 3, on SexInThePublicSquare.org. The week-long online conversation will conclude with a summary statement on March 3, International Sex Worker Rights Day.

Sex work and trafficking are two issues that must be discussed as distinct yet intersecting, and we've invited some of the smartest sex worker advocates we know to help sort out the complexities. "This forum is not about debating whether or not we should be using a harm reduction and human rights approach instead of the more mainstream abolitionist and prohibitionist approach to sex work," explains Elizabeth Wood, co-founder of Sex In The Public Square and Assistant Professor of Sociology at Nassau Community College. "Instead our goal is to create a space for nuanced exploration of the human rights and harm reduction approach so that we can use it more persuasively."

Wood explains: "The human rights and harm reduction approach seeks to reduce the dangers that sex workers face and to stop human rights abuses involved in the movement of labor across borders, a movement which occurs in the service of so many industries. We want people to be able to learn about this perspective, and to develop and refine it, without having to dilute that conversation by debating the legitimacy of sex work."

Questions and themes include:

Defining our terms: Is the way that we define "porn" clear? "Prostitution"? "Sex work" in general? What happens when we say "porn" and mean all sexually explicit imagery made for the purpose of generating arousal and others hear "porn" as indicating just the "bad stuff" while reserving "erotica" for everything they find acceptable? When we say sex work is it clear what kinds of jobs we're including?

Understanding our differences: How do inequalities of race, class and gender affect the sex worker rights movement? Are we effective in organizing across those differences?

Identifying common ground: What are the areas of agreement between the abolitionist/prohibitionist perspective and the human rights/harm reduction perspective? For example, we all agree that forced labor is wrong. We all agree that nonconsensual sex is wrong. Is it a helpful strategic move to by highlighting our areas of agreement and then demonstrating why a harm reduction/human rights perspective is better suited to addressing those shared concerns, or are we better served by distancing ourselves from the abolition/prohibition-oriented thinkers?

Evaluating research: What do we think of the actual research generated by prominent abolitionist/prohibitionist scholars like Melissa Farley, Gail Dines, and Robert Jensen? Can we comment on the methods they use to generate the data on which they base their analysis, and then can we comment on the logic of their conclusions based on the data they have?

Framing the issues: What are our biggest frustrations with the way that the human rights/harm reduction perspective is characterized by the abolitionist/prohibitionist folks? How can we effectively respond to or reframe this misrepresentations? What happens when "I oppose human trafficking" becomes a political shield that deflects focus away from issues of migration, labor and human rights?

Exploring broader economic questions: How does the demand for cheap labor undermine human rights-based solutions to exploitation in all industries, including the sex industry?

Confirmed participants include:

• Melissa Gira is a co-founder of the sex worker blog Bound, Not Gagged, the editor of Sexerati.com, and reports on sex for Gawker Media's Valleywag.
• Chris Hall is co-founder of Sex In The Public Square and also writes the blog Literate Perversions.
• Kerwin Kay has written about the history and present of male street prostitution, and about the politics of sex trafficking. He has been active in the sex workers rights movement for some 10 years. He also edited the anthology Male Lust: Pleasure, Power and Transformation (Haworth Press, 2000) and is finishing a Ph.D. in American Studies at NYU.
• Anthony Kennerson blogs on race, class, gender, politics and culture at SmackDog Chronicles, and is a regular contributor to the Blog for Pro-Porn Activism.
• Antonia Levy co-chaired the international "Sex Work Matters: Beyond Divides" conference in 2006 and the 2nd Annual Feminist Pedagogy Conference in 2007. She teaches at Brooklyn College, Queens College, and is finishing her Ph.D. at the Graduate Center at CUNY.
• Audacia Ray is the author of Naked on the Internet: Hookups, Downloads and Cashing In On Internet Sexploration (Seal Press, 2007), and the writer/producer/director of The Bi Apple. She blogs at WakingVixen.com hosts and edits Live Girl Review and was longtime executive editor of $pread Magazine
• Amber Rhea is a sex worker advocate, blogger, and organizer of the Sex 2.0 conference on feminism, sexuality and social media, and co-founder of the Georgia Podcast Network. Her blog is Being Amber Rhea.
• Ren is a sex worker advocate, a stripper, Internet porn performer, swinger, gonzo fan, BDSM tourist, blogger, history buff, feminist expatriate who blogs at Renegade Evolution. She is a founder of the Blog for Pro-Porn Activism and a contributor to Bound, Not Gagged and Sex Workers Outreach Project - East.
• Stacey Swimme has worked in the sex industry for 10 years. She is a vocal sex worker advocate and is a founding member of Desiree Alliance and Sex Workers Outreach Project USA.
• Elizabeth Wood is co-founder of Sex In The Public Square, and Assistant Professor of Sociology at Nassau Community College. She has written about gender, power and interaction in strip clubs, about labor organization at the Lusty Lady Theater, and she blogs regularly about sex and society.

To read or participate in the forum log on to http://sexinthepublicsquare.org

For more information contact Elizabeth Wood at elizabeth (at) sexinthepublicsquare (dot) org.

Who's Being Silenced Now?

And here I thought, just because today was a holiday, I might get through a Monday without some kind of bullshit pissing me off, but noooo. As it turns out, today's bullshit is more infuriating than most.

We've already devoted some discussion to the flap surrounding Yales U's annual Sex Week, with more conversation to ensue anon, but in there's a bit of back-story here that merits specific attention.

Back in September a line producer for ABC's Nightline contacted Nina and specifically invited her to participate in one of the Ron-Jeremy-vs-XXX-Church debates,  to be presented at Ohio State University with no less a media mighty than Martin Bashir himself moderating. The discussion was then to air on Nightline.

A ticket was provided (although the promised reimbursement check for lodging has mysteriously never appeared) and Nina flew off to participate in the OSU panel. According to her, it went pretty well. You can see a bit of it on YouTube (www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpTW3kQ1sJ4)  but you will note the conspicuous absence of Bashir. The line producer called at the last minute to inform Nina that "due to a breaking news story" Nighline wouldn't be covering this particular event after all. However, said producer promised, the show would arrange another debate in which Nina would be included and that would play on ABC sometime soon.

So, this morning, I found this on www.avn.com: avn.com/index.cfm?objectid=2DC65C51-oB83-7410-8625D724BB0EEAD.

Now maybe this is just a coincidence, or a matter of scheduling for the busy folks at Nightline, but I've been at this too long, both as a pornographer and as a journalist, to accept that explanation at face value. My own suspicion is that at the time Nightline ditched the OSU gig, the producers already knew of the "debate" planned for the much flashier Yale venue and decided that it would make better TV. After all, we're talking about the whole Sex Week circus at the Ivy's second most famous campus.  As a producer, I might have made that same call myself.

However, I would have made good on my promise to get Nina on that stage one way or another. Why? No knock intended on either Ronnie or Monique Alexander, who I'm sure was perfectly well-spoken and charming, but neither has the years or the chops Nina has when it comes to defending porn. Both are entertainers more than they are advocates or activists and with just the two of them up against the dudes from XXX church, the more serious and significant issues surrounding porn that Nina could have addressed in greater depth were unlikely to get a significant airing. Nonetheless, Bashir did show up to ringmaster that circus and I have no doubt it will run in the near future.

I guess the idea of having a "serious" representative of our community in the mix just didn't fit whatever framework the producers had already erected within which to spin their story. I don't have to strain my imagination much to picture how the final cut will play. I'm sure it will start out on  a light and farcical note, then turn 180 to present the "dark side of porn," with various familiar talking heads from the anti crowd given plenty of airtime to denounce the event itself, the manner in which it demonstrates the "pornification" of the culture, and the general "porn - threat or menace" POV that mainstream coverage of this type always takes in the end. That way, during sweeps week (doubtless when this reportorial gem will show up on our screens), the network can take full advantage of the most sensational aspects of the topic without opening themselves to significant criticism for "advocating" porn by making sure porn's most effective advocates are denied a level playing field on which to confront their opponents. 

This is all just business as usual in infotainment, and I'm undoubtedly especially pissed about it because it slights Nina, but the fact remains, contrary to Gail Dine's loud protestations that she's been "completely silenced ... completely!," those who are really silenced in the MSM are the individuals best equipped to make a fact-based case for porn's right to exist to rebut the lies and distortions routinely circulated as evidence of the porn's innumerable "harms" and "evils."

So far, Nina hasn't had a single significant network appearance since Oprah put her on way back in the Nineties. I can't say I've seen much of any of the other most influential opinion makers from our side - Tristan, Carol, Susie, Violet, Candida (it's not like there's a shortage of brainpower to call upon) on the box anywhere other than in late-night cable puff pieces intended to provide some justification for showing a lot of skin. If you have something serious to say in defense of porn, don't expect to be treated as newsworthy by the decision-makers at any of the major MSM outlets. It's just not going to happen. You might get on with Tyra Banks for 45 seconds, to be followed by the host's expressions of disdain for you and everything you stand for, but that's where your media access will hit the wall. Unlike Gail Dines, you won't get a stand-up on Fox to tell your side of the story, virtually unchallenged by talking-head-in-charge. 

As Bob Dylan says, "I've never gotten used it it, I've just learned to turn it off." But I don't have to like it and I don't. 

But wait, there's more. Even the carefully-chosen "good=guy porn" contingent from Vivid couldn't get through the Yale Sex Week presentation without being chopped off at the knees. Director Paul Thomas brought one of his films to show as part of the program (I can't even figure out which one from ace job of reporting to which I'll link momentarily), but an audience of students, there by choice, weren't even allowed to view the entire production because the content so skeved out the the event organizers they pulled the plug half-way through. Having seen the products Vivid releases, I can't imagine how mild the images must have been that caused such alarm to the supposedly open-minded folks who put this thing together, but I seriously doubt it would have caused much of a stir if those in charge hadn't been so nervous about all the APF "critics" spitting fire at them from the moment the whole thing was first announced.

But I forget, it's the APFs who have been silenced, not us.

So read this and see if you can a) make heads or tails of what it was that caused the aggro,  and b) whether or not college students should be allowed to make their own judgments regarding the content of the film that caused it:

www.adultfyi.com/read.php?ID+26627

I think I'l got take a long, hot shower now to see if I can wash away the feeling of having been slimed once again.