When The Expose Boomerangs On The Exposee: Cameron Rowe's Hackery Of The "Porn Industry" (Part Four — Cameron Flunks Obscenity Law 101)

Posted on December 28, 2010 by Anthony

……Aaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnddddddddd, we’re back with more of our series of debunking Cameron Rowe’s mountain of crap he calls a “porn expose”. Feel free to review the first three segments at your convenience.

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Having finally gotten his fangs out of Sharon Mitchell’s neck, Cameron moves on to take on the briar patch that is obscenity law and its impact on the porn industry. He begins with an attempted dissertation on the infamous case of one Paul Little…also known and hated in some quarters as Max Hardcore.

Max Hardcore was a crusty old geezer in a cowboy hat that violated federal obscenity laws a jury found. The St. Petersburg Times, on October 4, 2008, reported Paul F. Little, aka Max Hardcore, was sentenced to 3 years and 10 months in federal prison for violating Obscenity Laws. He also has 3 years probation after his prison stint. Jurors convicted him on 10 counts of selling obscene material on the Internet and 10 counts of mailing it to Tampa via the United States Mail. The Judge didn’t give him the hardcore sentencing he deserved but he had to forfeit 3 websites to the government, pay a $7,500 fine, and Max Hardcore Entertainment was ordered to pay a $75,000 fine. Little was worth as much as $1.4 million but is now broke. The Judge did not care. In fact, the Judge went easy since he faced 4 years and 9 months in jail and between $1.2 to $2.4 million in fines.

The porn he produced was described as “messy” and violent. Some of the women in his videos claimed they were underage, one said 12 years old actually, then subjected to some violent, near rape actions at his hands. The fifty year old Max loved the “school girl” image and even put “Euro” on the label. He claimed that meant to be only sold in Europe not America but the Judge said that label “Euro” meant it was more hardcore than usual and only the naïve would believe otherwise. Some of his videos were “pretend rape with underage girls”. All the women in his videos were 18 or older but the Judge and Jury threw the book at him. Even Hustler’s Larry Flynt refused to help Max Hardcore in court.

Now…I’m pretty sure that old Max Hardcore did manage to fit the definition of “crusty old geezer”; and his brand of porn wasn’t exactly pleasant to the ears and eyes. Nevertheless, the fact that he was tried and convicted for obscenity charges as part of a political initiative to go after porn in general, seems not to even bother Cameron at all. Even those who probably would have vomited at the sight of Hardcore’s scenes and his treatment of the women involved, nevertheless were able to sense the danger of this prosecution not only to what was still legal and consensual, if pretty brutal, acts.

As to Cameron’s charge that Hardcore used underage girls in his movies….well, none of the prosecutors in that case actually made that accusation, otherwise, they would have added stautory rape and child pornography charges (not to mention sex trafficking charges to their original arsenal. More than likely, he used legal (or barely legal) girls to play “underage” roles. Disgusting??? Unless you are into that, probably. But…still not illegal on its own.

Also…Cameron complains that Max didn’t get the “hardcore” sentence he “deserved”…even though for the counts of obscenity he was convicted for, the sentence he got was probably the maximum offered by law. And, the fine he got was greater than even the assets that was seized by the government, so that’s not quite letting him off the hook.

The 1973 U.S. Supreme Case Miller v. California was used to convict Little. It says obscenity occurs if the work lacks “literary, artistic, political or scientific value” in a “community”. See CNBC’s video. Patrick Trueman, the former US DOJ Chief of Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, said porn producers violate obscenity laws everyday if they were enforced by state and federal laws. Cities use zoning laws to keep porn out. Watch the video for more.

Ahhh….not quite, Cameron. The actual “Miller standard” states that a work can be declared obscene on three basic principles:

1) If it appeals solely to the “prurient interests”;
2) if it lacks “artistic or redeeming value”; and
3) if it goes against “community standards”.

The problem is, though, that the third principle is rather flexible, and can vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, and even from jury to jury. What might be “obscene” in Northern Alabama might not be in Northern California, and historically some state constitutions have offered more protections for sexually explicit material involving consenting adults than others. The only material that is universally found to be held as obscene is child pornography; otherwise, it is a crap shoot.

Now…right-wing Christian activists and “leftist” antipornography “radical feminists” for their own reasons have a more restrictive standard on porn — the former based on the larger “obscenity” standard that any depiction of sex outside of Biblically ordained reproduction within marriage amounts to promoting “sexual sin” and threatens Western civilization; while the latter base their opposition on the notion that porn is the main vehicle for men to “degrade” and “dehumanize” and thus rule over women via the “patriarchy”. Both sides would love to use the power of the State to push to “enforce” the obscenity laws nationwide and wipe porn off the face of the earth.

The primary arm of the Porn Police has been the US Department of Justice’s Obscenity Task Force, of which Pat Trueman was at one time a director. Trueman happens to favor the Religious Right’s POV that porn should be censored as obscenity in its own right, but he’s willing to exploit the radfem “harm to women” argument when it suits him. (Thusly, he invites folks like radfem “leftist” Gail Dines and “ex-slut” Ministeress Shelley Lubben to his press conferences to join forces to slay the savage porn beast.)

Therefore, it’s not all that surprising that Trueman would boast about the Max Hardcore conviction, and would also attempt to say that it applies to all forms of adult sexual media, even the not-so-violent (or even non-violent) forms of erotica. That Cameron takes Trueman’s words as fact rather than mere opinion or political spin says more about Cameron’s innate biases than it does about the truth.

BTW…for the record, this is the video Rowe was talking about. You will note, though, that the vid is actually taken from a segment of a CNBC news documentary on porn, that was republished on You Tube by Max Hardcore’s website before he was convicted. Fascinating that Cameron would attempt to spin it in the exact polar opposite direction.

New York City Mayor Rudy Guiliani used zoning laws to clean up all the porn shops in Times Square. If it can be done in New York, it can be done anywhere. Also, apartment complexes and similar businesses can put a “no-porn clause” in the lease, which is perfectly legal to do. Zoning laws such as no adult business within 1,000 feet of a school or church can effectively kick porn out of a community.

OK…except that Giuliani’s (come on, Cameron, an expert journalist like you should be able to spell his name correctly) drive to “clean up” Times Square actually was began under the administration of previous mayor David Dinkins; that the “clean up” didn’t get rid of all adult businesses, just the most visible; and that even with zoning laws and other means to limit the locations of adult-oriented businesses such as strip clubs, adult bookstores/theaters, and adult moviehouses, they are still existing and easily accessible. Also, VCR’s, the Internet, and online commerce has pretty much rendered much of these businesses obsolete, anyway. It really does depend on the attitude of the neighborhood here.

Neesa, a porn actress, claims she was raped by Max Hardcore (see her YouTube video) in the summer of 2002. She also claims 12 other police complaints of rape were filed against him by other female performers. He’s rather infamous in the porn industry with only a few wanting anything to do with him; Hustler’s Larry Flynt didn’t. The other 12 police complaints could not be found, since rape complaints are usually protected till a prosecution, but Neesa is not releasing names. No proof but her claim so it is up to you to decide.

.But…I guess that proof isn’t really needed, right?? If no complaints against Hardcore can be found, and even Nessa decided not to file a rape complaint against him; and there are other performers who happened to perform with Hardcore who swear on a stack of Bibles that they were never coereced into doing films with him and that everything they did was consensual, then why bring this up to begin with?? And, of course very few people liked his brand of film; but, in the name of defending their own right of free speech, many were more than willing to swallow their objections to defend his rights. Even — and especially — Larry Flynt.

John Stagliano was charged with crimes with his companies associated with Evil Angel porn production company for trafficking obscene material in interstate commerce in 2008. Politico said, “U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon ordered the acquittal of Stagliano and two companies related to his Evil Angel studio…” on July 16, 2010. Some say the DOJ under Eric Holder blew the case. We’ll probably never know.

Of course, as the world now knows, Stagliano’s case was thrown out of court before his side even got the chance to defend themselves when the presiding judge effectively dismissed the case and threw out the charges, citing the obvious lack of any substansial evidence provided by the prosecutors. That may have been because unlike Max Hardcore, Stagliano (aka “Buttman”) actually made nonviolent hardcore erotica that actually catered to a somewhat sane audience, though the prosecution attempted to use some of the more exotic scenes of fisting (whole hands in woman’s vaginal area); anal sex, enemas, and “golden shower” scenes to freak the jury into convicting. Problem was, the materials used were so poorly reproduced and the transmission of the films in question was so badly botched that the prosecution’s case simply proved too poor for the judge to accept.

Strangely enough, the Politico.com article that Cameron cited emphasized the political background of the case: namely, the battle between the then incoming Obama-led Attorney General Eric Holder and some of the Bush holdout attorneys on the DOJ-OTF who were pushing for this conviction hard, as well as pushing Holder for more obscenity trials.

Why it matters: Recent Democratic administrations haven’t been big fans of obscenity cases, preferring instead to work on child pornography prosecutions. The George W. Bush administration was eventually cajoled into setting up the Obscenity Prosecution Task Force, which brought a handful of cases against purveyors of what the government viewed as “extreme” pornography. No such case has been newly filed since President Barack Obama took office, but the Justice Department and Attorney General Eric Holder allowed the prosecutions still under way to continue.

Stagliano was arguably the most mainstream of the porn producers to face prosecution. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) has been pressing Holder to keep the obscenity task force running and to allow it to prosecute big-business pornographers and not just fringe players. The prosecution’s stumbles and ultimate failure in the Stagliano case may or may not reflect the broader practicality of obscenity prosecutions in the Internet era. Indeed, the Justice Department did score one high profile win in this area with some guilty pleas just after Obama took office in the so-called Extreme Associates case. But Stagliano’s acquittal will probably give top Justice Department lawyers skeptical of such efforts cover to wind down the obscenity work on practical grounds

The Extreme Associates case was the one involving producers Rob Black and Lizzie Borden, who were successfully prosecuted in Pennsylvania on similar obscenity charges to those charged against Max Hardcore. The successful prosecutor in this case, Mary Beth Buchanan, was ultimately removed from her post by Holder as part of a purge of the more radical Right activists.

So…when Cameron Rowe thinly implies that the Justice Department deliberately tanked the Stagliano case because they were politically tied to the evil porn industry, was he relying on his usual skills of “fair and balanced” journalism…or was he simply making stuff up as usual?? As he himself said, we probably will never know.

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Let us call it another night right here, and pick things up next time with the LA County Health Services standards for STI protection that Cameron wants to have imposed on the industry. As well as…why they really might not be needed.

When The Expose Boomerangs On The Exposee: Cameron Rowe's Hackery Of The "Porn Industry" (Part Deux)

Posted on December 24, 2010 by Anthony

OK, Clones….break time is over…we proceed with Round 2 of my epic fisking of Cameron Rowe’s hackjob of the porn industry. If you need any background, see the Intro/Part 1.

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We begin the second round with Cameron kicking off his analysis of porn star salaries and rates.

The biggest porn stars are usually contract performers for a major production company like Vivid or Wicked. The average female porn performer working in one scene makes about $1,000-1,500 a day. The average male porn performer makes $200-$400. Both, in this case, are independent contractors not employees. Jenna Jameson, Shy Love or Belladonna can make more since they own their own production company. Residuals, getting a cut every time the scene is shown or sold, is not something porn production companies pay. Top stars can make a lot but most porn performers are your average ones chasing gold. Small studios probably don’t pay that much.

Jerry Butler’s book “Raw Talent” (circa 1980s) claimed the $1,000-$1,500 figure for women and $300-$500 a day for men. The legend Seka supposedly wanted $100,000 to do another movie. The late superstar Savannah supposedly made $10,000 a movie. This was in the 1980s but times have not changed for the average porn performer.

Now where does he get those stats?? From actually talking to performers? (Probably not, since there is an unwritten rule that rates are not discussed in public, as to protect the bargining rights of other performers.) From the studios themselves?? (Probably not, since they have a major disincentive as well from giving out rate structures.) More than likely, Rowe fishes these stats out of of thin air , or from quoting from hearsay sources.

From what we know about porn shoot rates, however, they can vary quite a bit depending on subgenre, studio, performer preference, or even specific act featured. Obviously, top-of-the-line contract models tend to get the highest rewards, since they tend to fetch the most for their brand names or studio’s reputation (as Ginger Lynn first did as the first “VIVID Girl” and Jenna would later do for both VIVID and Wicked). Most other performers not locked into contracts, on the other hand, are paid mostly by scene and degree of difficulty of sex act.

As is usually the case in a “free market” sitch, the high-risk/high reward acts are paid the most; with gangbangs, double penetration, and the more “circus sex” acts such as double anal and double vaginal paying the most. Standard anal, interracial (especially Black male/White female), and mild fetish porn (feet, mild BDSM, food, female ejaculation/”squirting”) tend to pay near the middle of the scale; followed by conventional boy/girl sex; solo masturbation, and girl/girl sex.

Of course, merely because an act ranks higher on the pay scale does not mean that it will become the most popular or most desired by either the performers or the consumers; it simply reflects the fact that very few performers will do the “circus act” sex exactly for fear of infection or simply because of personal preference. Most performers are more than satisfied with doing conventional b/g, g/g, and solo sex, with a few deciding to speialize in whatever fetish or special act (such as anal or fellatio) or genre (interracial, fetish) that pleases them the most.

Also…keep in mind that in the 1980s when folks like Seka and Jerry Butler ruled the industry, there was no “star system” or studio system that regulated rates, so the big name performers with enough economic saavy could literally pick and choose their own rates. That is a far, far cry from what we have today, with an oversaturation of both performers and market.

And finally on this segment….remember that there was no Internet to fall back upon for those performers who didn’t have the marquis attraction or noteriety.

Female porn stars that basically build a brand of themselves can make up to $1 million or more but that includes conventions, movies, stripping, endorsement, personal appearances, clothing lines, etc. A lot make in the $400,000 range for top stars. They do work a lot to do so though. Branding is the new wave in porndom because movies don’t make the money, all the other things they do brings in the cash. Some of those endorsements are well-known companies according to insiders.

That’s funny, since I know of no porn performer who has their own clothing line out…though many performers do endorse various T-shirt manufacturers such as Mofowear. Many of the top line performers do feature dancing tours across the nation, as well as signing apperances at conventions and at adult retail stores…but the main base of their revenue usually comes from either making videos or paid memberships to their websites.

It should also be known that contrary to Cameron’s assumptions, most porn performers do NOT reside in the San Fernando Valley or in metro LA proper; instead, they will often travel from their home bases TO LA or “Porn Valley” to solicit and do scenes; while relying on doing camshows and “exclusive” scenes done for their sites for the majority of their income. Given the expense of living in LA, especially in the depressed economy, it’s an increasingly enticing option. Plus, South Florida is now emerging as a center of porn production as well, and Las Vegas (home of many porn conventions) is also moving up fast.

It is here that Cameron begins to start to go off the deep end. The subject this time: escorting.

A lot of porn stars are not hard to “date”. It is expensive. Websites even gave figures on how much it costs. It is also known that some porn stars prostitute on the side. You can even book them through an agency via a website for “VIP Members”. Lela Star was listed at $2,000 an hour and it said, “Both. Full Service”. One porn star was $2,500 an hour. They will come to your hotel in specific cities. Prostitution? I think “Prostate Massage” might say yes. Champagne ready before they arrive is required. And, tips are appreciated. No, the website will not be published. As far as is known, it is not required to be reported to the police. Sure they know about it already. “Dating” seems to be way more profitable than making a porn video. And, no taxes if cash unless they are honest.

The rigors of prostitution, and it happens among porn stars and performers, is well documented. Prostitutes have always run the risk of murder, beatings, rape, injuries and sexually transmitted diseases. According to Hookers for Jesus, there is sex trafficking in America so they porn stars that claimed they were forced into prostitution could be telling the truth. Not enough information to know. However, it is real easy to get a “Date” if you have the money. And, I doubt a “prostate massage” (and others) is legal. Of course, you might just find an FBI agent in that hotel room rather than a porn star.

Now…let us cast aside the thinly veiled assumption of Cameron that almost every porn performer is an escort who turns tricks on the side; or his assumption that most consumers of said performers only see them as potential “dates” to be paid and then fucked. Considering that most performers are basically either committed to relarionships or in the business simply for the money or the sex, and have no need for hooking on the side, we can basically cast aside that nonsense. Notwithstanding the obvious case of those few performers who do actually work part- or full-time in legal brothels in Nevada (see Mika Tan or Sunny Lane), most porn escorts generally are quite selective in whom they pick as clients, both as far as price range and in taste. And unlike regular street prostitutes, who have virtualy no protection from either STI’s or the police due to their socioeconomic status and not legal standing, porn escorts have the advantage of regular testing for HIV and other STD’s, as well as a ready made resume thanks to their video/movie credits.

Of course, since sex work outside of the Nevada brothels is still illegal, it is equally just as likely that that person offering a “date” might end up being an FBI or local police agent looking for a free solicitation/pandering bust. Most legitimate escort services, however can use the Internet as well as refined local networks to maintain contact with clients and protect themselves from both abusive clients and police stings. “Caveat emptor” (“Let the buyer beware”) seems like the proper attitude here.

And, it’s not surprising that Cameron uses the very fundamentalist Hookers for Jesus (the ex-prostitute’s equivalent of Shelley Lubben’s Pink Cross Foundation for ex-porn performers) as his chief sourcing for his rant. Maybe Melissa Farley wasn’t available at the time, right??

Independent contractors have to pay their own taxes. If one makes $1,000, they have to deduct an easy forty percent to pay state, federal, and Social Security taxes. Again, male performers make a lot less. That leaves an amazing $600 left. Talent still needs to keep themselves fit, tanned, etc. so that would eat into that pay as well. Jenna Jameson clearly is an exception to how big the business can be for a porn star.

Really?? An exception??? Please, Cameron, please. It’s not as if they do only one scene a month, or that maintaining their figures, their faces, or their libidoes is nearly that difficult. Remember, runway models, mainstream Hollywood actresses, news/sports anchors, and even secretaries are under even greater pressures to maintain certain weight and beaury standards…and they get paid a hell of a lot less. (At least, the secretaries do…I’m not sure about the anchors.) And while raking it as big as Jenna Jameson is the exception, there are more than enough competent women in porn who, by planning wisely and saving up their pennies and doing the hard work and making smart choices, can actually thrive quite well on a respectable middle- to uppermiddle-class income. And some of them even leave in better shape than they went in. Ask Julie Meadows. Or…Vicky Vette. Or…Lisa Ann. Or….

Next up…Rowe takes on what actually happens in a porn shoot.

How Long to Shoot a Porn Video?

Ex-porn stars have said it takes four to eight hours to shoot a twenty to thirty minute scene. That makes that pay now $250 an hour to as little as $125 an hour. Remove forty percent for taxes and that is $150 an hour and $75 an hour, respectively. Small porn production companies might pay only $500 a day so that is $300 after taxes. The performer still has the other costs of looking good. For the average porn performer that doesn’t sound like a lot of money when you can “date” and make $1500-$2,500 an hour. Not bad for an hour’s work if you delve into prostitution.

In porn bulletin boards where porn performers talk about pay and where to go to make a video, some have stated “Dates” are far, far more profitable and you just do a few porn videos a year to keep your star status.

The average video of twenty to thirty minutes takes four to eight hours to shoot. Even on porn bulletin boards they have admitted to taking that long. Former porn star Jersey Jaxin said the four to eight hours was the normal shoot time.

Now…it’s interesting that Cameron relies on “ex-porn stars” to get his stats on the length of porn scene shoots, since with little or no effort he could just have googled an active performer and simply ASKED them how long a traditional shoot took. He may be accurate on the 4- to 8-hour length, since it varies based on type of scene, venue, degree of difficulty, and other variables, and has to account for the typical issues of performer flaking, makeup, technichal setup, and competence of performer, director, and support crew..

And once again, Cameron gets it totally wrong when he assumes from “porn bulletin boards” that most performers prefer to do escorting to supplement their income. Those who do might…but as I said, the majority don’t; they’d rather make their money off their website subs or through more legitimate and less risky endeavors like feature dancing.

All righty…the appetizer is complete…now come the main course. In which, Cameron Rowe gets to get to the crux of the matter of how harmful porn really is.

Are Their Downsides to Working in Porn?

Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and HIV do happen. The real figures on the percentages of STDs and other illnesses are not readily known. In fact, it was almost impossible to find out. In California, it appears STDs are ten times more common in porn than in real life. That could be wrong or correct. Here are some stats according to New Scientist quoting LA County Health Department figures since 2004 (to 2009):

22 performers have tested positive for HIV
2,378 cases of Chlamydia
1,257 cases for Gonorrhea
15 cases of Syphilis

The LA County Director of Public Health said, “Sexually transmitted diseases are rampant [in the porn industry]”. It is questionable if those statistics were from porn or elsewhere among porn performers. Still, those numbers are shocking.

WOW. That’s some seriously shocking numbers indeed. That proves his point that porn is indeed a dangerous profession. But…haven’t I heard those statistics before somewhere?? I mean, weren’t they quoted in some…..hey, wait a damn minute!! Weren’t these those same numbers that Michael Weinstein of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation and the folks at the LA County Public Health Services cited last year when we had that scary HIV outbreak? And, weren’t those numbers proven to be so inaccurate that even the LA Times had to retract them??

Yes, they were…and yes, they were. At least, the alleged 22 HIV infections (originally placed at 16 last year, this year elevated to 22 to tack on the four infected in the Lara Roxx/Darren James scare of 2004) have been proven to be a crock. Quoting Ernest Greene, who happened to be on AIM’s founding committee during that period (via Blog of Post Porn Activism):

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

Remember that the way the testing system for straight porn works is this: AIM does testing every month for performers as part of their agreement with the industry. They also keep a database of performers who have tested negative and are clean. As long as a performer tests negative, (s)he is kept on the database and cleared for employment. The second a performer tests positive, however, by law AIM MUST notify both the LA County Health officials AND the industry, so that production can cease and so that first- and second-generation partners of the targeted performer (or client) can be tested themselves. Any performer testing positive, along with any first- and second-generation partners who are themselves performers, are also placed on a special quarantine list which is also shared with production studios, for the obvious reason of avoiding the risk of infecting others while testing is done.

On the gay side of the genre, of course, AIM has no jurisdiction, and there is no testing regimen; they tend to rely on condom usage and segregation of infected from non-infected performers doing “bareback” sex scenes.

And then, there is this, from Julie Meadows, who obviously might have a slightly better perspective thatn Cameron, having actually been a performer:

In all of the numbers produced from AIM by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, none is sorted and filtered by actual performer; how many times one performer was tested and which are people walking in from off of the street. And just because someone tests and is ready to work, doesn’t mean they ever actually get the chance to work. Many frustrated men try to enter the industry but rarely get a shot to work because producers like to hire men they know can perform, rather than take a chance on someone with no track record. And we’re assuming that the entire LA population tests, and tests monthly, the way adult performers test, but all of LA does not test for STDs and HIV and not all test monthly, like clockwork. It’s not a fair comparison. If you actually sift through the numbers accounting for how many of the same people test constantly and how many Los Angelinos test and the numbers still come out high for adult performers, fine, but without a fair comparison the data loses significance in making any kind of point. Any sexually active person runs the risk of STDs and HIV, and this article doesn’t cover gay porn, but gay porn is a very important side of the entire industry with it’s own set of rules. A full exposé would include both sides, or state that it is specific to the straight side. Many HIV-positive performers are allowed to work on the gay side. Mixing the numbers but then never making other distinctions is a definite spin of facts, whether it’s conscious or not, and I suspect is isn’t since it is borrowed from other sources, but those sources are making a conscious effort to spin the facts.

In other words, most definitely WRONG, and NOT correct. But, why let the facts get in the way of a good essay??

It gets even better when Cameron attempts to mine the depths of infected performers to prove his case. And he goes for the jugular:

Lara Roxx went to California from New York to make an “easy” $1,000 for a porn shoot that her agent advised against. She claimed she was supposed to perform straight sex but they said the needed a double penetration scene or they didn’t need her. Since she needed the money to even get home, she did the revised scene and contracted HIV from porn star Darren James. He infected her and two other female performers. This happened in 2004 and shut down the porn industry.

A tragedy, to be sure…but one wonders why Rowe doesn’t resort to using Darren James hmself as the ultimate victim? After all, he didn’t ask to be infected any more than Lara Roxx did. But I guess that pathos works better with young White women than Black men…right?

That still isn’t enough for Cameron, though….not merely content with abusing the memory of the living, he then goes on to exploit the duly departed for his thesis. Here the anecdotes flow thick…and often.

Besides the STD fears, porn actresses have been murdered, raped and one was killed in a bondage scene. The legendary John Holmes died of AIDS (mostly because he was into sleeping with the lowest class of hookers). Many have committed suicide including porn superstar Shauna Grant and French porn star Karen Lancaume. Drugs seems to be prevalent even on porn sets. Former porn star Jersey Jaxin said, “85% of performers drink or use hard drugs before a shoot.” (paraphrase) She also said a lot of the men use Viagra due to the long shoot times to produce a video. Other ex-porn stars said the nearly the same.

Zoey Zane was murdered by Israel Mireles presumably in El Dorado after he raped her; the aggravated sodomy charge was dropped. She was found 50 miles from El Dorado after last being seen leaving a bar. He was convicted of capital murder and rape and sentenced to life in prison. He worked near the bar at an Italian restaurant and they found blood in his hotel room and his abandoned car. Emily Irene Sander, aka Zoey Zane, was only 18 years old.

Even Jenna Jameson has supposedly been gang raped three or four times. Porn superstar Haley Paige was most likely murdered by her husband after she disappeared for three weeks in 2007; her husband killed himself before police could question him. Ms. Paige’s father supposedly sent her to Asia to be a sex toy for men when she was in her teens. Vanessa Freeman was murdered by a prostitution client in 2007. Rebecca Steele died penniless from a drug overdose in a hotel room while dying of AIDS.

The worst might be Natel King, aka Taylor Summers, who did porn for college. She was murdered in a bondage scene by pornographer Anthony Frederick in 2004. She was found in a black fabric with duct tape, bound with straps, a ball gag in her mouth, and multiple stab wounds to her neck, chest and hands. Police said she struggled. She was found in deep ravine in Whitemarsh, Pennsylvania near Philadelphia. She was on her side but her chest was on the ground. Anthony Frederick was found guilty of murder in August, 2005 and sentenced to 24-51 years in prison. Some said it may have been a snuff film shoot. No video was found. It possibly could have been sold to a client if it existed. Frederick gave no motive for the murder. She was only 23.

It would actually be so hilarious if it wasn’t so macabre…and so distrubing. John Holmes died from complications from AIDS due to “sleeping with lower-class hookers”??? Like, you knew them, Cameron?? Like, if he had slept with higher class escorts, he would have survived?? Like, his infamous heavy drug usage had nothing at all to do with his getting infected?? (Remember, folks…sharing dirty needles was and remains the easiest means of transmission for the HIV virus.)

And…while porn performers are not immune to succumbing to the easy access to drugs, I’d hardly say that drug addiction and suicide is exclusively the domain of porn…it happens to be a national problem for all professions and all industries. And no, quoting from the ubiquitous “ex-porn stars” does not make it any more accurate or any less misleading. Hell, Cameron, why not just come out and liberally quote from Ministeress Shelley’s “Dead Porn Stars Memorial” and save us the bandwidth?? Nor, BTW, does restating the totally unreliable and totally cracked stat of “85% of all porn performers use drugs before shooting”. (How different is that from this direct quote from the Right(eous) Reverend Lubben: “Most porn stars are simply diseased women who use drugs to ease the pain of their degrading sex”???)

Never mind also the crackpot charges based solely on hearsay that he makes regarding the Paige and Freeman cases, or the very much unproven (and denied by Jameson herself) charge of multiple gang rape.

The Natel King matter, though, simply takes the cake for sheer hubris in indicting the porn industry for its alleged sins of killing young women. Let us see here: a woman known for doing hardcore BDSM scenes is lured by a serial killer to do a scene, only to end up not only raped but murdered by multiple stab wounds. In the porn mecca of…suburban Philadelphia. Yeah…definitely LA porn’s fault there.

I’d say that antiporn attitudes and slut stigma had a lot more to do with her tragic death (and those of the others as well) than any actions of “the porn industry”…but what the hell do I know?? I just rely on actual facts and sheer intuition rather than the far superior talking points of antiporn activists. Bad me.

—————————————————————————————————————————————-

That ringing sound in my ear is not my sinusitis…it means the end of Round 2, sorry to say. Take a deep breath, y’all, back away slowly from your monitors; continue your Christmas decorations, get the kids snug in their beds so that Santa Claus doesn’t miss your house…and prepare for the continuation of this series later on.

And however you celebrate tomorrow (as Christmas, Festivus, the first day of Kwanzaa or merely the 25th of December)…make it the best and most joyous for you and yours.

If I feel like it tomorrow, I’ll complete this story then.

How Exposes Can Boomerang On The Exposee: Cameron Rowe's Hackery On The "Porn Industry" (Introduction & First Movement)

Posted on December 24, 2010 by Anthony

I don’t claim to call myself an expert on anyting. I’m just a man with a cracked sense of opinion on things.

Yet, when I do decide to state my opinion or to make judgments of other people’s opinions, I at the very least make the least attempt to back up my opinions with fact and true statistics, and make definitely clear what is actual fact and what is speculation or opinion. That’s what’s called in journalism school “accuracy.”

I also make abundantly clear that whatever my opinion may be, you, dear reader, are entitled to disagree and even point out where you might think I am wrong on the facts I provide to back up my opinion. That is called in J-school “fairness”.

And, on occasion, I reserve the right to thoroughly break down an entire statement if I feel that it is so aggrevious in its wrongness and stupidity that it’s deserving of a detailed analysis. That is called “fisking”. (That term is NOT a journalism school term, BTW.)

Usually, when I take to the fisk job, it’s usually a quick case of hitting and running on obvious misstatements, lies, and other preassumptions of fact.

On occasion, though, there will come a tract so supreme, so eloquent, and so concentrated in its massive stupidity, and so demented in its delusions, that even an average fisking simply cannot reveal the depts of ineptitude.

I’ve fisked many a tract (usually from some wingnut or antiporn radicalfeminist) in my years as a blogger…but never have I had the pleasure of having to devote so much bandwidth to such concentrated bullhockey as I will be doing today. Because, it is THAT BAD.

In other words…Cameron Rowe: step up into the dunking booth, sir. Your ass isn’t next…it’s NOW.

This will be a long series, Clones, so batten them down.

————————————————————————————————————————

Cameron Rowe is a blogger from Los Angeles who pretends himself to be an investigative journalist, and his main area of investigation happens to be the LA porn industry.

Two weeks ago, Cameron did what he considered to be a “classic” expose series on our favorite ex-slut porn moll turned fundamentalist Christian antiporn activist, Shelley Lubben, mostly concentrating on her credentials as a Christian minister, her film credits as a performer (using the nom de’guerre “Roxy”), and the financial records of her foundation/organization for “ex-porn sluts” gone born again, the Pink Cross Foundation. His work was so impressive that people ranging from yours truly to former performer (but distinctly NOT born again) Lydia Lee (who performed as Julie Meadows; I will use both names interchangebly), used his stats freely in our own exposures of Ministresses Shelley and her shenanigans.

Based on that, you would think that Cameron would become a consistent ally defending the porn industry.

Alas….we were wrong. Big time. Turns out, the Lubben “expose” was just a cover for Rowe’s more sinister agenda, and his latest “expose” decided to shift the spotlight away from Lubben to the troubles of the porn industry itself. And, unfortunately, as you will plainly see, Cameron Rowe isn’t quite the ally we thought. In fact, it seems that Cameron is more than willing to swallow almost to the letter every single stereotype, talking point, just-so tale, whispered notion, and outright lie ever spoken about “the industry”…and even create some new lies all by himself.

And…he manages not only to rehash ans swallow these libels, but he does so in the most irregular, the most inarticulate, the most disjointed syntactic essay I’ve ever read, with little or no format other than a few source links, and his own deluded opinions that the porn industry is so broken that it needs either intervention from a benelovent government or abolition altogether.

As painful as it may become, I’ll go ahead and debunk his assumptions in detail, by paragraph. It’s a dirty job…but someone has to do it.

Begin at the beginning..shall we??

——————————————————————————————————————————

The Porn Industry: An Expose
By Cameron Rowe December 20, 2010

Note: Porn in California is basically shutdown to the Adult Industry Medical HealthCare Foundation’s closing. Vivid has halted production for the time being.

Ahhhh…right off the bat, our first big error. Apparently Cameron was so busy with himself and quoting the talking points of the LA Times that he missed the basic fact that there was and is NO shutdown in production due to the AIM offices being “closed”. This is from Mark Kernes, via AVN.com:

But despite the county’s cease-and-desist order, AIM is still operating. However, performers who need their blood drawn and urine sample taken will have to do so at one of AIM’s “draw stations” which are located all over the city of Los Angeles, in several other cities around the state, and with contractors in all other states of the union. Performers can find the locations of these draw stations either by calling AIM, which will be open tomorrow and for the foreseeable future, or they may go online to AIM’s website, which lists all the addresses there.

“People can pay for the tests online, and pick up their tests at AIM, just like they always do,” said AIM general manager Jennifer Miller. “It’s exactly like coming in here and the price is exactly the same, and it’s the same turn-around time.”

[...]

Bottom line: AIM is open; they just can’t draw blood at their facility, so they’ve arranged for others to do it—and the county, apparently at the urging of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, has overstepped its powers in attempting to close the clinic down—because AIM wrote the wrong name down on its application!

And in case that isn’t explicit enough for you, there is this from VIVID CEO Steve Hirsch (Bolded emphasis added for Cameron’s benefit.):

“We have been in contact with AIM and believe that the current situation is temporary and will be quickly remedied. There are other alternatives that we can utilize in the meantime and will do so. We believe the current system of testing works. Our productions will proceed as scheduled.”

Ahhhhhhhhh…OOPS!!

If this was a football game this would be a fumble on the opening kickoff recovered and returned for a TD. Add the extra point and you have: Truth 7, Cameron 0.

But, it’s early, and Cameron does get his chance to redeem himself.

Porn is a Big Business

The worldwide adult entertainment industry is estimated to be a $97 billion business with California holding only $10-13 billion of the revenue with a lot larger impact on California’s economy. According to 60 Minutes in 2003, it is a $10 billion business in California and they pay $36 million in taxes. In 2010, TMZ reported Vivid paid Montana Fishburne, the daughter of actor Laurence Fishburne (The Matrix), $1 million for one video. Later they offered $5 million for a multi-year deal. In 2006, according to UK’s Daily Mail Online, Jenna Jameson sold her porn empire to Playboy for $30 million. Jill Kelly had to sell her Jill Kelly Productions for a mere $2 million to avoid bankruptcy but still the money flowed. Jill Kelly Productions used condoms and fell out of favor with audiences that wanted Gonzo.

A heck of a lot concentrated in that one paragraph.

First, is that $97 billion figure worldwide, or merely within the US?? Does it account for all porn venues such as movies, written erotica, and the Internet, and does it include softcore-type simulated sex scenes and mere frontal nudity that barely counts as “porn”? Which figure is the correct one…the $10 billion figure in 2003 or the $10-13B figure…and is that from LA-produced feature porn alone?? What about Internet porn, that can be produced almost anywhere, or the development of Florida abd Las Vegas as an alternative mecca for porn production?? (And…what happened to San Francisco and New York, which were themselves major production centers of hardcore during the late 70′s and 80′s??)

Second, on the subject of Montana Fishburne: did someone manage to tell Cameron that Vivid basically whitemailed her to publish a private sex tape that she made on her own? Or that she herself decided, in order to piss off her family in rebellion, to make more porn movies on her own??

Next, to Jenna: Of course, the sale of her ClubJenna assets to Playboy netted her a tidy sum, but considering that she had set the industry standard for marketing performers through her work via VIVID and Wicked and then as an independent, why make such a fuss about it? Besides, even Jenna couldn’t hold a candle to the biggest sale of individual assets in the erotic world: Danni Ashe’s $!00M deal with Penthouse via DHD Media. But, since Danni only does girl/girl and softcore porn, I guess that didn’t crross Cameron’s mind, now didn’t it??

And finally, Jill Kelly’s financial problems…which had probably more to do with bad financial decisions and the government’s war on porn than with the essential nature of porn business itself or JK’s personal preference for condom only scenes.

But, at least, Rowe’s on somewhat solid ground here.

Undoubtedly, production companies like Vivid Entertainment and Wicked Pictures are the most profitable. Vivid is a $100 million a year company. However, the 1972 classic porn movie “Deep Throat” was reputed to have made $600 million to $1 billion all by itself. If that movie cost $50,000 to make, the profit was so large it would boggle a calculator. The LA Times tried to debunk the figure but the article by Mark Hiltzik. The makers of the movie did claim $600 million or more but it was reputed to be made by the mob so who knows. It would be difficult to prove or disprove the figures since only a select few know. But, the $1 billion figure has been reported often.

Scrrrrreeeeeeeeeeech!!! Stop right there, please. Let’s get to this Deep Throat super profit thing.

It was not “the movie makers” that put out the $600 million to $1 billion potential sales mark. That was quoted originally from an HBO documentary, Inside Deep Throat, that aired in January of 2005 in commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the release of that classic. And, that figure was tossed out as a potential figure of how the movie might have grossed out had it been available on video or on the Internet, with adjustments for inflation to then current 2005 values.

Cameron’s source for all this?? A link to an article in a blog titled Museum Hoaxes that itself linked to two LA Times stories (unfortunately, archived behind their paywall) that challenged both the figures and the notion that Deep Throat was “the most profitable film of all time”. (As compared to..what?? The Blair Witch Project?? Star Wars?? E.T.??) Porn vids can make a huge profit due to both low production costs and the lack of having to pay royalties and residuals….but any porn film grossing anywhere near $1 BILLION would probably be the talk of the decade. Or..just the voices in Cameron’s brain.

Porn still makes a lot of money. If Vivid is willing to pay $1 million for a sex tape and sold 25,000 copies, it had to make a lot of money. The Paris Hilton sex tape made a fortune but wasn’t made by porn but an amateur. Porn videos are sold over and over again on different DVDs and websites. One scene could end up on hundreds of places making the figures almost unattainable. Basically, it is akin to cutting a scene from Star Wars and selling a twenty minute clip everywhere.

Really?? Porn makes a lot of money?? No duh, Sherlock!! Of course, the money made by VIVID through the Montana Fishburne video didn’t include the costs of the legal fees from settling with the Fishburne family who fought tooth and nail to stop public release of their daughter’s sex shenanigans. Also, the first sex tape by ‘Tana was amateur since it was a private tape; only after she signed the deal with VIVID and cut more videos did it become produced “by porn”.

As for the wonderment of compliations….well, Cameron, you do know that porn scenes are mostly short vingettes clipped together with a certain theme, unlike more traditional “legitimate” feature films, which include a moving and stable plot and character development. I assume that fans of Star Wars are probably not going to purchase a 20-minute clip of part of the epic climatic battle between Luke and Darth Vader/Anakin in The Empire Strikes Back… any more than porn fans are going to purchase every and all space-themed movie merely for the fun of watching 10 minutes of Vicky Vette deepthroating Ron Jeremy in Sex Trek: Where No Man Has Cum Before. There is a difference, you know.

So now, Rowe moves on from the makers of porn to the transmitters of porn.

DirecTV reportedly makes $500 million a year on pornography. DISH Network’s figures are unknown but both satellite providers have an adult channel ($30+ a month) and Video-On-Demand (VOD) can cost you $9.95 or more. Comcast, the largest cable provider, has VOD pornography and it cost $9.95 or more. The San Francisco Gate said, in 2004, Comcast was cashing in on porn. The article said porn was the half of the cash flow of VOD. And, that was in 2004.

Yes, cable and satelitte distributors do profit much from offering adult channels. Just as they do offering sports PPV, religious channels, nature channels, and mainstream movies via VOD or PPV. Only someone interested in censorship of adult media would find surprising that in a capitalist nation, capitalists would exploit greatest that which fulfills the greatest needs of those with money to spend. And, considering the profligacy of thievery from free “tube sites” and P2P uploading of porn for free, those who don’t have the money to spend can still get their needs fulfilled. And…THAT was in 2004, too.

Florida Governor-Elect Rick Scott has investments in porn Quepasa, know as the Playboy Mexico that is a social networking site, according to an Orlando NBC station named WESH.

Almost, Cameron…but not quite correct. The actual article from Orlando NBC-TV affiliate WESH tells a slightly different tale.Note also that the article was in fact in response to an attack ad launched by opponents of Scott in the Republican primary for the Florida governor’s seat, by a right-wing fundamentalist group supported by Scott’s rival, former state Attorney General Bill McCollum. It mostly consisted of debunking some rabid claims in that ad about Scott as not a pure Tea Party Republican.

The political ad also claims, “There’s nothing Republican about profiting from porn.”

Rick Scott has substantial financial investments in a company that works with an arm of Playboy magazine,

[R]ecords show.Quepasa is a company with offices in West Palm Beach that runs a social networking site targeting Latinos.According to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission in June, Scott owns 13.8 percent of Quepasa — 2 million shares worth between $6 million and $8 million dollars, with an option on another million shares.

Quepasa has a partnership with Playboy Mexico to have Quepasa’s online community help feature and vote for “Cyber Chicas,” women interested in posing for Playboy Mexico.

The online version of Playboy Mexico alone features dozens of photos of nude women posing in an erotic fashion.

Scott is promoting a business with strong Hispanic connections at the same time he is supporting the Arizona immigration law that’s viewed by critics to be an attempt to racially profile and arrest illegal immigrants from Mexico.

So…a minority partnership with a online social messaging group that just so happens to offer its Latina customers a chance to pose for Playboy’s Mexican edition is tantimont in Cameron Rowe’s eyes to “profinting from porn. Riiiight….in the same way that I am antiporn because I was quoted in an antiporn blog.

And then he concludes this section with this whopper.

Another company called AdultVest, Inc. was supposed to allow millionaires the ability to invest in porn secretly. Basically, you had to have a $1 million net worth to even get in to invest. According to Business Insider, they claimed a 50% return by investing in porn domain names. None have sold. According to the same magazine, the hedge fund is broke and accused of fraud. It is being investigated by the FBI and SEC. An investor claimed Francis Koenig looted the company according to the article.

A cautionary tale about the destructive value of porn, no?? Ahhhhh….no. Actually, more of a precautionary tale of how not to get hooked on flim-flam artists using the suposse inevitable profitablity of porn to fleece people.

Cameron actually links two articles to this segment, both from the Business Insider website Clusterstock.

The first one raises some obvious concerns about the boasting of AdultVest owner Francis Koenig of a 50% return during the depths of a recession: that was even hitting the supposedly bullet-proof porn industry hard:

But how could he get results like this? We know that traditional porn studios are hurting in the face of free online porn, and the public stuff like Playboy (PLA) and Rick’s Cabaret (RICK) (not porn, but strip clubs) have done terribly. For them, sex has not helped at all.

We asked Koenig what, exactly, he’s been investing in that’s bucked the trend, but he was unwilling to go into much detail. He noted AdultVest bought some porn domain names, which have been appraised at higher values, but which haven’t been sold. He also mentioned AdultVest’s stake in iPorn — a startup doing porn for the iPhone. But iPorn hasn’t launched yet so any value is going to be difficult to determine.

Until proven otherwise, we’re taking this claim of 50% gains with a grain of salt. We’ve been trained by the last year to be deeply skeptical of notional, mark-to-model values, and when you’re talking about valuing assets like iPhone porn startups and unsold domain names, our skepticism ticks up another notch.

Of course, it’s pretty hard to sell domain names when the already existing names are losing money; and the dream of iPorn basically got crushed with Steve Jobs’ “Freedom = NO Porn” policy.

And, as it turned out, those fears and concerns of Business Insider were more than justified. Cue the follow up article, please:

But perhaps our skepticism didn’t go far enough.

Sources speaking to hedge fund newsletter FinAlternatives accuse AdultVest of being a downright fraud:

Sources close to AdultVest Inc., which manages the Priapus Investment Fund, an adult entertainment hedge and private equity fund, say that it is spending investor money on more than just investments, and that what investments there are don’t account for the returns it claims.

A former investor says that founder Francis Koenig is looting the fund to pay for fine art, expensive wines, cars, personal trips and alimony. Meanwhile, a former employee tells FINalternatives “there was no capital being generated” during his time at the firm.

“There is almost no money left in the fund,” the investor, who said he was privy to some of AdultVest’s financials via a court order, alleges. “Koenig has an American Express black card through the company that he uses on partying, girls and high living. Most money is missing and iPorn.com is not worth what he says it is.”

“It just seems to me the whole time I was there that there was no capital being generated,” says the former employee, who left the firm last year because he felt uncomfortable working in an office shrouded with mystery. “And it seemed like money was being spent for things that didn’t need to be bought like cars, clothes and trips,” he adds.

The fund’s manager and founder Francis Koenig vociferously denies the accusation, calling it “slanderous.” He chalks the rumors up to a single, unnamed investor who wants to take his money out of the fund.

FinAlternative’s sources, meanwhile, claim the fraud has been reported to the FBI and the SEC, so we’ll be on the watch for developments.

Wait a minute…a hedge fund investor using sex as a means to seperate fools from their money?? Isn’t that what normally passes for capitalism these days?? And, the porn industry is responsible for this….HOW?!?!?!?

Oh, but we’ve just gotten started…next time, we watch as Sherlock Rowe goes after the actual performers..or at least, their buried bones.

Stay close….

EdenFallacys…Errrrrrrrr, EdenFantasys.com: Now Officially The BP Of Sex Toy Websites…Except That All That Flows From Their Well Is BS (Updated)

Posted on May 22, 2010 by Anthony

[Updated....scroll to bottom.] [Updated again.]

Since I last posted on the troubles of the EdenFantasys.com website and their basic fundamental issues with manipulating outside links and denying outsiders their proper credit (what we would call pixellized plagarism), things have only blown up to a magnitude.

For those of you not familiar, EF was busted by sex blogger Maymay (over at Maybe Maimed, But Not Harmed) for using crafty Javascript chicanery to basically cloak links gathered from outside sources so that they would become invisible to search engine bots like Google and Yahoo!, converting them to internal links within their family of sites. The effect was to artificially game the system to boost their own site read counts at the expense of the original creators of links that they were, in effect, stealing from. To put it directly, EF was taking links from outside sources (and aggressively recruiting them, too, through “link exchanges” and affiliate agreements with other sites like AlterNet.org) and creating a virtual black hole “Roach Hotel” where incoming links get in, but links to the outside were hijacked and scrubbed before they got out, so that bots could not count them correctly.

This would be bad enough, were it not for the fact that EdenFantasys had also been building up a pretty bad reputation before hand for its treatment of some popularly known and loved sex bloggers. Always Aroused Girl (AAG), for example, has well documented her battle with EF regarding some back pay that was due her for work rendered with them. Essem ‘Em has her own stories of how she was treated by the brass of EF after a Google Document spreadsheet containing personal information was inadvertently leaked to the public.And then there is the story of Epiphora, who got booted from the EF forums under what can only be described as “questionable circumstances”. Maymay himself originally started his own investigation leading to his groundbreaking post because the EF brass raised hell over his own site using a link to an article that, while originating from EF, was also posted to AlterNet. (Apparently, the idea that contributors can often link to different sites got lost in the translation..or EF was just that damn greedy for the Alexa ratings.)

Well….the popular saying goes that the original crime usually doesn’t kill as much as the attempt to cover it up. If the efforts of EdenFantasys are any indication, then British Petroleum might have a bit of competition in the Grand Cover-Your-Ass MegaFAIL competition.

There are so many ways that a company can react to getting caught doing wrong. Consider the following to be the official list of how NOT to come correct and resolve your behavior.

First off…it is probably not a good idea to respond to your critics by censoring them out of your forums. Especially, if said critics have caches to save their censored posts before you drop the hammer on them. Or..if they have their own damn blogs. Case in point: Epiphora:

Well, apparently my painful-to-my-eyes comment was TAKEN VERY SERIOUSLY:

I have been working hard to not only introduce Eden Fantasys to parts of the blogosphere that have never before heard of us, but also to get them comfortable with us. And that’s hard to do when there are people undermining that work, effort and fragile trust by seeking out reviews to vote down, leave snotty comments on, etc. This goes hand in hand with what I said in my thread about the Off-site Review Program — bloggers have their own voices, just as all of you do, and they’re entitled to use those voices to present their reviews, even if they do so in a manner that you don’t agree with or find appealing — or on a blog whose layout you don’t find to be visually appealing.

So by this reasoning, anyone who rates a review “not useful at all” should be worried, as should the people who agreed with me that the blog is painful to the eyes. And by the way, I do not SEEK OUT reviews for any reason. I subscribe to the reviews RSS feed, and only open reviews of toys that look interesting to me. But sure, go ahead and spread lies.

This part — this is the part that really got me:

Epiphora’s recent behavior is nothing new; we made the decision to permanently ban her because she is a repeat offender, and the fact that she is a repeat offender clearly shows that she has no regard or respect for the community — that includes all of you, not just the “community” in terms of the forums here on Eden Fantasys and the EF staff.

Excuse me, but how dare you? Did you really just say that I have no respect for anyone, let alone the sex blogging community? Somehow I think my readers, followers, and friends would disagree. Entirely.

Apparently this has “been coming for a long time” and I am a “repeat offender.” Right. A repeat offender — and 2 1/2 year veteran — who was never warned. Never flagged. And who never committed any offenses worse than anyone else. The decision is final.

So, let me get this straight…..a well respected blogger gets run from a forum without any warning, without ever being flagged for her comments, and without even a wave…because she criticizes a blog theme as “painful to the eyes”?!?!? Did Sam Berg’s twin sister take over that forum, by any chance??

Ahhhh, but it gets better…turns out that when Maymay’s story broke and people attempted to use the EF forums to ask basic fundamental questions about their shady practices, the moderators’ response was to go to the time honored tactic of the guilty: They simply banned those critics and wiped their posts clean off the map. Or, to use a popular phrase down here: they “zipped” them.

An example from another sex blogger whom have had issues with EF in the recent past, BritniTheVagiwig from Oh, God, That Britni’s Shameless (from this post):

I posted a link to Maymay’s article detailing EF’s unethical “linking” practices in the EF forum. As you know, I already posted about them here. Well, EF being the “transparent” and classy place that they are, removed the post. See? It no longer exists. But, fear not! I still had the page up and screencapped it, so you can see that this thread did actually exist.

[capped original pages from EF forum redacted for length, you can read them over there at Britni's blog post here]

[...]

If the picture isn’t working for you, AAG has individual screengrabs of the thread.

EF claims to be about “transparency” and “community,” when, in fact, they’re about none of those things. And this? Is complete and total bullshit. Anyone that still defends this company is unethical, too. There’s no defending this crap.

EDIT: I have now been blocked by EF, and was not given a warning, or an email explanation. At all. I just went to log in, and it told me my account was locked. I’m the third person that I know of. To me, it looks like they’re trying to get rid of anyone that could possibly know (and spread) the truth. The truth hurts, don’t it? That’s called “damage control.”

Not only that, comments are being deleted all over the forum. Comments are there and then gone. Threads are, too. Threads say “new comment,” yet nothing is there, implying deletion. Myself, Sex and Law, and Holly (Woman Tribune) were all locked out of our accounts for posting comments or threads pointing out the error of EF’s linking policies. [...]

Ahhh, but not to worry…EF justifies their censorship…errrrrrrrr…their protection of their assets from undue criticism.

And here is the bullshit explanation they’ve given, which as you can see, people are still letting them know is incorrect. The “examples” they cite aren’t even backing up their point. None of them use the same script that EF does, even though they’re citing them as examples. And anyone that tries to point that out, or why it’s unethical, is being deleted. You can read Google’s explanations of why “sneaky Javascript redirects” are unethical and wrong here. [...]

What…..bullshit, you say?? You mean, like this elongated post written by the president of EdenFantasys attempting to defend their linkage theft??

[Originally posted at EF's forum, reposted at AAG's blog here]

Dear contributors,

I want to address recent concerns about EdenFantasys’ linking practices.
I am talking about multiple links placed on our website by thousands of contributors: reviewers, forum participants, manufacturers and general users.

Thousands of users post daily on EdenFantasys. These are posts on the forum, reviews, commentaries, personal profiles and today we even opened up our video platform EdenTube. This is all user-generated content (UGC) which requires special handling to assure our website is not damaged with malicious software that could compromise our commerce operations, credit card security compliance procedures, and overall could shut down the website.

It is a common practice on all user-driven websites, including giants like Facebook, MySpace, Yelp or any of the others. You read from time to time about disastrous outbreaks of trojans – virus software – inserted this way into platforms. When it is detected that the posted content contains scripting, linking or other coding symbols beside just alphanumeric characters, the standard coding procedure is to raise a security alert flag. Then there are two ways to handle this: a program can erase / delete all coding from the content or encapsulate it into a separate module that won’t be able to interfere with the rest of the website.
EdenFantasys uses high efficient and the most advanced Web 2.0 technologies like AJAX with DotNET and JQuery frameworks to handle this technical problem. As a matter of fact, our server logs detect over 1,000 daily attempts to insert malicious software on all available user-submit forms. These technologies allow us to be a safe and reliable place.

Some helpful examples include these sites, which do the same JavaScript-based encapsulation:

[list of "links" removed because they all pointed to EF instead of the intended sites]

Those are just a few of the millions of sites who utilize this linking practice as means for protection of user-generated content on interactive platforms.

All linking within SexIs Magazine, on contributor profiles, and elsewhere on EF have always been encapsulated. This allows us to be able to display all of the content instantly without pre-moderation and to share traffic with our contributors.

If there is anyone here whose promise was not met, please contact us and we’ll address the problem immediately. We all appreciate your patience here. The allegations made by a few individuals are misguided, misinformed and surely confusing to most people. This is the stuff of highly experienced programmers and it is easy to twist such information out of context. I wanted to address it here for your reassurance. We care deeply about our community, and as you can see, this is another way we endeavor to make Eden a safe place to play and shop.

Eden is my greatest passion, watching this community grow and seeing people interact with each other on so many levels has been a dream come true. There is no other place like this, and I truly feel that we have the best community out there. We are looking forward to even better times and more exciting features in the future. Thank you to every person who has made Eden such a special and welcoming place!

And then, the lead programmer of EF decides to double up on the doublespeak.

I am the lead programmer here at Eden – here is my input, I hope it is helpful!

99% of modern browsers support JavaScript and it is turned on by default. On our website, we heavily use JavaScript, AJAX, JQuery Framework and XML in order to make information available faster, more secure. Most parts of our website will not work without JavaScript.

In most cases modern search engines do not understand the dynamic information, although it would be highly beneficial for us if they did, since they are missing a lot of information.

As software developers, we will continue to use JavaScript because we believe that the dynamic applications are the future of Internet and are better for our customers.

Thanks!

It would have been a wonderful defense….were it all true. AAG came up with the Word of the Year to describe this: “Bullshitilicious.”

This is bullshit of the highest order of magnitude, folks. It’s even more bullshitilicious when you consider the posts they removed from that thread before locking it:

And this, courtesy of Mistress Kay:

Or this, courtesy of Sex & Law:

Why did EF not want these questions raised? Because any explanations they can give are nothing more than smoke and mirrors.

All sites need security measures in place to keep users with malicious intent from causing damage. I’m sure EF has implemented many valid techniques to deal with hacking and spam. But this linking scheme is not one of them. Ask yourself this: Would EF really be concerned about malicious content on Aslan Leather’s profile page? Isn’t Aslan Leather a trusted enough “partner” with EdenFantasys to be worthy of an honest link back to their site? The very simple answer is the best answer: Of course they should have a real link; a link that is visible to human eyes and to Google. Every verified manufacturer and contributor should have a real link, instead of an “encapsulated” link. This is the kind of link that reputable sites give their friends and even their competitors.

And Maymay himself took little time to debunk this mountain of crap (from here, also again via AAG):

I read their response, and investigated (briefly) some of the other sites they claim are using “encapsulation,” a term I’ve never heard of in this context before. I believe they are using a classic smoke-and-mirrors tactic, a classic “we’re doing it for your your own good, your safety, your security” misdirection, which is disingenuous. I call bullshit on EdenFantasys’s response, because the proof of the other websites’ innocence is underneath the “View source” button, just like the proof of their guilt is.

Here is a snippet of code of a link from one of the sites Fred mentioned, Lifehacker:

<a href="http://www.proteron.com/">LiteSwitch X</a> [Site via <a href="http://onethingwell.org/post/610183401/liteswitch-x">One Thing Well</a>

The above snippet was taken from the page at http://lifehacker.com/5541901/liteswitch-x-makes-macs-application-switcher-far-more-useful.

That snippet of code from Lifehacker, as you have already no doubt guessed, is exactly the same with and without JavaScript. It’s exactly the same in Safari and Firefox. It’s exactly the same on a Mac and a PC. It’s exactly the same for humans and for Googlebot. It’s exactly the same as other links on Lifehacker.com, even though it’s a link that points off-site.

So where is the “encapsulation” Fred is talking about? Maybe in his head. Or maybe he only wants his disingenuous story to be in the heads of non-technical users.

All of you can do exactly what I’ve done to test his claims. Disable JavaScript and view source. If you don’t already know the reality, then look into it for yourself, and then try to reconcile what you see with EdenFantasys’s story.

Let’s look again at EdenFantasys’s code for “links,” again with JavaScript disabled:

<span ID="EFLink_68034_fe64d2">female consumers make up 56% of video sales.</span>

In no way do the two snippets bear any significant resemblance. Fred’s claim that other sites like Lifehacker are doing the same kind of sneaky JavaScript redirects is a flat-out lie. The audacity of his statement (he must have known someone would challenge the claim), is stunning.

The more EdenFantasys tries to throw smoke in the face of their unethical behavior, the more obvious their deception becomes, and you don’t need to be a professional web developer to tell the difference.

When it comes to technology, I don’t believe openness and honesty based on promises should be sufficient. When it comes to technology, demand actually honest and open code. Demand transparency, otherwise you get people like Fred making promises and crying “safety!” while doing exactly the kind of unethical SEO as they’re doing.

So no, I totally don’t buy their response. Not even a little. Not even close.

Moreover, the kind of link-filtering EdenFantasys describe doing for “safety” is a technique already implemented by sites like Twitter and Facebook, which both function very differently from the way EdenFantasys does. Arguing that removing offsite links and programmatically altering links in syndicated content to point back to themselves for “security” reasons is a weak straw-man argument. There are more effective ways to offer security, and I think any technical professional worth their salt can understand that.

That post he made is not intended to clear his company’s name, it’s intended to placate the already loyal and to confuse the as-yet undecided.

Violet Blue (the Sex Blogger, of course) has already quaintly called EdenFantasys' sitch a "reputation crisis". I'd say that it's more like a freakin' nuclear meltdown. Several bloggers have now joined in a very public boycott of not only EF's retail service, but also the services of SexIs, their online magazine (no small feat, considering that the latter features the likes of Nina Hartley and Rachel Kramer Bussel as regular contirbutors), and a campaign to get Google to intervene to sanction EF for violating their rules of proper crediting and linkage is also underway. Only time will tell whether the power of the wallet will be enough to shame EF into submitting to reality of Internet etiquette and protocol...but the damage to their respect amongst the sex+ blogging community may never be undone...maybe even as soiled as the poor animals off the Gulf Coast awash in BP's black crude.

A nice and complete chronology of linkage (all of it real and original, of course!!) to all of the gramd EpicFAIL that is EdenFantasys can be found at Heartbreak Nymphomania.

Update: Oh, nice going, EdenFantasys....or, as I will now go ahead and call them now, EdenFALLACYS. You couldn't help yourselves with censoring people who posted to your forum...but now you are targeting people who merely post criticism of you...on Twitter?!?!?

Quoteh Juliettia:

It seems that while I have broken no rules of conduct much less posted in the forums since Epiphora’s wrongful banning, that my own account was locked tonight without any warning or explanation. While EdenFantasy Staff cannot be expect staff to monitor the forum 24 hours a day you can bet that they have a watchful eye on twitter at all hours of the day.

Not more than twenty minutes after I tweeted to Epiphora to add me to her list of those who were leaving #Edenfallacys was I suddenly logged off of my EdenFantasys account. Upon trying to log back in red text glared on the screen stating that my account had been locked and I needed to call customer service.

WAY TO GO EDENFALLACYS! You’ve banned/locked/’cooled-off’ my account due to something that I said off-site. Not only did you ban me based on something I said off site without mentioning you, you also did not provide a warning or e-mail as to your explanation of such. I know it’s not personal because other reviewers have voiced they too were locked out. Of course you don’t owe me an explanation, as you’ve made it clear you owe NO ONE a truthful explanation for anything. We’re all just lying right? Right.

At first I was on the fence of continuing to review for Eden after the way staff responded (or lack there of) to the concerns and questions surrounding Epiphora’s banning. However the recent behavior of deleting threads/posts containing concerns voiced by other contributors after the discovery of Edens unethical link farming while claiming that they do not delete or alter threads and posts in combination of banning my account for no GOOD reason aside from being butt-hurt has only reaffirmed my decision.

We are not children to whom you can say, “YOU’RE GROUNDED GO TO YOUR ROOM!” *banhammer*, instead we are adults with real questions and concerns about the company that claims to care about what the contributors think. If you have nothing to hide then you would not be deleting posts and threads. Instead you would ease the concerns with an answer that makes sense rather than a pile of bullshit containirng bullshit examples that was proven to be bullshit. Sorry Eden, but some of us are not sheep. You can’t just pull the wool over our eyes and scold us for daring to say something that isn’t filled with the sounds of puckering lips.

It’s no doubt that Eden has fucked up. It’s not just the contributors anymore. Other sex toy companies and sex celebrities have noticed as well. Hell even Tristan Taormino retweeted the problem. This is growing and I cannot even predict the impact that it could have. As the saying goes, “Just one upset customer can be the end of your business.” That one then becomes hundreds. Word of mouth in today’s internet advanced society is a powerful thing.

Update #2 [5-22-10]: Epiphora just posted a scathing update that consolidates pretty clearly how assholic EdenFantasys has been, with ever growing horror stories of sex bloggers and former EF customers recounting their experiences. If EF was a corporation, then right about now they would be up before a House committee, under oath.

The Muller/Gawker/Olbermann Fracus: Did KO Get Owned By "Mancow"??

Posted on June 3, 2009 by Anthony

You all know how much of a fan I am of Keith Olbermann…I post clips of his smackdowns of the Right religiously.

That doesn’t mean, though, that I consider him perfect the way Erick Erickson considers Boss Limbaugh…he can be human, he can make mistakes…and he on occasion can allow his ego to get him owned.

Yes, I acknowledge that KO has a huge ego, and that’s OK by me, because he is so correct on the fundamentals.

Problem is, sometimes that ego can get in the way of the facts and can expose one to be potentially decieved.

As could be the case, ultimately, with his most recent public moment: The “waterboarding” of Chicago right-wing gabber Erich “Mancow” Muller to prove how evil waterboarding really is.

To reset the entire fracus from the beginning; Olbermann originally challenged Fixed Noise wingnut Sean Hannity to endure a waterboarding to prove Hannity’s point (shared by most on the Right) that waterboarding wasn’t torture, pledging to contribute $1,000 for every second that Hannity lasted to a military families’ support fund. Hannity had blurted the standard right-wing party line that waterboarding was not torture and wasn’t as harmful as “liberals” were saying, and that it and other “enhanced interrogation techniques” were neccessary to extract information from “terrorists” and thusly prevent another terrorist attack such as the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York, DC, and Pennsylvania. KO made it such an issue that he dedicated his “Oddball” segment on his program Countdown with Keith Olbermann to counting up the days in which Hannity was chickening out on delivering on his promise.

Well…on May 23rd, WLS-AM right-wing radio shock jock “Mancow” Muller decided to either prove Hannity wrong, or simply pull off the publicity stunt of a lifetime; he offered himself to simulate a waterboarding to see how long he could hold out. Turned out, he bailed after six seconds, after which he got serious religion and testified about the ultimate evil of waterboarding. KO was so impressed (or so taken) that he had Muller on his show to elaborate on his experiences, and as a buffer to prove that even right-wingers could see that waterboarding was not only torture, but even tantimont to drowning.

Not so impressed, however, was the website Gawker.com….which has had a long history of needling Olbermann; two weeks earlier, they had posted a series of stories (reprinted from a media gossip rag called CityFile) concerning KO’s grieving over and eulogizing the recent death of his mother; effectively calling him out for playing hooky out of his job by not alerting his employers of his absence, and for letting his alleged ego get in the way of company business (apparently even getting into it with Rachel Maddow (Twitter ID: @maddow) over the booking of Ben Affleck as a guest on his show…he ultimately appeared on Rachel’s show due to, according to KO, a scheduling error by Affleck’s publishing agent). KO, in response, used his May 15th “WTF!?!” segment of his show to rip Gawker and reporter John Cook a new one for shoddy journalism and spreading gossip.

That might have been the reason why Gawker (and KO via MSNBC) was approached by an anonymous tipster who passed on a series of emails which together proposed that the entire Mancow “waterboarding” was a giant hoax, invented primarily to give Mancow free publicity and to spoof Olbermann. The emails generally center around Linda Shafran, who was Miller’s publicist as well as an agent for Jerry Springer, and whom led a search for someone to simulate (or fake) the waterboarding.

Gawker then decided to break the story on their website; with followups appearing here and here. Basically, they declared Mancow to be a faker whose experience didn’t even come close to the real thing…..and they even went back and retrieved a 2008 clip of columnist Christopher Hitchens being waterboarded under more realistic (as in, what actual victims of waterboarding experienced) to prove their point. (Their issue was not that they questioned that waterboarding was morally wrong or torture; but the use of a right-winger and a known spoofer and publicity hound by Olbermann to prove that point.)

That led to Friday’s (May 30th) “WTF!?!” closing segment on Countdown, where KO decided to unleash havoc on Gawker for their “right-wing conspiracy” reporting and calling them “conspiracy theorists”… and to have “Mancow” Muller on for his closing segment one more time to defend himself.

And that led to Gawker columnist John Cook issuing a rebuttal at Gawker.com standing by their story and all but calling out Olbermann as a dunce for allowing a right-winger to pwn him.

Now…like I said, this should be prefaced with the fact that Gawker.com does have a rich history of smacking down KO for more than the usual political reasons; there is also some very personal attacks on Olbermann for his weight, his private sex life, and his personal finances from even as far back as 2008. That might make their claim that the issue isn’t as much torture but Olbermann’s use of a right-wing “shock jock” to prove his case about waterboarding and allowing himself to be used by Muller, more than a bit hollow.

And, you can also make the case that even if the Mancow waterboarding was more than a bit staged and faked, and that there are other examples out there of the practice being executed under far more “realistic” conditions (as in Christopher Hitchens’ aformentioned waterboarding last year and a similar occurence by a Playboy magazine journalist this year (h/t to Dr. James Benjamin over at Notes From Underground for pointing me to the latter story), it certainly looked realistic enough to prove the point about it being torture. Not everybody gets a bucket full of water poured down your throat while your nose is being held and you are blindfolded, you know.

Nevertheless, I do think that KO could have used a better example of someone “enduring” waterboarding than the likes of Mancow Muller, who, by all accounts, seems like a perfect asshole of the Jerry Springer mold who is not immune from the most inane acts of barbarity. I guess that Olbermann decided that using a right-winger like him to prove that “even conservatives can see that waterboarding is torture” was worth the risk of being used for Muller’s publicity machine…not to mention taking whacks at InSanity and the rest of the Fixed Noise/Boss Limbaugh Machine.

We’ll see together if Mancow is really on the legit, or if he decides to pull a “Gotcha, Keith!! Hahahahaha!!!” and reverse himself.

And as for Gawker.com…nice journalism there, but perhaps you might want to ixnay with the personal attacks on Keith Olbermann for a while. You’re not exactly seen as pure as the driven snow yourselves, and attacking KO’s ego just to inflame your own ratings doesn’t do you much justice, either. If you didn’t own Fleshbot.com, I’d put y’all on the quarantine list…but I’ll give you some slack for now.

David Feherty Continues CBS Sports' Rich Tradition of "Mouse Davis Syndrome"

Posted on May 13, 2009 by Anthony

For those who don’t know: Darrell “Mouse” Davis was the founder and chief architect off a wild and wacky (American) football offense known and loved as the “Run-and-Shoot”, where four recievers ran option routes all over the defense and the quarterback basically throws the ball all over the field and scores at will. At least, that was how it was drawn up when it was most popular during the 90′s; ultimately, it faded out as a gimmick, but is still being utilized by some programs. It is in honor of Coach Davis that the syndrome where people don’t know how too shut up and filter their words is named in his honor.

And, it seems that CBS Sports and their sports analysts have upheld the tradition of Mouse Davis Syndrome quite well. Remember “Jimmy the Greek” Snyder of NFL Today fame, and his infamous rant on Black athletes being inborn?? Or Ben Wright during the early 90′s with his famous last words about women not being able to compete with men because….well, “their breasts get in the way of their swing”???

Well…here comes David Feherty, current 17th hole analyst, to continue the tradition of putting foot into mouth. This time, not so much sports-wise, but politically speaking.

Last week, Feherty was one of five columnists recruited by the upscale Dallas online journal D Magazine to comment on former POTUS George W. Bush’s return to civilian life in Dallas. Most of the columns were mostly maudlin tributes to Dubya’s career and reflections on his legacy, with the expected positive spin that wealthy Dallas socialites would have towards the former First Family.

Feherty’s column was mostly no exception to the rule; gushing on all the positive things that Dubya had done…especially concerning defense matters; in particularly, the war in Iraq.

And that’s exactly where his Mouse Davis Syndrome kicked in, with this graph describing his perception of military support for Dubya as compared to his political and military rivals:

From my own experience visiting the troops in the Middle East, I can tell you this, though: despite how the conflict has been portrayed by our glorious media, if you gave any U.S. soldier a gun with two bullets in it, and he found himself in an elevator with Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Osama bin Laden, there’s a good chance that Nancy Pelosi would get shot twice, and Harry Reid and bin Laden would be strangled to death. I’ve never met a soldier who didn’t love this president and this country, and I’ve met a bunch of them, at home and abroad, in hospitals and in theater. At Walter Reed, Bethesda Naval Medical Center, and the Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, I have visited dozens of patients, and I always ask of them before I leave: “What do you want to do when you get out?” No matter how broken or burned, or how many limbs they are missing, they give only one answer: “I want to go back. I want to rejoin my team, to finish our mission.” They are rightfully proud of what they have done and want nothing more than to be with their brothers and sisters in arms, because they know the consequences if their job is left unfinished. Right here on American soil, we will end up with unqualified people having to do the job they have been doing over there so incredibly well, and with such extraordinary compassion. The fact is, Americans in America have been safe since 9/11, almost the whole length of G2’s term as president, and for that we should be thankful.

I went ahead and quoted the entire paragraph for context’s sake; and bolded the most controversial portion for myself.

Now, it should be said that Feherty, despite his war hawk views, is not a Sean Hannity/Boss Limbaugh/Daddy Dobson type of right-winger; actually, his political opinions are basically all over the board, like an errant golfer’s golf swing. To quote:

As for me, my politics are somewhere in the middle—and then way outside both wings. I believe in the death penalty, especially for pro-lifers, child molesters, those opposed to gay marriage, and for stupid dancing in the end zone. I believe in the abolition of estate taxes and the Pickens Plan. I’d lower the legal drinking age and raise the driving age to 18 nationwide, make Kinky Friedman governor of Texas, and make all schools, public and private, start earlier with one hour of physical exercise.

A libertarian conservative with a driver, perhaps?? And, ooooooh, the death penalty for “pro-lifers”??? Really, David??

Naturally, it was the “shoot Nancy Pelosi” smack that got him in deep poop (I guess that strangling Harry Reid isn’t quite that threatening…and the line for whacking Osama probably stretches about three orbits around the earth long?) Thinly veiled death threats directed at reigning politicians and recommendations of assassinations are not taken to be too funny these days…especially considering the times. Media Matters.org fired off an editorial and an email to CBS Sports calling for Feherty to apologize and retract his statement; Keith Olbermann smacked down Feherty as his “Worst Person in the World” for May 8th on his MSNBC Countdown show and openly wondered why Feherty wasn’t yet getting his pink slip; and the Huffington Post spared no ink in villifying Feherty’s idiocy.

In response, according to the HuffPost, both the PGA Tour and CBS Sports issued seperate statements reprimanding Feherty, calling his attempt of smack “an unacceptable attempt at humor” which “went over the line”. And, later, Feherty did issue his own public apology to Reid and Pelosi for his attempt at bad humor turned blowback.

Of course, that wasn’t enough for some, who quickly called for Feherty’s immediate dismissal; citing the other two cases of Jimmy The Greek and Ben Wright as precedents of broadcasters getting run for shooting their mouths off.

Personally, though, I tend to disagree with that….mostly because as loathsome as Feherty’s attempt at smack was, it was done on his own time and his own dime, not on CBS Sports time, as was the case with the other two. There is still such a thing as not punishing people for their private opinions (until those opinions directly support actual harm)…and it should be stated that Feherty did not openly advocate that Pelosi and Reid be killed; he simply stated that some military men might have that thought in mind.

Plus, I tend to believe that the response to bad smack is to smack harder and better, not to censor. Yes, Feherty should be drowned in his own myopia, and he should be called out openly and often for his insanity moment, and at the very least, a suspension or a dockage of pay would be in order so that he feels some pain in the pocketbook for being such an asshat. But, let’s save the ultimate death penalty of firing for those who really deserve it….like Boss Limbaugh or InSManity or Glenn Beck. Compared to them, David Feherty is more like a 6-iron bunker shot gone awry.

Besides, it could be far, far worse if Feherty did get run: CBS Sports could do like ABC and hire Boss Limbaugh to do golf analysis. Imagine him staring over Tiger Woods on the 17th tee in Augusta…and commenting on Eldrick’s 300′ drive down the center of the fairway. Thanks, but I’ll take Feherty over that any day.

What’s next, CBS Sports: Gary McCord going off on the influence of lesbians infiltrating the LPGA tour??

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

Posted on April 9, 2009 by Anthony

[Also crossposted to BPPA]

It’s one thing to witness the usual myopia of antipornography “feminists” on a daily basis.

It’s quite another thing altogether to see it in as concentrated form, as in the following “essay”.

It was originally posted on Thursday to a site called wickedlocal.com (unfortunately, the site seems to be out of service), then transferred to AdultFYI.com, where I discovered it. The “essay” is apparently in response to all the brohaha over college campuses across the country screening the feature porn movie Pirates 2: Stagletti’s Revenge. The movie, whose original has won numerous awards for its theme and plot as well as representing what many critics see as the potential of erotica featuring high level art, has generated a bit of controversy; the University of Maryland at College Park cancelled a planned screening of the film due to protests from conservative activists and right-wing politicians threatening to cut off funding for the university. Not so with the University of California at Davis, which allowed Pirates 2 to be screened without much in the way of controversy there.

At least…not on campus.

However, someone — more than likely an antiporn “radicalfeminist” activist — took grand exception to UC-Davis allowing the film to be shown on their campus…hence, the following “essay”. Normally, I wouldn’t use this site for full fisking I usually don’t use BPPA for fisking…for this blog, though, it’s standard…. but and this article is so concentrated in its myopia that it more than deserves the in-dept treatment.

Plus…it features our favorite antiporn “feminist” activist, Dr. Gail Dines of Wheelock College, who brings her own special brand of wingnuttery into the mix, as you will see.

I will give some annotation as I go, as usual.

“Stench of eroticized violence”: Actresses in Porn Have to Stop Working because of Damaged Genitals

I’m sure that you will get the gist of their point right away. But read on…

Students at several universities, including U.C. Davis and U. Maryland, recently planned to show a XXX “hardcore” porn film on campus, not as an educational event but as a form of entertainment. Maryland pulled the plug on showing the film for kicks and played a small part of it, instead, as part of an educational panel (albeit after the state legislature threatened to take away hundreds of millions in state funds). But U.C. Davis gave it the green light as a rip-roaring good time for students, citing “free speech” and calling the film a “safe alternative” to drinking.

I’m afraid to read the school’s definition of “safe.”

Now, the writer tends to ignore (or, more likely, wants the reader of his/her essay to ignore) the facts as to why UM-CP “pulled the plug” on the screening of Pirates 2…probably because it would have raised a particularly thorny question of collusion between antiporn “radicalfeminists” (of which the reader all but openly describes his/herself as) and more traditional right-wing Christian anti-feminist fundamentalists (whom mostly led the opposition at Maryland). And we all know that such collusion just doesn’t exist, don’t we??

And I’d say that compared to other hijinks on most college campuses, watching a basically moderate-core porn flick certainly does constitute “safe” by most people’s definition. But, I guess that most people don’t have the special perspectives that only radical antiporn “feminists” can offer.

Colleges well understand the multiple ways that porn is harmful. According to Oklahoma State Professor John Foubert, men who use porn are more likely to commit sex crimes than those who don’t.

No surprise there because porn normalizes and eroticizes violence against women. It hurts men, too. Porn addiction is a huge and growing problem that has destroyed the lives of many men — and studies show that men who use porn have worse sex than those who don’t. Other human relationships are also negatively affected. 75 percent of men in prison for child rape admit using child porn — and 75 percent of men in prison for child porn — admit sexually abusing numerous children.

I’ve bolded the more outrageous “statistics” put forth by our anonymous “essayist”….do they sound like they come from the same identical sources that gave Melissa Fairley her “95% of all ‘prostituted women’ want to get out of the business” meme?? How whacked out do you have to be to believe this crap??

I mean…isn’t John Foubert kinda biased..and where does he get his “stats” that say that men who consume porn are more likely to commit “sex crimes” than those who don’t?? Yeah…if you consider solo masturbation or seeking consensual sex with other willing adults to be a “sex crime”. Or…if you merely consider getting an erection in the wrong place at the wrong time to be considered to be a “sex crime”, too.

And how nice of our “essayist” to go the extra mile to interview all those child rapists in prison — and all those pedophiles, too — and trust their opinions that it was that evil PORN (especially the kind featuring consenting adults) that caused them to go after kids and rape young girls. Oh, wait, (s)he didn’t do any research or interview any men in jail?? (S)He just lifted these “statistics” out of his/her as….piring ideology?? Oh, never mind…read on, MacDuff:

All these reasons explain why an “official” university showing of porn would violate Title IX as a form of sexual harassment. And while an “unofficial” presentation by students isn’t prohibited by federal law, schools can and should forbid all showings of such films on campus.

Oh, really??? I didn’t know that Title IX could be used as a form of censorship?? I always thought that that was a mandate of protecting discrimination against women in college campuses…and that showing porn on campus in restricted areas didn’t quite reach the level of discrimination. (And what about the women involved in the actual making of the film, or the women who flocked to see the movie…shouldn’t they have the same rights of non-discrimination to see the film themselves??

We’re not talking about “Sex in the City” here. According to Wheelock College pornography expert, Professor Gail Dines, the vast majority of “mainstream” porn sold in this country depicts women being brutalized — often by multiple men — with objects and weapons. And it isn’t “fantasy.” Real women are really hurt while men experience sexual pleasure. “Actresses” in the “industry” often have to stop working after only weeks because their genitals are so damaged and their bodies so mutilated they are no longer “valuable” in the business. If this is what “mainstream” porn is like — just imagine the “hard core” stuff they showed at U.C. Davis.

Ahhh, yes…Gail Dines….such an unbiased and openminded authority on pornography and its impacts on women. The woman who says that interracial porn is innately racist merely because it depicts Black men with huge penises. The woman who says that even “mainstream” girl-girl porn is harmful and must be banished because it reflects “male-centered” values imposed into female sexuality. No surprise that she would just as thusly label any and all depictions of porn as “women being brutalized” by men….because in her cracked mind, a man with an erection is one small step removed from a rapist…if not an actual rapist. Therefore, by definition, any sexual contact between a man (or group of men) and a woman depicted in porn automatically counts as “brutality” and “women being harmed while men experience sexual pleasure”.

Oh….and I’m guessing that UC-Davis doesn’t show “hard core” stuff at all, since most students there can easily get enough of that online through their own damn laptops.

But, it’s this “actresses” in the “industry” being “brutalized” with “weapons” and “objects” (gee, you mean that dildos and vibrators are weapons of mass destruction more dangerous than even knives and guns????) meme that deserves special mention. Now, it’s clear that women in porn are more than suspectable to personal injury on occasion; that’s the occupational hazard of their job. Anal tears, anal lapses, vaginal tears, yeast infections…all are the possible hazards that come with the occupation. (The threat of STD’s is not too far from the horizon, either…though thanks to the modern regimen of standardized STD testing, it is far less of a threat than assumed by outsiders.)

How this is that much different, however, from the possibility of physical injury from other athletic endeavors that are far more socially accepted than porn is, is a legitimate question. After all, football players, basketball players, ballet dancers, gymnansts, and even bowlers are just as much of risk to injury to their person, but I don’t see anyone calling for the banishment of Football Division major college football or baseball or basketball..let alone calls to ban ballet. But, you know…sex is different.

This has nothing to do with morality or censorship — it’s about the serious damage caused to an entire society when sexual degradation of women is celebrated as pleasurable entertainment.

Instead of knee-jerk free speech excuses, universities should use this controversy as a teaching moment.

Yeah. Nothing at all to do with morality at all….despite the claima of “sexual degradation” of women. No claims of censorship, either….disregarding three paragraphs earlier, where our “essayist” directly calls for college campuses to simply not allow such films to be shown on their campuses.

And of course, none of those “knee-jerk free speech excuses”…that’s only reserved for radical antiporn activists who are totally “censored” and overwhelmed by the full financial power and weight of “pornographers” and their evil puppets in the media.

Institutions of higher education enjoy an honorable place of leadership in this country — and they’re not the government — which means they aren’t beholden to the “real world” laws that allow the systematic degradation of women through the lawful proliferation of even the most vile pornography.

Schools should take this opportunity not only to rise above the “real world” but also to collapse the ugly hierarchy of isms that too often allows hateful material directed at women to be protected as free speech — while similar “speech” directed at other “types” of students is prohibited.

Ahhh…hate to break this to ‘ya, Mr./Ms. Sparky, but most institutions of higher learning are publically owned and financed by the state, which means that they are still bound by the laws of their state’s constitutions…the very ones that protect the right of their students as citizens of America and of their respective states to view certain media and content. And that would include even the right of material that some would consider to “allow the systematic degradation of women through the lawful proliferation of even the most vile pornography”. Of course, we could debate whether Pirates 2 even comes close to the level of “vile pornography” or whether it promotes “the systematic degradation of women”…but that would require an actual debate, which seems not to be on the agenda of this “essayist”.

And about those “other types of speech that are prohibited”…if by some chance (s)he is referring to “hate speech” codes used against particular kinds of speech directed at racial minorities (Blacks, Latin@s) or GLBT folk; well, we can also debate whether these codes really do protect such people, or whether they merely provide a crutch for those who are in power (and BTW, the latter still tend to be White men) to play divide and conquer. Besides, there is a fundamental difference between targeting actions directly going against certain groups and censoring individual thoughts….not to mention the idea that thinking about women (and men) as free and autonomous sexual beings is somehow at the same level as, say, burning a cross in a Black student’s yard or marching around a Jewish neighborhood wearing Nazi gear. Most of us are capable of seeing the difference. Most of us, that is.

This point cannot be overstated. U.C. Davis thinks the brutal abuse of women in film is protected speech — but presumably they don’t feel the same way about films that celebrate the violent abuse of blacks, Jews, Muslims, etc.

Any school that indulges such a hierarchy should prepare itself for an uprising. Women are tired of the unequal enforcement of free speech principles on college campuses. It’s time to showcase this injustice by demanding that schools also show other movies that celebrate the violent abuse of blacks, Jews and Muslims.

If schools forbid these other films, women will at least have successfully unveiled the pernicious ways universities have participated in the subjugation of women in higher education and larger society.

Oh, now wait a minute…..hold the fuck up here. OK….so the alternative to simply not showing such “degrading” and “damaging” porn flicks as Pirates 2 on college campuses is to simply have supposedly progressive radicafeminst women on campus rise up and demand that schools show….Birth of a Nation?!?!?! Oh. now I get it….better to have racism, anti-Muslim bigotry, homophobia, and all the other isms to thrive so that “women” can get rid of the evil that is porn, right??? How mightily progressive of you, Sparky. NOT.

And what delicious irony….universities who open their campuses to women, who give out scholarships to women, who, thanks to the aformentioned Title IX, have given so many oppurtunities to women, and who contain all those nice Women’s Studies curricula which produces such “radicalfeminists” as Gail Dines….they are all just part of the evil Male Conspiracy. All due to one feature porn flick.

The remaining option is for schools to allow all styles of violent, hate-filled movies to be shown as entertainment — in venues where core American values such as civility and equality are forming roots in newly developing minds. And then what will happen to our communities of young people — when campus air becomes a pungent fog of “hatred as pleasure,” seeping into the brains of our next generation of leaders as they learn about politics, science, business, the arts, law and human behavior?

“Safe” alternative to drinking, indeed.

Yup, yup, yup….we must not allow impressionable minds to be polluted by bad ideas…especially the idea that consensual sex can actually be an enjoyable thing to ease the burden of college life. Especially the idea that anal sex is something other than the main transmission of HIV/AIDS among gay men. Especially the idea that women might just discover that sex — especially sex with men — could be an actual pleasurable and mutually satisfying experience. Or that explicit sex can be reconciled with high art and thematic values.

Such evil, hostile beliefs must be purged from our universities pronto, so that our women can be raised with integrity and honor, and with the total ignorance and blindness and wilfull repression that only pure radicalfeminists can provide.

And this is why “we” must prevent films like Pirates 2 from being screened at college campuses. And why people like Sasha Grey must be outed for the dirty slut and perverted trollop she really is.

Congratulations, Professor Dines…you’ve created another Frankenstein.

Now..pardon me while I take a cold shower to wash the stench of horseshit off my body. Ugh.

(Much props to our fearless Henchwoman God Emperor for discovering this essay mountain of crap first, for giving it the business it deserves, and for issuing the challenge.)

Red Garter Club Blog (Version 3.2)

A slightly irreverent journal view of the world from the eyes of a Black, middle-aged, sex-positive Leftist. (Part of the Red Garter Club Network)

Category Archives: The Wild Wild Web