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Because Sometimes You Just Have To Break It Down To Some Idiots: Responding To An Anti-Porn Anonymous Whackjob

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Well…it seems that Lydia Lee isn’t the only one of late who has to deal with antiporn trolls who just don’t know when to stop.

I recently came upon a comment that was posted in the moderation queue for the Blog of Pro-Porn Activism, which I contribute to and manage, to the most recent post by Ernest Greene. who happens to be both the husband of Nina Hartley and one of the founding members of what used to be the AIM Foundation (now reborn as AIM Medical Associates), on AIM’s potential survival in the wake of the efforts of Pornwikileaks, Cal-OSHA, and the AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) to undermine their testing regime and impose mandatory condom usage on all performers. As you will see, the comment has a particularly nasty POV regarding performers rights, and is mostly nothing more than the usual inflammatory smack heard more often from antiporn activists.

Using the agreed-to rule (at least, agreed upon by the contributors of BPPA) that direct attacks on performers not be given that platform to poison the debate, I decided not to approve the comment for publication, but rather place it in the spam folder for safekeeping. Nevertheless, I believe that the comment says so much about the mentality of those who wish to impose condom mandates that it deserves a response from me using this space. BPPA is designed to be a safe zone for performers and professionals and activists, and not suitable for debates or even smackdowns….but in this space, I can call a spade a spade and a whackjob a whackjob.

Here is the comment in its entirity….and naturally, the commentor is “Anonymous”:

As with any industry, where can we go to get a list of injuries related to occupational work in porn valley?

How many injuries that required surgery? How many non-HIV disease transmissions?

Also, does AIM test for heroin, oxy or other narcotics to ensure that drug addicts aren’t being exploited?

OSHA standards? Sounds like a VERY good idea. What other job does being beaten, choked and having several inches in width shoved up your ass while being called a “stupid cunt”?

No doubt Ernest will be responding with some diatribe about prudery and christian fanatics, or dread femi-nazis.

Meanwhile… let’s get back to OSHA standards for all workers and stop letting industry pimps pretend they give a rats’s ass about women’s health or how fucked up it is that millions of people are jerking off to images of women getting abused.

We wouldn’t want to be “sex negative” or anything… So bitches, open up an say aahhhh… because whores have no rights. Thank you… “sex positivity”

I have my ideas about who would be suitable for writing this crap…but for now, I’ll begrudginly give “Anon” his right to his mis-identity. And that’ll be the last bit of respect he’ll get.

Let’s break it down by sentence, shall we??

As with any industry, where can we go to get a list of injuries related to occupational work in porn valley?

Gee, I don’t know…does OSHA allow for a list of injuries to, say, coal miners suffering from black lung, or workers of nuclear power plants who risk getting cancers from radiation leaks?? And, more importantly, why should it be assumed that OSHA (whether the Cali branch or the national affiliate) should be informed about every single injury ever done to a porn performer in or out of his/her job??

No one is saying that there shouldn’t be some minimal standards of safety during porn shoots. The issue is whether or not the standards that Cal-OSHA would impose — which would include not only condoms but also dental dams and in some cases even goggles and face shields — would be even effective or even overkill in the name of “protecting” performers…including those majority of performers whom have proven themselves not to be needing that extreme kind of “protection” that our Anon wants. Or..whether or not this is simply abusing a group of people — namely, sex workers and porn performers — merely to get paid off their suffering and exploitation as “vectors of disease”.

Besides that, what sort of injuries would Anon wish to chronicle?? STI’s which occur in a much greater rate in the general population than in porn (unless (s)he happens to believe that porn is indeed the incubator of all sexually transmitted diseases)?? Yeast infections?? Menstrual blood?? Mere cuts and bruises?? Or, should we hold out for the REAL stories of full scale mass throat and anal rape, or the super secret snuff films that we know are murdering women every hour on the hour on porn sets daily??

I’m so sure that Cal-OSHA, even in these times of severe budget crises in the state government, will be perfectly capable of tracking down and prosecuting such evils..or simply resolving them by jamming a condom down the performer’s throat. Yeah, that’ll work well…never mind the fact that most porn is nowadays done for home sites and driving AIM out of business and the industry out of the safety and continuity of the current testing regime would simply force performers into much more dangerous and less regulated situations. Not to mention, putting people out of work. But, maybe that’s Anon’s point all along.

How many injuries that required surgery? How many non-HIV disease transmissions?

Also, does AIM test for heroin, oxy or other narcotics to ensure that drug addicts aren’t being exploited?

That’s really funny…because by law AIM is required to test only for HIV and herpes (though they did offer testing for other STI’s upon request. There is no standard for testing for other narcotics…and nor should there be in the first place. Maybe Anon may have missed this, but most porn consumers and performers want to be clean and sober, as most drugs tend to depreciate the wanted experience of sexual pleasure. It’s kind of hard to deliver lines when you are stoned or whacked out on heroin or meth, and especially not so easy to maintain your erectile “edge” and shoot on cue when you are incapacitated by alcohol or any other controlled substance. In most porn sets I know, there are 5 women and 2 men in wait if any performer turns up not at his best to replace him/her…that tends to kick out the drugged out better than any testing regimen.

Only someone who’s never even been to a porn shoot — or one of Shelley Lubben’s  or Gail Dines’ mindless clones — would insinuate that porn performers are inately drug addicts. I guess we can place Anony in both levels??

OSHA standards? Sounds like a VERY good idea. What other job does being beaten, choked and having several inches in width shoved up your ass while being called a “stupid cunt”?

Try almost every other job, asshole. Women outside of porn have been beaten and choked for decades, and plenty of women have been raped anally without the need for or assistance of porn. Many more women have also willingly and safely enjoyed “having several inches in width” stuffed up their asses (does that include dildos and butt plugs, too, Anony??)..and I’m so sure that they would appreciate as well Cal-OSHA’s attempt to protect them from their own desires and take away their right of free will.

And as for calling them “stupid cunts”?? Funny, but you don’t seem to have a problem with women being called such in the context of non-sexual non-consensual relationships, do you?? Where are you when Gail Dines breaks out the “cumdumpster” card?? Or, when Ministeress Lubben reverts to calling porn performers (at least, those who don’t immediately faint to their knees and worship her as ROXYY!!!…errrrrr, I mean, Saint Shelley of Assisi, bringing God’s salvation and rescue to all ex-sluts everywhere) “diseased”, “prostituted”, and incapable of free will or thought?? And, where are you when right-wingers resort to the same epithet to demonize and stigmatize not only women in porn, but ALL women not following the pristine path of “modesty” and marriage??

But hey, Anonymous doesn’t want to insult porn women (actually, (s)he does, only (s)he wants to mask her hatred under the cloak of protection and human concern)…(s)he only wants to “save” them by allowing the steady hand of OSHA to impose “modest” standards and to force them to use condoms in their scenes..because that’s how (s)he will either force their users to use condoms themselves through “role modeling” (If the only thing the stupid proles see is people driving red cars, then they will themselves buy red cars, and red car dealers and owners will rake in the prosperity!!!), or the “industry” will simply wilt out of existence altogether, and the romance (and ignorance) media market will bloom a thousand flowers again from elimination of the competition.

No doubt Ernest will be responding with some diatribe about prudery and christian fanatics, or dread femi-nazis.

Meanwhile… let’s get back to OSHA standards for all workers and stop letting industry pimps pretend they give a rats’s ass about women’s health or how fucked up it is that millions of people are jerking off to images of women getting abused.

Ah, yes….the old radfem boilerplate, concentrated in one sustained bowel movement. Refer to a male pornographer as an “industry pimp”. Raise one more time the “Owwwwwwwww….they called us ‘antisex prudes’ and ‘femi-Nazis” again!!!” canard. (And of course, also the “Christian fanatics” addedum as a bonus, completely washing away the collusion between antiporn feminists and right-wing antifeminist fundamentalists in hating women who insist on their right to enjoy sexually explicit media on their own terms.)

And, of course, the usual smack of “fucked up” men jerking off to “women being abused” because we all know how much women are abused and raped and horrified by such things as sperm in the face, or a dick in the ass, or even a dick in her…..mouth. And, we all know that women are waaaaaay too pure to even have a hint of sexual autonomy to jill off to such “abuse”…right, Belladonna?? Cameron Diaz?? Carrie Prejean?? Sharron Angle?? Ms. Bueller??  Ms. Bueller??

And the final coup de’resistance of this inanity:

We wouldn’t want to be “sex negative” or anything… So bitches, open up an say aahhhh… because whores have no rights. Thank you… “sex positivity”

The addition of that attempted insult only makes our Anony look like an anttporn hack. Actually, jackass, we who call ourselves “sex-positive” believe that “whores” actually have many rights….the same rights and responsibilities to protect themselves from unwanted diseases and injury as any other person. As I said at the beginning, the debate about condoms is NOT about whether performers should or should not have the right to insist on them if they so desire; it is well agreed that they should. (You do know that Ernest Greene has been a long time advocate for performer choice and for not punishing performers for wanting condom use, right, Anony?? Or, are you so dense not to even have read his own words??) It is all about whether imposing condoms in porn shoots at the risk of both harming performers more and costing them their livelihood (because it is proven fact that condomized porn simply doesn’t sell to the overall public, other than a very narrow demographic), and whether the push for a condom mandate is simply an invented porn panic using the bodies of porn performers as political pinatas for the greed and benefit of certain parties.

Or…useless props for antiporn vents like that comment.

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Why Porn Performers Deserve Their Full Humanity, Too: The Fakery Of Pornwikileaks And The Arrogance Of Mainstream "Slut Shaming"

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I have been a commentator and fan of the adult sexual media for pretty close to 10 years now.

I’ve seen porn starlets and stars come and go; some better than others, some prettier than others; some more successful than others.

Some get in it for the quick thrill of the fast money and the easy sex; then fade out never to be heard from again. A few stick around avd become professionals, even icons, whose personas and performances become frozen into the deepest fantasies of fans forever.

A few do become victims of their successes, getting caught up in the fast life of too much money too quick, and they suffer the consequences of their excesses.

Most of them, though, generally make their money, do their damage, live out their fantasies and dreams, and then decide that they’ve done enough and move on to different phases of their lives…attempting to become just regular folk living their lives.

Of course, the stigma attached to performing active sex on stage or screen or online follows them throughout the rest of their lives. It can be anything from a positive that drives their ambitions, to an albatross that feeds popular prejudice that denies them more “legitimate” employment.

In a truly progressive and sane world, their profession wouldn’t even matter…they would be judged as any other person would ask to be judged: by their deeds and actions and their ethical treatment of people.

Unfortunately, we are far removed from that world…and even in 2011 it is still considered perfectly OK to condemn a woman or a man (mostly, the former) for having a sex life not redeemed by the usual conservative stereotypes.

Such is the case with the practice of “forced outing” a performer who would rather keep her/his private life/information out of publc view.

Forced outing is an issue that has long vexed sexual communities; with the conflict between exposing the hypocrisy of those who publically condemn and seek to repress nonviolent, consensual sexual behavior or media depictions thereof while privately partaking in the same behavior they would condemn in others; and respecting the fundamental right of privacy. It can be a tool of forceful social change when done properly; but it can also be, when taken out of control, a tool of social destruction.

In the case of Pornwikileaks.com, it’s definitely the latter, in my view.

The prototype, naturally, is the highly controversial and successful Wikileaks site that has been both praised and derided for revealing corporate and governmental crimes and misdemeanors.

The Pornwilileaks version, however, has a much darker and more sinister motive….laced with liberal amounts of racism, misogyny, utter hatred of performers…and especially deep, entrenched homophobia. Their “About” page practically leaps out the page with gay hatred; stating that their primary objective is

“To get the gays out of straight porn and illegal gay pimps that have ruined porn and shut it down making condoms mandatory by the government now. The fag loving has got to stop. California is full of gay Mexicans and now they can even marry which is so wrong.”

Now, all of you know my opposition to the condom mandate as proposed by groups like the AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), and backed by people such as Michael Weinstein and Shelley Lubben. My opposition is based on respect for the performers’ right of free choice and the fact that the existing system of testing and prevention mostly designed and run by AIM has done as effective a job that can be done under the circumstances.  I didn’t say that the policy was perfect, only that it was effective, and that forcing condoms down performer’s throats would be not only counterproductive, but also highly ineffective.

Yet, for all their professing of wanting to “save” porn, they really have a strange way of showing their it.

Their site claims to have the relevant information of over 14,000 performers, including their real names, current residential addresses, phone numbers, and even medical information. They boast that they would acquire and reveal information on performers’ medical condition, including highly illegally obtained information on a performer’s STI status.

The site also boasts of a section called “Category High Risk HIV”, in which they place people which they describe as “either gay or [you] fuck fags”.

And how ironic that they attempt to perceive themselves as opposing the condom mandate, when their actual acts in developing their “database” depends almost entirely on destroying the one organization standing in the way of imposing that mandate…namely, AIM.

You see, the reason Pornwikileaks has such a vast database of illegally pilfered information is because one of their agents were able to somehow break into AIM’s database of confidential medical information…thusly making that info available for public posting everywhere.

And then there is the case of a man named Donny Long, whom has been rumored to be the front man behind Pornwikileaks. Long was a former porn performer who broke from the industry about two years ago, but not before launching everything from a website to a message board casting all kinds of fury against nearly everyone. He has developed a reputation as a misantrope and a troll who basically uses every means necessary to out performers he doesn’t like, and he has often used Twitter as his chosen weapon until he got banned due to complaints of stalking from those performers targetted. The language of PW is pretty much a mirror of some of the smack that Long has spread in the past in other venues. (For the record, Long has denied that he is the creator of Pornwikileaks, though he does defend its overall mission.) Opponents and victims of Long’s wrath have formed their own website, DonnyLongIsAConvictedFelon.com, to counter his claims and correct the reacod.

Why is that interesting??  Because it wasn’t the last time that AIM had their database hacked into and information released to the public.

Remember the case of Desi and Elli Foxx?? They were the mother/daughter performer/sex worker team which filed a public lawsuit against AIM claiming that the latter didn’t do enough to protect their private info from being released to a previous forum which predicated Pornwilileaks. (Their case was settled out of court.) It was only a coincidence that the group most aggressively pushing the lawsuit just so happened to be the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, who aggessively favors the condom mandate and who would benefit the most from getting AIM out of the business of testing performers. Right…only a coincidence.

Another “coincidence” to ponder?? When gay/bi performer Cameron Reid (aka Derrick Burts) revealed himself to be “Patient Zeta”, the performer who tested positive for HIV in the scare last year, it was that very same Donny Long forum who, claiming to refute his charges that he contracted HIV on the set of a mainstream video, (allegedly) put out a YouTube video of Burts with fellow gay performer James Jameson, as proof positive that Burts contracted HIV directly from “those fags”. Jameson, for his part, flatly denies that, even going as far as stating that he is HIV-negative and has been his entire life. Interestingly enough, Burts/Reid found his way to the reach of AHF via some contracts, and now he is their biggest booster, as well as pushing the condom mandate while soundly criticizing AIM for not doing enough to help him during his time of need.

Once again, this may be pure coincidence, or it may be just a sign that Donny Long and Pornwikileaks might be in cahoots with AHF, Shelley Lubben, and certain other antiporn groups out to basically dissect the industry for its own ends..even if unwitting allies. I wouldn’t put it against the latter scenario..though it’s probably more the former.

The obvious issues arisen from this is whether or not AIM is a victim of a malicious racist hack bent on their destruction, or a serial bungler who doesn’t know how to handle sensitive information (as former porn director/agent Mike South has written in his analysis), or perhaps even a secret participant in the whole chirade to silence those like AHF who want to overthrow them and impose the condom  mandate (as some commentators over at the LukeIsBack porn gossip blog have suggested).

But, while that question fleshes itself out, there is a much  bigger issue of how those who perform in porn and sex work are seen by the world as large. Unfortunately, in some mainstream venues, the idea that porn stars and prostitutes and even women who gambol in sex for personal pleasure can be seen as fully normal and human seems to be a very foreign principle.

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Which brings me to the “slut shaming” portion of this blog entry..and the single, cold-hearted brain cell that is Chris Malyszczyk of Cnet.com, who wrote what he considered to be an analysis of the whole PornWikileaks saga.

Apparently, Christopher isn’t a fan of porn, and that’s his right and his perogatime…but what he says about porn performers being outed against their permission speaks volumes about his disrespect and utter loathing for them….even while he probably jerks off watching them.

For some reason, I am reminded of Eric Schmidt’s dictum.

You know, the one that went something like: “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.”

It comes to mind because someone whose motivations seem slightly troubling has taken it upon himself to be the Julian Assange of porn.

For there now exists a site called PornWikiLeaks, on which, as you might be able to imagine, certain intimate details of porn stars are displayed for all to see.

The site doesn’t display diplomatic messages from one porn star to another. Instead, it attempts to offer a comprehensive revelation of who these stars really are.

Riiight. Because we all know that women who do porn are really diseased sluts and nuts who fall to their knees at the first sight of hard cock, right Christopher?? So, we have every right to know every nook and cranny of what they do, who they do, where they do it, and what disease they catch while they do it. After all, we can’t have them damn fags and them “jigaboos” out there polluting normal people with AIDS and other diseases..’ya know, Verne???

And…it’s only “slightly troubling” but otherwise totally acceptable for a rogue agent like Donny Long to basically harrass, stalk, and potentially abuse women and men who perform in porn merely because he has a racist/sexist/homophobic fetish, and because he sucked so bad as an aspiring agent?? All because…well, they’re evil slutty porn girls?? How touching.

However, many of those who earn an often meager income from their carnal knowledge don’t really want their neighbors to know what they do to pay the rent. Moreover, some have left the industry in order to become elementary school teachers or accountants.

So one can only imagine that when PornWikiLeaks reveals not merely their real name, but also address, pictures of their family, and phone numbers, they might just be a little upset.

Oh dear…maybe becuse it’s non of those neighbor’s damn business what they do?? Or, because the stigma attached to being a porn performer or an erotic actress (unless your name happens to be Kim Kardasian or Paris Hilton or Carrie Prejean) is such that even outright repudiation of your past doesn’t prevent you from total embarrassment or even removal of your job and livelihood if your past becomes revealed?? Or, maybe, Chris believes PW to be an excellent way to score a quick and easy lay, since obviously these “sluts” are incapable of being human enough to say “No”??

And besides that, there is this assumption that most normal people are entitled to the right of privacy, of not having either the government or any business entity going into their panty drawers or bedrooms or personal information without their permission and approval But, we all know that sluts, like gays, illegals, inner city Black drug addicts, and other cancers of straight White American society, aren’t worthy of having normal people’s rights, don’t we?? We don’t want Big Government in our medicine cabinets or our uteri…but them other people?? No problem.

There is also a suggestion that it is the creator’s intention to reveal the STD status of every single porn star, although this hasn’t actually happened yet.

But where did PornWikiLeaks get this information? At least some of the leaked data may have come from a database at AIM Medical Associates, a company that routinely tests porn stars for STDs.

AIM told NBC Los Angeles that it is investigating. However, PornWikiLeaks has been going since December, so the investigation might simply be related to the sudden publicity the site is enjoying.

Still, AIM believes it has been violated just as much as the U.S. government. Its spokeswoman, Jennifer Miller, told the Beast: “I can’t stress enough, we’re victims of a crime. Just like the Pentagon and the FBI, we have been victimized and hacked. We are investigating and we will press all charges.”

Oh, but who asked them?? They’re just the enabalers of the diseased and vapid sluts who simply don’t want to be revealed to be doing their dirty deeds…and besides, who the hell are they to equate themselves to the awesome power of the Pentagon and FBI under assault by the original Wikileaks??

Now, it has been noted that PW has pilfered from a variety of sources to build their “database”, not only from AIM…even though it has been confirmed that  much of the medical info and a large portion of the other personal info is straight from AIM’s database, which is indeed shared with porn studios as a means of screening out those who might by HIV+ or otherwise affected with STI’s. However, it is also a fact that by law AIM is forced to immediately turn in any information about someone testing positive for HIV to the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health Services…which just so happens to be one of the agencies most motiviated to oust AIM and impose their condom mandate, along with the AHF and the state offices of Cal-OSHA. Not to mention the aformentioned suit by Mimi and Desi Foxx against AIM for not protecting their medical records from being revealed; and a later suit filed by AHF and LACDPH calling for AIM to release to them records about performers possibly linked to the HIV porn scare of 2009. Maybe AIM does have serious issues with handling personal data…but that doesn’t excuse stealing their data and outing performers against their will.

It should also be noted that the 2257 laws imposed by the Federal government also require porn individuals and production companies to maintain detailed information about every performer for immediate release to government officials (the latter motivated by the myth of “underage children” getting into the industry following the Traci Lords debacle during the late 1980′s; reinforced by the latest scandal in Colombia concerning current superstar Lupe Fuentes). Given the ease to which such information can be accessed and even traded, maybe it would make it quite a bit easier for any hacker to get sensitive information and use it to his own profit against the performer’s interests??

But, again, that’s a concern for normal people who are assumed to be fully human, not porn girls, sex workers, or other dirty sluts.  At least, not to Chris Malyszczyk.

The porn industry is undergoing considerable changes, especially with the huge proliferation of free online porn. Will the existence of PornWikiLeaks make some think twice about their chosen means of making money?

Or is the expectation now entirely reasonable that anything you do, anywhere, at any time could–at any moment–be revealed online for all the world to see, know, and, of course, judge?

In other words….does the Bill of Rights apply to everyone….or are porn performers exempeted merely because of their chosen profession??

In response to such claptrap, an actual sex worker who was outed by PornWikileaks named Maggie Mayhem was moved to post at her blog a thorough ass-kicking rebuke of Chris Malyszczyk and his slut shaming. The entire piece is worthy of a read, but I will give some snippage.

Let’s clear a couple of things up, hater. First and foremost this information was obtained from private medical records. It isn’t a coincidence that one of the major ways that we protect our health and the health of our partners was sabotaged. It’s a clear message: you are not allowed to have both a non-traditional sex life and good health at the same time. This was an act of terrorism. According to your words, hater, we should just sit back and accept this as proper order of the world. We should just accept that mainstream medical care excludes us and degrades us and that if we develop a community model of care that people will do everything they can to shut it down. I guess we should have thought about that when we tried to pay our rent, have a relationship, be part of a family, or go on living our lives like anyone else. We should have just known that someone would eventually think that they were saving California from “Mexicans and gays trying to get married,” by illegally accessing our medical records and posting them on the internet with our real names and an incitement for harassment against us.

Whether or not our industry is conventional has nothing to do with what happened. For example, I think that it is unethical to set up sweatshops in developing nations to exploit the local labor force. If I hacked into the HMO database for a major corporation with factories in developing nations and published the names and private information of thousands upon thousands of low level employees who worked for that corporation at any point in time on the internet alongside calls for harassment against them I would be immediately denounced as a deranged criminal who must be stopped immediately and that would be absolutely, 100% accurate. No one w0uld be debating whether or not those employees should be ashamed of working in retail. No one would suggest that the reason why they dropped their surname or opted for nickname on their employee badge was because they were trying to hide from their occupation. No one would speak as though they should have known that sooner or later someone would inevitably hack into their medical records and post their badge name next to their full legal name alongside libelous language and calls for harassment against them. We would solely focus on the actions of the deranged criminal and discuss ways that we can prevent that kind of illegal and dangerous behavior from happening again.

Like most haters, you’re getting defensive about the fact that people are calling you out for victim blaming. The opening and closing of an essay is prime real estate in a piece of a writing. It’s what people notice first and what they walk away with at the end.  This essay contained 538 words. The opening and closing  (103 words) constitute just under 1/5 (just about 20%) of the total essay length and both are dedicated to questioning whether or not porn performers should feel shame about what they do for a living rather than what actually happened or any form of compelling analysis. The reason that people are receiving this as victim blaming is because you opened your essay by saying, “For some reason, I am reminded of Eric Schmidt’s dictum. You know, the one that went something like: ‘If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.’” It communicates quite a bit about your priorities that you opened and closed your writing with a sentiment of judgement and shame.

Amen and a-women on that, Maggie.

Sad to say, many performers whom I follow and respect — and some I even worship — have  found themselves on that list of outed performers. In fact, anyone whom has used AIM’s services — whether they be in porn or not — have probably had their privacy breached by this hacking, and they are suspect to being violated at any tiime. (Mike South has posted at his blog some means to which performers who think they ave been violaated can act to get their names removed, or to get PW shut down, and porn legal scholar Michael Fattarousi has also acted to bring legal means against Long to end the harrassment and stalking. Efforts by Long to intimidate and expose performers on Twitter have mostly failed in the wake of strong response by the performers themselves.) The resulting tragedy and its impact on AIM and on the current regime of HIV testing remains to be resolved; whether it turns out to be the concluding act in the AHF/CalOSHA/LACDHS takeover of porn testing and the condom mandate is still well up in the air.

However the results go, though, it still reinforces what to me has been one of my fundamental objectives that has driven my support for and respect of women who take the risks and enjoy the benefits of performing in adult explicit sexual entertainment: that they are treated as nothing less than full human beings, worthy of respect, free will, and accountability for their actions.

No woman — not even Shelley Lubben or Michelle Bachmann,– or no man — not even Glenn Beck or Rush Liimbaugh, however I may loathe their political and social views — deserves to be treated as any less than fully human. Maybe some day, we will apply that standard to porn/sexwork.  Some day.

[See also Violet Blue's rundown of the whole controversy at her Tiny Nibbles blog here. and also FurryGirl (of Feminisnt) with her perspective on how to protect your privacy from the 2257 laws here. Danny Wylde of Trev West Coast Fiction also has a nice smackdown of Donny Long over at his blog as well.]

[Maymay over at Maybe Maimed, But Never Harmed has a marvelous post now up on why PornWikileaks simply can't wear Wikileaks' jock strap. Check it out here.]

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When The Expose Boomerangs On The Exposee: Cameron Rowe's Hackery Of The "Porn Industry" (Part Three – The High-Tech Lynching Of Sharon Mitchell)

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All right…back at last from the Christmas rush, and ready to continue with this bad boy. For reference, just read Parts One and Two.

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We now come to the segment where Cameron begins his assault on the person of Sharon Mitchell, former adult performer and main founder/spokesperson for the Adult Industry Medical Health Care Foundation (AIM-MED or simply AIM), who is the principal agent for testing and treatment of sexually transmitted infections (STI’s) within the LA-based porn industry.

In case you have forgotten, a rump coalition consisting of public health care officials aligned with the Los Angeles County Health Services Department (LACHS), the activist organization AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF, led by Michael Weinstein), and antiporn activists like former performer-turned-fundamentalist Christian activist Shelley Lubben, sincerely want to drive AIM and Sharon Mitchell out of LA on a high-speed rail, with the mission of replacing the existing system of standarized HIV testing and voluntary/performer chosen condom usage with a regimen of mandatory condom usage on all porn sets and stiff regulations requiring the use of barrier methods (condoms, dental dams, and even goggles and gloves and other personal protection equipment) more apropos to heavy industrial workplaces where far greater exposure to bodily fluids exists. Maligning Mitchell is central to this because she has been the lead spokesperson and the woman most identified with AIM and their testing system.

The actual system was born out of a major HIV porn outbreak that took place in 1994, when Marc Wallace was found to have infected up to 7 people after faking a false negative test. Back then, the actual test used was the ELISA test, which remains the standard for testing for STI’s used by most health care officials. ELISA tests for the antibodies within the blood stream that contain the HIV infection. It’s 100% accurate for locating people with full blown AIDS, but, because the antibodies can be masked initially in people who are infected up to 2 weeks, it is woefully ineffective in tracking people who don’t show the actual symptoms of AIDS, but may still carry enough of the HIV virus to infect others.  Mitchell went and introduced a qualitatively different test, the PCR-DNA test, that used a different mechanism (namely, the level of the HIV virus itself within the DNA structure of the bloodstream. That test proved to be far more accurate in tracking the HIV virus (as well as other viruses such as chlamydia and gonnorhea); so much so that the industry now accepts it as the “gold standard” for their system of testing and isolating away HIV infections.

Now, AIM is not the only testing service that is used; there are others in the market that may use variations of the same testing regime.  AIM’s service has proven to be so effective, though, that the level of infections from HIV have greately decreased, to the point that there have been no other cases of infection on any porn production shoot.

This isn’t to say that the system is perfect, of course: there was a breach that occured in 2009; and, of course, there is the Derrick Burts/Cameron Reid scare this last October. In both cases, though, the infections originated outside of the industry’s domain (the female performer who became “Patient Zero” of last year was found to have been infected before performing a shoot, but inexplicitly allowed the 30-day test period to laspe before going on the shoot; and Burts, while making plenty of noise right now about how AIM disrespected him, did admit that he did get infected on a gay male shoot totally outside the jurisdiction of AIM.)

Nevertheless, the prospect of back-to-back infections has empowered those forces who have been attempting to force mandatory condom usage down the throats of performers in the name of “public safety” and “performer protection” and “role modeling” (the latter refers to the hope that forcing porn performers to use condoms would help encourage the public at large to engage them as “safer sex” propolaytics).  It has also fueled the fire of politicians wanting to find any excuse to either regulate porn into submission or simply banish them out of LA altogether.

Given that context, one can plainly see why smearing Sharon Mitchell and AIM is Job 1 with AHF, Lubben, the LACHS, and their media supporters. Naturally, Cameron Rowe is solidly on board with this, and he pulls no punches indeed in joining the lynch mob.

He begins with a reset of the original 2004 HIV scare, and the scent of a “porn industry” cover-up.

Porn star Darren James sued AIM and some AIM officials in 2005 for invasion of privacy and his suicidal attempt after his name was released that he had HIV. The lawsuit was settled out of court with a confidentiality agreement. Usually, that means the plaintiff won. James did say he wished he was the only one that got infected. The LA Times reporter Rong Gong-Lin II covered the story. (Note: No link since I could not pull the article from the LA Times but I made a copy of it in 2009.)

Now, it’s so nice that the supposed “journalist” in Cameron can say that a settlement in a case is a clear sign that “the plaintiff won”…which means exactly….what?? That Darren James wasn’t in fact “Patient Zero”?? Probably not, since he has publically admitted to that effect that he was the one carrying the HIV virus to that infamous double-anal scene with Lara Roxx and Mark Anthony (but more on that anon). That AIM should not have listed him?? They are required BY LAW to release the names and medical records of any performer testing positive for HIV to the proper authorities.  Also, you would think that the industry would probably want to protect their performer assets by not having them do shoots with infected people, which is why there also is a quarantine list issued of those performers testing positive for HIV for them to avoid hiring.

Now…the LA Times article Rowe cited is more than likely behind the Times paywall and inaccessable online…but if Cameron happens to have the article, why not post it through other means?? Even I have a scanner/printer at home, you know.

It should be noted that Darren James is now an HIV counselor and a backer of the condom mandate….but, surprisingly enough, he is NOT publically affiliated with AHF or the LACHS’s current campaign. You would think that having him on board would be a strategic asset for the condom mandate folk…so why is he not behind the microphone and people like Shelley Lubben and Derrick Burts are?? Maybe Black men aren’t useful for the proper pathos in a public campaign the way a White gay/bi man and a ex-slut-performer-cum-fundie minister is??

The porn industry, Gene Ross of AdultFYI, claimed Lara Roxx was actually infected with HIV not James. This could be industry spin since they are not the LA Times. Gene Ross admitted to calling her and demanding an interview and claimed she wanted money for one. Now, that is his side of the story. He posted the conversation. The impression of his wording of the non-interview was that of being harassing. She hung up on him. He claims some picture was taken of her anus the same day she worked with James. Another shoot after James, was supposed to happen but she had a rash she claimed she got from working with James and Marc Anthony and waxing. She didn’t do the scene because the male performer refused to work with her. If the rash was herpes, Ross has no proof the picture was the day she shot a scene with James just someone’s word. Ross doesn’t even offer proof the picture was Lara Roxx’s either. Unfortunately for AdultFYI, Darren James ultimately claimed responsibility. That and it looks like horrible spin by Ross that should lead one to believe the LA Times and Darren James’s version therein.

This is funny, because Gene Ross never claimed to represent anywhere near the mass opinion of “the porn industry” when he raised the question of whether Lana Roxx might have been the real “Patient Zero” or whether she might have gotten infected before then in Canada where she did another scene with James before the double anal scene mentioned. The main source that Rowe gives is an article that appeared at the AdultFYI website/forum where Ross cites some previous articles from AdultFYI to state his belief that Roxx might have been infected or may have gotten infected by James before that fateful shoot. The first of those articles cites a popular at that time online radio show airing on the website KSEXRadio.com on May of 2004, where host Wankus and actor Dick Tracey, who claims to have worked with both James and Roxx at the time, suggests that the latter might have been infected:

5/8/2004: Porn Valley- I’ve been suggesting to people all along that Lara Roxx, not Darren James, is Patient Zero in this whole HIV flap. And Wankus’ interview with Dick Tracey Friday night on KSEX, www.ksexradio.com gives me even more reason to believe that.

For one thing, Tracey lends credence to the Roxx ass picture that has appeared on Adultfyi.com- the one where Roxx’s anal tract appears to be housing a leper colony. Roxx is claiming she got that rash the day after she worked with Darren James which is utter nonsense. Roxx had that condition the day she worked with James, and here’s what Tracey had said to Wankus.

Noting that he hasn’t worked with any of the people who’s worked with the people on the quarantine list, Tracey said he got lucky in that instance. “But I’ve got a fucked up story,” said Tracey, referring to Roxx. Tracey said he could have worked with Roxx approximately the time she worked with James, that Roxx was a step-in for another girl who didn’t show up.

“She showed up on set and me being the picky bastard that I am, I’m, who the fuck is this? This wasn’t the girl I was supposed to work with.” Tracey’s woman Cailley Taylor who was also on The Wanker Show piped in by saying that Roxx was ugly and that’s why Tracey had his reservations. Tracey said another girl was also on the set talking to Roxx in the dressing room. Tracey was called over and the girl pulled Roxx’s pants down. “She [Roxx] had lesions.”

Tracey said he saw the picture on Adultfyi.com and confirmed that was Roxx. “When I saw that I said no fucking way am I working with that. I called Aria who was down the street. She saved my fucking life. I called her up and she came over and did the scene.”

Wankus wondered what was Roxx’s reaction to Tracey’s reaction. “She said that she got waxed and got this rash after she did a double anal scene with Darren. I’ve waxed my chest and stuff and I’ve never seen anything like that. It looked like the worst case of herpes I had ever seen.”

Wankus relayed the information that the Roxx picture was allegedly taken the same day she worked with James. However it was a photo shot during a “recreational” scene. Tracey said that Roxx supposedly showed up to “a certain interracial porn company” to do an interview to get work.

“They took her in the back and d.p.’d her off camera for fun and someone brought a camera in.”

Wankus said he had been told that Roxx had been turned down by other male performers, noting her condition but that James said he didn’t give a fuck because he was known to have herpes anyway. “This is what I heard.”

Tracey said he saw the Roxx picture before it got posted on Adultfyi.com and knew for a fact it was legitimate. “I know what I saw.”

Of course, I will remind you of the necessary caveat that this took place on an online radio talk show where hearsay sometimes tends to trump actual evidence.  But, it does give pause to the official “story” that Lana Roxx was the innocent who got infected by the dasterdly Darren James, who himself is alleged to have gotten infected in Brazil through sex with a male-to-female transsexual. And also, you can question why the studio in charge of that shoot would take such callous risks as to hire without testing first someone who had known lesions on her anal area to do a double anal scene….whether they were HIV+ or not.

And also note the fact that Tracey clearly in the interview identifies the woman in the aformentioned photo as Lana Roxx, and Ross openly states that in his opinion, Roxx was the woman described in the photo. A far cry from “there is no proof”..’ya think, Cameron??

This isn’t to diminish in any way the tragedy befallen on either James or Roxx…but it does go to raise some extreme doubts about whether or not “the porn industry” is covering up just to protect their assets.

According to NPR, AIM (Adult Industry Medical) HealthCare Foundation is being sued again by a mom and daughter who performed in porn and are alleging AIM allowed the mother’s results to go viral and someone posted her real name. The case is a class action against AIM. Highly doubtful lawyers would take on a class action unless they thought they would win. They claim AIM allows Much like the Darren James lawsuit, it’ll probably be settled out of court

This, for those of you who might not know, is the Diane Grandmassen/Bess Gerren (nee Desi and Elli Foxx) lawsuit that was filed against AIM due to their personal records being released and then posted to a blog. Interestingly enough, the primary instigator behind the suit (and the attempt to make it a “class action” suit representing all performers) just so happened to be…..Mike Weinstein of AHF, who just so happened to lead he tearful press conference where the accusers attempted to thrash AIM for deliberately destroying their lives by revealing their private information.

One small problem, though..the main claim of the suit was that AIM, by allowing porn producers access to the medical records of performers, was violating privacy laws and was solely responsible for the breach of privacy. Considering that most private companies who do drug testing also retain the rights to medical records of their employees as part of their mandatory drug testing, that’s a pretty weak claim. Plus, it was revealed that the records were taken from the production company, not from AIM’s office, and posted to the blog/message board from there…yet it was AIM that became the target, not the production company or the blog owner (It was later revealed that the blog/forum revealing the information was owned by producer/agent Derrick Hay, and ran by an associate of Donny Long, a former porn performer who has a history of outing porn performers.) Gee, I wonder…was it because AHF wanted to use these two women as part of their witchhunt against AIM and pull an Numerburg?? Even Darrah Ford, who is no supporter of AIM and who supports strongly the condom mandate, wasn’t buying into this..as quoted at her Porn Star Babylon blog:

Producers need access to the medical records in order to make sure who they’re hiring doesn’t have STDs. How else will they know who has whatever STDs? They could all wait till the day of filming and waste everyone’s time. But performers have the right to go into that database and see if who they’re working with that day has STDs. I’m no fan of either AIM or Sharon Mitchell. But if I’m a performer, you better believe I’ll be finding out beforehand if my future co-stars have STDs. AIM only tests for three STDs: HIV, Chlamydia, and Gonorrhea. That’s it!

What harm was done to Desi by having producers know her medical results? Don’t play victim without looking at what AIM did to the performers infected with HIV back in 2004. AIM released the names of Darren James, Lara Roxx, Miss Arroyo, and Jessica Dee to the media and that’s how many found out for the first time that their son and daughters were porn stars. So their families found out at the same time that their children are porn stars now infected with HIV.

[...]

I’m just trying to understand is there something that I’m missing here as to the harm caused to Desi and her daughter by having their medical results shown to producers. Or is this everyone involved just throwing whatever they can at the wall to see what sticks? Or did someone from the industry contact Desi and Elli in the outside world and make public to their family/friends/neighbors their past medical results?

Desi says her medical results are still available in AIM’s database. Well don’t they have to keep everything for legal reasons? They might also not delete anything because so many do come back into the industry. But I would think AIM can’t delete anything for legal reasons to not only protect themselves legally, but to also protect the performers from anything legal that might surface in the future.

The AIDS Healthcare Foundation website doesn’t even mention that Desi and Elli are mother & daughter, doesn’t mention their porn names, performed in the same porn movies, and also worked together at the Bunny Ranch. Because would anyone take Desi Foxx serious in this lawsuit if they knew?

Also…it is just as highly possible that the information might have been pilered from the LA County Health Department, who also keeps performer records, .then released to the offending blog in a direct sting to implicate and entrap AIM. But…AHF is much too pure to engage in chicanery like that…right, Cameron??

It is here where Rowe starts to get personal in his high-tech assault on Mitchell. First, he typically slants to his and AHF’s favor the recent pulling of AIM’s clinic license.


AIM was created in 1988 by Sharon Mitchell and Dr. Steven York, an internist, according to AIM to test performers to make sure the porn industry was safe. Just this December, AIM was shut down by the LA County Health Department after its application for a “medical clinic” license was rejected. AIM had been operating under a “doctor’s office” license till California said they needed the other license. That alone should tell anyone AIM was either incompetently run or the LA County Health Department was incompetent. Mitchell still wears a white lab coat walking around like a doctor.

Now, hold on a sec, here…so the co-founder of AIM along with Sharon Mitchell was in fact a doctor (albeit an intern) with a real Ph. D. degree…yet Cameron has the gall to question Mitchell’s creds or AIM’s creds as a medical clinic or a testing facility??  (Remember, nowhere does Cameron ever question Dr. York’s credentials.) And of course, as the world now knows, the license was not denied, just suspended by the state Department of Health due to a technicality over the title of the organization…which AHF and LACHS duly exploited to exercise their coup.

But this is only the beginning of Cameron’s gnashing of fangs into Mitch’s neck. Onward to the “faked doctor degree from a ‘diploma mill’” meme:

Sharon Mitchell claims to be a sexologist. However, her Ph.D. in human sexuality comes from the Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Sexuality. The Institute is still not accredited by a proper agency according to the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA). Last year, it had no accreditation whatsoever including a state run one that really doesn’t count anyway. California’s Bureau of Postsecondary and Vocational Education clearly states it is up to the student to see the Institute is a diploma mill, degree mill and/or meets their academic needs. It doesn’t. Unless it is accredited under CHEA, employers won’t consider it. California is lax about kicking out schools without national accreditation that counts.

According to the American College of Sexologists, Sharon Mitchell is listed as having HIV/SEX/Drug-Alcohol Addition specialties. California does not regulate sexologists and neither does any other state except Florida. How Ms. Mitchell has those specialties is beyond the scope of an apparent diploma mill/accreditation mill. Even in California, that could be illegal to claim medical credentials if that is what she’s claiming. A serologist in Florida has to have a real degree and pass a state exam to be called a doctor of sexology or you are committing a crime. Florida did that because of basically prostitution and “therapy” that was not regulated.

Sharon Mitchell is no doctor, no medical professional, and has an apparent diploma mill degree. The American College of Sexologists will accept anyone if you pay the fees and have such a degree. If you go to their website, those sexologist in Florida are MDs, MSWs and so forth. One sexologist in California I looked up had a website that looked mostly like a porn video store. If Ms. Mitchell used that degree to apply for a job with a private employer, they would laugh at the degree since it is not accredited.

Well, well…so much for this notice that is on the front freakin’ page of the IASHS website:

The Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality (IASHS) is the longest standing graduate program in Human Sexuality with the largest resource library in the world. Considered the “Harvard” of human sexology study, The Institute is located in San Francisico, CA, and is approved by the State of California Bureau for Private Postsecondary and Vocational Education. Institute graduates are employed in a variety of settings, including medicine and nursing, secondary and higher education, research, the media, social work, counseling and therapy, the clergy, the humanities and administrative positions. The Institute offers five graduate degree programs for persons wishing academic training in human sexuality.

.Now…unless Cameron is accusing the institution that accrediates ALL higher learning institutions in California of allowing “diploma mills” everywhere, this (especially the bolded part I emphasized) should be enough to shut his piehole. California actually does have some stringent standards — a hell of a lot stringent than other states — for accrediation of its colleges and universities; and I’m sure that if IASHS was indeed the “diploma mill” that Rowe suggests, they would not have lasted one year….let alone 10. And, let him attempt to say to people like Dr. Carol Queen or Annie Sprinkle or Dr. Charles Glickman that their doctorates from IASHS are worthless byproducts of a “diploma mill”. (I’d add the honorary Ph. D in Sexology degree bestowed this year to Nina Hartley, but time is short.)

And as for Florida being the only state to have more “stringent” standards for sexology due to fears of “prostitution” and illegal “therapy”….well, how much of that is attributed to a right-wing anti-sex attitude from the politically dominant Religious Right which seeks to destroy any means of sexuality education not promoting the old saws of abstinence and monogamous marriage??

Oh…and that sexologist with the site that looks like “a porn store”??  Would Cameron mean….this site?? I mean..if he’s going to malign Dr. Susan Block for her sexology degree, then why not call her out by name??  What’s wrong, Cameron…chicken got your tongue??

Besides that, even if Sharon Mitchell might be overdoing it a bit by advertising herself as a doctor, there is no one dumb enough to question her professionalism as a health care specialist…and no one other than the politically motivated or the just plain stupid will deny her stewardship of AIM in doing the job in protecting performers in the midst of a major pandemic of STI’s.

On the other hand, only the plain stupid and/or the lowdown dirty person would go to this card:

She admitted she was addicted to Heroin for sixteen years. Not sure how many porn movies she was in since various places have said 900+ and over 2,000. Mostly in New York City’s tame porn industry. She did win awards for her work from AVN so she is a porn star just not a doctor of any flavor. Even she contracted STDs during her porn career including herpes. In 1996, which is sad, she was attacked and raped by a stalker who almost killed her. After that she basically quit the business and appeared only sporadically in porn. Mitchell was lucky since Chasey Lain has not beat crack (the person said she looked like a “crack whore”) according to reports.

Oh, yes…”so sad” that she was beaten and raped, but not so sad that she “admitted” to beating a heroin addiction?? And she was just “lucky” to overcome such a plight?? I’d say that beating such a rap and going on to help other performers get out of such situations would be a badge of honor for Sharon Mitchell..but who am I to say?? And the sources for such information, according to Cameron??  Sharon Mitchell’s Wikipedia page (as if the IAFD database wasn’t available, or he couldn’t be arsed to actually ioterview her personally).

Oh, and it gets much better (or worse). The source he uses for the crack on Chaisey Lain being a “crack whore”??  This blog entry by a J. C. Skinner titled “Keep your daughter off the pole” which basically resets the ranks of dead porn starlets (or those allegedly destroyed by drugs).  And..Cameron even manages to get that wrong; the actual phrase used is “crackpipe ho”.  Figures.

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OK….that’s enough digging into the shit for tonight. Wash down with a nice cold shower — preferably with double strength Chlorox — and we will continue this later.

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