Porntifications

Posted by mikezillion at February 14th, 2007

We just received yet another disappointed letter from a customer, asking why (oh why!) we can’t ship our adult DVD’s to Texas. Local regulations make it possible for Texas to reach out and arrest us right here in San Francisco if we ship products which violate local community standards across state lines, so we err on the side of caution. Now two new bills being proposed in that state would tax adult businesses to fund sex crime reduction efforts. Nobody is making any direct connection between consuming adult media and committing sex crimes, but vague comments about objectification of women seem adequate to justify the tax. I just hope that such a tax also establishes that adult entertainment is officially sanctioned by the Texas government, so we can sell to all those Texan porn lovers.

Posted by mikezillion at February 11th, 2007

Mark Kernes has a fascinating article about the dangers of being labeled a terrorist, and the ease with which that term may be applied to pornographers. Quoting some of the run-of-the-mill anti-porn rants of Attorney Jan LaRue, (not to be confused with porn icon Chi Chi LaRue) and extrapolating from testimony before the Fourth Circuit about the Military Commissions Act and the rights of American citizens, Kernes warns that the Bush administration may already have the authority to declare pornographers “domestic terrorists.” So much for the right to a fair and public trial, legal counsel, etc. I wish it didn’t sound so plausible.

Posted by mikezillion at February 7th, 2007

The Department of Justice has asked for an additional $25 million in 2007 to battle obscenity and child pornography. They’re probably going to get it. And they’re probably going to waste a lot of it hassling legitimate porn producers instead of clamping down on the fly-by-night creeps who slip in and out of this industry looking for a fast buck at the expense of their performers and the folks who get exposed to their illegitimate offerings. I have no sympathy for anyone who makes money by exploiting children, either in front of the camera or in front of their computer screens. I also have no sympathy for anyone who gets funding by exploiting the exploitation of children, attacking legitimate business operators with unreasonable record-keeping requirements, and playing on the American public’s irrational fear of consensual adult sexuality.

Posted by mikezillion at February 4th, 2007

Well, I just finished my second year of Law School, so I was well prepared to read an article by Mark Kernes on AVN this morning. Prepared logically, but perhaps not emotionally. It would be easy to dismiss this article as a defense of a horrible, nasty person who pimped out a fourteen year old girl until she had to be hospitalized with AIDS. That’s really not what the article was about. The point of the article is that this pimp was indicted in Federal court, even though his actions all took place within the state of Florida. The justification for escalating this to Federal court was that the condoms, cell phones, and hotels used in the activities were all part of inter-state commerce. As Mr. Kernes points out, although hiring performers for adult entertainment purposes is explicitly legal in California, what porn producer in any state doesn’t make use of condoms, cell phones, and hotels? Federal investigators used similar wording to justify attacking medical marijuana facilities in California after the state legalized medial marijuana. Whether or not you endorse the use and sale of medical marijuana, and even though we can all agree that pimping out a fourteen year old girl is abominable, this sets a precedent for federal prosecution of in-state activities which should raise everyone’s red flags.

Posted by mikezillion at January 30th, 2007

I had really hoped to avoid weighing in on this one. I mean, yeah, I’m Jewish, so I do have a personal stake in how my people are perceived. In this case, TightFit Productions released a title called Assraelis, which featured the trademarked “Kof-k” symbol usually reserved for foods authenticated as kosher. It was a publicity coup when the group which authorizes use of the symbol asked that it be removed from this inedible (and therefore technically kosher) product. Everyone from the blogosphere, the adult news industry publications, the major Israeli newspapers, and even the New York Times are weighing in on this one. Ya gotta laugh at yourself a little to survive for six thousand years.

Posted by mikezillion at January 25th, 2007

Hu Jintau, the leader of the Chinese Communist Party, says he wants to ‘purify the internet’. With China’s history that includes getting collusion on censorship from web giants such as Yahoo and Google (although not Wikipedia), this statement comes as no big surprise. Pornographers and political dissidents alike should all watch this closely.

Posted by mikezillion at January 23rd, 2007

Producer Joe Francis of Mantra Films, makers of the ubiquitous Girls Gone Wild and Guys Gone Wild video series, has been sentenced to 200 hours of community service, fined half a million dollars, and ordered to have all his travel in and out of the country approved by the courts for two years. All this because of his arguably questionable attention to detail in following the strict-yet-ill-defined 2257 record-keeping regulations for his performers.

Posted by mikezillion at January 8th, 2007

Officials in Spain have moved to outlaw a website which encourages young girls to engage in anorexic behavior. While I can’t see the social value of such a site, I am concerned about the implications of levying criminal charges against the operators. For years, pornographers have been accused of creating the social ills which their products depict and exploit. Surely we all know that there have been anorexic girls longer than there have been websites to encourage them. I have no sympathy for the motivation that must drive the founders of these sites; I lost a dear friend to suicide several years back, after she battled anorexia for years. (I also personally prefer women with fuller figures, along the lines of MoNique and Dawn French, not that that’s relevant.) But this is the sort of thing we really need to keep an eye on. Whom will they come after next?