Oh, but this is sooo sweet….it seems that Adam and the folks at NoPornNorthhampton.com are having a bit of a snit….because we of The Great Pro-Porn Posse is undercutting and “censoring” them again.

Apparently, they got word of Renegade Evolution’s latest campaign to bust their favorite antiporn activist Gail Dines and her Stop Porn Culture slideshow by using the very same 2257 federal regulations that require record keeping for explicit sexual imagery. Ren is basically saying that if folks like John Stagliano has to go to jail because his videos might be accessible to “minors”; then why the hell is SPC allowed to go off scot-free and present their slideshows in open daylight to public audiences using the very same sexual content??? In venues much, much more accessible to minors, even???

Anyways…Adam and the NPNH gang let off their steam with a biting rebuttal at their site, where they attempted the same old tired smack about how the big, baaaad, evil pro-pornies are out to “suppress” their speech….and they start out by quoting an eariler “example”:

Porn defenders are usually staunch advocates of the First Amendment, but when the issue is speech they don’t like, many can’t resist groping around in the legal code to find a way to shut down analysis and criticism. We encountered this last summer, when the owner of the website Cruising for Sex wrongly claimed that copyright law prohibited us from reproducing a small portion of The Gloryhole FAQ.

The “Gloryhole FAQ”, in case you are intersted, is NPNH’s slightly biased and totally whacked and cracked attempt to explain away the practice of “gloryholes”; which are basically private areas where people (mostly gay men, but increasingly straight hetero folk, too; can engage in semi-public sex through holes punched through the walls. (Yes, Adam and NPNH is as obsessed with demonizing gay sex just as much as they are with porn…especially when it comes to playing the “anal sex causes HIV/STDs” card. They just so happened to randomly quote from the explicit (and free) Cruising for Sex website to prove how dirty and evil “gloryholes” and those who would participate in them are….copyright violations be damned.

Funny, but all the CfS webmaster did was to say that NPNH violated his copyright by using his images and words without his permission; it’s not as if he’s trying to put them out of business….no, wait…isn’t that exactly what Adam and his crew are attempting to do to adult bookstores and to porn itself??? Can you say, “Pot/kettle hypocrisy,” Clones??

They then get to the issue of “certain pro-porn activists” (Uhhhh, please, Adam, try to give Ren Ev and Ernest Greene their deserved props for their idea!!) attempting to “stifle” StopPornCulture…though they, unlike Ren Ev, manage not to even link to the SPC website or their slideshow (which has now been removed from the SPC site, interestingly enough).

Unfortunately, Adam shoots himself in the foot with the first attempted shot:

According to Wikipedia, the 2257 Regulations “require producers of sexually explicit material to obtain proof of age for every model they shoot, and retain those records”. The primary goal of the regulations is to prevent the employment of underage performers, such as Traci Lords.

First off: Wikipedia?!?!?! Damn, Adam….you could have just quoted the regulation directly from the Department of Justice; why the need for Wiki??

Secondly…you do know that it was Traci herself who fabricated her age in order to get into porn before she was legal, right???

And finally….if the goal is really to prevent underage performers, then why not use existing laws against kiddie porn and not require 35 year old performers to provide such intimate and private information to the Feds?? Or, do you think that Nina Hartley is really a 17 year old trapped inside a 46 year old body???

Oh, but it gets so much better….here’s how NPNH explains why antiporn activists like them should get free passes from having 2257’s documenting regs apply to them:

To apply 2257 to the StopPornCulture slideshow is clearly unconstitutional. Under the First Amendment, restrictions on explicit expression that is not “obscene” must be as narrowly tailored as possible to achieve the government’s objective. Not only would application of 2257 to political critiques of the adult industry be overbroad, it would undermine the purpose of the statute–prevention of child porn–because the effect would be to severely impede criticism of the primary producers of pornographic material.

Application of 2257 would also be viewpoint discrimination because the record-keeping requirements would be so burdensome to nonprofit secondary producers as to shut down all multimedia presentations from that perspective. By contrast, the adult industry can far more easily absorb this inconvenience, both because of their wealth and because they are closer to the original production.

In other words, it is totally OK for the government to target (and for groups like NoPornNorthhampton) to target and censor sexually explicit media and imagery and slander its participants as either paid rapists and molestors (or mere mindless sluts and disease carriers, and even prosecute them or regulate them to financial ruin. But, if anyone dares to call out such efforts for the censorship it is….well, they are practicing “viewpoint discrimination” against “the little guys/girls” fighting the good fight against the defiling and degradation of women and children; not to mention defending “sexual capitalism” (Sam Berg’s favorite phrase) and the profits of the evil “sex slavery” trade.

Yeah, right.

Let me see now….OK, so Ernest Greene is a producer of porn, as well as an employee (so to speak) of Larry Flynt’s HUSTLER empire (in his stead as chief editor of TABOO magazine), and he happens to be Nina’s husband and occasional producer of her videos. And Ren Ev is a part-time performer of porn by her own right. That leaves moi (who has produced exactly…well, two or three pieces or written erotica that I got exactly NOTHING for); Peter (aka Iamcuriousblue); Trinity, and Amber Rhea….none of whom, as far as I know, have earned one red cent for our opinions on porn and such.

On the other hand, you have StopPornCulture, who exists as a non-profit organization which directly solicits funds for their projects, whose speakers (Gail Dines, Bob Jensen, Rebecca Wheishaut, et. al.) demand and receive royalties and honoraria for speaking at colleges and universities; and who directly receive money from “faith-based” groups backed by the Bush Administration.

But….it’s the “pro-porners” who are attempting to “stiffle” NPHN and SPC’s speech, right???? Ahhhhhhh…yeah.

Oh, yeah…and for folks who are always complaining about personal assaults on them, they are pretty quick to go personal on their critics, are they?? Here’s how they reset their justification of smacking down Ren:

Many things make no sense in Pornoland. The latest example is the position of Renegade Evolution, a porn advocate, “a bit pathological about the rights of free speech,” who objects to our linking to her public statements without permission (even though she linked to NoPornNorthampton on July 8 with no prior notice) and our referencing her material in a critical context. A key element of what free speech is about–truth emerging from open debate–seems to have escaped her…

Ren Ev carries on her arguments here, but the bottom line is she perceives referencing her speech to criticize it to be an inappropriate use that amounts to “exploitation”. I suppose you could characterize any critical examination of anyone’s speech in this way, although I doubt this encourages the kind of open debate the founders of our country prized. Free speech is not just isolated individuals spouting off without reference to each other.

Examining pornography and pro-porn arguments is critical to understanding how porn works, why it’s harmful, its addictive qualities, and the toxic, narrow version of sexuality it sells. We appreciate that porn advocates may be upset or embarrassed by having their materials used in this way, but their interests must be balanced against the harms the sex industry imposes on third parties and its own participants. We will not cease to use the industry’s copious amounts of self-damaging evidence against it. This includes cases of commercial exploitation of other people’s likenesses without their consent, a far less defensible act than referencing material to make a political argument.

Maybe Adam forgot when writing that first paragraph about the Founding Fathers that their concept of “open debate” tended to ignore certain groups of people…such as men who didn’t have lots of property or people of color….or WOMEN.

And of course, no one is denying Adam or anyone else (even freakin’ Witchy Woo or Stormcloud, for that matter) the right to be critical or Ren Ev in their own venues….she’s a big girl and can defend herself quite adequately. But, if you are going to fire nukes at other folks, you just gotta be able to accept that they will fire back in kind…and if you hit any innocent people with your fire, then you can’t blame the other fellow for your mistakes.

But just for Adam’s amusement, allow me to requote his last paragraph, albeit adjusted a bit to reflect the actual truth of the debate:

Examining erotophobia and extremist anti-porn “feminist” arguments is critical to understanding how sex-hate and sex fascism works, why it’s harmful, its addictive qualities, and the toxic, narrow, and restrictive version of sexuality it promotes. We appreciate that anti-porn advocates may be upset or embarrassed by having their materials used in this way, but their interests must be balanced against the harms that attempting to wipe out consensual adult sexual speech and sexual expression and sexual media imposes on third parties and its own participants. We will not cease to use the antiporn “feminist” groups’ copious amounts of self-damaging evidence against them. This includes cases of commercial exploitation of other people’s likenesses without their consent, a far less defensible act than referencing material to make a political argument.

And unlike NoPornNorthhampton, we don’t charge a fat fee for our activism….and our doors will remain open, as long as you are respectful.

This work, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.

Tags: antiporn feminism goes wild again, NoPo Very Po