Indie Cred?
The film hasn’t been released yet, but the advertising campaign for the porn-themed film “Middle Men” has popped up on porn sites Pornhub and YouPorn. The film, starring Luke Wilson and other A-listers, is loosely based on the life of Christopher Mallick, who helped usher in the Internet porn boom with online billing. Since Mallick himself financed the film and is underwriting the advertising, it would be surprising if ”Middle Men” is critical of the industry. Ironically, the indie film’s advertising on porn sites is hailed as another sign of porn’s mainstream appeal. Crows Pornhub and YouTube’s ad exec Kevin Blatt: “We’re have more traffic than God!”
Porn Creep
Convicted child abuser/sex trafficker/entrepreneur Joe Francis will be expanding the empire he’s built on the bodies of drunken college girls this year with a new 12-part reality program titled “Search for the Hottest Girl in America.” The uncensored show featuring girls vying for that dubious title will air in the 1 a.m ET/10 p.m. PT slot on Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban’s HDNet channel, which is part of basic programming bundles on leading providers such as Comcast, DirecTV, Dish Network and Verizon. To reach the widest possible audience, HDNet will run the late-night version uncensored and un-marked as “adult-themed” and produce an edited version that will be available to run on all stations and all time slots.
He Said It….
In an article in the LA Times about the prevalence of porn on cable television, there’s this quote: “Soft-core porn “just keeps going, like a cockroach — you can’t kill it,” says Marc Greenberg, the 63-year-old founder of MRG Entertainment, the Santa Monica company that’s one of the top producers of so-called “soft erotics,” the industry term for toned-down pornography.”
SEC Employees Surf Porn While Economy Tanks
ABC news reports on an ongoing investigation into the porn viewing habits of Security and Exchange Commission employees during the lead up to the recession — with some economic “watchdogs” spending up to 1 1/2 hours a workday viewing online porn. But it’s not just government workers: “In February 2010, about 28 percent of people who used a work computer to access the Internet visited an adult site, according to The Nielsen Company. The average visit from a work computer was about 13 minutes and the average work visitor spent one hour and 38 minutes on adult sites during the entire month of February….”
Cal State Prof Promotes Sex Tourism
The Los Angeles Daily News reports that Cal State Northridge professor Kenneth Ng’s extracurricular activities include authoring a website that provides helpful tips for sex tourists in Thailand. The university has declined to reprimand Ng since it says he is not using public resources in his promotion of sex trafficking. Ng, an associate economics professor, has refused to take down the site. Said Chanchanit Martorell, the executive director of the Thai Community Development Center in Los Angeles, an organization that fights human trafficking, among other issues: “I find it highly unsettling that one member among our professional and educated class continues to view women as sex objects.”
Taking a Stand
A small group of feminists at the University of New Hampshire raised awareness among their fellow students last Thursday at an anti-porn rally.
Dangerous Business
The Los Angeles health advocacy group, AIDS Healthcare Foundation has taken their challenge of the porn industry another step forward with a letter to the California Labor Commissioner that argues that porn talent agencies “encourage porn performers to engage in usafe sex that puts them at risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases.”
It’s No Game
The Japanese hentai game, “RapeLay,” which allows gamers to virtually rape a young woman, her sister and her mother has gone viral on the Internet, according to this story from CNN. Thanks to efforts by Japanese women’s groups, the game was banned for over-the-counter sale in that country, but RapeLay and games like it are easily downloaded (sometimes for free) onto computers worldwide.
Not Buying It
Looks like there are limits to what women are willing to spend their cash and dignity on. According to a report in Salon, The Shady Lady Ranch, a Nevada brothel, has announced that “Marcus,” the only male prostitute working there has quit due to lack of interest.
Hard to Swallow
Proving that porn is becoming as American as Pepsi, the beverage industry news source bevnet.com reports that an energy drink called “Deep Throat” was ranked number six in Internet searches. The drink sports labels with images from the 1972 porn film “Deep Throat” as well as photos of current porn performers. Deep Throat was also promoted on the 2009 Showtime reality series that featured Vivid Entertainment owner Steve Hirsh and others in the porn industry. But as the increasingly economically depressed porn industry knows, searching isn’t buying. So, while Deep Throat may inspire more googling than Red Bull, its sales could use a boost of its own.
Stag-gering
As this BBC program about destination stag parties underscores, when access to young women’s bodies is considered an entitlement there will always be those who will supply the bodies by any means necessary and those who will pay for the service. And once the money is exchanged, regard for those young women’s essential humanity is lost in the bargain. Traveling to distant countries to pay for sex with women who were possibly trafficked from even farther away seems to make the exchange even easier. As one British stag unapologetically explained about his holiday in Prague: “You can’t do anything about it. You’re just here to have fun, and do things you won’t get away with back home.”
What John Knows
A recent study titled ”Men Who Buy Sex: Who They Buy and What They Know” by Melissa Farley, Julie Bindel and Jacqueline M. Golding for Eaves, London and Prostitution Research and Education, San Francisco, puts the lie to the notion that many johns believe they are participating in a victimless crime. Among the 103 men interviewed for the study, most (55%) believed that the women involved in prostitution had been “lured, tricked or trafficked.” Another 44 percent were aware of the negative psychological effects of prostitution for the women involved.
Still, many of the men reasoned that buying sex was actually a crime-prevention tool that, on the whole, made the world safer for for non-prostituted women — 54 percent of the men subscribed to a theory that prostitution prevents rape. As one interviewee explained, “Sometimes you might rape someone: you can go to a prostitute instead.” A quarter of these men also believed it was impossible to rape a prostitute.
Where do these men get these ideas? Well, consider this possible source: these men were also frequent consumers of pornography — more than half viewed porn online or on film or video monthly.
Enough to Make You Feel a Little Sick
When considering Carl’s Jr.’s latest porn-inspired ad featuring Kim Kardashian, the Huffington Post doesn’t bother to ask why the fast food chain is selling its chicken salad with a side of female flesh — it just wants to know which piece of meat — Paris Hilton, Padma Lakshmi, Audrina Partridge or Kardashian — is hottest.
Don’t Look at Me, says Ron Jeremy. Blame Mom, Dad and Violent Video Games
Pornography icon Ron Jeremy informs Consumer Electronics Show attendees in Las Vegas that the real threat to children is violent video games and sloppy parenting. Not surprisingly, the Association of Sites Advocating Child Protection, whose Platinum members include avnonline, xbiz, and livesex.com, agrees, claiming the porn industry is doing a great job policing themselves. Do we hear the familiar chorus of buck passing and victim blaming here?
