"Political Influence of Adult Sites" and "Free Speech Coalition" pressure.

[Bill]

These two threads are dealing with related issues:

http://www.greenguysboard.com/board/showthread.php?t=28115
Do you think our adult sites have any political influence

http://www.greenguysboard.com/board/showthread.php?t=28269
So, I have been thinking about this - Cambria Struggles in Senate Porn Hearings

And I thought some folks here might want to discuss them together.

The first thread led to some discussion of writing a position statement from adult webmasters about the current political concerns.

The second thread brought up voluntary content rating and pressuring the Free Speech coalition to start a genuine and functioning internet department.

These two things are strongly related, and they all have to do with adult webmasters beoming more politically powerful and effective.

I thought we should discuss them together.

It won't be long before it will be time to pay our next years dues for the FSC. Those dues constitute our primary pressure over that old school organization. I think we should talk about what we can do to get the FSC to be a better representative for our concerns.

And, writing some kind of position statement about our concerns, which is the big idea of the first thread about political influence, is a big part of getting the FSC to really represent us, and of becoming more politically savvy in general.

So, do we want to continue discussing these topics?

[Mr. Blue]

Brilliant! We don't really need to form a second organization for porn webmasters (as that will be unlikely to happen), but we can sway the FSC with our membership dollars into being a vehicle for our cause. Great idea!

[RawAlex]

I guess the biggest issues you will see going forward is that the only online issues that FSC seems willing to get involved in are those that also directly affect the video industry. They are old school in that way of thinking.

The good news? Continued convergence between the video and the online world means that soon enough, our issues will be there issues. If the FSC was a actionary rather than reactionary organization, I think they would be well placed to get the dialog between the parties up and running and make the world go around.

At this point, nobody with knowledge really appears to speak directly for the online industry. Cambria's testimony in Washington shows someone who is obviously well informed about the porn industry, but has little practical understanding of the online world beyond what he has been told or overheard in meetings. His answers often did not speak well or clearly for the online world. In fact, I felt that his words and intentions could be interpreted to show an attempt to torpedo the existing online industry, hoping for the consolidation and takeover of the online world by the video people.

FSC still has way too many connections and influences from the video world, and as such, I don't think can be clearly trusted to speak up for the issues of the online industry alone.

Alex

[DJilla]

The first thread led to some discussion of writing a position statement from adult webmasters about the current political concerns.

The second thread brought up voluntary content rating and pressuring the Free Speech coalition to start a genuine and functioning internet department.

These two things are strongly related, and they all have to do with adult webmasters beoming more politically powerful and effective.

I thought we should discuss them together.


Absolutely correct, with a dash of mechanism to refine each one even further. Why the FSC isn't falling all over us and we now seeing that the combined direction of money and content delivery is all digital and coming straight into our hands... its obvious.

We can obtain an influence and should create these "position (s)" as well as influence how they are portrayed. With all the electronic PR steam full ahead along which lines originally mentioned in one of the threads above: about 'should a WM's link to space on his own site with his own statement or do we create a site and present a point of view?

[Tommy]

we could outline some things that we want action on and even sign a petition and give it to the FSC

[Bill]

It occurs to me that our first obligation is to research the Free Speech Coalition a lot more.

I know I have the tendency to think of the FSC as ignoring the online sector, but, at the same time, I don't know that we in the online sector have done a good job of talking to the FSC.

We expect certain very efficient online means of discussion. Message boards, for instance, let ideas move thru the online sector in hours or days. FSC doesn't have a message board, so it looks slow and kinda dumb to us.

But, they might be more interested in getting new blood and extra energy than we think.

So, the first task would be to research the FSC, to get names and addresses, and to get a better idea of their plans.

Which, BTW, could be part of the information needed for the 'adult webmasters statement' talked about in the political influence thread.

[Bill]

This looks like it might be a damn good first place to start applying pressure:

http://www.freespeechcoalition.com/contribution.php

" Due to technical difficulties, ordering online is temporarily unavailable. We apologize for the inconvenience. "

This has been my biggest bitch about the FSC from the beginning.

[Bill]

The big problem that occurs to me with the "position statement" is this:

Who hosts it? Who is willing to be the public figure representing adult webmasters in general?

This is one argument for having something that is posting on hundreds of individual domains, rather than a centralized statement.

But, a centralized statement is more likley to be taken seriously, to be found by many many surfers, and to be repeated, to become a meme.

This same "public figure" problem affects dealing with the FSC and all other attempts to gain some type of political power and influence.

The only 'public figure' I expect we could all agree on here is Greenguy. But that would be a tough job to try to foist on a nice guy.

Connor Young seems to be the other alternative.

[DJilla]

The big problem that occurs to me with the "position statement" is this:

Who hosts it? Who is willing to be the public figure representing adult webmasters in general?

This is one argument for having something that is posting on hundreds of individual domains, rather than a centralized statement.

But, a centralized statement is more likley to be taken seriously, to be found by many many surfers, and to be repeated, to become a meme.

This same "public figure" problem affects dealing with the FSC and all other attempts to gain some type of political power and influence.

The only 'public figure' I expect we could all agree on here is Greenguy. But that would be a tough job to try to foist on a nice guy.

Connor Young seems to be the other alternative.

IMHO, Sometimes its a good idea to throw everythig at the wall and see what sticks and then refine that. A "public figure" might indeed be hard to come up with initially and even unnecesary at this juncture. Getting started is always the hard part but getting started with what we have I think is the easiest (a gazillion CPU cycles). A web site, everyones website, an official position, a modified official position can all be done at the same time.

What I'm thinking is that an "official position paper" can be carved and sculpted right here with the input of everyone over a period of time. This could go as a top post of a thread for those "in da biz". Not everyone is a great writer (link descriptions aside |loony| ) so if there was a "generic paper" they could cut and paste into their own site with a link to something more substantial that was hosted on its own site just like we have a link to WM info this would be a start.

The "generic paper" could be modified by WM's that had the inclination.
The "official paper" could be referenced by media, other boards, groups, by the link provided within the gneric papers on in|huh dividual sites.

With the FSC, I think we need to first see where they are coming from and determine their willingness to bring us more actively into the fold and incorporate our point of view (s). Connor was cool, probably a good start.

[DJilla]

BTW, I've just emailed Connor Young with the "heads up" to these threads.

[DJilla]

Update: Thought I'd email Connor Young (FSC board member) and alert him to the many constructive thoughts and desires to "get involved" that have been demonstrated by many in these combined threads along with my own offer of help at the FSC website. By accident I emailed it instead to Tom Hynes/Commuication Director at FSC who forwarded it on to Connor.

Tom has sent me a very thoughtful and insightful return email that essentially outlines an ongoing effort now that the elections are over to really reach out to WM's and many of the issues we have. He has indicated that either he or Connor (or both) will be posting here soon. I hope our reactions will be engaging. Let's try to not complain too much and see if we can't really get this relationship going.

[Bill]

Excellent job, Djilla!

I'll be back later on today to add a few more notes and thoughts.

[Tom Hymes]

Hey. Tom Hymes here from the FSC.

Sorry in advance for this loooooooong post, but my son is 2 today and we're going out, so I won't be able to hang around today.

Djilla actually sent me an email, which I replied to and forwarded to Connor, who should be showing up to post also.

I was actually alerted to this series of threads yesterday, but was swamped and not able to get here to post until now.

This is an awesome thread. So many good ideas, so many experienced voices weighing in. I read some posts late last night to a couple of FSC board members, to hammer home points that I've been making and to show them the level of... um, intercourse.

Board dialogue that results in a consensus decision is of course difficult, if not impossible, but I don't think that's the point. As has happened here, a discusssion takes on a life of its own, and if most people stick to the issue at hand a valuable progression of ideas unfolds. Now we need to figure out how to follow up on it.

I would just like you to know that there are people at FSC who take Internet issues very seriously, and have for a very long time. The old days of a video-centric org are over, but the fact remains that we are an association in transition. There are no obstacles to webmasters getting involved here, running for the board, joining one of the committees, or helping out in other ways. We just had BoD elections, but very few people ran, and there was not much interest from internet folk. I was kind of surprised, but I figure there's always next year.

I tell you right now, I have specific plans for getting our message out into mainstream media unfiltered through a reporter's sensibility. I'm sick and tired of being dependant upon them, hoping that they are fair, and usually being disappointed. Even in the best circumstances, the message is always tweaked. But I have a plan, and if it unfolds as it should, mainstream news alerts should include our articles now instead of just MSM and religious right propaganda. When that happens, I'll be looking to expand the chorus of voices that fully represent who we are.

We are also now lobbying in Washington, with a new lobbying group, the Raben Group, very cool, smart people who have a long history working with civil rights groups and are eager to get our message across. Did I say message, singular? I think we all know that one message does not fit all, and that we are in fact a cross-section of opinions and perspectives.

Likewise, do all the members of FSC have the same interests? No. Does FSC favor one group over another; say, a huge powerful video or Web company over a single webmaster working out of his/her home? As hard as it will be for some of you to believe, the answer is emphatically no. The fact is, we care deeply about every level of member, and I would say almost obsessively about the most vulnerable. I have seen it with my own eyes, when we could have taken positions that served the interest of big comapnies to the detriment of smaller ones or individuals, how determined the legal staff was to protect the weakest member, and I was very impressed and more than a little surprised.

So we have to somehow speak to the needs of all our members, and over the past year the membership base has expanded to include people who would never have considered joining, many of course because of 2257.

I am always available at tom@freespeechcoalition.com and Connor is too at connor@ynot.com. But we'd like to ramp up the dialogue, and get more aggressive about hearing what you think we should be doing, what our lobbyists need to know when they speak on your behalf in D.C.

What about an informal get together at Phonix Forum, where we can listen to you and maybe, maybe come to some sort of consensus about these issues? We can't of course have a thousand cooks making the meal, but we can try to take all your recipes and come up with a solid foundation of policies and proposals that represent the needs of webmasters without giving away any of our cherished rights, or give something away without getting something back in return!

Anyway, I'll be there, so we can do it as a group or people can hit me up one by one, or in an email. If emailed I usually reply with all my contact info and am then the easiest guy on the planet to reach.

And by the way, we are on record here as favoring filtering IN solutions, like .KIDS or tagging child-appropriate sites, but I am also on record as supporting both that and a code for use by adult webmasters that the filters will recognize. I am conviced that making such a code available on a voluntary basis takes the issue off the table and allows us to focus on solutions that may actually work. If it is misused by ISPs or other gateways, poof, the code goes away and we can say as a fact and with a straight face that we tried, but we are not going to stand for being censored at anything but the end user level. Period. I say, make good faith efforts, find a balance with what you are willing to do, never give away the store, support responsible business practices, and leave options available if your enemies try to violate your core rights. We will ten support legislation that targets actual behavior that all (or most) agree is egregious and illegal, and put the onus (or anus) where it belongs

We need to hear what you think those responsible business practices should be. I know that a lot of people want to censor the speech of others, arguing that the extreme stuff puts them in a bad light, but I can tell you right now that we abhor censorship of any kind and consider it an insidious cancer that kills the entire body in the end. But short of measures that encroach on others reasonable rights, we are open to all suggstions. In the near future, we will be querying our membership for their opinions on these and other issues, but feel free to let me know now if you like.

And again, sorry for the long post.

Tom

[Bill]

Hello Tom - first of all, I want to say thank you for coming by and talking with us. It's clear from your words that you've been thinking about these questions even before coming here and that is immensely gratifying.

Even tho the FSC has been in existence for a long time, the organization is still a new and unknown entity to most of the online sector. 2257 brought the online sector and the FSC closer together than ever before. This presents an oppurtunity to everybody. There are some big fights coming up, fights over legalities and fights over principles, fights over the right to conduct business. There's never going to be a better time to get started on working together and getting prepared for the struggle that's coming.

Onliners have had a very easy time of things the last six years, we haven't had to be that political, and we haven't had to be very unified. A certain degree of dispute, disagreement, bickering, and bitching is just business as usual for us. So, hopefully the FSC can bear with the amount of daily disagreement we take for granted. And bear with us while we try to figure out how we want to do the political thing, because it's new for us.

---

To start, I want to make one suggestion to you that I think everyone here would agree with. We'd like to see improvements to the website, to have the website modernized a bit. An online system for accepting memberships and contributions would probably be the most important thing, and something that allows quicker two way communications, like a blog. A blog would cost almost nothing, but it would require some human attention on a regular basis. An online system for accepting credit cards will cost something to install, but it should pay for itself very quickly if properly promoted.

So, we'd kinda like to talk with your webmaster and see what has to happen to get some improvements made.

---

Again, thank you very much for coming by.

[furrygirl]

I'm not personally into the idea of one figurehead. No one person represents all sides of the adult internet, and no one would be able to agree on one person to trust.

As I said in one of the other threads, I really believe in having a number of different voices to be most effective, including women and performers. Yes, we horny cocksuckers can string words together, and you're only shooting yourself in the foot to limit yourselves to seeking out figureheads who are well known male webmasters. (Not to say that Conner or Greenguy wouldn't make great participants in such a project, but everyone needs to think outside the boy's club.)

I'm down for working on something like this. How about Seska, Tasty Trixie, Darklady, Violet Blue, or Heather Corinna? Or bigger names like Nina Hartley, Annie Sprinkle, and Tristan Taormino? Has anyone heard of any of these kick-ass women in adult and the personal fights many of them have fought to try and make adult better and speak out on behalf of porno?

(And how about throwing in some gay and trans people as well? While I'm not in gay circles, I'm sure there are wonderful people there, as well, who have even more stigmas and neo-con bullshit to battle.)

I think people are getting confused about their opponents in this matter, and forgetting that only half the argument against porn is based on protecting children. The other half is based on protecting women, and as someone who devotes no small amount of time to feminist/gender/sexuality studies, I know that a group helmed by a man who's never been in front of a camera wouldn't be received well by many women, intellectuals, and people on the liberal/left side of things. And yes, liberals and lefties *do* hate smut, too. Nothing confounds the shit out of them like having a porn chick back-sass their perfectly formed notions about how women need someone to protect them from themselves. |thumb

[Bill]

Well, I don't think we are anywhere near the point where we are defining figureheads and representatives. Altho I tend to agree with the points you make, especially the idea that having women speaking for porn publishing is particularly effective.

I like the idea of Tristan Taormino as a representative - she's an excellent writer and speaker.

Are you referring to what I was saying about 'who hosts the position statement'? I think it would be a good idea to have a woman hosting it, and serving as the contact point for it.

Altho, I think there's a real possibility that it could become a hard job, and that whoever does it might find themselves on the sharp end of "fifteen minutes of fame".

---

On a related note, I thought Tom Hymes statement about censorship and extreme materials was very interesting. It started me thinking - I don't know if there is a clear and concise "position statement" that I've seen for the Free Speech Coalition.

But I like the idea of a fierce constitutional position, especially nowadays when the constitution seems to be the neocons favorite kicking boy, just another rag that obstructs their "war on terror" or "war on drugs" or "war on women" or "war on porn" or whatever the "war du jour" happens to be.

[DJilla]

I'm down for working on something like this. How about Seska, Tasty Trixie, Darklady, Violet Blue, or Heather Corinna? Or bigger names like Nina Hartley, Annie Sprinkle, and Tristan Taormino? Has anyone heard of any of these kick-ass women?

The other half is based on protecting women

Nothing confounds the shit out of them like having a porn chick back-sass their perfectly formed notions about how women need someone to protect them from themselves. |thumb

Very good points! Personally, I have found that a well spoken women in conservative dress that is calm and clear always makes the best "spokesperson" and is commonly received better by a public than her gender counterpart. BUT, I would seriously suggest that there should be a context and manner without militancy, no bashing, no attack style, no overt feminism (you try not to attach additional potential irritants to an already irritable subject to the people you're speaking too hence conservative style and look). Again, its all about the "message in a wrapper". I'm all for a female (s) voice, face, front, whatever. All she/they have to do is step forward.

Which brings me to my next point: As these posts (and the one also going on about labels and metatags is a perfect example) develop themselves into "good rounded ideas" and a seeming general agreement begins to appear, all it takes is someone to step up and begin doing some work on the project that interests them and other people will fall in line to help and support. Don't necessarily need to wait for someone to be "appointed". Like the Nike commercial used to say "Just Do It"! Do the work and then report back here or start a thread asking for feedback and reporting on updates. For example, I'm going to follow up on preliminary emails with FSC re: a webpage that will outline examples in the history and consequences of government (and religious) censorship. If they don't want to host it I'll put it on one of my own mainstream sites. The same can go for the technical subject of tags with someone of that experience. All it takes is contact. Its amazingly easy (and interesting) to reach out and contact people who count and can exert influence. Collect position papers, suggest changes, etc. There are staffs at W3, MS & MSN, Google, and the like whose whole job is to respond to things like this with position papers and the like. Anybody can begin to move them forward by just tickling a little. This is the preliminary or reaguard actions that are needed for any "movement" to be successful. IMHO

Also One More Idea For Individual Action: it has been my experience that reporters are a generally fun, easy going, and approachable group more than willing to exchange info and resources. If you know any or like a particular one's writing, email them and begin to cultivate a relationship that you can feed into down the road. The important point to remember is that one is representing a large group when they speak or write upon these subjects and you/they have the responsibility to always tone down one's personal point of view and soften it to include the larger group's perspective.

[furrygirl]

Don't necessarily need to wait for someone to be "appointed". Like the Nike commercial used to say "Just Do It"!I don't think I'm the only one who does take small actions all the time. I am out about being a pornographer to everyone but my landlord and bank, from grand parents to people I meet on buses and on non-adult boards. (The reason I don't tell me bank or landlord is because I am not willing to risk being out a bank account and a place to live, which puts be out of business.) I have been in countless discussions about the industry with people who range from fascinated by the glitzy world of porno to those who believe I am no better than a rapist ans treat me as such. I see many of the women I mentioned above also taking on such discussions, but I don't think they're as widely read by webmasters as say, Conner Young.

I think that the best personal action anyone can take is to tell even one friend/family member about what they do. The reason that there's this image of pornographers as waiting around high school parking lots trying to drug and trick girls into fucking on camera is that very few of us are willing to counter that. I certainly do not look like someone who makes "extreme porn", I look like a nerdy college student who dresses relatively conservatively. I'm not outing myself to *everyone* in my life, but the more people who we all come out to, the more we shatter stereotypes about who we are.

BUT, I would seriously suggest that there should be a context and manner without militancy, no bashing, no attack style, no overt feminism (you try not to attach additional potential irritants to an already irritable subject to the people you're speaking too hence conservative style and look). Again, its all about the "message in a wrapper". I'm all for a female (s) voice, face, front, whatever. All she/they have to do is step forward.I'm not sure if it's how you meant it, but I could read that to say that you're not interested in feminist perspectives, just a woman to say what the guys would be saying. Involving women in any project like this involves taking into account their own perspectives, and for many of us females in adult, that perspective includes the big scary F-word.

Anti-sex and anti-porn feminism has slowly been dying out, and the "new wave" tends to embrace sexuality and smut a lot more than we did 30 years ago. My personal sum of being a feminist is that all women should do whatever they want with their own bodies, and that anyone telling them otherwise needs to mind their own business. (Be it anti-abortion lawmakers, homophobes, or people who don't think women should be allowed to fuck for money, or fuck before marriage.)

It amazes me that some women who tout themselves as "feminists" believe that their job is to tell other women how they are supposed to live and what they're allowed to do. Excuse me? Makes no sense, but it's a part of our "nanny culture" in America.

So, while a lot of people might only be thinking of Andrea Dworkin when they conjure up the image of "feminist", "feminism" really isn't something to be afraid of and dismiss as some out-there militant bull dyke idealism. And trust me, if having "women can do what they want to do with their own bodies" sounds too radical as a part of a pro-porn project, remember how extreme it is in many eyes, in and of itself, to be a pornographer.

[docholly]

It amazes me that some women who tout themselves as "feminists" believe that their job is to tell other women how they are supposed to live and what they're allowed to do. Excuse me? Makes no sense, but it's a part of our "nanny culture" in America.

REAL feminists don't label themselves. They act, live and do.

[SirMoby]

Please, this can still be a good thread. There is no reason to be discussing feminists here unless the goal is to kill another productive thread.

[walrus]

SirMoby, thank you for that reminder. It saved me from getting into something I probably shouldn't!

By the way, the FSC does have a pretty interesting / funny article about how the media got the govt / google search subpoena thing wrong which I think I shall link to from one of my blogs. http://www.freespeechcoalition.com/

[Bill]

Something that I think would be worthwhile to do in this thread is to "brainstorm" a bit about what we would like to see happen between us and the FSC.

By brainstorming I mean just throwing in quick ideas, to create a list of things to talk about. These brainstorm ideas don't have to be anything special or thought out - they are just there to get discussions started.

1. For instance, here's an idea. We know FSC will bitch about the cost of revamping their website. So we have a fund&skills drive here at GG&J, pull together the few thou and the workers it will take to give them a CC processor and a blog. In exchange the FSC puts a banner to GG&J on their website, making GG&J the "official" cool webmaster board.

If anybody else has any ideas - and they don't have to be especially serious - of what the FSC can do for us, just toss them into the hat.

[RawAlex]

Well, here is my 2 cents... FSC was in the position to appoint one new person to the board after the elections (an open space, I guess) and rather than adding from the online world, they added from the video world.

This while most of the legal action is surrounding online porn.

I shake my head.

Alex

[Bill]

Well, I tend to believe that the FSC is getting most of it's money from the video and bookstore crowd.

So, it doesn't surprise me that they would bend over backwards to please the 'whale' donors.

I tend to believe that the online sector is making less money overall than it would like to think. And, that the sponsors don't contribute much, leaving the mom and pop webmaster types to pony up the dues and the contributions.

What we onliners have to offer is speed, numbers, and a certain loud-mouthedness. I think we are going to have to be agressive with the FSC to get what we want - representation.

[MadMax]

We'd need someone from the online community to actually run for the FSC board in the next election.

[furrygirl]

Please, this can still be a good thread. There is no reason to be discussing feminists here unless the goal is to kill another productive thread.If you guys are going to grudgingly accept and/or welcome the idea of women working on an "in defense of porn" project, you better get used to hearing our opinions on why we defend porn, otherwise this thread might as well be re-titled "Speaking out on behalf of the entire adult industry- for male webmasters only!" Males and webmasters are just one part of the industry, but I realize that any board/group would be eager to select leaders from its own pool. (Maybe if you asked 100 people who do camerawork and lighting on sets, they'd agree that a handful of them were the best ones to represent the entire industry, too.)

This is the third time I've said this: ONE OF THE MAIN ARGUMENTS AGAINST PORN IS THAT IT HURTS WOMEN. Frankly, you're not going to be able to counter that as a group of male TGP webmasters who have no experience in front of the camera saying, "Uh, no it doesn't. We don't think so. Uh, it's their choice."

[Surfn]

...Frankly, you're not going to be able to counter that as a group of male TGP webmasters who have no experience in front of the camera saying, "Uh, no it doesn't. We don't think so. Uh, it's their choice."If that's what you truly think you have a lot to learn.

[furrygirl]

If that's what you truly think you have a lot to learn.So... you think that a gallery submitter is the most qualified person to speak to the world about what it's like to be an adult performer? Excuse me, but that makes as much sense as having an anti-porn crusader say that they're speaking on behalf of *me* and my human rights.

I realize that this is a free site/TGP board, but people here tend to forget that they are not the only people in the adult industry. "Adult" consists of all sorts of people working on all levels, and for any micro-group of the industry to say that they're the best ones to speak for everyone, they're just making themselves look silly and inexperienced.

I've read more anti-porn writings than any 100 people here, and I guarantee that a statement by a bunch of webmaster dudes about how women and performers probably feel about their work would be dismissed by every single anti-porner out there, and would do further damage by showing that even "adult industry" can't be bothered to get input from their "content".

[Surfn]

So... you think that a gallery submitter is the most qualified person to speak to the world about what it's like to be an adult performer? Excuse me, but that makes as much sense as having an anti-porn crusader say that they're speaking on behalf of *me* and my human rights.

I realize that this is a free site/TGP board, but people here tend to forget that they are not the only people in the adult industry. "Adult" consists of all sorts of people working on all levels, and for any micro-group of the industry to say that they're the best ones to speak for everyone, they're just making themselves look silly and inexperienced.

I've read more anti-porn writings than any 100 people here, and I guarantee that a statement by a bunch of webmaster dudes about how women and performers probably feel about their work would be dismissed by every single anti-porner out there, and would do further damage by showing that even "adult industry" can't be bothered to get input from their "content".Your youth and inexperience are shining through. Some of us do a hell of lot more than just TGP's. If you actually took the time to do some research you could have found articles of mine dating from the present back to the middle 90's on various aspects of this industry from my first hand experiences.

I understand your position and respect it. You obviously have no respect for those who blazed the trail for you to do what you do. If you did you would more likely than not have a different perspective. You are born of a generation that wants everything now. Some of us understand the concept of changing from within and building a solid foundation for our actions.

If you really want to make a difference then do it. Rhetoric is not going to get the job done.

[walrus]

Please, this can still be a good thread. There is no reason to be discussing feminists here unless the goal is to kill another productive thread.

Thought this needed to be repeated and I'm still biting my tongue and its starting to fucking hurt!

[Surfn]

My final word on this subject. The input from all interested parties should be weighed before a final decision. If you get a consensus by throwing out the far left and the far right you have something with broad appeal.

[Halfdeck]

1. For instance, here's an idea. We know FSC will bitch about the cost of revamping their website. So we have a fund&skills drive here at GG&J, pull together the few thou and the workers it will take to give them a CC processor and a blog.

Sounds good to me Bill.

What about an informal get together at Phonix Forum, where we can listen to you and maybe, maybe come to some sort of consensus about these issues?

Hi Tom, thanks for droppiong by.

If you're referring to the get-together in Arizona ... it would be far easier if we could set up a one-hour live chat session where any webmaster can participate without hopping on a plane.

[Toni KatVixen]

You can NOT discuss porn with out the feminist view. You are using women to make your money but IT is our pussies, our tits & our ass out there.....it sure isn't yours.

The 2 biggest arguments used against us in porn are:
1) protect the children
2) it DEGRADES WOMEN

The only way to fight against those arguments is to know what all sides are saying INCLUDING the feminist side, which will team up with the bible-thumpers.

You as a male, DO NOT represent how we women are viewed or treated since we are the ones in front of the camera getting fucked. This industry is so sexist that you just write us women off as if we have nothing to say. Hell, I see it at the conventions all the time, if a girl is in front of the camera she is not taken seriously as a business partner, just piece of meat.

Prime example, Furry Girl brings up a valid point and you write it off as her youth and patronize her?!? If it was coming from a male, you would not have being so dismissive.

[Toby]

We'd need someone from the online community to actually run for the FSC board in the next election.I agree, but there are some demands in terms of travel and personal expense that eliminate many who might be qualified and willing.

[Bill]

Well, as far as I'm concerned, the idea of trying to get female spokepersons and representatives is so inherently and obviously smart that it really doesn't need to be defended.

The questions remaining on that are tactical - who to cultivate, how to get them practice at public performance, how to pay them, etc..

And, as I said before, I don't think we are at that stage yet. When we have some women who are willing to take on the responsibility, then we can analyze their style of presentation and talk about wether it's too feminist or not feminist enough.

However, right now we are in a much earlier stage of the political game. The task ahead of us is to get enough organization and energy to be able to worry about things like paying a spokesperson.

Which brings me back to brainstorming. The idea is to throw in ideas for what we want the FSC to do. If you had the power to get the FSC to do anything you wanted, lets say within, oh, $5,000 to $50,000 worth of something, what would that be?

[Toby]

You can NOT discuss porn with out the feminist view. You are using women to make your money but IT is our pussies, our tits & our ass out there.....it sure isn't yours.There's is absolutely no question about that, and from what I read at the start of this discussion I think many also believe it's better to have a notable adult industry woman as the main spokesperson. Where I see a problem is in the labeling of those views as "feminist" rather than simply including them as part of the overall position statement.

[Ms Naughty]

I probably shouldn’t post in this thread because I’m not a member of the FSC and I’m a foreigner (eeek!). But what happens in US politics does affect my business so I’m an interested party and I’m glad that this thread is encouraging action.

We’re currently discussing who should be the official representative of the online world. A few questions and thoughts on this:

Is this person there to bring the FSC up to speed on what the online world wants or are they there to represent us to “the enemy” (govt, media et. al)?

If it’s the former, it doesn’t necessarily have to be one person. Perhaps a committee could be formed for the job.

Whoever does end up as “the representative/s” needs to be someone who can devote a lot of time and effort to the job. They need to be committed to the process. They will also need to deal with a public profile. Most of us are busy making money and leading our own anonymous lives. While many of the public figures suggested sound great, perhaps they will be too busy or not interested in becoming involved in “politics”. So I guess that’s why people turned to Connor Young because he’s stepped up to the plate and is willing to put in the time and effort. Perhaps if it was a paying job (is it?) more people would be willing to put their hand up.

Public figures can be very useful. Those mentioned could perhaps be asked to fulfill an “associate” kind of role. Maybe we can get them to write statements that can be posted with our “official statement”, or we can ask them to write or speak about what we’re doing.

As has been shown in this thread, the “online community” is made up of many different elements – paysite owners, models, photographers, linklist owners etc. Both the independent community and big business needs to be represented. These people will all have their own issues. Our representative/s needs to be made aware of these issues. I guess a message board will be useful for that. But people need to think about and communicate exactly what those issues are.

To paraphrase The Life of Brian, what are our demands? Well, what is it we want to tell the government?
Off the top of my head:
We want:
· To be able to continue conducting our legitimate business without harassment or censorship from the government
· To exercise our right to free speech
In return our responsibilities should be:
· To assist in preventing children from viewing unacceptable material
· To pay taxes
· To engage in ethical business practices e.g. fair treatment of employees etc
And we also want to tell the government that:
· We, as responsible webmasters, are making an effort and doing the right thing: not spamming, not engaged in CP, not scamming, not exploiting, making sure models are over 18 etc etc
· The American people want their porn (and show statistics to prove how many average, ordinary, churchgoing people view it).

It’s a start.

We’ve talked about labeling. From what’s been already discussed, the action involved in getting this up and running is:
1. Decide whether we want to stick with ICRA or create a new label, either a universal simple label or a slightly more detailed one.
2. Decide on the syntax of the label
3. Lobby the browsers and search engines to recognize it
4. Encourage webmasters to use it, perhaps through new linklist rules
5. Publicize our efforts (very important)

The question is, how do we decide on those first two things? Who decides? And when? How do we move beyond arguing about it and reach a consensus?

OK, this was a rambling attempt from me to try and sum up what’s happening so far. Not sure if it’s helpful or not.

One request to the FSC from me. When you finally get your online payment system happening, would you consider offering an “associate membership” for non US citizens? Or perhaps accept one-off donations?

[Ms Naughty]

If you had the power to get the FSC to do anything you wanted, lets say within, oh, $5,000 to $50,000 worth of something, what would that be?

Fund a general advertising campaign telling parents how to use filtering software - and make sure they knew it was the adult industry behind the ads.

And on top of that, you'd probably need to launch a big PR campaign making sure the media know about the advertising and report on it. It's hard to put an anti-porn spin on the idea of "Adult Industry promotes web filtering", although I'm sure they'll give it a red hot go.

Ooh, and lobby Visa to drop their "high risk" $750 extortion fee :)

Edit again: And maybe part of the ad campaign could be a website that explains filtering, explains what the industry is doing to help, links to filtering software... something the Mums and Dads can go to for information... Just another idea.

[MrYum]

Really awesome to see this discussion taking place. Seems as though perhaps the online adult community may finally be heading toward a cohesive voice...which would be a truly great thing for us all. It's high time the public realize we're not the monsters portrayed in mainstream media or by religious zealot politicians.

Have to add...Wow, Grandma...those are some GREAT ideas!

[RawAlex]

Well, I tend to believe that the FSC is getting most of it's money from the video and bookstore crowd.

So, it doesn't surprise me that they would bend over backwards to please the 'whale' donors.

I tend to believe that the online sector is making less money overall than it would like to think. And, that the sponsors don't contribute much, leaving the mom and pop webmaster types to pony up the dues and the contributions.

What we onliners have to offer is speed, numbers, and a certain loud-mouthedness. I think we are going to have to be agressive with the FSC to get what we want - representation.

Bill, right now the online industry (especially the mom and pop part of the buisness) is the tip of the arrow. The video people are coming in behind US, filling out the business (note the arrival of Girls Gone Wild affiliate program and other video studios expanding to PPV and other online business strategies). Without out us all out ther pushing, They wouldn't even know where to start.

I think if a membership count was actually released, I think you would see that the online people are a bigger part of the FSC than even they would like to admit.

Alex

[furrygirl]

Thanks, Toni, for stepping in on this discussion, and I'm sorry I forgot to CC you on an email I sent to a few gals about this. (Looks like you found this thread anyhow!)

One of my favorite women in the business whom I emailed didn't even want to bother posting a reply in this thread. It's a shame that there are a number of women I know of who tend to stay out of debates like this because they don't have the energy to scream to be heard over all the men who don't want to listen to them anyhow. That's not good for fostering online community, it's losing out on valuable ideas by people who have decided it's not worth bothering with even *trying* to share them. (Not that I blame anyone for not using up their time fighting with people on ye olde internet.)

For right now, I'm not going to bother with this get into heated discussion on this any more, because I don't think the majority (or vocal minority) here actually gives a toss about hearing what females and performers have to say, although they all agree that it sure would be great to have a chick as a spokesperson to make them look good.

It's obvious that I am coming from a completely different world than most of the people posting here. I genuinely love what I'm creating, I take tremendous pride in the work I do, I believe I produce porn that helps to break down negative body images and sexual stigmas to make more people feel sexy within themselves. Porn is one part of my deep commitment to creating better things in this world on a number of levels, in my own small ways. I'll continue to educate people about how wonderful and beneficial and fun *some* of the adult industry is, shatter stereotypes about who a "smut peddler" is, and make ground-breaking porn that myself and my models are extremely happy with. (And you better believe that it's far more ground-breaking and "extreme" to assert that big/hairy/menstruating women are sexy, than to choke women purple and piss on them.)

I'll just throw out one last thing. I've been repeated insulted over and over on this board about how I better recognize that some of you have been in this business since the 90s, so I need to shut up and respect my elders. I can only laugh at the irony of that statement. The sex industry was not invented in 1995 by a bunch of dudes on their computers. I have never been inspired by a "free site", but I have been moved by the words and creations of performers and producers like Nina Hartley and Annie Sprinkle, and I have a feeling they've been around a lot longer than anyone's TGP. In fact, I got interested in this business after reading about the strong, intelligent women who were prostitutes in the old west who braved all manner of harsh conditions so they could be independent and call their own shots.

I have a feeling that passionate women will continue to inspire me on a day to day basis, and I'll continue to be touched every time someone tells me that one of my sites helped motivate them to create their own wonderful porn, or when a model tells me how truly proud they are to be on one of my little sites. It's not as exciting or profitable as running a massive sponsor program selling the latest gimmick and hoping customers forget to cancel their trials, but I'm content in knowing that I'm doing good things to forward positive human sexuality via pornography every single day. THAT, by itself, is my activism, and it needn't involve trying to force and fight a bunch of men into considering that maybe female models have something to say about what it's like to be a female model.

[Beaver Bob]

The sex industry was not invented in 1995 by a bunch of dudes on their computers. I have never been inspired by a "free site", but I have been moved by the words and creations of performers and producers like Nina Hartley and Annie Sprinkle, and I have a feeling they've been around a lot longer than anyone's TGP.

True, but don't assume that just because everyone here is a webmaster that they aren't in any way involved in producing content as well. We shoot everything ourselves for all of our pay sites..

[Beaver Bob]

Fund a general advertising campaign telling parents how to use filtering software - and make sure they knew it was the adult industry behind the ads.

And on top of that, you'd probably need to launch a big PR campaign making sure the media know about the advertising and report on it. It's hard to put an anti-porn spin on the idea of "Adult Industry promotes web filtering", although I'm sure they'll give it a red hot go.

Ooh, and lobby Visa to drop their "high risk" $750 extortion fee :)

Edit again: And maybe part of the ad campaign could be a website that explains filtering, explains what the industry is doing to help, links to filtering software... something the Mums and Dads can go to for information... Just another idea.

you make some great points! especially like your idea about dropping the Visa fee |thumb

this is a really cool thread.

[Halfdeck]

Furrygirl, let's not dwell on a divisive issue that puts up a fense between female performers and male webmasters or between paysite owners and free site builders. This is a time to band together and churn up ideas that will help everyone involved.

[SirMoby]

If you guys are going to grudgingly accept and/or welcome the idea of women working on an "in defense of porn" project, you better get used to hearing our opinions on why we defend porn, otherwise this thread might as well be re-titled "Speaking out on behalf of the entire adult industry- for male webmasters only!" Males and webmasters are just one part of the industry, but I realize that any board/group would be eager to select leaders from its own pool. (Maybe if you asked 100 people who do camerawork and lighting on sets, they'd agree that a handful of them were the best ones to represent the entire industry, too.)

This is the third time I've said this: ONE OF THE MAIN ARGUMENTS AGAINST PORN IS THAT IT HURTS WOMEN. Frankly, you're not going to be able to counter that as a group of male TGP webmasters who have no experience in front of the camera saying, "Uh, no it doesn't. We don't think so. Uh, it's their choice."
Has anyone disagreed with you other then Surfin? Did anyone dismiss the idea of having a female spokes person? I posted that it was worthless to discuss "feminists" in this thread and I still don't see why it's fruitful.

This thread should be a list of constructive bullet points instead it's just another bash the FSC and argue about side issues while bypassing the actual issue at hand. The board has been chosen and Conner Young appears to be the only one with any on-line experience.

If we can't post consice recommendations without getting caught up in pissing matches then we're not going to be successful in working together. I think somewhere in your pages of posts filled with passion and angst that you might have a few good bullet points.

Care to post some bullet points so that we can clearly see your ideas? Is there really any need to get into more pissing matches?

[RawAlex]

Furrygirl, you really are off on a charge, aren't you?

Do you think that female performers have it over male performers? Do you think that tranny and gey performers have less rights than female performers? Do you think that performers per se are the only ones with a vote at the table? Do all the other people, like camera operators, still photographers, editors, producers, lighting guys, retouchers, hosting companies, DVD distributors, management types, and retail store owners don't also have some minor, tiny, insignificant little role to play in all of this?

This isn't a feminist issue, that is what the christian-conservative nutjobs would want people to think. If you fight them on that issue, then you are only proving their point for them. For every Furrygirl or Kat Vixen, they will roll out 10 girls that will claim to have be somehow abused by the system. It isn't a strong suit for the industry, and you never should fight a battle based on your enemy's strength. It is pointless.

Nobody is saying "shut up and respect your elders", but they are saying "respect your elders". If you fail to accept and understand the road that got us to this point, you will have no basis on which to change things. Your "get rid of the $750 visa fee" thing sounds nice in a vacuum, but in reality it has in my opinion done the industry a world of good, because it has kept many a scammer from coming in and getting a Visa account and fucking people over. Don't even try to say "it limits free speech", because the entry cost to put porn on the net for money is still one of the lowest entry costs for any normal business I can think of. Visa fee plus a camera, a PC, a net connection, a host, a domain... bang. You can have a personal membership website up for less than a couple of thousand dollars FROM SCRATCH.

If you don't understand how we ended up with a $750 visa fee, you can't begin to fight against it. When you understand that there is a good chance that the choices are "Visa fee or Visa stops processing adult", most people would say "that is a small price to pay to be legit".

As SirMoby said (in other words) strip down your posts and extract the ideas and bullet point them. Your turning every thread into some sort of woman power rally cry is getting old already. You are amoungst mostly like minded people here, we don't degrade women or look down on them or their contribution to the business. better to save the strident stuff for your debate on Foxnews facing Pat Buchanan.

Alex

[Tom Hymes]

* RawAlex is probably right about there being more adult webmaster members of FSC than any other group. That sounds like an opportunity to me.

* RawAlex is wrong, imho, that Tim Valenti of NakedSword.com, the one person appointed to the FSC Board, is a "video guy." I certainly don't think Tim would characterize himself that way, but whatever. I did not have anything to do with that, the Board made the decision. If one of you had run and gathered even a little bit of support, you would have been on the Board. Tim was appointed because not enough people ran!

* RawAlex is invited to run for the Board next time. He would be a great asset. If he's interested, he should contact me soon. (That's not meant to exclude others. See below.)

* The fact is, we are actively working on developing policies that speak to the most difficult issues we face, which of course are Internet issues. Wanna help?

* I am putting together an outline for a specific proposal regarding metatags right now. When it is done, I will be soliciting feedback from people who know far more about coding than I, and will certainly ask people on this board for help. I should have the outline finished in a week or so. I am on board for developing a tag that is "short, simple and clean"

* Anyone who is interested in having a voice in the policies developed by the Free Speech Coalition is encouraged to contact me. We are actively soliciting people to run for the Board next year. My contact info is below.

* Our federal lobbyists are working overtime in DC. They are fucking connected. You have no idea the feedback we are getting. They say there are open minds on the Hill. What you see on TV is mostly agitprop theater. The real work happens behind the scenes. We are there. Help us develop the right positions and policies so that when our lobbyists go into a Senator's office, your ideas come out through their mouths.

* Email or call me. If you are interested in helping us, I will ask you for a phone number. If you don't give it to me, if I can't contact you other than through email, if you remain an anonymous person, your ideas will get through, but obviously we will have hit a brick wall as far as more hands on participation.

Thanks!

Tom
tom@freespeechcoalition.com
818.304.1712 cell

[RawAlex]

Tom, I appreciate the offer, thank you. I stand corrected on Naked Sword, as I remembered it not as a website but as a video brand. Apologies to anyone affected as a result of my confusion.

I am located in Canada. Is FSC accepting board members from outside of the US, or intending perhaps to have regional groups outside of the US?

Thanks

Alex

[Bill]

Ha ha ha Tom! Extra points to you for the excellent use of bullet points! ;-}

And I also think Alex would make a good board member - we're going to have to twist his arm on this when the next round of elections come along. He's our 'professional skeptic', but his research tends to be very strong.

I'm going to quickly close with two points:

1. The issue with the FSC website is very important to us. Please discuss it with board members, your technical staff and webmaster, your information officer, or whomever else is appropriate. Find out what you need at your end to give the website the ability to take credit cards and to add some kind of interactivity like a blog or message board.

2. Think about what _you_ and the FSC need from your membership, and let us know. This might make an excellent page or pages to add to the website - a "What can you do to help?" page. (You have a 'volunteer' link on the website, for example, but it just leads to a blank email.) What can webmasters, from the mom-and-pops to the big traffic whales, do to help?

[Bill]

I'm trying to come up with a list of the suggestions made so far, I'm just going to try to number them in order received:

1. To start, I want to make one suggestion to you that I think everyone here would agree with. We'd like to see improvements to the website, to have the website modernized a bit. An online system for accepting memberships and contributions would probably be the most important thing, and something that allows quicker two way communications, like a blog.

2. We know FSC will bitch about the cost of revamping their website. So we have a fund&skills drive here at GG&J, pull together the few thou and the workers it will take to give them a CC processor and a blog. In exchange the FSC puts a banner to GG&J on their website, making GG&J the "official" cool webmaster board.

3. Set up a one-hour live chat session with the FSC where any webmaster can participate without hopping on a plane.

4. When you finally get your online payment system happening, would you consider offering an “associate membership” for non US citizens? Or perhaps accept one-off donations?

5. Fund a general advertising campaign telling parents how to use filtering software - and make sure they knew it was the adult industry behind the ads. And on top of that, you'd probably need to launch a big PR campaign making sure the media know about the advertising and report on it. It's hard to put an anti-porn spin on the idea of "Adult Industry promotes web filtering", although I'm sure they'll give it a red hot go.

6. lobby Visa to drop their "high risk" $750 extortion fee.

7. (paraphraseing what I think Alex is really saying) Make the FSC more transparent by discussing membership numbers, budget, and expenses.

And I'll add #8:

8. Hire an "online information officer" whose job would be to use boardtracker to patrol the boards (and maybe blogs), answer questions about the FSC and make reports about FSC activities, make daily or weekly entries in the newly created FSC blog, and in other ways act as a liason between the onliners and the FSC board.

So, that's 8 suggestions to start out with - we need about a dozen more to make this an official brainstorm.

Do me a favor please, and if you make a suggestion, bullet point it or otherwise emphasize it so it's easy to find and copy.

And don't stop making suggestions - we need a dozen more! What do you want the FSC to do for us, if we could get them to spend up to $50K on your project?

[DJilla]

*
* The fact is, we are actively working on developing policies that speak to the most difficult issues we face, which of course are Internet issues. Wanna help?

* I am putting together an outline for a specific proposal regarding metatags right now. When it is done, I will be soliciting feedback from people who know far more about coding than I, and will certainly ask people on this board for help. I should have the outline finished in a week or so. I am on board for developing a tag that is "short, simple and clean"

Simple metags that filters can/will recognize and SE's can/will index only with a self reporting regulation system modeled on how we handle spam now. This is the ways to go folks! Also, a great opportunity for the more technical of you to become a footnote in history by getting involved and making it happen. There is a lot of politicking and email work to be done trying to make a standard happen.

I'd like to suggest that "its a two way street" and to have the most influence upon FSC, we also should show them respect and demonstrate that we can offer a solid base of support. How to do this?

We're all link whores anyway, at minimum a text link to their website on an index page would be nice|headbang| I'm pretty sure you should be a member to use their banner but a text link is cool. Send traffic to the site we want them to improve and show how many more surfers may be interested.

Second: FSC does run on money/donations so participants in the discussion should be encouraged to at least become members. Many "ma and pa" lists couldn't afford the $300 per website hit for FSC membership. But how about signing up for a personal membership (like $50?)?

Remember FSC also runs successful legal referal services for local cases too:

[Ms Naughty]

Alex, the Visa suggestion was made by me, not Furrygirl. While it may have cut down the scammers, it's also made life very difficult for non-US webmasters. That's my motivation in suggesting it.

I'll second Djilla on the idea of cheaper small memberships. Better to have 3000 people paying $50 than 50 paying $300, yes?

[RawAlex]

grandma, it is certain that the more people that are associated with a group, the better it is. FSC would be a much more inclusive situation if 5000 or 10,000 more members were part of the organization. Net dollars to work with, however, only happens if those numbers increase significantly. $300 for 50 members is the same as $30 from 500 - but the overhead to manage 500 members is higher we well. I am sure there is a solution in there somewhere to get more people in the game, just not sure how.

As for Visa, the issue isn't new and Furrygirl hits on Visa every chance she gets (mostly because they won't process for what she considered sexy). The fee isn't outrageous, and the cost to enter this business is lower than everything except maybe car thief or 7-11 holdup guy.

I do agree that the situation for non-US webmasters is a little bit out there, and it does limit people (including myself) as to what can and cannot be done. On the plus side, I haven't really see many sites out there with real processing that I could complain about.

Remember, if our industry doesn't take care of itself, outside forces (government, public opinion, ISPs, payment processors, etc) will make choices for us that we don't always like. That is why a group like FSC or other similar is important, because if we can come to agreements amoungst the majority of ourselves, it is easier to deal with these outside forces.

Alex

[Wazza]

Sorry if this has already been covered - but what is specifically wrong with ICRA tags?

It takes me 30 secs to get one for each new domain.

What is the motivation for wanting to reinvent the wheel here?

[RawAlex]

Wazza, the ICRA tags require that you register each domain, which is totally pointless - and the tags generated are freaking huge!

There is no reason to "register" anything - no third party required.

All that should be needed is a tag "meta rating = "ADULT" and be done with it. The browsers should be smart enough to look at the tag and take action based on it.

There really isn't a need for a complicated third party solution (third parties can disappear, leaving us all in the shit). Think simple!

Alex

[Wazza]

The meta:

<link rel="meta" href="http://yourdomain.com/labels.rdf" type="application/rdf+xml" title="ICRA labels" />

And the labels.rdf file is 2kb

I think we can manage both of these...

I'm not certain if "register" is the correct term either - I'm fairly certain that the 30 second process it takes to get the tag and file is to make sure that the correct values are inserted in the correct places.

[Bill]

This was fairly heavily discussed in this part of this thread:

http://www.greenguysboard.com/board/showthread.php?t=28269&page=3

The ICRA decision is one available to be made by every webmaster. I personally admit I have a strong personal dislike of the ICRA website and tag, so this colors my arguments.

However, to sum up:

1. The ICRA tag is nearly totally unapparent to parents and politicians. We need a tag that is crystal clear and present on every webpage, accesible not only by all browsers but by every parent and all other interested parties.
A self-rating tag is politically useless if it isn't _obvious_ and simple.

2. The ICRA tag is needlessly complex. All we need is a YES or NO - kids not allowed. This is porn - the ICRA/PICS tag attempts to categorize all possible "offensive" topics, and it's categories for sexual materials are, to put it plainly, stupid and not applicable to porn.

3. 3rd parties create industry wide vulnerabilities. (I've asked several times if anyone has a scriptlet or tool that creates PICS tags without ICRA - I'd accept the PICS designation that reads "erect penis and explicit sexual actions" as a universal tag if everyone else agreed to it, and it could be distilled into a simple universal tag.)

4. One single, simple, universally recognized and recognizable tag that can be placed in every porn header is simply a better technology. Why not abandon a poor technology and all start using a simple technology now, while the time to make the decision is ripe?

There are a few more lesser reasons, but these are the most important to my mind.

If you want to campaign for the ICRA tags go ahead. I don't like them, and it will take a lot of good arguments to convince me otherwise.

-----

I think I'll add this topic to the list of brainstorms:

* Create an action group to promote self-rating tags to the browser companies, politicians, and other interested organizations and companies.

[Maj. Stress]

All that should be needed is a tag "meta rating = "ADULT" and be done with it.
Excellent idea Alex. Now all that needs to be done is to get filtering software to recognize it and probably the hardest part, get webmasters to use it. Maybe a good start would make it a requirement for link list and tgp? I don't really know, just a thought :)

[Wazza]

Yes I see you've already had a brawl about this - so I'll leave this as my final word on the subject.

What if parents want to allow their children to view certain things and not others?

The point of ICRA is that we declare what our site contains and parents have the final call.

If I were a parent I wouldn't want some porn slinger telling me what my kids are and aren't to see any more than the US government.

If taking 30 seconds to cover an entire domain is too hard - well attaching a tag probably is too...

And what makes you think the FSC tag will be any more visible and widely known than ICRA tags?

This is smelling of a power grab to me...

There's a standards compliant system already in place, but the FSC wants an FSC tag... this is one issue we can already say "job done" about, reinventing the wheel seems stupid and a waste of both time and effort to me.

[Toby]

ICRA is just too complex for scripts to check. Parents that want more control over what their kids see need to supervise their time online.

"meta rating = "ADULT" isn't a new tag, it's valid HTML 4.0. It is simple to add on ANY adult page, and simple to check for.

Also, there's no reason that those that still want to use ICRA can't include both tags.

[RawAlex]

Wazza, not about reinventing a wheel. We wanted a simple wheel, someone tried to foist the space shuttle on us. No more difficult than that. If you want to use a more complex tag, I don't think anyone will stop you, but a simple tag can be checked for simply.

Imagine, for a minute, that we set our bots to make sure there is a ICRA tag (which loads another file). Unless we load that other file, we will never know if the tag is valid (you could put the tag on and then rate your page "acceptable for all people").

A grass roots effort by link sites and TGPs could help tremendously in showing our "good intentions".

I should point out that the ICRA site is a 4 step process, the requires both a site name and an email address. Feels like registering to me.

Alex

[SirMoby]

I use ICRA labels on my servers and I did have to register 1 domain and 1 email address. The same label can be used for all my servers.

1. I think for now we should all use ICRA labels and make it clear to The FSC, lobbyist and hopefully the senate that this rating system is available and is being used today.

2. Obviously we need a better human readable system since ICRA requires registering and forces it's own existence. We need something that everyone can use.

3. I'm not a fan of a single rating such as "Adult". I think we need to make the case for rating of ALL types of material where exposure can be harmful. If we make a rating just for sexual material then it's us against them and it doesn't do shit to protect children.

I propose that we pen a labelling system that includes different levels of nudity, violence, sexual, language, religion and adult subjects such as rape and birth control. This way we can make a stronger argument and pull more people into the mix for the senate.

It makes it very difficult to force the implementation of some complex and burdensome system if a larger group needs to use it and that includes the major conservative supporters.

[RawAlex]

SirMoby, my feeling is split on this issue. Just like on television, there are only a few simple levels. Simple makes it easy for people to understand and control. In theory, what is on the ICRA form that we are suppose to fill out would be the same form that "parent of AOL surfer" would have to fill out as well. Unlikely they would handle it correctly. If you just ask "how old is the surfer", it could auto rate things based on a simpler scale of G-PG-R-X (general thru Adult).

If you wanted to FURTHER go into detail in a secondary tag (or a ICRA tag) more power to you. But I can't picture a complicated system as being the best solution (or a solution that could truly be implemented).

The tags needs to be clean, clear, EASY to read, and what is on the page has to be what everyone sees... including other files and stuff is just not acceptable (hard to bot).

Alex

[Greenguy]

WOW! I missed a lot of this thread with my party weekend. Gonna read thru it now & I think this will be the main topic of discussion on the show tonight |thumb

[Ms Naughty]

If I can point out this announcement:
http://greenguysboard.com/board/showthread.php?t=28708

Sex Reloaded are linking to an instructional page from their paysites. The page uses graphics and simple directions to point out how to block content using your browser.

I think this is a great idea and a good one to throw into the mix here. We've discussed tags and encouraging use of nanny software but I forgot about the browser stuff.

As a paysite owner I think it's a cool idea. We already have a link to Netnanny on our front page, perhaps a link to similar instructions would also be good.

I also had a few brief negative thoughts about putting up a page like that:
1. Will such a page interfere with SE rankings (it's another "out" link)?
2. Will it distract the surfer and ruin a sale?
3. Would a link to such a page belong on the index splash page?
4. Is a paysite the best place to put this kind of info?
These may be the kinds of questions that paysite owners ask about this idea.

I realise this isn't necessarily a new idea - plenty of other paysites have put similar info on their warning pages. Although I suspect that's always been a link elsewhere (like Netnanny) rather than a set of specific instructions.

Would paysite owners be better off doing their own individual pages or linking to a standard one? The latter would save time. Perhaps it can be on the site where we host our "official statement".

And again, publicity is important, so it would help to say that "This page is a public service brought to you by the Adult Industry".

Just a few more brainstormy thoughts... Thanks to Sex Reloaded for their idea.

[Greenguy]

I just wanted to post & say that my "feminist" comments in the early part of the radio show (http://www.greenguysboard.com/radio.html) (archive is uploading now) as well as my lame attempt at humor with the title of the chat room was not intended to offend anyone, especially furrygirl, Kat, Trixie, Grandmascrotum, etc. and if I did offend anyone, I am truly sorry.

...and I still blame SirMoby for all this |couch|

[MrYum]

Personally, I'm a big believer in the KISS principle. We already have a valid html tag to use in "meta rating = "ADULT". Combined with providing linkage to a page like Sex Reloaded is using, those are definitely signs of making an effort.

Love Grandma's idea of 'Provided as a public service by the adult industry'...that's the kind of PR we could use |thumb

Getting the FSC to get the word out that we are taking action to assist certainly couldn't hurt either.

[Ms Naughty]

Hmm, I wasn't listening live, and now I'm afraid to download the archive. Perhaps I don't need to know, or comment on it, especially in this thread.

Or should I put on my "SuperDworkin" costume and kick some butt?? LOL

[Greenguy]

Hmm, I wasn't listening live, and now I'm afraid to download the archive. Perhaps I don't need to know, or comment on it, especially in this thread.

Or should I put on my "SuperDworkin" costume and kick some butt?? LOL
It wasn;t that harsh IMHO but it was looked at as such by others :)

When I log into the chat room, I usually put some silly title in for the room. Today's was "The Greenguy & Jim Feminist & Name Infringement Show" :D

[natalie]

Hey Grandma, I think you will find it safe to listen to. Or should I say GG will find it safe for you to listen to. :P

[Trixie]

I just wanted to post & say that my "feminist" comments in the early part of the radio show (http://www.greenguysboard.com/radio.html) (archive is uploading now) as well as my lame attempt at humor with the title of the chat room was not intended to offend anyone, especially furrygirl, Kat, Trixie, Grandmascrotum, etc. and if I did offend anyone, I am truly sorry.

...and I still blame SirMoby for all this |couch|
It was a good discussion piece (even if I am not used to trying to formulate complete sentences and could barely talk because of my cold).

I missed a lot of what was said in the chatroom while I was blathering on, but went back to read it, saw more discussion about the TERM "feminist" and the baggage associated with it, and wanted to clarify that I am proud to call myself a feminist AND a whore. It's unfortunate that only the most extreme examples of feminism spring to some people's minds when they hear/see the word. Associating all feminists with one militant (and often bizarre) way of thinking has very effectively served to divide and conquer us by making so many people ashamed to associate themselves with the word.

It's nuts to think that feminism means the same thing to every feminist. We feminists have not all adopted one single manifesto just as not all pornographers and people in this industry agree on the steps we need to take to protect our businesses. I am still proud to call myself a pornographer even though I strongly disagree with a lot of pornographers' ideas, goals and products. I would still defend their right to produce it and do their jobs (even though I may be critical of some of it).

[DangerDave]

Having just listened to the show in it's entireity...

IMO Trixie you did yourself and furrygrl no favours...

I too have a family,
and I too have kids,
and I too am independant...

So why do these criteria make you and the other "indie webwhores" any different to any other webmaster including Alex or myself!

Guess what they don't!

DD

[Trixie]

One of the differences is in how other people OUTSIDE of the industry will PERCEIVE an affiliate versus a performer/webmaster/paysite owner-operator. I personally think that the middlemen in this industry are the ones that the public would be the LEAST sympathetic towards. That's my opinion. I'm open to arguments convincing me I'm wrong, but so far I am not hearing any.

Another of the differences is that performer/webmasters interact more with consumers and can better convey that porn consumers are regular people -- adults -- who have a right to consume porn. I think we also need to have consumers as representatives - I'm not trying to say there should be fewer representatives, just considering who could best represent the people that the strong arm of the law says it needs to protect. There are no feminists or mommies crying about how we need to protect tgp owners or gallery submitters, but they ARE crying about needing to protect their fragile husbands and unparented kids and the poor abused porn actresses.

I have to go to bed now, but those are a couple of examples I can think of off the top of my head. Why is the idea that we are different so offensive to you?

It's not that I don't think you're a "regular person", or that you don't have a family, or that you don't take pride in what you do, or that you have no ethics, or that you don't work for yourself. BUT the people who bring real product that they created themselves to consumers firsthand with no middlemen and few or no upsells have a perspective that's different from someone running a linklist or tgp. I don't understand what is so crazy or offensive about that notion.

There are some people who go above and beyond making a buck to try to educate and portray sexuality honestly and depict women with integrity. People whose porn sites also have artistic, educational, and political merit -- those are the kinds of spokespeople I think the industry needs, not to the exclusion of others, but if we're fantasizing about "the perfect" representative, that's what comes to mind for me. Not that I think all porn should have artistic, educational, or political merit, but it would be nice to show that pornography can be all of those things and would make people more sympathetic. That's just what I think. It's hard for me to find much socially redeeming content on a linklist or tgp, but maybe I'm just not looking hard enough.

[RawAlex]

trixie, until you take that huge chip off your shoulder there is nothing that can be said that can convince you of anything - you are beyond right in your own mind, you are on a crusade.

You wouldn't want to hear the truth, and I don't think you could handle it if you had it handed to you on a platter.

Alex

[Mr. Blue]

Some things that I took away from the radio show tonight.


First, listening to the show I thought this thread would have been considerably more dramatic than it actually was. If anyone got really upset or offended by this thread they need to get a thicker skin
Furrygirl made some valid points
Sirmoby was right, why are we talking about feminism?


The first thread that got this all started was Tommy's post regarding linking to a page. That thread got sidetracked by a few people babbling, etc. on unrelated tangents. In that thread I said, "This thread seems to be losing its focus and it's unfortunate that it is because something positive can come out of it."

In this thread Sirmoby wanted to stick on the topic at hand and I agree with him. It's like the adult biz suffers from the biggest case of Attention Deficit Disorder on the planet and we get nothing accomplished because of it.

Let's find people that represent the most avenues of porn. I don't care if it's a woman, a performer, a LL owner, a tgp owner, a tranny, just as long as its someone that will be effective...but we're not even at that stage yet. Let's get to that stage and then discuss it, calmly, without mudding the waters with other topics.

[RawAlex]

Mr Blue, I think we need to consider this: Do feminist whores need their own organization because, by Trixies own admission, their business model is so different from ours? Do they only suck up to the mainstream industry when it works for them, immediately shunning it when it becomes too restrictive or too whitebread for them?

Think about this, taken right off of Trixie's own site:

On behalf of myself and WebWhores everywhere, I, TastyTrixie, hereby issue the following original draft 10-point WebWhore Manifesto:

WebWhore Pride Points:

1. WebWhores defy stereotypes.
We are not just a bunch of dumb slutty moneygrubbing bitches. Most of us are not whoring ourselves out of desperation. We come in all different shapes and sizes and from different backgrounds. There is nothing you can assume about a WebWhore except that she has balls (figuratively speaking).

2. WebWhoring empowers women.
We can set our own hours, our own prices, and our own limits. We have the potential to make more money while we have more fun than we could in a "respectable" career field. We can turn off the computer if we feel violated or degraded or put-out by someone (which actually happens far less than in "respectable" career fields).
Those of us with families can take care of them without it interfering with our jobs. We can safely have fun playing dress up, good girl, bad girl, etc. and exploring who we are and what we like. We can have creative/financial/organization control over our own businesses.

3. Good WebWhoring requires skill.
Being a good WebWhore demands more than mere sexual savvy and physical "beauty". Good WebWhores usually have a mix of some of the following characteristics: personality, technical knowledge, creativity, confidence, bravery, style, intuition, customer service skills, empathy, imagination, originality, marketing knowledge, networking know-how, open-mindedness, experience, compassion, curiosity, daring, perseverance, and a genuine love of people and sexuality.

4. WebWhore clients defy stereotypes.
Just as WebWhores are often your typical "girl-next-door" types, their clients are also your typical guys-next-door. People who enjoy internet porn come from all walks of life and are looking for all kinds of different WebWhores. Our customers look and act just like everybody else. Coming across the stereotypical porn consumer (whoever he is) is actually pretty rare. As WebWhores we enjoy special opportunities to get to know all kinds of different people on all sorts of different levels. We have fun with each other, get off with each other and often come to care about each other.

WebWhore Purpose Points:

5. Sex Workers' economic and social contributions to society deserve commendation, not criminalization.
It's about time we stopped marginalizing, stigmatizing, ignoring, and punishing sex workers. We've been around forever, we've made marks on history, we've provided services in response to an unending demand. Quit the resentful narrow-minded bullshit and give us some fucking credit!!!!!

6. Women should NOT be villified and disrespected for capitalizing on human sexuality.
People should pay women for sex work with the same respect and appreciation one would expect to pay ministers, teachers, lawyers, doctors, therapists, etc. Furthermore, one cannot assume a whore's primary motivation for doing her "job" is monetary any more than one could assume a doctor's primary motivation for healing patients is solely for money. Just as there are good doctors and bad doctors, there are good whores and bad whores. . . anybody who does their job just for the paycheck without any joy or emotion is doing a poor job. Having said that, anybody who thinks someone should do a job for him pro bono just because the service-provider LIKES her/his job is an asshole. Would you walk into a psychiatrist's office and say "hey! You like helping people don't you?? I can't pay you but how about if I plop down on your couch and talk your ear off for an hour?"

7. WebWhores should commit to a professional code of ethics.
At the very least we should treat our customers and each other with respect. Unfortunately some WebWhores are catty, judgemental, two-faced, bitchy, biggoted, narrow-minded, petty hypocrites (the same people you have to work with in ANY field). Fortunately in cyberspace it's easier to ignore such nasty bitches than it would be in a regular office. Still, it would be nice if WebWhores would commit to shunning and ostracizing any foul cunt who made a point of disrupting another WebWhore's business or hurting her feelings. We should also disassociate ourselves from any bitch who purposefully misleads or mistreats our customers.

8. WebWhores should join hands with other adult entertainment/sex workers to promote pride in our trade.
Although there are obviously huge differences between dancing, webwhoring, escorting, streetwalking, video porning, etc. we all still have to deal with the same stigmas and bullshit in our respective professions.

9. People need to stop blaming porn for our social ills and start looking at the REAL indecencies in our society.
We tolerate and turn a blind eye to thousands of phenomenons that are more evil, sick and disturbing than pornography. The real obscenity in our culture is our frightening disregard for the golden rule ("love your neighbor as yourself"). WebWhores are NOT the enemy. Porn is NOT the enemy. If we want to "clean up" society we should start by focusing on instilling & practicing basic values like the golden rule. As long as people are inconsiderate and mean to each other we have bigger fish to fry than judging consenting adults for porn creation and consumption. People should get their priorities straight when they talk about "values". We need to treat each other with human kindness and consideration . . . all the other rules we make to govern our behavior are sheer trivia.

10. Compromising our freedom of speech is NOT the way to protect children or further the objectives of feminism.
Does this point need any elaboration? I don't think so.

I am sorry, but I don't think that this manifesto speaks for very many people in the porn industry.

Alex

[Toby]

...their business model is so different from ours...My business model is quite different than most that post on this board. I guess that means I should go find some other organization too.

I have a better idea, lets get back to forming a basic online industry postion statement aimed at addressing the current legal attacks on our industry.

[Mr. Blue]

Mr Blue, I think we need to consider this: Do feminist whores need their own organization because, by Trixies own admission, their business model is so different from ours? Do they only suck up to the mainstream industry when it works for them, immediately shunning it when it becomes too restrictive or too whitebread for them?

*sticking fingers in ears and makes the LALALALALALA sound* I can't hear you talking about feminism.

I am a bit curious how their business model is so different than the average webmaster. Granted, I'm just in it for the money and a nice beach house when I retire, maybe that's the difference.

[Mr. Blue]

I have a better idea, lets get back to forming a basic online industry postion statement aimed at addressing the current legal attacks on our industry.

I think this thread is gone with the wind...time to start a new one and try to keep the Attention deficit disorder to a minimum on it.

[Bill]

Have a bit of patience - these side issues will reach a homeostasis. The central purpose of the thread will continue forward. If need be new threads for this purpose will be started.

These are just minor bumps on the path. Lets give the process some hours more.

[Mr. Blue]

Have a bit of patience - these side issues will reach a homeostasis. The central purpose of the thread will continue forward. If need be new threads for this purpose will be started.

These are just minor bumps on the path. Lets give the process some hours more.

okay Bill, when you first posted this thread I thought it was a great idea, good way to get the industry focused, and I would like to see it continue and at least get us to the next stage.

[Simon]

I agree that it would be good to focus, for now, primarily on the things that we can first accomplish.

I believe there will be time to address all the related and supporting issues once we have some momentum. I don't think we want to let this opportunity get mired in the kind of endless debates that only need to happen because we seemingly don't want to agree that we're all in this together.

Perhaps if we put our heads together long enough to create something that benefits all of us, even if not directly focused on our own specific needs, we'll all see that more clearly.

I've stayed away from this discussion in part because our own sites deal with some things that are not understood easily by everyone, and which many people do get quite squicked about. So I don't want to move the focus from where I think it needs to be, for now, onto making sure that my own needs, and the needs of my more narrow community, are met.

For now, I'm more interested in seeing that we simply accomplish something together here, and that we come away knowing that, together, we have much more power than if we work against each other.

Simon


--

If you can't see the bright side, polish the dull side.

[Candy]

· To pay taxes


I will not pay taxes on internet sales if no one else has to pay taxes on internet sales. I don't care whether it's porn or not. Tax everyone or noone. Do not discriminate against me (us) because I (we) sell porn.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squick.[/i]

Great link.

[RawAlex]

My business model is quite different than most that post on this board. I guess that means I should go find some other organization too.

I have a better idea, lets get back to forming a basic online industry postion statement aimed at addressing the current legal attacks on our industry.

No, however, if your business model is significantly different from most of the porn industry, you don't attempt to change the porn industry to match your standards and your practices because you feel somehow superior to the walmarts of porn.

The tail cannot wag the dog.

You didn't come to the table with a manifesto a chip on your shoulder. That means that you are likely able to understand and accept that not everyone wants to do things you way. That is something that is clearly needed to make this work out.

A manifesto that basically says "the porn industry is stupid" isn't going to help us out one iota.

Alex

[Trixie]

No, however, if your business model is significantly different from most of the porn industry, you don't attempt to change the porn industry to match your standards and your practices because you feel somehow superior to the walmarts of porn.

The tail cannot wag the dog.

You didn't come to the table with a manifesto a chip on your shoulder. That means that you are likely able to understand and accept that not everyone wants to do things you way. That is something that is clearly needed to make this work out.

A manifesto that basically says "the porn industry is stupid" isn't going to help us out one iota.

Alex
|crazy| |crazy| |crazy|
That manifesto doesn't say "the porn industry is stupid". Where do you GET that? And fyi: I didn't submit it here as something that would help out --- YOU snagged it off my site and brought it into the discussion, NOT me.

How can you quote my manifesto (which is totally off-topic, by the way -- I do not see the relevence) but not understand it AT ALL? Where do I say anything about changing the entire industry to meet my standards? Where does it say that "the porn industry is stupid"? Where does it say that I'm superior to anyone? When did I say everyone should do everything my way? I didn't say any of those things, and nothing in it has anything to do with you.

If you read that and interpret it as a condemnation of the industry or that it proves I think I could do without the rest of the industry, you. are. the one. with. a chip. on. his shoulder. I am proud to be a pornographer and to be part of this industry. And YOU are the one bringing things into the discussion that are completely off topic.

If you want to continue to obsess on what you IMAGINE I am saying, why don't you call my phone sex line or join my site instead of wasting everyone's time trying to convince them that I said things I didn't and that I think things I don't? What other purpose do your posts have besides to try to engage me and to make it appear I am saying things I am not?

If you keep it up, I'm taking Jim's advice and just going to report your shit-stirring off-topic designed-to-put-people-on-the-defensive posts. Or maybe you should start your own thread called, "Twixie hurt my wittle feelings!"

[RawAlex]

Trixie, let me just quote your own manifesto for you:

"Unfortunately some WebWhores are catty, judgemental, two-faced, bitchy, biggoted, narrow-minded, petty hypocrites "

You might want to take your own advice. You have been nothing but narrow minded and judgemental towards me. Perhaps you should disassociate yourself from yourself?

Alex

[Jim]

Just some quick input...
Let's please behave like professionals. That is what this thread is really about, isn't it? We want to be treated like professionals and not just low life pornographers who don't care if a child sees our offerings.

[Ms Naughty]

I will not pay taxes on internet sales if no one else has to pay taxes on internet sales. I don't care whether it's porn or not. Tax everyone or noone. Do not discriminate against me (us) because I (we) sell porn.

Let me clarify: I didn't have that in mind when I wrote about paying taxes. I was thinking more along the lines of: we're legitimate businesses, we'll pay our (income) taxes like everyone else.

But you do raise another point that we need to lobby on: the crazed suggestions of a "sin tax" on internet porn. It's another issue that we have to fight against for exactly the reasons that Candy has said.

[Greenguy]

...But you do raise another point that we need to lobby on: the crazed suggestions of a "sin tax" on internet porn. It's another issue that we have to fight against for exactly the reasons that Candy has said.I say put a porn tax in place - it legitimizes our industry just like it does for smoking & drinking.

[SirMoby]

I say put a porn tax in place - it legitimizes our industry just like it does for smoking & drinking.
Smoke and drink are taxed when they're imported from other countries. Internet porn cannot be taxed when imported from other countries. Haven't we seen enough jobs go over seas during this administration?

[Greenguy]

Smoke and drink are taxed when they're imported from other countries. Internet porn cannot be taxed when imported from other countries. Haven't we seen enough jobs go over seas during this administration?Maybe laws vary from state to state, but we pay a shitload of "sin tax" on smokes & booze that is produced here in the good old US of A.

[Trixie]

I say put a porn tax in place - it legitimizes our industry just like it does for smoking & drinking.
I'm with Grandma -- none of the research proves that consuming porn leads to sex crimes, poor health, etc. but there is lots of evidence about the detrimental effects of smoking and drinking.

[Useless]

Not that I think all porn should have artistic, educational, or political merit, but it would be nice to show that pornography can be all of those things and would make people more sympathetic. That's just what I think. It's hard for me to find much socially redeeming content on a linklist or tgp, but maybe I'm just not looking hard enough.Do you even understand why men (by far the largest consumers of pornography) enjoy porn? If so, it doesn't come across very well. I've never met a man who sat around with his cock in one hand and his mouse in the other whose purpose was the journey toward social enlightenment. Maybe convincing yourself that you can make some sort of difference in the world with your particular brand of porn makes it easier for you to live in a society where most men and women outside of this business consider you nothing more than a hooker on film.

If you have such little respect for TGPs and Linkists, and have no need for their socially uninformed traffic, then you better update your affiliate program with a notice stating that you don't want to be promoted that way.

Someone better show me how the fuck "red porn" is socially redeeming, because most of us rank it down their with scat and fucking corpses.

EDIT - Maybe you'd like to report this post since I obviously don't agree with you on this particular issue. Go ahead, have me censored. |thumb

[Trixie]

I've never met a man who sat around with his cock in one hand and his mouse in the other whose purpose was the journey toward social enlightenment.
Can you tell me more about the men you've met sitting around with their cocks in their hands? This is getting me hot . . . do you ever engage in mutual masturbation with these men? Pics please.

[Beaver Bob]

Can you tell me more about the men you've met sitting around with their cocks in their hands? This is getting me hot . . . do you ever engage in mutual masturbation with these men? Pics please.

I think he makes a pretty good point there and I think you are avoiding it by trying to be witty. |badidea|

[RawAlex]

Nice answer Trixie. No real good and honest answer, so you turn to an attack?

That is usually the response of someone who is guilty as charged.

Alex

[Useless]

Can you tell me more about the men you've met sitting around with their cocks in their hands? This is getting me hot . . . do you ever engage in mutual masturbation with these men? Pics please.Some friends and I sit together in a large circle and jerk each other off while discussing the abundance socially redeeming pornography we've stumbled upon as of late.

[Greenguy]

I'm with Grandma -- none of the research proves that consuming porn leads to sex crimes, poor health, etc. but there is lots of evidence about the detrimental effects of smoking and drinking.That still doesn't change the fact that putting a Gov't tax on it would make the entire porn business even more legit.

[Trixie]

I'm avoiding responding to it because MOST PEOPLE are getting tired of the off-topic B.S.

The red/period stuff has been hashed over a number of times on this board to no avail. If people who weren't already involved in those discussions had an honest desire to understand why I make period porn and what is socially redeeming about it, they could simply go to my site or do a search for those threads.

As for Useless' initial charge, it is clear that he didn't understand my points the first time, so what is the point of trying to make them a second time? But fine, I'll try again: I don't think all or even most porn needs to have redeeming qualities. My point was that if we're presenting arguments to anti-porn people, being able to provide examples of porn that DOES have socially redeeming qualities might help us make more convincing arguments.

It seems like you guys read animosity into things where it doesn't even exist, and then you start a flame war.

Examples: FurryGirl says, "many feminists are against us" and a few people hear, "FurryGirl is a feminist and she hates us! US! And she is not one of US! Begone, foul feminist!"

I could say "the sky is blue" right now and you guys would be like, "but you want to paint it red with your menstrual fluid and the blood of tgp and linklist owners! Arrr! You can't fool me, I *know* you're a she-devil!"

|banghead|

This is why I try not to waste time hanging around here and other boards -- judging from your posts, it's feels like a waste of time and energy to try to dialogue with some of you guys. My time is better spent talking to the people who pay me: those guys with their cocks in one hand and their mice in the others.

[Trixie]

That still doesn't change the fact that putting a Gov't tax on it would make the entire porn business even more legit.
All it would do is serve to make the arguments AGAINST porn legit. Porn *is* taxed via sales tax except on the internet -- if they want to change the structure of taxation on the internet for everyone, then fine. I wouldn't have a problem with a regular sales tax. But when people (democrats, no less) propose taxes of 25% on porn as though we are at fault for every sick sex crime that happens, going along with it doesn't legitimize our industry, it makes us sound like we're entering a "guilty" plea bargain.

[Chop Smith]

Some friends and I sit together in a large circle and jerk each other off while discussing the abundance socially redeeming pornography we've stumbled upon as of late.

Say, if you don't mind, when attending one of those circle jerks knock Chop off your shoulder.

[natalie]

Can I come and watch this circle jerk? And bring a camera cos it sounds interesting. :D

[Halfdeck]

Trixie, why waste energy attacking RawAlex when he makes a better ally than an enemy? What does ranting about TGPs accomplish, except annoy webmasters who put their sweat and blood into building traffic to their TGP? We all take pride in what we do.

Feminism is a point of contention in this thread because the issue only applies to some of us. That doesn't mean its unimportant. But to move this forward, we need to focus on what matters to everyone.

[Ms Naughty]

Could Greenie or someone post a few poll threads about various issues? (Or could someone tell me how to create a poll on this board, I'm buggered if I know how to do it)

The first one could be regarding labelling:

Poll: What label do you think should be the standard and promoted as such?
1. ICRA label (existing system)
2. A simple <content="adult"> meta tag
3. A more complex tag with varying content levels but still one that is just inserted in the html
4. A meta label combined with V-chip system
5. No label

Not sure if that's all the choices, but it's a start and would give us an idea of what people want. Perhaps this poll could be posted on other boards as well, to get a broader picture of people's opinions.

[Useless]

Say, if you don't mind, when attending one of those circle jerks knock Chop off your shoulder.I heard you were a voyeur. I guess that doesn't apply to 20 or so guys jerking off though, eh? :D

[Useless]

As for Useless' initial charge, it is clear that he didn't understand my points the first time, so what is the point of trying to make them a second time? But fine, I'll try again: I don't think all or even most porn needs to have redeeming qualities. My point was that if we're presenting arguments to anti-porn people, being able to provide examples of porn that DOES have socially redeeming qualities might help us make more convincing arguments.Do you honesty think you will be able to convince anti-porn people that ANY porn has "socially redeeming qualities"? Trixie, I know you're an intelligent woman and I'm not about to insinuate something other than that, but do you fully understand who those rabid anti-porn people are? We're talking about people who lean so far to the right that they can't go sailing due to the fear of keeling the boat over. Unless we can convince them that their god of choice wants people to lounge naked and fuck on the internet, they aren't going to care about what we've to say. This is my whole point of contention. There is no way for us to add value to pornography. The only thing we can do is hammer home YOUR right to express yourself as you wish, whether they find it objectionable or not.

Red porn is not my bag, baby. But that doesn't mean that I want those cocksuckers saying that you can't do it.
Examples: FurryGirl says, "many feminists are against us" and a few people hear, "FurryGirl is a feminist and she hates us! US! And she is not one of US! Begone, foul feminist!"Never heard of her. :D
This is why I try not to waste time hanging around here and other boards -- judging from your posts, it's feels like a waste of time and energy to try to dialogue with some of you guys.That's not true. I hardly ever argue with people who agree with me.

[MrYum]

Could Greenie or someone post a few poll threads about various issues? (Or could someone tell me how to create a poll on this board, I'm buggered if I know how to do it)

The first one could be regarding labelling:

Poll: What label do you think should be the standard and promoted as such?
1. ICRA label (existing system)
2. A simple <content="adult"> meta tag
3. A more complex tag with varying content levels but still one that is just inserted in the html
4. A meta label combined with V-chip system
5. No label

Not sure if that's all the choices, but it's a start and would give us an idea of what people want. Perhaps this poll could be posted on other boards as well, to get a broader picture of people's opinions.
That's a fine idea Grandma |thumb

Perhaps we can get the ol eye back on the prize :)

The infighting does us no good whatsoever. Let's keep thing simple for now...see if we can hammer out some basics.

[walrus]

Poll: What label do you think should be the standard and promoted as such?
1. ICRA label (existing system)
2. A simple <content="adult"> meta tag
3. A more complex tag with varying content levels but still one that is just inserted in the html
4. A meta label combined with V-chip system
5. No label
My personal opinion is fist that no label is not an option, especially for US webmasters because in my most humble opinion if we don't do something ourselves, eventually our government will. Just like they did with steroids in baseball (wtf the US govt. is doing telling an adult what they can and can't do with their body in any fucking manner is way beyond my understanding but that's a different subject). So, in our own interest, something has to be done.

My preference is complex but relevant tags. The reason being that the more relevant the tag is, the more likely major search engines will actually pick it up and use it for SERP. If the major search engines DO pick it up, that will give non-US webmasters an incentive to use the tag as well. Which in the end, helps further the goal of making it possible for all adult material to be kept out of the hands of minors without their parental consent.

But, I'll take almost ANYTHING because the fact is, whatever is put in place will not get much use. The V-Chip in televisions are being used by less than 10% of the homes in the US...according to the last study I remember seeing. Tom, from the FSC, has stated that they are working on a white paper on the subject and I personally am all for tabling the discussion until the FSC publishs it's white paper. At which time, we can tell them how stupid their idea's are.

[Ms Naughty]

Possibilities for individual action:

1. Label existing sites with ICRA - and put info about that labelling on your pages so people know you're making an effort

2. Create your own page detailing how to block porn using a browser, giving info about labels and recommending Nanny software.

3. Create your own "Official Statement" page saying you believe in freedom of speech and are making an effort to keep children away from your sites.

4. Post about labelling/ COPA / political issues in your blog

5. Contribute your technical skills to help FSC set up a decent website

6. Contribute money to help create an advertising campaign about filtering - "A public service brought to you by the adult industry"

7. Write a letter to:
a. The newspaper
b. Your local politician
(this one is scary because it involves publicly sticking your neck out)

8. Think about what individual skills you have and volunteer to offer them, maybe one hour a week, to the FSC, or ACLU, or your lobby group of choice.

9. Think about ways to get our message out - to the politicians and the general public. It doesn't matter how good we are if no-one knows about it.

[MeatPounder]

Some friends and I sit together in a large circle and jerk each other off while discussing the abundance socially redeeming pornography we've stumbled upon as of late.

Emmanuelle will be pm'ing you shortly about a new niche site I'm sure ;)

[RawAlex]

Trixie, did you honestly read what you posted? Did you think it all the way through?

I like this the best:
judging from your posts, it's feels like a waste of time and energy to try to dialogue with some of you guys.

Would it be different if we were girls? If we had the other set of reproductive organs? Is it, in your mind, a waste of time to try to talk about the production of porn and being a "porn girl" to any guy? Or do you just have that restriction for TGP owners?

It just doesn't get any better than this.

Alex

[Halfdeck]

Think about what individual skills you have and volunteer to offer them, maybe one hour a week, to the FSC, or ACLU, or your lobby group of choice.


Good idea grandma,

I just emailed a letter to Tom offering my scripting skills, for whatever that's worth, to the FSC. In his response, he said "what will really be helpful is feedback from people in the industry regarding policies and projects that we are developing." Now, I'm off to do a little homework on what policies/projects he's referring to :)

[MadMax]

I believe we should continue fighting amongst ourselves whilst our detractors get more organized every day amidst their warm fuzzy glow of piety :)

[Surfn]

I believe we should continue fighting amongst ourselves whilst our detractors get more organized every day amidst their warm fuzzy glow of piety :)
It's often difficult to corral a herd of independent thinkers even when they are on the same side of the fence :)

[Ms Naughty]

In his response, he said "what will really be helpful is feedback from people in the industry regarding policies and projects that we are developing." Now, I'm off to do a little homework on what policies/projects he's referring to :)

I'm doing my best not to be negative in this thread, but this one had me frowning. I'd love to give feedback, but on what? How does one find out about these policies and projects? Are they on the website? Are they only available to members via email?

Can you report back on your homework for us?

[Bill]

UW, I would say that porn has a ton of socially redeeming and even enlightening properties, and that we need to be talking about those redeeming properties.

I don't think we are trying to influence the opinion of the religiously anti-sex and the far right. It's the large middle group, who like a little occasional porn and are willing to believe it's healthy, relaxing, and invigorating, that we want to be talking to and convincing that censoring and outlawing porn is anti-constitutional and unhealthy.

Hell, I'd say for most men jerking off to images of strange pussy is the closest thing to transcendence that they are allowed to have, it reduces stress and anger, and it makes the world a better place.

I think we should be saying, "porn is good for people".

[KCat]

I'm absolutely baffled by the responses here. How can anyone argue that putting the porn least likely to offend in the spotlight wouldn't be the best course of action?

Of course all types of porn should be defended, but if you have the option of using porn created by college-educated, non drug addicted, non sexually abused women who have other career opportunities & still choose to create their own brand of personally enjoyable porn, who control all aspects of its creation & who profit directly from it, why the hell wouldn't you? It just seems like a no brainer to me.

I don't think Trixie or Furrygirl are saying that their brand of indie porn is superior or that the standard porn flicks don't have merit. I know I personally enjoy watching some rather raunchy stuff that a lot of women would consider degrading. But just because I enjoy it doesn't mean I should use it in an argument to defend porn!

[Greenguy]

Could Greenie or someone post a few poll threads about various issues?...Done :)
http://www.greenguysboard.com/board/showthread.php?t=28776

[Mr. Blue]

I'm absolutely baffled by the responses here. How can anyone argue that putting the porn least likely to offend in the spotlight wouldn't be the best course of action?

Of course all types of porn should be defended, but if you have the option of using porn created by college-educated, non drug addicted, non sexually abused women who have other career opportunities & still choose to create their own brand of personally enjoyable porn, who control all aspects of its creation & who profit directly from it, why the hell wouldn't you? It just seems like a no brainer to me.

I don't think Trixie or Furrygirl are saying that their brand of indie porn is superior or that the standard porn flicks don't have merit. I know I personally enjoy watching some rather raunchy stuff that a lot of women would consider degrading. But just because I enjoy it doesn't mean I should use it in an argument to defend porn!

The thing that I wonder about this thread is the following...are we trying to get porn socially accepted or are we trying to show how the government is infringing upon basic freedoms.

I'm not a slick marketing type guy, but if I was trying to get people to support my cause I would be wrapping it in the most palatable pill imaginable.

If someone came up to me and said write an argument on this topic for the average person I would hammer home almost nothing about porn itself, but instead discuss freedoms of speech, expression, etc. Most Americans wouldn't openly admit they support porn or even accept porn, but tell them the government is infringing on their freedoms and not only will they back it, they'll be foaming at the mouth mad to back it.

American's on the whole are brainwashed little patriots deep down, hammer home that your freedoms are being taken away, you'll get action. If you try to make them socially accept porn it'll be doomed.

[RawAlex]

Kcat, as Mr Blue said, I don't think it is about "most socially acceptable porn", because more than 50% of americans have watched or actively watch porn, but they would never admit it.

Start talking about freedom of speech, and the ACLU and all those other groups will form up behind you, supporting you to the very end.

I think this is more about not putting the WRONG foot forward. You do not want to give the enemies of porn more ammo to work from. While I support the freedom of speech for red sites, example, I also think that they would be fodder for the media and for the members of Congress, so I don't think that they are a good issue to fight on. Nor do I think that gagging sites, or bondage sites, or bukkakke sites would be good examples to use (and thus the people who operate them are not the best representitives to talk about porn, because we want the world to get the message, not to get lost in the person presenting it).

The sad fact is the best way in my mind to portray porn is with a simple guy meets girl, guy fucks girl site. Yes, it is walmart porn, but walmart porn is what the public is generally buying, and what they find socially acceptable. With social exceptance we are more likely to get the message out there, rather than starting a debate about the messanger.

Alex

[Useless]

Putting an air freshener in a shit house doesn't remove the fact that someone just shat there.

[DJilla]

I'm not a slick marketing type guy, but if I was trying to get people to support my cause I would be wrapping it in the most palatable pill imaginable.

If someone came up to me and said write an argument on this topic for the average person I would hammer home almost nothing about porn itself, but instead discuss freedoms of speech, expression, etc. Most Americans wouldn't openly admit they support porn or even accept porn, but tell them the government is infringing on their freedoms and not only will they back it, they'll be foaming at the mouth mad to back it.

American's on the whole are brainwashed little patriots deep down, hammer home that your freedoms are being taken away, you'll get action. If you try to make them socially accept porn it'll be doomed.

Well Said!
I've mentioned similar sentiments and can tell you also that this would be the generally "recommended" approach if you were to ask your average PR person their opinoin.

[DJilla]

Jeesh! Ya know I have a handful of feminist friends, personally I like strong women, so I feel comfortable in saying this to you all; one common denominator that many of you seem to share is that you always rise to the slightest bait and are ready to fight. Then once you get started nothing else is important over winning your point, argument, whatever. On a board, this equates to hijacking a topic and in this case, one that’s kinda important. In a few sentences (with respect) let me say what I’ve told my friends when they get they’re nose bent out of shape at a party or whatever… “calm down”. You don’t have to put on battle dress over every little perceived slight or if you do then just start a thread to vent over. Try and focus on what we CAN agree to work towards together.

You girls(women)are a very important part of this dialogue and emerging movement of adult WM’s organizing themselves into some kind of united voice. Also, the more militant of you are important because of the fact that you ARE out there pushing the edges. The further you push the more likely it is that we’ll get a better mainstream compromise. Heck, the fact that TastyTrixie even HAS a manifesto is a credit to her sincerity. It’s more than a lot of WMs have bothered to accomplish so far. BUT, not everybody is going to dig you or your attitude. That comes with the territory. Being tough is not the same thing as being combative. We have certain missions in common. Stay cool, stay focused, stay here.

[KCat]

I think this is more about not putting the WRONG foot forward. You do not want to give the enemies of porn more ammo to work from. While I support the freedom of speech for red sites, example, I also think that they would be fodder for the media and for the members of Congress, so I don't think that they are a good issue to fight on. Nor do I think that gagging sites, or bondage sites, or bukkakke sites would be good examples to use (and thus the people who operate them are not the best representitives to talk about porn, because we want the world to get the message, not to get lost in the person presenting it).


I totally agree. Since the red sites were brought up again, it bears saying that no matter how intelligent & articulate the women are who run sites in that niche, that is not a place we want to go with this fight. John Q Public is not going to see red porn & say, "How wonderful that these women are celebrating their natural cycles!"

Like Mr. Blue said, I agree that the best course of action is focusing on how freedom of speech is being infringed upon, but I still think having a performer who creates her own content without being "degraded" would help. We're talking about infringing on her right to create the content & the public's right to view the content.

Does anyone watch the show Family Business? I think Adam Glasser does a fantastic job of challenging the stereotype of smarmy porn producer. He's relatable, he's likeable, he seems like a good dad & has a great relationship with his mom. And he treats the performers with respect.

More Adams & less Rob Blacks can only help this fight.

[Bill]

I've long ago given up trying to figure out what you guys are fighting about. All this yelling is making no sense at all to me.

You guys have all gone crazy, as far as I can tell. I can imagine what out FSC guests think of all this.

Next week, when the fire has died down, I plan on starting a new Free Speech Coalition thread in which we can get back to the political business at hand.

You are now returning to your regularly scheduled dark comedy.

[MadMax]

Well, if we could return to the business at hand....

Kath from Klixxx has said that if we can get our shit together (my words not hers), she will guarantee this project a highlight feature at Klixxx.com to get the word out to the industry (no guarantee on a print magazine piece since that's JoeD's baby). She has also volunteered her services writing if she's needed, and would love to work with the GG&Jim crew since she hasn't had the time to post over here much lately.

We have the opportunity here to take the first steps in cutting the legs out from under one of the DOJ's biggest arguements against us...if we can get our shit together. We have the opportunity to get the word out to our colleagues with the help of Klixxx.com (yes, it may be terrifying, but no matter how much we bicker we are, in fact, all colleagues:))

[DJilla]

Well, if we could return to the business at hand....

Kath from Klixxx has said that if we can get our shit together (my words not hers), she will guarantee this project a highlight feature at Klixxx.com

That's great! Good work. This is the kind of "good thing" that can happen when one person makes a move to reach out to their own contacts and works to get something done.

[Mr. Blue]

To Bill and MadMax, thanks for trying to get the thread back on track. Hopefully when the new thread gets started up we can keep it on track. This stuff is important and we should try and put our best foot forward.

[KCat]

Well, if we could return to the business at hand....

Kath from Klixxx has said that if we can get our shit together (my words not hers), she will guarantee this project a highlight feature at Klixxx.com to get the word out to the industry (no guarantee on a print magazine piece since that's JoeD's baby). She has also volunteered her services writing if she's needed, and would love to work with the GG&Jim crew since she hasn't had the time to post over here much lately.

We have the opportunity here to take the first steps in cutting the legs out from under one of the DOJ's biggest arguements against us...if we can get our shit together. We have the opportunity to get the word out to our colleagues with the help of Klixxx.com (yes, it may be terrifying, but no matter how much we bicker we are, in fact, all colleagues:))

Great news! I think healthy debate between colleagues is part of "getting our shit together", personally.

[MrYum]

Well, if we could return to the business at hand....

Kath from Klixxx has said that if we can get our shit together (my words not hers), she will guarantee this project a highlight feature at Klixxx.com to get the word out to the industry (no guarantee on a print magazine piece since that's JoeD's baby). She has also volunteered her services writing if she's needed, and would love to work with the GG&Jim crew since she hasn't had the time to post over here much lately.

We have the opportunity here to take the first steps in cutting the legs out from under one of the DOJ's biggest arguements against us...if we can get our shit together. We have the opportunity to get the word out to our colleagues with the help of Klixxx.com (yes, it may be terrifying, but no matter how much we bicker we are, in fact, all colleagues:))
Great stuff Max...that's definitely a step in the right direction |thumb