Right now Gnomedex is just getting started and one topic which I have the suspicion won’t be getting much, if any, coverage is the new 2257 laws impacting adult webmasters as of yesterday. This is a huge issue for adult sites — especially free ones — adult content providers, adult free hosting sites and more, but it stretches beyond just those who are in the adult business, but those who do business with those who are in the adult business too.

I’m sure some reading this already are saying: so what, stick it to those sleazeballs! Or maybe we don’t care about porn on the web or those who are associated in anyway with that type of business!

I’d like to think humans don’t have such a narrow-minded view of sex like that, but it’s true that some still think sex should stay in the bedroom and any attempt to bring it out is a sin. But in the bedroom it’s not wrong for consenting adults to share legal pornography. It is not illegal to possess, act in, produce, sell or publish pornography among consenting adults. I’m sure there are many folks who would like for all of this to be illegal but it’s not.

Freedom.

Before I can go on let me give my personal disclaimer of my business affiliations. For one, I’ve done and continue to do business with several different adult companies and sites. This might not be something I advertise here at this blog or link to on a regular basis, so many readers might not realize that I do, in fact, have any such affiliation. Those that have read my bio will see that this has been made very clear there as well.

I’m not ashamed of this affiliation, BTW. I’ve met some really brilliant business people in the adult business and I’ve also met some really shady ones. I can say the same thing for the restaurant business and other businesses I’ve been involved with or am currently involved with so for me, it’s just another type of business. Only, in this case, the adult business is about something that causes moral outrage in some people.

So let’s be clear here that I do very much have a stake in the well being of the adult industry. If they are hurt financially then I will be too. If this makes me too biased on this subject for my opinion to matter then feel free to stop reading at any time.

Freedom.

If it’s possible as intelligent human beings let’s try our best not to make this a moral discussion on the issue or prejudge — or be prejudiced against, perhaps — the adult industry as most mainstream publications tend to do when discussing adult sites. The all too often popular slant is to blanket adult sites as dirty, nasty, corrupt, dishonest and downright evil. While all of those words might apply to some segments of the industry, it’s not true of the entire industry any more than prostitution being a illegal across all of America (it’s legal in some parts of Nevada).

The existing 18 U.S.C 2257 went into effect in 1990 and required that everyone who produces pornographic content must be able to prove that performers displayed in that content are at least 18 years old. This congressional activity was inspired by a hardcore video performance by a 15-year-old performer using fake ID to perform. The stage name she used? Traci Lords:

While living with a forty-something boyfriend posing as her stepfather, she used a friend’s sister’s birth certificate and a fake driver’s license indicating that she was twenty-two years of age to fake her way into the porn industry at the age of fifteen.

The congressional response was to jump into action and decide: we need a law to enforce on the adult industry to protect the children so this never happens again. Never mind the fact that to begin with the performer had already been circumventing laws to perform illegally. An admittedly extreme comparison is a minor getting a fake ID in order to drink and of course the laws impacting store owners, bartenders, etc.

I agree with the original 2257 regulations, I think it’s very important that those who shoot and produce the actual pornographic material must have very good records and take every precaution to ensure that nobody under the age of 18 is ever involved. I also agree that those who do — or don’t — take precautions, collect IDs and try to check those at the door should be the ones who are held legally responsible.

These people witnessing the actual pornographic acts should have very good documentation and be subject to routine inspection by the health department just like the legal brothels are in Nevada. It’s not only about protecting the performers from contracting AIDs or other diseases, it’s about protecting the rest of the population from the spread of diseases who have sex with these performers. Yes, use protection, of course! Personal responsibility.

Note: naturally, not all performers are carrying sexually transmitted diseases. I’m not saying or even remotely suggesting that so please don’t anybody get derailed there. That’s a common diss from uninformed outsiders who delight in criticizing the industry for stereotypes.

Who are adult models?
People who decide to be pictured taking adult content could be young adults at college with their boyfriends or girlfriends, married couples and others in committed relationships, business people, teachers, doctors, authors, lawyers, the older lady next door, your mechanic, best friend, it really is all different types of people — some of which you may or may not know personally. Scandals have erupted over politicians and sexual escapades at younger ages.

These models are mostly regular people, not sex obsessed, disease-toting freaks. Sure, some of these people who took money for having sex on camera might later in life regret their personal decision but that’s too bad. Part of growing old and becoming wise is learning from mistakes and for some it might be a mistake at 18 or 21 or even 24 or 25 to be shooting adult content for money. These people aren’t doing it for free so don’t make them victims here, they are entering into a business arrangement. Adults — yes, even those that are 18 — have the ability to enter into business arrangements. Smart things, stupid things, whatever your perspective or their actions later on in life. There is a name for ths decision that is not shared, respected and perhaps even understood in all parts of the world.

Freedom.

So fine, make the laws tougher on the people who solicit and produce the models shooting video or pictures of adult content, I can get with that. But also make the laws tougher on people who choose to shoot the content and intentionally and criminally deceive those who do this as a business. Let’s not rush to make victims out of people who don’t exhibit personal responsibility.

Aside: whatever happened to personal responsibility, anyway? Today in the United States it seems to continue to be a world of a lack of personal responsibility. Too many people don’t want to take responsibility for themselves and want to push forward laws and regulations to regulate personal freedom out of existence. Smokers? I haven’t smoked for almost 20 years now but if I did, I’d be pissed. Smokers have been pushed outside and more recently away from buildings. Smokers have become outcasts. Smokers, drinkers, porn, all terrible socidal vices in the eyes of too many hypocrites. Everybody reading this engages in sex — or wants to — and never would have been here if not for sex. Everybody reading this has had a drink and maybe taken a smoke. All these activities are personal freedoms or desires that we share either publically, privately, both or none. Freedom is choice.

This blog started on the 4th of July two years ago intentionally on that day because the biggest thing that makes me go hmm is the seemingly neverending attack on freedom and independence. To me, what makes the United States so great is the freedoms we are granted and able to live with and by. The freedoms to make money, love, start a business, lose a business, view adult content or start a business in and around adult content, demonstrate against the government or anything that we disagree with just as long as it doesn’t violate the freedoms that others share. Isn’t it a beautiful thing that we can start a blog and talk about the government and not have the blog hosting company — Blogger or Typepad or whomever — blocked out by the government as is happening in China, where democracy isn’t employed?

Freedom.

I’m proud to be an American and share these freedoms and I love this country.

And it’s odd that so close to the anniversary of our national Independence day that the very freedoms that you and I, fellow Americans who read this, possess continue to be under assault. There’s a war in Iraq happening — a real fight with real deaths and real families being disrupted — and there is a different kind of battle here in the states. It’s not as pervasive or as “important” the general populace might believe as the war where you can see blood and humans being maimed and babies being innocent victims and children, yes, those very children we want to protect from being in porn being “casualties” of war. You see, wars aren’t fought with the old, they are fought with the young. The old send the young out to die, to protect this great country. So the most outrageous hypocrisy in government is when it seeks to protect children and at the same time the government has military officers recruiting children in public schools. Recruiting them to go fight in a war. To die in the name of?

Freedom.

A band by the name of Kingdom Come which was hammered as being a blatant ripoff of Led Zeppelin wrote an obscure, lyrically potent anti-war song entitled Gotta Go which had the following lyrics:

I gotta go,
got to fight someone I don’t even know
I think you know
they can’t wage a war if nobody shows

Who wants to protect the children, really?

Now fast forward to the web, circa 2005. For last 10 years on the web the pay adult sites have relied on free site adult webmasters to promote their wares. In order to do this, the amount of pornographic content and quality that can be seen as teaser and free content has increased. Many of these sites produce free adult gallery content that can be used as plug-in content by adult webmasters.

These adult affiliate programs are the money that circulates and generates and yes, even causes spam on our blogs. Actually it seems like this blog gets more assualted by drug and casino spam than it does porn spam, but yes, some porn spam is there too. The thing about freedom is that just as there are legitimate adult webmasters who don’t spam anybody — and yes, there are legitimate adult webmasters, there is also a percentage of people in the adult business, unfortunately, who will do anything to make a buck, including breaking laws and violating the freedoms of others.

These despicable human beings will kill our browsers with popups, backdoor install software without our permission and double and triple charge for content that we didn’t intend to purchase. These are the same creatures who don’t legally acquire content — in other words, they steal it — they don’t have 2257 licenses, and they really don’t care about getting them. They behave as Traci Lords once did to sneak into the adult business. I’m all for hunting these bastards down and prosecuting them all day and night, really I am. The reality is these type of webmasters are already breaking the law.

Why aren’t we prosecuting these criminals in greater numbers already?

No, I get it, let’s not do that, let’s make a new, even more stringent law (sarcasm). That’s how laws seem to be made these days. If a less restrictive law doesn’t work, let’s make it more restrictive. Let’s tighten the screws. Increase the intensity and reduce the freedom.

The new laws which went into effect yesterday, June 23, 2005, now specifically target adult webmasters, not just adult content producers. These laws require that any website that displays content containing and displaying sexual activity (straight nudity doesn’t apply) must have the same documentation as the producer of the content. Not just have a notice, and have records that they purchased the content to be able to legally display on their adult websites, but must have the same documentation as the producer of the content, which includes copies of the IDs and documentation about the identity of these models.

A chill ripples across my spine thinking about less desirable webmasters or stalkers or just plain evil people being able to claim they are an adult webmaster, buying content from a producer and then using this as a sick hunting ground for models. Mark my words that this will happen if somebody doesn’t challenge this situation.

Now — today — on American soil there is an additional new concern that prospective models for pornographic material need to be concerned about: who exactly is going to be able to access their personal identification and information?

It’s not just the photographer or producer who have this personal identification and information on the model, it reaches out to some distant publisher on the internet who can be just about anybody — including somebody with nefarious intentions. Scammers, phishers and spammers have repeatedly proven that it doesn’t take much effort or even money to setup a website and become a webmaster on the wrong side of the law doing unethical, shady, illegal business. The internet is a breeding ground for bad people living behind bogus WHOIS information that are difficult to track down. Why does congress want to give anybody like this some models identification and personal information?

The Free Speech Coalition has negotiated a temporary reprieve (not an injunction but a deal with the DOJ) — but only for its members who pay $300 a year which they don’t even have online payment processing, they want to process the money via phone call or sent via Federal Express. This is raising the eyebrows of many adult webmasters that smell a rat. The rest of the adult webmasters who don’t pay the $300 a year can be arrested today — now — if they aren’t in compliance. But does the $300 just protect one website, or does it protect all websites?

There are already some creative solutions being developed by adult content producers. One adult producer is issuing this model documentation but the information is encrypted and upon any Department of Justice (DOJ) complaint the decryption key is sent to unlock the information and provide the actual model information to the DOJ investigators.

But what if that adult content producer is out of business when/if the DOJ complaint comes? Every lock needs a key. Keys can be duplicated and locks can be thwarted. This again exposes the adult webmaster to a tremendous amount of risk.

And this is exactly the scenario that I think the DOJ wants. They don’t want adult businesses operating in the good old US of A. This is in direct conflict with the very thing our young men and women are in Iraq fighthing to preserve.

Freedom.

Some reading this are probably angry, disappointed, disgusted or confused why I’d write something defending the adult business on any level. This country is divided between red and blue and this division has caused the country to fragment on issues of common sense. It should be common sense that part of really, truly protecting the children involves their future freedom and independence. The very things the forefathers fought for and wrote about hundreds of years ago. The very reason I am able to speak freely on these sensitive issues.

Yes, oh yes, freedom.

William Margold, a former porn actor and activist gets is onto the bigger picture that I’ve tried to articulate in this piece:

In the end, said Margold, American citizens will be the ultimate arbiters of their rights to access porn: “Until the public admits it watches this and allows itself to be counted, it deserves to have the stuff taken away.”

The government is still for the people, by the people and of the people. The taking away of your and my freedoms, fellow Americans, will not stop until we stand up and say: no. It might start with sexually oriented material and maybe for some that’s just ok because it’s morally offensive and it’s in the bedroom. But what will be next? What will be deemed pornographic in the future?

This new 2257 doesn’t involve straight nudity, but what will the next version bring? When will the one fundamental right you can’t see — but certainly can feel in those red, white and blue stars and stripes — be excised like some cancerous growth?

Freedom.

Related Posts

• The Child Protection Act is a cover story
• Adult websites won’t go quietly into the night
• Hot coed chicks with colds
• Adult material on cell phones a growing market
• Adult industry says yes to HD-DVD after Sony says no on Blu-Ray
• Commenter goes into moral rant over author’s adult site affiliation, why does it matter?