AntiPornography.org

This organization was formed by 1) myself, (Anti-Pornography Activist), 2) Diana E. H. Russell, PhD (see DianaRussell.com), and 3) A long-time activist against sex trafficking of women and girls. Please check out our work and our many educational resources at our new website: AntiPornography.org

Please note that the website is under construction. However please feel free to take a look at what is already there, (many documentaries, for instance), and to visit any or all of these AntiPornography.org related sites while we complete our main website:

AntiPornography.org Sites:

YouTube – AntiPornographyOrg channel

MySpace – AntiPornography page

Twitter - AntiPornography

Facebook – AntiPornography.org Page

Sister sites:

YouTube -  AntiPornographyBlog channel

MySpace – AntiPornBlogger

Blogger AntiPornography Activist Blog – Similar content to this one but with news feeds and many more videos.

Please stay connected and help out the cause by subscribing at YouTube, sending a friend invitation at YouTube and MySpace, adding AntiPornography.org to your favorite pages at Facebook, and following at Twitter.

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ANTIPORNOGRAPHY.ORG LINKS:

HOME

Responses to Frequently Asked Questions & Pro-Pornography Arguments

Share Anti-Porn Thoughts

Sign Up for Newsletter

101+ Ways You Can Help

Definitions

Share Your Story Of Harm by Pornography, etc.

Read 80 Stories of Others

Watch Documentaries

Recommend Resources & Websites

Submit Original Content to Be Posted at AntiPornography.org (Essays & Articles, etc)

Jenna Jameson’s 25 Good Reasons Why No One Would Ever Want to Become a Porn Star

Watch Best Documentary: “The Price of Pleasure: Pornography, Sexualities, & Relationships”

Watch “Who Wants to Be a Porn Star? Sex and Violence in Today’s Pornography Industry”

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Please support the fight against the global epidemic of pornography, prostitution, and sex trafficking by making a tax-deductible donation.

“We can tell our values by looking at our checkbook stubs.”

- Gloria Steinem

http://www.antipornography.org/donate.html

THANK YOU FOR WHATEVER YOU’RE ABLE TO DO TO HELP!

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For more information about the documented harms of pornography, especially peer reviewed journal articles and studies, please visit the extremely informative new website Pornography Harms at PornHarms.com.

“Dedicated to providing the most accurate peer-reviewed research on the harm from pornography, along with relevant news and opinion.”

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STOP PORN CULTURE ANTI-PORNOGRAPHY CONFERENCE:

June 12-13, 2010 – Wheelock College, Boston MA

The Future of Pornography

From StopPornCulture.org:

“This conference will bring together activists, researchers, survivors, parents, and other concerned community members to continue developing our anti-pornography analysis and building our resistance movement. Come and join us for two days of keynotes, workshops, and discussion.”

Registration cost is $50/supporter, $25/low-income. To register, click here.

Featuring: Lierre Keith, Gail Dines, Jennifer Johnson, Sharon Cooper, M.D., Dr. Carolyn West, Wendy Maltz, LCSW, DST, Rebecca Whisnant, Jane Caputi, Chyng Sun, Ann Scales, Diane Rosenfeld, Clare McGlynn, Donna Hughes, Samantha Berg, (Genderberg) and Jill (One Angry Girl), Matthew Ezzell, Cameron Murphey, Robert Jensen, Linda Thompson, Natalie Nenadic, Donna Hughes (Dignity), Denise McGoldrick, Gretchen Krull

Full info and links here:
2007 Stop Porn Culture Conference Opening Remarks by Gail Dines:

For the other videos from the same conference please click here.

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Please check out our Tweets from Twitter. Click here to follow.

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The AMAZING and very eye-opening Stop Porn Culture video slideshow “Who Wants to Be a Porn Star?“ is now once again available on the Internet! It exposes the true harsh reality of the porn industry and analyzes it with many profound and disturbing insights. To watch it right now click HERE.

Also please check out their other slideshow: “It’s Easy Out Here For A Pimp: How a Porn Culture Grooms Kids for Sexual Exploitation.” Available for download soon from Stop Porn Culture website.

If you’d like to be get future SPC updates emailed to you, please request that from SPC by emailing them HERE.

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The “Who Wants to Be a Porn Star?” slideshow is SPC’s first line of offense in the battle to reclaim this culture from the misogyny, racism and brute power of the pornographers. Please join SPC in the struggle for a violence-free world.

StopPornCulture.org

NOTE: Please contact SPC HERE for information about buying a copy of the slide show if you can’t attend a training.

Check the SPC MySpace site for the full update, more info on SPC, and previous conference videos. Also please visit the main SPC web site and events page for other events, activities, the anti-porn slideshow, helpful resources and more.

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A must-see, GROUND-BREAKING new documentary on pornography has just been released to help educate the public about the harms of pornography. Please visit the website for “The Price of Pleasure: Pornography, Sexuality and Relationships.” Many video clips are available there, including one of Noam Chomsky discussing the issue of “choice” in regards to performers participating in the porn industry. Or, you can see the whole film HERE right now at Media Education Foundation.

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AntiPornographyBlog YouTube videos: (With commentary by APB)

Pt 1 Porn Star Sasha Grey on Tyra Banks Show (Posted for discussion.)

Pt 2 Porn Star Sasha Grey on Tyra Banks Show (AVN Winner 08.) Posted for discussion.

Pts. 3&4 Porn Star Sasha Grey on Tyra (In Sync)/Pt. 3/3 Teen Prostitute onTyra. For discussion.

Pt. 1/3 Teen Prostitute on Tyra Banks Show (Posted for discussion.)

Pt. 2/3 Teen Prostitute on Tyra Banks Show (Dr. Drew Pinsky advises Victoria & mother.) Please discuss.

(Pts. 3&4 Porn Star Sasha Grey on Tyra (In Sync))/Pt. 3/3 Teen Prostitute on Tyra. For discussion.

The active discussion about these videos is at YouTube, so please feel free to visit my channel and each video there. And don’t forget to subscribe to my channel there at YouTube, as I will be uploading more videos in the next few months.

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P.S.  Please note that more posts will be posted at this blog in the future, so feel free to subscribe to RSS feeds, etc. In the meantime please don’t forget to visit AntiPornography.org. There are already many resources, documentaries and videos there to educate anyone interested in learning about the harms of pornography.

AntiPornography.org

Part 2:

As you can hear in the interview, another former porn star, Shelley Lubben, is kindly working very hard to help Jersey. Below is an excerpt of what Shelley writes about Jersey on her website. Following that is an excerpt of their interview.

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“I met Jersey Jaxin about two months ago through Myspace and she allowed me to come and spend time with her and listen to her story. She spoke about many things from her sexual abuse from her father to the abuse she went through in the porn.

Much of her life can be summed up in one word: ABUSE.

She made me cry during our meeting quite a bit but especially when I asked her what she did in her off time when she wasn’t doing porn and she replied, “I hold my roommate and we just cry”.

(Please click on “Continue Reading” for the rest.)
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That TOTALLY messed me up… Two months later this precious woman calls me and says, “Guess what Shelley, I’ve left porn for good!”

I want you all to hear and know the truth from the very mouths of the women who make porn. I want you to know that there IS NO FANTASY in porn and that women suffer abuse EVERY SINGLE DAY!

She wants you to know that Jersey Jaxin is now dead and that her real name is Tanya and that it’s time for Tanya to be the person she was meant to be. She even cleaned up her myspace to show her fans and all of us that she is serious and is never going back to porn. Please visit her myspace and leave her encouraging comments… This will… give her strength to rebuild her life. I am so thankful for all of you… Just look at how well Sierra Sinn and Becca Brat are doing and YOU have something to do with that!

I want to give Tanya some relief from the many years of suffering she has endured. She has only known pain and abuse since she was a little girl and now I want all of us to reach out to her. She is moving to another state where there are mainly Super Walmarts. If you would like to help Tanya as she begins her new life please send Walmart cards to my PMB Box and I will forward everything I receive to her as soon as I receive them from you.

Let’s keep helping the porn stars rebuild their lives! YOU are making a HUGE difference in the lives of women by your giving.

Tanya already sends a BIG THANK YOU to us for your support and love as she courageously rebuilds her new life.

You can send the Walmart cards here to my post mail box at:

Shelley Lubben
PMB Box 33
6077 Coffee Rd 4
Bakersfield, Calif. 93308

Or if you’d like to help in some other way please visit my web site here.

Thank you SO MUCH for caring about the porn stars! Love, Shelley”
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Here’s a partial transcript of Shelley’s talk with Jersey.

Shelley: “I hear you left porn. What’s going on?”

Jersey: “I’m just tired of the industry. The way that they treat as though we are just a piece of meat. That we don’t have a mind and our body is everybody’s and we have no soul.”

Shelley: “Did something happen that made you say, ‘That’s it! I’m done.’”

Jersey: “Someone I thought was my friend chose money over me and tried to get my fiance to leave me by offering him double pay. I’ve completely had it. I can’t deal with it anymore… I want everything in my relationship to be only me and him.”

Shelley: “You told me some pretty scary things about the porn industry.”

Jersey: “Guys punching you in the face. You have semen… Twenty or thirty guys all over your face, in your eyes. You get ripped. Your insides can come out of you. It’s never ending. Your viewed as an object not as a human with a spirit. People don’t care. People do drugs because they can’t deal with the way they’re being treated.”

Shelley: “What percentage of porn people use drugs?”

Jersey: “Seventy five percent and rising. Have to numb themselves… There are specific doctors in this industry if you go in for a common cold, they’ll give you vicodin, viagra, anything you want because all they care about is money. You are a number. You’re bruised. You have black eyes. You’re ripped. You’re torn. You have your insides coming out of you. It’s not pretty and foofoo on set. You get hurt.”

“The main thing going around now is crystal meth, cocaine and heroin. …You have to numb yourself to go on set. The more you work, the more you have to numb yourself. The more you become addicted, the more your personal life is nothing but drugs… Your whole life becomes nothing but porn.”

“I was a drinker. I drank a lot. Vodka was my drug. Vodka was my numbing toy. Before sets, after sets, and if it was a set where people didn’t care, they’d have it there waiting.”

Shelley: “Do pornographers provide drugs?”

Jersey: “Some of them do. Some of them do it in front of you. I used to have a problem with cocaine that I overcame. It’s hard when they’re putting it in front of you and saying, ‘Do this.’”

Shelley: “Talk about some of the degradation the women have to go through.”

Jersey: “You may see a 45-minute set that took us 13 hours. …We’re ripped, we’re tired, we’re sored, we’re bleeding, we’re cut up, we have dried semen all over our faces from numerous guys and we can’t wash it off because they want to take pictures. You have this stuff all over you and they’re telling you, ‘Hold it!’”

“You can say anything you want [stop or pain etc] and they don’t listen. There’s the ultimate thing where you squeeze their leg to ease up and most of them don’t care. They have another scene to go to. It’s all about the money. They’ve forgotten who they are and they don’t care who they’re hurting.”

“I’m on the road right now heading to a different life. I’m going to try to make it as a normal person because I’m done.”

“You have no soul in the porn industry.”

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For more information please see:

Shelley Lubben’s well documented List of Dead Porn Stars and How They Died.

The Adult Industry Medical Foundation publication “Types of Porn and Their Occupational Safety Risks”.

The excellent article “The Adult Film Industry: Time to Regulate?”, by Corita Grudzen and Peter Kerndt. A PubMedCentral/U.S. National Institutes of Health publication.

Corita Grudzen is a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar at the University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, United States of America. Peter Kerndt is the Director of the Sexually Transmitted Disease Program in the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, Los Angeles, California, United States of America.

to my anti-pornography YouTube channel, (over 100 videos and counting! ), asked me the above question. The space to reply at YouTube was limited, so I am posting my full response here. The simple version of it is as follows:

1) If you are referring to the United States, regardless of what I think, most pornography is actually technically already illegal. It just isn’t prosecuted.

2) I believe that there are legal measures that can and should be put into place that can significantly reduce the harm done to individuals during the production of pornography. (And as a result of what happened during that production.) These measures can also reduce the harm done to women, children, and society in general from the existence of, consumption of, and influence of violent, degrading, and sexist pornography. Such measures would include: restricting access of Internet pornography and other types of pornography to those who are 18 and over, raising the age of participation in pornography to 21 years old, and improving the health and safety standards of pornography production in a variety of ways, including implementing mandatory condom use.

So that’s the short answer. For a longer and more detailed response with references included, please click on “Continue Reading”. (But be forewarned: there is graphic, disturbing, and likely triggering content ahead.) Thanks.

To begin with, if a person is going to discuss whether or not they think the production and/or distribution of pornography, for personal and/or commercial use, should be illegal, one should define the term “pornography”. As stated in the sidebar of my YouTube channel and at my blog post defining pornography here, the current definition I’m using is as follows:

PORNOGRAPHY: Material that combines sex and/or the exposure of genitals with abuse or degradation in a manner that appears to endorse, condone, or encourage such behavior.

(From “Pornography As a Cause of Rape”, by Dr. Diana Russell, PhD, which is a book excerpt from “Against Pornography: The Evidence of Harm”. Read excerpt here.)

Another useful definition is from the Anti-Pornography Civil Rights Ordinance:

“Pornography” means the graphic sexually explicit subordination of women through pictures and/or words that also includes one or more of the following:

a. women are presented dehumanized as sexual objects, things or commodities; or

b. women are presented as sexual objects who enjoy humiliation or pain; or

c. women are presented as sexual objects experiencing sexual pleasure in rape, incest, or other sexual assault; or

d. women are presented as sexual objects tied up or cut up or mutilated or bruised or physically hurt; or

e. women are presented in postures or positions of sexual submission, servility, or display; or

f. women’s body parts-including but not limited to vaginas, breasts, or buttocks-are exhibited such that women are reduced to those parts; or

g. women are presented being penetrated by objects or animals; or

h. women are presented in scenarios of degradation, humiliation, injury, torture, shown as filthy or inferior, bleeding, bruised or hurt in a context that makes these conditions sexual.

2. The use of men, children, or transsexuals in the place of women in (a)-(h) of this definition is also pornography for purposes of this law.

Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon, “Model Antipornography Civil-Rights Ordinance,” Pornography and Civil Rights: A New Day for Women’s Equality, Appendix D

(See full information on this ordinance at this Wikipedia entry here.)

Interestingly, the above two definitions fit very closely with how the “Adult Industry” categorizes their own products. Useful examples of such products can be found at the Adult Video News charts of the best-selling “adult” videos and DVDs. (At AVN.com here. Note: Graphic content at link.) Some titles from the top 100 of the top 250 most popular rentals as of August 7, 2007, are “Teen F#%k Holes 8”, “A Cum Sucking Whore Named Katsumi”, “Teen Cum Dumpster 4”, and “Throat F#%k Gang Bang 7”. (The back cover description for the last one reads: “These filthy little sluts thought they can handle multiple dicks hammering down on their throats like a plunger does a toilet. They couldn’t be more wrong! Watch as these gagging whores choke, spit, and slobber all over our cocks while we mercilessly jam our dicks down their windpipes. Don’t worry, all these girls get their just rewards in the end… LOADS of semen and SPIT plastered all over their pretty little faces.” This description can be found online through searching for the DVD title name, finding it at an online DVD store, and then viewing the back cover.)

Please note that in discussing “pornography” and what I believe should be done about it legally, that I am referring to the above sorts of materials. I am not in any way referring to nudity, sex, age-appropriate sex education materials, or “erotica”. (Or including any of these in the category of “pornography”.) The following definition of erotica might be helpful to distinguish between “pornography” and non-degrading sexually explicit materials.

EROTICA: Sexually suggestive or arousing material that is free of sexism, racism, and homophobia, and respectful of all human beings and animals portrayed.

(From “Pornography As a Cause of Rape”, by Dr. Diana Russell, PhD, which is a book excerpt from “Against Pornography: The Evidence of Harm”. Read excerpt here.)

Now that it is clear what I’m referring to when I use the term “pornography”, I should mention that “pornography” is not currently a legal term. For information on what terms are used, and what the current laws are that address pornographic materials, please see ObscenityCrimes.org. (Please note that acknowledging that Obscenity Law exists does not constitute endorsement or support of the principles behind Obscenity Law. See note at bottom of “101 Things You Can Do To Combat the Harms of Pornography“ for more information regarding this point, which includes references to critiques of Obscenity Law. Also please note that I am against censorship, in favor of free speech, and also in favor of some sort of Anti-Pornography Civil Rights Law.)

In any case, the minimum legal measures I would like to see taken in order to reduce the harm created by pornography production and consumption are as follows:

1) Restrict access of Internet pornography and other types of pornography to those who are 18 and over.

Why this is needed:

Dr. Sharon Mitchell, of the Adult Industry Medical Health Care Foundation, (AIM):

“There is a real danger in watching this type of rough sex and thinking that it’s normal sex. Some of this stuff is so shocking and it’s done simply for shock value, that it’s not necessarily titillating but it’s almost like you can’t take your eyes off it, because it’s so unbelievable.”

“This is severe trauma on the body. And for a young person to witness that, they can very easily think, “Is this what all sex is like?”"

“For a young adult and their perception of what type of sex they see, if they log onto the Internet or they’re getting some DVD things that are downloaded from some of the companies, they can really be mistaken. So you’re now looking at people with multiple partners, choking, spitting, things that are very degrading toward women, calling this woman a whore, rape scenes.”

“And, yes, these are depictions in pornography, they’re fantasies, but how is a young person supposed to tell the difference if they’re logging on? They can say, “Is this normal sex?” And that to me is the concern, because where else do you have to compare it to? It’s just not the great place to get good sexual advice, while watching pornography.”

The above quotes are from a CNN interview here.

Information and solutions:

Currently young people under the age of 18 cannot legally go into a neighborhood “Adult” video store and look at or purchase materials there. Those wanting to enter such an establishment must show a legal form of ID proving that they are over the age of 18, as pornography is legally deemed to be “harmful to minors”. However, despite the fact that this is the case, such material is freely available to children at any age on the Internet, including at most public libraries. (Note that the largest group of people viewing Internet porn is children aged 12-17.) Having to verify one’s age online before one accesses an Internet porn site has in the past been ruled as too great a burden on an adult’s right to freely access that sort of material, and it has been legally concluded that filtering is a solution that is more in keeping with the United States Constitution. However personally I don’t see why some sort of legal measure requiring age verification could not be passed and implemented on the Internet, so that it would match how the law works in real life, i.e. at a physical “Adult” Video store.

In any case, since that sort of regulation is unlikely to be put into effect, other methods should be considered that would allow parents to restrict access of Internet pornography from their children. A good example and realistic solution that would affect no one’s free speech rights or freedom of access would be the Channel Port 80 Internet Channel Initiative. Please see full information at CP80.org, and also at my previous posts Anti-Pornography Civil Rights Legislation, Obscenity Law, & CP80 Internet Regulation and More Information about the CP80 Internet Porn Solution (& 4 Videos).

I am interested in learning about any other legal measure that would restrict minors’ access to “pornography” in the form of “Adult Product”, (as described above), on the Internet and elsewhere. Visitors are more than welcome to share any ideas they have on this subject. (For one idea of a tagging system that would help with filtering, see the YouTube video, “Lawrence Lessig on Internet Pornography Censorship (part 1)”)

For a history of what it has been tried so far in regards to restricting Internet pornography access from those under the age of 18, please see Wikipedia articles “Child Online Protection Act” and “Internet Pornography”. Please note that many in the “Adult Industry” itself say that they are in favor of legal enforcement of age restrictions in regards to accessing their products. See the Association of Sites Advocating Child Protection, (ASACP), as an example.

2) Raise the age of participation in pornography to 21 years old.

Why this is needed:

Entering into a career in the porn industry is a very serious decision. Most pornography performers are in their teens, as there is a very high demand for teenage porn. When a young woman is still in her teens she is often not fully able to comprehend the lifelong consequences of a decision to participate in pornography, and frequently doesn’t really know what she’s getting into. As porn industry insider Luke Ford puts it, ” “Most girls who enter this industry do one video and quit. The experience is so painful, horrifying, embarrassing, humiliating for them that they never do it again.” (“Porn in the USA”, CBS, 60 minutes. 2004.) Clearly this is not the sort of experience that a young woman was expecting, or she would never have done it in the first place.

Those who support raising the age of participation in pornography to twenty-one include porn industry veterans such as the following:

The world’s most successful porn star, Jenna Jameson:

“It’s really important [to know] that once you do a movie, you are labeled a porn star for the rest of your life. That has impact not only on you, but on your family, on your kids, on your friends. You have to be willing to work with that and understand the repercussions”.

“I have major misgivings about talking to girls who are eighteen or nineteen years old about signing a contract. At eighteen years old it’s hard to make a life choice. I truly believe there should be an age verification at twenty-one years old for this industry. Being a porn star, I don’t think people understand that it filters into absolutely every aspect of my life”.

(From “Jenna Jameson – Portrait of a Mainstream Sex Icon”, May 2007.)

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Porn actor, director, and activist Bill Margold, former director of the “Adult” Industry’s “Free Speech Coalition”, and currently a trustee of the PAW Foundation: (“Protecting Adult Welfare” at http://www.pawfoundation.org/.)

“Of course I abhor anything remotely associated with child pornography, that’s of course another reason why I want to raise the age from eighteen to twenty-one because I think a lot of these people who come in at eighteen are still children. They’re not ready to accept the sociological damnation of being an adult performer. It could haunt you the rest of you life in ways you can never dream of. This is an indelible business, and the immortality is the only reason to do it.”

“If we continue to force degradation and perversion of any kind, beating the Hell out of fellow performers and doing things to them that the human body isn’t really able to withstand – what I refer to know as the fear factor of X, perpetrating violence and derogatory situations upon them – why do we need to do that anymore when we can simply have sex without making sex derogatory or making sex dirty in the sense of defiling and dehumanizing people and basically physically hurting them? In a recent interview I once said what’s going happen when one of these people breaks? When they take so many penii, interesting term, so many dicks are shoved into them at one time that the body gives up and capitulates. What are they going to do when someone rips apart? When so many dicks are shoved into one hole? I’m being a little graphic but so many of the people making these movies these days have no business even going anywhere near a video camera, many of them have lost site of what creativity is and because they can’t create they’re frustrated and because they’re frustrated they just do whatever they can to shock. Eventually they’re just going to deal in physical pain, and I will not tolerate that.” …

“They’re doing bad things to people, making them cry, making them feel like pieces of meat, and they’re being brutalized and mistreated. They’re brutalized to the point of a lack of common sense. What we need to practice is ‘common sense-orship.’ These people do not need to be put into a fear factor of X, they don’t need to be penetrated over and over and over again, or the human body and the human mind will break and when you break their spirits and their minds you have nothing left. A lot of the vacancy in this business is readily apparent now, and a lot of the drugs that are in this business now are painkillers so that the girls don’t even know what they’re being put through, they’re just vacant. That, to me, is abhorrent. I’m not censoring, it’s interesting I was accused by one filmmaker of censoring him, but I’m not censoring this business, I’m criticizing this business because I’ve earned the right to criticize it and if you don’t like it, that’s your problem, and theirs as well.”

“I’m mad about that. It’s upsetting me that people will come to see me and cry and I don’t know how to strike back, and I’m suggesting to people that they get out of this business before they become eliminated from this business. A lot of these people, if they don’t want to play ball with the possible rules handed down to them, will find themselves behind bars which is maybe where they belong and there they’ll find themselves rendered into the same pieces of meat that they rendered their performers into.”

“I want to raise the age to twenty one, I want to now bring drug testing into the business and eradicate the escort services, and I want to one day have a porn tax.”

http://www. dvdmaniacs.net/Features/bill_margold.html

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Pornography performer RayVeness, who has been in more than 300 porn films:

““People should be twenty-one [before appearing in adult films],” she says today, arguing that three more years of life experience might make a difference in a young person’s decision to do this kind of work.”

“If they knew the truth, she hints, they might not get into the business at all.”

http://www.yesweekly.com/main.asp?SectionID=18&SubSectionID=44&ArticleID=887&TM=69687.82

Information and solutions:

Currently the age required to participate in pornography films is 18 years old, and this is enforced by the “2257 Regulations”. See Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2257. All the current measures that are used to enforce this could continue unchanged. The minimum age requirement would just be changed from 18 years old to 21 years old.

3) Improve the health and safety standards within pornography production in a variety of ways, including implementing mandatory condom use.

Why this is needed:

Porn star Jenna Jameson provides some insights:

“Most girls get their first experience in gonzo films – in which they’re taken to a crappy studio apartment in Mission Hills and penetrated in every hole possible by some abusive asshole who thinks her name is Bitch. And these girls, some of whom have the potential to become major stars in the industry, go home afterward and pledge never to do it again because it was such a terrible experience.” (Pg. 132)

“In a worst-case scenario, a gonzo director will take a girl to a hotel room and have their friends shoot a cheap scene in which she is humiliated in every orifice possible. She walks home with three thousand dollars, bowed legs, and a terrible impression of the industry. It’ll be her first and last movie, and she’ll regret it – to her dying day.” (Pg. 325)

“In other scenarios, she’ll work for two weeks until she’s only getting paid seven hundred dollars a scene and then, finally, no one wants to use her anymore. So she’ll agree to do double penetration or drink the sperm of twelve guys just to stay working.” (Pg. 325)

“If you take the time to read it (a sample adult-film contract) carefully, you will notice many ways in which a female performer can get shafted – both literally and metaphorically.” (Pg. 353)

Quotes from “How To Make Love Like A Porn Star, A Cautionary Tale”, by Jenna Jameson (with Neil Strauss), Hardcover edition. Copyright 2004.

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Dr. Sharon Mitchell: Former pornography performer, and founder of the Adult Industry Medical Health Care Foundation: (AlM.)

“I see 17- and 18-year-old girls every day who have no idea what they’re getting into.” … “AIM has been difficult to keep going, because the filmmakers feel that they have no responsibility for the health care of the talent.”… “Herpes is always about 66%. People are medicated with acyclovir for herpes, which is very effective in preventing the herpes outbreaks. Chlamydia and gonorrhea, however, along with hepatitis, seem to stick to everything from dildos to flat surfaces to hands, so, pardon my expression, but we are usually up to our asses in chlamydia”.

Online question to Sharon: “Any chance of forcing filmmakers to take responsibility for health risks through OSHA or similar government agencies?”

“I have tried until I am blue in the face. To the best of my knowledge, this will not be happening any time soon.”

http://www.courttv.com/talk/chat_transcripts/2001/0723mitchell.html

A comprehensive list of what pornography performers are subjected to and at risk of can be seen in the Adult Industry Medical Foundation (AIM) publication “Types of Porn and Their Occupational Safety Risks”. The list includes:

“RISKY SEX ACTS: Ass to mouth (A2M), Ass to pussy, Ass to Ass, Double penetration – one in vagina one in ass, Single penetration vaginal, Single penetration anal, Blow Job, Double Vaginal, Double Anal, Boy Boy Girl, Girl-Girl Boy, Multiple sex partners/Orgies, Felching – Ass to mouth.”

“THE FOLLOWING CATEGORIES ARE AT A SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT RISK THAN ABOVE:

BUKKAKE – Multiple males ejaculating on a face. At risk for chlamydia or gonorrhea of the eye, herpes of the eye or nose, or HIV – as the eye is a direct conduct into the bloodstream.

BUKKAKE – Drinking semen. At risk for chlamydia and/or gonorrhea of the throat.

CREAM PIE – Internal ejaculation either in vagina or ass. High risk for HIV. ****

SNOWBALLING – Passing sperm and spit from one person’s mouth over and over.

S&M – Depending on the type of play, Hepatitis A, B and C, if there is any needle/nail play without gloves.

TOY-PLAY – Depending on the play, when using toys, always put a condom on them or change toys when changing partners, as chlamydia or Hepatitis B, can stick to a toy and be able to transmit the infection.

EYE BALLING – Herpes of the eye, HIV, chlamydia and gonorrhea of the eye.

FISTING – Anal and Vaginal. Vaginal or anal tears, no STD risk and less you’re going from one partner to the next, or putting the fist in your body and into your partners’ without changing gloves.

MUTUAL MASTURBATION. No risk and less you are using the same hand on you and your partner. Keep your hand to yourself and you are at no risk.

SINGLE GIRL MASTURBATION. No risk unless you have a herpes outbreak or HPV outbreak. You can transmit to another part of your body.

GAPING – This is the act of stretching the anus, vagina or mouth with a speculum or a dental instrument. Tears in the body and throat, and if sex, any kind of body fluid or sperm will cause a high risk for all aforementioned diseases.“

(All of the above is quoted verbatim from the Adult Industry Medical Foundation (AIM) publication “Types of Porn and Their Occupational Safety Risks”.)

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More information about what pornography performers are subjected to and at risk of is in the article “The Adult Film Industry: Time to Regulate?”, by Corita R. Grudzen and Peter R. Kerndt:

“Adult film performers engage in prolonged and repeated sexual acts with multiple sexual partners over short periods of time, creating ideal conditions for transmission of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). All the more concerning, high-risk practices are on the rise [4]. These practices include sex acts that involve simultaneous double penetration (double-anal and vaginal–anal intercourse) and repeated facial ejaculations. At the same time, condom use is reportedly low in heterosexual adult films—approximately 17% for adult performers [5]. In 2004, only two of the 200 adult film companies required the use of condoms for all penile–anal and penile–vaginal penetration [2]. Performers report that they are required to work without condoms to maintain employment.”

“These practices lead to high transmission rates of STDs and occasionally HIV among performers.”…”Adult film has allowed consistent exposure of its employees to HIV, hepatitis, human papillomavirus, herpes simplex virus, chlamydia, gonorrhea, and other diseases without liability or worker recourse.”

“The portrayal of unsafe sex in adult films may also influence viewer behavior. In the same way that images of smoking in films romanticize tobacco use, viewers of these adult films may idealize unprotected sex [16]. The increasingly high-risk sexual behavior viewed by large audiences on television and the Internet could decrease condom use.”

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1892037

Information and solutions:

Dr. Sharon Mitchell:

“What we can do is reward the producers, distributors and actors who use condoms with a ”seal of approval.” The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, state and federal health departments, and my organization should act together to give approval to the films made by companies that use safe workplace and health care practices. Most mainstream companies don’t like to discuss their lucrative dirty secret — that they make huge profits off sex films. But if hotel chains like Hilton and Marriott, and cable companies like Time Warner and Comcast, showed only those films with the seal of approval, filmmakers would have a financial incentive to follow the rules.”… “If we can make it financially attractive for the people who work in the industry to use condoms, they will. And that’s the only way that we will be able to further limit the risk of infection to sex-film actors and to the people they come in contact with in their private lives.”

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The authors of the article: “The Adult Film Industry: Time to Regulate?” recommend the following potential policy changes, all of which I support:

• National legislation that includes regulation of internet-based adult films
• Mandatory condom use with condom seal of approval
• Film rating system based on set safety criteria
• Licensure of performers
• STD testing paid for by the industry
• Vaccinations against human papillomavirus and hepatitis B and post-exposure prophylaxis paid for by the industry
• Education and training of all workers and employees
• Legal age of performers raised from 18 to 21 years old
• Drug testing of performers.

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So the bottom line is that I believe it should continue to be illegal for pornography to be accessible to minors under the age of 18, (and I think that this should be enforced on the Internet), I think it should be illegal for anyone to participate in the pornography industry if they are under the age of 21, and I think it should be illegal for anyone to participate in risky sex acts in pornography production without proper protection. (In order to significantly reduce the harms described above.) Hopefully this has answered the original question. If not, please let me know. Thanks!

APA, :^)

To play a video please just click on the arrow in the middle of it.

Traffic Control: The People’s War on Internet Porn (2:36 minutes)

Solution to the Problem of Internet Pornography (3:13 minutes)

How kids can get around Internet filters (:31 seconds)

Another video about how kids can get around Internet filters. (:31 seconds)

Two other videos about the ineffectiveness of filters are here at YouTube.com.

Please note that in no way does the CP80 Internet Channel Initiative infringe on anyone’s free speech or First Amendment rights. Nor does it interfere with anyone’s rights to receive any sort of information via the Internet that they might wish to access. It is a solution that is optional for those that might like to take advantage of it. Please see full information here at CP80.org, and at the website for the DVD “Traffic Control: The People’s War on Internet Porn”, here.

Thank You!

APA, :^)

Personally I hope that some activists are willing to do the work that it will require in order to get anti-pornography civil rights legislation passed. (Which is why I suggested it on the 101 Things You Can Do To Combat the Harms of Pornography list.) However, if this were not to come about because no one chooses to pursue it, and Obscenity Law is all that is going to exist regarding pornography, my hope is that the law would be updated to reflect the current reality of our society including the Internet, etc., and that it would also include something that would address the harm of pornography to women.

That would certainly be a better situation than the way things are now, with the extremely outdated Obscenity Law that neither addresses factors like the Internet, nor anything relating to how women are harmed by pornography.

Regarding the Internet and the CP80 Internet Channel Initiative, that legislation would not restrict anyone’s freedom of speech or expression. It would merely allow people to choose to allow pornographic content or not on their computer. (Please see CP80.org here for more info, as well as the videos on the sidebar of my main blog here, and my new post on this issue with all the videos available here at this site, here.)

“The solution is simple. Categorize and organize all Internet content using the existing and available ports which will allow users to access what they want and avoid what they don’t want. This solution creates a space for those who value the freedom and who want to avoid unwanted intrusions into their businesses, homes, and minds.”

“The Internet Channel Initiative preserves the access to all forms of content to the consumer who chooses both the Community Ports and the Open Ports. In addition, this initiative creates a choice for those consumers who wish to receive only the Community Ports. Under either scenario, the Internet experience is determined by the consumer.”

“The CP80 Internet Channel Initiative is a combination of technology and law that will allow Internet users the option of choosing to receive all Internet ports or only those ports that are free of pornographic content. The technology will categorize content into ranges of Internet ports so consumers can choose selected port packages, much like the options for cable television.”

“Internet users who do not want pornographic content simply notify their Internet Service Provider (ISP), such as Comcast, AOL or Yahoo, that they want only “Community Ports” service. Internet users who take no action will continue to receive all Internet ports (both the “Community” and “Open” ports), just as they always have. Because the pornographic content is not served on Community Ports in the first place, parents and employers do not have to worry about filtering it out on their own computers. This is both a more economical and a more effective approach.”

“Because the CP80 initiative allows for individual choice, the ICPA balances the First Amendment and the compelling governmental interests in regulating Internet pornography, including protecting children. Unlike Congress’ previous attempts, the ICPA can survive Supreme Court strict scrutiny. View prior attempts to legislate Internet pornography. “

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Please see CP80 page on Legislative Solution here for more information on the above.

If anyone has any specific reasons about why or how such legislation would interfere with anyone’s civil rights or freedom of speech, or why they would be against such legislation, I would be very interested to hear whatever points you might like to make. Please feel free to comment respectfully below.

Thank you very much,

APA, :^)

“I have major misgivings about talking to girls who are eighteen or nineteen years old about signing a contract. At eighteen years old it’s hard to make a life choice. I truly believe there should be an age verification at twenty-one years old for this industry.” (Full interview with PR.com here.)

Another performer, Devyn Devine, who is a newcomer and not as well known, (and who is also a sociology student), wrote an article for Adult Industry News, (AINews (dot) com), called Does Porn Dehumanize. In it Devyn writes:

“There is a correlation between mass media and violence. Using my last column as a springboard, if mainstream is doing it, then the porn industry takes it to the next level.”

“Think about it. We see nudity in mainstream movies, but see full-fledged, over exaggerated (Really, honey, do the implants NEED to be that big?) full frontals in porn. We see simulated sex in mainstream, and we see full on, get down and dirty, give it to me baby harder and harder sex in porn. Now we see ads that promote female violence and portray us like we are nothing more then a piece of trash to be walked on. What desensitizes us to things is the recurring image and message over and over again.”

Devyn continues: “So when we see these ads in normal life, it may take someone awhile to get the message and act on it.”

“The way this is all connected is because the advertisers are using sex to sell, and these sexually implicit ads are promoting the message that women are trash. So someone can make the connection in his (or her) mind when watching porn. This is a sexual act, these women are just fantasies and not real, and its ok to hurt them because they are less human than me. If you don’t think there aren’t crazies running around saying that, then you are seriously mistaken! We work in an industry, which promotes hyper femininity in a world the embraces hyper masculinity, and eventually the two are going to clash.” (For the full text of the article, which includes Devyn sharing some specific and documented violent harms of pornography, see here. To read Devyn’s other excellent article on the same topic, When Did Extreme Become Sexy & Where Do We Draw the Line?, click here. It’s very informative, but be forewarned, it is also very graphic and likely to be triggering and disturbing – especially for women.)

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At the end of the article Devyn writes:

“…does it (porn) do more harm then good? My mind isn’t made up and I would love to hear your thoughts on this subject! Email me at Devyn@AINews.com”

So I did exactly that quite awhile ago. I emailed Devyn and I commended her for writing that article and for raising the issues that she did. I shared some of the pertinent references from this site, such as “Pornography As a Cause of Rape”, by Dr. Diana Russell, PhD. (A book excerpt from “Against Pornography: The Evidence of Harm”. Read excerpt on-line here.)

Devyn was very receptive to what I shared and wrote me back a couple of times. I was apparently the only one who gave her positive feedback, though. I would think it would encourage further speaking out on the connection of pornography to violence if more people had written and commended her. So feel free to do so! (Hopefully Devyn is still reachable via that email address. The article was written awhile ago.)

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If anyone one pornography performer has the power to create change within the industry, it is Jenna Jameson. So her positive efforts and her idea of raising the age of participation in pornography to the age of twenty one should be fully supported. Having the age of participation raised would save countless thousands of young women in their teens from the many of different types of traumatic and damaging exploitation that Jenna describes in her book.( “How To Make Love Like A Porn Star, A Cautionary Tale”.)” A few examples of such exploitation are as follows:

“Most girls get their first experience in gonzo films – in which they’re taken to a crappy studio apartment in Mission Hills and penetrated in every hole possible by some abusive asshole who thinks her name is Bitch. And these girls, some of whom have the potential to become major stars in the industry, go home afterward and pledge never to do it again because it was such a terrible experience.” (Pg. 132)

“In a worst-case scenario, a gonzo director will take a girl to a hotel room and have their friends shoot a cheap scene in which she is humiliated in every orifice possible. She walks home with three thousand dollars, bowed legs, and a terrible impression of the industry. It’ll be her first and last movie, and she’ll regret it – to her dying day.” (Pg. 325)

“In other scenarios, she’ll work for two weeks until she’s only getting paid seven hundred dollars a scene and then, finally, no one wants to use her anymore. So she’ll agree to do double penetration or drink the sperm of twelve guys just to stay working.” (Pg. 325)

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Please do what you can to help thousands of young women avoid the above sorts of traumatic exploitation and abuse. (For more information see 101 Things You Can Do To Combat the Harms of Pornography, specifically #75, and this article here, “The Adult Film Industry: Time to Regulate?”. Also Jenna Jameson’s Twenty-Five Good Reasons Why No One Would Ever Want to Become a Porn Star.)

Thank you for caring and for helping! APA, :^)

Contact info for Jenna Jameson:

1) Via Jenna’s MySpace.com page, here, a) by clicking on the link “Message Me”, b) By writing your message in the space provided for comments in her “About Me” box, or c) Just by commenting in response to one of her posts. (You have to be a MySpace member or quickly sign up to become one.)

2) Via Club Jenna (her main website) at either support@clubjenna.com, or at legal@ClubJenna.com. (Or contact Legal by mail at 8390 E. Via De Ventura Suite F110 #258, Scottsdale, AZ 85258.) Perhaps they would forward an email or letter to Jenna if you say that you are in support of Jenna’s goal to raise the age of participation in pornography to twenty-one, and would like to know what you can do to help bring this about.

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From a CNN interview August 27, 2004

ANDERSON COOPER: And if your daughter one day said to you, if you had a daughter, if she came to you and said that she wanted to get into that industry?

JAMESON: I’d tie her in the closet. Only because this is such a hard industry for a woman to get ahead and get the respect that she deserves. I fought tooth and nail to get to where I am, and it’s not something that I would want my daughter to go through. It’s not something that any parent would choose for their child.

COOPER: So you would advise young women not to get involved in the industry?

JAMESON: Not unless they had their head on completely straight and they knew that this is what they wanted to do. For my child, hey, I want them to go to college and be a doctor.

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“ The job of a porn star is not a calling – or even an option – for most women.” Jenna Jameson (pg. 325.)

All quotes in this compilation (except for the CNN one at top) are taken from the autobiography “How To Make Love Like A Porn Star, A Cautionary Tale”, by Jenna Jameson (with Neil Strauss), Hardcover edition. Copyright 2004. (Highly recommended for anti-pornography activists! :^) It is indeed a very cautionary tale.)

In the introduction to the book Jenna says: “For two decades I looked men in the eye and denied everything. And then for years, in private, I wrestled with myself. The truth won. The following, then, is a true story.” (A story that includes having been raped three times as a teenager: 1. By her date when she was fifteen and lost her virginity, (pgs. 284-286), 2. By her abusive boyfriend’s uncle, (pgs. 16-17), and 3 .By a group of high school boys, who severely beat her and then left her for dead. (Pg. 391-394.))

Jenna Jameson’s Twenty-Five Good Reasons Why No One Would Ever Want to Become a Porn Star:

1. Being a pornography performer can be bad for your emotional, mental, and physical health, and you will likely get sick at times as a result of your work.

“And so it began. I woke up at five every morning and got to the studio by seven for makeup. If I weren’t so young, my face would have looked like hell after all the sleep deprivation…. Suze, I soon realized is also a shark. Her specialty is naïve young girls – much like myself… Once she sank her teeth into me, she didn’t let go. She shot me until I was half dead.” (Pg. 105)

“For the girls who get penetrated in every hole in their first film, it’s physical and mental overload.” (Pg. 146.)

“Though every performer is required to have comprehensive monthly testing for sexually transmitted diseases, STDs are still a valid concern…. You never know what kind of lifestyle people are leading off the set.” (Pg. 326-328.)

“And before you even get into it, realize that it’s not that easy to have sex with strangers in front of other people. When you’re having sex, you’re at your most vulnerable. Only a handful of women look good fucking: everyone has a little cheese here and there. At the very least, most girls have to battle eating disorders at some point from seeing themselves jiggling naked on camera so much. And, speaking of exposure, every time you’re on set you’re swapping fluids with someone, so your body is constantly fighting colds and flus. You get sick. You get run down.” (Pg. 329)

“A week into shooting, I did a scene with Kylie Ireland, Felicia, and Vince Voyeur. That night, when I returned from work, I had a sore throat…. By the end of the movie, my throat was so swollen it hurt to swallow and I was so weak I could barely hold a conversation. When I returned home, I looked in the mirror and there were huge white lumps all over my throat…The doctor who finally saw me was a hack. “Okay, you have strep throat.’”.(Pgs. 360-361)

“…he said a woman in the industry had contracted HIV… Before this announcement, no one in the industry to any of our knowledge had contracted the HIV virus before. And condoms were rarely used in films that that time. We canceled shooting that day because no one could work. The next day, Steve told us that it had been a false positive. Everyone was relieved, but at the same time, we had all changed: we were now aware that something like this could happen.” (Pg. 377)

“Joy had booked interviews and photo ops for me every ten minutes. And I was excited to do all that work. I was willing to do anything to be someone who everyone loved. Looking back on it, it was just a new type of insecurity replacing the old one, and I was giving myself away to the needs and expectations of the public instead of the needs and expectations of the men in my life. It was just a new form of dependence developing. And it was equally detrimental to any sort of emotional stability.” (Pg. 401)

“I had become the main attraction in this whole circus, and it was taking a much bigger toll on my life than I realized.” (Pg. 415)

“Travel is a major staple of my life. It seems it’s all I do. I’m not sure the effect it’s having on me. I guess I haven’t taken the time to reflect. Obviously that’s one of the major problems. Reflection. I close myself off. Not wanting to let what’s in the mirror of my life stare back at me. I never take the time to feel the effects of my choices. Maybe it’s because I would be ashamed, maybe afraid. I realize I have avoided my pain for as long as I can remember. It’s what I’ve been taught. Be strong little one…Things can only get better. As life goes racing by me, all the while my soul goes on with sickness. Yes, sickness. It feels like it’s ailing. Because the one that should be nursing it is too busy trying to succeed and be accepted. I’m certainly scared that if I try to fix what has broken in me, so long ago, I may not succeed. So I go on faking that I am whole, proud, and strong… I almost laughed aloud when I turned my head down to wipe my tears on my shirt and saw the pen I was pouring my pain through. It’s a Radisson Hotel pen. Point taken.” (Pg. 418)

“Sometimes everything seems so surreal. Nikki used to call me her ‘Gypsy.’ I always laughed when she said that, because I know it’s not only from all my travels. My heart is a gypsy – continuously searching for a home, fighting within itself, wondering whether it is weak or even right for that matter to be searching in the first place. Loneliness is what it feels like. I don’t really know what the urgency is I feel: Loneliness or complete heartbreak? But I fight it, saying it can’t be broken. I still have hope that I will find peace within myself, and that must be what it’s about. – Confusion. – ” (Pg. 419)

“There are times when I wish the industry had a union, because the shooting schedules are inhumane. It generally takes a good three weeks to shoot even the crappiest independent film; we do it in one to six days.” (Pg. 454)

“By 2 A.M. on day three, I was exhausted. I had been in every scene, and still had two sex scenes left to film, which meant at least five hours of work to go.” (Pg. 453)

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Please click on “Continue Reading” below to read the other twenty-four good reasons Jenna Jameson has written regarding why no one would ever want to become a porn star. :^) (Long and definitely not light reading – but truly fascinating and extremely informative!)

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2. In order to really succeed, you will likely have to get painful breast implants.

“One of the most frustrating things about the film work was that the producers never wanted to put me on box covers. They all said my breasts were too small. My boobs were certainly big enough for all the men who stared at them every time I left the house. But they weren’t big enough by porn standards. Just like at the Crazy Horse (strip club), the girls with the monster silicone got all the attention.” (Pg. 160)

“All those customers and box covers lost to girls with bigger, faker breasts had built a deep insecurity.” (Pg. 169)

“I had done so many photo sessions in the past year that I was literally being shot out of the business. I needed to do something to get more jobs, otherwise I’d lose the only source of income left to me. (Pg. 170)

“Mine (breast implants) didn’t turn out so well…. With an implant that big underneath my muscle, it felt like fucking Barnum and Bailey’s Circus was sitting on my chest. I cried when I looked in the mirror afterward: they seemed way too big for my frame. I drank a little to kill the pain…” (Pg. 170)

“I didn’t realize until years later how stupid I was to get them. (Breast implants.) Drugs tend to impair your judgment…” (Pg. 171)

3. You will likely have to have sex with other people you find repellent.

“While I was waiting for my first sex scene, my co-star, a gentleman I had never met before named Arnold Biltmore, sat next to me. He had a soft, pasty body; a porous, greasy complexion; and a kindergarten haircut, parted in the middle and combed to either side. Nothing about Arnold Biltmore turned me on. And in ten minutes I was supposed to have sex with him. When our scene started, he tried to kiss me. I turned my head away from the camera, so that no one could see me grimace…. As my head kept bumping into his stomach while I gave him head, all I could think was, ‘What the hell am I doing here? This is disgusting.’ A bead of sweat on Arnold’s forehead…swelled and grew until it turned into a bubble, and then slowly pried itself free of his forehead…. When it smacked me between the eye, it flipped a switch in my head. ‘I’m done,’ I though. ‘I can’t do this anymore.’” (pg. 161-162.)

“Other male actors were creepy, and looked at me as if they wanted me to be their wife afterwards; or they had erection problems and, even worse, hygiene problems.” (Pg. 376)

Jenna to “one of porn’s leading men: “So do guys in the industry become freaks?” Reply: “That’s actually true in a way. Every guy in the industry has one fetish or passion that keeps him going. You have to realize these guys are working with a girl who’s beautiful one day, and then the next day they’re with a girl that they wouldn’t normally want to touch, let alone fuck. So they have to go somewhere in their head to keep themselves interested and aroused.” (P. 387)

4. Being a pornography performer can often be physically painful.

“It was such a challenge to look sexy and relaxed while manipulating my body into the various uncomfortable contortions…Even for… the simplest pose, like looking over my shoulder with my back to the camera, I had to arch so hard that my lower back cramped. When I see those photos now, it seems obvious that the sexy pout I thought I was giving the camera was just a poorly disguised grimace of pain.” (Pg. 94)

“ To keep all of my body in focus and in the light, I had to bend and contort into all sorts of unnatural positions that were supposed to look effortless… But this time I had to hold the positions much longer and wait for them to meter the light, take a Polaroid, and check the light again before they even started shooting. I was so out of shape from my unhealthy lifestyle that my knees would suddenly start knocking during a pose or my lower back would spasm when I arched it for too long…. I really wanted to please Suze, so I was willing to hold my knees over my head for twenty minutes straight, until my spine felt like it was going to snap.” (Pgs. 101-102)

“He (T.T. Boy) raced through the foreplay – a little kissing a little oral sex – then all hell broke loose. He slammed me so fast and hard that it took every ounce of control I had to stay focused and in the moment…. I could feel my thighs bruising against his. Then suddenly it all stopped. He pulled out and shot straight into my mouth. I wasn’t expecting him to pop so soon.
‘Is that all?’ I asked.
‘No,’ he said. He grabbed my hips and helped me just over his lap and started slamming me into his dick. I was in decent shape cardio-wise, but he moved with such force and speed that I was winded. It felt like my insides were going to fall out. And then, finally, he popped – again.
‘Is that all?’ I asked.
‘No’, he grunted.
And he put it right back inside. The guy was a machine. There was no lull. His focus never dimmed. His intensity never wavered. He’d throw me into position after position, and would come in each one. I was in shock. I’d never been fucked like this in my life.
I couldn’t wait for him to finish. I was starting to get sore. Finally, after four pop shots, he said, ‘Hold on. I have to go eat something.’
‘Are we done?’ I dared to ask.
‘Not by a long shot,’ he said.
I didn’t think I could take anymore, but I kept my mouth shut. I was curious to see what he was up to now. He walked off, devoured three cans of tuna, and was back with a raging hard-on still pulsating in the air. Within minutes, he was pounding me over and over, in every position I’d ever imagine and some I hadn’t, until finally, with one last climactic pop, he was done. Time elapsed: 156 minutes. …
I literally limped away from the set, licking my wounds…” (Pg. 374)

“When it came time for my first boy-girl scene, Rod, of course, cast himself as my partner. His very first thrust banged my cervix wrong. I doubled over in pain, rocking and moaning and clutching myself for fifteen minutes. It took another six hours before I was ready to have sex again. I’m still not sure why the pain was so sharp – I may have been swollen from the workout I had already been through in the previous girl-girl scenes.” (Pg. 423)

5. The porn industry will objectify you and influence you to see yourself as an object.

“You are the product. (Pg. 333)

6. The porn industry and the people in it do not treat women with decency, fairness and respect.

“Most girls get their first experience in gonzo films – in which they’re taken to a crappy studio apartment in Mission Hills and penetrated in every hole possible by some abusive asshole who thinks her name is Bitch. And these girls, some of whom have the potential to become major stars in the industry, go home afterward and pledge never to do it again because it was such a terrible experience.” (Pg. 132)

“In a worst-case scenario, a gonzo director will take a girl to a hotel room and have their friends shoot a cheap scene in which she is humiliated in every orifice possible. She walks home with three thousand dollars, bowed legs, and a terrible impression of the industry. It’ll be her first and last movie, and she’ll regret it – to her dying day.” (Pg. 325)

“In other scenarios, she’ll work for two weeks until she’s only getting paid seven hundred dollars a scene and then, finally, no one wants to use her anymore. So she’ll agree to do double penetration or drink the sperm of twelve guys just to stay working.” (Pg. 325)

“If you take the time to read it (a sample adult-film contract) carefully, you will notice many ways in which a female performer can get shafted – both literally and metaphorically.” (Pg. 353)

“It was the most irritating shoot of my life. When I spread for him, he joked about there being an echo in the room. When I went into a doggie position, he commented on needing a fish-eye lens for my ass. All evening, he kept making comments that one shouldn’t make around a woman, especially if one wants her to feel sexy.” (Pgs. 359-360)

“For my first Wicked movies, I kept my mouth shut and absorbed everything that was going on. I looked at how the other girls were being treated (basically like Tinkertoys) and what type of people got to call the shots (the male directors). I was determined not to just be a fuck toy but also retain as much power as possible off camera.” (Pg. 368)

“When they were finally ready to shoot, J.B. came into the makeup room and ordered: ‘Get your whore ass on set and do what you do best.’ He had just used the wrong word. I ran after him in a Tasmanian Devil frenzy. The crew had to pull us apart. It was late and my nerves were frayed, but nonetheless J.B. was out of line. And I was right: they were wasting time arguing about the lighting. When he left, I collapsed in my makeup chair and started crying.” (Pgs. 453-454)

7. The industry is full of strange and scary people, who are happy to take advantage of you – like “suitcase pimps”.

Suitcase pimps “date industry girls, become their managers, take all their money, and often leave them broke, jobless, prematurely aged wrecks.” (Pg. 162)

Kylie’s suitcase pimp “knelt in front of her and reached deep inside her. He had a very strange expression on his face, as if he actually enjoyed the responsibility. When he fished it (the sponge) out between his bloody fingers, he actually sniffed it. I had to get out of there. I never wanted to do another movie again.” (Pg. 163)

“There are a lot of scumbags in the industry. They’ll tell girls they need to ‘test them out’ first to see if they give a good blow job.” (Pg. 326)

“After the AVN Awards and all the mainstream exposure, everyone wanted to interview me, even people who had passed on the offer before. One of them was Al Goldstein, the publisher of Screw magazine, who was writing for Penthouse at the time. Joy set up something after the awards show, and Goldstein came by to introduce himself. He’s an obese, greasy, slovenly man, and was very touchy-feely with both of us. When he discussed the interview, he seemed to be dropping hints about going on a date or getting sexual favors from me in exchange for the article. He didn’t say it explicitly, but it’s the feeling Joy and I got…. Goldstein never forgave us for canceling the interview. And so I made my first enemy in the business. He published a screed against Joy and me on the front page of Screw, accusing us of practically every offense imaginable – and a few that were unimaginable. He even attacked my family. That was a turning point because up until then, I could do no wrong. I was the golden girl of the industry. When I read that story, I was heartbroken. I wanted to give up and quit the business.” (Pg. 415)

“I was sick of the vampires in L.A. The only people I trusted were Steve and Joy.” (Pg. 458)

“We relaxed by the pool and ordered daiquiris. I was instantly drawn to him. (Jordan.) He was so different than any guy I had met before. And that’s probably because I’d been in a world of strip-club owners, porn directors, and suitcase pimps for most of my adult life. He wasn’t loud or obnoxious; he didn’t feel a need to brag or prove himself; and he was unaware of how good-looking he was. He had no game. And because of that, I felt comfortable, like I could let down my guard and be myself without worrying that he wanted anything from me.” (Pg. 460)

“Suitcase pimps aren’t made; they’re born. I returned home to a very different Jordan from the one I had left. My three-week absence had brought out a possessive, patriarchal, and jealous side of him. He insisted that the next time I go on the road, he come along, ostensibly to protect me and make sure I got paid. But the real reason was because he wanted to make sure I wasn’t sleeping with other guys – which, technically, I wasn’t.” (Pg. 476. Note: Jenna was sleeping with a stripper named Melissa at the time.)

8. The industry will sometimes lie about you and not respect your wishes.

“And slowly they (the pictures) began to appear: on the cover of Hustler; and then Cherry, and then High Society. All three were on the stands with me on the cover. I was the slut of the month. Of course none of them mentioned Jenna Jameson. They called me Shelly or Daisy or Missy. And, though the editors had never spoken a word to me, they featured interviews in which I discussed how inordinately horny I was, how much I like sex with anonymous strangers, and how I fantasized about inviting my girlfriends over for threesomes with my boyfriend.” (Pgs. 121-122.)

9. The other women that you will have to interact with in the sex industry usually won’t be very nice to you.

“They looked so jaded and hardened. I didn’t see a friendly face among them. There was no way I could survive here. These girls would eat me alive.” (Pg. 36)

“Strippers can be vicious.” (Pg. 48)

“My only real competition was a blond girl with a huge boob job… We never exchanged a single word, but there was an unspoken sense of rivalry – even hatred.” (Pg. 50)

“As I sat in the makeup chair, I watched one hottie after the other arrive – stuck-up, fucked-up, worked-up, or hard-up.” (Pg. 105)

“”When we broke for lunch, I made a beeline for the fruit table. As I was inspecting the bananas like a good monkey, a tall, think, beautiful brunette walked up to me. It was Shauna Ryan, a Penthouse Pet and clearly the alpha female of the tribe. She looked me up and down and then sneered, “How old are you? Eleven?” (Pg. 134)

“I began to feel like Suze (Randall) was taking advantage of me. My pictures appeared in every sex ad and foreign nudie magazine imaginable. And since I’d signed away the rights, she was raking in all the money. Whenever I asked her for a few chromes for a promo shoot or to make a modeling book, she’d refuse. I’d ask her instead to shoot an extra roll for me at our next session instead, and she’d say she couldn’t. She made her living off of enthusiastic new girls like myself, and I understood that and was grateful to her for making me an international cover girl. But there was a bigger problem – she (Suze Randall was stringing me along, telling me that each shoot we did just might be a centerfold in Penthouse. However, nothing we did ever appeared there…. So I added Suze to my mental shitlist of people I could not trust and decided to stop working with her.” (Pg. 172)

“The girls, most of whom had been in the industry longer than me, were extremely catty, probably because I was starring in the movie over them.” (Pg. 372)

“I only had to film one other sex scene in the movie, with Jeanna and another girl. Jeanna was smart, confident, and candid…She was everything I wanted to be. But the scene didn’t live up to my expectations. She just went through the motions, and seemed disconnected the whole time. I kept thinking, ‘If we are going to do this, let’s do it right.’ There was no passion, no connection, and no energy invested in the moment. The final insult came when we were done and she yelled, to no one in particular, ‘Why do you guys put me with these little girls? You make me look like I’m on hundred years old.’ I don’t think she realized how bad that made me feel.” (Pg. 376)

“I’d say, ‘Oh my gosh, you aren’t supposed to get up and go to the bathroom right now while the ‘fasten seatbelt sign’ is illuminated,’ and they’d look at me like I was the stupidest girl they’d ever seen.” (Pg. 400)

“Backstage, I overheard a couple of the other girls talking. ‘Oh, isn’t it so funny?’, one said. ‘They pick her to host, and she wins all the awards.’ ‘I wonder how many guys she had to blow’, the other said.” (Pg. 4411-412)

“I walked over to her (Teri Weigel, Playboy Playmate and porn star) afterward and the first words out of her mouth were, ‘Who in the hell are you?’ That’s when it got ugly. “I’m the girl whose show this is,’ I said. ‘What the fuck are you doing here?’ ‘Making money,’ she said. ‘Same as you. If you can’t compete…’ “Compete?’ I blew what was left of my cool. ‘Whose name is that on the marquee? Mine. What could have possibly gone through your mind to make you do something like this? Put the shoe on the other foot: How would you feel if you were brand-new on the dance circuit and some legendary dancer chick came in and took your fucking money?’” (Pg. 467)

10. You sometimes have to lie on the job (or be quiet) in order to “maintain the fantasy” for men or your image.

“Instantly the grilling started. He (Howard Stern) seemed determined to know what had a made a girl like me become a porn star. I told him I loved. Sex. I told him I loved the attention. But it wasn’t enough for him. He kept saying that something didn’t compute. He asked if I had a screwed-up childhood, and I said no. He asked if my parents had been strict, and I said no. He asked if my dad and I still talked, and I said we did. He asked if my mom minded what I was doing, and I said no. I had decided in advance that it was better not to discuss her death on the air. I didn’t think I could handle it.” (Pg. 391)

“But then Howard asked me if I’d ever been molested or abused. It was the one question I wasn’t prepared for.”
‘No’, I told Howard, in answer to his question. I lied like a rug. I wasn’t ready to tell anybody about any of this, (being gang raped, beaten and left for dead), and I certainly wasn’t ready to deal with Howard’s reaction. I didn’t want anyone to think that I was in the business because I was a victim.” (Pgs. 391 and 395)

“Just when I thought life couldn’t get any more insane, a producer at the E! Channel called. She said that she wanted to fly me to Bangkok and Singapore to host two episodes of Wild On… ‘We also want you to do the opening of Planet Hollywood in each city’, she said. ‘What do mean exactly by “do”?’ I asked. ‘Just interview the stars as they walk in on the red carpet,’ she replied. ‘No problem,’ I told her with my usual lie. Actually, there was a problem: I didn’t know how to interview anyone.’ (Pg. 447)

11. You will likely be around a lot of people drinking and taking drugs, with a lot of temptation to succumb yourself.

“When I was younger I followed the rules, went to school, and got good grades. On weekends, I’d drop acid for two days straight, but I never thought of it as a bad thing…. It was all part of growing up and finding yourself. In my mind, the so-called bad drugs were meth, coke, and heroin. Unlike acid and mushrooms, these were addictive drugs, and I thought I was too strong and too smart ever to fall in to that trap. But slowly and sure, it happened. When I left the Crazy Horse, I thought I was going to be a star. But now, at twenty, my career was already over.” (Pg. 172)

“Amazingly, even though the workload is small, some girls still don’t show up on set. And when they do they’re often late and hung over, with ratty hair and nails that haven’t been done in a year. They think that becoming a porn star means just fucking and doing drugs, but it’s a job. You punch the clock and go to work.” (Pg. 329)

“The biggest challenges for girls doing movies regularly are drugs and dating. A boyfriend can be a nightmare for your career and your emotional health. Some girls come into the industry with creepy guys already attached, and they’ll be doing anal, gang bangs, and bukkake all in one film just to support his drug habit. By the time the girl cleans herself up, she’s twenty-six, done nine hundred movies, looks like Margaret Thatcher in the morning, and has nothing to show for it.” (Pg. 333)

“Though my reasons made sense logically, they were also convenient rationalizations for my drug habit. Traveling to Los Angeles meant flying high and risking getting caught with speed at the airport. So I started posing only for photographers in Las Vegas.” (Pg. 173)

“Throughout the photoshoot, they told me, ‘Jenna, relax. Let the tension out of your face.’ I was clenching my teeth so hard from the crystal. Even more embarrassing, in certain poses my bones were sticking out so badly that they had to artfully drape my clothes over them so that I wouldn’t repulse readers. There were no magazines for guys with fetishes for anorexic meth freaks at the time.” (Pg. 177)

“’My life’, I said. ‘It’s not where I want it to be…I’m just…stuck. I’m…addicted.’ For the first time I had vocalized it. I was addicted…. I hadn’t done any work in a month. I looked down at my hand, and my fingertips were black from all the time spent holding hot cigarette lighters under meth pipes.” (Pg. 179)

“’I don’t have any friends… I don’t know what I’m going to do. The only person I hang out with is a fucking Mexican crack whore who calls me mija.’” (Pg. 179)

“There was a scale in the corner of the room. I stepped on it. The dial spun and wobbled under the red needle until it stopped on a number. And that number was eighty. I weighed eighty pounds.” (Pg. 179)

“Staring at me from the door of the medicine cabinet was the devil. It had strings of brittle blond hair that had snapped off at various lengths; eyes recessed deep into the sockets and surrounded by bruised black circles; cheekbones sharp enough to draw blood; and its complexion was sickly cyanotic. The devil was my own reflection. I had made my living with my looks, and now they were gone: the beautiful blond hair, the full smiling face, the big bedroom eyes. All the curves that men paid thousands of dollars just to look at had melted away to reveal a skeleton in rags.” (Pg.182)

“Amazingly, even though the workload is so small, some girls still don’t show up on set. And when they do, they’re often late and hung over, with ratty hair and nails that haven’t been done in a year. They think that becoming a porn star means just fucking and doing drugs, but it’s a job. You punch the clock and you go to work.” (Pg. 329)

12. Celebrities and the press will often treat you badly, like an object, and/or assume you want to have sex with them.

“I was sure Howard (Stern) was going to rip me to shreds. For hours, I rehearsed what I was going to say in my head. I didn’t want to come off like all the other girls on his show. They either pretended to be voracious sex kittens or poor wounded birds…. I wanted to hold my own against the pressure and manipulation… Few girls left that studio without looking like bimbos. And, unlike movie making, I had to get it right or risk national humiliation…. Instantly, the grilling started.” (Pgs. 390, 391)

“’I want to go out with you so bad,’ he (Howard Stern) said, his eyes never leaving my body. “Please date me. I’ll pay you to date me.” (Pg. 395)

“’That’s the ugliest tattoo I ever saw,’ he (Howard Stern) scolded. ‘It is ugly. You really are a psycho.’” (Pg. 396)

“(Marilyn) Manson started calling me – every day. When I wasn’t there, he would leave me half-humorous, half-insane messages about wanting to set me on fire or feed me to Corey Feldman. Since my marriage to Rod was loveless and sexless, I started seeing Manson on and off. But the more I got to know him, the weirder he became. He would talk about wanting to see girls fuck prosthetic limbs or sucking Twiggy’s dick, and I’d never be able to tell to what degree he was joking and to what degree he was serious. And he wanted to fuck me in the ass a little too often for my comfort. Every time we were naked, he’d be going for my butt like a rat to cheese.” (Pg. 447)

“I walked past a table full of beautiful girls, with Wesley Snipes sitting smack in the middle of them all. He waved me over. ‘So you’re the reporter from the E! Channel.’ He smiled. ‘Why don’t you join us?’ Hesitantly, I sat down next to him, and all the other girls at the table shot me dagger looks. He was trying to get in their pants; they were trying to get in his pants; and I was confused. ‘So,’ he leaned over and whispered in my ear, ‘do you like it up the ass?’ Being a porn star, I was used to such questions. But Wesley had no idea I was a porn star. Either way, I was offended. I looked at him blankly, stood up, and walked away. That was the first and last time I ever saw him.” (Pg. 450)

“I never made it to the bar. Bruce Willis walked in front of me. He looked fine. Instantly, I felt my chest flush and tingle. Even though he was wearing a creepy pair of shorts, I was still attracted. He didn’t say a word. He pushed me up against the wall and kissed me. After thirty seconds of passionate tonguing, he just walked away without a word…. As we hit the fresh air, a bodyguard walked up to me and said, ‘Mr. Willis is waiting for you in his limousine.’ ‘ He’s going to be waiting a long time,’ I responded. There’s a fine line between confidence and arrogance, and he had crossed it.” (Pg. 450)

13. Your fans are often creepy and/or drunk, and none of them really care about your acting, talent or showmanship, they just want to see skin and sex.

“Here, finally, was a new challenge for me, (acting), something I had never done before. Of course, in the back of my mind, I imagined the audience with one hand on their dicks and the other on the fast forward button skipping over the acting scenes…” (Pg. 371-372.)

“These guys didn’t care about seeing a show. They just wanted to see some skin. So much for my delusion of actually being respected in the world at large.” (Pg. 467)

“If I was going to stand up there all night bending over for alcoholics, no one was going to take my money.” (Pg. 468)

“I also learned to keep a close eye on my G-strings and bras, because every time I removed one, it disappeared from the stage. I still wonder what guys do with them, and how stinky and crusty they get when they remain unwashed in their rooms for so long.” (Pg. 468)

“The other thing I learned that week was that guys don’t give a shit about thousand-dollar light shows and Feminator outfits. The best way to make money is not with a Broadway-caliber show, but by being enticing and engaging onstage – by making them want to splooge in their pants. And so, by the time I arrived at my second engagement, Al’s Diamond Cabaret in Reading, Pennsylvania, I had shed all pretensions of performance art. I was back in stripper mode.” (Pg.468)

14. Working in porn will negatively affect your viewpoint of men and sex.

“After a girl works in the industry for a while, that’s the only thing guys seem good for – taking care of stuff.” (Pg. 162.)

“Every man I’ve ever met loves the idea of dominating a woman by pushing his massive dick into her tight sphincter so that she loses control” (Pg. 323)

“On top of it, (drugs and user boyfriends), she’ll have no respect for money or sex anymore. Her pussy will have changed from a pleasure center to a cash machine.” (Pg. 333)

“That night at work, she (Melissa) sat inside the ring around the stage and studied every move I made. Wherever I went in the club, I could feel her watching me. It’s funny how if a man did that, it would be creepy; but with a woman, it was such a turn-on. Maybe it’s because worship is a submissive act, and men are supposed to be dominant.” (Pg. 471-472)

“In my mind…every guy just wanted to have sex with me.” (Pg. 360)

15. It’s extremely difficult to have a healthy personal, romantic or sexual relationship with someone. Your career will likely negatively affect your relationship and your relationship will likely negatively affect your career.

“Other girls meet boyfriends after getting into the industry. And while guys may think it’s cool at first, ultimately they’ll hate you for what you’re doing. . . . Even if you end up leaving the industry for him, he’ll always hold your past against you.” (Pg. 333)

“Never bring a boyfriend to the set, because they usually stare needles into you and everyone else the whole time. You’ll be so afraid you’re going to upset him that you won’t be able to perform. And the guy in the scene with you will either be unable to get a hard-on because he’s so uncomfortable or he’ll want to fuck you to death, just to piss your boyfriend off. Some of the bigger loser boyfriends will even hit on other performers.” (Pg. 334)

“Because few outsiders truly accept and understand the lifestyle, most people in porn date within the industry. However, dating a male performer is also a kiss of death for most girls. As soon as emotions come into play and you both really love each other, you’re not going to want him to perform with anyone else and he’s not going to want you for perform with anyone else.” (Pg. 334)

“The other option is to have an open relationship and fuck other people, but then that’s not a relationship at all. It’s nothing. I’ve never seen a swinger couple work out: usually, one person will fall in love with the other first, but will keep their mouth shut until one day they just blow up and let it all out. And when they do, it’s such an overload of emotions and feelings that it scares the other person off.” (Pg. 334)

“Even to those of us behind the camera, sex is an intimate thing. This is borne out by how hard it is for anyone in the industry to have a healthy relationship off camera. No male is wired to watch his lover having sex with another man on camera, especially if he is better looking, has a bigger dick, and fucks her better.” (Pg. 334)

Quote from “one of porn’s leading men.”(Anonymous):
“Getting into porn is a death sentence. As a male performer you are doomed to be single for the rest of your life…. A guy performs seven to ten scenes per week at least. The number one performers do fifteen scenes per week. So what girl is going to go out with a guy who’s pounding fifteen other girls every week? No one. The guys don’t have any social life, because they are on set so much. And when they do go out, they are like lepers. Girls won’t touch them. Even girls in the industry avoid them, because it’s bad for their career to get stuck having sex with just one guy on camera.” (Pg. 386-387)

Rod “was the first man I’d dated with a Madonna-whore complex. Whenever we were together, he treated me like a princess. But in bed, the sex had to be dirty and he’d treat me like a slut, shouting obscenities and constantly trying to stick his finger up my asshole while fucking me, which is an acquired taste that I just never acquired. So, as the relationship progressed, it became harder and harder for him to fuck me, because he was caught in a double bind. It seemed like in order to get pleasure during sex, he had to humiliate the woman; but it was impossible for him to humiliate the woman he loved.” (Pg. 424)

“For once, I was dating a guy who focused one hundred percent of his attention on me. I was confident that he loved me and, even better, he allowed me to be in charge. I learned an important thing about dating: The person who wants the least amount of commitment in a relationship is the one who holds the reins.” (Pg. 425)

“One would think that after what I’d been through with Jack, I’d be a sympathetic partner. But, instead, I became just as bad as the men I had dated. I took out all my negative experiences on him (Rod) and really fucked him up, because I had nothing to lose. By the end of our first month of living together, we were fighting all the time. I would insult every aspect of his masculinity and threaten to leave, because I truly did not need him. “ (Pg. 425)

“Whenever I said I was out of there, he would cry. And once a man cries, it’s over. Show me any weakness, and I’ll stomp all over you. I clearly wasn’t ready for a relationship. I was still living out unresolved conflicts from my past.” (Pg. 426)

“Of course, Rod wasn’t entirely innocent himself. He seemed to be taking out all his bad experiences with women on me as well. He had a passive-aggressive way of trying to keep me under control, and that was by playing off my insecurity. It’s a time-honored tactic among men who feel like they are dating a woman out of their league: never be impressed and always put her down. He would walk into the room when I was putting on makeup naked and say, ‘You can tell the first thing that’s going to go is your ass.’ Or he’d tell me that the only women who had turned him on were Asian girls.” (Pg. 426)

“Slowly I went from being this thriving, confident woman at the top of a new career to questioning everything about my body and myself. It was his way of getting revenge by making me as dependent on him as he was on me.” (Pg. 426)

“When he (Rod) was angry, he would call me a whore. And that pissed me off more than anything, because Preacher had said that word to me when he was raping me. Hearing it since – no matter who spoke it – sent bubbles of anger boiling to the surface of my skin. I told min when he first used the work, ‘You can call me anything you want, but do not call me a whore. It will save you a lot of pain and suffering.’ It
was a big mistake to tell him that, because now he had a button he could push whenever he wanted. Of course, he still had to suffer the consequences. I’m not by nature a violent person, but I would throw books at him and pummel him with my little fists.” (Pg. 426)

“If I hadn’t really cared about him, I wouldn’t have responded to his provocations at all. So, somehow, over the course of all this madness, I must have fallen in love with him. And the more I fell in love with him, the more he pulled away and neglected me. Instead of spending time with me when he was home, he would lock himself in his room for days and write scripts.” (Pgs. 427-428)

“Eventually, our sex life dwindled to nothing – and I needed it, not just for the pleasure itself, but as a reassurance of the love that we both supposedly felt for each other. It wasn’t just because of his demeaning comments and his sexual neuroses: being business with your lover will typically squeeze the last drop of energy and passion from both of you. Some say that work is the enemy of all natural erotic impulses, that it kills off your sexual desires and channels them elsewhere. And this is doubly true when your work is sex.” (Pg. 428)

“I started scrambling to save the relationship. On some level, I wanted to make it work because, professionally, we were a good team. The movies we made were some of my favorites. So, in a last ditch effort to make the relationship work, we decided to get married. I thought we’d fall back in love – and I convinced myself that I was overemphasizing sex, that perhaps it wasn’t really that important in a relationship. So I immersed myself in planning the wedding of the century. I even bought my own wedding ring. (Pg. 428)

“The next day we were scheduled to fly to Hawaii for our honeymoon. So I booked a room for us that night at the Beverly Hills Hotel. When we checked in, we said good night and went to sleep. We didn’t even have sex. And the scary thing is I didn’t even want to.” (Pg. 429)

“When we woke up on our first morning as a married couple, nothing seemed to have changed. He was shuffling his feet across the floor to the bathroom, and all I could think was, ‘Pick up your fucking feet, loser.’ Perhaps if he had leaned over and kissed me and said, ‘Oh my God, you’re my wife,’ I would have felt differently. But instead, he just asked, ‘Do you want anything from room service?’ in his meek little voice. I wanted to smack him and say, ‘Speak up!’ Bitterness was taking hold of me.” (Pg. 431)

“By the end of the trip, I knew it was over. The only words I said to him on the way home were, ‘Fine. Go ahead and write another mother-fucking script. I couldn’t care less. They’re bad anyway.’ Naturally I only acted this way with him in private. But it was only a matter of time before it leaked into our professional life. We began to argue over every little thing on the set, which made the entire crew uncomfortable. One of us would tell the other what to do, and the other would bristle and snap back. Of course, I only had a problem when he was ordering me around, not when anyone else did.” (Pg. 432)

“We tried to make each other’s jobs as hard as possible. He knew how to get me, because the most important thing to me was the way I looked on camera. And I knew how to get him, because it was so important to him for the production to run on time, especially because he’d cram and entire big-budget movie into six twenty-hour days. It soon became The War of the Roses between us.” (Pg. 432)

“He would berate me in front of the crew; he would compliment the other girls but ignore me; he’d pretend not to hear me when I asked min something; he’d tell me I wasn’t smart enough to learn two lines of dialogue; and he’d chastise me for expecting to be treated like a star when I acted like a little kid.” (Pg. 432)

“ In return, I would spend longer in the makeup chair than I need to. And if he dared to poke his head into the room and ask how much longer, I’d tell the makeup artist that I needed more eyelashes or tell the hairstylist that we needed to re-wet my hair and start over.” (Pg. 432)

“Making movies became a miserable experience, because my dysfunctional relationship was staring at me in the face on the other side of the camera. And sometimes, on my side of the camera. He (Rod) was a great director, but he wasn’t a great performer. And since it takes two to make a good sex scene, I felt that he was fucking my career up. When your sex life is bad off camera, you can’t expect chemistry to magically come into existence on camera.” (Pg. 432)

“For one film, we had arranged a three-way, with Rod, Mickey G., and myself. But Rod couldn’t get his dick firm to save his life and Mickey was like a rock, so Rod had to be dropped from the scene. It wasn’t anything personal: it was just about getting the film done. But it was a major ego blow to Rod. I took him aside and said that we could just scrap the scene. ‘I insist that you do it’, he said. ‘If you don’t, I’m going to be mad.’ ‘Well,’ I told him. ‘You’re going to be mad either way.’ I did the scene. It was the first one I had done with another man since we were married. But Rod got his revenge.” (Pg. 433) (See also all of pgs. 434-437)

“Since my marriage to Rod was loveless and sexless, I started seeing (Marilyn) Manson on and off. But the more I got to know him, the weirder he became. He would talk about wanting to see girls fuck prosthetic limbs or sucking Twiggy’s dick, and I’d never be able to tell to what degree he was joking and to what degree he was serious. And he wanted to fuck me in the ass a little too often for my comfort. Every time we were naked, he’d be going for my butt like a rat to cheese.” (Pg. 447)

“Of course I was discreet about the fling. However, as soon as the paparazzi photos of us hit the press, Howard Stern was on the phone asking about it. I denied the whole thing on the air and told him we were just friends. But the next day Manson was on his show, blabbing about the entire thing. I never pegged him as the type to kiss and tell.” (Pg. 447)

“Every bond that held Rod and me together – except for that proclaimed by church, state, and Wicked contract – had crumbled to dust. The final blow came when we concluded that I needed to work with other directors and performers in order to maintain the momentum of my career.” (Pg. 453)

“Lee, my makeup artist, shut the door and tried to soothe me. Just then, Rod came bursting into the room. ‘You stupid fucking whore,’ he yelled. ‘You are going to ruin this whole production. You can’t treat people like dogs after how hard they’ve worked. Who do you think you are?’ ‘How hard they worked, you selfish bastard? I’ve worked just as hard. And I’m the one who has to be on camera and look beautiful at four in the morning.’ We yelled at each other for ten minutes, making Lee so uncomfortable he cleared the room. Finally, I packed my shit and left the set.” (Pg. 454)

“My marriage showed no signs of improvement. In bed, I would move my foot over to touch his, and he would move his leg away. I needed so badly for him to do something to show that he loved me, something to counteract the constant drama on the set, but instead, he’d shut himself in his room for days and say that he had scripts to write. I had been much better off living alone. I didn’t realize that it’s a lot worse to be lonely in the company of someone you supposedly love than it is to be lonely by yourself.” (Pgs. 454-455)

“After we wrapped shooting on Satyr, I couldn’t take it anymore. The exact words I used were: ‘If you aren’t going to fuck me, I’m going to find someone who will.’ ‘Go ahead,’ he said. There was no love, or even consideration or good will, left between us anymore. The minute I left, I knew I was doing the right thing.” (Pg. 455)

“With Rod, everything was work. My entire life was porn. I needed escape and balance.” (Pg. 461)

“There was nothing for me back in L.A. Jordan offered the solace I needed: He was normal; he made me feel comfortable; he gave me my space. He was the exact antithesis of the life that I was so irritated with.” (Pg. 462)

“With weeks on his own to think about our short-lived marriage, Rod realized that he had blown it. He had taken me for granted and lost me. He followed me around the house, telling me how much he loved me and begging me to stay. His eyes reddened, his voice squeaked. It actually seemed like he might act like a man for once and punch the wall. But it was all too late. In my head I prepared a response: ‘You only have yourself to blame. I gave you your chance. I would cry myself to sleep at night begging you to just fucking hug me, and you would tell me to go fuck myself. You see where it got you? I fucking hate you.’ But I didn’t say a word. I didn’t press a single one of his buttons, even though they all lay exposed in front of me. Like most men, he didn’t realize what he had until it was gone. So much of his yelling, his lack of affection, and his self-imposed workaholism had come from the simple fact that he was insecure. He didn’t feel that he deserved me. And now, it had become a self-fulfilling prophecy. He was getting what he deserved: I was leaving.” (Pg. 463)

“His (Jordan’s) suspiciousness made some sense since I had met him in a strip club and was in the middle of finalizing a divorce with Rob. But as his attachment to me (and fear of loss) deepened, he didn’t want to share me in any way with another human being. The guy knew from day one that dancing was what I did for work – and the reason I could afford the two hundred dollar tennis shoes he had on his feet. But now he couldn’t stand it. On the road, new demands came every day. He didn’t like me making certain suggestive moves onstage. He didn’t want me talking to other guys. He didn’t want me sitting in their laps for Polaroids – I was only allowed to put my arm around them.” (Pg. 475)

“Every so often Joy would call with an offer to do an interview for VH1 or E!, and I wouldn’t call her back. Jordan didn’t want me to talk about anything sexual in public that would embarrass him. Of course, I would fight him on everything tooth and nail, but he made my life so miserable with his constant temper tantrums, guilt trips, and harangues that I would eventually give in. It was easier to play along than to fight. I don’t know how he turned the dynamic around between us and ended up in charge. Although I didn’t admit it to myself at the time, it was what I wanted to some degree, because he was the exact opposite of Rod: a real man – and manly to a fault.” (Pg. 475-476)

16. The porn industry and success within in it can change you and others for the worse.

“The first person I met was actor Lyle Danger, a dark, moody, well-built Slovenian with smoldering eyes and a day of stubble on his chin. Like me he was also new in the business…. I liked him right away. Of course, the business would eventually change him into another creature entirely.” (Pg. 317)

“They (Juli Ashton and Kaylan Nicole) had realized that with their beauty, boobs, and status, the rules that applied to the rest of the world didn’t apply to them. They had the attitude that they could do absolutely anything they wanted….They ordered drink after drink, traipsed around the plane like it was their living room, and acted openly sexual with each other, much to the excitement and consternation of the male passengers. Even though I’d been in lesbian relationships, I’d never been that forward in public. My dad the cop had taught me to follow the rules, and their behavior confused me. On the one hand, it made me uncomfortable; on the other, I wanted to have the guts to act that free.” (Pg. 400)

“I always made sure I had the best outfit on. If there was a photo op, I made sure I was front row and center. If there was a television camera in the vicinity, I made sure I grabbed the microphone. I took over absolutely everything. (At the Cannes Film Festival and the Hot D’Or awards.) I was competing with some of the best girls in the industry, and I had to prove why, out of all of them, I deserved to be starlet of the year. Even when photographers would yell ‘Pamela’ at me, I’d play along, mugging for photos and letting them think they had Pamela Anderson. Looking back on it now, I’m ashamed at how selfish and opportunistic I was, but at the same time, success requires some familiarity with the fatal flaw of narcissism.” (Pg. 402)

“I swept up at the Hot D’Or Awards on my final night in Cannes, winning Best New American Starlet and Best American Actress. Afterward, I looked around the room and thought, ‘I did it. I’m the most popular girl here.’ As shallow as it is, that’s what I thought at the time. Life was like high school, a popularity contest in a classroom as big as the world. Mainstream fame, or at least the tantalizing possibility of it, had now entered my bloodstream. I was never the same afterward. Returning home on the airplane, swigging miniature bottle of Jack Daniel’s with Juli and Kaylan, I was now one of them: I could do no wrong. And I could get away anything, because I was Jenna! with an exclamation point. I thought I was finally finding myself, but in reality I was turning into a monster.” (Pg. 407)

“A strange sort of arrogance told hold of me after all the accolades. I began to think I was smarter than everybody around me, which may have been true, but didn’t give me any excuse to act that way. On set, I acted as if I were the only one who knew what it took to sell movies. I knew what kind of sex to have, whom I had to work with, and how many scenes I needed to be in. And if anyone disagreed with me, I’d pull rank. I realized all I had to do was threaten to quit the movie or sic Steve Orenstein on a director, and he’d do whatever I wanted. When you are twenty-one and have the kind of power I did, you enjoy brandishing it.” (Pg. 412)

“An insanely talented director, he (Rodney Hopkins) had just started making films for Wicked, and he knew a lot about the business. So I quickly realized he could help me. Was that superficial of me? Yes. Was it unusual for me? Sadly, no.” (Pg. 422)

“She (Teri Weigel) began to stammer something that sounded like an apology. I looked at her body and complexion; she seemed to have fallen on hard times. But I wasn’t going to pay for her mistakes. ‘Pack your fucking shit,’ I told her, ‘and get the fuck out of my club.’ And so Teri and her loser suitcase pimp left. Next I had it out with the club owner, and finally my agent. ‘If this ever happens again,’ I screamed at him over the phone, ‘I will personally come down there and cut your fucking throat.’ (Pg. 467)

“I flashed back to the first time I stood up to Suze Randall and squeaked something about not wanting to put oil on my ding-ding. I was a different person now: fearless and terrifying. I wasn’t sure if that was necessarily a good thing.” (Pg. 468)

17. You may become tempted to become a “porn pimp” yourself, and bring someone into a world that you yourself find to be unhealthy.

“We all get paid kickbacks for finding gorgeous girls for films, so we’re always on the lookout for new talent…. If I like a new discovery enough, I’ll even use her in one of my movies. Why give her away to someone else?” (Pg. 328)

18. Strangers may recognize you and try to attack you or rape you. Your safety will likely be threatened.

“One evening, I opened the door to let the delivery man in. It was always the same guy: a hairy, thick-armed doofus with stringy black hair and a wardrobe consisting only of grease-stained button-down white shirts. But today he looked different. His jaw was set, his eyes blazed, his voice trembled. When he passed me the food with shaking hands, he just stared at me. I left the door open and walked to the loveseat to get my wallet. He followed me in and closed the door behind him. ‘I saw you naked in a magazine,’, he said. ‘Yeah, you looked real good. You and I are going to – ‘ I screamed at the top of my lungs. I just kept screaming and screaming. I was sure I was about to be raped. But instead the guy abruptly turned and ran out of my apartment. I collapsed onto the loveseat, shaking. My whole body felt cold, and I curled up and stared at the wall. I must have lain there for hours, comatose.” (Pg. 338)

“As my star rose, it became harder to live in that tiny studio. I wanted someone to share my excitement with. And, more than that, there was the issue of safety. Not only was I afraid to order food, but my deathly fear of the parking garage was not assuaged when my Corvette was broken into and thousands of dollars in clothes I had stored in the back for photo shoots were taken.” (Pg. 422)

19. You will likely find it hard to do other types of work or feel that you can do so.

“I was lying in bed at Steven’s apartment the night the E! Cannes special premiered. I was overwhelmed watching it. It was the first time in my adult life I had accomplished anything that didn’t involved taking my clothes off.” (Pg. 409)

20. You may find yourself constantly seeking approval from others.

“So when he (my father) called from yet another payphone somewhere in this great land of ours, I invited him to the awards show. Despite everything, I wanted my father to see me win. I wanted him to know that I was no longer a little girl who couldn’t take care of herself. I wanted him to see that I was successful and respected and admired. I wanted him to be proud of me. I wanted him to care. And perhaps I also felt that his approval would set in stone that I had made the right decision getting into adult movies.” (Pg. 410)

“I felt a tremendous amount of pressure (which was probably in my mind) to impress everyone. I wanted to be funny, relaxed, charismatic. I didn’t want to embarrass myself and Wicked. To this day, I still put pressure on myself to be the person that everyone wants and expects me to be.” (Pg. 411)

21. If you want to increase your income, you will likely have to have anal sex and sex with multiple partners.

From a “sample adult-film contract”:

“SCHEDULE ‘A’. Additional compensation:

Same Sex Anal Intercourse (excluding DP [Double Penetration] and Air Tight. (See below.) $125.00 per scene

Opposite Sex Anal Intercourse (excluding DP and Air Tight): $250.00 per scene

Opposite Sex Double Penetration (excluding Air Tight): $400.00 per scene

Air Tight (three males with three simultaneous penetrations): $650.00 per scene

Multiple Partners: $250.00 per partner over three (Pg. 356)

22. You will likely end up touring strip clubs and doing stripping as part of promoting your career, and even though you may have already “made it” or become “a star”, you may have to work in less than desirable places, under less than desirable conditions.

“I had been told that Al’s was a high yielding club. But even though it allowed fully nude dancing, I was disappointed when I saw it. It was a total dump (though it’s since been remodeled). Of more concern, it was poorly designed. I was supposed to dance in a pit surrounded by a runway for other dancers and , far on the outside, a railing. Since the guys were along the railing and I was stuck in the center, there was no way they could hand me – or even throw me – money. So I kissed my tips good-bye. On top of that, Al took a five-dollar cut from each Polaroid in exchange for providing the camera and the film (even though I had my own).” (Pg. 468)

“In most of the other clubs I’d been to, thirty to a hundred girls worked on a peak night, but at Al’s there were only six other dancers. And there was no lap-dancing allowed; only stagework. Even stranger, all the guys hanging out had their own coolers. It was strictly a B.Y.O.B. situation. I was definitely in the boondocks, and I had bad associations with the boondocks.” (Pg. 468-469)

“My dressing room was a tiny cubicle covered with graffiti from the other girls who had been there.” (Pg. 469)

“I walked offstage with three crumpled dollar bills that had been tossed hard enough to reach the inner sanctum.” (Pg. 469)

23. You will likely be in the industry only for money or other reasons that aren’t the healthiest. (And therefore not be fulfilled in any way other than materially.)

“The other temptation was money…By appearing in a film, I could make anywhere from two thousand dollars to six thousand dollars for just a few hours work. That’s a lot of new purses.” (Pg. 131)

“Step One: Teenager becomes a model. Reason – Like all teenagers, she thinks she’s special.
Step Two: Teenager starts dating a tattoo artist and biker. Reason – He’s older, badder, and allegedly wiser.
Step Three: Teenager becomes a stripper. Reason – Work, money, and approval of boyfriend.
Step Four: Teenager starts modeling nude. Reason – It’s just like real modeling, except with the stripping added in.
Step Five: Teenager starts acting in soft-core all-female adult movies. Reason – Revenge.” (Pg. 126)

“Many strippers get into porn solely because they want to up their rates. Plus, dancing is a lot easier than being on set, a great way to build up your fan base and mailing list, and a convenient escape from the problems at home.” (Pg. 466)

“Sexuality became a tool for so much more than just connecting with a boy I was attracted to. I realized it could serve any purpose I needed. It was a weapon I could exploit mercilessly.” (Pg.287)

“You get bored, because the hours are long.” (Pg. 329)

“There is a little girl who is still inside me, and that little girl doubts everything I do, but I always force myself to go out and do everything – no matter how trivial – bigger and better than everybody else does, just to spite her.” (Pg. 401)

24. Even if you leave the industry, your porn career will haunt you forever.

“…Unfortunately, they can’t take that experience (of doing a porn movie) back, so they live the rest of their days in fear that their relatives, their co-workers, or their children will find out, which they inevitably do.” (Pg. 132)

“’You have to understand that if you are only planning on doing this for three months, it will affect the rest of your life. You will always be thought of as a porn star, even if you become a nun afterward.” (Pg. 328)

“Do not attempt to hide it (doing porn) from lovers or family, because that will only stress you out and they’ll eventually find out anyway.” (Pg. 331)

25. Since money alone does not lead to true meaningful fulfillment, you likely still won’t be happy, even when you reach the top.

“Suicide, I’ve read since, is a triggered behavioral mechanism, like throwing up. It has to do with not feeling needed, with seeing your existence in the social hierarchy as superfluous. It is something certain animals do, evolutionarily, so that their offspring can survive on a limited food supply. All that makes sense intellectually, but, looking back on it, I still didn’t know why I even contemplated it. I had gotten signed to Wicked; I’d taken the first difficult strides toward my goal; I’d accomplished something by myself for once in my life. Yet I still wasn’t happy.” (Pg. 364)

“After the ceremony I was too tired to celebrate. I went back to my room, shut the door, and cried. ‘My life is at a fucking peak,’ I thought. ‘There’s nowhere to go from here but down.’” (Pg. 412)

“Up until then, I had lived in the sheltered world of the sex industry. And I had come to believe that I was a star, especially after Cannes. But when I met all these people, I realized I was nothing. I was just a niche icon, not a real celebrity. I had sex on screen; I did some perfunctory acting. These people moved and inspired millions of people with their music. All I did was contribute to Kleenex sales. There must be something more I could make of myself. (Pg. 445)’’

“I am perpetually getting the shit kicked out of me in my sleep. I also often dream about my dad dying. What connects all these dreams is that I’m always alone, scared, and powerless in them. For as long as I can remember, this has been my nocturnal landscape. A lot of the decisions I’ve made in my waking life have been attempts to escape it: Is fame going to help me sleep? Is getting married going to stop the nightmares? But nothing worked. Every supposedly safe choice I made just ended up scaring me more. And the more wrong turns I made, the more I woke up crying. My dad couldn’t console me; Jack couldn’t console me; Nikki couldn’t console me; Rod couldn’t console me. No one could.” (Pg. 457-458)

“The budget of the movies we were making had grown from $20,000 to $200,000, and the pressure mounted accordingly. I needed a way out – from L.A., from Rod, and from the movies.” (Pg. 458)

“I piled everything in the car and drove off. I didn’t know where I was going. But somehow, I found myself at the door of a place I recognized: the Vagabond Inn. It was all this there: the bug stains on the sheets, the light-phobic roaches, the asshole at the front desk, demanding a credit card. But I was different. The little girl, wide-eyed, innocent, and fearful, was gone. I was a star now, supposedly; a married woman, on paper at least; and a confident adult in control of her own destiny, at least in other people’s perception. But in truth I had traveled so far and gone nowhere: I was still alone, looking for someone to help me make my way through the wilderness of the world. Every clearing I thought I had found turned out to be just a chimera. I threw my bags in the corner of the room and lay on top of the bed in my clothes. I turned my mind off and stared at the ceiling, waiting for an epiphany. It never came.” (Pg. 455)

*************************************

So there you have it. Said better than anyone else could say it and with more authority than anyone else. Please feel free to share this compilation far and wide, particularly with young women who might be considering entering the pornography industry. And once again, thank you Jenna!

APA, :^)

Note: The above is a work in progress. It will be added to and refined over time. But I thought in the meantime visitors to this blog might want to see what I have compiled so far. I hope you enjoyed it! :^)

Click link below for full information:

“Adult Entertainment: Disrobing An American Idol” BRAND NEW 2007 Anti-Pornography Documentary

In any case, for the time being and for the purpose of this blog, pornography and erotica are defined as follows:

PORNOGRAPHY: Material that combines sex and/or the exposure of genitals with abuse or degradation in a manner that appears to endorse, condone, or encourage such behavior.

EROTICA: Sexually suggestive or arousing material that is free of sexism, racism, and homophobia, and respectful of all human beings and animals portrayed.

The above definitions are from “Pornography As a Cause of Rape”, by Dr. Diana Russell, PhD, which is a book excerpt from “Against Pornography: The Evidence of Harm”. Read excerpt here.

So because by definition pornography (as it is used here) has to include abuse or degradation, if you are against abuse and degradation in regards to sexuality, then you are against pornography. So assuming that you are… welcome to the team! :^)

Note: this blog is also pro-comprehensive sex education being freely available to everyone. (Age appropriate when it is for young children.)

APA, :^)

P.S. If the above description of pornography isn’t clear enough, anyone who wants to could check out the Internet pornography website G a g f a c t o r (dot) c o m, which is a perfect example of pornography per the above definition. (The webmaster Jeff gleefully proclaims on the home page “NEW WHORES DEGRADED EVERY WEDNESDAY!”, and once on that site it was honestly admitted that: “Porn destroys women, that’s why we love it!”) But be forewarned if you do go to there. It is likely to be extremely triggering and disturbing for many people, especially women. However, if you are wondering why anybody would be against pornography, if you think that perhaps this blog may be an overreaction, and you want to know what all the fuss is about, it may prove to be a useful and informative visit for you.

APA, :^)

The below list is for people who are against pornography…

(See this blog’s definitions of pornography and erotica here. Also please see July 20 post regarding Anti-Pornography Civil Rights Legislation, Obscenity Law, and CP 80 Internet port legislation here. Please note that this blog and I are both 100% in favor of Anti-Pornography Civil Rights Legislation that addresses the harms of pornography to women and others. Thank you! :^))

1. Don’t buy or use pornography or have any form of it in your house.

2. Don’t support companies that sell pornography. (I.e. Video stores that sell it, or hotels that rent or sell it. Pornography-free hotels are listed at CleanHotels.com.)

3. Don’t allow your partner, children, or anyone in your house to use pornography. If your partner won’t stop using pornography and it is clear they have no intention of doing so, end the relationship.

4. If your partner is willing to consider ceasing to use pornography but is having difficulty doing so, and you want to salvage the relationship, insist that they get professional help. They need to understand how it harms them, you, your relationship, and women. Make it clear why it’s not acceptable to you to be in a relationship with them if they use pornography, and let them know that they must stop or you will end the relationship.

5. To help ensure that a partner does not use pornography, or that they are held accountable if they do, you can use Internet filters such as the ones listed at TopTenReviews.com, and/or accountability software such as X3. (Note: Some filters can be gotten around by tech savvy individuals.) If the professional help, an Internet filter, and/or accountability software doesn’t result in your partner ceasing to use pornography in a reasonable amount of time, then end the relationship.

6. If you are dating, bring up the issue of pornography early on and make it clear that you won’t tolerate a partner using it and why.

7. If you have children, consult websites such as ProtectKids.com, and books such as “Kids Online: Protecting Your Children in Cyberspace”, by Donna Rice Hughes, in order to know how to best deal with your children accessing or being exposed to pornography on the Internet. Consider using filtering software to block pornography, but don’t assume your children can’t get around it. (See reviews and ranking of Internet filters here.) Address the issue of pornography with your children in an age appropriate manner, and educate them as to how to best deal with peers who may share pornography with them. Raise the issue of pornography with your local Parent Teacher Association, (PTA), and work with them to appropriately address the issue.

8. Don’t allow others around you to joke about pornography. Call them on it and make it clear that the harms of pornography are not in any way funny, and that it’s not OK with you for them to make light of them.

9. Take the NoPornPledge, let others know about it, and encourage them to take the pledge themselves.

10. Encourage strict enforcement of rules concerning access or use of pornography in your work environment, or propose and get guidelines implemented if none exist. Solutions for filtering and monitoring pornography in business environments are available from ContentWatch.com.

11. Educate yourself about pornography so you can better educate others about its harms, and more effectively take action against those harms. (See educational resources and links throughout this list, at the bottom of it and in the sidebar of this blog.)

12. Report any pornographic spam that you may receive. See instructions here or here, and more information about dealing with spam here at SpamCop.net. Also report any pornography you may receive via regular mail here .

13. Take a legal remedy of your choice against pornography. (Currently the only one I am aware of is to report pornography that you encounter or are aware of that qualifies per the legal definition of Obscenity at the form for online pornography, and the forms for offline pornography. Information of what qualifies as Obscenity is on this page here under the heading “Summary of Obscenity and Related Laws”. Also, please see note at bottom of this post regarding Obscenity Law.)

14. Make known your objections about pornography on cable and satellite TV. Instructions here.

15. Take action to get pornography out of regular video and DVD rental stores per these guidelines here. Or create and carry out your own campaign.

16. Support any current, positive, proposed solutions to dealing with pornography, such as the one addressing Internet pornography proposed by CP80.org. (CP 80 stands for Channel Port 80, and is an effort to deal with pornography on the Internet so that it would be on certain “channels”, and people who want it would choose to have access to it, and those who did not want it could choose not to have access.) Information on how you can help is here.

17. Buy the DVD “Traffic Control: The People’s War on Internet Porn” that educates people about the CP80 Internet solution and some harms of pornography. Then share it with others and encourage their participation in getting the CP80 Internet solution enacted.

18. Talk to your friends, family members, acquaintances and coworkers about the harms of pornography. Encourage them to do what is appropriate for their circumstances. (I.e. To stop using pornography, to not ever start to use pornography, to support your anti-pornography efforts or local ones, etc.) Share articles and information with them by email, etc.

19. Buy and read books about the harms of pornography, such as “Pornified: How Pornography is Damaging Our Families, Lives and Relationships”, “Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture”, “Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity”, “Not for Sale: Feminists Resisting Prostitution and Pornography”, “Pornography: The Production and Consumption of Inequality”, and “Pornography: Driving the Demand in International Sex Trafficking”.

20. Educate others about the harms of pornography and encourage their participation in taking action against pornography by giving them gifts of books and DVDs about pornography.

21. At online booksellers such as Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com, rate books about the harms of pornography, (such as the ones listed above), and write helpful and informative reviews.

22. Encourage age appropriate education about pornography in your local schools, so that children learn about the harms of pornography and what to do about them. (This should begin by the time the children are 10 or 11 years old, as children are often first exposed to pornography by that age.) Encourage education about healthy, egalitarian, respectful sexuality as an alternative to the domination/submission model found in pornography.

23. Write to your government representatives and elected officials, (mayor, members of Congress, Governor, President, etc.), and ask them what they are doing to combat the harms of pornography in their respective spheres of responsibility. Inquire about what you as a citizen can do to help. See government contact info here. Also see information from the Department of Justice on what you can do about pornography here.

24. Send these same government officials copies of useful books, articles and audio visual materials about the harms of pornography in order to educate them on the issues and encourage their participation in fighting against those harms.

25. Don’t allow pornography stores to open or expand their businesses in your community. See actions taken by NoPornNorthampton.org as an excellent example of what two people can do to combat a pornography establishment in their community. (See more information about what to do about local pornography shops here.)

26. Speak out against and take action against strip clubs and similar establishments in your community, as they often use pornography to promote their businesses and encourage the use of it through their degradation and exploitation of women. See some guidelines see here.

27. Purchase the entertaining and informative 2007 documentary “Adult Entertainment: Disrobing An American Idol”. (Available as a DVD or computer download.) Watch it, learn from it, and share it with others. (Preview clips available on sidebar.)

28. When it is available, purchase the soon-to-be released documentary “The Truth about Sex”, which addresses the history of women throughout the ages, and all the various forms of sexism, abuse and sexual exploitation they have been subjected to, including prostitution and pornography. (A full list of topics covered by the film is here. Also a very thought provoking and important list is here, describing what would life be like for women now if there had never been the women’s movements of the 19th and 20th centuries. I.e. No right to vote, likely no college education, very little career opportunities and very little pay for the limited careers available, no rape crisis centers, no domestic violence shelters, etc. The list is very long and an excellent reminder of the many improvements for women that have been brought about by the many hard working activists of the past .)

29. Purchase the video CD slide show that covers the harms of pornography called “Who Wants To Be A Porn Star” with a written script from the National Feminist Antipornography Movement. (Also known as NFAM or sometimes Feminists Against Pornography.) Write them at feministantipornographymovement (at) yahoo.com for more info. (Note: Just remove the spaces and replace “(at)” with “@”, so it is a proper email address. It is presented here that way in order to avoid spam being sent to them.) The price as of March 2007 was $5.00.

30. Present the slide show with the script to others in your community. An account of this being done successfully by two students at Castleton State College in Vermont, USA, is here. Encourage others who attend the presentations to get involved with anti-pornography activism by referring them to this blog or anti-pornography websites or groups of your choice. Also give them information on how they can get the slide show and present it themselves to groups in your community

31. If you would like some help with learning how to present the “Who Wants To Be A Porn Star” slide show, including how to answer questions from the audience better, find out when NFAM’s next anti-pornography slide-show training is by emailing feministantipornographymovement (at) yahoo.com. (Note: Just remove the spaces and replace “(at)” with “@”, so it is a proper email address.) Then attend the training, ideally bringing along with you others who know of who are also interested in doing anti-pornography activism. (Email every possibly interested person you know about the training well ahead of time, so that they have time to sign up themselves.) Information on the last “Stop Pornography” training is here.

32. Let NFAM know that you are interested in the version of the “Who Wants to be a Porn Star” slide-show with audio included on it. (This is something they have said is already said is in the works, but the more people that ask for it the quicker it will get done.) Write NFAM at feministantipornographymovement (at) yahoo.com. (Note: Just remove the spaces and replace “(at)” with “@”, so it is a proper email address.) When it is available purchase multiple copies and then distribute them far and wide – especially to people in positions of authority, such as educators, government, legal, and church officials, celebrities, community and opinion leaders, etc. (Along with information on what the recipients can do to help, and where they can go to get more information about the issues.)

33. Create your own lecture or presentation about pornography issues, and present it to groups in your community and elsewhere. An example of someone who is doing this is musician Meredith LeVande, with her lecture “Women, Pop Music and Pornography”.

34. Attend lectures, presentations, debates, and other events on pornography issues to connect with others who are also against the harms of pornography. Participate in the audience discussions or Q&A sessions. Ask pertinent questions of the speakers so that the audience can learn from their replies. Ask audience members to contact you after the event if they are interested in activism, and form your own local group.

35. Organize a meeting, conference, seminar, or similar event about the harms of pornography. Three examples of an event like this are: 1) The Demand Dynamics conference “Pornography: Driving the Demand In International Sex Trafficking”, which was held by Captive Daughters, an organization started by one person who wanted to do something about sex trafficking, (See book of conference here.), 2) The NOW 2005 Annual Conference workshop “Sexploitation: Trafficking, Prostitution & Pornography” , and 3) “Rape Slavery: Sex-Trafficking in San Francisco” (It also addresses pornography.)

36. Start a blog about the harms of pornography in general, one specific aspect of it that especially interests or bothers you, or another activist one. An example of a blog like this is: CharlieGrrl’s “Blog of Feminist Activism against Porn” . Two quick and easy places to start free blogs are WordPress.com and Blogger.com. (I especially recommend Blogger as I find it very simple to use.) An inexpensive blog service which offers a little more and many professionals use is Typepad.com. ($4.95/month.) Reviews of the top ten blog services are here.

37. Create a website that documents the harms of pornography. There are a number of very simple and inexpensive website building services available on the Internet that any beginner can easily use to create and maintain their own professional looking website. Examples are ReadyWebsites.com, (for a smaller site, starts at $8.88 a month), StirSite.com, (for a larger one, $24.95 a month with a set up fee), or any size at Homestead.com. Free trials are available at all of these services so you can see how very easy they are to use. In my experience they all have excellent instructions and very helpful customer service people. (General information about website builders is here with information on free ones here.)

38. Participate at the already existing anti-pornography message boards, forums, groups, and blogs on the Internet, such as the Genderberg.com forum, the LiveJournal.com anti-porn community, The Margins message board, (or Women’s Space blog community, also by Heart), the CP80.org forum, or the TrafficControl blog. (Note: The Margin’s board and Women’s Space are not solely about pornography, but they sometimes include discussions of it. Specific posts about pornography at Women’s Space are here.)

39. If none of the above message boards/groups, etc. are right for you, examine the website links at the bottom of this document to find one that is, or start your own message board or forum that addresses the harms of pornography. More information about the best message board/forum services and how to start one is here. (One of them is free, and the best two are $4.99 and $10 a month.)

40. Start a local group of people who want to do something about pornography and organize and carry out activism together. Group action that is carried out in person often has more impact and is more effective. The community connection service offered at Meet Up.com can be very helpful with this. See an example of an anti-pornography Meet Up group in Grosse Pointe, Michigan here, Radical Feminists Resisting Prostitution and Pornography. Find out how to start your own “Meet Up” group here.

41. Start an online group of people who are concerned about the issue of pornography and want to do something about it. Free simple online services to help you with this are Yahoo Groups, MSN Groups, and Google Groups. A similar service for an email list group or list serve is Freelists.org.

42. Sign up for newsletters and mailings from anti-pornography organizations and groups such as CP80.org (here), MoralityInMedia.org, the National Feminist AntiPornography Movement, (NFAM. Email feministantipornographymovement (at) yahoo.com. Just remove the spaces and replace “(at)” with “@”, so it is a proper email address.), MediaWatch.com, (here), or the Anti-Porn Activist Network. (For the last one post at the Genderberg Forum that you are interested in receiving the APAN newsletter/activist alerts, or if you are interested in more directly participating in the Anti-Porn Activist Network activism.)

43. Participate in the activism encouraged in the newsletters, or use the information in the newsletters for inspiration to prompt your own choice of activist activities.

44. Donate money to or volunteer your time to any individual, group, organization, etc. that you feel is doing effective work to combat the harms of pornography, in order to facilitate their doing more such work.

45. Protest through letters, emails and phone calls, etc., anyone who publicly minimizes the harms of pornography or jokes about it. For instance you can write a letter to NBC’s “The Tonight Show”, or to Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show”, and let them know there is nothing funny about the harms of pornography and that you do not find it acceptable that their hosts Jay Leno and Jon Stewart regularly make light of pornography. Contact NBC here and Comedy Central here.

46. If pornography has personally harmed you or someone you know, share that story with as many people as possible. (Friends, family members, acquaintances, coworkers, the media, on message boards, blogs, and websites, etc.) It must become broadly known exactly how harmful pornography is. Currently too many people are remaining silent, which gives the public a false picture that pornography isn’t as much of a problem as it is. If you want to share your story with VictimsOfPornography.org, follow the instructions at the bottom of their home page here. If you want your story to appear on the oneangrygirl.net website, click on the “Tell my story” link on this page here. Or if you are an activist and want your activist story to appear under the “Why I am an Anti-Porn star” section of that website (scroll down at the link to see it), email oneangrygirl at: info (at) one angry girl . net. (Remove the spaces and replace “(at)” with “@” to make it a proper email address.) Note: You can have your story posted anonymously if you like by requesting that another name be used.

47. Write a letter to the editor of a newspaper, magazine, or any website or publication whenever they print content that concerns pornography or is related to it. (I.e. When violence against women or sexism is addressed.) Point out the harms of pornography, and direct them and readers to relevant educational and activist resources so they can learn how to get involved. (For instance, you can direct them to this blog.) Note: be sure to read the online information for each publication regarding what the guidelines are for writing a letter to the editor, and follow them, so that you will have a better chance of getting your letter published. Each publication has its own guidelines. “Letter to the Editor” links for the following newspapers are as follows: 1) “USA Today” information is here. 2) “The Washington Post” contact information for letters to the editor is on this page here on the right hand side. Guidelines are likely available via the “Opinion” page, once you sign up for free in order to access that section of the website. 3) “The New York Times” info is here . 4) The “Los Angeles Times” info is here, and an online form to submit a letter if you prefer that method to email is here . 5) “The Wall Street Journal” information is here, with more specific information available possibly only to online subscribers – likely via their opinion page which is here. A list of the top 100 newspapers in the United States, sorted by total circulation, with links to each newspaper, is here. Remember that if your letter is written professionally and respectfully it will be better received by the editors. (You can share strong emotions and opinions and still be courteous.)

48. Submit an Op-Ed piece or article on pornography to any newspaper, magazine, or publication – online or off. Personal stories about the harms of pornography are particularly helpful as readers can often relate to them and publishers and editors usually welcome them. “USA Today” Op-Ed info is here. “The New York Times” Op-Ed info is here. To submit an Op-Ed to “The Los Angeles Times” write oped@latimes.com. “The Wall Street Journal” info is here. “The Washington Post” info is here. You can also share your opinion with readers in online publication forums/message boards such as the one for the “New York Times”, which is here. (Full information about the forums here. ) The forum for “USA Today” is visible after you sign up to become a member first, which is free. Full info here. “The Wall Street Journal” forum is here. “The Washington Post” message boards/forums are here.

49. Call in to local radio shows when the topic concerns anything that might be related to pornography or any form of sexual exploitation or abuse, etc. Share your opinion, story, or information about pornography with the audience, and encourage all listeners to get involved in doing something about the harms of pornography, beginning with ceasing to use or buy it and not allowing their partners to use it. Direct listeners to useful Internet resources and other ones. Give out your contact information if you are interested in connecting with listeners in doing activism against the harms of pornography.

50. Call up any local radio host or station that you feel might be open to hearing from you, and propose a show on pornography issues and/or that you appear as a guest on one of their shows to talk about pornography. (You don’t have to be a professional or expert to do this. Just someone who has an opinion that pornography is harmful and is willing to share information about the issue.)

51. Request that your local merchants either do not sell pornography at all, or that they restrict access and visibility of it. (I.e. Putting it behind the counter where someone would have to request it. An account of people successfully doing this is here.)

52. Support woman-focused magazines that consistently publish anti-pornography articles by subscribing to them or donating to them. Examples are Rain and Thunder and Off Our Backs .

53. Post any good anti-pornography video clips that you have, have access to, or know of that are under ten minutes, on YouTube.com. A good example of one is this video of the opening remarks of NFAM’s 2007 anti-pornography conference, by Wheelock College Sociology and Women’s Studies professor Gail Dines.

54. Make your own anti-pornography video message and post it at YouTube.com. Five examples are these: Female snowboarder Anti-Porn Erin Comstock, by Clean Media United, Save Love, by Save-Love.com, “my anti-porn message”, by WookieFragger, and Make Love Not Porn, by feministsister. There are many more on the sidebar of this blog. Keep scrolling down and enjoy all of them! ; ^)

55. Find or make similar anti-pornography video content that is longer than ten minutes and post it at Google Videos.

56. Do what WookieFragger did at YouTube.com, which was to flag pornographic content there which resulted in it getting removed. (He did it by setting a video trap, as described in his video “my anti-porn message”.)

57. Watch the five videos of the March 2007 National Feminist Antipornography Movement conference at Wheelock college in Boston at Google Video, which can be found on this page here. (Also see right side of this blog for videos, links to videos, or see individual links to videos at the bottom of this document.) Rate the videos and leave positive comments. (Rating the videos brings them higher up on the results list when someone searches for anti-pornography videos at Google.) Share them with others.

58. Make up anti-pornography slogans and get them printed up locally on products such as t-shirts and buttons, etc., either for your own use or to give or sell to others. Or use online services such as Zazzle.com and CafePress.com for this. They allow you to submit designs and then get products printed up. (Or you can search their sites to see if they already sell products like that.)

59. Buy and use existing anti-pornography and related products such as those available at one angry girl designs.

60. Stage a protest outside your local pornography shop in order to bring attention to the harms of pornography and get coverage of the issue in local press. A recent successful example of this being done by the Feminist Action Mobilization group is here.

61. Create a petition to get your local pornography shop better regulated and present it to your city council, as NoPornNorthampton supporters did here.

62. Write popular television talk shows such as Oprah, Dr. Phil, and Tyra. Thank them for the good shows they’ve already done on the harms of pornography, and politely request that they do more such shows. Contact info for Oprah is here, Dr. Phil here, and Tyra here. Suggest helpful guests for them to have on such shows, like Pamela Paul, author of “Pornified: How Pornography is Damaging Our Lives, Relationships and Our Families”.

63. Encourage television networks to create and rebroadcast shows that address the harms of pornography in order to continue to educate the public. Examples are the excellent “Porn Shutdown”, about the HIV outbreak in the American pornography industry, which airs on The Sundance Channel, (also on the Showtime Channel, see here), and the PBS show “American Porn”. The full PBS program can be viewed online here.

64. Call and/or email Britain’s Channel 4, (contact info at this link here), and request that they sell VHS and DVD copies of “Porn Shutdown” and all the other documentaries in “The Dark Side of Porn” Series. (Season 1: “Diary of a Porn Virgin”, “Debbie Does Dallas Uncovered”, and “Death of a Porn Star”, about French pornography performer Lolo Ferrari. Season 2: “Amateur Porn”, “Me and My Slaves”, “Hunting Emmanuelle”, “The Search for Animal Farm”, and “Does Snuff Exist”, which can be viewed online here. Warning: Graphic and disturbing content.) More info is at Wikipedia here about all the documentaries in the series . If there is enough demand then these (mostly) excellent documentaries will then be made available and can then be purchased and widely distributed to help educate the public and encourage activism. (“Porn Shutdown” is quite graphic, as are some of the others, but it is probably one of the best current documentaries on the reality of the pornography industry and its harms.) As far as I know only two of the documentaries are currently available to be purchased, and they are in a set together: “Debbie Does Dallas Uncovered” and “Diary of a Porn Virgin”. You can buy them at Amazon.com here. They were packaged and sold by The Sundance Channel.

65. Watch and record “Porn Shutdown” when it next airs on The Sundance Channel or the Showtime Channel, and then share it with others. (See upcoming airdates when they are available here for The Sundance Channel, and here for Showtime Channel.)

66. Purchase other documentaries that examine the harms of pornography and sexist media and share them with others, such as “The Pornography of Everyday Life” by Jane Caputi, “Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes” by Byron Hurt, (home use and educational use copies available), “Dreamworlds 3: Desire, Sex and Power in Music Video” by Sut Juhally, and the upcoming “The Price of Pleasure”, by Chyng Sun. Share them with others. If possible, hold public screenings in schools, churches, community centers, etc.

67. Contact any television stations that air advertisements for pornography, (I.e. “Girls Gone Wild” ones), such as Comedy Central, and let them know that you object to this and request that they cease airing them. You could also choose to boycott such stations or the shows that air them and let them know you are doing so. Comedy Central contact info here.

68. Write to pro-pornography or pornography-neutral “sex therapists” or “sex experts” who speak on television, radio shows or elsewhere, or who write in magazines and newspapers, etc. Let them know how harmful pornography is and refer them to anti-porngraphy resources for them to examine for themselves. Request that they don’t continue to publicly minimize or ignore the harms of pornography. For instance, Dr. Rachael of www.drrachael.com said in a video of her show : “The big picture of porn is that porn is visually exciting. You know, it’s got two people, three people, four people, sometimes even ten people, having sex in various positions with body fluids all over the place. So it’s not a mystery why people like to watch porn. And a healthy dose of porn every now and then is actually a healthy way of to get your sex drive going and rev things up a bit.” This was in response to a married woman caller who was upset about her husband neglecting her and frequently watching and masturbating to pornography of other women having sex.

69. Create art and literature that addresses the harms of pornography, such as poetry, novels, paintings, songs, etc. An example is the song “Amber Waves” that Tori Amos wrote about a pornography performer.

70. Rent out a billboard space for a month or more and put up an anti-pornography/pro-egalitarian sexuality message on it. Direct people to helpful anti-pornography resources with it.

71. Study current laws addressing pornography at ObscenityCrimes.org, especially regarding the United States Constitution First Amendment and how it doesn’t apply to pornography. See here. Support any enforcement of obscenity law that you feel will effectively combat the harms of pornography. (Please see note at bottom of this post regarding Obscenity Law.)

72. Contact your members of Congress and request that updating of Obscenity Law is done so that it addresses the current reality of today, such as pornography on the Internet and how it is shared for free via file sharing services such as KaZaA, Gnutella, and eDonkey. (Such file sharing services are also known as “peer-to-peer” or “P2P”, and are a method that children, teens and adults use to access and download unlimited of pornographic video content via any computer for free. They get the content from others who have it on their computers and share their files with them. See this article here for more info.) (Also please see note at bottom of this post regarding Obscenity Law.)

73. Contact your members of Congress and ask that they reintroduce the Bill H.R. 2885 that is intended to “prohibit the distribution of peer-to-peer file trading software in interstate commerce”. History and other information about the bill is here , here, and at KidsFirstCoalition.org under “P4 Bill” on the Members page at the top right-hand side of the page. (You have to sign in with an email address first in order to see that link.) Contact info for Congress and other government officials is here.

74. Propose local or national legislation that addresses the civil rights of women and others harmed by pornography, such as the ordinances proposed by Dworkin and MacKinnon that are documented here. (Please note that civil rights legislation is endorsed by this blog. Also please see note at bottom of this post regarding Obscenity law.)

75. Advocate for state and national legislation that would increase the health and safety of pornography performers, such as the mandatory use of condoms in the production of pornography, and the raising of the minimum age for participation in pornography to twenty-one years old. See full information on this issue here in this excellent article: “The Adult Film Industry: Time to Regulate?” . Note that the lack of condom use in pornography production not only affects the performers, but sets a bad example of unprotected sex to all the viewers of the pornography.

76. Educate yourself about pro-sex trade groups and organizations such The Desiree Alliance (desireealliance (dot) org), and the Sex Workers Outreach Project (swop-usa (dot) org). Such organizations often state that they are working on behalf of sex-workers to ensure they aren’t discriminated against, but in reality they often work to perpetuate the ongoing existence of the various sex trades – such as the pornography industry. (Whether intentionally or not.) Learn how they are fighting against the “stop demand” policies that anti-pornography and anti-sex trade activists are working to implement. Oppose the efforts of these groups in whatever way is appropriate in your circumstances to make sure they don’t succeed in their mainstreaming and further acceptance of the sex trade.

77. Learn about pro-porn groups that are disguised as pro-free speech organizations and do what you can to fight against and expose their lies about the harms of pornography, and their misrepresentations and distortions of pornography and it’s harms as “free speech”. Examples are Feminists for Free Expression, (FFE. At ffe-usa (dot) org), and the “adult entertainment industry” “trade association” “The Free Speech Coalition”. (FreeSpeechCoalition (dot) com.)

78. Propose to lawmakers that they adopt the Swedish legal model in order to most effectively combat pornography, which focuses on prosecuting those who use and create the demand for all forms of prostitution and most profit from them. (This applies to most forms of pornography too, as they are simply filmed acts of prostitution.) The people to focus on would be 1) those who use pornography – the johns, and 2) those who create it, sell it, distribute it, and market it, etc. See more information on the Swedish model and its success here.

79. Support enforcement of prostitution laws in your community, and all efforts to keep prostitution illegal. Point out that the best solution to combating prostitution is follow the Swedish model. (See above.) Since pornography is filmed prostitution, if prostitution becomes legal it will only hinder anti-pornography efforts more than they already are by the lax concerns about prostitution and the incorrect perspective that some have of it as being a “victimless crime”.

80. Suggest to your local police department that they start to keep statistics of how often pornography is implicated in local crimes or found at a crime scene, in order to help demonstrate or prove the connection of pornography to sex crimes.

81. If you belong to a church or spiritual group, suggest that a sermon or talk be done on the harms of pornography, or that other educational efforts about pornography are done. As examples, see creative work being done by the anti-pornography group XXXChurch.com, with their “Porn and Pancakes” and “National Porn Sunday” campaigns.

82. Find out if your local library allows access to pornography on their computers, and if so request that they stop doing so. If they don’t comply with your request, then publicly lobby to get them to do so. Get others – particularly parents – involved with petitions, etc. An excellent example of some people who have done this is a group from Monroe County, New York. They have a very useful web site called Stop Library Porn. The web site documents their work and has a variety of helpful resources.

83. Participate in the efforts of SafeLibraries.org, Plan2Succeed, (or a group of your choice that addresses the issue of pornography in libraries), to fight against the American Library Association, whose policy is to to allow access to unfiltered hardcore pornography in public libraries, even to children. See the American Library Association’s Internet Policy here.

84. Contact organizations for girls and women, such as the National Organization for Women, and the Feminist Majority Foundation, and ask them what they are doing about the harms of pornography and what you can do to help. (FMF contact link here, NOW contact link here. Local NOW chapters listed here.)

85. Start a local chapter of NOW, (National Organization for Women), and make addressing the harms of pornography a priority. Email them here for more info on starting a chapter.

86. Contact organizations such as your local rape crisis centers and domestic violence shelters. Ask them if they address how pornography contributes to violence against women, and if they educate the girls and women they deal with about the harms of pornography. If not, suggest that they do so. If you are able to, volunteer to help with this.

87. If you are a high school or college student, start a campus group or organization to educate other students about the harms of pornography. Or organize a “Take Back the Night” event, and have the speakers talk about how pornography contributes to rape and sexual assault. An article on how to organize a TBTN event is here.

88. If you are a student, write a paper about the harms of pornography and present it to your fellow students. Or find another way to study or address pornography, such as choosing a book on pornography for a book report, or writing about pornography as the subject of your thesis, or having a debate about pornography, etc.

89. If you are a feminist woman, meet and connect with other anti-pornography feminists by attending events such as the Feminist Summit, RadLesFes, (for all feminist women who agree with the principles listed on their web site), and Feminist Hullaballoo. Find others at such events that are interested in anti-pornography activism and form groups and coalitions with them, etc.

90. Start an organization to educate the public about the harms of pornography and to do something about such harms, or to help the victims of pornography, etc. An example of an organization doing something about Internet pornography is Enough is Enough, started by Donna Rice Hughes.

91. Contact anti-sex trafficking organizations and government bodies such as the ones listed here at CaptiveDaughters.org, and ask them what documentation they have of the connections between pornography and sex trafficking. If they don’t have any, request that this be worked on. Sex trafficking is universally illegal and condemned, and to the degree pornography is connected to it and seen as creating the demand for trafficked women and girls, it will be seen in the same light and acted upon similarly. Suggest they buy and read Pornography: Driving the Demand in International Sex Trafficking, by Captive Daughters Media. (Buy it here at Amazon.com, or at Xlibris here. Table of contents here. Full text of Introduction by David Guinn here.) Or purchase a copy and send it to them as a donation.

92. Do research on the connections between pornography, prostitution and sex trafficking yourself, (or other aspects of pornography), and offer it to be used to fight against pornography by anti-sex trade organizations and government bodies.

93. Suggest to scientific, medical, educational and other institutions that they do research (or more research) on the harms of pornography. Support already ongoing research by offering assistance financially or as a volunteer.

94. Become a Big Brother, Big Sister, mentor, or volunteer at a Boys and Girls Club, etc, and educate the young people you are helping about the harms of pornography.

95. Visit pro-porn, pro-sex trade, and/or sexist websites, blogs, and message boards on the Internet that seem like they might have people there who are open to listening, and politely share information about the harms of pornography by posting comments, links to videos, articles, blogs and other antipornography resources. (Feministing.com is an example of such a site. There are some bloggers and visitors there who seem to be pro-sex trade to a certain degree at times, but who are also open to sometimes acknowledging and learning about the harms of pornography. Pro-sex trade links that were once at the site are no longer there and I don’t know why, but perhaps it was because of the helpful input of anti-pornography and anti-sex trade posters. ;^))

96. Educate yourself about the pornography industry and their strategies for further growth, (so you can best learn how to combat them), by reading their industry websites such as AVN (dot) com, AVNOnline (dot) com, and Xbiz (dot) com. (Note: Likely some minor pornographic content at links. Replace the “dot” with an actual period mark after pasting an address into your browser address bar in order to navigate to one of the mentioned sites.)

97. Attend adult industry events such as Erotica L.A., and the Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas, in order to educate yourself in person about how the adult industry works. (Note: minor pornographic content at links.)

98. Reach out to pornography performers and others in the industry at these events. Let them know that they deserve better than their current circumstances. Give them articles, books, and audio visual materials to educate them about the harms of pornography. Direct them to resources that can help them, such as Sex Industry Survivors. Additionally pornography performers almost always have their own websites, and/or blogs at websites such as MySpace.com. You can get their email/contact information at the websites or blogs, or leave helpful or supportive comments at their blogs, directing them to appropriate resources to help them on the path of first questioning their participation in pornography, and then leaving it. Blog examples are Jenna Jameson’s and Sasha Grey’s.

99. Join and/or support groups and organizations that are engaging in efforts to help girls and raise their self-esteem. Females with a high sense of self-worth will neither participate in pornography nor allow their partners to use it. A good example of such an organization is Dads and Daughters.

100. Encourage all boys and men you know to respect girls and women and treat them as human beings with dignity, not sexual objects to be used for their entertainment and then discarded. Participate in programs such as Mentors in Violence Prevention, which mentors young men and educates them to be part of the solution in regards to sexual harassment and abuse of girls and women. See information here.

101. Finally, model a positive, healthy version of human sexuality and dignity, and relationships based on equality and mutual respect between partners, as a contrast to the unhealthy distortions of pornography.

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For further ideas of what you can do to combat the harms of pornography, please examine the websites and resources listed above and below that interest you. Email whatever existing individuals, groups, and organizations, etc. that you feel are doing effective work, and ask them what you can do to help them or the cause in general. (If they don’t already offer this information on their website or have a newsletter.)

ANTI-PORNOGRAPHY WEBSITES and INTERNET RESOURCES:

NoPornPledge

Prostitution Research and Education
(It addresses pornography also as it is a form of prostitution.)

Against Pornography

National Feminist Antipornography Movement

NoPornNorthampton.org

one angry girl antiporn resource center

DianaRussell.com

Genderberg.com

MediaWatch.com section on pornography

Sex Industry Survivors

Erase the Dark

Anti-Pornography and Prostitution Research Group (Japan)

Enough is Enough

CP80.org

“Traffic Control: The War on Internet Porn” DVD and website

Also see sidebar section “Family and Children Oriented Anti-Pornography Internet Resources”.

KEY BOOKS, ARTICLES AND LINKS:

Books:

Pornified: How Pornography is Damaging Our Lives, Our Relationships and Our Families, by Pamela Paul. (Buy it here at Amazon.com.)
(Note: The author has stated that she regrets the errors on pg. 259 in the sentence beginning with “Meanwhile, women on the Left…”. The sentence and the points made in it are inaccurate but corrections were not able to be made for the paperback edition.)

Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture, by Ariel Levy. (Buy it here at Amazon.com.)

Pornography: Driving the Demand in International Sex Trafficking, by Captive Daughters Media. (Buy it here at Amazon.com, or at Xlibris here. Table of contents here. Full text of Introduction by David Guinn here.)

The Macho Paradox: Why Some Men Hurt Women and How All Men Can Help, by Jackson Katz. (Buy it here at Amazon.com)

Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity, by Robert Jensen. (Buy it here at Amazon.com.)

How to Make Love Like A Porn Star: A Cautionary Tale, by Jenna Jameson. (Buy it here at Amazon.com: ) It includes much valuable information about the pornography industry that makes it clear how harmful it is.

“Against Pornography: The Evidence of Harm”, by Diana Russell (Buy it at Amazon.com here or at Diana Russell’s website here. Book info here.)

Not for Sale: Feminists Resisting Prostitution and Pornography, edited by Rebecca Whisnant and Christine Stark. (Buy it at Amazon.com here or at Spinifex press here.)

“Dangerous Relationships: Pornography, Misogyny and Rape”, by Diana Russell. (Buy it at Amazon.com here, or at Diana Russell’s website here. Book info here.)

“Pornography: The Production and Consumption of Inequality”, by Gail Dines, Robert Jensen, and Ann Russo. (Buy it at Amazon.com here.)

“Making Violence Sexy: Feminist Views on Pornography”, edited by Diana Russell. (Buy it at Amazon.com here or at Diana Russell’s website here. Book info here.)

“Pornography in America: A Reference Handbook”, by Joseph W. Slade. (Buy it at Amazon.com here.)

Miscellaneous Articles and Internet Resources:

“Not Tonight, Honey. I’m Logging On.““Not Your Father’s Playboy, Not Your Mother’s Feminist Movement”, by Rebecca Whisnant.

Robert Jensen articles on pornography, sexuality, and gender.

“The Porn Debate: Wrapping Profit in the Flag”, by Stan Goff.

The Feminist Anti-Pornography Movement

“Exposure to Child Porngraphy as a Cause of Child Sexual Exploitaiton“, by Diana Russell and Natalie J. Purcell.

First Amendment:

Women’s Institute for Freedom of the Press

First Amendment and Pornography Legal Information

“It’s Not About the First Amendment”, by Mark Kastleman.

“The Free Speech Argument Against Pornography”, by Caroline West.Pornography, Violence, Rape and Crime:

“Pornography as a Cause of Rape”, by Diana Russell

Making Women’s Place Explicit: Pornography, Violence, and the Internet, compiled by Jennifer Nash, Harvard Law School

“The Link Between Pornography and Violent Sex Crimes”, by Robert Peters

“Porn Use and Sex Crimes”, by Rory Reid

Conferences:

Pornography: Driving the Demand for International Sex Trafficking, 2005 conference info with resources: (You may have to scroll over the right on the page to see it.)

Videos of National Feminist Anti-Pornography Movement 2007 Conference Talks.

or individually here:

Opening remarks by Gail Dines, Rebecca Whisnant, Gail Dines, Robert Jensen, Robert Woznitzer, Ana Bridges, and Michelle Chang

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Note: Please see “About this blog” and “Disclaimer” in the sidebar if you have any concerns regarding any of the resources in the list above and on this blog. The list and this blog are both works in progress and subject to revision as the content is further considered and examined as time permits. Thank you for your patience and understanding with this.

Please feel free to share your feedback and constructive criticism on this list and this blog by clicking on the “comments” link below. I would particularly appreciate the following: 1) Suggestions as to what else would be useful on the list, 2) Alerts that a link above is no longer good, or some information is out of date, no longer relevant, or needs to be revised. 3) Suggestions for what other resources might be useful for this blog, (I.e. links to other anti-pornography videos on YouTube or Google Video, new documentaries and books, upcoming events, etc.), 4) Links to productive activism that others are doing, and 5) Successes you’ve had in implementing any of the activism ideas on the list or any other activism.

Thank you for helping, and for being part of creating a better world for everyone! What you do does matter, and you can make a difference!

APA, :^)

Note regarding Obscenity Law: Inclusion of items on above list that reference Obscenity Law does not constitute endorsement or support of Obscenity Law. Please be aware of the fact that current Obscenity Law is outdated, was written long before the Internet, and does not address the civil rights of women and others harmed by pornography. However flawed, though, it is currently the only legal method I know of to hold pornographers in any way legally accountable for the harm they inflict on society. For a legal critique of Obscenity Law, which prosecutes pornographers based on “community standards” please see here. For a woman-focused critique you can do a google search for the phrase: “What do community standards mean in a society when violence against women is pandemic, when according to the FBI a woman is battered every eighteen seconds and it’s the most commonly committed violent crime in the country?” (Do not put quotes around the phrase when searching.) The search will lead you to an online article that addresses how some pornographers have sometimes used some aspects of Obscenity Law to get away with harming women but not be held accountable. (Full text in Chapter 4 of this book here.) If anyone is aware of any other legal method that is currently available to legally hold pornographers accountable for the harm they inflict, please feel free to comment. And once again please note that this blog is in favor of the enacting of anti-pornography civil rights legislation that addresses the harm pornography does to individuals, especially women. See more info about the history of attempts to get this law enacted in this article here. Further clarification in other posts and more coming soon.