"Why then would anyone become a pornographer in this day and age?  What exactly is the point?  I’d argue that some have not quite caught on to current state of things.  Many still believe there are fortunes to be made.  But for most who find themselves fucking for a living, the financial incentive is no more than a rocky path towards middle-class existence; one without job security, benefits, or a retirement plan.

[...]

Porn is the new punk because it has shifted backwards.  The golden era of its success is over.  Internet piracy and over-saturation have countered the scales so that the risks of porn may now outweigh the benefits.  Of course there is still money to be made in the adult industry.  But it’s of a more modest sort than perhaps ever seen before.

For the new generation of pornographer, there is inevitably a fight to be had. No longer is there an option for passive stance."

-- Danny Wylde, in Porn is the New Punk on smittenkittenonline.com/blog

★★★★

I loved this book, and I don't know how I didn't discover it until recently, because it's very me in many ways.  It has so many of the issues that I would cover if I were to write an entire book about why feminism is stupid and counter-productive, to the degree I'm actually relieved someone else has already done it so well.

Having been published 16 years ago, Rene Denfeld's references to leading feminists and prominent areas of feminist concern are, as would be expected, a bit dated.  (It is pre-internet, pre- sex-positive, and at the end, briefly notes a newfangled area of feminism showing hope in its youthfulness: riot grrrl.)  For example, there's an entire chapter mostly about the growing irrelevance of NOW, but in 2011, I honestly can't think of the last time anyone mentioned NOW, as it has become fully irrelevant.  Some stale issues aside, like NOW and lesbian separatism, the overall tone of the book, criticism of core portions of feminist theory, and the good framing device of comparisons to the morality of the Victorian era are all still valid.  (Even more so now in some matters, with feminist books like "A Return to Modesty," as well as a general increase in hysteria about "the pornification of our culture.")

Denfeld decries victim feminism, man-hating behaviors such as painting all men as potential rapists and dangers, the expansion of definitions of rape and sexual assault to include cat-calling and sexual comments, the obsession with new age spiritualism, that omnipresent mysterious force called "the patriarchy," and even some older embarrassing dirty laundry like feminist opposition to abortion and birth control (because they turn women into consequence-free sex holes for men).  Overall, I love the book's relentless questioning of feminist ideas (whether it be banning porn or adopting goddess religious) with, "...but what good will that do for the majority of women, especially poor women?"

While most of the book has nothing to do with sex work issues, the section on the feminist campaign against porn was solid, doing well to exemplify the vast schism between feminist concerns and the issues that impact average women.  When discussing porn, the book doesn't quote sex workers or consider our perspectives/rights at all.  The anti-anti-porn arguments in the book are about censorship and time-wasting moral crusades.

By foregoing political and economic activism, current feminists have created a campaign that smacks of classism.  Many of the feminist activists working against porn are middle-income and well-educated women.  The subjects of their attacks (porn actresses and nude models) are predominantly lower-income and less-educated people - and usually not boasting choice jobs at magazines or universities.  It must be recognized that many women freely choose to enter the porn field.  And some of their choices are no doubt influenced by the fact that it pays more than flipping hamburgers.

But the antiporn activists don't seem interested in helping lower-class women - try telling an impoverished mother on welfare that outlawing Playboy is the answer to her troubles.  And try telling a porn actress that it's better to starve on minimum wage than it is to pose for pictures that middle-class women find immoral.  Lost in the rarefied world of academia and backed with cushy jobs, these feminists forget that women can't feed their children on censorship.

[...]

Just as in Victorian times (when respectable ladies condemned unrespectable lower-class strumpets), a select group of middle-class women have bestowed upon themselves the title of saviors of female virtue.  And just as Victorian ladies blamed prostitutes for their husbands' faithlessness, today's feminists implicitly blame women in pornography for the most reprehensible crime: rape.

Another thing I love is the chapter on feminism's promotion of new age religions, although this has died down a bit since the book was published in the 90s.  As someone who angrily bit my tongue as a pagan religious ritual opened last year's Desiree Alliance sex worker conference, I appreciate those who share such annoyances.  Denfeld's book rightfully hammers home that there is no historical evidence to suggest that a magical war and weapon-free matriarchy ever existed, though new agers are always quick to rebut that inconvenient truth with conspiracy theories about how The Patriarchy has suppressed the evidence.

A snippet:

The religion is based on theory that reeks of old fashioned sexist stereotypes.  Women, again, are held to be the gentler, nurturing, compassionate, and clearly unassertive sex.

This vision of women as spiritually superior - and spiritually pure - has led to devastating inertia.  Political and economic activism is suddenly portrayed as quite unnecessary, even distasteful.  Instead, goddess aherents are convinced that witchcraft rituals of chanting, burning sage, sending spells, and channeling Aphrodite with effectively advance women's rights.

And so feminism today has taken a distressing step away off the path to equality onto a detour down the yellow brick road.  Feminist leaders are now telling women to perform the modern equivalent of the Sioux Indian Ghost Dance, to spend our energies frantically calling upon a mystical golden age in an effort to create a dreamlike future - because such rituals are better suited to our superior nature than fighting directly with men for our rights.  This ideal of feminine spiritual purity was used effectively against women in the Victorian era; they were told that, for the more spiritual sex, prayer was the only appropriate means of improving the world.  Then, as now, it's striking that the more ineffective an action, the more it's said to reflect "female" values.

Meanwhile, millions of women - young and old - have to cope with unequal pay, lack of affordable child care, nonexistent job opportunities, and raising families without health insurance.  Countless more face unavailable birth control and abortion, sexual harassment in the workplace, or no workplace at all.  And many face the trauma of rape and domestic violence under a judicial system that too often slaps offenders lightly on the wrist.  Goddess worship does absolutely nothing for these women.

If this sounds like embellishment to you, perhaps you're not old enough to remember the massive popularity of one particular nutter who goes by Starhawk.  She was devoted to distracting the west coast left during the 1990s and early 2000s, admonishing activists to focus on spell-casting and sending out magic spirit vibes rather than engage in protests or directly confronting businesses/governments.  Thankfully, Starhawk gets thoroughly ridiculed in the book, including a "blockade" of hers where a bunch of witches shined flashlights in the direction of a nuclear power plant in an attempt to shut it down.  When the power plant later had a temporary technical issue causing some downtime, Starhawk took credit.  (You can't make up stuff this funny!)

In the chapter rebutting the notion of a patriarchy that's somehow a sentient force and conspiracy to oppress women through the evils of science and rational thinking, Denfeld gets a standing ovation from me yet again.

Patriarchal theory appeals to many feminists because it takes the onus off women when it comes to problems such as racism, sexism, and violence - although female Ku Klux Klan members to abusive mothers, women have done their share to add to these ills.  It is also appealing because it acts as a rallying cry, allowing feminists to condemn a common enemy  while ignoring class and cultural differences among women.  By asserting that all women are oppressed under the patriarchy, feminists often implicitly dismiss the experiences of minority, poor, and working class women: A single mother on welfare and Gloria Steinem are portrayed as having more in common than not.

What makes this ironic is that oppression is defined solely from the viewpoint of current feminist leaders, who tend to be well-educated, affluent white women enjoying careers as authors, speakers, and tenured professors.  For instance, in The Beauty Myth, a 1991 book detailing how there is a "backlash" against women via beauty standards, Yale graduate Naomi Wolf likens the beauty methods of upper-middle-class women to the medieval torture instrument known as the iron maiden, a spike-lined body-shaped casket in which victims suffered slow, agonizing deaths.  When women who exemplify the American dream and the fruits of feminism - educated in the finest universities, getting paid for the careers of their choice, well-respected, and enjoying all the freedoms and comforts life has to offer - write books comparing their lives with medieval torture, it's not surprising that many lower-income women don't find much in common with the movement.

In the nineteenth century, as feminist concern moved on from fighting for the right to vote to fighting to repress sexual materials and female sexuality, a familiar issues played out in the wake of a new law passed to prevent - you guessed it - child sex trafficking.

Rather than used to halt child prostitution, this legislation was mostly enforced against poor adult women.  It dramatically changed the structure of prostitution, with devastating effects for the women involved.  Full-time prostitution up to that time was largely a brothel industry maintained by women.  While these brothels varied from squalid shacks to fancy houses, they at least offered prostitutes a degree of safety and economic autonomy: Many women were assured food and a roof over their heads as well as protection from the authorities.  But under this feminist-driven law, the brothels were closed, forcing prostitutes to work on the streets, where they had to rely on male pimps for protection... Far from eradicating prostitution, these feminists only drove them underground -- and once out of sight, the prostitutes suffered more.

Where the Denfeld and I sharply diverge, however, is that at the end of the day, her book is about inspiring young women to "reclaim" feminism and make it a part of their identities, and insisting that anyone who supports birth control or equal pay is a feminist, whether they like it or not.  Despite being written to get more people to call themselves feminists (though it's never explained why on earth that matters), I still consider this a great read.  I took a bunch of notes, and will be reading some of the source material and using it in places in my own book, if and when that ever comes to fruition.

Buy The New Victorians through this Amazon link and a portion of the sales price will go to SWAAY.

The big take-home point that some people are missing: It's all about context.  I am against breast feeding in places where people go to masturbate.  Madison's posting of breast feeding photos and videos in her Twitter stream and on other sex-themed web sites is appalling to me.  It's no different than breast feeding on stage at a strip club.  Madison has spent her career making everything she does about sex.  There's nothing wrong with that, of course.  I'm a sex-loving pornographer myself!  But you can't spend most of a decade purposefully building an environment where people come to masturbate and then feign confusion when someone like me "mistakes" that environment for being sexual.

It's hard to plead "there is absolutely nothing sexual about these photos/videos" when they are posted in sexualized spaces and/or crafted to look sexy.  The most famous image shows Madison as a Marilyn Monroe knockoff.  I've seen photos of other women breast feeding, and none of them bothered to put on a sexy dress and get their hair and makeup done first.  For most moms with breast feeding photos, I bet they're probably wearing yesterday's sweatpants and looking exhausted, not trying to liken themselves to a famous sex icon.

I've been told that it's beyond Madison's control if sick people are aroused by her sexy breast feeding images.  But if she would never want to encourage people to jerk off to photos of her baby, she should stop posting them in a place where she typically posts porn.  Aside from all the innocent masturbators who clicked a blind link because they thought it was going to be kinky sex pics, who wants to see sexy breast feeding?  Most of us would call them pedophiles.  Best case scenario, Madison's sexy breast feeding schtick is an attention-getting ploy to sell her persona's "realness" so people will buy her "real" porn.  Worst case scenario, Madison is knowingly creating masturbation material for pedophiles.  Either way, it's revolting.  (At what point does one cross over from sexualizing having a baby to sexualizing the baby?)

Madison's loyal fans have spent the last few days calling me an ignorant and cruel monster for taking Madison to task, but what about the actual victim, Madison's baby?

This issue is also about consent.  The baby is not consenting to being used as a marketing gimmick for her mother's porn persona.  There is a huge difference between consenting adults engaging in exhibitionism, and forcing creepy, pedophile-courting public voyeurism on a non-consenting baby.  I am an exhibitionist myself, but I would never drag anyone into my kinks who isn't consenting to be a part of a scene.  For all anyone knows, Madison's kid will be traumatized by her upbringing in public, and end up feeling extremely violated by the sexual attention Madison subjected her to as a child.  Would you have wanted your mother breast feeding you for attention from horny adults, and for evidence of that to be online and linked to you forever?

I am against people using their children as props to serve an agenda.  Madison's use of her daughter to push her politics is no different than when anti-abortion protesters or the Westboro Baptist Church uses their own unwitting small children as props.  Kids aren't political tools to leverage for shock value, they're actual human beings who will one day be adults with their own set of opinions.  To assume that Madison's baby will grow up and be thrilled that her mother used her to get attention for her porn persona is offensive and sad to me.  Several have pointed out that I'm "no different," since I tweet photos of my cat.  But, here's the key nuance they can't grasp: my cat will never be a sentient adult human with his own beliefs and a non-interest in being caught up in my pervy internet trail.

The sexy mommy mob doesn't like these "anti-sex worker" and "sexist" arguments, so they've turned it into a matter of rebutting things I never said.

I never said that no woman should be allowed to breast feed.  I am not against breast feeding in public or private, I am against doing it in sexualized contexts.  I would feel the same way if someone whipped out a baby at a swinger's club, so it's not just about the internet or porn.

I never said that sex workers (or kinksters) should not be allowed to have children, or that mothers can't be sexy.  I have a number of kinky and sex working friends who are parents, and I know some sexy moms.  They, however, possess good sense and boundaries and don't force their offspring to be a part of their exhibitionism and work.  The kinky and sex working parents I know create separation between their lives, they definitely don't seek to combine them at every turn to prove how transgressive they can be.  Not because my friends are prudes, but because they understand that it's deeply inappropriate to mix small children and horny adults.

I never said that no one should be allowed to photograph their kids or photograph breast feeding.  I didn't comb through the Flickr pages of strangers until I found a random mother to criticize.  I'm specifically talking about a porn star who is using her baby as an attention-getting prop in sexualized contexts.

This is not some kind of anti-"lesbian" hate crime.  Madison is married to her male dominant/master, and I mostly fuck men, too.  She and I are basically in the same boat, the difference being that I don't obsessively market myself as queer.  I fail to see how my criticizing her constitutes an attack on "being queer," but some people are really grasping at straws for new ways to frame Madison as a victim of an injustice.

Stepping back...

I hate what stuff like this does to the credibility of sex workers and pornographers as a whole.  People like me try to tell regular folk that porn and sex work is about consenting adults, not weird stuff with kids and/or the non-consenting.  To the sexy mommy mob, Madison is the greatest hero of her generation, but what about the other 99.999999% of America, the majority we need to get on our side in order to make any advancements for sex workers?  If you seal yourself in the safe bubble of San Francisco, surrounded by adoring fans, then of course you're not going to care how you might be damaging the movement for acceptance of sex workers and porn.

I'm surprised that people like Gail Dines and Melissa Farley haven't seized upon Madison's baby fetish as yet another way to attack all of us.  This is exactly the sort of thing they live to hold up as a non-representative example of how we're all horrible people.  Anti-sex work activist Donna Hughes threw a fit a year ago when a small sexuality conference apparently allowed in a high school senior.  For this, the organizer was branded, basically, a dangerous predator going after America's helpless children.  If letting a consenting 17-year-old hear about sexuality is enough for the antis to launch a campaign that says kink bloggers are basically child molesters, I wonder what they would think of a porn star sexualizing the breast feeding of a baby?  But of course, if the antis get wind of the controversy that Madison and her fans are so desperately trying to publicize, she will not be the one addressing the hard questions.  She has her feminist porn "revolution" to worry about, and the rest of us - especially her baby girl - can go eat cake.

The pair was arrested on June 3rd by their local Polk County Sheriff, who is going after them as a part of a war on porn to clean up the conservative area.  (Sheriff Grady Judd is also facing a federal civil rights lawsuit for allegedly harassing another local woman for her atheist organization.)  Kimberly and her husband are being represented by well-known first amendment attorney Lawrence Walters.  Walters is donating part of his fee, but there are still plenty of costs being incurred with mounting a strong legal defense, so Kimberly has set up a defense fund.  Please donate if you can.  You know you would want the same done for you if you were facing a legal battle due to your own adult work - whatever type of work that may be.

Although their computers were seized by the police, Kimberly recently took the time to do an interview with me from her iPhone.

Furry Girl: First, can you tell us who you are, what you do, and how long you've been involved in the adult industry?

Kimberly Kupps: I started dancing in Houston, Texas in 1980 at Ricks after seeing an article in Playboy magazine that the dancers there could make up to $1,000 a day.  Having worked at the University of South Florida as a medical secretary, hardly making anything, it looked very attractive.  I stayed there for almost 10 years, then I heard of some girls getting large implants and doing magazine shoots and touring as a feature dancer.  Since my husband and I both loved to travel, we went for it in 1990, going with the name Kimberly Kupps (Kimberly since I liked Kim Bassenger).  I danced all over the US and Canada, also shooting over 100 magazine sets (for Gent, Leg Show, Busty Mag etc).  After a few years, the fans and clubs wanted to see the feature dancers "in action."  Having been with a husband who loved me in all situations (we are both nudists) we jumped right in and went to Los Angles and started shooting XXX sets on a regular basis.  That is fun, and you start getting a following of fans who then come to your stage shows and buy items such as magazines you have been in and Polaroids taken with them after the show.  After over a million miles of driving all over the US and Canada, working 6 days a week, the business got less attractive since more and more girls were starting, and by then it was not a unique thing any more.  When the world wide web was starting, we opened KimberlyKupps.com, both running the site and taking the photos.

FG: Was your web site your sole source of income, or do you have a day job?

KK: Having created an extensive worldwide fan base due to the 100+ adult videos I have been in, it creates a oportunity of ongoing sales of "personal videos," which is when a fan creates a idea that he wants to see me doing, mostly by myself talking to the camera saying "his" name so he gets the video as if I was there with him. The website is our primary source of both income and reference to others of where I might be performing or shooting my next video.  Both my husband and I have met some wonderful people all over the world.

FG: What charges are you and your husband facing, and what are the maximum sentences and fines you could be looking at?

KK: 13 charges of selling obscenity, one felony of commercial distribution of obcenity for the both of us.  We have not asked the sentences nor fines since we whole heartedly believe in our innocence and the US's freedoms.

FG: What specifically about your content has the state alleged to be obscene?

KK: I will answer vaguely since they might use anything against us.  We did get questions on a "POV" [point-of-view] clip, but it is a solo one.  They think it is me with [a fan in person], but it is me talking to him as if he was there.  We have NEVER done fisting, rape style content, underage people, BDSM or bondage with sex.  We do not understand [our prosecution] when we can get all this stuff on DishNetwork on our TV now!

FG: How did the local and national media reacted to your arrest?

KK: From what our friends told us about the media coverage (in the Lakeland Ledger) and a few TV news reports, the commentary has been 95% positive.

FG: You've started a defense fund to help with your legal costs.  How has response and support been from others in the sex industry?

KK: Support has been okay, but since it is not yet a national issue, others either forget or do not care since it is not their problem.  But if [the state wins], the next county over will say, "Hey let's do it, too," and it starts a domino effect.

FG: Is there anything else you want people to know about you and your case?

KK: It DOES affect all citizens of the US to choose what they want to view in the privacy of their own home.  This invasion of our privacy and first amendment freedoms need to be defended at all costs!  Please do not take the freedoms you think the constitution guarantees for granted.

"Sex work lite" is apparently anything that doesn't involve a man putting his penis in your vagina for money (without the presence of a camera), and proponents of this concept wrongly believe that only prostitution carries real risks for those engaging in it.  (It's not just about the distance between myself and clients online.  I've even seen dominatrixes who do the penetrating with strapons dismissed as posers.)

"Sex work lite" is bullshit, and not just because it's divisive, but because with porn, it's flatly untrue.  Porn has only been established as legal to produce in the state of California - otherwise, it's mostly just tolerated, like jaywalking.  Porn people are at risk of being charged with bigger crimes that carry bigger prison sentences and bigger fines, at both the local and federal level.  So, how exactly is it that people like me can't possibly understand what it means to engage in work that involves risks?  Granted, I am very unlikely to be physically attacked by any of my customers, but I make less money than I would if I were a prostitute, and I am more likely to go to federal prison and face hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines if some prosecutor in Kentucky wants to make a name for himself by alleging that my porn is obscene.  Every type of sex work has its own set of risks and rewards, and no one is immune from potential problems.

Earlier this month, a couple in Florida was arrested for operating a small porn site from the privacy of their own home.  Kimberly Kupps and her husband had their legal names and home address splattered across the news, and are currently fundraising to fight the charges.  According to a local paper,

[The husband] was booked on six counts each of wholesale promotion of obscene material and distribution of obscene material, a misdemeanor.

[Kimberly Kupps] was booked on six counts each of selling obscene material and distributing obscene material, both misdemeanors. She was also charged with the felony wholesale promotion of obscene material.

There's not a lot of details in the news, but it seems like the conservative police department "received a tip" that the couple were making porn.  The police, with no other crimes to solve and nothing better to do, then paid to join the website, establishing "proof" that the couple was selling porn - not unlike how police set up stings and entrapments of other kinds of sex workers.  The couple's web site is currently offline, which might have been their only form of income.

I could be the person in Kimberly's shoes right now.  I also run a porn site from the privacy of my own home, and while I choose to live in a big city of atheists and stoners who are less likely to lynch me, I could still be charged in a conservative small town, since my work is online.  (How many prostitutes have been prosecuted in Utah for giving a blowjob in Manhattan?  Making porn - online or mail-order video - means there is no such thing as counting on living in a tolerant city to save you, as your alleged crimes are federal once porn crosses state lines.)

I hope that my readers who have some money to spare will chip in on the Kimberly Kupps Legal Defense Fund.  She is just one example of the very real risks faced by non-prostitute sex workers.  From the web site:

Kimberly Kupps needs your help! She does not possess the financial wherewithal to fight the unlimited resources of the State, funded through tax dollars. She has hired Lawrence Walters, Esq., of Walters Law Group, along with Kelley Collier, Esq., an experienced Polk County criminal trial lawyer, to defend her in this case. Although some legal time will be donated to defending this case on a pro bono basis, Ms. Kupps will be required to expend substantial funds on court costs, expert witnesses, and attorneys' fees as the case progresses.

Kimberly has supported Free Speech rights and the erotic entertainment industry for years. She now asks for support from those of you who are in a position to help.

"It felt really good to come into an industry that many at the time viewed as purely exploitive of women and then really get a sort of stamp of approval from not just women but feminists.

[...]

Unfortunately, it became a sort of marketing gimmick for a lot of sites to appear feminist by appearing to or actually being run by women.  I didn’t jump on with that and it probably hurt me a bit.  For a while I got quite a bit of email from people who said they could not support me or work with me because I was a man.  Some people believe that a man in porn can not be feminist and will always inherently be exploitative of women.  I disagree, but with so many different schools of thought on feminism it’s not something I care to debate with people.

Today it is less of an issue, I don’t give much thought to it or hear much about it because I don’t define or promote my business that way.  Though, nothing has changed, I still have the same ethics that brought me the attention in the first place."

-- Scott Owens, in Interview with Scott Owens of EroticBPM on popmycherryreview.com

It seems like this initial leak is just from AIM's database, but there's also been talk about the privacy of performer's information in 2257 databases, which the anonymous angry leaker has said they already possess and plan on publishing soon.  (2257 laws, in a nutshell, are federal laws in the United States that deal with the requirements for proving the age and identity of all performers in adult content.)

Last summer, one of the issues I brought up during my part of the privacy panel at the Desiree Alliance conference was that sex workers needed to be aware of how 2257 laws affect them.  If you work in porn (or "fetish erotica" or "art nudes" or whatever other pretentious terms some people use), you're likely subject to signing a model release and providing the photographer with two forms of ID to prove your age.  (You may also be subject to this if you're an escort/fetish worker who advertises on certain web directories, even if you're not even using "pornographic" images of yourself.)  I made a point of talking about what 2257 means for sex workers because I don't think that most folk think as much about this as they should.  You are handing over your private data to someone who might be reselling and licensing that data to anyone who wants it.

Personally, I shoot only exclusive content, which means I am not reselling a performer's information to dozens or hundreds of other people.  But, if you're just shooting for generic, non-exclusive porn photographers, you need to know that that photographer may be planning to sell your shoot to 100 people, and all 100 of those people will be getting a copy of your identifying information.  This isn't anything "underhanded," it's part of how the business works and stays in compliant with federal laws.  Anyone who is publishing your shoot wants a copy of the proof that you're over 18, and you can understand why.  Unlike a misdemeanor solicitation charge that other sex workers risk, pornographers who break laws are breaking federal laws, and risk going to prison if they fail to comply with all parts of 2257.  (So much for porn being "sex work lite" or "the legal option", eh?)

If you're a stalker who has your eye on a certain performer, you could find out any names they use (especially if they are an actual "name" in porn), and shop around until you find a content re-seller who will sell you a video shoot or photo set of them, complete with their model release and IDs.  I have no idea how well these big content malls actually police who they sell to, but I'd guess they don't do much to prevent stalkers from buying performer's private information.  Someone could experiment with this on their own, and try an undercover investigation of the number of businesses found in Google under "adult content provider," and see if they'll sell to any random nobody without even a functional porn site.  For example, here are two FAQ items on one content reseller that I'm guessing the performers didn't think about when they handed over their IDs:

Do you actually supply all the 2257 documentation?
We sure do. Together with the invoice, you get copies of IDs and model data files. Make a free purchase in the Bonuses section (yes, it’s 100% free) to see how these documents look.

Is this content on sale only here?
No. Normally, content providers put their content on sale on multiple sites. As a rule, the prices are the same from site to site.

I think that perfectly sums up how absurdly available one's images and personal information can become when they work for some pornographers.  Plus, this reseller seems to offer a free sample purchase, so you, too, can obtain the private information of a porn performer just to get a feel for their purchasing system!

During my talk at the aforementioned Desiree Alliance con, here's what I suggested to sex workers as steps they can take to try and protect their privacy while working in porn:

* As a performer, you are required to provide IDs and information in a model release for 2257 records.  This part you can't get around.

* Generic pornographers shoot content to license and resell to anyone who will buy it.  This means that any random person could potentially buy your identity for as little as a few dollars.  Your identity is for sale when you perform in non-exclusive content.

* The big issue: Your best defense against having your identity resold is to work with reputable, worker-friendly porn companies that shoot exclusive content.

* Being selective about who you work for will mean you're losing out on ways of earning income, but consider what it is that you're selling: your name, your address, and possibly your social security number.

*Use a passport as your primary form of ID - it doesn't list your home address.  Use a secondary supporting document that doesn't list an address, like a birth certificate.

* Finally: I, as a pornographer, have no way of knowing if your model release lists your real home address, or your mail drop in another state.

So, where do we go from here?  How can both sex workers and pornographers try to prevent future identity breaches, without the magical, probably-never-happening solution of "change the laws to favor privacy rights"?

Curious if you've been affected by the leaks thus far?  Check out this database created by an ally, and view the README file first.