Once again, so much speculation on when a woman can or cannot consent. Bartow states "It offers nothing to the women who were abused and injured by Hardcore. I have read, but so far been unable to adequately substantiate, claims that women who asked for justice from law enforcement were rebuffed, because as pornography performers no one would believe their accusations against Hardcore."...Yet, you note, it seems Bartow assumes that women, even pornography performers...cannot or would not consent to being in Hardcore's videos! Ah, lovely...no one believes porn performers about anything, and they sure as hell cannot consent to anything or not consent to anything without some fucking person calling them a liar! Does this make anyone else's head spin like it does mine? Or, piss them off? Christ on a spotted pony, women in the sex industry never get believed by anyone unless it serves their damn agenda or is convenient. Further more, the next person who equates porn with torture and/or war crimes should be subject to a legal tribunal by porn performers and torture suvivors. The people who are actually tortured? They never signed releases, 2257 forms, provided proof of age, consented, or got paid. Porn performers do that. I know, I've signed a few in my day. Oh, and for the record...Max does get puked on in his movies.
Caroline @ Uncool has an excellent collection of links regarding "Big Brothel". Read it, and everything she's linked.
Henceforth, the GRE states that all people "looking out for sex workers" as part of their political power cred bolstering should also face a tribunal of sex workers. Clue here- Jacqui, you aren't helping!
Heart & Crew are now experts on Porn, because they read Robert Jensen!
Blah blah blah, blah blah. Notice how Jensen can watch all kinds of gonzo and not be a rapist? I wonder if any of this lot caught his statement on how hard he has to work to see women as people sometimes? I wonder if they notice how he speaks for women in porn rather than letting them speak, or how he speaks for all men? I wonder if they notice the very patriachal moralizing on what sex should be? I wonder if they know, in truth, gonzo is on the fall and features are on the rise? I wonder if they know some women do like that icky, icky stuff?
Not that ANY of that shit would matter to our brave crusaders!
My scars itch, I am going to bed.
4 comments:
I was very disappointed with the Susannah Breslin article (which Bartow quotes) that essentially said the obscenity rap on Hardcore was a good thing because it managed to finally take him down for other stuff he did, kind of like Al Capone being jailed for tax evasion. This doesn't take into account the fact that obscenity law, unlike laws on tax evasion, is a general threat to free speech and how problematic it is, and not just for Max Hardcore, that there's been a successful high-profile obscenity prosecution for the first time in many years. Particularly a cross-jurisdictional one like this, where, once again, any locality in the country gets to prosecute somebody just because your video happens to have been sent there.
That said, I actually partially agree with Bartow (yep, that's the sound of hell freezing over, especially give this recent line of smack I've been getting from her) that MH should have prosecuted for rape rather than obscenity if what was filmed was actually non-consensual. Of course, where I part company with her is that I don't think that the content of his videos is self-evident proof of rape.
However, I don't think the accusations of rape can be brushed off completely. If you Google 'neesa "max hardcore"', you'll see that a performer who goes by the name Neesa, who was in Hardcore's "Extreme Schoolgirls 3" several years ago, claims to have been raped and assaulted in the production of that video and to have filed a police report based on what happened. I also think the exchange between Neesa and Bartow here is kind of interesting, with Neesa calling out feminists for not being particularly helpful toward her. Oh, and Bartow responding with about what I would say regarding the Hardcore prosecution – strange world.
I should point out, its what Bartow says in her response to Neesa that I agreed with, not Bartow's original post. Though I'll also note that Bartow sidesteps the whole issue of how helpful (or not very) feminists have been toward porn performers in Neesa's situation.
"Contrary to the the insistence of some that the cops out here just loooove pornographers and wouldn't dream of putting them in jail, I think a quick visit to Parker Center would give them quite a different perspective."
Wait, what? Cops do love pornographers. I saw it in The Big Lebowski.
But on a more serious note to Ren, I keep seeing Teh Signed Consent Form invoked on this blog and others as if it means anything with respect to actual consent. I collect consent forms almost every day. (I work in clinical trials.) They are in no way used to protect the person signing the form. They are ALWAYS used to protect the party who prepared it. And even though participants are told they can (and have the legal right to) revoke their consent at any time, any research coordinator can tell you that patients will almost always follow through with the procedure once they've signed for it, even if they have reservations. The ugly truth, at least in clinical trials, is that signing the form makes participants less likely to back out.
I'm not saying that consents shouldn't be signed in porn. I'm just saying that they represent a very legalistic view of consent, which doesn't always tell the whole story. A signed consent form may release the preparer from responsibility of harms suffered by the participant, but it doesn't mean the preparer hasn't actually harmed the participant, intentionally or not.
Okay, I'll stop now. It's just a thought that's been eating at me for a while now. Hope the scars feel better soon.
Hi Ren
This is just to let you know that I have tagged you on my blog. Please visit and, if you feel like it, follow through.
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