2010 Year End Summary – by Darklady
2010: The Year Porn Made More Sense than the “Real World”
by Darklady
www.darklady.com
www.dotxxxopposition.com
www.masturbate-a-thon.org
The longer I work in the adult entertainment industry, the more I think the mainstream world is insane and porn is the circus with the greatest grasp on reality.
Scary, no?
Let’s take a for instance: TSA.
Once upon a time, going through airport security was annoying but not necessarily embarrassing. It didn’t matter if you had a dildo up your ass, a tampon in your twat, a metal rod down your femur, or a plate in your head; you were not going to find a TSA agent’s hand down your pants.
Those days are gone.
While the Free Speech Coalition continues struggling to make the Feds understand the myriad reasons that 2257 regulations do nothing to protect minors and everything to fuck with legitimate porn professionals, story after story hits the liberal press about toddlers and teens being exposed to X-ray machines that strip them bare and the hands of strangers in TSA uniforms using “games” to encourage them to cooperate with “enhanced” pat-downs.
Won’t somebody think about the children, indeed.
Frankly, the idea of sex with minors seems to be a national – nay – international obsession, especially among those who claim to live their lives by the highest standards of purity. Somehow porn keeps being held responsible, of course. Yes, even in 2010, the year director Peter Hyams said we’d “make contact.”
Clearly, it wasn’t contact with our reasoning abilities.
Somehow teen “sexting” became a “porn” problem that needed stern, even draconian, legislative action, instead of a classic case of horny, tech-savvy youths with questionable long-term judgment doing what horny teens with high-tech and questionable judgment do: take pictures of themselves and send them to friends and admirers… who sometimes don’t keep them to themselves. Duh.
Meanwhile, Pope Benedict proclaimed during his Christmas speech to the faithful that fucking kids hasn’t always been considered an “absolute evil.” In fact, according to His Holey-ness, once the 1970s hit, even kids thought having sex with adults was a good idea. Adding insult to injury – if that’s possible – were his insistences that child sexual abuse caught on video (aka child porn), is increasingly seen as “normal” by society.
Maybe in the Vatican, but not in the rest of the supposedly civilized world.
This inability by those who labor under the misconception that they’re somehow better than the rest of us to grasp the importance of simple concepts like consent is especially troubling since these same people want to influence the sexual behaviors and entertainments of others on a legal level. During 2010, they certainly got plenty of chances.
Many of the annoyances that tax-dollar wasting false moralists forced upon the adult industry this past year were familiar, chief among them continued efforts to catch professionals in a 2257-related paperwork glitch – cuz god knows we’re not interested in hiring kids, especially with the Fed’s growing monopoly on inappropriate photos of minors.
Likewise, there were more attempts to label explicitly sexual videos as “obscene,” a word so outdated at to be nearly meaningless in these days of Wikileaks and savage war crimes. Unfortunately, Max Hardcore still languishes in prison – although Extreme Associates’ Lizzie Borden and Rob Black are finally able to breathe free air again.
In a rare example of good sense on the government’s part, Evil Angel’s John “Buttman” Stagliano was able to nimbly dodge the obscenity prosecution bullet – and Dirty D managed to drive home the fact that when a minor does get into the industry, it’s because they’re liars.
Why we still have to prove this shit is, of course, a mystery. Like the pyramids. Or the G-spot. Or how to solve Rubik’s Cube. Only not nearly as scenic, enjoyable, or worth the time.
It’s insane that in the real world of non-porn, 52-year-old former surgeon and one-time Playboy model Tammy Banovac is repeatedly forced to miss flights because her still sizzlin’ body rests in a wheelchair and needs to groped every time she travels. She’s become so frustrated by the situation that she’s started going through security wearing only bra, panties, high heels, and strategically held puppy. Somehow, she still comes up positive for nitrate or refused boarding due to a supposedly “unusual contour” to her ass.
And we’re the objectifying perverts?
These and other real world obscenities have naturally been cloaked in the flag, in religion, in security, in patriotism – in proving oneself to be a “Real” American. As has been the case all too many times, those walking the frontiers of liberty have had to speak truth to power … and have wondered if power was even listening.
Chief among those with apparently deaf ears are Cal-OSHA and the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which have closeted AIM and substantially complicated the process of performers getting reliable HIV and STD testing. While there appears to be evidence that making a political point about the inherent wickedness of sexual theater, the latter group hopes to make a bit of cash on the deal by replacing the industry-insider testing facility.
Given that Stuart Lawley’s porn-clueless .XXX money-grab is still inhaling valuable air that could be used for more important endeavors, the fact that clueless outsiders with an ax to grind and/or buck to make at our expense are trying to cash in one our hard work should hardly be a surprise.
What will be a surprise even to people who enjoy porn-related witch-hunts, is how bizarre Cal-OSHA’s workplace safety requirements are. Is the future of California porn condoms, dental dams, finger cots, latex gloves, and goggles? If so, it might be worth noting that a lot of porn takes place in hotels and homes – each of which exist throughout the world.
A modern end-of-year wrap-up wouldn’t be complete without mention of friendly fire. Thanks to the explosive growth of tube sites generously sharing erotic content that doesn’t fucking belong to them, anti-piracy battles are being waged by legal representatives and the porn industry can now stand proudly in court next to mainstream Hollywood content producers.
Joy of joys.
On the plus side, the Free Speech Coalition and a variety of industry power brokers have spent the year puzzling out strategies to combat copyright infringement and generally deal with the kind of bureaucratic bullshit that takes up so much of our time, energy, and resources.
There are always going to be forces poised against us and other individuals and entities that deal with controversial subjects in controversial ways. Some people can only talk about sex while their mouths are full of hate and their hearts full of fear of their lust. It no fun for us – but the fact remains that the majority of Americans love their sexual entertainment, even if they’re not yet ready to march in the street to defend it.
As is always the case, this year saw the passing of many loved and respected friends whose porn roots often ran deep, among them groundbreaking MILF Juliet Anderson (aka Aunt Peg); the first male porn “superstar,” Jamie Gillis and frequent Golden Age co-star and friend, John Leslie; as well as lesser remembered pioneers, including 1960’s era “sexploitation” director, Joseph Sarno.
There were more, of course, some known to us and some lost in their return to the chaos that is the real world.
The difficult thing about writing an end-of-year wrap-up about the adult industry is that there are no neat ribbons to tie into bows and label wrapped up. We’re a 24/7/365 industry in a 24/7/365 world, which means we’re always on the move, even if it feels like we’re standing still in a stalled soup line during the worst recession in the history of the United States.
As odd as it may seem, however, I’m hopeful that the sexual insanity being forced upon the nation will ultimately serve to show everyday Americans the difference between what we increasingly provide as consensual sensual fun – and what the government and some joyless religious extremists want to force upon them for their “own good.”
Happy New Year. Congratulations on surviving 2010. Let’s kick some ass and take some names in 2011. Also – remember – you can never use too much lube.
www.darklady.com
www.dotxxxopposition.com
www.masturbate-a-thon.org
Theresa “Darklady” Reed is a regular contributor to The Huffington Post, AVN magazine, and is a member of the Free Speech Coalition and Free Speech Alliance boards of directors, and has nearly 2 decades of experience in the adult entertainment industry.
