Disqus - Latest Comments for avflox

Re: The Golden Age of Pornhub

AV Flox — Mon, 09 Mar 2015 15:53:47 -0000

I'm curious about gender breakdowns per country. Could you make that data available?

Re: Google Takes Back Adult Ban

AV Flox — Fri, 27 Feb 2015 18:53:08 -0000

Oh my goodness! Thank you for clarifying the technicality -- it makes SUCH a difference. </sarcasm>

Re: Women Who Want Birth Control “Cannot Control Their Libido”

AV Flox — Sun, 08 Feb 2015 01:08:22 -0000

And I don't want to pay for corporation's mistakes. Life's a bitch and then you die.

Re: The Weird Myth of the “Alpha” Male

AV Flox — Mon, 26 Jan 2015 21:39:24 -0000

I strongly encourage you to read the paper -- not because you hope to agree or disagree, but because science is worth reading.

Re: The Weird Myth of the “Alpha” Male

AV Flox — Mon, 19 Jan 2015 14:42:18 -0000

I see a wolf pack article in my future.

Re: Facebook Wants Your Real Name — Even If It Means Outing You

AV Flox — Thu, 16 Oct 2014 20:55:00 -0000

I understand this is deeply upsetting, but likening Facebook to the Third Reich is unhelpful to people facing this situation and offensive to those whose lives and families were impacted by Nazi atrocities.

Re: You Can Browse FetLife Profiles Without Logging In

AV Flox — Tue, 01 Jul 2014 16:40:04 -0000

I stored the URL redirect through PornEarn and those links all still work. They redirect to FetLife itself, however, and there appears to be no mirror site holding profiles.

Re: You Can Browse FetLife Profiles Without Logging In

AV Flox — Tue, 01 Jul 2014 01:05:22 -0000

As of yesterday, June 29, the site FetLifeSearcher is off-line -- possibly as a result of a DMCA takedown, though I haven't been on FetLife to see what management is saying about the measures they decided to take in response. My money is on the typical modus operandi of pushing the ISP to kill the offending site, without addressing underlying issues.

Re: You Can Browse FetLife Profiles Without Logging In

AV Flox — Fri, 27 Jun 2014 20:35:44 -0000

Very good, Joshua. If only more people understood that this model is only as good as the willingness of those with an account to be decent to one another. Sadly, this isn't the case, and FetLife has made no effort to point out these risks to users.

Re: The Illustrated Guide to What People Think During Oral

AV Flox — Fri, 23 May 2014 20:05:11 -0000

You and me both! :)

Re: Chase Bank to Close Accounts of People involved in Porn

AV Flox — Tue, 29 Apr 2014 13:44:51 -0000

Performers use their legal names to get a bank account. It's easy to infer where money is coming from when you are depositing checks from adult companies. Additionally, a number of performers have business accounts for companies tied to their performer names. As far as Teagan Presley is concerned, her legal name is a Wikipedia search away.

Re: Is Porn Destroying Your Sex Life?

AV Flox — Mon, 14 Apr 2014 21:18:39 -0000

Thank you for calling for diligence in researching the medical literature. I will go over the available papers and cover more recent information on the link between porn and erectile dysfunction.

Re: Like Kickstarter — but for Porn

AV Flox — Thu, 27 Mar 2014 19:58:58 -0000

Though RallyHero has nothing in its terms indicating that adult content is disallowed, it works with WePay, which -- based on recent events involving Fundly -- we know is not adult-friendly. Look at this post for more information, Marc: http://slantist.com/fundly-...

Re: Duke Pornstar Comes Out, Gets Suspended from Twitter

AV Flox — Thu, 20 Mar 2014 22:34:21 -0000

Your belief that your right to agency is being denied when people don't agree with you betrays how little you understand what I'm talking about.

Belle Knox is right to take care to research how sites and studios she is considering working with treat their performers, but that doesn't mean she is saying that she was not treated well. Her response is an attempt to shift the conversation from a condemnation of rough sex to one where the ethics of pornography are defined by sites' and studios' treatment of workers. Effectively, Knox is turning a conversation where the topic is revulsion of rough sex to one where the topic is labor issues. This is not an admission of abuse.

Many members of the public seem to need to create a hierarchy of porn where some porn is "okay" and other porn is "not okay" based on how the performers behave in the film. This is useless for with regard to the well-being of performers that you and many "concerned" people claim to be arguing for. Porn should be viewed as a labor situation, where "ethical" is a term used to refer to the treatment of workers, not the story-line of films. We should be fighting for fair practices within the industry to ensure the well-being of performers and rights outside the industry to enable performers to lead full lives where participating in the sex industry doesn't bar entry to other fields.

The focus on the story-lines within has nothing to do with the well-being of a performer. The notion that the scene in which Knox participated is not consensual is an opinion that willfully ignores Knox's own statements to the contrary and takes her words out of context. Knox may regret doing it because she is being demonized for it, but that doesn't mean her consent was violated. If she feels her consent was violated during the filming, then that is what we should be discussing. But that's not what you are discussing. You are discussing your belief that certain types of fantasy that portray a woman in a certain way are "misogynist" and "sick and wrong," even if a woman willingly participates.

This ignores the agency of a woman to determine what activity she wants to participate in.

"Are you saying that sort of video is OK with you, as long as the actress gets paid for it?" No. I am saying that this act (whether it's filmed or not) is okay as long as all people participating in it have consented and continue to consent throughout the act. If the consent involves that one participant receive payment, then that participant must receive payment, but payment is not necessary for this activity to be acceptable. The only thing necessary is consent.

"That might have been a consensual act by Belle Knox. But the video doesn't portray it as a consensual act. [...] The video is portrayed like it is a violent man who is stripping a woman of her 'agency'! So it's freakin' scary! Get it?" I suppose we ought to suppress mainstream films and books that show domestic violence and murder next.

Objectification is casting a person in the role of object (an object is that which is acted upon) as opposed to one of subject (that which acts, or the agent). When you ignore what a woman is saying about her own experience -- like Belle Knox saying the conditions she has experienced in the adult industry have not been abusive -- and point out her past behavior with the intent to discredit her ability to make decisions that are in her own interest, you deny her agency, and effectively objectify her. Conversations about the portrayal of women in the media (including porn) that dismiss the voices of women in said media are, as a result, highly suspect to me.

Re: Duke Pornstar Comes Out, Gets Suspended from Twitter

AV Flox — Sun, 16 Mar 2014 03:15:19 -0000

Though I disagree with Knox that there are no female directors in porn, it must be remembered the context in which she made these statements -- in response to those who seek to characterize her as a victim of the male-dominated porn industry when, in fact, if she is a victim, she's only a victim of harassment by people outside of the industry.

Knox, like most people, are repeatedly told that sex work is inherently abusive. One of the favorite "facts" paraded is that there are no women making porn. This is not true, and I have confidence that she will discover that herself, if she hasn't already. However, her response that working toward better standards for women in the industry depends on more women getting involved in the creation of pornography is valid. I hope she does get involved.

The continuous highlighting of her self-injury is troublesome here because it is clearly being used to deny her agency. She cut herself, people point out, therefore, she is not fit to make decisions for herself. These "concerns" allow the shift of blame from an industry to a person speaking up that her experience hasn't been negative in said industry as a way to dismiss her opinion. Ah, people tell themselves, she thinks porn is okay to do because she's broken.

But consider this: do we ever tell bloggers, bartenders, personal trainers, actors, attorneys that they cut themselves and therefore can't be trusted to have made an informed decision about their lives? Are all people who ever engaged in self-injury incapable, forevermore, of making a choice that isn't somehow suspect? This is not only ridiculous but inappropriate. It betrays the belief that sex work is somehow different than other forms of work, that no one not broken engage in it. This isn't true.

There's always a way to silence the sex worker. Most recently we saw this on "All In" when a member of the "rescue" industry told the nation that no one was "qualified" to speak about sex work as work until they'd had sex with 20 men in one day. That leaves who, exactly?

Keeping the sex worker silent helps only those who profit from the "plight" of sex workers. If these individuals were concerned with the issues that most often result in sex work, they'd fight a war on poverty and other systemic vulnerabilities instead of fighting to deter it through police intervention. But that's not headline-making. There's a reason that "victim" stories are so popular -- they're the porn of the self-appointed righteous who can't watch the fantasy illustrated by offerings such as those on FacialAbuse, but nevertheless crave that form of narrative, provided it's made palatable by the hope of eventual redemption.

This pervasive need to silence the sex worker is precisely why I let Knox speak for herself without editorializing. Her experience, along with her ideas, are more important than mine, or those of anyone not actively involved in sex work and therefore aware of the issues facing sex workers now.

Your concerns about her body are disturbing in that you seem to believe she owes you anything, that you have any right to demand that she present herself in the manner you have determined is preferable to you. She doesn't belong to you any more than an actor in a show you like watching belongs to you, which is to say not at all. It's her choice what she does, what she eats, whether she does yoga or pilates or nothing at all, or has her teeth whitened or her breasts modified. The notion that you or I or anyone knows better is another flagrant denial of her agency.

Knox says that the conditions she's experienced while in the porn industry are better than those in other service positions that she has been involved in. This is her experience. It's a valid data point. It is not the only data point, but until we allow sex workers to tell their stories without simultaneously having to fear for their safety -- even if retaliation is only in the form of emotionally corrosive concern trolling -- we're not going to get enough data points to have useful conversations about improving the situation of other workers (not just women) in the industry.

That Knox chooses to use feminist ideology to voice her views is also her choice -- if that sounds irreconcilable to many, it's not because Knox is hiding behind it, but rather because a vocal feminist contingent has, for too long, ignored the experience of sex workers.

Re: Love Fifty Shades of Grey? Beware the Erotica Section

AV Flox — Tue, 03 Sep 2013 18:05:19 -0000

I don't know the answer to that, Kim, but there's a hot start-up idea in it.

Re: Why Are People So Obsessed with Whether Sex in Porn Is “Real”?

AV Flox — Tue, 03 Sep 2013 18:03:00 -0000

I'm okay with science magic -- I love Jurassic Park! -- but I do resent science magic being the standard go-to deus ex machina.

Re: Re: That Scandal You Probably Didn’t Hear About

AV Flox — Tue, 03 Sep 2013 02:09:49 -0000

He's "the bad guy" because he didn't stop when he was told no. He asked a performer for a private, when she turned that down saying it was too much like prostitution, he approached her under the guise of shooting. This isn't a case of something not yet being released. It's a case of someone not caring what it takes to get what they want.

Re: How to Discuss Transgender Issues without Making an Ass of Yourself

AV Flox — Tue, 27 Aug 2013 22:20:20 -0000

Nor are there many scenarios that require you to disclose that an individual is transgender; however, because you argue that you would determine the proper use of pronouns based on biology alone, you are basically saying that as a journalist, you would have to request that any source that doesn't clearly present as male or female to you, show you their genitals.

Re: How to Discuss Transgender Issues without Making an Ass of Yourself

AV Flox — Tue, 27 Aug 2013 20:31:43 -0000

Based on your opinion, how would you deal with people who are intersex?

Re: How to Discuss Transgender Issues without Making an Ass of Yourself

AV Flox — Mon, 26 Aug 2013 21:04:21 -0000

Saying that the media should refer to people according to their anatomy is basically telling trans people that they're not "really" their identified gender until they have sexual reassignment surgery, something not all trans people want, or have access to. I think that's inappropriate. And completely absurd.

Re: Women Engage in Revenge Porn, Say It’s Feminism, Art

AV Flox — Fri, 23 Aug 2013 03:46:45 -0000

Some legislation introduced to combat revenge porn has narrowly defined "revenge porn" as sexual images depicting an identifiable person. When I speak about revenge porn, I am not using the legal definition, which continues to evolve, and will continue to evolve as these laws are tried.

When I say "revenge porn," I am referring specifically to images received for the purpose of communicating desire that are distributed, without the sender's consent, with the intent to shame or humiliate. Even if the men whose images are used in this exhibit never know their dick pix were put on display, the intent of the show is obvious: to shame all men out of sending such images.

This exhibit is just as wrong as sites that post images of women that were intended for their partners and not a public audience, even if the women portrayed are never identified.

Re: SXSW PanelPicker

AV Flox — Tue, 20 Aug 2013 19:25:54 -0000

What an excellent panel idea. Best of luck to the both of you.

Re: SXSW PanelPicker

AV Flox — Mon, 19 Aug 2013 19:06:00 -0000

After Glass made a debut at a Manhattan strip club, I wrote about some of the issues sex workers face when it comes to accessible devices that make it easy for the public to record live footage (goo.gl/X3YMEk). While I can't imagine this panel will address such issues, I do hope it enables people to develop a better understanding of professional courtesy.

Re: Ke$ha Wants to Cover You in Penis

AV Flox — Thu, 08 Aug 2013 19:44:10 -0000

It's a really unfortunate situation -- and one we have seen before not too long ago. Katy Perry's "Ur So Gay" also does a standup job of policing masculinity, though without the blatant misogyny that Ke$ha displays. Makes me miss the Cocteau Twins.