The Berkeley law students might have been shocked when I said “ass’, or maybe when Thomas said “mindfuck”, but a couple of them truly registered shock when I explained to them the day to day realities of 2257 laws and privacy. I said, it’s interesting that 2257 adult content record-keeping laws are ostensibly to protect children from being used as porn performers. Many people have pointed out that mainstream porn has been following previous record keeping laws to the letter since the Traci Lords scandal in the 1980s; and also that the burden of onerous record keeping (such as requiring people who take a movie of two adults having sex and distribute it must also keep the record of their proof of age in a business open to the public 20 hours a week). And yes, this has made the big mainstream producers slightly headached, while putting small and indy and artsy and fringe makers of smutty goods out of business or unable to even get started. And it’s made many sites, like Eros Zine, just not want to deal with it and only featuring “safe” content — for adults, as oxymoronic as that is.
But I offered up one of the most troubling points in my story. I am friends with many pornographers and porn stars; they often want me to blog about their newest movies, etc. Late last year I said, sure, I like the video, can I have some still images for a blog post? They sent them in a FedEx pack of disks. Included was the 2257 CD — and on it were scans and photos of each performer’s state ID (or passport), Social Security cards (often held in a photo next to their faces), and forms including their real names and real addresses. I became the proud owner of everything someone would ever need to steal their identities, stalk and harass, blackmail, whatever. It freaked me the fuck out to even have that in my house. And the performers have no idea I have that — they probably have no idea how many people have access to their personal information under this bizarrely executed law. But hey — think the DoJ cares about what happens to porn stars? Most vulnerable, of course are female performers — when 2257 went into effect, performer Kami Andrews got a pile of fan mail at her home and a few lurkers in her driveway. Can’t they come up with a better way of “protecting the children”?
The talk went great — thank you so much for your emails of support. I *oozed* confidence, on your behalf! I also asked Thomas to speak with me — we lecture about sexuality at SFSI together a couple times a year, and I knew we’d have good energy together. Plus, I traffic on a day-to-day basis with blogging and sex and porn sites; he runs an online adult magazine, and I felt we’d compliment each other nicely in terms of relating our online professional porny experiences to the class. Turns out I was right — I even mock-interviewed Thomas for a bit (hee!), getting him to explain how his job had changed since 2257 went into effect.
The class was a UC Berkeley law class — Jason Schultz’s Internet Law: “Indecent Speech on the Internet”. I took two videos of Jason talking to the class about COPA, Ashcroft, filtering, the adult right to porn and much more before taking the podium — they’re embedded after the jump.
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