In an incisive piece on Salon, adult performer Lorelei Lee writes about her concerns with the condom ordinance that the city of Los Angeles recently passed. Like many in the adult industry, Lee questions the motivation of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which set into motion the events that would culminate in this ordinance.

Lee writes:

The ordinance comes in response to a campaign spearheaded by Michael Weinstein, head of the San Francisco-based nonprofit AIDS Healthcare Foundation. In the last few years, Weinstein, alongside similarly agenda-driven Shelley Lubben of the Pink Cross Foundation, has aggressively campaigned to mandate the use of condoms in heterosexual adult films, enlisting half a dozen adult performers, boycotting the Marriott Hotel chain for carrying condom-less porn, suing the L.A. Department of Public Health, and staging protests throughout Los Angeles at industry events and at AIM headquarters. Weinstein called AIM a “fig leaf” over the adult industry and backed the lawsuit that led to the organization’s financial insolvency and shutdown last year, which left a vacuum in health and safety protections in the industry. Weinstein seemed to hope that leaving performers without any kind of health protection would force legislators to mandate condom use. If the city of Los Angeles had not passed the ordinance this week Weinstein had a backup plan: Using AHF funds, he had collected 70,889 signatures to put the condom-mandate question to Los Angeles voters in June, a move that would have cost L.A. $4.4 million.

We’ve written about Shelley Lubben before. She was part of the opposition at the Cambridge debate discussing whether pornography provides a good public service (for those curious, porn won that debate by 44 votes). Other sex bloggers have had occasion to mention Lubben, most notably because of her affiliation with Gail Dines, another tireless sex-negative, anti-porn crusader:

Gail Dines and her colleagues insist that when men view porn, it leads them to child molestation, and when women view porn, it gets them gang-raped. However, the actual data tells a different story. So insidiously effective is this tactic of fomenting moral panic [...] that Gail Dines even headlines in left-wing women’s media.

Look under the hood and you can see Gail Dines’ campaign is promulgated by Christian groups and companies with explicit anti-gay histories, that her most visible sidekick is faith-based Pink Cross “charity” founder Shelley Lubben, or that among her most vocal supporters is former Bush-era Obscenity Task Force Prosecutor Patrick Trueman (whose own “Porn Harms” group crows with obvious delight at censorship of sex-positive discussions). Here too, the fear-inducing messages—and the thinly-veiled threat—is the same: “good girls don’t; men are predators.”

Lubben is no stranger to anyone writing about the issues facing freedom and sexual expression in a sex-negative culture. Her agenda is not limited to pornography, either. Lubben doesn’t see a difference between the abusers who create porn, the monsters who watch it, and homosexuals. The following is a clip from a site created by the adult industry and dedicated to questioning Shelley Lubben’s motives:

In her critique of the condom ordinance, Lee continues:

Among performers I know, there is a mix of opinions as to whether they mind actually using condoms on set themselves — a different question than the one of a legislated condom mandate. Some, like Nina Hartley, who is also a sex educator and has training as a nurse, are strongly opposed to using condoms at work, believing that they may actually increase likelihood of STI transmission. Personally, I’m not opposed to using condoms during my shoots — in fact, I already do. I became a condom-only performer in 2010, after eight years of working non-condom. But during my time as a non-condom performer, I never once contracted an STI on set that condoms would have prevented, and truthfully, I’m not sure that condoms actually keep me safer than testing alone. Further, I would never want to work on a set that required condoms in lieu of STI testing.

[ ... ] What performers like Hartley and I are equally opposed to is being condescended to by hypocritical zealots like Weinstein and Lubben who are obviously motivated by a concern for something other than our health and safety. Who have, in fact, shown a “blatant disregard” for the health and safety of industry workers by making it more difficult for us to use the protections we already have in place when their actions led to the closure of AIM. We’re also opposed to the squandering of AHF resources – resources that could be effectively used to help prevent and treat HIV and AIDS – on a political campaign against an industry whose health and safety regulations are already working. In the decade since AIM began the program of mandatory testing, six performers have tested positive for HIV, and only three of those have shown to be from on-set transmissions. That’s three transmissions during the course of filming tens (or perhaps hundreds) of thousands of scenes. There are no real statistics as to how this compares to transmission rates in the general population. Rather than concrete evidence, Weinstein has used references to AIDS as a scare tactic, leading those who have been affected by the disease, like City Councilman Bill Rosendahl, to believe that a condom mandate would actually have some effect on HIV transmission rates. Condoms, even when used “consistently and correctly,” do not have a 100 percent success rate. Although numbers vary, one study showed condoms to be only 80 percent effective against HIV transmission in couples of different sero-statuses (in which one partner is HIV positive and the other negative). I have a hard time believing that condom mandate, if it is even possible to enforce, is likely to have a higher success rate than testing.

We covered the some of the various attempts the AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) launched against the porn industry’s Adult Industry Medical Healthcare Foundation (AIM), which eventually succeeded in May of last year, leaving performers exposed, as Lee writes.

The most unfortunate part of this conversation is that porn carries with it a lot of baggage. Even this, a conversation about workplace safety and employees, is easily derailed by questions about what porn does to men, whether porn exploits women, and what porn teaches children (children? Yes, children! We’re not kidding, this is a question that’s been raised time and time again in the context of this discussion). As a result of these emotionally-charged tangents, the discussion about what would really benefit performers never happens.

Lee writes:

Weinstein has remarked that the L.A. attorney’s office is trying to “thwart” voters’ will, but what stake do Los Angeles voters have in this matter? I’ve heard too many times the claim that the adult industry is acting irresponsibly by portraying barrier-free sex when – as the argument goes – people of all ages are getting their information about sex from pornography. But the overwhelming majority of porn is fiction, and the world it portrays is one of fantasy. I have to believe that most people who encounter porn know this. We don’t generally expect other forms of entertainment to be responsible for disseminating health and safety information. If pornography is in some capacity replacing sex education for people in this country, then mandating condom use is a ludicrously indirect way of addressing that problem.

Image of Lorelei Lee via Twitter.

The International AIDS Conference — a gathering of all those involved in working for the eradication and treatment of HIV, as well as policymakers and activists — is returning to the United States after 22 years this July to assess the scientific progress that has been made and lobby for improvements in policy regarding the populations most affected by HIV and AIDS.

According to their site:

The AIDS 2012 programme will present new scientific knowledge and offer many opportunities for structured dialogue on the major issues facing the global response to HIV. A variety of session types — from abstract-driven presentations to symposia, bridging and plenary sessions — will meet the needs of various participants. Other related activities, including the Global Village, satellite meetings, exhibitions and affiliated independent events, will contribute to an exceptional opportunity for professional development and networking.

Audacia Ray, founder of the Red Umbrella Project, has issued a call to sex worker activists to join forces, noting among various pressing issues that “the U.S. exports terrible policies and strings-attached funding that harms sex workers. For example the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which funds international organizations, include an anti-prostitution clause in contracts with grantees. American sex workers must stand up to our government and denounce PEPFAR and similar policies that harm our brothers and sisters around the world. The IAC is an important forum for us to make our voices heard.”

From PEPFAR Watch:

Current law requires all organizations that receive PEPFAR funding to have a policy that explicitly opposes prostitution and sex trafficking. This policy, known as the anti-prostitution pledge, or the Anti-Prostitution Loyalty Oath (APLO), has been shown to have a negative impact on prevention efforts because it undermines the most effective approaches to working with sex workers.

Sex workers are among the most marginalized people in any society and often lack access to social and health support systems — while being at increased risk of HIV infection. Their rights to access health care and to be free from violence are frequently violated, making it essential that organizations work with them non-judgmentally. Organizations that build trust with and peer relationships among sex workers have yielded dramatic reductions in HIV infections among these populations. But CHANGE [Editor's note: The Center for Health and Gender Equity] has found that these organizations are unlikely to sign the pledge, making them ineligible for funding. Other groups have been cut off from funds because of over-interpretation of the policy by U.S. officials in the field, made possible because the government has not clearly defined what constitutes a violation of the policy. Moreover, the pledge has led organizations to eliminate, scale back, or censor their prevention efforts with sex workers, undermining best practices in public health.

As a result, the pledge has led to further alienation of already-stigmatized groups, given free rein to police who abuse or extort money from sex workers, and has resulted in further violence, discrimination and human rights violations against women, men and transgender people in prostitution. The policy is driving sex workers underground and away from the non-governmental organizations and health workers best poised to provide them with HIV prevention, health and alternate-livelihood services.

If you can’t join the Red Umbrella Project but feel strongly about these issues, you can still take action by writing a message to the Committee on Foreign Affairs urging for comprehensive, evidence-based HIV prevention in foreign assistance reform efforts that doesn’t marginalize at-risk populations such as sex workers.

Image of Red Umbrella activists by ReikHavoc, via TitsandSass.

As someone who has been researching and writing about slavery and trafficking since 2005, I worry that the overall desire to help on the part of Google has overridden a lot of details that must be understood if we are going to find a way to rid the world of trafficking and slavery. The most harmful and least understood of these details is the importance of supporting organizations that distinguish between consensual sex work and sexual slavery (something the State Department finally does and something NGOs must do to really help combat this blight). Several of the organizations that Google is funding do not make this necessary distinction.

International Justice Mission is a Christian group whose abolitionist practices are founded in morality, which casts anyone involved in sex work — coerced or not — into the role of victim in need of salvation. Their crackdown on the sex industry is driving prostitution further underground, making it difficult for law enforcement to find real victims, and impossible for sex workers who have information about crimes to step forward.

The Polaris Project is little different. One look over their materials exposes their position on consensual sex work: they see no difference between a sex slave and a topless dancer. It’s also worth noting that they were one of the organizations on the forefront of the attack on Craigslist that resulted in the removal of the erotic services section. The problem with efforts like these is that people involved in sex trafficking will not cease their activities because a single avenue is closed off. Almost immediately after the section was closed, listings for adult services began to appear in other sections of Craigslist — in sections that do not require payment for postings, meaning there is no paper trail for law enforcement to follow.

While opponents of Craigslist may shake fists screaming about how Craigslist “profited” from sex trafficking, it is important to remember that the system of payment for adult services was instituted to create a record. That’s how Boston authorities managed to apprehend the Craigslist Killer, Philip Markoff. Censoring Craigslist has moved these activities to locations within the site where there is no paper trail, making it hard for law enforcement to locate and crack down on perpetrators.

Campaigns to remove sites similar to Craigslist altogether — such as that leveled against the Village Voice’s classified ads site Backpage, at the hands of Ashton Kutcher and the organizations with which his own DNA Foundation is aligned (among them the aforementioned Polaris; Shared Hope International, an organization that fights child sex trafficking by educating men about “the dangers of engaging in commercial sex markets, especially pornography”; and Citizens Against Trafficking, which continuously launches smear campaigns against sex educators, whom they believe are the cause of all these problems) — will only result in moving these activities underground where law enforcement will have an even more difficult time helping victims.

Censoring a site, it must be noted, is an easy victory. It gets organizations more money and it gets politicians elected. Never mind that doing so doesn’t really do anything to help real victims. And that’s not where it ends, unfortunately. The inability of these organizations to see a difference between sex work and trafficking means that efforts to censor will continue beyond sites like Craigslist: pornography is frequently a target and we’re not just talking about nude magazines and independent sites (where do you draw the line? Remember when Lady Chatterley’s Lover was considered obscene?). Sex educators are also consistently attacked, as are any groups whose desires don’t fall into the cookie-cutter moral ideal of what sex should be.

Ignorance on the topic, willful and not, and the eagerness of people to exploit this lack of information in pursuit of a moral agenda or political gain results in inaction and very dangerous legislation that affect all victims of slavery.

E. Benjamin Skinner, author of A Crime So Monstrous — an expose about modern day slavery in various forms — has been a vocal advocate of the necessity of not only differentiating between the sex industry and sex trafficking, but also giving the same amount of attention to other forms of slavery, often overshadowed by sensationalism surrounding accounts of sex trafficking:

“The West’s efforts have been, from the outset, hamstrung by a warped understanding of slavery,” he says in A World Enslaved. “Though eradicating prostitution may be a just cause, Western policies based on the idea that all prostitutes are slaves and all slaves are prostitutes belittles the suffering of all victims.”

The inability to see the differences between sex work and slavery thwarts efforts and taxes resources set aside for identifying, freeing and protecting actual victims of slavery, because those working to help victims become diverted with matters of consensual prostitution, which should be handled by local law enforcement as necessary, and which, though a crime in most U.S. cities, is nowhere as severe as slavery of any kind.

Not for Sale also conflates consensual adult sex work and forced sexual slavery and rape. Their stance against the partial decriminalization of sex work among consenting adults in a 2008 San Francisco ballot initiative more than illustrates their position. Allowing this initiative, known as Proposition K, to pass would have brought the underground to the surface, making it easier for sex workers to work with law enforcement to nab abusers and rapists, and to find real victims of sexual slavery. The moralizing, driven in part by Not for Sale, led to the failure of Proposition K.

So, no. I am not glad that Google is supporting these organizations.

What our nervous sideway glances and jeers say is simple: if you let on that you have sex, you’re a danger to our children, and possibly to society itself. Never mind if you’re a tax-paying, law-abiding, philanthropic citizen otherwise — the second it becomes known that you have sex or are interested in it, you’re immediately labeled unfit.

This is what is happening right now with former porn star Sasha Grey, who quit the adult entertainment industry to focus on mainstream entertainment and has since appeared in the popular television series Entourage. She recently joined the National Education Association’s program Read Across America, which combats illiteracy by showing children the joy of the written word through age-appropriate book readings.

On Wednesday, November 2, Grey went to Emerson Elementary School in Compton, California and read Dog Breath by Dav Pikey to first and third graders. According to celebrity gossip site TMZ, parents were horrified to have a former pornographic star read to their children. They contacted the California Parent-Teacher Association, which got in touch with the principal of the school, demanding an explanation.

A representative of the school district denied Grey was among the stars who read to children each year, saying, “We have several celebrities who read to our students each year. The actress you have indicated was not present.”

This is technically true: usually, Read Across America is celebrated once a year on Dr. Seuss’s birthday in March. During the one-day celebration, stars read to the children of Compton United School District. Previous celebrity guests have included Raven Symone of That’s So Raven, Rachelle Lefevre of Twilight: New Moon, Quinton Aaron of The Blind Side, the voice of Spongebob Squarepants Tom Kinney, and many others. Sasha Grey was not present at the usual Read Across America celebration.

But she did read to children at Emerson Elementary with Read Across America, a program she joined because literacy is something she believes is essential.

“Illiteracy contributes to poverty; encouraging children to pick up a book is fundamental,” Grey said today in a statement posted on Twitter. The statement went on:

I believe education is a universal right. I committed to this program with the understanding that people would have their own opinions about what I have done, who I am and what I represent.

I am an actor. I am an artist. I am a daughter. I am a sister. I am a partner. I have a past that some people may not agree with, but it does not define who I am. I will not live in fear of it.

To challenge non-profit education programs is an exercise in futility, counter-productive and anti-educational.

Here is a woman who is contributing her time to get kids excited about reading. But we don’t want her help. Even though she is dressed conservatively, even though she won’t speak about the adult aspect of her career, even though all she will do is sit and read — she is dangerous. She is a bad example. She had sex and she did it on camera, and we will never let her forget that.

Does anyone else see something wrong with this picture or do you agree that anyone who has participated in adult film is unsuitable to being around children? I don’t get it and you’re welcome to explain it to me.

Photo by San Jose Library. Originally published on BlogHer.