If you’re not familiar with US federal 2257 regulations, you can read about them on Wikipedia and on Fleshbot, and even quite a lot on this website. In a (very opinionated, slightly tipsy) nutshell, they are a set of laws that are in place ostensibly to prevent underage people from becoming porn performers by making businesses that create porn keep really extensive documentation about the people in their products. Nice theory. Except legitimate businesses aren’t going to break laws that would put them out of business. Fucking, duh. The way the 2257 laws are crafted and enforced result in making it impossible for small businesses to survive, make it really, really easy to stalk porn stars, and trample all over First Amendment rights — in many ways treating porn as if it were a criminal act, even though it is legal in the US. The net result is that 2257 makes every aspect of making adult porn undesirable, unfeasible and even dangerous to women, while doing nothing to actually prevent children from being exploited. Awesome! And now, the US gov’t has put forth new changes to 2257 laws, which are now open for comment (comments close September 10, so please say something even though they’re making it really hard to find the document or comment area).
In the meantime, my friends at Kink.com made the world’s best (and extremely informative) PSA for understanding 2257 laws — and yes, there’s nudity, because we’re all adults, and see if you can spot a) the kitteh, b) teh EFF, and c) the Jake.
