Rachel Kramer Bussel interviewed me this week about my article she selected and published in Best Sex Writing 2008 — “Kink.com and Porn Hysteria: The Lie of Unbiased Reporting?”. In the interview, I kind of forgot my usual filters and went *off* on mainstream media and how the way they cover sex and porn is the perfect example of how our media and news structures are broken — and how we can fix it.
Here’s a snip from an interview where I don’t hold back, and if you’re in town tonight there’s a Best Sex Writing 2008 reading at the Center for Sex and Culture at 7pm for free, hosted by Carol Queen (1519 Mission St. between 11th and South Van Ness, San Francisco; if you come please donate to the Center, they need the money!). I’ll be going on first. Interview snip from Violet Blue Interview About Porn and Mainstream Reporting:
What prompted your piece “Kink.com and Porn Hysteria: The Lie of Unbiased Reporting?” I know you were reacting to articles about Kink.com specifically, but how long had you been noticing this trend of unbiased reporting?
I write for the SF Chronicle; I’m their sex columnist. and on the same day my column ran “Open Source Sex” I had an interview with sex-positive alt porn director Eon McKai up. it was a great interview that showed the breaking down of porn’s redundant gender and physical stereotypes, the sex-positivity and inclusiveness of modern sex attitudes into the mainstream (which had been going on for a while, I was just drawing attention to the newest wave of it). porn from the POV of the makers, not the critics who don’t know what’s really going on. that week, local BDSM empire (and all-inclusive, sex-positive, politically minded local porn company) Kink.com had purchased the SF Armory for its new studio location. the Chron’s website bumped my column to the bottom of the page and ran a totally anti-porn, completely biased piece about a staged “protest” in front of the Armory — many have said that even the number of protesters stated in the piece was incorrect and more than the few who showed up. the website showed photos of Kink employees who were there to wash the building and called them “protesters” (though later corrected their mistakes).
the piece was so anti-porn, and especially anti-kink, I saw red. especially since Kink is one of the most incredible places to work — they treat their employees better than any company I’ve seen (except for Google), the performers are treated with respect, paid really well, have hair and makeup people, and are regarded as Olympic athletes. the cleanliness standards should be envied by every restaurant in San Francisco and copied by every porn company in the world. and the owner’s mission is to demystify kinky sex, normalize it, and make the world a better place for all sexual outsiders for doing do. the Chron’s hit piece disgusted me, the rest of mainstream media predictably followed suit, and I wrote a powerful response.
the reaction at the paper was extreme. let’s just say mainstream media found it a bitter pill to swallow when I criticized their lock-step anti-porn and anti-sex bias within its own pages. it was quite a scandal. but that’s what happens when a paper hires a blogger, you know?
You contrast religious groups’ opposition to porn with the coverage in mainstream papers like The New York Times and your own San Francisco Chronicle. Do you feel the anti-porn groups have been successful in getting their POV into mainstream papers or is it simply lazy reporting?
it’s both; mainstream media still sits behind its cozy little Fourth Estate wall of authority and assumption that everyone agrees sex is bad and wrong; journalists don’t have to bother questioning this point of view, even though the world’s view on sex has changed (and is changing rapidly) around them. MSM needs to get sex positive, because we can only make fun of them for so long…ultimately their attitudes are causing them to miss telling real stories and reporting with accuracy, which I think the corrective nature of the blogosphere will reign in eventually (…read more!)
Article very pleasant to read. Thank you.