MSNBC on (some) female porn execs

Image by Michael Blue for Two Knotty Boys.

It’s always a good day when a mainstream news outlet profiles women working in porn and sex stuff and doesn’t marginalize them, and just kind of talks about the whole thing like it’s normal — but contextualizes it as a business like any other. Because, like, I’ll show you any day of the week (especially this week, I’m so sorry Leah) that the tech world and the Internet is a far more hostile environment for women than the tired old mainstream assumptions about women who build, climb and top the ladders at porn companies. So seeing Brian Alexander’s Women on top: Female execs rise in porn biz is a good voice to add to the mix and a recommended read; and I’ll also mention that I’ve chatted with Brian and been in his articles, and talked to him while he researched his new book, America Unzipped. He’s a nice, thoughtful man.

And it’s a good article — I love that he tackles the new anti-porn feminists’ arguments, and he quotes whipsmart Professor Constance Penley. It’s a balanced piece. And no, it’s not new information, though it’s a huge topic he put together nicely. But many of us will look at it and see what’s not in it. A lot of women. And like, the entire worldwide army of women porn execs who operate exclusively online. The piece also left out not just women like Theresa Flynt and Veronica Hart, but the younger generation that’s kicking ass and taking names right now (hello, Vivid!) But it’s worth reading and my favorite quote is about “the industry” being like “the media” right now; snip from the middle:

Being called ‘traitor’
But good intentions and economic empowerment certainly do not mollify anti-porn feminists. “I think the nicest word they have ever used to describe me is ‘brainwashed,’” said veteran performer and business owner Nina Hartley. “Usually it’s more like ‘traitor.’”

An organization called Stop Porn Culture, a group of academics and activists who believe that “patriarchal, capitalist society” fosters porn, states that regardless of who is in charge, many female performers “are under a variety of constraints such as economic hardship and a perceived lack of options. … We are critical of the industry that exploits these women, not the women themselves.”

King finds this 30-year-old argument unconvincing. “If you look at a single mom trying to put herself through college, and she works at a strip club, is she a victim? She’s found a way to earn more than she could waiting tables, working three jobs. I don’t see anything wrong with it.”

University of California Santa Barbara film studies professor Constance Penley, who studies the adult industry, agreed. Name an industry that’s different, she said. Because porn involves sex it is subject to what Penley calls “exceptionalism.” It is not judged in the bigger cultural context. But it should be. “You have to ask: Does it have more drug abuse or more suicides, more incidents of girls being sexually abused as children, more cosmetic surgery than Hollywood, TV, the recording industry?” she said. The answer, she pointed out, is probably not. So why pick on sex movies?

All business

Still, having more women signing the paychecks does not necessarily mean the industry as a whole is better for female performers. This is because there is no such thing as “the industry,” just as there is no such thing as “the media.” The sex business has become wildly diffuse thanks to digital technology, pirated downloads and the ease of distribution. There are probably more producers of porn who exist outside industry organizations that try to set standards and police the business than inside them. (…read more, msnbc.msn.com)