Question: What can happen to you when you make porn for a living?

Answer: Erotic entertainment happens to be a question I get asked about a lot, and somehow it always seems timely or relevant. Especially after what happened yesterday to fellow sex educator and feminist pornographer Tristan Taormino, when she got uninvited to keynote Oregon State University’s student run “Sex Week” event. Their reasoning had to do both with the porn that she makes, and with Tristan’s website, but WTF is TBD (the big deal, I just like using letters instead of words on occasion) when lots of people consume porn and visit Tristan’s site?  The big deal is that even well-intentioned people, making well-intentioned and well-made erotica, get banned, and censored, at home and abroad (read about Tony Comstock’s Damon and Hunter being banned here).

Allow me to delve even deeper into porn world for a moment….

John Stagliano just got taken to federal court last year for porn his company produced. That was serious too. And it’s serious that Max Hardcore is in jail for making porn, (I’m not saying his porn is all right, or necessarily alright, but that doesn’t mean I don’t think he should be able to do it. He doesn’t have a choice now though).

Even when you’re not Max Hardcore, and you’re trying to make ethical porn, you’re still making porn, and for some people that will always be an issue. You may lose a few friends, a few jobs, have problems with the law, your love life and the PTA. To avoid some of this, might I suggest using a nom de plume so you can at least try to have some non-porn identity. Making erotica won’t make you The Greatest American Hero, but it will get you attention.

Like the kind it got Tristan. which while not bad press, just abhorrent censorship, still made me feel for those people afraid of hearing sex positive messages.  It must be difficult to be so afraid to even talk about something like sex, something that’s wired in us like breathing, eating and sleeping. I know we’re all a tad bit curious about some aspect of our own, or someone else’s, sexuality, even if we’re more interested in thinking about why we choose to abstain, rather then partake. No matter what, we all all deserve the chance to watch and learn.

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To learn more about first amendment rights, check out Feminists for Free Expression.