If the new rule stands, I predict a boom in "amateur" porn videos. Not that underage porn isn't a problem, but there's no way they can use a database to regulate every video out there.

I agree, florafloraflora. Underage is a problem, but this certainly isn't a solution; it's just a new problem.

I oppose the porn industry, so I'm not taking up the cudgel for the right to reduce women to commodities. But this is not an attack on the porn industry. They already have a requirement under 18 USC 2257 to have a custodian of records keep the IDs of performers. What this would do is put a lot more information in the hands of a lot more people.

What it will not do is prevent underage performers. I am not aware that, since 2257 has been in effect, women under 18 have been used in porn that purports to be 2257-compliant (real child porn doesn't pretend to be above-board, AFAIK).

What it will do, I am afraid, is intimidate women who are making porn now. I would like to see every woman making mainstream porn have a better alternative; and those few that really want to have sex on film as personal self-expression could get more of that need met doing something outside the mainstream anyway. But I don't want to see them chased out by threats to their safety and civil liberties.

There's a part of me that wants to oppose this addition on the simple grounds that underage porn has sweet fuck all to do with the abduction and murder of Adam Walsh! Loathsome as I find underage porn, the hysterical conflation of any bad treatment of children with abduction and murder is more stoking of parental fears in the hopes of cowing them further to authoritarian efforts against us all. This hollow and manipulative gesture will not only be worthless but also has the capability of doing harm to the very cohort it purports to help.

This is just an attack on the mainstream porn industry disguised as a way to prevent violence against minors. What it does do is collect undue amounts of information on porn stars in several databases which will no doubt be misused, abused, sold and distributed by people in and out of government. It exposes legitimate adult stars to harm while providing NO safety to minors.

After the Traci Lords fiasco the mainstream industry has stepped up it's protections against violating minors. It took some work, but the industry is doing it. Still, minors appearing in pornography is regular. Why? Because the people who produce such materials are outside of the mainstream productions. They work in countries all over the world. Sometimes it's just one individual (like the guy in Washington state convicted of abusing his foster children) and sometimes more than one. This new regulation will do nothing to address sick fucks like that. As such, it's political theater.

I'm confused. What's the point in collecting all this data unless it's gonna be useful for something or other? But with so much data being collected about so many people for so many reasons, how's anyone gonna make heads or tails out of it?

Haven't these people heard of quality over quantity? It seems like our strategy for law enforcement, the war on terror or whatever is to make as many haystacks as possible in which one would then have to search for the proverbial needles. Which seems kind of pointless to me.

It's as if all the worst dot-com business plans have roosted in the heads of those charged to keep us "safe": c.f. the underwear gnomes -- "step one: collect data, step two? step two? ... step three: put criminals in jail".

I am against the porn industry, but if mainstream movies have body doubles like "ass-doubles" etc, then what is to stop the porn industry from doing the same with underage preformers? How would the list prevent this?

Regardless of one's opinions on the porn industry, this is a horrible idea. It will do nothing--repeat NOTHING--to prevent the sexual abuse/exploitation/etc of minors or anyone else. Anyone who IDs as a feminist, someone interested in civil liberties and/or someone interested in preventing the sexual abuse of children--should be wary whenever politicians "go after" kiddie porn--it's generally used as a cover for cracking down on other threatening forms of "perverted" speech, generally attacking civil liberties, or, in the best case scenario, it's an easy straw man to lance in the interest of popularity.

The sector of the porn industry that this listing would cover is already minor-free--it is way too risky for commercial porn in the US to get anywhere near underage actors, the potential costs FAR outweigh any kind of benefits. Arguments on behalf of completely pointless (in so far as the stated purpose of protecting minors) data gathering excercises such as this thrive on ignorance of the subject under discussion--anyone with any familiarity with the porn industry knows that it's a scam and a sham. The fact that it's done in the name of child welfare is enraging to me--if the government would spend one tenth of the time and energy they spend on this joke of a war against non-existant commercially availble child porn on prevent the real, epidemic sexual abuse of children that is way too much of the norm--not to mention the real-world abuses of, oh I don't know, poverty, lack of health care, woefully inadequate public schools...

Sorry so ranty, this stuff really riles me up!

I don't get it. I work payroll for a pizza chain. Since there's dough mixers et al., we have to keep tabs on how old our employees are. Child labor laws, I believe, is what they're called. Don't these also apply to the porn industry? How are porn actors paid? Don't they have to be on a payroll somewhere? Payroll records, as such, hold social security numbers, addresses, all sorts of private information. But if those records were to ever become public, I would no doubt be heavily sued and lose my job. How do the current labor laws not apply to the porn industry? If I can make sure that no one under 17 is delivering pizzas, how come they can't make sure that no one under 18 is serving as a fluffer?

I agree with the above sentiments; this is in no way a serious attack on underage porn but rather just one more entirely unacceptable way to harass and endager women (and men) in the adult industry. The new 2257 regulations caused a big upset in the adult industry because of the amount of time, energy, and effort that had to be put into producing the new documentation, and the content that had to be jettisoned if models from months ago could not be located to fill out the new forms. It was a giant hassle and I've yet to see any data (I doubt any exists?) on how exactly this improved or effected the employ of underage performers.

The adult industry has too many of age performers who are willing and able, and is too aware of its status as an easy target for the government to tempt any problems by hiring underage individuals. I don't know how often anyone will say this on feministing, but yay, hustler! I am glad to hear they are taking this on.

You know I have wondered for a very long time why porn "acting" is legal but prostitution is not.

I don't mean to be anti-porn by putting it that way...but my understanding is their are rules in California (where a lot of the porn is shot) about taking money for agreed upon sex acts.

How is that not the situation in porn "acting?" The contracts are often very specific about what "act" the actress will do on camera for what amount of money. How is that not the same as prostitution? At least in a legal sense.

Maybe legally there isn't any difference but as a matter of custom one is prosecuted and the other isn't? Or is there an exemption in California law cut out for performance on film

NewsCat, I can't believe I never realized that before. If it's illegal to exchange money for a sex act, it should be illegal to get paid for having sex on camera as well as off. That's so weird. I guess because people think of porn being watched rather than being shot, the free speech issue comes up before the comparison to prostitution gets made. Still, I can't see why that would be legal.

It sounds like this is only going to make things worse, because if people don't want their information out everywhere, they might do the not-above-board stuff instead, and then there are no regulations.

That was my first thought too, ekf: What the hell does Adam Walsh have to do with child porn??

What consenting adults do purely for pleasure is a matter of privacy, but once money enters into the equation, the potential for exploitation rises sharply.

To combat this, I think it's essential to professionalize for-proft sex work. Licensing and registering sex workers and producers is the first part of that. Additionally, I'd require unions and royalty payments.

Right now, sex workers get paid a flat fee for their work, regardless of how many copies are distributed and sold. Unlike any other kind of professional performer, they have no right to reap profits from the resale of their work. To a young, uneducated woman, $300 for an hour's work may seem like a lot of money. But when the web site owner who streams her video 100 times a day rakes in four times that, she's really getting exploited.

Underground porn has always existed and always will, and controlling what gets produced and sold offshore is impossible. But we can reduce the exploitation going on right now by requiring porn producers to use only licensed, unionized performers.

Federal law already requires porn producers to document the age of performers. Joe Francis, who founded the company that made the Girls Gone Wild series, paid out over $2 million in a plea bargain because he failed to do this.

So, if there's already a law that prevents underage performers from being in porn movies, what's the point of this new law?

"If they can't get you for obscenity, they'll get you for violating record-keeping"

Bingo!

This law is pointless. Big-name porn producers are not willing to use underage performers for fear of paying out millions of dollars in fines and restitution (bad) or going to federal prison (worse). Since most child porn comes from places in Asia and Eastern Europe, this law will only impact the legitimate porn producers in the US who were already following the law.

Speaking as a pornography enthusiast, I have no problem with fighting child porn. But this isn't the way to do it.

According to one article the key difference will be that this new law covers all sexually simulative acts, not just explicitly sexual acts.

And the point about porn being legal, but prostitution being illegal, could it be some loophole regarding who is actually paying the person to have sex? A prostitute gets paid by someone to perform sex acts on/ with them. Presumably in porn both performers are being paid by a third party. I realize that's a ridiculous distinction to make, especially if you're basing the law on it. But that's the only excuse I can think of for prosecuting one and not the other. (Like I said, it's ridiculous and I'm not defending it, just throwing it out there as a possible reason)

This is just another sick twist against porn industry. If anybody is filming underage, they are not going to put their names on any book today because it is already against the law. Pure american-style politics, pass a useless law so it looks as if you are doing something. They will not pass any efficient law because that will require some thinking.

The Trash Queen, do you believe that every performer has a share on every copy of their performance sold? that is only Hollywood and the big stars. Businessmen/women are there for business, not to share their happiness and American dream. And your exploitation theory about women can also be applied to the men performing on the film; there are sex objects on both sides.

Children in porn (and animals, poor little beasties) is awful. Indentured servitude (which happens a lot in sex work as it is now) is awful.
You just can't legislate to prevent every horrible occurance from happening, though, I am sorry. Shit will happen no matter what - people will slip through any cracks that could possibly exist, and it is awful. How we respond is what is of the utmost importance! Our reactions to and views about this sort of thing is dictated by the values we cultivate as a society, and I can't say people who view others who make their living doing sex work as lesser or disgusting make that change any easier for society to make. It doesn't matter if you think its demeaning, the women are able to make a choice to get into their profession, and who are you to judge (even if you have only the best of intentions)? They're adults...well, we hope.
But do check yourselves, porn/sex work naysayers.
You are no better or worse than these people, they do a job just like the rest of us. People are always going to be voyeuristic, people are always going to want to see someone nekkid. You just really have to deal with it/suck it up and support the brave souls who go into that line of work, ala unions and whatnot. They deserve every bit of protection at work that we can figure out, as does anyone else. How anti-feminist to consider denying them anything but that.
The negativity only allows the afforementioned gaps to widen and for more women (possibly underaged girls) to fall thru at a larger number. Help these ladies out, seriously. It's rough to try and get help when everyone looks down on you as nearly subhuman.

That being said, this bit of news makes my skin crawl. Government involvement just isn't the answer to all...they get all invader like on the privacy tip. Like when they take pictures of the Raging Grannies in my town at their weekly anti-war vigil. What is wrong with this institution (govt)?!? "We invade your privacy because we CARE".

My first thought when reading this?

That's gonna be tricky, giving how people in porn seem to have trouble spell their own damn (working) names half the time. Would the alternate spellings be listed as aliases?

Just for an example I went to Wiki to see if I could find any porn stars with alternate spellings. Lanny Barbie, a fairly popular adult entertainer, has at least four spellings of her working name, and even she doesn't seem to be sure which is the "official" one.

And that's not even counting the many name changes some women (and men) in the business go through, hoping one will prove more marketable than another.

and the Google ads sidebar beside this story is offering me a way to search government records, sex offender histories, etc. but yeah, i'm sure all those sex workers' personal information and histories aren't going to fall into the wrong hands.

(ps, i know the google ads mechanism scans the content of webpages and posts related ads. if anything, it proves rather than disproves the idea that this law is a terrible, civil-liberties stomping, dangerous piece of hate trash.)
(pps, i can't imagine who has "the right hands")

This isn't new, it's just an addition that were just recently announced to the original 2257 laws. 2257 recordkeeping is already burdensome and ridiculous as they were -- they required not only that original producers (people making the content) keep records but secondary producers -- anyone who distributes it on the web -- to keep the exact same records on hand.

These laws aren't really made to help; they're made to make the burden of operating so heavy that US adult producers can't which is the Free Speech Coalition has been fighting against it since it was first passed.

I think that porn is absolutely disgusting and should not exist (particularly considering the standards to which men now hold vaginas). That being said, sometimes people have to do things for money that they will later regret. Any sort of background check agency wold surely be able to get their hands on this mast database. Should these people's future employers really know that they were once Lana Barbie?

I think that porn is absolutely disgusting and should not exist (particularly considering the standards to which men now hold vaginas). That being said, sometimes people have to do things for money that they will later regret. Any sort of background check agency wold surely be able to get their hands on this mast database. Should these people's future employers really know that they were once Lana Barbie?