L.A.J. WEEKLY

I don’t know. Call me crazy. Call me a party pooper. Call me a fascist asshole. Just don’t call me late for dinner. But call me whatever you want though after what I say here… the minimum legal age for adult models anywhere – on the Internet, on the stage, in magazines – should be raised to 21.L.A.J. WEEKLY

I don’t know. Call me crazy. Call me a party pooper. Call me a fascist asshole. Just don’t call me late for dinner. But call me whatever you want though after what I say here… the minimum legal age for adult models anywhere – on the Internet, on the stage, in magazines – should be raised to 21. They should look and act 21 and over, too. Yep, that’s right. There are just too many scumbags out there – pedophiles and the people who cater to them – that are ruining it for the rest of us.

How the hell could this be made possible? What kind of stupid ass censorship and regulation is THAT you might be thinking? Well, please allow me to explain. Aside from my own personal beliefs that anything or anybody under 21 or purporting to be under 21 is too young anyway, it will greatly benefit our industry as a whole, and completely separate ourselves from the real pedophiles of the world without question. Of course tons of people would lose their shirt over this if it became law because extreme youth is their livelihood on the Internet, but I’m thinking for the good and welfare of the adult Internet in general. You can’t please all of the people all of the time.

However, we as an industry do need to be concerned about the issue of barely legal models and sites that cater to ‘teen’ tastes. Why? Because even though you may be following the law to the letter as it stands, underage models slip through the cracks all of the time, and as well, there are tons of so called ‘legal’ underage model sites out there that showcase people under 18 that are dressed…barely. As the government continues to crack down on the adult Internet, the lines are becoming more and more blurry as to what really constitutes child porn. And I can tell you that if any changes need to be made as to what is legal in our industry, I sure as hell would like it to be proposed by a first amendment attorney with an adult Internet background calling the shots rather than a conservative with strong religious beliefs and no vested interest in our industry at all.

I realized the problem with underage model sites claiming to be strictly a talent showcase with paying memberships to be something we all should be worrying about with the recent release of the following articles: A Wired article (http://www.wired.com/news/ebiz/0,1272,45346,00.html) that focuses on girls as young as nine years old collecting memberships on their own personal model sites, and a Salon article (http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2001/08/13/cam_girls/index.html) that details teen girls with web cams collecting gifts from strangers. It is absolutely mind numbing how many so-called legal teen and underage model sites there are out there, that tote themselves as “talent” sites, showing young girls (and boys) posing seductively and in various stages of undress. OK, there is the question of “how do you draw the line with things like this versus say a naked village in Africa with unclothed children running around in National Geographic or an artists rendition of well… nude underage art at a museum exhibit?” I don’t know. This is such a tricky situation that I wish more people in our industry would pay more attention to. But I know, this is along the same line as “what are the standards in YOUR community” and “what does a NORMAL person consider OBSCENE?”

But let’s face it folks… deep inside we all really know that many of the adult “teen” and no doubt most of the underage “model” sites do profit off pedophiles, whether it is the intention of the website owner or not. But of course we can’t have things both ways. If something is legal and stands by the First Amendment, it doesn’t matter what the content is or whom it caters to. Personal taste should NEVER get in the way of legal decision-making. Same goes for that recent case in Ohio regarding putting a seven-year jail sentence on someone’s thoughts – regardless how sick and depraved they are, as was discussed here around the time the subject first broke (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/print/nationpolitics/A44110-2001Jul24.html). (The linked article describes the Libertarians who rallied behind the Ohio man sentenced to seven years in prison for writing fantasies of child molestation in his private journal.)

I also recently did some searching around on Yahoo! – the big squeaky clean company who made a huge production number of having nothing to do with porn anymore several months back when Terry Semel took over as CEO, yet continues to profit heavily overseas anyway (http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-6773373.html?tag=lh) (Yahoo! still allows hardcore images and ads on their German website). I also found something even more unsettling than all of the above. The fact that Yahoo! is hypocritical doesn’t bother me as much as the fact that they have this available (http://dir.clubs.yahoo.com/Cultures___Community/Groups/Teenagers/Girls/): A frightening list of links and their descriptions to various teenage girl clubs. It seems to be largely unregulated. If you take a look at some of these sites, shouldn’t an alarm go off in your head somewhere? Equally disturbing is an article I found (http://www.geocities.com/fal_85/garysmiththetruth.htm), which describes several allegations of molestation and improper conduct to minors against model website operator Gary Smith, written by a person named Grigory E. Rasputin. Now I’m not really sure how much credibility this person has, but if he has any it would seem logical to me that this Gary Smith should not be in business anymore and behind bars. Actually, the more searching I did, Mr. Smith still appears to be doing business and running underage model sites… and business is good.

So, to avoid any confusion with our industry at large, and the people out there who cater to pedophiles or are out just to make a buck or two… to destroy any possible connection with “us” and “them”… I propose that the words ‘Teen’, ‘Lolita’ and even ‘young’ should be removed from our industry, our vocabulary, and our websites sometime in the future. Oh yes, this would hurt us all in the short run, but I’m thinking long term here. There is just too much of a narrowing gray area here, and do we really need something like that in addition to everything else perceived as ‘wrong’ in our industry?

Besides, let’s also look at it this way – consider just the word “teen.” Legally this can only apply to 18 and 19-year olds, which statistically only includes about ¼ of what is considered a teen in the general meaning of the word. Throw ‘young’ or ‘Lolita’ in front of that, and which way do you have to go? Suddenly it takes on a whole new meaning. Do you see how that connotation screws up the works, and can put bad ideas into the minds of those in power? Often times you will see these so-called ‘teen’ sites, and you’ll be reading the model’s bio claiming her age as ‘just turned 18’, when so often is the case that the model is 25 or even 30, and looks it. Not that there is anything wrong with the 30-year old model (or even the 40-year old model for those that know my personal tastes), it’s just that it is all about feeding into the fantasy of older men looking for younger women…in many cases much younger… in all cases too young. We need to distance ourselves as an industry from anything at all that has any element of it catering to the pedophiles of the world, and upping the minimum age as the standard to 21. That would be a good start.