What does it mean to be “honest” about porn and the nature of the porn industry? Is it true that, over the history of porn production, some terrible things have happened on porn sets? There’s no question in my mind this is true, although not nearly as widespread and commonplace...

ATLANTA – How many Americans now remember, or ever realized in the first place, there was an H1N1 flu outbreak in 2009 that reached a level where public health officials declared it a pandemic? How many would recall then-President Obama declaring this strain of “swine flu” a...

LAS VEGAS – As is always the case following a transition of Presidential power in Washington, here at the dawn of 2017 the adult industry finds itself wondering what the years ahead might bring in terms of increased obscenity prosecution, new regulations, or yet another revision...

SAN FRANCISCO – One of the great frustrations of someone who writes about the adult industry from within it comes in reading articles about the same subjects written by people on the outside looking in. Among other things, I’m consistently mystified by the credulity of...

COLORADO SPRINGS – The first time I heard the voice of James Hetfield, it was growl-shouting the words “Lashing out the action, returning the reaction / Weak are ripped and torn away / Hypnotizing power, crushing all that cower / Battery is here to stay!” Soon, evidently, I’ll be...

SAN FRANCISCO – When I first heard about Kink.com acquiring the Mission District Armory in San Francisco some years ago, I thought of the moment as a potential watershed for the progress of the American adult entertainment industry. A porn studio poised to operate (openly!) in a...

BISMARCK, N.D. – For many years, I believed former attorney Jack Thompson, the man who once prosecuted 2 Live Crew for obscenity, spent years concocting and promoting flawed legislation that sought to regulate video games like pornography and was later disbarred for a variety of...

LONDON, Ontario – One of the reasons the scientific method has been so successful over the centuries is its reliance upon the ability of researchers to reproduce outcomes as a way to confirm prior experimental results. Repeatability and confirmability are crucial elements of any...

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – Let’s say you woke up one morning and found your Twitter feed lit up with outrage over the airing of gay porn on a popular television show. What sort of sex acts would you assume the offending program had aired? Playing the odds, would you assume it was...

WASHINGTON – There’s an old quote you might have heard about how “nobody has ever gone broke by underestimating the intelligence of the American people.” Of course, H. L. Mencken never actually wrote those words, but a great many people believe he did, because this is what...