WELLINGTON, N.Z. – Nothing brings politicians and political activists together like expressing grave concern about the impact of pornography on modern society. Few, if any, other issues have the same potential for creating agreement between the socially conservative religious...

NEW YORK – Generally speaking, I take a dim view of how the media covers porn. Far too often, the embedded biases of the author are too palpable: They start with the assumption either porn is a cultural disaster or all criticism of porn is informed by prudishness or a hostility...

PHOENIX – Many years ago, an attorney friend of mine gave me some sound advice about running an adult business. I’ve carried it with me ever since: “Never piss people off unnecessarily.” What he meant was, while it’s inevitable an adult business will piss off some...

WASHNGTON – When it comes to loopholes, nobody knows more about how to create and use them than the U.S. Congress. It’s a skill set which comes with lots of practice — practice which includes the occasional need to close such loopholes once public awareness of them has created...

GUADALAJARA – Over the 20 years or so I’ve been working within and covering the adult entertainment industry, I’ve found myself defending the rights of people to do a whole lot of things I will never do myself, from high-risk sex acts to outrageous publicity stunts and sometimes...

WASHINGTON – When the news broke about American veterans dying while waiting an unacceptably long time for health care through the Veterans Health Administration (VHA), there was universal consternation, just as there should have been. Whatever one’s feelings about the frequently...

NEW YORK – In the wake of the announcement Congress intends to repeal a Federal Communications Commission rule (albeit one that hadn’t become effective yet) that would have required internet service providers to obtain a customer’s explicit consent before selling their...

MONTGOMERY, Ala. – Of the numerous iterations of the “Human Trafficking Prevention Act” (HTPA) I’ve read since the proposed legislation began being debated by various state legislatures around the country, the version under consideration in Alabama seems the most problematic of...

HELENA, Mont. – Whatever happened to scuttle HB 129, a bill designed to augment Montana’s efforts to fight “revenge porn,” it’s safe to say the event does not represent a high-water mark in the history of governmental transparency. In a vote following the second...

LOS ANGELES – After watching the Rashida Jones-produced 2015 documentary Hot Girls Wanted, I thought I had a good read on Jones and her take on porn. Like a lot of others who have looked at porn from a liberal feminist perspective, Jones’s documentary concluded the porn...