CANOGA PARK, CA — The Free Speech Coalition, the trade organization for the adult industry, revealed its new board of directors for 2008-2009 during an annual membership meeting held in conjunction with AVN’s Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas last week. Four new members were elected to the board, and three incumbent members were re-elected.Sex educator and YNOT.com Editor Theresa “Darklady” Reed, attorney Eric M. Bernstein, Bijou Video’s Steve Toushin, and XBIZ publisher Tom Hymes comprise the new board members. All four have significant experience in the internet end of the adult industry.
In addition to YNOT.com, Reed is a regular contributor to AVN and president of Darklady Productions Inc., based in Portland, OR. She has run for public office twice and frequently speaks about the sex industry. “The continued survival and success of the adult entertainment industry, including ongoing 2257 legal and educational battles and the development of techniques to discourage piracy and encourage greater professionalism and integrity (including but not limited to talent-related health and safety concerns), are the most important issues facing the adult industry in 2008,” she wrote in a bio on the FSC’s website. “We must act before the government acts for us.”
Bernstein is the founding partner of the law firm of Eric M. Bernstein & Associates L.L.C., which is based in New Jersey and represents adult entertainment and adult internet clients worldwide. He is a member of the First Amendment Lawyers Association and he said he believes “the FSC stands as the most logical representative of not only the adult entertainment industry, but the adult internet component therein. As the adult internet industry continues to expand, FSC can stand as the best option to present a unified front to outside entities related to laws, regulations, perceptions and other issues.”
Toushin has more than 38 years of experience as owner and operator of a broad range of adult businesses and has survived 21 obscenity prosecutions predicated on gay content. He spent three years in prison because of his association with the adult industry and, while he was incarcerated in 1989, was awarded the Reuben Sturman Award “for legal battles on behalf of the adult industry.” In 2007, he received the GayVN Award for Lifetime Achievement. Now the owner of Chicago’s Bijou Theater (the oldest gay theater and sex club in the US) and ever the social activist, he said he believes “the adult industry needs to start a sexual research center for the betterment of the human condition.”
Hymes has worked in the adult entertainment industry since 1999, serving as editor in chief of AVN Online magazine before joining the FSC’s staff as its first communications director and later moving on to XBIZ. He took a lead role in FSC’s campaign against the .xxx sponsored Top-Level Doman and oversaw remodeling of FSC’s website. “The FSC [must] regain the trust and support of its membership and the industry,” he said. “As FSC develops more best practices [and] increases its consumer and mainstream media outreach and mobilization, we must speak with one voice even though we may disagree on specifics.”
Returning FSC board members are President Jim Everett (the Everett Retail Group), Treasurer Joy King (Wicked Pictures), and member-at-large Nellie Symm-Gruender (Passions). The remainder of the board is composed of attorneys Jeffrey Douglas and Reed Lee, Evotum’s Mara Epstein, Topco Sales’ Lynn Swanson, AVN Media Network’s Mark Kernes and NakedSword/Cubik Media’s Tim Valenti.
