LOS ANGELES – I’ll be the first to admit that I’m easily confused at times – a function, perhaps, of my many years of dedicated pursuit of chemically-induced happiness.

Still, there are times when my befuddlement stems not from my own eroding mental capacity, but from the fact I’m reading something which doesn’t quite add up. I experienced such a moment this morning, when I read an article published by Fortune yesterday proclaiming “Adult Entertainment Industry Remains Shut Down After Positive HIV Test.”

“The adult entertainment business remains essentially on hold as studios have shut down production after a performer (reportedly male) tested positive for HIV last week,” the article states. “The shutdown, which was called on Apr. 12 by the Free Speech Coalition (FSC), a trade group that represents the adult entertainment industry, was initially expected to only last through Monday. But now the group says there’s no timeframe as to when shooting might resume.”

The main reason I suffered momentary cognitive dissonance over these lines, of course, is that the Free Speech Coalition put out several updates on its production hold, including one on Monday which stated “production could potentially resume as soon as late Wednesday or early Thursday” – and of course, yesterday’s announcement, which announced the hold had been lifted and shooting could commence again as soon as the PASS database reopened.

To be fair, it’s quite possible the Fortune post was composed before the FSC put out any of those statements, and/or published in between the updates which clarified the anticipated length of the production hold. Still, we live in a 24/7 news cycle world these days, and as of when I typed this paragraph, Fortune had yet to publish an update of its own.

Another erroneous, porn industry-related item from a mainstream outlet I spotted today is harder for me to fathom, because it can’t be explained by the author simply being a day or two behind the subject being addressed.

In this case, the eyebrow-raising claim is about a purported “association” between two adult brands which, if anything, are competitors – albeit ones with very different business models and approaches to the market.

In an article about Pornhub’s announcement the site is now accepting the Verge cryptocurrency, Techcrunch casually tosses out a “fact” which, unless I’ve missed a rather big announcement, is out of step with reality.

“You can also pay for a number of services with crypto,” John Biggs reports (in the half of the sentence which is accurate), “including Flirt4Free, a cam girl site associated with LiveJasmin.”

Come again? Flirt4Free is “associated with” LiveJasmin?

Granted, without knowing what Biggs means by “associated with” I suppose this could be construed as an accurate statement. For instance, if I’m associated with award-winning journalist Steve Coll by virtue of the fact we both write words, I suppose I can see how Flirt4Free is also associated with LiveJasmin.

The more I think about it, the more I like this way of constructing associations, in part because it means I’m a much more worldly, accomplished and well-connected person than I had previously realized.

For example, I ran track back in high school, only about 10 years before Michael Johnson won a bunch of gold medals in the Olympics, which means – ipso factoid – I’m associated with one of the most successful American athletes in history!

I don’t know about you, but I’m excited to see what we learn next about the adult industry from mainstream media outlets in the weeks and months ahead.

Will the FSC lift its “indefinite” production hold in time to declare the next one? Will it be revealed that, 12 years after Top Ten Filter Reviews first declared porn to be a “$97 billion a year industry” the industry’s aggregate revenue has finally increased or decreased enough to warrant a different number being circulated?

Only time will tell, I suppose. Until time reveals the answers to the questions above, I’m going to busy myself with perusing the most reputable mainstream publication I know of: The Weekly World News. Hey, don’t laugh; rumor has it they’re associated with the New York Times….

Crumpled Paper Image © jarpur