After reading that thread and what some of these folks are saying….you wonder why Ashcroft and the Justice Dept are coming after them? Geez…I can imagine the conversation now…”Gosh I was just trying to empower women, and then the Feds swooped down and busted me. I can’t imagine why. I have done so much to promote shit eating and as we all know that eating shit will make a woman stronger…like spinach to Popeye”.
Dude…as a producer of porn you should step VERY far away from those folks. They will surely hear a knock on the door very soon.
Hell your stuff looks like Maxim compared to this…but you’ll be lumped right in there with them if you aren’t careful. Doing rapes and such will only add fuel to the fire, and eventually it’ll burn out of control.
I doubt there are 12 people that would find a rape/atm video as representative of “community standards.” But I guess they’ll find out sooner now than later.
Rape, Ass To Mouth, and two Directors Going Head to Head:
(Luke Ford has an incomplete version of this thread on his site, this thread fascinates me because it hit some hot buttons of mine that many of you are aware of, check it out, it’s very good reading)
Shameless writes on AdultDVDtalk.com: No studio wanted to rent us a space for tomorrow 8th March, but we will do it anyway: Sophia gets gang-raped in my brothers building company garages by 12 workers until she passes out in a pudle of sperm.
This will be the first scene we shoot for our new fake-rape line, staged deliberately on , the most popular secular commemoration day in Russia and Soviet Union alike. With the role of Russian women being reduced more and more into housewifes, we do wanna set an example of their right for selffulfillness and ultimate sexual liberation. Our model Sophia came up with the idea herself. Reading about womens rape-phantasies she found out how much she secretly dreamt about getting raped by a gang of dirty workers. In the film she provokes by teasing them in a very short mini skirt and fence fishnet stockings. As much as she is shocked about their sudden attack, she later enjoys most of the fucking.
Beware – this is far from politically correct!
Shameless Moscow> – All Anal Agency & Video Production
Mason writes: “This is disgusting. Please don’t release this.”
David Aaron Clark, a contract director at Video Team, writes: A bit surprised that Mason should be complaining, unless she doesn’t want the competition … yes, the idea of “fake-rape” porn is disturbing and therefore provocative … is it socially responsible? No. Are most of the raincoaters’ most beloved series/directors/companies socially responsible? HELL, NO!!!!! More often than not, commercial porn these days is a constant barrage of crude objectification and dangerous health practices all competing for the jaded wanker’s dollar. So how has Shameless proposed taking it any further than Mason, Zupko, Black, Jim Powers, Anabolic, RLD, Zero Tolerance, Extreme, etc? Literature and entertainment has been full of depictions of rape, starting with the Bible … we’re talking about fantasy material here, people. Why is okay to want to see shit on the end of a dick before it goes ATM, or girls’ sphincters stretched so wide and pussies pounded so hard by huge dicks on a daily basis that quite a few of them end up at the doctor’s office — but not a fictional depiction featuring consenting adults?
I don’t know that I’m exactly defending Shameless here, except to note he’s definitely doing nothing more than following the sterling examples set by the “in-crowd” who are regularly rewarded with fan adoration and awards …
Will be curious to see the responses to this one …
I’m not familiar with Shameless’ prior postings, but no matter how, um, “unenlightened” they may or may not have been, is he somehow morally qualitatively worse than Black, Powers, Ana, etc, who have actually staged and released and shamelessly promoted porn with such hot-button, violence-against-women themes? Knowing just about all the major, long-time players in the industry, I am constantly disturbed by the casual, brutal mysogynistic attitudes of some, which though may or may not overlap into their “private” lives and beliefs, is still fostering the kind of frat-house mentality both in their audiences and in wannabes like Shameless.
Don’t get me wrong, not only have I created work that disturbs some, but I have read plenty of Sade, seen plenty of pretty horrifying Japanese non-porn movies that dwell on rape to a morbid extent, etc. … I think IRREVERSIBLE is a stunning, powerful film, though of course it’s deliberately not designed to encourage masturbation …I’m not trying to play the naif here. But it seems like some might be … when a lot of the audience either support or shrug over the kind of stuff Khan Tusion, Max, etc, specializes in, I’m really curious as to how this admittedly tasteless mook becomes the one that crosses the line.
David Aaron Clark
davidaaronclark.com asianmouthclub.com
“The objectification and commodification of human sexuality beats flipping burgers or selling real estate any day. Even if it smells worse.”
Mason writes: I know that many people feel that porn is inherently dehumanizing. That the portrayal of women in a sexual context is dehumanizing. And that acts of degradation, humiliation, and aggressive sex are particurlarly dehumanizing (I do, however, struggle to understand how someone who feels this way can be a producer of porn). But, whether you like them or not, these are all actions that are implicitly and explicitly respectful of a women’s consent to engage in a sexual activity. At every stage it is abundantly clear a female performer is where she has chosen to be, doing what she wants to do (irrespective of her motivations) retaining the right to stop it at any time she feels so inclined. Hence, it is respectful, in the most basic way, of her humanity and autonomy, to decide, who, when, where and how, she will be sexual.
Rape, at least in it’s depiction, is the opposite. It is never respectful of a woman’s consent. It’s an assault on it. It’s coercion. It’s the complete irrelevance of any sexual feeling a woman might have. I just don’t believe porn is an appropriate medium to be exploring nonconsensual sex.
Rape isn’t aggressive consensual sex. Jessica Darlin, Katrina Kraven, Maggie Starr, Selena Silver and Julie Night were not raped. I hope this is absolutely clear to everybody but the insanely stupid. Any such comparisons demean the independence and control these women have over their lives and bodies, and more importantly, also demean and trivialize the act of rape itself. What angers me, Ramsey, is that the notion held by you and others, of what does and does not constitute rape is delineated by a fine line. It is not a fine line. They are fucking world’s apart.
I’m a bit surprised that someone with an IQ over 40 would compare rape to ATM.
Steph, an administrator of the board, writes: Shameless has claimed in the past that he respects women and cares about the welfare of the women he has hired. in reality his posts are so offensive that some women do not want to post here because of him.
David Aaron Clark writes: Well, sometimes it is a thin line between consensual sex and rape, but rather than be derailed by a debate over what constitutes rape in the real world and what does not, let’s stick to discussions of its depictions in art … By the same token that Jessica Darlin, et al were not in actuality raped, neither, presumably, would the Russian actress in question be performing without her own consent …
Of course I see the deliberate and sophomoric provocation by Shameless in connecting his shoot with International Women’s Day … and again, I say he’s doing nothing but imitating what he sees as the popular style of the day … I would advise those of those on this side of the camera to stop and think before decrying him too hard, since perhaps we’re providing the very context that inspires him …
Personally, I see cloaking one’s taste for brutal, exploitive sex under the guise of “feminist empowerment” is an old, out-of-date trope. Enabling damaged people to relive their traumas is a very dicey proposition, especially if one is not an trained and licensed therapist — as opposed to a porn director with a b.a. (presumably) under one’s belt.
I watched my friend Annabel Chong, newly filled with the trendy neo-feminist dumbspeak of the Academy, justify her gang-bangs, etc, as a way of empowering herself after having been gang-raped in London. But did John T. Bone’s shameless exploitation of her become part of her healing process? Having observed the situation first-hand, I would argue not. If indeed Mason thinks she’s “empowering” her female performers, why doesn’t she “empower” herself and appear in her own videos?
As to the ATM question: Considering that Sade was the first to commit the idea of an ATM to print, and that his libertines upheld anal sex as a preferable way to have intercourse with women because it helped objectify them, I would say that anyone who DOESN’T acknowledge that the primal appeal of anal sex and ATMs in today’s porn market, which is driven by a largely male audience, has a distinctly mysogynist, inhumane context is either playing stupid or indeed stupid.
BTW, ask Sharon Mitchell what she thinks of ATMs, in terms of a physically safe sex practice, all politics aside. They are a primary way to transfer disease — their dangerous, degrading image is exactly what drives their popularity in the porn market … I doubt Ramsey (hi, guy!) and others enjoy them because they are such an exquisite act of feminist self-realization. LOL.
And may I make the obvious point that the ATMs we see in porn are REAL –while the depiction of a fictional rape is not … though I suppose we can start arguing meta-text here, if anyone’s qualified.
Mason writes: Who do you think you are ascribing such melodramatic and cliched motivations to women who enjoy sexual acts like ATM. Who, between us, is being presumptuous. “Enabling damaged people to relive their traumas.” How dare you prejudge why certain women are sexually excited by their respective kinks. Oh but of course, you saw “Anabel Chong Sex Story,” so you feel you understand the breadth of female sexuality.
I don’t empower anybody. They empower themselves by having the courage to feel and be free, irrespective of the immature judgements made by someone like you. Maybe I don’t have the courage to do what they do on camera. Maybe that’s why I adore them so.
A fairly large proportion of singles and couples engage in anal sex everyday. It appears to me that you seem to think that any sexual activity has a distinctly misogynistic, inhumane context, because you’re entirely dismissive of any reciprocated desire for anal sex, atm, rimming or anything else that displeases you. Primarily because you predispose any such desires on the part of women as being rooted in some deep psychological trauma.
My point wasn’t that ATM’s are an exquisite act of self realization. My point was that there is a profound difference between the act of ass to mouth and rape, the example you offered in your original post when defending what Shameless was promoting as comparatively tame.
Porn star Kami writes: Mason never depicts forced sex in her movies. I think maybe some of the comments may be coming from folks who haven’t seen her films but know she shoots “rough sex”.
Woman do not have greater sexual rights to their fantasies than men. But mason does not depict women forcing men into these acts either. Her sex is rough but it is *obvious* that both parties are 100% into the thrill of it.
I asked a guy I knew had raped one of my friends why he did it. and he said he could tell she really enjoyed it by the time he was done.(this was high school and she never pressed charges)This is a popular but very wrong thought. I think we have a responsibility to not perpetuate that myth.
it is also a myth that woman ask for it by the clothes they wear.
And the biggest most offensive myth to me is that chicks that like rough sex are reliving some trauma and we are some sort of sniveling weak minded people incapable of deciding if we want to be in rough sex movies.
I like the rush of rough sex, I like surrendering myself completely to a lover. I like giving my body to them 100% and turning my brain off to feel every intense minute of it.This takes a huge comfort level and a lot of trust.
Mason meets with the talent several times, shoping talking dinner, to get to know the girls particular kink before she shoots her. My scene I did for mason was weeks in the planning with the male talent I requested and it was a fantasy acted out for me. I was not reliving some child hood trauma I was experiencing a type of passion and intensity I had never felt. so nah.
I don’t like some yahoo thinking its his to take. My sexuality and my submissiveness are mine alone to give.Mason portrays the willing exchange of power from one party to another.
To compare the movies Mason actually makes with the movies shameless pretends to make is shameless.
David Aaron Clark writes: First, on what I think is a most relevant and fascinating portion of this discussion — my belief is that porn DOES change you, that despite the Freudian theory that your sexuality is imprinted at an early age, it can most certainly still be influenced by input from the world around as you get older — were the American soldiers in Mei Lai rapists since childhood? The Japanese soldiers in Nan King? Any given ring of college frat boys? No, they are all influenced by the attitudes and values and behaviors demonstrated around them.
It’s no secret that TV happens to be an astoundingly strong hypnotic — why do you think advertisers pay so much for commercial time, and politicans seek exposure on it far more voraciously than in other media? When TV is the delivery system for the values embedded in a porn video, it can indeed be a powerful influence, and not just on the Mark David Chapmans or Mansons of the world — not everyone takes it quite that far. Or gets caught.
Certainly viewing porn has influenced my own sexuality over the years, in many ways. Neitzche’s warning about gazing into the abyss seems a trenchant touchstone here ….
I say this not in any way supporting censorship — just asserting that the artist is indeed responsible for the effect his work has upon society. Perhaps even more so in a popular, prolitariat genre such as commercial pornography, where you’re communicating with an audience that hasn’t sat through the same transgressive blah blah neo-feminist blah blah college classes that Mason and I obviously both have …
Now, to be bitchy for a second:
Dear Mason — what I find tiresome about your shtick is that you think you invented it. I say this only after enduring two stupid, childish insults from you — one which I countered by bringing up the health concerns of ATMs, a topic you handily ignored. Not to mention the anal sex question — I laugh at your specious, data-free assertion that “more couples are having anal sex in their private lives,” Gee, thank you, Masters & Johnson … I daresay they’re not doing DPs with nine-inch viagra and caverject-stiffened cocks, or getting fucked up the ass by the same six days a week for an hour a day in order to make their living.
Then you try to assert — like many an intellectually lazy product of what passes for a college education these days — that because I am not a woman I have no right to informed opinions or observations about female sexuality. I don’t think any truly thoughtful person would dare claim anything but that sexuality is a continuum that you don’t need to own a particular set of genitalia to understand.
I “understand” the supposed contexts of your wank fodder perfectly well. I have been writing and publishing articles and books (Ritual Sex, co-edited with Tristan Taormino in 1995, True Blood with Charles Gatewood in 2000, among others) for over ten years that examine and explore the sometimes transformative power of sexual rituals including submission and degradation. I have done the panel discussion thing for TES in NYC and at leather conventions, I have spent ten years being friends and collaborators with professionald dominatrices and submissives. I have been colleagues and correspondent with truly visionary artists like Dennis Cooper and Kathy Acker who explored this territory with much more depth and clarity of observation loooong ago.
Finally, I have participated in public performance of sexual ritual AND appeared in my own porn, so I am no armchair theorist applauding those who allow me to live out my fantasies from a safe place in the director’s chair — or behind a friggin’ mask. All my work — from the novels and articles to the porn — is under my own name, because this is not something I’m worried might hurt a “real” career.
And I am sorry to say you only embarrass yourself when you prove that you didn’t read what I wrote very closely at all: I didn’t form any opinions from “seeing SEX: THE ANNABEL CHONG STORY.” I was friends with the woman in question for years, and in fact did a lengthy, very probing and honest interview with her back in ’95 that kicked off our friendship — I happen to the last director she chose to work with before retiring (POISON CANDY, Heatwave 2000), and my observations about her are drawn from our ongoing conversations on such topics. In fact, if you check the mise en scene in SEX, you will find me in there. We are not ALL wannabes.
Mason writes: You seem so intent on attacking me and my work personally, David.
Where do I state I invented rough sex?
Where do I state you have no entitlement to your own views on women?
Where do I express these grandiose notions you seem so preoccupied by, that I was the very first to explore the ideas of female sexual empowerment?
You started this, David, by drawing direct comparisons to my movies and rape. You drew parallels between the performance of sex acts like anal and ATM and the depiction of rape. You made a petty remark that I consider Shameless’ production competition. This you tellingly, and quite conveniently forget.
The exercise in pretentious, egomaniacal masturbation that constituted your last post is extremely tiresome. It is abundantly clear that all you ever wanted to do was attack me and promote how awfully large that brain of yours is. If you want to critique what I do, and what I stand for, under the auspices that it is territory previously well explored, then maybe you should have the fortitude to do so out in the open, instead of through the veil of this topic.
David Responds:
My point, Mason, is that despite the intellectual rationalizations, to most consumers there is no difference between what you do and what the obviously odious Shameless is trying to get in on. I do see others in this thread pointing that out …
Unfortunately, you are answering my quite pointed reservations regarding the nature of your work with personal snipes that have indeed got my Irish up …. my initial side remark (“Afraid of the competition?”) was my comment on what I saw as the hypocrisy of your remark in light of your body of work.
Perhaps let’s resolve to keep any more such personal remarks on either side out of what should be a healthy debate … at this point, one of my issues would be that I still see NO answer to my discomfort with the questionable health practices of ATM and the kind of sex you like to depict and fantasize about, as well as what influence that has on the viewing audience.
As to whether the performances you stage and elicit from actresses are empowering or merely encouraging issues in need of legitimate therapy — you have your opinion, and I have mine. An examination of the lifestyles and emotional health of many porn performers might provide more concrete data as to whom is seeing things clearer, but failing a serious sociological study, we are both just arguing from anecdotal evidence, and indulging ourselves.
My issues are not with you personally since indeed we’ve never spoken, but with your work and the public persona which you have created to justify that work. You are as open to such questions as Max Hardcore, or myself, for that matter.
When I was questioning how different Shameless’s ambitions were from those of anointed fan faves, you were merely one of a list of directors I mentioned. However, none of them felt the need to engage in this discussion, because they pretty much know that their work is mysognynist and not exactly socially responsible. And couldn’t give a crap. They just shrug and cash their checks. I do applaud you for caring enough to respond — even if I happen not to be satisfied by your responses.
Mason Responds:
Truce, David.
Let’s both put the personal comments to one side. You might be surprised that I share your views on a range of issues, but, I won’t apologize for caring about the integrity of my work. I’m just not a self loathing pornographer. I invest my heart and soul in getting to know the girls I work with. I just fundamentally believe there is a distinct difference between the issues you’ve raised, and the depictions of rape in porn. It’s a personal feeling in my gut more than anything else. I hope we can respectfully disagree and maybe discuss this further in another thread, or via email. I think for now, we can both agree, that we’ve given Shameless way too much publicity.
And David Replies:
Very much agreed, and my apologies for the fact that I am indeed a ruthless debater — which is why I try to keep my mouth shut more often than not.
Honestly, I am also often not at ease in general with the psychological effect of sex work upon the sex worker — I have been around it too long and in too many forms not to see the undeniable damage that occurs more often than not, whether in discreet or more spectacular ways. And yes, Skronker, life damages us all … but the harder a life is, the more damaged we can become …
Even those who follow porn and have met some of the players and visited sets really don’t see the totality of what goes on every day here in the Valley … I have absolutely seen in the last five years a huge spike in the number of actresses who are requiring medical attention for the constant abuse to their mucal membranes, assholes and pussies literally ripped open … and saying, well, they should know better, or that nobody’s holding a gun to their head doesn’t wash with me. That strikes me as passing the buck. I have spent a long and happy time in the BDSM subculture, and it in no way resembles what now passes for business as usual here in the industry. In fact, I would say it’s ruined quite a bit of my personal appreciation for role-playing and “rough sex.”
I know and like both of these people but on this particular topic I find myself asking exactly the same questions David did. Ass to mouth is a VERY dangerous practice, one that is responsible for many illnesses in porn valley and even more disturbing are current threads in RAME aon adult DVD talk wanting to know why we don’t shoot dirty ass to mouth. Maybe the point is that eating shit is eating shit, whether you do it in small amounts or big lumps, I do fail to see the difference and I, for one, would love to see this particular practice (and others) voluntarily discontinued….of course this is porn and that ain’t about to happen.
One must also ask oneself at what time Khan Tusion will either directly or indirectly kill some girl who has no idea what she is getting into, despite all of his supposed efforts to explain what will happen to them, I have seen his work and frankly it disgusts me, even more it is disturbing that anyone would find it erotic at any level. This is a man with serious issues with his parents, he ,oathes himself, he loathes women and I’d bet dollars to doughnuts he has deep rooted problems with his mother and likely also his father, it could be that his work is the only thing that keeps him from being a serial killer, but I digress.
I’m no fan of fictionalized rape but I fail to see the difference in fictionalized rape and other fictionalized violence that Mason does in fact promote, and as David pointed out the dangers of ass to mouth are clearly not fictional, AIM doesn’t make a big deal about it because they have enough problems over there but they do know the toll that aggressive anal sex, ass to mouth, double vaginal penetrations, choking and other unsafe practices are taking on the performers in this industry, but then who cares really, for every one like Amee Donovan who leaves there are ten more in line to take her place.
I have long preached that if we can’t control ourselves Washington DC will do it for us…and that is indeed coming to pass. It’s time we stepped back and took a long and objective look at what it is we are promoting and ask ourselves just how responsibly we are acting. I will be the first to tell you that I am no role model nor do I want to be one , but I also do not even allow the performers on my set to engage in practices that are patently dangerous to their health and well being.
If Mason wants to contend that ass to mouth is empowering for the female ….well the only person she is fooling is herself, that particular practice is about as empowering as being “choked out” The only person it really stands to empower is the next of kin.
