Who is the first porn star you remember from a young age? For many people the first person they think of when they think of porn is Nina Hartley. Nina Hartley is a legend in her own time; she has been doing porn for more than 20 years, and she is still going strong. I had the great pleasure of meeting her in Las Vegas at the AVNs and I wanted to talk to her about a lot of things.
The condom ordinance has been the topic of much debate, and with its passing I wondered what Nina thought the ramifications might be. This law is being sold as a health issue, but in reality it is a censorship issue. The porn industry had AIM, which was the centralized testing agency for the industry. Testing and a clean bill of health was mandatory before you walked onto a set. Will this new law help keep everyone safer? That's the big question.
"It's 100% a disaster, it's politically motivated; it will put people in danger and has already done so. It's unenforceable and against the first amendment. It's not going to help or protect anybody. It is pure politics of the worst paternalistic anti sex-worker kind. It's too soon to tell what the consequences are going to be," says Nina. Nina hypothesized that permits may start to get pulled for porn sets that do not comply. That would hurt the city since each permit gives the city $700.
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PHOENIX (CBS5) -
Maricopa County attorney Bill Montgomery on Tuesday said any move by the California pornography industry to film adult movies in Arizona might be a violation of the state's law against prostitution.
Addressing recent reports that film production might move to Arizona, Montgomery said, "Under Arizona law, anyone paid to appear in a pornographic movie may be guilty of the crime of prostitution, which carries mandatory jail time as well as the possibility of other penalties."
Arizona law defines prostitution as "engaging in or agreeing or offering to engage in sexual conduct under a fee arrangement with any person for money or any other valuable consideration."
"Furthermore," Montgomery said in an official statement, "anyone involved in other aspects of producing pornographic movies, including soliciting individuals to appear, collecting a fee from the monies received by individuals solicited to appear by virtue of an agent relationship, transporting individuals from California to Arizona for the purpose of appearing in a pornographic movie, and/or establishing a venue for the filming and/or production of pornographic movies may be guilty of committing one or several felonies in the state of Arizona."
TEMPE, AZ - Could California's billion dollar porn industry be headed to the Valley?
One adult film star says it's a possibility. Taryn Thomas tells ABC15 Arizona could see an increase in adult films being made here because of a new regulation in Los Angeles. The Los Angeles City Council recently passed an ordinance requiring condom use on porn sets. Filming pornography is actually legal in California but that's not the case in Arizona, here it's considered pandering. But Thomas tells ABC15 pornography is shot in Arizona anyway. In fact, Thomas says the Valley is a breeding ground for adult film stars like her.
Thomas says with porn being a multi-billion dollar industry, Arizona should be happy to have it. "Ultimately it's going to bring revenue if it does come here," said Thomas. "Arizona should be thankful and begging us to come here because our state is in such a budget deficit."
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Meanwhile, the pro-mandatory condom guest, former prosecutor Wendy Murphy, did a quite comendable Shelly Lubben impersonation.
NEW YORK—One might assume that if you pair a prosecutor with a porn star in a debate on a serious legal, constitutional and sociological issue, the prosecutor would at least have the rhetorical upper hand. But if you tuned in to the John Stossel show last night, you would have seen a cage match in which the prosecutor looked like the ill-informed hysteric and the porn star looked like the knowledgeable and poised professional.
The adult performer was Digital Playground’s Kayden Kross, a true beauty who entered the industry in 2007 and has at least 62 titles under her belt. She had been invited on the staunch libertarian’s show to discuss a mandatory condom law that has been advocated ad nauseam by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation and was voted into law in January by the Los Angeles City council. Needless to say, both the host and the audience were impulsively inclined to oppose the government mandate.
The [former] prosecutor was Wendy Murphy, who, according to her profile on The Daily Beast, “is a former child abuse and sex crimes prosecutor who teaches at New England Law/Boston. Wendy specializes in the representation of crime victims, women and children. She also writes and lectures widely on victims' rights and criminal justice policy. Her expose of the American legal system, And Justice For Some, came out in 2007. A former NFL cheerleader and visiting scholar at Harvard Law School, Wendy lives outside Boston with her husband and five children.”