A View From Riverside Drive
Commentary by Edward A. Hynes
August 2005
Marie Claire gets a reality check on prostitution
In response to the article, “Prostitution Gives Me Power,” in the July issue of Marie Claire magazine, Ambassador John Miller, Director of the State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, wrote to the magazine to say he was disappointed, and why. Here are excerpts from his letter:
A growing body of research is revealing that, where prostitution is legal or illegal but tolerated, there is a greater demand for human trafficking victims and nearly always an increase in the number of women and children trafficked into commercial sex slavery by force, fraud, or coercion. . . Recent academic research in nine countries found that 57 percent of women in prostitution were raped, 73 percent were physically assaulted, and 68 percent met the criteria for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in the same range as treatment-seeking combat veterans. And 89 percent of these women used in prostitution said they want to “escape” from what your magazine attempted to portray as a legitimate, even joyous, occupation. . . .
The U.S. Government has come to oppose legalized prostitution not only because it is inherently harmful and dehumanizing, but also because it creates a thriving marketplace for victims of human trafficking. This connection cannot be disregarded if we are to be serious about ending modern-day slavery.
Profiteers in Berlin plan a massive brothel
Reuters reported July 29 that the investment company Artemis GmbH “is looking to cash in on an expected boom in the sex trade during next year's soccer World Cup with a 60-room brothel a walk away from Berlin's Olympic Stadium.” Prostitution is legal in designated areas in Germany.
The brothel is due to open this September. The mayor of Berlin, Klaus Wowereit, disapproves. He reportedly told the newspaper Bild, "We have no need for that."
Dortmund, another city where World Cup matches will be played, plans to build “drive-in wooden ‘sex garages’ in time for the tournament in a bid to keep the trade off the street,” according to the Reuters report. Prostitution is legal in designated areas in Germany.
Feminists begin a new anti-porn movement
Feminist activists, researchers and professors gathered in Boston in July to begin “a new phase of the feminist anti-pornography movement.” An “interim organizing committee” put out a note describing the meeting and its purpose:
“As pornography has become increasingly accepted and at the same time increasingly degrading and cruel to women, there is a growing recognition of the need to fight the pornography industry and the pornographic nature of mainstream culture. People working in the anti-violence movement and critics of corporate media’s dominance of the culture came together from around the country to strategize about how to address the multiple harms of pornography. . . The goal is to contribute to a progressive movement working toward social justice on all fronts. Our tentative name is THE NATIONAL FEMINIST ANTI-PORNOGRAPHY MOVEMENT. We expect to have a website shortly.”
And in Chicago in March, Captive Daughters (www.captivedaughters.org ), a non-profit organization committed to ending the sex trafficking of girls and adolescent females, sponsored a conference titled “Pornography: Driving the Demand for International Sex Trafficking.” The conference focused on the connections among trafficking, pornography and demand and the development of “a toolkit to empower activists working to address pornography's role in creating demand for sex trafficking.” The conference was cosponsored by the International Human Rights Law Institute of DePaul University
FTC moves to enforce ‘Can-Spam’ law
Back in 1931, federal agents finally got Chicago mobster Al Capone on tax evasion charges. What brings that to mind now is a July 20 news release in which the Federal Trade Commission reveals it has brought charges against seven companies that distribute “graphic sexual content” on the Internet. The companies are not charged with obscenity law violations, for which people in charge could go to jail, but with violations of the so-called “Can-Spam” law for failure to put warning labels on their poisonous e-mail.
The Commission’s release said the action was “a crackdown on operations that illegally expose unwitting customers to graphic sexual content.” U.S. District Court suits filed against three operations seek civil penalties and a permanent bar on the illegal marketing. The three are TJ Web Productions, LLC, a Nevada company; Cyberheat, Inc., an Arizona Corporation; and Impulse Media, a Washington corporation.
Settlements with four other operations have reportedly imposed $1.159 million in civil penalties. BangBros.com Inc., based in Florida, will pay $650,000 in civil penalties; MD Media, a Michigan corporation, will pay $238,743; APC Entertainment, Inc., a Florida corporation, will pay $220,000; and Pure Marketing Solutions, LLC, a Florida company, and Internet Matrix Technology, a corporation based in Louisiana, will together pay $50,000. The settlements reportedly bar the illegal marketing practices in the future and require that the defendants monitor their affiliates to ensure they are not violating the [Can-Spam] law.
There was no mention of the obscenity law. But, then, the FTC is not responsible for that.
New XXX Internet domain is porn racket’s latest play for legitimacy
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, a non-profit organization that oversees “domain” names for Internet addresses - such as dot-com, dot-net, dot-org, dot-edu, dot-gov and others - has added dot-xxx for the voluntary use of web sites that sell pornography. Call it a virtual red light district.
Stuart Lawley, chairman of ICM Registry, which proposed the dot-xxx domain and will administer registrations in the new domain, went so far as to say, “By moving forward with dot-xxx, the online adult-entertainment industry is taking part in a pro-active approach to its presence on the Internet, and making an identifiable commitment to responsible behavior and to the development of best business practices.”
We can be sure the porn producers and distributors, whose hardcore products are illegal under federal obscenity laws, and the laws of most states, and whose representatives sit on ICM’s board, approved of this statement.
It is absurd, of course, to speak of pornographers in such terms. But we know from history that if a lie is big enough, and repeated often enough, there’s a real chance people will begin to believe it.
Pat Trueman, senior legal counsel at the Family Research Council, pointed to the obvious truth. The dot-xxx domain, he said, "legitimizes this group, and it gives false hope to parents." Mr. Trueman is a former Justice Department official in charge of obscenity prosecutions.
In his statement on this matter, Morality in Media’s Robert Peters made several points:
It is doubtful. . . that the XXX tag will provide substantially more protection for children than filters already provide. . . .
Like ‘red light’ districts in real space, the Internet’s XXX district will also attract other types of crime. . . .
It is a federal crime (a felony, to be exact) not only to distribute child pornography on the Internet but also ‘adult’ obscenity” and most ‘xxx’ websites today peddle hardcore pornography, which is subject to prosecution.
[Yet] [w]e will hear over and over again that government has no legitimate interests in enforcing obscenity laws against Internet pornographers who utilize the XXX tag.
Pornography is not the same as prostitution, New York judge says
New York Law Journal (August 2, 2005) reports that New York Supreme Court Justice Budd G. Goodman denied a motion to dismiss charges against a woman accused of operating a multi-million dollar prostitution ring, holding that prosecuting her under the state prostitution statute while not prosecuting pornographers under that statute does not violate her equal protection rights. The woman charged with prostitution had argued it did.
The "court concludes [that] because the pornographic motion picture industry has flourished without prosecution since its infancy, that industry was not intended to be covered," Goodman wrote. "If it had meant to be covered, the legislature would have taken up the matter long ago."
Even assuming for the sake of argument that Justice Goodman is right about the prostitution law not covering the production of pornographic films, it is clear that another New York law - namely, the obscenity law - does cover the distribution of hardcore pornographic films; and it is about time Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau resumes enforcement of it.
Manna from Heaven’ storms the country, one town at a time
Family-friendly feel-good movies are Hollywood’s most reliable moneymakers because people like them… and because the studios beat hard on the PR drum to make sure we all know about them. One of the best of this genre - judging by the rave reviews it got in The New York Times, Washington Post, New York Post, National Public Radio, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, United Methodist Council, and others - is “Manna From Heaven.”
You may not have heard of it. This small gem of a movie didn’t get the big PR treatment from a Hollywood studio because it was created by an independent film company run by a family from Buffalo, New York, with an office now in Los Angeles - Five Sisters Productions, a shoe-string operation that has had to rely mostly on word-of-mouth, taking the movie across the country one town after another during the last two years.
In the movie, the story begins with a $20,000 windfall (literally) in the form of $20 bills that blow through the broken rear door of a passing truck and come floating down on a family’s lawn. This happens in Buffalo, of course. The family and friends at the house that day split the money and over the years go their separate ways, allowing themselves to take the word of a saintly little girl named Theresa, who said the money was a gift from God. Three decades later, Theresa, now a nun, decides it was only a loan and calls them all back to Buffalo, telling them the money must be paid back. How they do that, and in doing it find the hope and fulfillment the money hadn’t given them, is the rest of the story.
The cast is a wonder: Academy Award winners Shirley Jones, Cloris Leachman and Louise Fletcher, plus Jill Eikenberry, the late Frank Gorshin, Seymour Cassell, Shelley Duval, Faye Grant, Harry Groener, Wendie Malick, Austin Pendleton and Ursula Burton. The biggest wonder is how Five Sisters got them.
Well, getting Ms. Burton was easy; she’s one of the sisters.
Another is Gabrielle C. Burton, who tells us, “Like a little Energizer bunny, this movie keeps on going! It just played in Chautauqua [NY], and it will play in Oklahoma City in September. Bookings to be confirmed include Boston, San Francisco, and Denver too, and we just got emails requesting the film for Missoula, MT and Jackson, MS. The movie has, in a sense, taken on a life of its own -- it gets invited by groups or theaters to open in cities, and we work with them to be able to bring it to their town.”
In case you missed it in the theaters: MGM released “Manna From Heaven” on DVD and video on July 12, so it is available at Borders, Barnes & Noble, Media Play Stores and other retailers, and at this web site: http://www.fivesistersproductions.com/films/manna.htm
P.S. I must add that there is an unfortunate use of the s-t word at the beginning of the film.
Meanwhile, Hollywood pushes ‘Dukes of Hazzard’ and ‘Bad News Bears’
From our friends at the Family Research Council, we have this commentary on two movies Hollywood is pushing as family fare this summer: “The Dukes of Hazzard” and “Bad News Bears.”
In Hollywood's endless effort to draw families to the theaters, the summer of movie re-makes has emerged. From the re-creation of "The Dukes of Hazzard" to the re-design of "The Bad News Bears," Hollywood is hoping to cash in on people's fond memories of their childhood movies and television. However, most people will find that their childhood movies and television shows have been transformed from family-friendly programming into profanity-filled fare that highlights adult content and situations.
A prime example of this is the re-creation of "The Dukes of Hazzard." Ben Jones , who played "Cooter" on the original TV show, has recommended a boycott of the movie because it is not appropriate for family viewing, as the original television series was. Even the music video for the movie, which features Jessica Simpson as Daisy Duke singing These Boots Are Made For Walking, should be labeled as soft-core pornography. Meanwhile, the new "Bad News Bears" - a movie about a Little League baseball team--is not fit for viewing by real Little Leaguers, as it is rated PG-13. Hollywood might have more success if it would leave our childhood memories intact.
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