Feds hand eight-count obscenity charge to porn producer
Or as Wired's Threat Level put it, porntrepreneur John "Buttman" Stagliano was busted for "selling adult content to adults." If convicted, he faces a possible prison sentence and up to $7 million in fines. The eight count obscenity indictment was issued this week, and the Department of Justice released details in a press release before handing down charges to the defendants.
Three pornographic films are mentioned in the DoJ papers:
* Milk Nymphos
* Storm Squirters 2
* and Fetish Fanatic 5, which features the porn performer Belladonna.
So, women squirting dairy products out their butts, and Belladonna hosting some sort of enema party? Oh, BFD, DoJ, as a nation do we not have more noble battles to wage?
BB pal Reverse Cowgirl wondered aloud over email,
I just wonder about the meetings, at the DoJ, OPTF, and AOS. Was it like, say, a Tuesday, and one agent's like, we need to go... FOR THE SQUIRTERS. And then, was one other guy like, YEAH, AND MILK.Also worth noting, the Belladonna movie box cover displays this sage advice:
"If nothing else, you ALWAYS do your enemas before going out to party!"Adult news site XBIZ had this quote from Stagliano's attorney, Al Gelbard:
"The charges are what they are; I disagree with them politically and morally,” Gelbard said. "It's a waste of the government's resources. We're very confident that we'll prevail at trial." ...And Richard Abowitz at the LA Times managed to pry a comment from Stagliano himself, against his attorney's advice:
The charges are real and something bad could happen. But I look at the world with wonder and amusement, especially when it comes to the government. I am hoping this will result in a bump in sales for the films. It is all films I distribute and not a single one I directed. I wish my 'Fashionistas' had been chosen. The films are hard, but I have real artistic ambition. I wonder how closely they watched? I am surprised the government, with the war and the economy, has time for this.Over at AVN, Mark Kernes posted a piece titled "Stagliano Indictment Raises Unique Questions Regarding Minors' Internet Access," in which one attorney argued that the case is "a set-up for a titanic battle over two major constitutional issues" -- and old laws involving "indecent telephone messages."
One charge, however, that hasn't been seen before in a case involving adult material accessible from a Website is under Chapter 47 of the United States Code, Sec. 223(d), "sending or displaying offensive material to persons under 18."Fleshbot has a related post (NSFW), with links to the DVDs in question -- which adult stores are said to be yanking off the shelves as I type.That section reads, in pertinent part, "Whoever, in interstate or foreign communications, knowingly ... uses any interactive computer service to display in a manner available to a person under 18 years of age, any comment, request, suggestion, proposal, image, or other communication that is obscene or child pornography, regardless of whether the user of such service placed the call or initiated the communication; or knowingly permits any telecommunications facility under such person's control to be used for an activity prohibited by paragraph (1) with the intent that it be used for such activity, shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than two years, or both."
(thanks, Reverse Cowgirl! Image: Luke Ford, via Wikipedia.)
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I, for one, welcome our new butt-milk squirting overladies.
They're just trying to reignite the culture wars in time for the election. The religious wingnut vote is looking shaky. Still won't drag McCain's sorry ass across the finish line.
What the hell is butt milk??? That's not exactly what comes out of my personal butt.
Surely this will go down as the Great Butt-Milk Debacle of 2008. Stagliano makes a great point. Why can't we taxpayers have a say in whether the DoJ's money is better spent imprisoning someone called "Buttman" or fitting Iraqi children with prosthetic limbs?
There is no such thing as Justice anymore.
The only thing more amazing than the fetishes in question are that the government would waste its time and our tax dollars with this. And can anyone say "selective prosecution"?
Wow, until now, I really didn't know anything about obscenity laws. I completely agree with laws that protect children, but laws that prevent people from shipping perfectly good porn to consenting adults? That's beyond ridiculous.
well,I guess these rat-fucking, hypocrite nazi bastards who write such drivel and try to ram it down the throats of free humans are all eligible for two years in the can. I mean, READ this tripe: "uses any interactive computer service to display in a manner available to a person under 18 years of age, any comment, request, suggestion, proposal, image, or other communication that is obscene" I call THAT obscene and I think I could get a community standards vote to back me up.
The great thing about obscenity laws is that they don't define "obscenity", so the only way to know whether you're guilty or not is with the jury's verdict. It's not like you can say "well, this particular act is illegal to show, so I won't include it."
Well, the homebuilders quit donating.
The realtors quit donating
The bankers went broke
Who else are they going to go to for money?
First you threaten to regulate them
Then they start supplementing your salary.
Politics .....
The real obscenity is that this is from a government that tortures. At least this guy's porn is from consenting adults.
I'll absolutely guarantee that whoever brings this to trial has a huge collection of kiddie porn hidden away at home. And I'll further guarantee the judge that tries it likes to pick up underage prostitutes, beat and rape them and then threaten them with jail.
They'll both own bibles.
Just as a public-service message:
Nothing about pornography.
Nothing about obscenity or indecency.
Nothing about protecting children.
That is all.
Not only does this government torture Vorple, George Bush signed off on it. We now have a memo, signed by Bush, approving torture. Memo Signed By Bush
Absolutely nothing will be done either. Though it wouldn't surprise me to see even Dems grandstanding over this porn bust. Something is deeply broken when we pursue stupid things like this but fully embrace torture.
Kiddie porn? Beatings and rapings? The Bible? You do realize that there are no contradictions in this grouping.
Wow, some of that was waaaaay more information than I ever wanted to know.... Ewwwwww......
Noen: It hurts your credibility and your cause when you misrepresent what that link says. Are you doing a Bill O'Reilly impression?
yeah, it's repulsive when you're told what your government is doing
a memo, signed by Bush, approving torture.
link confirms
who's the Goatse Oreilly here?
I have cred? Who knew? So where's my posse?
Hmm. It seems the community standards approach still applies.
So, if I was his lawyer, I'd start by pointing out how much money the porn industry generates. Then look at how much of the internet traffic is porn related.
The community at large consumes a tremendous amount of porn. They may not be willing to admit to it, but the fact that they do establishes a good basis for a defense.
I'm against ALL obscenity prosecutions, but this one is particularly awful - watch his movies, guys, especially the one he made with feminist sex educator Tristan Taormino. Buttman is like the sweetest guy in the porn industry. Prosecuting him is like prosecuting Cookie Monster.
No no no Daemon, first you point out how much money you make, then you make a "donation" to the appropriate campaigns, the judge, the congressman ect. And finally you send the Milk Nymphos over for a "private screening". There has got to be a GOP Senator into that! Sheesh, get with the program, this is how government is done.
What is obscene is the "richest" country in the world with so many people without any medical cover, with more than 17 million people living on food stamps... and there is much more... unjustified wars, gvt lies, torture, etc... etc... but porn?
US citizens, it's time to react!. Stop being so selfish. Your country is going down the drain...
Not to side track, but you know, I really should know better than to click on a Wikipedia link at 2 am. I saw the link for Belladonna, and thought "huh, didn't think she was big enough to be on Wikipedia (not like Jenna Jameson or Tera Patrick)". So I click. Then at the bottom is a link to a list of female porn stars. Needless to say it's now 3:30 am, and I've learned several interesting things, the most amusing one is how serious Wikipedians are about their porn stars (go read the discussion on Jenna Haze). And I haven't seen one nude pic of any of them...
Anyways, I really just want to agree with what PJCamp said, about how they always drag out moral issues when election time is near.. like the whole homosexuality is destroying America stuff in 2004.
FPF422 thank you for that refresher on all of the democrat's talking points for the last 7 years. You're too good to us!
You want to know what's really obscene? We are currently spending $5,000 a SECOND in Iraq!!! That is Obscene. Actually it's BEYOND obscene. I don't even think the word exists for that.
i worked at a (now closed) video store when i was in college - Major Video in NOLA, for you southerners here - and they ended up being brought to court for similar - ridiculous - obscenity charges. the way i heard it, a jury in baton rouge was made to watch hours and hours of their most salacious inventory. i don't know if it was the aesthetic maturity of the midget smut or what, but they were ultimately let off the hook.
#7 posted by BrooksT and #19 posted by Daemon both are key points and deserve to be repeated.
First, obscenity law is the only law where you don't know if you've broken the law until you're been found guilty. The idea is to scare everyone into dropping out or being so tame as to be useless.
The community standards argument was used successfully in Utah - not by referencing internet traffic, but by looking at pay per view adult video consumption in SLC's hotels. Still, the idea of community standards still seems like mob rule. While the Fed's haven't gone after gay male adult materials, if they did, community standards would be interesting. Something that is no big deal in the gay community might totally freak the straight people in the physical community where they might live.
Laws that are this subjective, and penalized this heavily, are bad news all the way around.
I spent my lunch hour yesterday with a good friend who spent many years in prison for running an adult entertainment enterprise. He's continuously been in court for one case or another since his first bust for showing Jack Smith's "obscene" experimental art film, Flaming Creatures . That was like the early 70's. While he's always won his cases in the end, that didn't keep him from doing lots of time and spending millions of dollars. The Meese Commission years were particularly bad. He wrote a book on his experiences. It's a wild and rambling work, and totally worth a read. It's called The Destruction of the Moral Fabric of America
At the risk of sounding like a "rat fucking, hypocrite Nazi bastard"... what about people who don't want to live in a culture were everyone gets off from eating each other's shit?
It's at least worth considering this from an anthropological perspective.
Cultures can only survive through the promotion of the sacred and the enforcement of taboos. This has always been true and it's no less true of the culture of Boing Boing then anywhere else. For example, here personal liberty is sacred, and DRM is taboo. Granted we don't use the law to enforce these taboos, we rely on social pressure.
But one thing worth bearing in mind is that humanity has both individual and corporate identity. It's not always wrong to enforce cultural norms, no cultural can survive without them. But finding the balance between personal liberty and corporate identity has always been a challenge.
re: #28
I guess you could move to a country that doesn't prize freedom of speech and separation of church and state. There are lots of those...
This is America, and while it may be idealistic, I'd like think that "living in a free country" means something.
I don't lie awake at night worrying that someone might be having kinkier sex than me.
Well porn is a sign of the end times. So I feel our world would be better with out it. But this charge is pretty wrong. Its pretty confusing to me.
"Cultures can only survive through the promotion of the sacred and the enforcement of taboos."
whooahh!. You really want to open that one up? Do you have ANY idea of how much typing you're going to have to do to mount even a trivial defense of such a proposition?
#31-
Name one single culture in the entirety of human history that did not promote its core values (the "sacred") and denigrate certain things as unacceptable (the "taboo").
This is not a blockbuster proposition. It's so trivial that it's nearly tautological.
#32, yup, restrictions on sexual practices is on D.E. Brown's list of human universals. So is "males dominate public/political realm." So is "limited effective range of moral sentiments." So is "de facto oligarchy." Just 'cause it's on the list of human universals, doesn't mean it's an end we should promote.
@32
easy: "The tribe known as Boingers"
Yippie for obscenity charges.
I mean, if we can't have random prosecutions for people speaking freely to others who want to hear; how will we ever be able to have the mass detentions and purges which Dear Leader so desperately craves?
Is this a last gasp of the lame-duck neo-con administration? And our cash-strapped City of the Angles seems quite cozy with the Feds, (as in raids on medical marahuana providers), that "...The Los Angeles Police Department also assisted in the investigation...The investigation was conducted by the FBI’s Adult Obscenity Squad..."
See? There is no hispanic on black race war in THIS town to worry about, just Milk Squirting talent to fear!
News quote courtesy of:
http://www.xbiz.com/news/legal/92236
#33-
I didn't say anything about promoting any particular value. Unless you're suggesting that the universal cultural tendency to promote some values and demote others is something we should avoid in general, I'm not following you.
All I meant was that the concept of cultures being defined by a hierarchy of values (from sacred to profane, basically) wasn't exactly an earth-shattering concept, as #31 seemed to be implying.
#34-
You can't possibly be serious.
Wow, this is getting into cool, genuinely deep ethical territory - do boingboing comment threads always do this?
But on the topic of obscenity restrictions - it's silly to decide to enforce a taboo just 'cause all cultures have taboos. A previous poster mentioned DRM as a "taboo" on boingboing - but it's talked about all the time, just usually in a negative light, and the REASONS for disliking it are discussed. That's not a taboo, that's a shared moral value. I haven't heard a single REASON (shared MORAL value) why obscenity should be prosecuted. Moral systems that make sense - e.g., ones based on liberty and preventing suffering and stuff, rather than sets of religious rules - tend to allow for pornography, and for speech and opinions in general, even ones large segments of the population find aesthetically distasteful. The philosopher Thomas Nagel has a great explanation of this in his article Personal Rights and Public Space, if you have access to it.
When are they going to get rid of the rest of the obscenity?