The Scumbags of Porn Valley
20 March 06
Over at SugarBank, the mysterious Sam Sugar links to an Arena Magazine story about the rampant racism in America’s porn industry. He also picks apart Luke Ford’s nauseatingly ignorant rebuttal:
I like Luke’s, his writing’s pretty much essential for the industry and he’s often entertaining. This piece I had a problem with. He appears to have agreed with ‘The Bell Curve’ and digested a lot of talk radio but missed ‘Freakanomics’, ‘The Culture of Fear’, ‘Blink’ and ‘Guns, Germs and Steel’. His opinions are malformed enough to demand a response. So rising to the bait I go…
I have mixed feelings about Sam’s essay. On one hand, Sam eloquently deflates Luke Ford’s “arguments” (which may as well be lifted straight out of the Aryan Nation playbook). On the other hand, Sam gives Ford way too much credit.
It’s the racist, misogynistic scumbags of America’s “gonzo” porn industry—people like Luke Ford and his friends—who have given freedom of sexual expression a bad name. They are in large part responsible for the federal government’s crackdown on everything erotic, and they’re the reason that even progressives in this country blush at the thought of rising to the defense of the jizz biz.
Consumers, as always, are voting with their feet. Is it any surprise there’s such high demand these days for alt porn? For porn produced outside the US?
The scumbags of Porn Valley can rant all they want but the rules of the game are changing: non-white performers like Lexington Steele are going into business for themselves; production of English-language content is diversifying beyond the Valley; the rise of broadband makes it ridiculously easy to reach the consumer; an emerging generation of progressive commentators and bloggers are becoming the new tastemakers in erotica…
And we’re going to give these dinosaurs a well-deserved shove into the tar pits of obscurity.
More: Pornography, Racism, Stereotypes, Racial Bias
# nick8040 22 March 06
that’s so coooooool wow !!!!
# Ana 24 March 06
“I have mixed feelings about Sam’s essay. On one hand, Sam eloquently deflates Luke Ford’s “arguments” (which may as well be lifted straight out of the Aryan Nation playbook). On the other hand, Sam gives Ford way too much credit.”
Sam is a capitalist (he’s even said so in one of his other blogs), of course he’s going to sit on the fence, like he does on various other issues, some of which are posted for pure controversy. And it’s not like he has a unique opinion, because he hardly has an opinion because everything is based on ‘hits’ and I don’t particularly care if anyone is offended by me saying that.
# Laughing Man 24 March 06
What, you haven’t heard? The entity you call “Sam Sugar” is in reality a bot.
Point taken. But then again everyone with a broadband connection is trying to build a web empire these days.
I like your site, btw.
# ebogjonson 9 April 06
I don’t know how many of you guys are from LA, but my experience has been that LA media blog community (pretty white, ‘natch, except for LAist’s Jason Toney) just loves themselves Luke Ford. Everyone blows him as their fave porn/LA Jewish lifestyle blogger without mentioning he’s a complete wingnut re race. Typical.