* In her final dispatch on the Buttman trial, porn director and performer Aurora Snow claims that LAPD Det. Michael Ozaki, a witness for the prosecution, is a fan:

[Ozaki] looked all too familiar to me. I heard the detective explain how he had to attend the AVN Expo for the last five years in a row “undercover” in order to research the new material being put out by adult companies. I was surprised to hear how the LAPD spends tax money so consistently on porn related materials in the name of “research” when the city is reeling from recent budget cuts. But mostly, as the LAPD detective answered questions under oath, I began to realize why I was recognizing him; I am almost sure that I have signed autographs for him at adult conventions. That is one dedicated undercover officer! I wonder if somewhere in a police evidence folder is a signed photo of me or if the detective kept that for his personal collection. I hope the latter. I don’t want to be in a file and even detectives should have fun with their porn collections.

* When Maryland man Aaron Burroughs was convicted of "sexually exploiting a minor" for an offense involving child prostitution and child pornography, he was sentenced to 16 years in prison—plus extra restrictions "that required him to keep a daily log of his computer use and to permit the authorities to monitor that use." Last week, a federal appeals court struck those restrictions, as Burroughs' offense wasn't conducted via computer.

* GLAA Forum updates us on the NOM bus tour for hetero marriage, declares it an "epic fail. As it turns out, holding rallies at noon on weekdays isn't the smartest way to drum up support for opposite marriage after all. The tour hits D.C. Aug. 15.

* Figleaf 0n how sex work obscures assault in the Lawrence Taylor case:

the word “prostitution” magically washes away all traces of “statutory rape,” “sexual assault of a child,” “sex offender registry,” “corruption of a minor,” and every other offense prosecutors, judges, and juries are usually (and, I think, correctly) willing to throw at people who have sex with minors

* Via Metro Weekly: Victim of hate crime plans to leave D.C.

Photo via State Library of Queensland.

Roman Polanski is free again: A victory for art, intellectualism, European sexual mores, and French dudes with a column on HuffPo, no? Um, no—all attempts to hide a convicted rapist who fled sentencing under a pile of shiny Oscar statuettes will not fool Sady Doyle of Tiger Beatdown and I! For, as Sady explains in this excellent piece for the Atlantic, Polanski ain't the only predator to hide behind the veil of "art":

Last week, the New York Times reported that Emma Tamburlini, the daughter of artist Larry Rivers, was asking to have videotapes of herself—young, topless, fielding uncomfortable sexual questions from her father about her breasts—removed from her father's archives and destroyed. She referred to them as "child pornography." The director of the Rivers Foundation, David Joel, demurred: "I can't be the person who says this stays and this goes," he said. Nor can Emma Tamburlini be that person, apparently; the current agreement is that the tapes will be shown after her death.

Looks like some priorities are fucked up in the art world! In this edition of Sexist Beatdown, Sady and I are totally on this! So join us as we  "sneak in a little Buttman discussion, and debate the merits of creating art while simultaneously not sexually assaulting people.

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SADY: Hey! You know what feminist blogs haven't discussed, ever: Roman Polanski.

AMANDA: Nope. Kind of just let that one go. It's been so long, after all!

SADY: Right! If there's one thing I can say for us all, it is that a very famous dude sexually assaulting someone, confessing, being convicted and serving NO SENTENCE WHATSOEVER for this is something that we all just kind of let fade, after a certain point.

AMANDA: That, or convicted criminals who have fled the country gradually gain points for stamina. I think that's a legal thing. Particularly if they spend their 30-year European vacation doing things like making fancy movies!

SADY: Hah, yeah. This is the thing that kind of enrages, about the Polanski thing: The way so many folks were like, "but... he made MOVIES? They were really good!" And I won't deny that those were some really good movies. And that they benefited from having Roman Polanski direct them. The non-Polanski directed sequel to "Chinatown," for example, is just not so good! (Although, you know, kudos to Jack Nicholson for trying. And for not being convicted of rape.)

AMANDA: Generous points for that last detail. But like, how good do the movies have to be for people to excuse the rapist? As you pointed out in your piece, it's not like this happens all that often, but I'm betting that a lot of people would be willing to forgive people who make less than "Pianist" levels of art. Even saying that is ridiculous. THEY'RE MOVIES. Not people!

SADY: Right. I mean, if Tommy "The Room" Wiseau were convicted tomorrow, I doubt we'd be seeing these outpourings of sympathy. Although folks did rally around R. Kelly during his trial, which makes me think that the question is not how good one is, but how famous one is. If it were some random "Law and Order: SVU" directing alumnus, we wouldn't be here. But Le Cause de Polanski has always been framed as this issue of the permissive/enlightened European sophisticates/degenerates versus The Hard-Working Moralistic American People. Which is a take that's been encouraged by both sides, and ends up serving neither.

AMANDA: So there's a little bit more fame-mongering in Bernard-Henri Lévy's free-Polanski intellectualism than he'd like to admit, is what you're saying.

SADY: Oh, goodness me oh my, yes. I mean: How immeasurably has Levy's profile been raised, now that he's A-Number-One Polanski supporter in the public eye and/or the on the Huffington Post? And I'm sure he'd feel above all that, to some degree, but I don't understand why he keeps publishing on the philosophically enlightened and sophisticated HuffPo if he's not eager to get his name out there. I mean, maybe he just feels passionate about this cause, but I feel that demeans him MORE than a desire for HuffPo readership. Which is not something I say often!

AMANDA: I have several original Huffington Post nipple slips in my collection. So I'm covering this obscenity case in D.C. right now, and it's funny how the "art" argument worms its way into the legal pornography debate as well. These jurors have to decide if there's any redeeming artistic or literary or scientific value to the copious milk enemas they've viewed over the course of the trial. And so on cross-examination, the defense is asking witnesses stuff like, "And are you aware that the Adult Video News Awards are the Academy Awards of the adult entertainment industry?" "And are you aware that Buttman has won several of these awards?"

SADY: I SEE.

AMANDA: The whole thing is ridiculous. Like, I'm not against obscenity. But take the absurd "art" defense out of it.

SADY: Right. I mean: That's the thing. Like the Tamburlini/Rivers case that was being reported earlier this week. In that case, you could maybe make a more convincing argument for "artistic value" — an Artist, Recognized As Such, was coercing and pressuring his daughters into participating in uncomfortably sexual video shoots! For his Art! — but we're still not assuming that Art has the right to involve harm to actual human beings in the process of its creation. A person coerced and pressured his daughter into sexual activity, to which she objected. In the case of "obscenity," which is always tricky — even Dworkin didn't fully support banning porn under "obscenity" laws — the Art question can be brought up in defense, however. If it was relevant for Joyce, it's relevant for Buttman, sad to say. Which is what's so infuriating about this: Often, as in the Max Hardcore case, what's being prosecuted is sexual abuse of performers. And then people are like "obscenity laws are unconstitutional; why didn't these performers bring their cases to court?" Whereas if they did, as sex workers, they'd be slut-shamed and devalued and wouldn't stand a chance of winning.

AMANDA: That's true. The tricky thing is when there is legitimate abuse of performers (as in the Rivers case) and then the dissemination of the work in effect constitutes more abuse. Which, again, in any of these cases, the art argument only serves to obscure the issue, right? Are you producing these works with full consent and participation of everyone involved? Or are you abusing people, and filming that? In either case, it doesn't really matter to me if there's zero artistic value there or if it's fucking Shakespeare abusing his kids for "art.”

SADY: Yeah. Exactly. I mean, I think our conception of Artist as Special Person who is obliged or privileged to Stand Outside Of Societal Norms is useful, in some respects. In the respects that you can't just send D.H. Lawrence packing because he uses the fuck-word a lot, or you can't shut down Mapplethorpe because he's showing these queer BDSM images. But it's abused so easily by folks for stuff like the Polanski case, or the Rivers one — the Polanski case being even more indefensible because SEXUALLY ASSAULTING THAT GIRL HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH ANY OF HIS MOVIES — to argue that These People Can't Be Held To Normal Standards.

AMANDA: Right. It also ends up being really elitist, or in Polanski's case, both elitist and celeb-focused. Like, hey, what if I'm a really shitty artist who works with queer BDSM imagery?

SADY: And I have to admit, most of my off-the-top-of-the-head associations with Artists who we have to Defend Against Charges of Obscenity because they're just outside the norm have to do with very famous men. Kathy Acker, maybe? But maybe not. I don't recall court proceedings, but that may just be the result of insufficient Googling.

AMANDA: Yeah. I mean, the art test is a really fucked up standard for obscenity law in my opinion. Like things we determine to be “good” and things we determine to be “bad” just balance each other out, naturally? And I think the Polanski case is some sort of bizarre extension of the logic—that if art is good enough, it can make anything tolerable. And maybe if Polanski starts making really shitty movies, everyone will have to be like, "Alright, lock him up," on principle.

SADY: Right. And it might just be a case of removing the quality of the art from the equation: Like, if we're testing whether the art in question is "obscene," that can apply to any kind of art with any kind of behind-the-scenes process. As a person who watches the extremely sophisticated Bravo program "Work of Art," I know this. BUT, if we make the question whether the creation and distribution of the "art" (????) objectively has to harm in order to be produced, we can actually legislate on the level of production, not content. And no-one will ever be able to say that this glorious painting made with the entrails of their Gramma deserves serious consideration ever again. I mean, yeah, we should protect "artists" against petty common morality charges. DUR. But "please don't rape anybody" isn't petty. Nor, sad to say, all that terribly common.

Photo via Jacob Freeze, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.o

CRIMINALIZATION. The new law creates crimes for both  "human trafficking" and "benefiting from human trafficking":

* Human trafficking is defined as: "knowingly recruiting, enticing, harboring, or transporting a person for the purpose of providing labor or services," either by "debt coercion; facilitating or controlling a person’s access to an addictive controlled substance; conduct that causes a person to reasonably believe that he or she is the property of a person or business; causing or threatening to cause financial or emotion harm to that person or another; [or] facilitating a minor to engage in a commercial sex act."

* Benefiting from Human Trafficking “includes cases where an individual knew or reasonably should have known that the services or labor were being provided as a result of human trafficking."

* The act also criminalizes "the act of destroying, concealing, etc., a victim’s identity documents, in order to maintain the person’s labor or services" and the "possession of child pornography" in the District (a detail the Polaris Project calls "a glaring loophole in current law").

INCREASED PENALTIES. Criminal penalties for human trafficking can be increased depending on several factors:

* "Defendants found guilty of human trafficking or benefiting from human trafficking can be fined a maximum of $200k and imprisoned for a maximum of 20 years, or both."

* "When the victim has been held for more than 180 days, the penalty for the defendant can be up to 1 ½ times the maximum fine or term of imprisonment, or both."

* "When there are more than five victims, the penalty can be up to 3 times the maximum."

* "Attempts can be punished up to half of the maximum for the completed crimes."

VICTIM SERVICES:

* Protects more minors: The act raises the "maximum age of a victim" from 16 to 18 years old.

* Prevents a victim's past sexual activities from being used in trial: "Creates an evidentiary privilege for victims to prevent evidence of past sexual activities of an alleged victim of human trafficking, including related pandering crimes, from being used in trial."

* "Consent" not a defense: The act "prohibits the consent or permission to engage in prostitution by an alleged victim or by anyone on behalf of the alleged victim from being used as a defense."

* Marriage not a defense, either: The act "expressly prohibits any kind of immunity from prosecution based on marriage, partnership or cohabitation
with the victim.

* Expands the statute of limitations: "Applies lengthier criminal and civil statutes of limitation for human trafficking crimes, and provides that the statute of limitations will not start running until the victim is no longer subject to the trafficker’s means of control and in the case of a minor, until they reach the age of majority."

* Compensation: "Protects victims’ access to the Crime Victims’ Compensation fund by allowing victims of human trafficking who have not reported the crime to law enforcement to satisfy this requirement for accessing compensation funds by filing for a civil protection order."

* Confidentiality: "Assures confidentiality of communications between human trafficking counselors and victims by creating a human trafficking victim / caseworker privilege."

AWARENESS:

* Reporting: The act "creates a mandatory reporting requirement for human trafficking counselors."

* Accountability: The act "requires the District government, with assistance from appropriate organizations and agencies, to collect and periodically publish statistical data on trafficking and trafficking-related crimes."

Congress has 60 days to review the law.

Parents! Do you know what felonies your tweens could be committing with their very own cellular telephones, and what stupid name the you will coin in order to facillitate freaking out to the newsmedia? Hint: the felony is "child pornography," and the stupid name you have chosen is "sexting."

Before, your children were simply sending naked photographs of themselves to each other in pursuit of eagerly snatching at adulthood. Now, they may be listed as sex offenders well into their adult lives. Good job, team!

Allow Sady of Tiger Beatdown and myself, of The Sexist, to take you back to a simpler time, when a child could only be a child pornographer for taking photgraphs of other children, and scoolgirls had to deliver naked photos of themselves to their classmates uphill in the snow both ways. [Bonus! Read Sady's take on sexting here].

AMANDA: Sexting!

SADY: oh, yes. the sexy teens, sending each other sexy messages. is there no way we can stop it? perhaps through ridiculous charges of child pornography!

AMANDA: that ought to do it.

SADY: what strikes me, with this, is the way that so much of the burden of shame – and sometimes actual, legal guilt – rests on the girls who send naked pictures. instead of the dudes who "accidentally" send these naked pictures to every other dude they know!

AMANDA: yeah, it is a weird double standard. first they're told, don't send naked photos of yourself! it is a form of "dating violence" against YOU. then, don't send naked photos of yourself! you are a pornographer, the objectifier!

SADY: hah, yeah. oh the violence of maybe sending a dude a photo of your boob! oh, the slutty pornographer you will be if you do so! it reminds me of the conversations people are having about "hooking up." (did you know the young people are doing this now?) first, girls are told they're being taken advantage of by men, who are of course the only people to actually experience a desire for sex. THEN, they're told that they're making it impossible for any man to ever NOT treat them like crap, by putting out!

AMANDA: i also wonder how much this is condescending to teens, too. is this a "teen" epidemic? don't older people also regrettably send naked photos of themselves to their significant others?

SADY: i have spoken to many adult women who are in the practice of it, yes.

there was an episode of 30 Rock about it, so you know it is a pressing social concern.

AMANDA: the name is really, really dumb. it smacks of Parent. with the aid of Fox 5 at 10.

SADY: I know, right? It's very late-night-local-news, seven-ways-your-dishwasher-can-kill-you. SEX + TEXTING = SEXTING! Great work, Bob!

AMANDA: yeah. the whole thing really is just old news repackaged for a "new generation." teens have always gotten naked in front of each other. teens have always talked about it to other teens. teens have always coerced other teens to do something they're not really ready to do, in some cases. now their parents can just find out a little bit easier.

SADY: yeah, precisely.

AMANDA: they should just make some iphone app and get over it.

SADY: haha, "THIS TEXT MESSAGE HAS BEEN DETERMINED TO CONTAIN NIP SLIP. ACCESS DENIED." i could use that one, actually.
AMANDA: yeah. another point of concern that i have is: my phone is busted and i can't take photos. why do these teens have way sweeter phones than i do?

SADY: it's their darn permissive parents, i say! in my day, we had to use polaroids, or make crude etchings of our privates!

AMANDA: hahaha

SADY: i think that it's way easier to see the hysteria underlying ANY sex when we look at TEEN sex, because teens are supposed to have bodies specifically under control of their parents. as opposed to everyone else, who is supposed to have a body under the control of DEEP SHAME.

AMANDA: yeah, it takes about 18 years to get that ingrained in you.

SADY: haha

AMANDA: this most recent case in spotsylvania though (real name) one of the girls whose photos were spread around is twelve years old. and even i, as a relatively young person hip to the underage sex, have to pause at that one

SADY: yeah, that one gives me pause. and i think that this is a weird thing, because girls, specifically, are under pressure as soon as they hit any region vaguely definable as "puberty" to be sexy. but not SEXUAL. be hot. but DON'T GIVE IT UP. and i wonder what combination of intimate and social pressures were happening to make this girl think she needed or wanted to do this. because one thing you can't do at that age is walk a line that charged without getting confused or fucking up. and now, obviously, she's being punished for it.

AMANDA: lock her up! lock her up! this all makes me very glad i'm not in school anymore. if my naked photos were sent around to people, i can at least know that most of them would not be people i'm forced to sit still with for six hours every day of my life. it would probably just be on some blog or something. whatever.

SADY: i really think that the technology aspect of it is part of what causes the furor. i mean. not that i've never woken up and thought "oh, god, what did i do last night and is it on facebook?" but you're right, the access to a technology which allows you to notify the whole school of your boobal region, combined with the fact that none of these kids is probably even sure of how to handle sexuality ANYWAY, because they receive NINETY-SEVEN CONFLICTING MESSAGES on a daily basis, makes it scary. particularly for the olden-timey folks who are raising them!

AMANDA: i know, i'm sure they are so very confused. it's just how everything is.future employers can google you, future boyfriends can google you, stalkers can google you. things you do stick around longer but they also get buried in so many things that also stick around that i think they can become less important. not that this isn't a shocking and terrible thing for a 12 year old to go through, but i think shocking and terrible things are just changing.

SADY: right? i mean, i recall passing a note to a boy when i was maybe twelve. because i had a crush on him. and i think it contained the phrase "i wish we could make out." also, maybe lyrics to janet jackson's smash hit "if?" I WAS TWELVE. anyway, the moral of the story is that he did not return my affections and consequently read it out loud to the entire school bus. but AT LEAST IT WAS NOT AN E-MAIL, JESUS.

AMANDA: adolescence is tragic, i tell you. at least we weren't prosecuted for it

SADY: yeah. that note has been lost in the sands of time. only the memory does not fade. unlike some of these girls, who are maybe going to be on a register of sex offenders that shows up, ON THE INTERNET, for the rest of their lives! because that will show them.

Photo by KB35