CANOGA PARK, Calif. – The Free Speech Coalition is enlisting consumers of adult entertainment products for a new Consumer Advocacy Program (CAP) to assist the organization in their ongoing fight to protect the adult industry from unwarranted government persecution.
First introduced at the FSC's Jan. 12 membership meeting in Las Vegas, the project is the brainchild of Sportsheets president and founder Tom Stewart, who created the cardstock insert that is the key to the outreach.
The upper half of the insert offers consumers information about their constitutional rights to enjoy adult entertainment products, and the need to protect those rights. Consumers are asked to fill out a postcard that serves as the bottom portion of the insert, identifying themselves as consumers of adult entertainment products. These cards are preaddressed to FSC headquarters, where they will be filed and eventually developed into a database.
Sportsheets began packaging the inserts in all of its product lines in December and Stewart is optimistic that other adult novelty and video companies will follow suit.
“The consumers who have made this a $12 billion dollar industry have already voted for us with their wallets, but that’s evidently not enough,” Stewart said. “If we can just get a fraction of our consumer base organized in response to attacks on the adult industry, we’ll be in a much better position to defend our right to do business and the rights of legally consenting adults to enjoy our products.
“The right-wing activists who are constantly attempting to interfere with adult businesses don’t speak for everyone, but they are organized and are able to turn out the vote, so to speak. CAP allows us to do the same.”
While consumers may have once hesitated to be identified as people who use adult products, FSC Executive Director Diane Duke believes that things have changed.
“People aren’t afraid to be identified as consumers of adult products any more,” Duke said. “People are much more comfortable with their sexuality and much less comfortable with the government attempting to interfere with it than ever before.”
Noting that the Free Speech Coalition already employs a 50-state legislative tracking service, Duke said the new database will be instrumental in organizing a grass-roots response anywhere in the country. “When dangerous anti-industry legislation is being considered in an area we can e-mail industry supporters with a ‘call-to-action’ asking them to make a phone call, or write a note or e-mail to their elected official,” Duke said.
“We can also do national call-to-actions when recommended by our D.C. lobbyists,” Duke added.
The insert marks just the beginning of the Consumer Advocacy Program. When the FSC launches their new Web site in a few months, one of the bells and whistles will be an electronic version of the insert. “Look at how important the Internet has become to politics,” Duke said. “It’s become an essential communication tool. And we’ve got a better handle on the Internet than any other industry – we should be able to harness its power to meet our ends.”
Michael Warner of Great Western Litho printed the first 100,000 inserts free of charge for the FSC. “That was very generous of Michael. I’ve been very impressed with how quickly the need for a program such as this has been accepted and supported,” Duke said. “I’d like to thank Tom for getting this idea rolling, and people like Michael and Wicked Pictures’ Joy King who have helped it move forward.”
Adult businesses wishing to participate in the program by bundling the cards with their products, or retailers wishing to distribute the cards to their customers, should contact the FSC for more information.
