The anti-porn "feminists" are at it again. On Sunday, a group calling itself Captive Daughters, together with the International Human Rights Law Institute of DePaul University College of Law, began sponsoring a conference at the Hilton Garden Inn in downtown Chicago, titled, "Pornography: Driving the Demand for International Sex Trafficking" – and it promises to be a veritable orgy of anti-porn rhetoric from some of the best known names in anti-porn “feminism.”
The speaker list includes Dr. Chyng F. Sun, a Media Studies professor at New York University. Ostensibly an impartial documentarian, Sun solicited and was granted several on-camera interviews with members of the adult video community during the Adult Entertainment Expo (AEE), including directors Kelly Holland and Ernest Greene, as well as this author. Sun then proceeded to publish a virulently anti-industry article, "Revisiting the Porn Debate," on the AlterNet.com Website on Jan. 28, and is currently using the footage shot at AEE for a documentary with the working title, Fantasies Matter: Pornography, Sexualities and Relationships. Her talk at the conference, given with anti-porn activists Drs. Gail Dines and Robert Jensen, is titled "Reel Pornography: Making a Documentary."
The keynote speaker is Katharine MacKinnon. Currently a "long-term visitor" at the University of Chicago Law School, attorney MacKinnon has published 11 books, most of which deal with women and sexuality from a skewed perspective. MacKinnon has stated that the main difference between consensual sex and rape is that consensual sex is more common.
Several other speakers at the conference also have long anti-sex histories. Dr. Melissa Farley has long been an outspoken opponent of legalized prostitution, as has anti-prostitution activist Christine Stark. Dr. Diana Russell has written several anti-porn books, including Against Pornography: The Evidence of Harm, and edited the anthology Making Violence Sexy: Feminist Views on Pornography. In its November 2004 issue, Hustler magazine branded Russell “Asshole of the Month” after Russell was quoted as remarking about publisher Larry Flynt, “I wish that this evil, misogynist man had died in his mother's womb.”
Other topics to be covered at the four-day conference include "Pornography As Trafficking,” "Sex Trafficking, Prostitution & Pornography - Different Aspects of Sexual Violence,” "The Big Business of Pornography & Sex Trafficking,” "The Danger of False Distinctions Between Pornography, Prostitution & Trafficking,” "Racism in Pornography" and "Slavefarm, Sex Tours & The Pimp John T: Using Pornography to Advance Trafficking."
Those wishing to attend the conference may still possibly be able to do so, by ponying up $150 and clicking the donation button at http://www.captivedaughters.org. It's certainly an education no member or fan of the adult entertainment community should miss.
