April 3rd, 2011, saw Toronto’s “SlutWalk”, the very public reaction to a police officer’s odious comment about sexual assault. Here’s part of an excellent article by Rachel Kramer Bussel at Alternet about the culture of slut-shaming:

‘…“Slut” is meant as a way to put women back in their place (with legs firmly closed), and make them ashamed of their perceived promiscuity, as well as make others join in on this shaming. However the women “slut” is being hurled at feel about it, the fact that it is still, in 2011, the go-to insult for women, is problematic. We need to work to neutralize the term so that it doesn’t wield the impact that it once did. Writers have been reclaiming the word, from the classic polyamory primer The Ethical Slut by Dossie Easton and Janet W. Hardy, to groupie memoirist Roxana Shirazi, author of 2010’s The Last Living Slut: Born in Iran, Bred Backstage. Yet those who continue to use the word mean it as anything but a proud proclamation.

Some activists fighting back against one of the most insidious forms of institutional slut-shaming are the organizers of SlutWalk Toronto, to be held April 3. The event was organized after a representative of the Toronto police department stated that “women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized.” This equation of perceived slutdom with an incitement to violence, the ultimate “she was asking for it” argument, is the logical end point for those who think women’s bodies are under some sort of communal control. Their walk also includes a poster campaign, one of which tells us to “Reclaim the Word Slut” and at the top says something I think speaks to the issue more succinctly than anything else: “Slut isn’t a look. It’s an attitude. And whether you enjoy sex for pleasure or work, it’s never an invitation to violence.”’

Full article here.

SlutWalk Toronto website here.

You may have heard about “Porn Wikileaks” when it hit the mainstream news on April Fools Day, along with some wry chuckles and bad puns from presenters and journalists alike. Unfortunately though, this is no joke.

Despite its name, the website has no connection to Wikileaks itself, which was set up to be “of assistance to peoples of all countries who wish to reveal unethical behaviour in their governments and institutions”. Porn Wikileaks, on the other hand, has a somewhat less noble or concise mission. When interviewed by Richard Abowitz for The Daily Beast, the site’s creator (who may or may not be the hygienically-challenged internet troll and ex-porn-star, Donny Long) said this about why he founded the site:

“To get the gays out of straight porn and illegal gay pimps that have ruined porn and shut it down making condoms mandatory by the government now. The fag loving has got to stop. California is full of gay Mexicans and now they can even marry which is so wrong.”

The site itself contains similar garbled rants. He calls every performer a “whore and hooker” and spouts a lot of misspelt gibberish about “fags”, “trannyfuckers” and “pimps” throughout. However, as of yesterday, the front page appears to have been updated with a “press release FAQ” denying accusations of racism (“behind the scenes players and members on our site represent a wide selection of colors, races, religions and sexes”), misogyny (“we like to fuck hookers like everyone else”) and homophobia (“straight people have the right to defend their territory against predatory closeted homosexuals”).

The text is startlingly similar to that on Long’s own blog and on his now defunct twitter feed that – according to excellent porn blogger Danny Wylde – was mainly “about which male performers are faggots, which girls are faggot-lovers, and which agents are Jews and/or faggots”. As well as performers’ real names and medical records, Porn Wikileaks also offers a number of home addresses (with Google Streetview images), names and details of family members and copies of photo ID used for 2257 records. On his blog, Long denies direct involvement with the running of Porn Wikileaks “other than having an account there and having support from the owners because I was one of the only people to speak out about the gays ruining the porn industry for years”, but his style of writing is easily recognisable. Porn Wikileaks itself claims to have “5 active participants, with several more quiet investors and behind the scenes characters” as well as “funding when needed”. It has been suggested that Long may have had technical and financial support from some of the USA’s far-right anti-porn lobby, and many tactics used by Porn Wikileaks mirror those used by allied pro-life groups that target abortion clinic staff.

Many people are worried about the safety of those whose personal information has been leaked. As Maggie Mayhem pointed out on Violet Blue’s blog, “There are only roughly 1,200-1,500 performers actively working in the San Fernando Valley at this present moment but the leaked database contained 15,000 names.” It isn’t just confined to the LA industry either. The identities of many UK performers are also being revealed on the site, albeit in a slow and often laughably inaccurate way. It’s worrying, all the same.

If you really can’t resist a look at Porn Wikileaks, you can do so here on the understanding that you fill out one of these afterwards for the sake of karma. I would also recommend that you watch this gloriously humiliating (and very NSFW) video of Donny Long’s poo-spattered bum bobbing up and down during a failed porn shoot.