Dan O'Connell on Independence Day, Freedom & Porn

In answer to some questions posed by AVN as part of our July 2012 celebration of free speech, Dan O'Connell submitted the following essay. O'Connell is the president of Girlfriends Films.   When was the last Fourth of July you engaged in a discussion of America declaring its independence in 1776? For nearly everyone, the Fourth of July is just a mid-summer holiday meant for picnicking and watching fireworks. That’s actually a pretty good sign that we still have most of the freedoms envisioned by the likes of Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and John Adams. But those of us in the adult industry are all too aware that we face a constant battle from those who work to abolish our businesses and trample every citizen’s rights to watch what they want in the privacy of their own homes. It’s only natural that humans seek sexual stimulation and satisfaction. Pornography is a terrific way to satisfy that urge. A lot of singles who aren’t so fortunate as to have a sex partner make their lives better by enjoying pornography. As for couples, it can enhance failing relationships by helping them discuss and experiment in their search for more satisfying sex. Given that we gladly make pornography and consumers enjoy it in the privacy of their own homes, it does seem strange and unfair that other people want to deprive their neighbors the enjoyment of pornography. Policing masturbation and consensual sex is not another person’s right, and it certainly isn’t the proper business of any government. Even if they don’t appreciate our products, most people understand and honor the freedoms that keep our industry working. Obscenity charges always seem to begin with government entrapment, not from complaints by citizens and consumers. Our United States government has failed to exactly define what constitutes an obscenity violation, instead leaving it up to local courts to decide. What seems perfectly fit for consumption in Los Angeles or Phoenix might get a movie producer sent to prison by a jury in Jacksonville or Orlando. Obviously, if the law of the land uniformly defined illegal pornography in definite terms as opposed to nebulous and unspecified “community standards,” we would all be working within those boundaries. Even though Girlfriends Films has never shot or published a boy/girl scene, the condom issue is currently the largest threat to our freedom to do business, mostly due to the prospect of the adult industry moving out of California. If the anti-porn factions have their way, we will be working under nonsensical and impractical regulations such as having a government health inspector on every set and utilizing barriers that visually block the depiction of oral sex, thus raising production costs and resulting in a product for which there’s no market. Enforcement agencies are probably too smart to go after a lesbian company—a good defense attorney would make them look very stupid in a jury trial. For us, the underlying threat of condom laws is the inconvenience in following the talent if shooting moves outside California. In my short 10-year history in the adult industry, Larry Flynt and John Stagliano stand out as having been the two people in our industry who have put their behinds on the line in defending the First Amendment and Freedom of Speech rights of all American citizens. Despite a lack of funding from the adult industry, Free Speech Coalition has done a great job publicizing issues and defending our First Amendment rights to publish and enjoy pornography. Girlfriends Films gives them a healthy donation every month because it seems like they stretch every one dollar we give them into ten dollars’ worth of work toward maintaining our freedoms. My brother Marcus—an iconoclast who was as poor as a church mouse—taught me the value of becoming involved in community activism. He was an early surveyor of the Internet and its potential for spreading information to the public. One of his most ambitious efforts was tracking and publishing campaign contributions made to city council members in Concord, California. That got him a James Madison Freedom of Information Award from the Society of Professional Journalists. I figured that if he could do that, anyone else including me could and should become involved in issues and make a difference. People just have to give a damn, get off their behinds, and turn talk into action. We’d very likely be living in a much more repressive society had Jefferson, Franklin and Adams been as apathetic as most of us are today. Just being concerned has become the province of the ordinary person and is not enough, especially in this industry in these times.