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March 29, 2013

Of Girls, Women, 'Backroom Casting Couch' & Common Sense

PHOENIX, AZ—As some adult industry members may be aware, a couple of years ago, a lowlife by the name of Eric Whitaker started a website called Backroom Casting Couch, reportedly a "reality porn" site where Whitaker, under his own name and several pseudonyms, runs ads seeking women to have on-camera sex with him—scenes which supposedly would lead the gals to a career in adult, but since Whitaker doesn't actually have any connections in the industry, the deal turned out to be just another scam for which the women involved may or may not have been paid. Whitaker also allegedly promised at least one of the women (whom we'll refer to as EH) that the scene they shot would only appear behind a pay wall, but in fact, he gave the scene to several free sites and even started a rumor that EH had lost her scholarship to Arizona State University because of it. In fact, nothing of the sort happened, except to spread the woman's name even more widely across the 'net. Worse, one alleged Whitaker associate, Antonio Adrian Gonzalez, was busted for posting ads on Craigslist and other sites seeking underage girls to appear in the website's videos. Well, the site's still up and apparently making money—and yesterday, Alternet contributor Ayesha Adamo, in an article titled "Drunk and Naked for the Camera: Predators Exploit Young Girls for Online Porn Business," used Whitaker (and Joe Francis) to engage in her own form of "slut-shaming." "Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers exposes the darker inner regrets that fester beneath the intoxicating day-glo of girls going absolutely wild in the hypnotic Florida sunshine," Adamo begins. "But what about the real Girls Gone Wild, those sometimes-underage revelers caught permanently between beer-stained contracts and Joe Francis’ camera lens? What about the real young women whose acts of sex come with regrets? Haven’t we all—especially in our youth—found ourselves mentally suspended in moments of coercion, moments we smile through by rote?" Adamo might easily be talking about a form of date rape, but no: The real problem is that people like Joe Francis exist and make videos showing the female patrons of various saloons and clubs exposing their tits and asses for Francis's cameras, and that Whitaker recruits young women—no underage solicitation charges were filed against him—to have sex with him, with promises of future fame and fortune. Of course, Francis always posts signs around the bars where he shoots, letting patrons know that they're being filmed for Girls Gone Wild, so it's not as if they're unaware of what will happen if they lift their tops. And Whitaker apparently does pay his sex partners, so aside from Adamo's snide comment that it's "not nearly enough—that’s what you’d make as an unknown in a fully clothed print modeling campaign for some completely non-sexual product, at least in New York," he too hasn't committed any crimes. But for Adamo, that's not the point. "Such videos [as Whitaker's and Francis's] operate on a coercive pattern of saying yes to simple things until you find yourself saying yes to more and more complicated things, resistance and critical thinking shut down, and you find yourself caught in a stream of 'yes' without thinking to paddle against the current in the opposite direction," Adamo charges. "Eighteen-year-olds, as [EH] was at the time, are particularly porous to this type of influence, having far fewer years of experience in the world. Most people make bad decisions in the process of finding themselves right up through their mid-20s, and for Girls Gone Wild and 'Backroom Casting Couch' alike, these young women are an easy target." Adamo contrasts this with actual Hollywood stars like Spring Breakers' Selena Gomez, who "have media professionals surrounding them, helping them to adjust as best as one can to the phenomenon of being known, which is a more gradual process than it may outwardly appear." "But to become an overnight meme via an amateur porn video—when prior to that you were just a teenage geology student—and to suddenly be famous to the point that your name is a Google Hot Trend? That’s a consequence no one could ever be truly prepared for," Adamo adds. "This girl wasn’t ready to 'be hard' or 'pretend like she’s in a fucking video game,' like the girls in Korine’s movie chant. It’s just sort of how it all happened, that’s all. We send these women to the cyberspace guillotine and participate fully in their public shaming, when in fact we very much desire to see bikini-clad young Disney stars. Or non-Disney stars: they’ve made millions for Joe Francis." See, for Adamo, who denounces the great American porn-viewing public as slut-shamers, there's a deep abyss between Hollywood stars like Spring Breakers' Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens and Ashley Benson, and anyone who's ever chosen to fuck in a porn movie or on a website—and it's that latter group that Adamo slut-shames herself. "After all, when these famous actresses choose to publicly display their sexuality, they’re lawyered-up with expert agents, managers and PR people weighing in on their career decisions and how each facet of their public images will be handled," Adamo correctly notes. "Gomez, Hudgens, Benson and all the ladies of Seth MacFarlane’s [Oscar night song] 'We Saw Your Boobs' have teams of people watching their backs as much as their breasts in the interest of defending an investment in these women’s careers, and when you have William Morris or CAA, do you even need a condom?" (Hint: Possibly, since for low-level roles, the Hollywood casting couch still exists.) "But the young women who go down to spring break and find themselves at a party with a Girls Gone Wild camera crew don’t have a backup team," Adamo continues. "The young women who find themselves on Eric Whitaker’s 'Backroom Casting Couch' don’t have a backup team either. Real or fake, whether they get paid or not, these young women show up at some strange crappy porn office alone and they leave alone." Of course, if Adamo had done the slightest bit of investigating, she would have found that in the real porn industry—of which Whitaker and Francis are not part, since they target only amateurs—most of the performers do have "teams of people watching their backs," or at the very least, an agent doing so, so they aren't put in the position of "saying yes to simple things until [they] find [themselves] saying yes to more and more complicated things," and many of those performers employ drivers so they don't "show up at some strange crappy porn office alone" or leave alone. And somehow, we don't consider Wicked Pictures' or Vivid's or Hustler's or Digital Playground's or New Sensations' or Evil Angel's offices either "strange" or "crappy." So by lumping all of the actresses that work for reputable adult companies in with the "pick-up" talent that populate Backroom Casting Couch or Girls Gone Wild, Adamo herself is engaging in exactly the slut-shaming she claims to abhor. Adamo does make one good point, though, at the end of her piece. "It is a great American disaster that our society continues to punish women like [EH] and the underage stars of Girls Gone Wild videos, smugly asserting that they should have known the consequences of their actions, believing that they got what they deserve, delighting to push the filth a little further from ourselves and our society by pinning it on someone else," she writes—and that's pretty much where it ends, with no apparent thought as to why the slut-shaming takes place, not only of Girls Gone Wild participants but of any woman who dares to have sex on camera or in public. Well, we here at AVN.com are only too glad to help with that! See, on the same day Adamo's article appeared, bloggers on right-wing political and religious sites, fresh from the previous few days' gay-marriage-bashing, decided to expand their horizons and bash the "sexualization of American culture" that they see every waking minute of their lives. For instance, Newt Gingrich's daughter, Jackie Gingrich Cushman, wrote to express her unhappiness, shared by "other moms of middle-school teenage girls," about the "lack of appealing clothing available to teenage girls and the appalling state of girl teenage fashion today." Of course, for Cushman, the term "appealing" means "cute but not risque," and it's doubtful that many of the teens share that definition—but Cushman writes that she's overjoyed that "we might soon have a fashion trend toward modesty." See, as "everyone knows," American culture is so corrupt that designers today mostly offer such styles as "thongs peeking up over jeans, bare midriffs and pants so low you wonder how they stay up," and there's zero chance that a teenage girl would choose such attire for herself absent her constant bombardment by such images in the media. We mean, it's not as if they're interesting in attracting other teens for companionship or even <gasp!> sex or anything! And sure enough, Jackie G-C has the American Psychology Association to back her up! "According to the Report of the Task Force of the American Psychology Association on the Sexualization of Girls, which was published in 2010, 'If girls purchase (or ask their parents to purchase) products and clothes designed to make them look physically appealing and sexy, and if they style their identities after the sexy celebrities who populate their cultural landscape, they are, in effect, sexualizing themselves... Research links sexualization with three of the most common mental health problems of girls and women: eating disorders, low self-esteem and depression or depressed mood.'" See? "sexualizing" yourself is bad, Bad, BAD! And who'd know that better than Newt Gingrich's daughter? And of course, another problem with these dang modern kids is, too many of them know too much about sex already, so those who don't need to be kept as ignorant about as possible for as long as possible. So count on Mary Beth Hicks, author of Don't Let the Kids Drink the Kool-Aid: Confronting the Left's Assault on Our Families, Faith, and Freedom (and frequent contributor to the (Moonie) Washington Times and Heritage Foundation's Townhall.com) to tell you how. In response to a letter from parents of a fourth grader who are worried that their 11- or 12-year-old kid gets sex ed in school, and want to "teach our children about human sexuality through the context of our faith, at home," Mary Beth shared their angst. "Am I a dinosaur because I miss the days when fourth graders did dinosaur reports and didn’t have to sit through seminars about sex?" she asks rhetorically, then answers herself, "Probably." But then she gets down to some practical advice. "[I]t’s crucial that you know what your state and your school district require [in the way of sex education], and what your rights and responsibilities are with respect to curricula about sexuality," she states. "You can’t cop out and say no one told you, then react angrily when you find out your seventh grader was part of an awkward demonstration involving a banana and a product named for a mythic Greek warrior." Yeah, great idea: Take advice from a woman who can even bring herself to write the word "Trojan"! But wait! There's more! After Googling what their state's sex ed laws are, "go to your child’s teacher or principal and (nicely, now!) ask what the plan is for teaching about sexual health. Explain that you want to evaluate the curriculum to see if it’s right for your child, and ask to see any and all materials, handouts, lecture notes, videos or slides that might be used. Don’t worry that you’ll be perceived as a busybody parent. That’s your job!" Funny; we thought their job was keeping their kids ignorant about sex! After all, one of Hicks' suggestions about what to do if the parents want to opt their kids out of the sex ed class is to "pick her up from school and do an impromptu math lesson comparing the prices of various sizes of ice cream cones." Great idea! After all, surely your kid won't be one of the 329,797 teens aged 15-19 who, according to the Centers for Disease Control, gave birth in the U.S. in 2011! Hint: Ice cream cones—probably not the best method of birth control, no matter where you stick them. But for Hicks, these sex ed classes for young kids who might not benefit from them until they get sexually active over the next couple of years are only part of a larger problem. "Generally, I think it’s sad that the culture is so sexed-up that our nation’s children are forced to engage in classroom discussions about issues beyond their interest and maturity," Hicks opines. "It undermines the role of parents when the school imposes its cultural morality, irrespective of families’ beliefs. But well-informed and engaged parents can protect their children’s innocence by knowing and exercising their rights." After all, there's plenty of time for sex ed once the kid has contracted his/her first STD, or she shows up on the doorstep pregnant, or he shows up with his pregnant girlfriend in tow! So now you know how dangerous sex education is—OR DO YOU??? "A high school science teacher in Idaho is under investigation by the state’s professional standards commission because he reportedly used the word 'vagina' during a biology lesson," wrote David Edwards for the Twin Falls Times-News. See, 10th grade science teacher Tim McDaniel was teaching his students about human anatomy, and unlike too many "teachers" these days, didn't leave out the "lady parts." "I teach straight out of the textbook," McDaniel explained. "I don’t include anything that the textbook doesn’t mention, but I give every student the option not attend this class when I teach on the reproductive system if they don’t feel comfortable with the material." Nonetheless, four parents were upset that not only did he say the word "vagina" to the class, but he also provided information about the usefulness of the clitoris in female orgasms—but that's not all. "A disciplinary letter from the Idaho State Department of Education also accused McDaniels of showing a video clip in class depicting an infection of genital herpes and teaching about different forms of birth control," reported Salon.com's Katie McDonough. "The letter also alleges that McDaniels told inappropriate jokes in class." And as we all know, nothing makes the study of human reproduction more enticing than making it sound deadly serious! Oh; and he also had the kids write a "critical response paper on climate change after showing them [the Oscar-winning Al Gore documentary] An Inconvenient Truth"... so of course, some of the local conservatives are trying to get McDaniel fired. "This sort of thing makes you worry about what you teach," McDaniel lamented. "That’s not right." No shit, Commander!

 
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