California Burning

An acquaintance posted a very thought-provoking item about the fires raging in Southern California, along with an impassioned plea for aid for the victims. His item was so thought-provoking, in fact, that although I intended only to write a brief response, by the time my own apparently until-then-submerged feelings about the subject finished implanting themselves on the page, I had written more than he did.

I'm still not sure I've explained my position well. It's a thorny issue, and as usual, I find myself on more than one side of it.

# # #

I, too, feel for the people in SoCal's blazing acreage, but there are some things bothering me about the situation, too. Please don't think I'm heartless, but....

Is the media catastrophizing just a tad? I appreciate their death-defying feats in covering the disaster, but honestly: Is it necessary for HOUSTON television stations to send staff reporters all the way to San Diego to cover the fires in person instead of relying on feeds from affiliates who already are there? "Look! A disaster that conceivably could affect someone living in Houston! Let's send several MORE bodies out there to get in the way!" Sheesh.

The national media aren't really helping, either. Yes, they do put "a personal face" on the disaster by interviewing those affected, and they have given the rest of us information we can use to help, but seriously: Relentless, 24-hour coverage using the same footage ad nauseum only leads to battle fatigue among viewers. There's a very real risk that eventually everyone will tune out any sort of legitimate reportage as just so much additional noise.

As for the victims themselves, my heart goes out to them. I cannot even begin to imagine losing everything I own in one fell swoop. Hopefully, people and animals will evacuate safely, and physical goods are insured. Those who could not afford insurance desperately need and probably deserve our help. Those who could afford it but chose not to invest in it hopefully have learned something about planning ahead. Let us all hope that some portion of the ridiculously high personal income taxes Californians pay is set aside to assist in emergencies like this one. (I know I can think of no better use for the non-resident income taxes I pay in California!)

Just as those of us along the Gulf Coast realize some day The Big Hurricane will catch up with us, people in Califonia know there is the possibility that one day they'll be caught in a massive fire, earthquake or mudslide. Whether they choose to admit that to themselves is another matter, just as it is here. The people I know in California all recognize the specter of disaster that looms over them constantly, and they dread the day it may become terrifyingly real – but they don't deny the possibility, and they plan ahead for unpleasant contingencies. When one chooses to live in a known danger zone, one does so understanding the risks.

One particular interview on CNN continues to haunt me: A young-ish woman surrounded by her four young children told the reporter she had received a telephone call the previous night alerting her that she needed to be prepared to evacuate immediately upon receiving a follow-up call. The follow-up call came at 6 a.m. the next morning, and the young woman said all she was able to scramble around and gather was her children, some blankets and a few clothes. What I'm wondering is what she did in the hours between the first and second calls. I know I should feel bad for her, but I'm having a little trouble drumming up tremendous sympathy. Of course, I don't know her complete story. Perhaps she was paralyzed with fear and indecision.

Please don't misunderstand me: I'm not saying we shouldn't help. OF COURSE we should help anyone who finds himself or herself in unfortunate circumstances for whatever reason. I guess after two years of Katrina/Rita aftermath (which to this day remains unresolved for hundreds of thousands of the poorest all along the Gulf Coast, not just in New Orleans), I am saddened and angry about the way media, government and profiteers shamelessly exploit these events for personal gain. We need to look beyond the sensational headlines and avoid knee-jerk reactions that are helpful to no one.

OK – you may all set upon me now with pitchforks and burning brands.

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The Seven-Year Hitch

(Parenthetical remark alert!)

Now I've done it. Friday was my last day at a job I've enjoyed (mostly) for seven years. Although I'll be paid for the almost six weeks of vacation time I accrued during the adventure (which may explain something about why I left the job), I've already begun obsessing about where to find my next meal.

No matter how much one enjoys his or her work, an odd mixture of complacency and restlessness tends appear (somewhat like a vulture) at about the seven-year point. If one can ignore the piercing stare, foul odor and occasional jockeying for a better shot at the carcass (oddly evocative of a Chinese fire drill with wings), one may be able retire after an extended career with one employer. My sister did that, retiring some time ago after 25 years in public service (albeit in several different positions). I, on the other hand, seem not to have her stamina. Although I try not to make a habit of taking a job and then un-taking it soon thereafter (I was with one company for more than 10 years and another for five before I began the most-recent seven-year crusade), I never seem to have found one place, position or group of people capable of convincing me I belonged there forever. Maybe that's because I was a military brat, and my family moved 21 times before I graduated high school. Maybe it's because I'm an adrenaline junky (not a bad thing for a journalist), and something always seems to beckon me from just beyond the horizon. Maybe I have a self-destructive streak that one of these days will do me in (to no one's real surprise).

It's not terribly bright in most world views to leave a comfortable salary for the vast unknown (and possible starvation). Still, I approach this change with (possibly misguided) excitement and anticipation (in addition to disquietude that verges on abject terror). My dog doesn't seem to be worried, and I've decided to accept that as a sign everything will work out. Of course, if I had his ability to convince people to wait on me hand and paw because I'm excruciatingly cute, I'd feel at least a bit more secure.

I'm counting on his loyalty remaining steadfast right up until the moment we share the last mouthful of his food.

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Mmm-mmm!

It’s still true: If it can’t be fried and served on a stick, it ain’t worth eatin’ at the State Fair of Texas (Sept. 28 through Oct. 21 in Dallas). According to a fair (meaning "from the fair," not "so-so") press release, [n]ew culinary delights this year include:

· Deep Fried Latte – "Fried pastry, cappuccino ice cream, caramel sauce, whipped cream, and instant coffee powder." (The three essential food groups – caffeine, sugar and grease – in one delicious … uh, fried thing!)

· Fried Cookie Dough – "Chilled cookie dough, battered and fried." (This treat won this year’s contest – for real.)

· Fried Guacamole Bites – "Scoop of guacamole, breaded and fried, served with ranch dressing or salsa." (Evidently part of the rumored “cholesterol coup” being planned south of the border.)

· Country Pride Peach Cobbler on a Stick – "Peach cobbler with dumplings rolled in pastry dough and fried, covered in brown sugar and cinnamon, and skewered." (What? No cream gravy?)

· B.W.'s Original Fried Banana Pudding – "Banana pudding inside fried tortilla, topped with whipped cream and powdered sugar or cinnamon." (Stick provided to help beat off simian thieves.)

· Mama's Fried Sweet Potato Pie – "Pie filling inside flour tortilla, fried and topped with powdered sugar and cinnamon." (Whose mama came up with this?)

· Cajun Shrimp On A Stick – "Spicy shrimp in a custom Cajun batter, fried and served with a choice of dipping sauce." (Custom batters are infinitely preferable to those dreary “standard” ones.)

· Deep Fried Cosmopolitan - "A delicious fried pastry is filled with rich cheesecake and topped with a sweet & tangy cranberry glaze and a lime wedgie. Served on a stick." (Lime wedgie?)

· Donkey Tails - "Large all-beef franks, slit on one side and generously stuffed with sharp cheddar cheese, are wrapped tightly in a large flour tortilla and fried until golden brown. Served with mustard, chili, or Ruth's salsa." (At least it’s not a more personal part of the donkey, which – along with the corresponding parts of bulls and rams – some companies actually turn into dog chews.)

· Fernie's Fried Mac 'n Cheese – "Texas-sized bites of macaroni & cheese, covered with a layer of garlic & herb-flavored bread crumbs, are deep fried until crispy outside and hot & cheesy inside. Served on a stick with a side of dipping sauces." (Take that, Kraft!)

· Fernie's Fried Choco-rito – "A flour tortilla – stuffed with marshmallows, coconut, candy bar pieces, caramel morsels and cinnamon – is dipped in pancake batter and deep fried to a crispy, crunchy outside and sweet, gooey inside. Drizzled with honey and topped with whipped cream." (It’s the pancake batter surrounding the tortilla that makes this one truly special.)

· Fernie's Fried Chili Frito Burrito – "Chili and Fritos inside flour tortilla, fried and topped with choice of cheese sauce, shredded cheddar, jalapeños, sour cream, hot sauce, and onions." (Fernie must be stopped.)

· Fried Avocadoes – "Hand-battered chunks of scrumptious avocado are breaded and fried to perfection. Choice of dipping sauces. A culinary hit in California" (which, if you ask me, is enough reason to ban it from Texas).

· Fried Coke - "Smooth spheres of Coca Cola-flavored batter are deep fried, drizzled with pure Coke fountain syrup, topped with whipped cream, cinnamon sugar and a cherry. Served in souvenir contoured glasses" (on a stick).

· Fried Pancake Sundae – "Tasty country sausage bites wrapped in a light pancake batter, deep fried to perfection , topped with whipped cream, lightly glazed with hot fudge sauce and finished with a cherry on top. Pineapple and strawberry glaze options available." (This one left me speechless.)

· Fried Praline Perfection - "Guaranteed to melt in your mouth. Plump coconut and pecan pralines, battered and fried to a rich golden crust. Served warm with powdered sugar." (There’s no such thing as “too rich.”)

· Melon Monroe – "Honeydew melon sauce ladled over chocolate-chip ice cream, topped with whipped cream then garnished with two fried-dough, shaped 'legs' filled with a special caramel sauce. Served fresh out of the fryer." (Norma Jean must be so proud.)

· Deep-Fried Death Row Inmates (not in the fair's press release, but nevertheless a novel solution to Texas prison overcrowding.)

—Kathee "Gourmand" Brewer

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Chicken Soup for the Pornographer’s Soul

If chickens made porn, what kind of content would they produce? Would it come to be known by the more delicate euphemism “fowl entertainment?” I only ask because, for some reason probably best left in the ether, chickens play a significant role in American folk sayings and fables: They cross roads, warn everyone the sky is falling, lay eggs, count, write illegibly, display immeasurable cowardice, and probably engage in all manner of other un-chicken-like behaviors. It seems chickens can’t be too anthropomorphic. (In some parallel universe, there’s a cult-classic movie Planet of the Chickens. I know there is.)

Possibly never before in the history of chickenkind has the question “Which came first: the chicken or the egg?” popped up as frequently as it did when we began surveying website owners with the question, “Which is more important: content or traffic?” Of course, that was not unexpected. Neither was the neat little dividing line between the opinions of content producers and traffic pushers. As with most things, where an Internet pro’s opinion falls along the spectrum of all possible answers evidently depends in large measure upon whence his or her income derives. It’s all a matter of perspective.

What did surprise us is that more respondents didn’t take the chicken’s way out and say “They’re equally important.” Apparently having borne feathers in a previous life, that’s where I think I would have gone. After all, what good does having the most exquisite content in the world do a producer if no one sees it? Conversely, how beneficial is tons of traffic if your content sucks so badly people can’t beat a hasty enough retreat? Both scenarios are financial sinkholes waiting to happen.

As it turns out, debating the issue is also an excellent way to tie oneself in knots for hours at a time; take my word for it. It’s much like the un-winnable argument about whether editorial or advertising is more important to a publication’s financial health. You haven’t lived until you’ve gotten between a content producer and a traffic pusher and set them at each other’s throats, only to find that in the end, they shake hands and agree to do business together — over your poor, mangled body. This devil’s advocate thing just isn’t working for me….

That’s one of the absolutely fascinating things about the adult industry, though. Perhaps because the industry remains relatively small in population, competitors in adult don’t attempt to compete by wiping out, buying out, or humiliating their rivals, but by forming effective alliances. Although there are exceptions (more in the brick-and-mortar end of the biz than online), adult enterprises don’t engage in the sorts of corporate shenanigans for which the mainstream world is all too notorious. More often, they decline to put all their eggs in one basket and instead agree to work together for mutual benefit. “I’ve got this killer content. You say you have an enormous amount of convertible traffic? Well, heck, send it on over and I’ll pay you for it!” The phenomenon prompts the question, “If adult entrepreneurs are despicable hooligans with questionable morals, then why are they the ones who are able to make a kinder, gentler business environment work?”

Perhaps it works because, like chickens (or any bird, for that matter), the adult industry is too busily engaged in finding its next meal to plot world domination. Although the outside world often seems to view adult as some sort of terrorist cell intent upon subverting humanity by way of its loins, mainstream frequently finds itself taking business and technology lessons from adult. Doesn’t it sometimes just make you want to shout, “Get over it, you self-important prudes!”?

But back to chickens…. Did you realize the chicken is said to be the closest living relative of the Tyrannosaurus Rex? I’m not sure whether that makes chickens more impressive or T. Rex less so, but it certainly lends a new complexion to the phrase “hen-pecked.” It’s also been demonstrated by research (your tax dollars at work) that chickens prefer to look at humans who possess the physical attributes that make humans sexually attractive to each other.

Maybe chicken porn isn’t such a far-fetched concept after all.

—Kathee "Henny Penny" Brewer

(This column originally appeared in the February 2007 issue of AVN Online.)

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Playing Games

I fantasize, therefore I am.

William Shakespeare was wrong: All the world’s a game, not a stage. He was right about “all the men and women [being] merely players,” though. What else could explain all the weirdness in the world? Karma’s not that facetious.

Take former (possibly, by now) Iowa Sen. Larry Craig, for example. Now there’s a man who knows games. No one’s really sure exactly what game he was playing in that Brokeback Bathroom (certainly the gay community is confused by it), but evidently it has some very peculiar rules at which only Craig and an oddly omniscient police officer are masters. I’ll never again be able to think benign thoughts about the Hokey Pokey.

Note to Sen. Craig: If you have to hold a series of press conferences in order to proclaim, “I’m not gay!” … well, draw your own conclusions.

Although participants in virtual worlds like Second Life vehemently resist the “game” label for their endeavors, it’s probably easiest for most of us to think of them that way. After all, in the broadest sense, games are those participatory sports that may resemble real life in some ways (they have rules; there are consequences for actions), but in actuality they are where people go to avoid real life. Virtual universes, especially, are the worlds we’d create if we were God. They encompass the charades in which we’d engage if we were as self-actualized and self-determined as we’d like to be. They allow us to unshackle our inner children, heroes, villains, genders and fantasies and behave in ways few of us would dream of behaving outside the fantasy realm.

Maybe Craig is an ardent participant in some Beltway version of Second Life and momentarily lost himself in character. (Of course, there are those who argue Washington comprises its own make-believe world.) In the 1980s and early ’90s, there were rumors about Dungeons & Dragons players becoming so involved in the game that they suffered psychotic breaks, became unable to separate themselves from their fantasy characters and eventually committed suicide or murder, so there is precedent for such behavior, at least in urban legend. Come to think of it, though, the same could be said of religion. There is far more of that sort of antisocial activity documented among religious zealots than among role-playing gamers. Jim Jones’ little fantasy world at Jonestown, Guyana, stands as just one glaring example.

Less easily consigned to the realm of fantasy is the U.S. Army’s regrettable behavior on the night of July 5, 2007, when during a so-called “health-and-welfare inspection,” military police confiscated several very personal items that were legal but improperly declared contraband. No one knows what the people in charge or the MPs were thinking as they snagged two vibrators and a laptop computer from a barracks in Iraq and subsequently “leaked” the names of the women involved, but they weren’t playing a game. We know this because (as mentioned earlier) games have rules, and the army certainly wasn’t playing by its own that night. “Oops! Sorry. My bad” doesn’t cut it as an explanation, either, gentlemen.

War in the real world certainly is not a game. However, even soldiers are only human, and it is entirely reasonable to assume they might find a release for pent-up frustration and tension in fantasy. That might explain why so many RPGs incorporate elements of war instead of existing solely as Utopian societies. Even if — or perhaps especially if — the fantasies are sexual in nature, they provide a valuable security valve. Given that our fighting men and women and the civilians who support them are not faceless, nameless, soulless automatons (which, frankly, might be easier for everyone, since it’s much less traumatic to mourn the death of a machine than a human), shouldn’t the military hierarchy forgive them their fantasies as long as those fantasies remain within their heads and not out in the public view? Isn’t a sexual release valve preferable to one that results in the trigger-happy slaughter of innocent people? Although there are legitimate cultural reasons for not flinging Americans’ headlong dash into damnation in the faces of Iraqi Muslims who believe pornography and sexual devices are sinful, as long as deployed soldiers and civilians don’t make a spectator sport of their fantasy lives, is a “the terrorists will win” scenario actually imminent?

It seems engagers in fantasy could be doing far more harmful things with much larger ramifications … but then, I tend to live in a fantasy world where the majority of people are reasonable.

—Kathee “Ender” Brewer

(This column originally appeared in the November 2007 issue of AVN Online.)

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"It Snuck Up On Us"

When you live on a sandbar in the Gulf of Mexico, there are five words you do not aspire to hear from professional weather watchers: "It snuck up on us."

Hurricane Humberto did exactly that early Thursday morning, surging into a Category 1 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 85 miles per hour just before striking the Southeast Texas coast slightly northeast of Galveston at about 1 a.m.

Humberto was an indolent storm, lollygagging across the Gulf at about six miles an hour for most of Wednesday before engaging in some serious Galveston sightseeing late in the afternoon. Sustained winds were only in the 50-60 MPH range at 9 p.m. If Humberto had come ashore then as forecasters predicted instead of insolently gamboling about over the water for a few more hours, it would have remained a tropical storm. It might have whacked a few more trees on the island, possibly sent a few more inches of water under shop doors on The Strand, maybe slightly damaged a building here and there ...

... but it would not have become the dreaded "H word," which tends to send people here into a panic. You would think because we're all very aware we live on a sandbar in the Gulf of Mexico (and we take perverse pride in thumbing our noses at Mother Nature), everyone might simply shrug and go on about their lives. Some people, however, allow hysteria to overcome them and they behave as if any hurricane's arrival represents a monumental surprise. Given Galveston's history, that's just bizarre. After all, despite Katrina visiting her wrath upon New Orleans in 2005, Galveston remains indelibly inked in the anals of history as the site of the worst natural disaster ever to strike the U.S.: the 1900 Storm. (Crews stopped counting bodies at 6,000, and what once was called "the Wall Street of the Southwest" literally was swept from the face of the planet in one night of unimaginable terror. Erik Larson's excellent books Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History and The Drowning of Galveston and the History Channel's chilling Isaac's Storm provide harrowing accounts of the disaster.)

Some of us, of course, consider hurricanes one of the unfortunate trades we must make in order to live in what passes for a tropical paradise roughly two miles off the coast of Texas. No matter how unpleasant it may be when she actually does slap us in the face, usually Mother Nature behaves herself quite politely around here. (After living in California's San Fernando Valley and Glasgow, Mont., I can attest to the occasional hurricane being infinitely preferable to unpredictable earth shaking and predictable snow drifts higher than houses. I'll take the hurricanes, thank you very much.)

What never ceases to amaze me is the broadcast media's morbid fascination with violent weather. For the past two years, at the vaguest threat of bad weather, Galveston has found itself under siege by news vultures who insist upon standing on the seawall and yelling into microphones as video cameras capture them being doused and buffeted. Venerable Dan Rather started the trend during Hurricane Carla in 1961, and since then every talking head with any ambition has imitated his death-defying feat in hopes it would propel him or her to similar national prominence. It hasn't, and those of us who live here think it's a particularly silly thing to do. ("What are you, nuts?! Get down from there and go inside before someone has you committed! Sheesh.... Talk about not having enough sense to come in out of the rain.")

Even more annoying is the implication people can't wait for another Katrina-like disaster to liven up the daily news — as long as they don't have to endure the unpleasantness personally. A man died in High Island (site of the storm's official landfall northeast of Galveston ) during Humberto, and there was "significant damage" to property in that area from wind and water. High Island residents remain without power, and the roads are impassable due to downed trees and power lines.

As one local weatherman (excuse me: "meteorologist") noted, "[Galveston] dodged a bullet this time," but our sighs of relief are accompanied by someone else's sobs of despair. Celebrating our good fortune would be terribly inappropriate.

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Of Bulwer-Litton and Darwin

The following was forwarded to me by a writer/editor friend, to whom it was forwarded by her mother (a former English teacher). I haven't shown it to my mother (also a former English teacher) yet, but I wonder if she'll laugh, cry or despair when I do.

For the record, I laughed ... before checking my own creative endeavors and falling into despair.

All is lost!!!! Number 14 had to be the result of a math test gone bad. Number 8 was so good, it bore repeating. As we age, we will need to learn to speak another language, and it won't be at all poetic.

Every year, English teachers from across the country can submit their collections of actual similes and metaphors found in high school essays. These excerpts are published each year to the amusement of teachers across the country. Here are last year's winners:

1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.

2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one ofthose boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes aroundthe country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E.Coli, and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.

5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.

6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

7. He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.

8. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.

9. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.

10. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement likea Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.

11. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another cityand Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.

12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.

13. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.

14. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.

15. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth.

16. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

17. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant, and she was the East River.

18. Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.

19. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.

20. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.

21. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.

22. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.

23. The ballerina rose gracefully en Pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.

24. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.

25. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.

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What’s Past is Prologue

Trying not to look back in rancor.

This is the third time I’ve written this column. It’s not the third time I’ve started, written a few paragraphs and then decided to take another tack. It’s the third time I’ve written an entire full-page screed and then discarded the whole mess and started over. That doesn’t happen to me very often (although, judging by a few printed faux pas in the past, it probably should happen more often than it does).

I’m one of those writers who writes because she can’t not write, and so-called "op/eds" are among the most enjoyable — if sometimes challenging — things I do every month. I took a page from my father’s book long ago and decided everyone is entitled to my opinion, and I think editorial commentary often brings out the beast … er, best … in me. It certainly keeps my mind agile.

This column has proven to be the most challenging to date. How does one encapsulate 100 issues chronicling the birth of an industry? It isn’t easy, especially since the industry progressed from infancy through childhood and into an awkward adolescence (in which it remains, and probably always will) within a few short years.

For about nine years now, AVN Online has documented the development of the digital side of the adult industry. I think the magazine has done an admirable job. It’s interesting to skim through the morgue (that’s what we media types call a library of back issues) and see how the industry and the magazine have evolved. They have grown in ways both predictable and surprising. It makes me wonder: When future archeologists uncover AVN Online’s morgue (by then, probably worthy of the other meaning of the term) what will they infer about the industry it covers? Will they see it as a bunch of yahoos determined to engage in unadulterated chicanery, a group of victims of political and societal hypocrisy and senseless oppression, a small-but-intense army fighting a sometimes misguided battle for personal liberties, or what? Depending upon how things shake out between now and then, the digital adult entertainment industry’s history may be viewed as a seminal moment in the development of technology and tolerance, or it may be relegated to the “tempest in a teapot” section of history’s footnotes. Depending on the direction of mankind’s next move, industry denizens could be either heroes or villains.

As an industry, adult is a little of both now. There unquestionably are some episodes and people in which the industry should take pride. For example, if the rest of society would just give credit where it hates to admit credit is due, the adult industry would receive at least a few pats on the back for its rapid proof and deployment of new technologies and its efforts to curtail child abuse and prevent children from accessing hardcore material online. (Unfortunately, some bad apples continue to spoil the barrel in the latter two areas, and that reflects badly — and very publicly — on everyone else.) On the other hand, there are some individuals and business practices everyone should hope never to see again. I’ll leave the names out of it, but among the business practices that immediately spring to mind are credit-card “cramming,” affiliate-commission shaving, wholesale intellectual-property theft, unhealthy competition and other willful subterfuge. (Seriously, people, there’s enough revenue to go around for those who are willing to work for it. There’s no need to steal from each other and the public at large.)

It’s the mission of any trade publication to provide its industry the information, advice, analysis and commentary that allow industry members to engage in commerce profitably, safely and ethically (not, as some aggravatingly assert, to help individual businesses shamelessly promote themselves). Because it cleaves to its mission with a vengeance, over the years AVN Online has exposed the bad right along with the good. One tends to forget how much the industry and the magazine have overcome to get where they are … until some zealous cheerleader decides it would be a great idea to publish a retrospective. At times like that, one can only grit her teeth and repeat the immortal words of George Santayana: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Please, I beg you: Let’s not.

—Kathee “Methuselah” Brewer

(This column originally appeared in the October 2007 issue of AVN Online.)

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Mainstream of Consciousness

All that glitters can be cold.

Much is made of the significance, importance and — some might say — necessity of adult entertainment being accepted as just another component of modern society. The prevailing sentiment seems to be that as pornography becomes more “mainstream,” anti-porn crusaders and their government lackeys will have fewer fronts on which to attack a commodity that is as old as society itself. After all, John Q. Public wants his porn, and not much is considered “obscene” by juries anymore. And since adult entertainment makes up a healthy percentage of mainstream-industry profits, doing away with the adult industry conceivably could compromise the economy as a whole.

On their faces, all of those arguments are valid, but in the larger picture, they’re part of an enormous — and very sharp — double-edged sword.

I’m sure I’m not telling readers anything they don’t already know when I opine that part of what has made the creation and distribution of pornography an immensely profitable endeavor is its subversive, clandestine nature. There’s an element of danger and taboo that clings to the material. In some cultures, public nudity and physical manifestations of desire are accepted as normal, natural components of the human experience. But in most societies, hardcore sexual behavior and its accoutrements are regarded as “dirty,” shameful pursuits that belong in dark, private spaces out of the public view (with the notable exception of titillation in advertising, of course). Consequently, the adult-entertainment industry traditionally has attracted entrepreneurs who revel in rebellion and resolutely cling to a general disdain for the rules of polite society. Even today, with porn consumption at an all-time high, many of the people who work in the industry strive to present shocking, “in your face,” “bad boy/girl” images that would not be tolerated in any mainstream industry – except, perhaps, Hollywood, music and professional sports. They take great pride in being as poorly behaved and defiant as possible, often because it brings them and their products the notoriety they crave yet otherwise might not be able to garner.

Like it or not, the U.S. retains a puritanical culture that makes the adult industry a difficult milieu in which to operate. (How many pornographers' family members, friends and neighbors know what they do?) That atmosphere promotes a community ethos in which deviance often is applauded. The problem with that is once the behavior becomes comfortable, it’s difficult to see it for what it is: an unpopular, uncomfortable veneer that serves a temporary agenda. Once the goal is attained, the actor can drop the charade — except by then the behaviors may be ingrained, much like the way a pet dog sits up when offered a treat because he’s learned sitting up gets him what he wants. When people use antisocial, misogynistic behaviors to get what they want, they probably won’t stop relying on those tactics when they’ve achieved the goals that spawned them.

And there’s the rub. If porn becomes “mainstream,” at least two things are likely to happen: The material will become just another mainstream commodity, and “bad boy” pornographers will become mildly interesting pariahs like Barry Bonds, Paris Hilton and Hank Williams Jr. Those people are famously arrogant, petty and generally unpleasant, and nobody really wants to be around them unless there’s significant, immediate benefit to be gained. Bonds remains in baseball because he’s still slugging (although observers condemn his relationship with the truth), Williams occasionally releases a worthwhile song (although he’s notoriously abusive to almost everyone around him, including his audiences), and Hilton’s still tabloid fodder (mostly because everyone seems to be trying to figure out what they found so fascinating about her in the first place). Is this really a fate to which anyone aspires?

So I wonder: Is the “mainstreaming” of porn really a good idea? Yes, mainstream acceptance of adult content would make producers’ and distributors’ lives easier, but it also would bring more well-funded competition into the marketplace and might lessen demand for the product. And it’s likely that porn would "go corporate” and pick up all of the baggage that entails: Small operators would be forced from the field, boards of directors would take control, and the adult-industry insiders who now take such glee in rebellion would have to clean up their acts and behave or get out.

As the saying goes, “Be careful what you wish for. You might get it.”

—Kathee “Wet Blanket” Brewer

(This column originally appeared in the September 2007 issue of AVN Online.)

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Age-Appropriate Content

Youth is wasted on the young.

“Age is a state of mind.”
“Never trust anyone over 30.”
“Life begins at 40.”
“Forty is the new 30.”

As human beings, most of us are preoccupied with chronological age. We spend the first part of our lives looking forward to doing all sorts of fun things we’ll be allowed to do and understand “when we get older,” then we spend our prime years being too busy to do the fun stuff we looked forward to being old enough to do, and finally, we become too old and physically infirm to do the fun stuff we didn’t make time to do in our youth.

It happens faster than one may think. Suddenly, in one’s second half-century of life, he or she finds himself or herself looking back and thinking, “Gee, I wish I hadn’t spent so much time acting my age!”

Age is a fairly concrete concept, serving to mark the passage of time and allowing people to measure their lives, successes and failures in years (and gray hairs and wrinkles). Maturity, on the other hand, is relative. It represents a combination of education, experience, and chronological age, and it most often manifests itself in attitudes and abilities. At the age of adulthood — 18, or (legal disclaimer) 21 in some jurisdictions — some people are ready to venture forth and make their marks on the world, while others live at home with their parents until they’re 30 (or older). Although it doesn’t happen as often today as it did in previous generations (thanks to the invention of “assisted living facilities” and “retirement communities”), the process completes a circle when elderly folks lose their mental acuity or physical integrity and wind up living like children in their children’s homes.

But I digress. (Perhaps you can forgive me for that, as in entertainment industry terms, I’m about ready for a nursing home myself.)

More than any other, entertainment industries put a premium on youth and idealized appearance. For the most part, audiences don’t want to see old, out-of-shape people behaving in ways the audience fantasizes about behaving. That’s too much of a mortality jolt, and no one likes to be reminded his or her time on this mortal coil is limited. When it comes to sexual activity, in particular, the ravages of time and hard living are terribly unattractive (which, one may suppose, explains at least part of the “May-December romance,” “trophy wife,” and “boy toy” phenomena). Chronological age is particularly poisonous to entertainment-industry denizens, and many of them go way out of their ways to hide it from what they view as nosy members of the public (who may, in fact, only be trying to reassure themselves there’s still time for them to do something worthwhile before they’re too old to matter anymore).

—Kathee “Dorian Gray” Brewer

(A longer version of this column originally appeard in the August 2007 issue of AVN Online.)

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Yee-Haw!

Whip out the brandin’ irons, boys! We got us a herd!

If there’s one thing Texans know a lot about, it’s branding. From the time we’re the youngest of younguns, born-and-bred Texans are besieged with tales about our rip-snortin’ collective past. A large part of that past, as anyone familiar with Western movies knows, was cattle. The Old West still is a living, breathing thing to young Texans, even to the point of studying cattle barons and their brands in school.

Branding in the Old West was more than a way to make a mark on society: It was a matter of survival. Empires were built (not always legitimately) on the strength of a good horse, a bale of barbed wire, and a branding iron. Under the laws of the day (some of which remain in effect in Texas), rustling branded horses or cattle was a hanging offense; however, any bovine found running loose without a brand was fair game and usually quickly found a mark of some kind on its hide.

Most livestock brands, like modern trademarks, were registered, and many remain in use today: The King Ranch’s “running W” (patterned after either a diamondback rattlesnake or the sweeping horns of a Texas Longhorn bull, depending on whom you believe) and the Four Sixes’ stylized four sixes (which actually do not, as legend has it, represent the winning poker hand that decided the ranch’s ownership) are two examples.

Livestock brands played a larger role in the lives of ranchers than just protecting their herds. In many cases, ranches that began with one name eventually became so closely associated with their livestock markers that the ranches began to share the brand’s name. Such was the case with the Four Sixes, which began as the Burk Burnett Ranch (a rather mundane moniker for a one-third-million-acre spread). If a nearby hamlet (Burkburnett, Texas) hadn’t been named for him, the original owner of the Four Sixes might have slipped into history’s footnotes, but everyone in Texas knows the Four Sixes to this day.

That’s the genius of branding, and in most cases, it happens almost outside the general public’s consciousness. It is not, as some seem to think, slapping their corporate moniker on everything in their universe (including employees). The essence of a brand is much grander than that. A brand is a larger-than-life icon that pervades the human experience.

What strikes me most about almost all industries is how few people have an honest, straightforward understanding of what the term “branding” actually means. It’s more than just a name or a look; a logo (McDonald’s golden arches) or a catchy marketing phrase (“You deserve a break today”). True branding goes to the heart of human psychology, causing the tiniest trigger to conjure associations that are so ingrained in the culture as to be synonymous with everyday objects or experiences. Are we more likely, after a sneeze, to ask someone to pass a facial tissue or a Kleenex? When watching kids zip along the beachside boardwalk in Santa Monica, are we more likely to yell, “Look out for the guy on the in-line skates!” or “Look out for that idiot on Rollerblades!”? In the South, we don’t recognize Dr. Pepper, Pepsi, Mountain Dew, or Sprite — to us, every sugary, carbonated beverage is a Coke. (“Jake, y’ont a Coke?” “Naw, but I’ll take some sweet tea if ya got it.”)

That’s branding, and it goes far beyond “baby, remember my name.” The best brands ubiquitously manifest themselves long after the cute advertising slogans have faded and the swag has worn thin. Like a symbol burned into the hide of a steer, the best brands are so burned into our consciousness as to be unforgettable, even if we’d love to forget them. (In most cases, in fact, forgetting a prominent brand is a bad idea, as usually it results in the absent-minded individual receiving a polite-but-firm reminder that he or she has violated a trademark belonging to the client of a firm with the names of an entire graduating class at Harvard Law scrawled down the side of a very imposing piece of letterhead. Trust me.)

How does one create a brand? Reputation and longevity have much to do with the process. True “brands” don’t happen overnight (ask Hugh Hefner). When they do, it’s because the right set of circumstances occurred at the right time in the hands of the right individuals, and it’s magical.

Much like wrangling cattle, also it also requires one heckuva lot of work.

—Kathee “Tex” Brewer

(This column originally appeard in the July 2007 issue of AVN Online.)

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Strangers in a Strange Land

When I was a kid, my family moved often. We moved so often, in fact, that somewhere along the way I lost track of the 21 places we lived before I graduated high school. That sort of nomadic existence teaches children two things: (1) how to mimic almost any regional dialect or accent with a great deal of accuracy and very little practice, and (2) “foreigner” is a terribly pejorative word.

In most dictionaries, the first definition given for foreigner is “someone who is a native of another country; an alien” (another pejorative term, considering the most common synonym for alien is “strange”). More broadly, though, foreigner (from the Middle English) means “an outsider; someone who is not a member of a particular group or community; someone who is excluded.”

Ouch. That definition resonates with me, because no matter how hard military brats of the Cold War era tried to fit in wherever our lots in life consigned us, we were doomed to remain foreigners. To this day, I have a hard time using the word to describe others, because I quite vividly remember how it felt to be foreign myself.

Thankfully, things have changed monumentally in the past 20 or so years. The military no longer shuffles personnel just because it can every time the wind changes direction, and the Web has taught many residents of the global village that there are more things uniting us than dividing us. We may not have a common language, common currency, common religion, or common culture, but increasingly we’re developing common frames of reference. Ways of life that used to seem terribly foreign to us now hardly seem strange at all.

Perhaps one of the most universal frames of human reference is sexuality. After all, almost everyone older than 18 at least thinks about sex, whether or not they care to (or are allowed to) participate in erotic activity. Sex, at least insofar as it relates to procreation, is a biological imperative, and with rare exceptions, all of us are prisoners of our genetic code. That man has elevated sexual activity to the level of recreation (or, in some cases, spectator sport) is one of the things that separate him from other animals.

It’s also one of the things that draw people together. Regardless of one’s language, currency, cultural, or religious framework, sex benefits from a universal language all its own. Very few would fail to recognize a sexual “come-on” regardless the nationality or language of the tease. A naked body posed suggestively or “caught in the act” seems to mean just about the same thing to everyone. That’s part of what gives the adult entertainment industry an edge when it comes to international commerce.

The experiences of adult entertainment producers worldwide really aren’t that different, either. Whether they’re in what Americans consider the sexually wide-open spaces of California or operating on the continent or in the Far East, porn producers face a surprisingly similar collection of restraints, challenges, and blessings. Adult-entertainment-specific laws — considered at best intrusive and at worst inane — impinge upon the professional and sometimes personal lives of producers around the globe, as do economic and social forces beyond their control.

Yet, they persevere in a field often viewed as foreign (if not much, much worse) by polite society, thereby bringing much joy, I’m sure, to the loins of grown-up boys and girls worldwide. What’s actually foreign (as in “alien” or “strange”) about that is how eager some foreigners (as in “not members of the adult entertainment group or community”) are to ostracize denizens of adult as though they were doing something completely foreign to the human experience. They’re not; however, the moment foreigners recognize their own (over)reactions to pornography are part of what makes the medium such a profitable pursuit probably will be the exact moment at which pornography’s market value plummets — so perhaps pornographic détente is not the best idea.

Nonetheless, a little diplomacy wouldn’t hurt.

—Kathee “Jubal Harshaw” Brewer

(This column originally appeared in the June 2007 issue of AVN Online.)

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Avast, Me Hearties!

2006 may well go down in the books as the year in which the adult entertainment industry “suddenly” became interested in content piracy.

It’s not that brigands suddenly figured out how to steal what they didn’t want to pay for, or even that producers suddenly noticed part of the reason their profit margins were shrinking was that people were stealing content instead of purchasing it. In fact, quite the opposite is true: Pirates have been sharing content on the peer-to-peer networks since the Web was a pup, Hollywood and the music industry have been beating their chests and suing teen-age thieves for quite a while now, and some adult-content producers (notably Titan Media and Falcon Foto) have been trying to warn their compatriots about “the piracy problem” for several years.

In late 2006, however, it suddenly seemed almost everyone in adult began ranting about piracy. Perhaps the outcry was occasioned by the equally sudden perceived reduction in the political threat level when in November the Democrats retook Congress. Any community functions more cohesively when it faces an outside threat, and when one threat wanes, the community will seize upon another in an attempt to increase bonding by focusing combined energy and wrath toward a malevolent “other.” (Remember how much the U.S. and the USSR used to glare at each other, and how at loose ends everyone seemed to be when the Cold War thawed? Of course, all became right with the world again when those evil terrorists showed up.)

Content pirates, as it turns out, make an excellent target for community-building contempt. In the eyes of people who make their living creating and distributing entertainment, they’re loathsome. They’re also faceless, mostly anonymous, and sneaky, the cheap bastards. They cost entertainment industries of all kinds millions of dollars every year because they’d rather stab some hardworking stiff in the back than carry their fair load of the economic burden—and, dammit, that’s just not right. Why, we oughta keel-haul ’em! Make ’em walk the plank! Feed ’em to the sharks!

Before we blow the men down, however, perhaps we ought to consider what we can learn from pirates (other than how to wear eye patches and silly hats with panache, pronounce “arrrgh” correctly, and balance parrots on our shoulders). Some adult-content producers continue to view a modest amount of piracy as viral marketing. They do their best to tag everything so it will lead back to their revenue-producing outlets, and then they hope for the best when it’s ripped off. Others spend copious amounts of time and money in legal machinations designed to curb the flow. But although piracy is condemnable, it’s also a predictable response to markets that cling stubbornly to business models that refuse to shift with the tides. While no one would begin to call the current state of adult content distribution irrelevant — yet — consumers are beginning to look for something new. Something less expensive that requires less commitment. Something more personalized. Something that puts consumers, not producers and distributors, in the captain’s chair when it comes to acquisition. When the right model is found, pirates will be able to get their booty affordably without the hassle of burying the treasure, and content owners will be able to make a tidy sum—albeit probably in smaller increments.

Although it is foolhardy even to suggest turning a blind eye to wholesale theft, there is significant worth in the argument that instead of battling it out on the high seas, content producers and distributors may be better off devoting their resources to knocking pirates’ wooden legs out from under them by making piracy a waste of time. The pirates of yore didn’t disappear because they were hounded to death by lawyers and courts; they disappeared because they were outgunned, out-sailed, and outsmarted. They disappeared because it became financially disadvantageous to be pirates.

How does one outsmart modern-day pirates? I don’t have the definitive answer to that question. That’s why I’m a poor-but-earnest writer, not a wealthy shipping magnate.

Still, the answer is out there, and the sorry son of a moldy biscuit-eatin’ seadog who deciphers the map to it will have found a fine treasure, indeed.

—Kathee “Scurvy Dog” Brewer

(This column originally appeared in the May 2007 issue of AVN Online.)

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