I read half of Traci Lords' autobiography, the pornstar from like the 80s or so. Basically she had a fucked up childhood, raped at 10 years old by this 16 year old guy she was in love with, sexually molested by a pseudo stepfather but the only adult she could trust. Got pregnant in high school by a boyfriend, who of course turned his back instantly, and had to get an abortion. Thereafter, she essentially got tricked into doing nude modeling because she needed a job to pay for the abortion (she didn't think it was nude at first). Her stepfather didn't bother to tell her the truth of course, and told her basically that everything was good and normal. Vodka and coke lines later, she's a nude model at 15. And since she has no family to turn to or friends, she stays with the porn industry, and eventually gets pressured into softcore and hardcore films. Anyway... Sexual abuse is fucked up... Why do people do it? It boggles my mind...
Oh, and she has a terrible opinion of the porn industry, says everyone has something messed up to say about their private lives. Understandable. But then again I have heard of not so traumatic things from others in the porn industry. So yes... Getting tricked into it is pretty horrific.
And I started my internship with MAPLight, and am working on a few practice bills right now. Conservatives and industry are fucked up. I'm working on this one bill, S-MINER Act of 2007, basically a comprehensive safety bill for miners, focusing especially on coal mines. Industry says, yes we love safety, but the costs are overbearing for business (the penalties and fees for safety oversight by a separate gov't department), so it isn't worth it... It'll be a detriment to the American economy, and we'll have to lay off people. God can't you just make a little less money???????????!!! It's people's lives! The technology is there, so we should use it. More evidence of the fucked up nature of human mentalities.
Basically I'm given a few bills, and I look up all the supporting and opposing organizations for the bill, list them and the source, find out a general sense of what the organization is about, and then write a comment about the bill. It's really fascinating reading some of these things... I'll generalize more after I get through some more bills... I'm tempted to generalize right away about conservative mentality, but I shall hold my tongue.
2 comments:
yeah, it often does seem like a no brainer for industry to do more safety, but i think liberals should be careful of demonizing industry and dismissing their concerns. not that i think we need to tone down our rhetoric. i think venting is fine, but when it gets down to negotiating and policy-making, i think liberals need to do more self-reflection on why they have not been able to push through their agenda and protect the public and the environment.
good point. industry seems to be much better with diplomacy, something liberals might want to think about improving. industry generally starts with something like, oh we care about safety but this isn't the right time, or the costs will be too overbearing. i guess liberals could play the same diplomacy game, and say they empathize with industry needs for economic improvement... anyway, i'm sure i'll find out much more about it in the coming couple months.
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