Article about GGW...Good Read Inside - GoFuckYourself.com

g$$$ · 05-04-2007, 10:36 AM

Age of Innocence Revisited
By GARANCE FRANKE-RUTA
May 4, 2007; Page W11

Joe Francis, founder of the "Girls Gone Wild" video company, may be 34 years old, but these days he is barely legal.

The controversial impresario has built a $100 million soft-core porn empire based on filming college students flashing (mostly) their breasts and (at times) other forbidden zones. He now sits in jail on a 35-day contempt of court sentence. Mr. Francis, who had previously been prosecuted for failing to document the ages of the young women he films, was arrested in April after violating a judge's instruction to peaceably negotiate with seven young women who had filed a civil suit against him. They had alleged that his company, Mantra Films Inc., had filmed them while they were underage in 2003 and visiting Panama City, Fla., for spring break. Since being jailed, Mr. Francis has been charged with other crimes. He has tax problems, too. All told, he is facing felony jail time of up to five years in Florida, and another 10 in Nevada.
[Photo]
Spring break: old enough to have fun, but not much else

Good. Joe Francis is a cultural pollutant. But as he contemplates life in prison, the rest of us ought to contemplate what he has wrought -- or what kind of society we have allowed him to create on our watch. "Girls Gone Wild" and its skin-flashing antics -- spring break, beach parties, Mardi Gras -- may seem relatively harmless artifacts of our look-at-me culture, especially when compared with the mechanical bedroom scenes and stagey embraces of hard-core pornography. But that is precisely why they matter more: Mr. Francis's cameras have constructed a huge business out of recording the semi-nudity of "girls" who are not in "the business" at all: naïve girls, canny girls, drunken girls, pretty girls and not-so-pretty girls -- regular girls, if one may put it that way. Above all, young girls. Mr. Francis has made it socially acceptable for a freshman at, say, Ohio State -- living in a dorm room in Columbus like thousands of freshmen before her -- to participate in soft-core porn.

If that phrase sounds too momentous for giggling (and often crudely embarrassing) flashes of skin, consider how much has changed in recent years. Once upon a time, a picture was just a picture. Today it can be wirelessly beamed to computers that can email it to networks where, once it is posted, it can be downloaded and endlessly reproduced by anyone who wants it. The detritus of 50 years of television is now available on YouTube, as are highlights from many DVDs. Just as Google transforms us all into archivists of previously fleeting moments, so too does the new digital recording technology give youthful acts a permanent life. In the case of Mr. Francis and his empire of imitators -- not to mention angry ex-boyfriends with digital flash cards and a long memory -- it can transform the playful exhibitionism of young women into scarlet letters that follow them around for life.

Is there anything to be done? Curtailing the demand side of such a "market" is difficult, requiring moralistic sermons and abridgements of speech. But the supply side is more vulnerable to change. It is time to raise the age of consent from 18 to 21 -- "consent," in this case, referring not to sexual relations but to providing erotic content on film.

Current federal laws bar the production or possession of erotic images of individuals under 18. These laws are hardly a matter of long custom: The first was passed only in 1977, after a spate of interest in child pornography, and until superceded in 1984, only covered those under age 16. A variety of state laws add their own controls on youthful sexuality, trying to keep minors free of exploitation by defining the age, usually under 18, at which adult consent may be freely and responsibly given.

In certain obvious respects, 18 years is old enough to ward off the threat of "child porn." But the "Girls Gone Wild" problem concerns adult porn: At what age is a girl ready to make that decision, one that she will live with -- technologically speaking, at least -- for the rest of her life? A woman of 18 may be physically indistinguishable from one who is 21, but they are developmentally worlds apart.

Think only of the difference between a college freshman and a recent college graduate, or between a high-school senior and a young woman with a job and apartment of her own. Or think of the difference between a 19-year-old girl -- intoxicated by both a Scorpion Bowl (illegally served) and her own newly developed form -- and a woman who has been through her first heartbreak and has had to think long and hard about what her value is, both in her personal life and at the office. The second woman is more likely to nurse a chardonnay with friends than "go wild" in the sense that Mr. Francis' cameras are so eager to record. Surely the porn industry can survive without the participation of teenagers.

It is true that teenagers become legal adults at the age of 18, right around the time they graduate from high school. The age of consent to serve in the armed forces is also 18 (17 with parental consent), as is the minimum voting age since 1971, when an amendment to the Constitution lowered it from 21. But the federal government is already happy to bar legal adults from engaging in certain activities. Most notably, the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984 raised the drinking age to 21 (by threatening to withhold highway funds from states that did not go along). In practice, the age limit is flouted on college campuses and in private homes. But it has still had a positive effect, not least by driving down fatalities from drunk driving.

A new legal age for participating in the making of erotic imagery -- that is, for participating in pornography -- would most likely operate in the same way, sometimes honored in the breach more than the observance. But a 21-year-old barrier would save a lot of young women from being manipulated into an indelible error, while burdening the world's next Joe Francis with an aptly limited supply of "talent." And it would surely have a tonic cultural effect. We are so numb to the coarse imagery around us that we have come to accept not just pornography itself -- long since routinized -- but its "barely legal" category. "Girls Gone Wild" -- like its counterparts on the Web -- is treated as a kind of joke. It isn't. There ought to be a law.

05-04-2007, 10:36 AM	#1
g$$$ Confirmed User Join Date: Mar 2007 Posts: 2,807	Article about GGW...Good Read Inside Age of Innocence Revisited By GARANCE FRANKE-RUTA May 4, 2007; Page W11 Joe Francis, founder of the "Girls Gone Wild" video company, may be 34 years old, but these days he is barely legal. The controversial impresario has built a $100 million soft-core porn empire based on filming college students flashing (mostly) their breasts and (at times) other forbidden zones. He now sits in jail on a 35-day contempt of court sentence. Mr. Francis, who had previously been prosecuted for failing to document the ages of the young women he films, was arrested in April after violating a judge's instruction to peaceably negotiate with seven young women who had filed a civil suit against him. They had alleged that his company, Mantra Films Inc., had filmed them while they were underage in 2003 and visiting Panama City, Fla., for spring break. Since being jailed, Mr. Francis has been charged with other crimes. He has tax problems, too. All told, he is facing felony jail time of up to five years in Florida, and another 10 in Nevada. [Photo] Spring break: old enough to have fun, but not much else Good. Joe Francis is a cultural pollutant. But as he contemplates life in prison, the rest of us ought to contemplate what he has wrought -- or what kind of society we have allowed him to create on our watch. "Girls Gone Wild" and its skin-flashing antics -- spring break, beach parties, Mardi Gras -- may seem relatively harmless artifacts of our look-at-me culture, especially when compared with the mechanical bedroom scenes and stagey embraces of hard-core pornography. But that is precisely why they matter more: Mr. Francis's cameras have constructed a huge business out of recording the semi-nudity of "girls" who are not in "the business" at all: naïve girls, canny girls, drunken girls, pretty girls and not-so-pretty girls -- regular girls, if one may put it that way. Above all, young girls. Mr. Francis has made it socially acceptable for a freshman at, say, Ohio State -- living in a dorm room in Columbus like thousands of freshmen before her -- to participate in soft-core porn. If that phrase sounds too momentous for giggling (and often crudely embarrassing) flashes of skin, consider how much has changed in recent years. Once upon a time, a picture was just a picture. Today it can be wirelessly beamed to computers that can email it to networks where, once it is posted, it can be downloaded and endlessly reproduced by anyone who wants it. The detritus of 50 years of television is now available on YouTube, as are highlights from many DVDs. Just as Google transforms us all into archivists of previously fleeting moments, so too does the new digital recording technology give youthful acts a permanent life. In the case of Mr. Francis and his empire of imitators -- not to mention angry ex-boyfriends with digital flash cards and a long memory -- it can transform the playful exhibitionism of young women into scarlet letters that follow them around for life. Is there anything to be done? Curtailing the demand side of such a "market" is difficult, requiring moralistic sermons and abridgements of speech. But the supply side is more vulnerable to change. It is time to raise the age of consent from 18 to 21 -- "consent," in this case, referring not to sexual relations but to providing erotic content on film. Current federal laws bar the production or possession of erotic images of individuals under 18. These laws are hardly a matter of long custom: The first was passed only in 1977, after a spate of interest in child pornography, and until superceded in 1984, only covered those under age 16. A variety of state laws add their own controls on youthful sexuality, trying to keep minors free of exploitation by defining the age, usually under 18, at which adult consent may be freely and responsibly given. In certain obvious respects, 18 years is old enough to ward off the threat of "child porn." But the "Girls Gone Wild" problem concerns adult porn: At what age is a girl ready to make that decision, one that she will live with -- technologically speaking, at least -- for the rest of her life? A woman of 18 may be physically indistinguishable from one who is 21, but they are developmentally worlds apart. Think only of the difference between a college freshman and a recent college graduate, or between a high-school senior and a young woman with a job and apartment of her own. Or think of the difference between a 19-year-old girl -- intoxicated by both a Scorpion Bowl (illegally served) and her own newly developed form -- and a woman who has been through her first heartbreak and has had to think long and hard about what her value is, both in her personal life and at the office. The second woman is more likely to nurse a chardonnay with friends than "go wild" in the sense that Mr. Francis' cameras are so eager to record. Surely the porn industry can survive without the participation of teenagers. It is true that teenagers become legal adults at the age of 18, right around the time they graduate from high school. The age of consent to serve in the armed forces is also 18 (17 with parental consent), as is the minimum voting age since 1971, when an amendment to the Constitution lowered it from 21. But the federal government is already happy to bar legal adults from engaging in certain activities. Most notably, the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984 raised the drinking age to 21 (by threatening to withhold highway funds from states that did not go along). In practice, the age limit is flouted on college campuses and in private homes. But it has still had a positive effect, not least by driving down fatalities from drunk driving. A new legal age for participating in the making of erotic imagery -- that is, for participating in pornography -- would most likely operate in the same way, sometimes honored in the breach more than the observance. But a 21-year-old barrier would save a lot of young women from being manipulated into an indelible error, while burdening the world's next Joe Francis with an aptly limited supply of "talent." And it would surely have a tonic cultural effect. We are so numb to the coarse imagery around us that we have come to accept not just pornography itself -- long since routinized -- but its "barely legal" category. "Girls Gone Wild" -- like its counterparts on the Web -- is treated as a kind of joke. It isn't. There ought to be a law.