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3rd Annual California Dreaming Same-Sex Ballroom Dancing Competition
We just spotted this and thought we'd share, especially since many of you have been quite vocal in your annoyance with Weekly reporter Matt Smith's prudish stance on allowing Kink.com employees to take advantage of a state-funded training program. We're quite sure Tim Redmond has bought a dozen already, so if you're so inclined you'd better get yours before he realizes what great stocking stuffers these will make for SFBG staffers come holiday time. They even come in long-sleeved! And, in case you missed it, here's Stephen Elliott's write-up on the brouhaha on The Huffington Post.
Anti-SF Weekly T-Shirt
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the 'no' seems to be overkill. isnt NSFW enough?
I love me a good snark-tee. But I like the SF Weekly, mostly.
Why isn't there a merch option for those only want slam Smith and support Kink.com?
Prudishness: opposition to the use of public money to produce S&M porn.
OK, again, with feeling:
The publicly funded program impugned by Smith is available to anyone in the Bay Area. You were corrected on this one last time.
It was my understanding that the rules for this state program says porn producers actually don't qualify.
Whether that's fair or not and whether Smith was being a dick by letting the program heads know is another question , of course.
(Personally, I don't find being prudish about some of the rougher content kink.com produces particualrly "remarkable" but it's completely legal and consensual from what I've seen -cough cough--and they pay taxes like any other legal business in the area)
AJ, thanks for being a voice of reason.
AJ, thanks for being a voice of reason.
Well, ultimately, the big problem is that he's wrong in his statement--(and again, I don't agree with this despite whatever personal feelings I or Matt Smith or you or anyone has about kink.com's content) it was the policy of the state program providing the funds that adult entertainment businesses do not qualify for their programs. It currently is not available to just any legal tax-paying business in the state (although again, IMO it should be).
Obviously, the ETP doesn't have very heavy oversight if they needed some shit-stirrer like Smith to make them aware of the situation, but still.
To be fair, I do also think it's hard to argue that these monies don't ultimately if indirectly assist kink.com in producing S&M porn by funding parts of their training, however one may feel about it. The money's not buying prods and whips, but it's still a production expense. Even in the SF Weekly article the kink.com folks say it will make it much more expensive for them as a business. Their business just happens to be producing a lot of BDSM porn. Which, again however, is still legal regardless of how, say, the OC Megachurch crowd may feel about it.
Crummy situation.
If you don't think job-training is a "worthwhile" business expense (I mean, kink.com's COO apparently seems to think ETP pulling the money will have bearing on their production costs: "It's going to be very much more expensive to operate in San Francisco, or in California"), I don't know what to tell you.
we be trollin
they be hatin
SFBG gives Christmas gifts to employees? Not what I heard.
If this controversy proves anything, it's that those involved with the so-called "BDSM community" are thin-skinned and don't understand journalism.
I don't see how it matters that Kink.com's BDSM porn is legal and consensual. Power plants are legal; massive fishing and farming enterprises are legal; strip joints are most definitely legal. Matt Smith's question was: Is Kink.com the best use of our tax dollars? That's a question that could just as easily be applied to power plants, mass farming and strip joints. But for some reason, BDSM advocates think they're above reproach.
What might look like prudishness on Smith's part in the eyes of a Kink advocate seems like cynicism and a questioning nature to me, and if we don't want our journalists to be cynical and questioning, then we're really in a place I don't want to be.
The kicker to all this is that while Smith's reporting stands perfectly fine on its own, the agency that's giving out this money actually doesn't allow it to go to porn. After Smith inquired, the state Employment Training Panel made sure it cut off the funding going to Kink employees via the Bay Area Video Coalition.
So, BDSM lovers, don't be angry at Smith for reporting the facts. If you don't like it, lobby to change the ETP's policy. But please stop whining.
I don't see how it matters that Kink.com's BDSM porn is legal and consensual.
Because 1)why should it be an issue that a legal tax-paying enterprise not get these funds that other legal tax-paying businesses qualify for otherwise and 2) Smith repreatedly suggested that this "sexual torture" may indeed not be consensual.
I'm not into BDSM at all...I personally think it's alternately pathetically silly or joyless brutality, but these are matters that Smith raised.