Whether to Vilify Underage Porn Models?

So I asked about Brent Corrigan, and boy did that ever stir up some emotions. At this point I probably should have known that it would, but a separate point that brought up is the way that some vilify him for getting into porn with a fake id. I understand that for a lot of porn producers, a kid with a fake id can seriously threaten your business, and twink producers probably face this danger more often, but isn't this being a little hard on the young and foolish?


How often do you run into underage models trying to sneak in, and how do you deal with them? Do you hold them at fault for wanting to be in porn, or take it upon yourselves to keep them out? Who's do you place the condemnation with when one sneaks by? How many sneak by, but don't get any attention?

James,

It isnt just a problem for 'producers' its a problem for the ENTIRE adult industry, all the government has to hear is 'underage model' and we get handed a bunch of BS regulations to follow, like 2257.

Yes, producers should be more cautious when hiring talent and do checks to ensure the model is 18yrs of age or older but at the same time, if a model deliberately goes out of their way to defraud the producer then they should be shunned at every entryway in to the industry by everyone.

It should be made clear that once someone is found to be underage and starring in adult content, that they will NEVER get to work in the adult industry again in any way, shape or form. The same should be true for those knowingly hiring underage performers.

Regards,

Lee

I think the kids are just scapegoats and getting pissed at them is totally misdirected anger. Here was a situation like that where AVN outed an underage girl looking for work that really annoyed me:

http://tastytrixie.com/blog/2006/05/...mpromised.html

In my opinion by the time you are old enough to decide you want to be in porn...YOU ARE OLD ENOUGH TO KNOW RIGHT FROM WRONG.

I am all for a 100% ban on anyone who worked underage, or anyone who hires underage.

I'm agreed, but it will never happen. We can't even unite the industry to support something that's no question universally bad, such as some of the more ridiculous aspects of 2257, or the .xxx domain debacle, or somebody squashing a loved webmaster show for their own selfish purposes, we're never going to get someone to turn down sales from a website or DVD line because the company has in the past knowingly produced underage porn or hired a model nailed for working underage.

I applaud the effort and would support it, but people are just too self centered, short sighted, and greedy in this industry. It's sad but that's what I've noticed.

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Originally Posted by TropixxxStudios

In my opinion by the time you are old enough to decide you want to be in porn...YOU ARE OLD ENOUGH TO KNOW RIGHT FROM WRONG.

I am all for a 100% ban on anyone who worked underage, or anyone who hires underage.

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isn't that part of the idea? that before 18 you're not capable of truly making an adult decision to put yourself in porn, and therefore not able to take full blame for your decisions.....

not saying that i agree that all of a sudden at 18 you are magically mature enough to make adult decisions, or vice versa.......just playin' devil's advocate...:develish:

If an under-age model is outted and then is allowed to continue to do porn when they do turn 18, it's really not sending a message other than encouraging others to do it. If these "kids" were banned from ever working in the industry again, it would show as an example to others that it probably isn't worth it until they turn 18. People don't change, no matter what their age. Someone who has the desire to lie and defraud at age 17 about their age will just as likely do it after they are 18 to lie and cheat more to get what they want. Doesn't really sound like the type of talent that any producer would want to work with regardless...

It upsets me a little that this industry buys into a lot of right wing bullshit. Seriously speaking, in terms of decision making capacity, my understanding is that the science has people mentally maturing between 22 and 24. The religious right likes the age of consent lower because they'd like to marry kids off earlier. Meanwhile, people become sexual beings much younger than 18, and denying it is just silly. The most honest reason I ever saw for trying to block underage kids from adult websites is that they're non-converting bandwidth wasters. A lot of adult webmasters pay lip service to protecting kids from porn, but frankly, if they're looking for it, they're probably of age to be sexually active anyway. Really, are porn preview pages any worse than the wondercum spam, that claims that no woman is satisfied with a man who can't ejaculate a pint and a half.
As for deceptive underage porn stars, it's not like we don't set precedents with underage drinking, R-rated movies, underage porn consumption,and speed limits. These are all rules that our culture (US culture) accepts or glorifies the violation of. Given that, forget mental maturity, without a real understanding of the legal issues involved for the porn producers, how do these kids know that it's more serious than breaking all the other laws they're supposed to break?

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Originally Posted by gaybucks_chip

I applaud the effort and would support it, but people are just too self centered, short sighted, and greedy in this industry. It's sad but that's what I've noticed.

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Agreed and when those that do want to shed light on the issues and explain why what others are doing is wrong and damaging to the industry overall its just gets chalked down to 'drama' even when everyone knows those individuals are right, they just dont want to admit it because they might hurt the feelings of one of their friends :(

Regards,

Lee

I happened to be the sales rep at Pacific Sun when all of this happened with Brent(Sean) I was also working for a company (Western Visuals) when the whole Tracy Lords thing came down in the 80's. Bottom line is this... When we as an industry support anybody that does anything to injure our already wounded status within the government,that individual removes another piece of our ability to earn away from us.

I see other posts from people with opinions that have never been directly involved with the ramifications of either 2257 inspections or being fingered as a provider of underage porn. If any model defrauds a producer such in the cases of Brent Corrigan or Tracy Lords and anyone chooses to still offer work,promotion or even carry films or content that they appear in,they are just as guilty as the model and should also be boycotted from anything they try to do thereafter.

They are destroying any chance we have to be able to operate under the same conditions as any other film company in this country. The more we strive for equality, the worse it looks when we encourage companies that are uncaring in how their actions effect others.

Can you really win anything from the government? Is any congressman going to stand up and say, "Hey, those porn producers have been so responsible lately, we should ease up on them and spend our money pursuing real crimes." No, that's not going to happen. They're going to harp on about protecting children from porn, video games, and locusts. No matter how well behaved the porn, video game, and locust producers are, they won't take notice, but if one messes up, they'll remind people how they were against them from the beginning and support more draconian rules.
This isn't to say that the porn industry should get sloppy and stop covering their asses, but it is to say that acting really responsibly isn't going to get noticed. You're also not going to see some congressman stand up and say, "I was at my local adult video store browsing through gay porn, and what did I see, but that Brent Corrigan fellow is starring in a DVD by Falcon, why that's almost like rewarding him for sneaking into the industry early. In fact I still haven't gotten a refund on my poolboy DVD. We should punish those porn producers by making them issue recalls and refunds to everyone who ever bought a DVD that turned out to have underage content. That would make them think twice about checking the age of their models, dagnabbit!"
Forgive me if I'm not the best writer of southern Republican politicians. If a politician witnesses porn in which a model is sodomizing a three year old they'll keep mum about it because they won't admit to having been on a porn site in the first place. You are their whipping boy, to be publicly whipped when you mess up and to be ignored when you're good. Trying to be good for the government is like a physically abused child trying to be good for their physically abusive parents. It's an unhealthy relationship.
Alright, a lot of emotion went into that and I suppose my arguments will be cut down. I do think things like the Brent Corrigan fiasco could encourage more kids to try to break into porn early so long as that kind of thing is rewarded, and that's good reason to be more vigilant in age checking, but I don't think that the government cares if you crucify the models and block them from the industry.

Maybe not ever will any congressman or state official say any of the things your asked if they would. One thing for sure though.....I sure the hell would rather them never say anything about me then allow them to be able to lump me in to one of the companies or individuals that allow such practices. Any day of the week and twice on Sunday!!

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Originally Posted by Rob Ragan

Maybe not ever will any congressman or state official say any of the things your asked if they would. One thing for sure though.....I sure the hell would rather them never say anything about me then allow them to be able to lump me in to one of the companies or individuals that allow such practices. Any day of the week and twice on Sunday!!

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I guess my point is simply. If you're going to be responsible and do what you feel to be the right thing, do it for yourself, your customers, and the industry. I just can't believe that the government will take notice when they come for the adult industry. I really just have very little faith in the government to do the right thing, or ever to sacrifice popular rhetoric to do the right thing. I think silence is the most that anyone can hope for. Really, is your relative conduct in the porn industry taken into account in an obscenity suit? Would not the current administration hit every single adult company with an obscenity suit if they could win them and get away with it?

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Originally Posted by JamesXR

If you're going to be responsible and do what you feel to be the right thing, do it for yourself, your customers, and the industry.

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Most of us do, there are some however who dont and wont take responsibility because this is just a hobby to them or they simply dont care about the future of the business.

Case in point, Brent Corrigan, the fact that his name is still coming up and people are still working with him and considering working with him.. WHY?

Regards,

Lee

I don't understand how it's anybody's business if someone's working with someone of age and making $$ off his notoriety. It sounds like something fun to gossip about, but if the kid is 18 or over now then WHO CARES?

Of course if you think he's a murderer and untrustworthy and a big liability for your company and all of that, then it totally makes sense to make a decision for your own business not to work with him, but I think it's silly to act like the whole industry needs band together to punish this person or that it reflects poorly on the entire industry or that working with or NOT working with him will have any impact whatsoever on what future scammer kids with fake id's are likely to do.

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Originally Posted by JamesXR

Can you really win anything from the government? Is any congressman going to stand up and say, "Hey, those porn producers have been so responsible lately, we should ease up on them and spend our money pursuing real crimes." No, that's not going to happen . . . . . Trying to be good for the government is like a physically abused child trying to be good for their physically abusive parents. It's an unhealthy relationship.
Alright, a lot of emotion went into that and I suppose my arguments will be cut down. I do think things like the Brent Corrigan fiasco could encourage more kids to try to break into porn early so long as that kind of thing is rewarded, and that's good reason to be more vigilant in age checking, but I don't think that the government cares if you crucify the models and block them from the industry.

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Right on.

IF the industry could establish a set of best practices that actually had teeth, and IF a significant number of the industry players would sign on, then we might be able to make a difference and send a message, both to producers and to models.

But... like everything else, you can never get people in the industry to agree on much of anything. You'd never get universal agreement on a standard of that sort because some greedy studio would always take the bucks over the ethics. And you'll never get universal agreement on other best practices because there are plenty of studios that do all sorts of shady stuff, whether it's twisting models arms into having sex with the studio owners, giving models drugs, failing to test models for STDs, lying about serostatus of models, or avoiding paying the models... or, for that matter, shaving affiliates, slow or no-paying designers, etc.

I do think that a set of best practices that actually outlined ethical, professional business practices, condemned unprofessional, inappropriate, or illegal behaviors, and set out reasonable precautions/protections/safety standards for models would go a long way toward improving the image of the industry and perhaps even getting subscribing studios and groups a certain amount of clout in the industry, and perhaps as the industry as a whole continues to mature, we'll eventually see that.

In the meantime, all we can do is individually do what seems right (or whatever we feel like if we don't give a fuck)

What worries me about Lee's attitude (which is not a lone opinion) is that it's a "Let's string him up as an example to others!" It scares me that this is a situation where in the face of a vindictive, but monolithic government the industry turns against itself, cruelly punishing members who step out of line to impress a government who doesn't care.
Also, what was Brent's crime here anyway? Didn't Chip mention that Bryan Kocis had taken underage material before and held it to release after the models turned eighteen, fudging the paperwork to make it look like it was done after eighteen?

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Originally Posted by gaybucks_chip

But... to try to paint Bryan as an innocent victim is also way off. I never met the man or talked to him, but what we know without a doubt is that he was convicted of having sex with (and filming) a 15 year old boy. Bryan's attorney told the court, with a straight face, that Bryan, who was already a porn producer at the time, "didn't know" that he was supposed to have the ID of the model at the time the scene was shot. The attorney should be disbarred for that bold-faced lie to the court.

We also know from reports Chad has given that four models came to him separately, each reporting that they had shot content for Bryan, at Bryan's request, when they were 17, and the content was held until they were 18 and the "date of production" was faked to make it appear the content had been shot after the models were of age.

I spoke to one model in Pennsylvania who said Bryan had repeatedly approached him at 16 and 17 and begged him to do porn, which would be held for release until the model turned 18. And I have heard this same story from several of our model scouts and from other producers, coming from different models.

Also, Bryan knew or should have known that Sean was not 18 before any of his content was released; several people who knew Sean's real age contacted Bryan and told him as much after Sean ran his mouth about working for Cobra and before the content was released; one allegedly tried to "blackmail" Bryan into using him as a model with the threat of exposing the information about Sean. A responsible producer would have immediately sought third-party verification of Sean's age at the slightest whimper of a concern, but Bryan apparently instead chose to feign ignorance of the problem and rely on "plausible deniability."

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Given this situation, who cares how deceptive or jerky Brent is. Is Lee saying that he should be banned from the industry because he faked an id to do porn, or because he came forward about it. So what if he didn't come forward for altruistic purposes. If he was part of a larger problem with a studio isn't it good that he blew the lid off of it? Are we saying we need to be more serious about keeping underage kids out of porn, or are we saying that we need to be more serious about covering it up? From this light, Brent may be a total jerk, but it seems like he's a scapegoat for Cobra video. Seriously, boohoo, Cobra shot a series of underage models and one of them brought it to light. How could they ever have known that might come back to bite them in the ass?
Just how much underage twink material is floating around out there still on the market? If Cobra had other under eighteen models in their videos that material is probably still on the market. Are they the most irresponsible studio in the world? I'm guessing not. How widespread is this? Is this the gay adult industry or the Catholic church?
As for why anyone would work with Brent Corrigan, he's got name recognition. How hard is it to build that kind of name recognition? He might not be the easiest guy to be in business with, but one takes that into account. If he were a better businessman he might be much more successful today.

What if we change the discussion away from underage models for a minute, what if we change it to the topic of Reece Dylan, someone who scammed hundreds of thousands of dollars from companies in the adult industry, should we still allow Reece Dylan to be a part of the industry?

Where is the difference between someone like Brent and someone like Reece?

Regards,

Lee

As to Chip's most recent issue. I'd fully support best practices, not that I produce porn. You don't need full industry buy-in to be effective. You just need to focus on the choke points: major dvd distributors and their online equivalents like JUB, UGAS, BudPuppy, Cybersocket, and the webmaster boards. Come up with a seal of approval, "Model Safe" like for dolphin safe tuna, and enforce it. Then expand to take over the straight niche, just for the sake of calling straight a niche.

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Originally Posted by Lee

What if we change the discussion away from underage models for a minute, what if we change it to the topic of Reece Dylan, someone who scammed hundreds of thousands of dollars from companies in the adult industry, should we still allow Reece Dylan to be a part of the industry?

Where is the difference between someone like Brent and someone like Reece?

Regards,

Lee

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Apart from the topic change, that seems like something the Catholic church would pull, yes Reece Dylan, let's look at this Reece Dylan....
Lee, I'm straight. I don't know much about gay porn and I can't dance. I knew Brent because he had a pretty wide impact. Could you please bring me up to speed on Reece Dylan. Just the long and short of it. There are too many threads and google isn't showing so much info when I don't know what to look for.

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Originally Posted by JamesXR

Apart from the topic change, that seems like something the Catholic church would pull, yes Reece Dylan, let's look at this Reece Dylan....
Lee, I'm straight. I don't know much about gay porn and I can't dance. I knew Brent because he had a pretty wide impact. Could you please bring me up to speed on Reece Dylan. Just the long and short of it. There are too many threads and google isn't showing so much info when I don't know what to look for.

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You have all you need to know in the post of mine you quoted, he scammed hundreds of thousands of dollars out of individuals and companies in the industry, this was proved by many of us on GWW yet he still denied any wrong doing.

Should we allow him to come back and work in the adult industry and why?

Regards,

Lee

Actually, Lee, Reece seems a bit off-topic. Let me turn your question around and ask you, why would someone be tempted to work with this guy. Brent has a fan base and name recognition. All I know about Reece is his scammery. If I was starting www.scammerstakingitinthebutt.com, I might see doing business, but give me other reasons.

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How often do you run into underage models trying to sneak in, and how do you deal with them?

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also the question is how do you check?

We always require at least 2 forms of ID, the main state id and a secondary ID like a ss card or credit card with their name on it.

of course this dosnt help a lot if they have a government issued "fake" id, as in they have used their older brothers birth cert then opened a bank account/ credit card with the "fake" id.

how can one guard against this as it will pass almost any checks that we can do ?

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Originally Posted by JamesXR

why would someone be tempted to work with this guy.

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Because he promised to make a lot of people a lot of money, even at the height of his being found, he still had people defending him and working with him.

Regards,

Lee

Hey Collegeboyslive,
I understand the complications. Clearly if you wanted to make it your business you could find out everything about your potential models, but I don't think that "not being the CIA" is a punishable offense. I'm just wondering, how often do you bust someone trying to sneak past? I'm trying to figure out whether this is 17 year olds clamoring at the gates of porn, or if it just happens every now and then.

One of the tricks we learned from Patti is to have the model sign their release, watch him/her sign it, then compare the signature on the release with the signature on the ID. And, of course, also check the stats carefully. If the model takes a long time to sign their name, and/or if the signature doesn't match, or height is substantially different, you're probably not looking at the person on the ID.

We also use the same ID checking book that the banks and bars use, which has pictures of each state's drivers license and non-driver ID. We note in our records what edition and page of the book we checked, who checked it, and the date. It's of course not a complete protection, but it does show that we are taking every reasonable precaution to ensure that we don't hire an underage model.