Obscenity is Gross: Late Night Thoughts on John Stagliano’s Trial

On the left edge of my laptop as I type this is a minimized screen of a pay-per-minute porn depicting milk enemas.

Ass checks spread, the milk is pushed out and white streams hit the ground and other performers mouths and genitals. The milk is very white (as milk is) which happens to pick up well on camera. Enemas can also be done with water, colored water, milk, and soy milk too. I myself have done cleansing enemas, not clean enema expulsions such as those in this tape. Right now I’m viewing Milk Nymphos 2.

[a thin stream milk dribbles out of a squatting ass.]

Today was the first day in court for John Stagliano, who is a defendant in a Federal obscenity charge that if he loses may sentence him to 35 years in jail and $7 million in fines, if convicted. When he was charged in 2008, many in the adult industry came to his aid with the film Defend Our Porn. You can read more, including brilliant posts by his wife Karen on defendourporn.org. He’s a business man, family man, and pornographer. Of the empire of works Stagliano produced, the three videos in question are: the trailer for “Belladonna’s Fetish Fanatic Chapter 5”, “Joey Silvera’s Storm Squirters 2: Target Practice”, and Jay Sin’s “Milk Nymphos”. The first two are available online, however I can’t seem to find a non-torrent version of “Milk Nymphos”. Because I feel it’s unethical to watch a pirated free version of a porn made by a guy who has been burdened by financial and legal bullshit for the last two years, I decide to instead watch its sequel with my minutes on HotMoviesForHer.com.

[three-way, milk squirts onto a blowjob. her aim is terrific.]

I imagine Milk Nymphos 2 to be much like the original Milk Nymphos. In court today, the jury watched 50 minutes worth of excerpts from the 3-hour film. That fact alone might be a whole other topic: watching porn in the courthouse. A row of jurors with headphones watch the footage, which is faced away from press and public who observe the jurors reactions in silence. The fact that it isn’t outrightly shown to everyone makes it seem like it’s already a shameful thing. Then again, if the court forces others to watch something potentially “obscene”, is that legal? The question of the jury watching/not watching/partially watching the material creates, as Mark Kernes of AVN eloquently points out, a Catch-22. Another great article is on Reason.com.

[i am fast-forwarding]

The trailer for Belladonna’s Fetish Fanatic Chapter 5 is no longer available on EnterBelladonna.com, nor is it on posts like Fleshbot where it may have appeared when he was charged in 2008, as Violet Blue chronicled on TinyNibbles.com. So my minutes continue on HotMoviesForHer.com with not the trailer but the movie itself. Like a lot of Belladonna’s stuff, it contains large colorful dildos, hard fucking, enema expulsions, feet, and a powerful female ejaculation that almost knocks over a co-star. But I’m still not sure what the objectionable content is for any of these films. And if anything in the three films on trial are found obscene, does that mean that ANY film which contains these same elements will be banned? Gulp.

The 1st Amendment is supposed to protect our freedom of speech. There’s nothing illegal about the porn in question, which was purchased by a Federal Agent (Bush Administration) who sought them out looking for the most extreme content he could find. If it were up to me I’d drop the charge and spend more money on sex-positive sex education, ending sexual shame and understanding consent.

What also seems unjust, that I feel I can’t leave out of this post, is looking at our justice system and society’s priorities. Compare the trial to that which recently happened in the Bay Area: Johannes Mehseler, a white former BART Cop might face a 5-14 year jail sentence for killing Black civilian Oscar Grant Jr. (News, blogs, and multiple videos of the killing are online.) This is proof of a flawed system with obscene priorities. 14 years vs. 35 years and $7 million. With all the shit going on in the world, there are other issues far more extreme than the sexual acts on the screen.

Porn already faces much censorship. If I had a nickel every time I’ve explained to someone that DVD distributors do not allow vaginal fisting in the content of the films because of possible obscenity charges, and the person I’m telling this cocks their head in confusion and asks: “Why? What’s wrong with fisting?”, well, let’s just say I’d have a lot of money to put towards a sex-positive culture.

Though none of the DVDs I’ve done show fisting, you can find it and more liberated sex on the queer porn site CrashPadSeries.com. The reason it’s okay for this to occur online is the definition found within the obscenity language which describes “community standards”. An online community is not so easily confined to geographic location, such as tracking shipping of a DVD. Queers live everywhere, and the fact that many think it’s ridiculous that fisting might be considered obscene is proof of how it fits into community standards. In the queer community, fisting is common and natural. And awesome.

I’ve got a little sidetracked. If you’re wondering what’s going on in that screen to my left, Belladonna’s Fetish Fanatics is still at it. I’ve decided to forgo “Joey Silvera’s Storm Squirters 2: Target Practice” because it’s getting late, and judging by the description there looks to be a lot of female ejaculation. Which is real and isn’t gross, end of story. On my laptop Girl/Girl scenes with latex and gaping assholes have sped by. I’m watching adorable Belladonna, in pig-tales and doggy mask, bark at her puppy playmate Clare Adams. Their silicone doggy-tailed butt plugs wag joyfully as the two star performers play and stiff each other’s asses. Claire pins Belladonna down, growling low and furious, then springs up to hump Bella’s leg just before gaping her ass with a glass dildo. It’s silly, it’s sexy, and really… who doesn’t like puppies?

UPDATE: The charges have been dropped! Congrats to John, Karen, Evil Angel and the defense team. As Lorelei Lee (a friend of mine who performed in the films and who was going to testify — provided the court would allow her to do so under her stage name — exclaims “WE WON!” Here’s a video from Reason.TV of John Stagliano after the news.