AB 1576 has officially been passed by the full California State Assembly.
It passed along bipartisan lines by a vote of 45-14. Now it goes to the State Senate. This is the point where all the earmarks are attached to it. The fight’s not over, because this is where bills get derailed. It gets through all the committees and somebody attaches a rider about cow asshole research and a bill that should’ve easily passed crashes and burns. It doesn’t get the votes and never makes it to Jerry Brown’s desk to be signed. This isn’t the time for tattooed freak shows led by Peter Acworth to testify to some committee. Now is the time for a political heavy hitter to make a back room deal with someone who can kill this bill.
The industry tried to put its best face on the defeat, saying that the bill narrowly passed by a slim margin. It required 41 votes to pass and only got 45. A lot of Assembly members didn’t vote. Let’s face it, if they were for the condom bill, they would’ve made their way to the chamber to vote. That bodes well for the eventual defeat of this bill. We’ll see if the industry can muster up any muscle to defeat this in its final stages. It’s not looking good. There’s still a ray of hope, but it’s fading away.
That was Tuesday’s news. Yesterday, Peter Acworth penned another feeble letter to Michael Weinstein, which he posted on his blog. This is the second open letter he’s written to Weinstein, the first being sent with the imminent passage of AB 1576 before the Assembly Appropriations Committee, which happened last week. Since Acworth didn’t get a reply from the head of a multi-million dollar worldwide charitable foundation, he figured the second letter would do it. He’s like a stalker or a jilted girlfriend who can’t take a hint.
Peter Acworth’s a funny chap. Not being from this country or in the adult industry very long, he doesn’t really have an understanding of the rules and customs we have here in American pornography, like not mixing sex with bondage and not co-mingling the gay industry with the straight. This is the reason that an HIV infection involving performers who worked for Kink occurred last year that resulted in a Cal/OSHA investigation of his studio in San Francisco. It is also the reason that Acworth is a prime target for anti-pornography forces and will be prosecuted for obscenity when a Republican administration returns to power. Mark my words. It will happen. In fact, there is a provision in the federal sentencing guidelines that calls for an automatic enhancement of a sentence when material prosecuted for obscenity includes S&M. So when the hammer comes down, don’t say I didn’t warn ya, Petey.
Some say that I got busted for obscenity because I challenged the government. That I called too much attention to myself. Well, Peter Acworth is not exactly known for keeping a low profile himself. Buying the historic Armory building smack dab in the middle of San Francisco and turning it into a ultra hardcore BDSM pornography studio raised a few eyebrows. Once he was moved in and up and running, he attracted the attention of the San Francisco Police Department, who were called to investigate reports of gunfire inside The Armory. Upon arriving, the SFPD were not allowed to enter the premises. When they finally did enter, they found a coked out Acworth wandering through a haze of gun smoke. “Guns? W-w-what guns do y-y-you mean, offisher? *sniff*” Peter had secured the weaponry somewhere within the labyrinth of The Armory by the time the police came in, but they did charge him with impeding a police investigation and cocaine possession.
This guy has done everything you can imagine to call attention to himself and draw the ire of authorities and bring heat down on the business. He produces material that he will have a hard time defending when a prosecutor brings a case in a small conservative town. It may be fine in liberal San Francisco to whip a girl until she bleeds and have rough anal sex with her while she is bound tightly with rope, but that shit don’t fly in Oklahoma, Kansas, Alabama and a host of other states nestled firmly in the crotch of the Bible Belt.
It’s one thing to get brought up on obscenity charges for a pornographic movie and go through the process that you go through, from an undercover postal inspector or FBI agent ordering your product and sending it to a DA for prosecution, having a grand jury deem it it obscene and be indicted for it and having to spend millions to defend yourself for a movie that depicts sex that is somewhat out of the realm of most people in these conservative areas, but to present something that is so far out and extreme and involves actresses actually being harmed in the process is something else altogether. More than one actress has incurred hospital bills as a result of activity on Kink.com sets. Ask Cameron Bay about having her breast implant ruptured by an overzealous participant on the set of Public Disgrace. Ask any number of actresses about injuries from cattle prods and other torture devices. How many contracted staph infections from the wrestling mats of Ultimate Surrender?
Usually when someone does a movie that is out of the norm, there is a plot device or a storyline that explains or illustrates a reason for the violence that occurs. At the end of Kink.com scenes, the participants are interviewed saying that they enjoyed the abuse during their scene. It’s kinda like the POW videos from the Hanoi Hilton back in 69. If you look closely, you’ll notice that their eyes are doing a lot of blinking.
Peter Acworth is writing letters to Michael Weinstein, a guy who has the power to get initiatives on ballots and get them passed. Acworth thinks that Weinstein is gonna read and respond to his little bullshit letters. A guy who hobnobs with politicians and celebrities and runs a worldwide health organization is gonna talk to a coked out British gun freak? In your dreams, you English cunt.
Acworth cries wolf and says he is gonna pack up his dungeon and move out of state because of the condom laws. Do it. Take your whips and chains and shock collars and staph fungus and leave. Do everybody a favor and live up to what you’ve been threatening and get the fuck out of California. Everything you bring to this business is poison, from your health code violations to your run ins with the law, you are bad news.
You need to sell The Armory and go away. Just like Donald Sterling is being forced to sell The Clippers, the industry should force you to sell The Armory and go back to England. You’re not welcome. The industry doesn’t want you, the State doesn’t want you, America doesn’t want you. Pack up your shit and leave.
Follow Rob Black on Twitter @RealRobBlack Email: [email protected]