Page 60 - AVN July 2013

On redirect, Murray asked Hartley if she were doing
anything wrong or illegal. She said no, adding, “We sup-
press sexual speech and sexual knowledge at our peril. …
It’s important that we keep sexual speech legal, even if it
makes us uncomfortable.”
The morning’s final witness was plaintiff David
Levingston, a 61-year-old former journalist—who’s done
“pretty much everything it’s possible to do with photogra-
phy”—who also produces fine art nudes and published a
book, The Figure In Nature, with photos of mature
women in rural settings.
His ability to work changed when the 2257 law
changed in 2009 with the addition of 2257A, which
enforces recordkeeping for “lascivious exhibition of the
genitals” and simulated sex. He pulled some photos from
his website for fear that they were “lascivious,” and has
avoided publishing some nudes because he wants to avoid
having to keep 2257 records on them. He also said he
doesn’t really understand how to maintain records the
way 2257 prescribes, nor does he want to be the subject
of warrantless FBI searches.
He also described a project—a photographic study of
current and former prostitutes— shelved because of fears
be might violate 2257A and would be unable to protect
the identities of his subjects due to the recordkeeping
requirements. He did admit, however, that he keeps
photo IDs and model releases for his models.
Judge Baylson then broke for lunch; when court
resumed, no testimony was taken. Instead, the attorneys
argued over which sections of former FBI agent Charles
Joyner’s deposition could be introduced into evidence.
Day 4: DOJ Presents First Expert Witness
The defense called its first witness, Dr. Gail Dines, in an
attempt to show that 2257 and 2257A are necessary to
es
FEATURE
prevent minors from appearing in sexually explicit
depictions. Under questioning by Assistant U.S. Attorney
Schwartz, Dines said she was a full professor in the
American studies department at Boston’s Wheelock
College since 2000, and noted that for the past 25 years
her academic career “has been devoted to the study of
porn.”
The author of two books and numerous articles on
pornography, she described herself as a qualitative
sociologist who deals in imagery rather than hard-number
data, using “methodological triangulation” to determine
whether observed trends in the use of pornography
among American citizens are valid.
When asked to explain internet porn, she said that
people seek sexually explicit material via search engines
like Google, which lead them to tube sites, which she
described as “gateway into the porn industry.”
She said the DOJ asked her to map content on adult
sites, starting with the free ones, and to collect data on
the prevalence of the word “teen” on the sites.
Testifying that a lot of content on the tube sites is
pirated, other content is clearly owned and used by the
owners to “tease” viewers into converting on pay sites.
She said that very few sites create their own content, but
instead distribute others’ material, and said Manwin
60 | AVN.com | 7.13
“controls most distribution” via their tubes, and that dis-
tribution is their main business.
Dines also claimed that “very few distributors have set
foot on a porn set,” that they “often never meet the
producer,” and therefore were ignorant regarding how
performers ages are verified. When the judge asked
whether production companies included 2257 records
when selling content to a website, Dines equivocated,
claiming that some tube site operators have said they can’t
get such records from producers.
content onadult sites, starting
on theprevalence of the word
”The DOJasked
Gail Dinesto map
with free ones,
and toc ollect data
‘teen’on the sites
Dines then went into a long discussion of how “teen
porn” performers differed from “young-looking perform-
ers,” claiming that the “teens” are thinner with smaller
breasts and often ponytails or pigtails—and no pubic
hair. She also said descriptions of “teen porn” scenes use
terms like “this little cutie,” “innocent” and other terms
that convey youth.
On cross, Murray asked Dines outright if she were
“anti-porn,” which she agreed she was, and about her role
in forming the 2010 conference at Wheelock titled “Stop
Porn Culture,” which is also the name of her site. Dines
claimed the organization was educational rather than
activist.
Murray also challenged Dines’ statement that “teen
porn accounts for a significant portion of online pornog-
raphy,” noting that even using her statistics, 67 to 75 per-
cent of all porn found online has no teens in it. Murray
also asked her to estimate what percentage of adult porn
features players look young enough to possibly be minors,
to which Dines responded, “One-third.”
After lunch, Murray tried to pin Dines down regarding
her statement that Manwin was primarily a distributor
rather than producer of porn. Dines was not aware of the
extent to which Manwin is involved in production—she
knew about Brazzers but not about Manwin’s ownership
of Digital Playground and other production studios.
When Murray was done, Judge Baylson asked Dines
some questions for clarification, stating that, “She has not
been consistent throughout this in my opinion.” Further
testimony established that she had no expertise in fine-art
photography, sexting or social networking sites.
The day’s final witness was plaintiff Barbara Nitke, a
still photographer who worked on porn sets in the New
York area in the 1980s and early ’90s. Nitke became
intimate with several BDSM clubs in the city and
in their movies, Nitke responded,
photographed their attendees, and had published two
books of photos and text, Kiss of Fire and American Ecstasy.
Upon questioning by Murray, Nitke described how
she’d seen adult producers ask performers for photo IDs
before 2257 required that they do so, and when asked
whether any of the producers she knew would want to
use anyone under 18 “They would have been appalled” at the suggestion.
On cross, DOJ attorney Wyer brought up the fact that
according to a summary sheet Nitke had provided of her
photo shoots for the past several years, a number of her
models had ages ranging from 21 to 26 (implying that
they might be mistaken for minors).
Judge Baylson then asked Nitke whether she used
electronic documents to prepare her taxes (she does) and
whether she felt that 2257 recordkeeping was any more
complicated than amassing figures for her yearly tax
returns—to which she replied that it definitely was.
Day 5: One Expert, One FBI Agent
The first witness was government expert Janis Wolak, a
senior research assistant with the Crimes Against
Children Research Center at the University of New
Hampshire, where her specialty is online child exploita-
tion. Much of Wolak’s testimony revolved around where
child porn can be found, and these days, she said the vast
majority of it is on the internet, being circulated through
email, peer-to-peer networks, dedicated applications and
even on some commercial websites that maintained both
adult and child content, the latter only accessible with a
specific password or sub-program.
Of particular interest, she noted that fully 80 percent
of the child porn found in the possession of those arrested
on child porn charges was of children aged 6 to 12, while
another 12 percent are 13 to 17, and at least some of the
rest of kids under the age of 6. She testified, however,
that between 2000 and 2009, there had been a “jump in
the number of adolescent victims,” and that in the most
recent study, some 70 percent of arrestees had sexually
explicit or nude images of adolescents.
Murray, on cross, brought out that in fact it was 87
percent of child porn arrestees who possessed images of
kids aged 6 to 12, and got Wolak to agree that most of
those could never be confused with adults. She also
admitted that the vast majority of child porn prosecu-
tions were successful, since they involved P2P networks
with many images, and she only knew of one or two
acquittals, though in some cases she was aware that
charges were dropped altogether. She also said she’d never
heard of anyone being prosecuted for a 2257 violation.
And she admitted that she’d never heard of a child porn
producer who kept 2257 records.
After lunch, the government called FBI Special Agent
Stephen Lawrence, who had been one of the agents in
charge of the FBI’s 2257 inspection team, along with
Special Agent Charles Joyner.
Under questioning by DOJ attorney Wyer, Lawrence
described how producers were selected for inspection—
through random numbers matched to a database that
started out with 300 companies but grew to 1,200 and
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