Page 14 - AVN October 2017

EDITOR’S DESK
CATALYSTS FOR CHANGE
Politics and passion in the sex-positive community
EDITOR’S DESK | By Sharan Street
It’s a Wrap Jackie Rednour-Bruckman, Dr. Hernanco Chaves, jessica drake and Mo Beasley pose at the end of the talk. Photo courtesy Brad Armstrong
WHAT A DIFFERENCE A YEAR MAKES. In October 2016,
the adult industry was gearing up for a big fight on
Election Day. Not over who would occupy the White
House, though that was a concern for many. Instead,
activists were focused on Proposition 60, and its
draconian penalties against producers of condom-free
adult entertainment.
Despite the odds—opponents of the measure were
vastly outspent thanks to the lined coffers of the
AIDS Healthcare Foundation, its primary supporter—
Proposition 60 went down in defeat. And there was
rejoicing.
That wasn’t the only race on the November
8 ballot, however. There was a little matter of a
presidential race at stake. And we all know how that
shook out.
It was interesting, therefore, to check in on
CatalystCon, a convention for members of the sex-
positive community at large that is held annually
in Southern California. CatalystCon last hit L.A. in
September 2016, shortly before that big election,
when it seemed possible that there might be a
woman running the country come 2017.
This year, the mood had definitely changed. When
you’ve got a group of people gathered together to talk
about feminist porn, sex education, body image and
sexuality, decriminalizing sex work, and smashing
the hetero-centric patriarchy, there are bound to be
some pretty strong opinions about who did end up in
the White House.
The Closing Plenary Address of CatalystCon,
which took place September 17, brought together
four able panelists to articulate the swirling emotions
in the sex-positive community. The topic was broad:
“Sex, Politics and Resistance: Activism for Everyone.”
Conference founder Dee Dennis moderated, kicking
things off by asking the panelists—Dr. Hernando
Chaves, Jackie Rednour-Bruckman, jessica drake and
Mo Beasley—to talk about what fuels their activism.
Chaves, a licensed marriage and family therapist,
drew on his own family background first, saying
his parents taught him to value women. “I’m a big
believer that men should spend more time with
women growing up,” he said. But Chaves found a
second family in the adult industry, and that, he
said, has been “the fuel for my advocacy.” He cited
volunteer work with Sharon Mitchell and the AIM
organization, and also working with volunteers in the
successful fight against Proposition 60: “I finally felt
like I had a home for my advocacy. I felt accepted.”
Rednour-Bruckman, the executive vice president
of Good Vibrations and a pioneer in the field of
queer porn, asked, “When did my activism start? I’ve
been wanting to smash the patriarchy since I was a
toddler.”
As a “child of refugees, displaced persons,”
Rednour-Bruckman’s grandparents lived under the
Italian fascist regime in World War II and had to
evade German death camps. They taught, “Never
trust the government. ... Never trust anyone unless
they would die for you.” Regarding the current
political situation in the U.S., Rednour-Bruckman
said, “You have to fuck shit up, which at this point is,
get rid of the electoral college.”
Next up was drake, well known in the adult
industry as a contract star at Wicked Pictures. Always
the picture of grace and gentle persuasion, drake took
the question to heart and delved deep into her own
background, first as the child of Jehovah’s Witnesses
who learned about the joy of volunteer work. But
her life was changed forever on a trip to Sexpo South
Africa, when she realized she’d never really gotten to
know the cities where she traveled for fan expos. So
she took a tour with a local guide, who at the end of
the day brought her to an orphanage in Soweto for
children with AIDS. It was a moment that changed
her completely. “To stand in a space and see people—
small, small people—who truly had nothing, and
no resources and no medical care, it made me hate
my life. I hated my house, I hated my car, I hated
my clothes, I hated everything. ... I went home and I
said, ‘What can I do to make things better?”
(Continued on page 103)
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