Girls Gone Wild is in the news again:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070614/ap_en_ce/girls_gone_wild_5
Basically, some women are suing because they claim they were given alcohol (even though they were underage), videotaped while drunk, and then put into GGW DVDs without their consent.
Joe Francis, the founder of GGW, is in jail right now for tax evasion charges. From the story: "He is also charged in Florida with using minors in Sexual Performances, conspiring to use minors in sexual performances and prostitution." I've read other stories that he has also allegedly raped some of the girls he has lured into his van.
I'm not a fan of Porn in general, but at least when you are watching standard pornography you are dealing with women who have actively decided to pursue porn as a career and who are doing it consensually while (mostly) in their right mind. (Although, it's worth noting that most major porn stars come from backgrounds where they were sexually abused as a child or raped...including Traci Lords and Jenna Jameson.)
With GGW you instead have a bunch of girls (many underage) who are being taken advantage of while they are out drunk and partying, and they are not in a place to make a proper judgment about these things.
Now I don't know about you, but I'll bet that many of us have had moments while we were perhaps drinking too much or having too much fun, where we did something stupid that we might regret later. Now how would you feel if those moments were put into a porno DVD for the world to see? And all you got for it was a lousy t-shirt?
So if you want to go out and buy some porn, go buy some regular porn, but please do young girls a favor and don't support GGW. It's not "cute and harmless." It's a sick man who is making a million dollars off of exploiting young women who aren't in a position to know any better. Girls these days are confused enough what with MySpace and the pressure to be constantly sexy...this is not helping. I have a 3-year-old niece and it upsets me that she's growing up in a world where it's normal for 14-year-old girls to post pictures of themselves in thong underwear up on the Internet.
I will be so happy when that guy is put out of business once and for all.
Stephanie Brail
