LOS ANGELES—Monday I travel to Philadelphia to “have my day in court.” I am one of several plaintiffs in a case challenging The Child Protection and Obscenity Enforcement Act of 1988, aka 18 USC Section 2257 and 2257A.
Because I am a plaintiff I cannot speak about the case, just as I have not written about 2257 at work since becoming a plaintiff. I could have, I suppose—no one was stopping me—but it would have seemed inappropriate to me, and I doubt the lawyers litigating the case would have appreciated it. But I do think I can now speak generally about how I feel about being a plaintiff in a lawsuit that challenges a federal law I truly do believe is unconstitutional. It feels great.
I do have one frustration. I wish I had more time to spend on Daily Babylon. My inclusion as a plaintiff is as the owner and operator of the site, and has no direct relation to my job at AVN or my history covering the adult industry. Even though the site was originally begun as a project with very real commercial objectives, the fact that life intervened to force the three of us to focus on making money in the moment—survival, in other words—has done nothing to diminish my connection to Daily Babylon. At the very least, my consistent use of my Daily Babylon email address over the years as the place where many people and businesses can find me, has worked to solidify my own personal association with Daily Babylon.
But that aside, the fact remains that there is no way I am going to let the site die. To the contrary, the last year or so—and certainly in the time since I was so brutally struck on my way home from work—I am more determined than ever to not only keep Daily Babylon alive but inject it with new life and reinvigorated purpose. That it may not have the same commercial ambition as when it was first conceived doesn’t mean that it can’t carve out its own significant niche.
And of course, all of the same issues and concerns I have always had with 2257 and 2257A remain in play with Daily Babylon today as they no doubt will with Daily Babylon tomorrow, unless of course the law is either struck down or significantly curtailed. More on that at a later date.
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