LOS ANGELES — The Daily Beast published an opinion piece today by Cherie DeVille giving her personal testimony about how the current religiously motivated War on Porn is warping the public opinion against sex workers who work in the adult industry.
“Every morning for two months, hordes of people have misidentified a group of professionals as part of a global pedophile conspiracy,” wrote DeVille, the 2021 XBIZ Award winner for "MILF Performer of the Year."
“I’m not talking about conspiracy theorists falsely accusing Comet Ping Pong’s pizza delivery guy," she said. "I’m discussing the aftermath of the New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof, religious fire-breathers, famous feminists and tech reporters painting the porn industry as a sex-trafficking racket.”
As XBIZ has extensively reported, Kristof’s December 4, 2020 editorial “The Children of Pornhub” was crafted to emotionally exploit the testimonies of victims of alleged sex crimes in order to justify an all-out, religiously motivated attack on Pornhub, adult tube sites and the adult industry in general.
Two major anti-porn groups, NCOSE (formerly Morality in Media) and Exodus Cry have taken credit for Kristof’s article and the campaign it launched with politicians and business leaders.
DeVille’s Daily Beast article accurately describes the intentional damage to law-abiding adult creators caused by the New York Times' piece.
“In December, Kristof wrote a horrifying viral story about unverified users uploading child pornography and rape videos onto Pornhub,” she wrote. “You probably know what happened next: Pornhub banned unverified users, and Visa and Mastercard suspended payments on Pornhub. Everyone from MAGA senator/insurrectionist Josh Hawley, to liberal, feminist tech journalist Kara Swisher, to edgelord podcasters Dasha and Anna praised big finance for taking on 'Big Sex Trafficking.'"
Like the overwhelming majority of people in the adult industry, DeVille points out that she, too, “would like to take on Big Sex Trafficking because sex trafficking disgusts me. I would like to abolish the racket, but I have zero ideas on stopping sex trafficking because I don’t work as a sex trafficker. I’m a consenting adult performer working in the highly regulated, legal porn business. If sex trafficking occurs in legal porn, I have yet to see it — and I’ve worked in the adult business for a decade. I’ve sold my self-made content on every legal clip site you can imagine, and I’ve shot for every major porn studio — which, not to brag, is a pretty big deal.”
Kristof's Article 'Harmed' Adult Creators
DeVille then goes on to spell out how “the Times story’s aftermath has harmed legal porn stars and done little to nothing to stop sex trafficking.”
“The world has moved on to other viral stories, but porn stars are still reeling from the consequences of Kristof’s sloppy report,” she added.
DeVille, however, allows for the possibility — unlikely as it may appear — that Kristof may not be a willing accomplice to the War on Porn crusaders he so blithely elevated.
“To a degree, I understand why Kristof is confused,” she wrote. “Midway through his story, he identifies Traffickinghub founder Laila Mickelwait as a source. I would be confused, too, if I learned everything about porn from Mickelwait. She also works for an evangelical Christian organization called Exodus Cry. The group emerged out of Kansas’s radically conservative [International House of Prayer]. As the Daily Beast previously reported, IHoP promoted homophobia in Uganda, where legislators later attempted to pass a law sentencing homosexuals to life in prison. (I never thought I would see the day when landmark lesbian tech reporter Swisher would push propaganda from a group in league with Christian preachers trying to throw gay women and men in prison, but here we are.)”
“Now many people are pushing Exodus Cry’s lies, unaware of Exodus Cry’s background,” DeVille correctly noted. “If Exodus Cry wanted to end sex trafficking, they would target Facebook, where victims’ advocates say more sex trafficking occurs. But for the past decade, Mickelwait has tried to abolish porn altogether.”
To read the entire piece by Cherie DeVille, “Stop Listening to The New York Times and Start Listening to Porn Stars,” visit TheDailyBeast.com.
