Follow-up to the Kink.com Virginity Story

My original post is here.

Miss Maggie Mayhem has a new post about Kink.com's live event of Nicki Blue losing her vaginal sex virginity, in which she reports that the owner of Kink.com, Peter Acworth, has responded personally to the criticisms surrounding the marketing and press release for it.   Indeed, that is how the press release now represents the event, largely.

Here are the two versions, one after the other.

Old:

SAN FRANCISCO — Kink.com will stream the deflowering of young virgin Nikki Blue in a ritualistic ceremony live on the Internet on Jan. 15 at 7 p.m.

The ceremony will be held on The Upper Floor of Kink.com’s headquarters, the San Francisco Armory. Prior to the event, a trained expert will insert Kink.com’s official hymen-cam to validate that Blue’s hymen is still in place and that she is a true virgin. Once her hymen is confirmed, the evening will proceed, the company said.

“We will start the evening by tightly binding Ms. Blue and introducing three Kink.com legends: Mark Davis, Jack Hammer and James Deen,” said Kink.com director John Paul “The Pope.” “Fans will vote for which of them will take Nikki’s virginity. Once the voting is complete, we will move to the sanctum, which will be dressed as a ritualistic chamber with candles and ceremonial tools. She’ll be placed in the circle and the winner selected by fans will deflower her. The other two will then join the ceremony and make her airtight.”

Kink.com founder Peter Acworth adds, “To our knowledge there has never been a model lose her virginity live and streaming on the Internet, nothing has, or will, parallel the event taking place on The Upper Floor later this month.

“We strive each and every day to bring the best possible content to our customers and sacrificing Nikki’s innocence is in perfect alignment with what our fans expect and deserve.”

And new:

San Francisco — January 12, 2011 — Kink.com, the largest producer of authentic kinky adult entertainment, has announced that it was chosen by 21-year-old virgin Nikki Blue as her venue of choice for her first-ever vaginal penetration in a live ceremony on the Internet. The event will be held on The Upper Floor of Kink.com’s headquarters, the San Francisco Armory, at 7 p.m. on January 15, 2011.

In line with Kink’s mission “Nicki Blue came to us with a very strong fantasy of having vaginal sex for the first time and breaking her hymen among a group of like-minded individuals. Because of our mission at Kink to demystify and celebrate sexuality, we decided to engage all of our resources to help her fulfill her personal fantasy,” says Kink.com executive producer Chris Kientz.

“An honor to be chosen” “We at Kink are deeply honored that Nicki wanted to celebrate this event on Kink.com cameras, in front of our community of members,” says Peter Acworth, founder of Kink.com. “We are in the business of fantasy fulfillment and we hope to make this celebration as pleasurable and gratifying for Nicki as possible.”

Viewers vote on who will fulfill her fantasy “We will start the evening by tightly binding Ms. Blue and introducing three Kink.com legends: Mark Davis, Jack Hammer and James Deen,” says Kink.com director John Paul “The Pope.” “Fans will vote for which of them will take Nikki’s virginity. Once the voting is complete, we will move to the sanctum, where the winner selected by fans will deflower her. The other two will then join the ceremony and make her airtight.”

I certainly think it's an improvement. The new text places Nicki's desires much more firmly at the centre of what is going to happen, talking much more clearly about her role in setting it all up. While the original press release made it all about delivering "content to our customers", the new press release describes it as providing a "pleasurable and gratifying" fantasy-fulfilment for Nicki. It has also made the terms specific. The hymen and virginity are no longer treated as synonymous in the new text, and the term virginity is qualified as specifically vaginal virginity, which is consistent throughout the new press release except for the part that's copy-pasted from the old one, where the term 'deflower" is used. That part, however, can perhaps be written off as referring to what the viewer-fantasy representation is.

At the Kink[Inc] Behind Kink website, Peter Acworth writes his mea culpa thus:

Instead of showing our gratitude to Nicki for choosing Kink to fulfill her sexual fantasy — to break her hymen during her first vaginal sex experience in front of thousands of fans — we marketed it in a way that relied on sexist tropes and myths about the female body that we should not have perpetuated. And that fact was rightfully brought to our attention by bloggers who hold us to a much higher standard than that. We truly thank them for it and are gratified to see issues surrounding female sexuality, virginity and sexism being discussed in public forums —even if it was as a result of our screw up.

The controversy also sparked some very serious internal discussions at Kink about where things went awry, what our values are as a company, and how we can do better in the future. For now, we're 100% committed to helping ensure that Nicki's first vaginal sex experience on Saturday is an amazing, unforgettable experience for everyone involved. We hope to see you there.

I'm actually quite ambivalent about this, but I am (marginally) going to come down on the side of Mr Acworth here. I'm not totally convinced by the apology, but that's at least partly because I am sceptical of every single corporate/business apology ever in the history of humanity, past or future. But Mr Acworth appears at least to have a) recognised and identified the precise and genuine complaint that has been made against his company's actions and b) actually taken some action already to address the complaints. That's a lot better than a lot of businesses ever do. He also makes a commitment to do better in future, but many companies say that, and the proof of the pudding is in the eating, as the saying goes. I will remain sceptical until I actually see them do better. It seems that Clarisse Thorn also shares these doubts about the genuineness and importance of the apology.

As far as I can tell, the video interview with Nicki Blue has not been re-edited, so the "myths about the female body" that Nicki expresses in that video are still a part of the marketing in that sense; however, we can say clearly that those are Nicki's personal views and a part of what is important to her about the event, and on that basis I am less inclined than I was to criticise Kink[Inc] for leaving it as-is (though I still think it is not great). I also feel that it stands as an indictment of sex education in the USA, and would hope that links to accurate information would be made available around the live event.

Maymay, whose posts about this story have been among the most critical of Kink[Inc] and their presentation of the event, has more to say. In comments at Miss Maggie Mayhem's follow-up post, he remains suspicious, and perhaps articulates more clearly the vague sense of distrust that I mentioned, but had put down to my distrust of corporate business in general. In particular, he is less willing than I have been to give Kink[Inc] a pass on allowing Nicki Blue's dubious understanding of anatomy to remain a part of the way the present the case:

That said, I suppose you didn’t feel compelled to dispel the misinformation in Mr. Acworth’s apology, just his press release?

…Nicki feels that Kink is the place where she can best live out a fantasy she’s had for many years – to break her hymen during her first vaginal sex experience…

Or did we all just uncritically read past that little slip?

And, in reply to someone making more-or-less the same argument as I have here, he writes:

I think one way to remind ourselves how pervasive those myths are are to stop calling a fantasy based on bad info “a fantasy,” and start calling it by its more appropriate name: a delusion.

...

the more I read of Ms. Blue ..., the less trusting I become of Kink, Inc.’s “serious, in-depth” conversations about consent and so forth with her.

I'm not willing to be as strongly suspicious of Kink[Inc] over this point as Maymay is, but I think that I do share to some extent a sense of unease about the continued misrepresentation of the female anatomy and expressed some of that already. And I think it's a valid point that, if the real medical facts have not been imparted to Ms Blue about what's going on, then how far can we trust the depth and value of the conversations in planning the event?

The best that can be said is that Kink[Inc] have done better after some serious prodding by some activist-y types but still fall short of the ideal.

***

Miss Maggie writes:

It is also a reminder that speaking up can affect real change in the world. It doesn’t matter who you are and what you do to live, thrive, and survive you are going to face issues that make you uncomfortable. Yes, there are problems in the world of porn. There are also problems in our city councils, local branches of the PTA, religious organizations, grocery stores, you name it. Calling out racist comments when you hear them is what helps prevent genocide. Reminding people that it isn’t acceptable to touch others without their permission helps prevent sexual assault. Teaching people about the differences between sex and gender in our schools will reduce the violence that people experience when they’re just trying to pee in peace. Coming out of the closet to friends and family will make it possible for people to be able to marry the person that they love. Regardless of how I or anyone else defines virginity, I hope that by talking about something as seemingly little as a press release that people will have conversations about virginity and that the layers of shame, guilt, and oppression over women’s bodies will begin to lift.

I believe this because I see it happen all the time. No one is insignificant in the battle for social justice. We all have the power to shape our communities.

It is incumbent upon us as campaigners to call out our own side when we/they fall short of the ideals and values that we claim to espouse. Change cannot come if we allow ourselves to be compromised in the way that Kink[Inc] did here, and we cannot correct that compromise unless someone calls us on it.

And, as Miss Maggie points out, the small acts and voices do, eventually, add up and get heard. We can change the world.