LOS ANGELES – In controversies involving two or more parties telling very different stories about the same events, the truth is often to be found somewhere in between the polar ends of the narrative. As I read the claims and counterclaims unfolding between the producers of Hot...

MANHATTAN, Kan. – For a subject hardly anyone spoke about publicly for decades, there’s certainly a lot of debate surrounding porn these days. Does watching it make a person more likely to commit sex crimes, or less likely? Is porn just harmless fun, or a public health crisis?...

LOS ANGELES – If there’s one thing I’ve found consistently entertaining and amusing over my years working in and around the adult entertainment industry, it’s the lengths to which many pornographers will go in drawing significant qualitative distinctions between their own work...

HARTFORD, Conn. – Every so often as I’m writing an article, I’ll paste something from my clipboard into the body of the story that has no place therein. Usually, it’s just a matter of having forgotten I’d copied something to the clipboard after the most recent thing I remember...

BEIJING – Whether the entity in question is a government or a corporation, every organization that operates internationally must make decisions about its “foreign policy.” Among the toughest of the decisions that must be made is how to manage operations within...

NEW YORK – It’s an observation I’ve heard many times over the years, typically in the context of a discussion about television or film: You can depict as much gruesome violence as you wish, but try to slip in some graphic sex and your work is on its way to the cutting room floor...

DUBLIN – Officially, the mission of An Garda Síochána, the national police force of Ireland, is “working with communities to protect and serve.” More specifically, the core functions of the Gardai (as the force is commonly referred to) include “the detection and prevention of...

SAN DIEGO – Back when I was a high school senior, military recruiters somehow caught wind I wasn’t going straight to college after graduation. As a result, I received at least one phone call a week in which a recruiter for one of the four major branches of the armed forces tried...

WELLINGTON, N.Z. – Nothing brings politicians and political activists together like expressing grave concern about the impact of pornography on modern society. Few, if any, other issues have the same potential for creating agreement between the socially conservative religious...

NEW YORK – Generally speaking, I take a dim view of how the media covers porn. Far too often, the embedded biases of the author are too palpable: They start with the assumption either porn is a cultural disaster or all criticism of porn is informed by prudishness or a hostility...