By Tim Redmond
The New York Post — whoops, it was actually the SF Weekly — was shocked and horrified by the concept that a state-funded training program might help video tech folks who work at kink.com. Here’s the lead:
California taxpayers have paid $46,791 so that employees of the San Francisco pornographer Kink.com might produce more perfect web-based depictions of motorized dildo impalements …
I don’t need to go on.
The thing here is, so what? Kink.com is a legitimate, legal San Francisco business that employs 100 people, treats them and pays them well, has transformed a wasteland of an empty building into a going concern … and I think it’s great that the people who work there (who also happen to be part of the film and media industry in San Francisco) got to use a state job-training program.
This is good for the local economy. “We are training San Francisco’s workforce for the film and televison industry,” said Kink’s Ilana Rothman. “People who have worked for us are winning awards at film festivals.”
The story is remarkable in its prudishness, and it takes the insulting tack of implying that the models who work at Kink are somehow forced into their jobs. “We couldn’t be more explicit about how safe and consensual our work is,” Rothman told me. And every indication I’ve gotten from every Guardian staffer who’s visited Kink and talked to the workers agrees.
The real scandal here is that Matt Smith personally busted Kink and cost a good employer its training money.