San Francisco News Blog

I am with Matt Smith on this one. Not his characterization of Kink, per se, which is a little squeamish for the land of the Folsom Street Fair, and not with respect to whether it should be ok or not for BAYVAC to service a particular entity, but that Matt is entirely within his rights to call this stuff out. The fact of the matter is that the entire history of Kink in the City has been one of exposing a huge fissure in the coalition of the so-called progressives who tend to speak out of both sides of their mouths when it comes to "family values" and San Francisco values. Case in point, gay gentrification (they vilify it), "family housing" (versus hipster lofts) and so on. In the land of Mission hipsterism, where an affordable apparel retailer (AA) is shot down, but ultra-exclusive and pricey shops are allowed to flourish, the hypocrisy is laughable.

Matt's "journalism" was about as bad as a Bay Guardian hit piece...and he left out a lot of facts that didn't fit his opinions.

That's fine, that's his right, and others have the right to call out his bullshit too. Just like the Weekly does when the Bay Guardian plays "selective facts" with their hit pieces on the Weekly.

So bullshit away, hippies, just remember you're no better than any other stupid alt weekly in this little town.

Calling public dismay about his badly-researched article "a mass protest movement among pornographers opposed to freedom of the press" is BS of the highest caliber. None of the people I work with at Kink.com are against press freedom nor behind the boycott. Smith's forte is clearly pulling sweeping generalizations out of his ass and publishing them.

Smith misses, or ignores, the true mood of the angry mob. What most of us are mad about is not his exercise of free speech, but his complete lack of journalistic responsibility in mischaracterizing both BDSM and the narrow-minded medivalism behind barring Kink employees from ETP training. The fact that he printed only the elements that served his point -- which seemed to be that BDSM is icky and wrong and taxpayers shouldn't fund its production -- yet completely neglected to talk to any BDSM practitioners, working BDSM models, or Kink employees affected by the loss of ETP training means that anything he writes is laughable, self-serving propaganda.

I don't ask that Smith be gagged, but that he simply be held accountable for his total lack of integrity or professionalism in spreading the equivalent of salacious gossip disguised as news.

Dear Mr. Smith-
My contact information is on your voice mail. I'd love to engage in a public debate or discussion with you. Let's get this off the net and into a live arena!
As Always
Mz B.

Well I just read this article. You guys have complete freedom to write what you want.

A local paper should represent the local people and their views and beliefs. The bay area is a haven of sexual freedom. This poorly written article denies all of that. The author has not done his research and the words used to describe acts of bondage and S&M show that. This is not torture or obscene.

This wording of this article really reflects badly on the editors of the SF weekly. The worst part is that when people do decide to protest.. you make fun of it.

It must be pretty lonely up their on your high horse looking down at people who make adult films.

So Matt, you're for a free press when you want to trash a business because you don't approve of their product but against a free press when people trash your business because they don't approve of your writing?

Too bad for Matt Smith BAVC doesn't offer classes on how not to be a douchebag.

Is anyone planning to boycott the ETP? You know, the people who actually made the decision to withhold funding from porn industry employees? Or do they get a free pass on this one.

How does one boycott the ETP? As far as I know, that's funded by a mandatory payroll tax.

Calling this "sexualized torture" is inappropriate to say the least. We all know what the definition of torture is by now and to portray what they are doing as torture, almost whitewashes the real criminality of horrific actions on defenseless people who actually fear for their lives, not as entertainment but rather persecution. Also I don't think that making constitutionality claims is the way to determine funding or not. What is the intent of the funding mission and is giving it to kink.com fulfilling this goal?

Shame on you Matt Smith for clouding your coverage with subtle innacuracies, but then again, if they aren't talking about you then your not important...right?

I don't fancy the idea of being whipped or burned, but I also recognize the right of any person to express themselves sexually as they wish, as long as it's consensual. Matt Smith should be ashamed for letting his personal feelings lead him to such biased, poorly researched journalism. Or is this perhaps some kind of reaction formation? Thanks for letting your repressed nature hurt the San Francisco economy, Matt.

I just stumbled across this drama, so perhaps I am missing something fundamental.

But Matt, are you truly writing here about your own work in the third-person? "The column in question..." "the Matt Smith opinion column..."

And in response to opinion of your evidently cowardly reporting you wrote this with a straight face? -- "But I'm told perverse postures are standard fare at Kink.com's Old Armory headquarters."

When faced with opposing opinion, you state others have a serious misunderstanding of journalism. You are entitled to a stance, but so far all I have read of your self-declared journalistic efforts is limp, sophomoric paper-writing. You are not a journalist, not by a mile. And you are a very poor writer.

just face it matt.

you're pretty much a piece of shit.

live with it.

sickofcuriousblue says:

"Mr curious blue, don't you have anything better to do with your time than stalk and defame melissa farley all over the internet?"

And don't you have anything better to do than be one of Farley's anonymous web peons, ready to pop out of the sky and fight vigilantly for the good name of Melissa Farley?

"What we will be doing is to continue to highlight the cultural - and other - harms propogated by kink.com and the rest of your beloved pornographers."

Who, other than Farley, in this instance is "we"?

And I'd be happy to debate the so-called "cultural harm" of pornography, which when it comes right down to it is based upon misinterpreted studies and outright junk science, filtered through what is essentially a fundamentalist feminism. Countering this misinformation is one of the reasons I blog.

There's plenty of intelligent discussion to be had around pornography, however, the "radical feminist" movement Farley represents is to pornography what Scientology is to psychotherapy. I often wonder if members of the mainstream media, like Matt Smith, really know what they're getting on board with when they endorse the likes of Farley.

You're some piece of work, pal.

I haven't read the articles and responses (and don't particularly care), but I did read this part.

You completely misunderstand the concept of a "Free Press". The core to a free press is the government not having the ability to restrict what they say.

Consumers responding and, if they so choose, boycotting, is very much a part of free speech. It may be for dumb reasons, but they have the right to do it.

If they were petitioning the government to prevent you from publishing an article, you'd have an issue of "The free press has got to go". If not, this is just an example of someone who disagrees with you.

Going down Matt.

Even by Matt Smith standards, this is some whiny shit.

Once upon a time, the SF Weekly could turn out some good journalism. You published pieces by AC Thompson and had a good story about radioactive contamination at Hunter's Point Naval Shipyards. You even wrote reasonably informative investigative pieces about foreign airport manipulation by SFO, as h. brown references above. However, your puerile piss-off-the-progressives posturing has again laid you low, resulting in sub-Michael Savage dreck like the cover stories you ran on how plastic grocery bags are superior to paper ones because they take up less space in landfills and how illegal alien tranny hookers are sponging up our tax dollars.

Frankly, you guys aren't fit to sweep the floors at the Bay Guardian. It's sad, really, because we could use some real journalism. SF really doesn't need a second Ken Garcia.

THe only one question that gets me is that Smith is claiming that the State is funding pornography, which isn't the case at all.

Despite all the warblings of this controversy, the fact remains that Kink.com doesnt hire employees it then sends in for subsidized government trainging, but rather hires capable, compotent employees who have the luxury of all other media employees; the opportunity to keep abreast of the every changing world of media and technology that keeps California ahead of the curve in production and distribution of media of all kinds.

Mr. Smith needs to think about his action solely because he is creating a heirarchy that places "journalists" like himself at the top of the ladder, while those who create media he personally dissaproves of at the bottom. At the end of the day, media is media, and SF weekly should stand on equally footing to any other website that is granted vocaltional training for its workers.

Kudos to Matt Smith for a great news column! There is nothing positive to support about pornography (especially torture porn) which degrades women, men, and children. Has San Francisco forgotten the breakthru lesson of women's liberation, that PORN is a patriarchal horror that objectifies human beings as sexual THINGS? Our society casually kills Iraqis and Afghanis while spewing buckets of cum over the image of Paris Hilton and the self-hating masochists and sadists (consensual torture is sane, give me a fucking break!) on kink.dot.dumb think they deserve tax money to do that which even Catholic priests draw the line at?

Grow up San Francisco: think with your heads not your dicks and clits.

Looks like Matt's news report is bringing all of the reactionaries of the 'perversion at any price' viewpoint out of the woodwork. The practitioners of kink.com are savvy exploiters of the wretched sub-class of disturbed psychotics that we used to protect from themselves by institutionalization. Now, the poor, lost, degraded souls are allowed to roam free and fall into the clutches of despicable
'entrepreneurs' who will produce any kind of toxic filth that a demented segment of society will pay money for. Well, do your thing - but don't look for my tax money to subsidize it.

Cool story you got here. It would be great to read a bit more concerning that theme.