#dontharassca

I needed to stick this up online anyways, so now you can all read and learn about it too!

This is the Press Release regarding the requested meeting with Michael Weinstein tomorrow in LA

This is a super lovely campaign vide from the Californians Against Worker Harassment group

For more information about the Initiative, check out the Free Speech Coalition’s website

And this is a little bit of what I’ve got to say about it:

My name is Isabel Dresler, and I’m what the legislation being proposed by the Aids Healthcare Foundation refers to as an “adult film producer” based out of Chico, CA.

As a result of being non consensually outed to my parents during my time working in front of the camera, I have experienced firsthand the trauma and damage that malicious interference can cause not just to the individuals working in our industry but to the people we love and care deeply for. In my over half a decade working as an “adult film producer” working with primarily newer or “amateur” models who look to me for support, advocacy and guidance, my absolute top priority is protecting their emotional and physical well being and making sure they can work in the safest, healthiest and most enjoyable environment possible. Contrary to popular belief, I’ve found that the bulk of the cautionary informing that I have to do isn’t about risks and hazards within our line of work, but the ones that workers face from forces outside of it - and this legislation poses a very serious threat to our physical and emotional safety, both on set and in the privacy of our own homes.

The most profound sentiment I walked away with after pouring over the pages and pages of proposed regulations is complete bewilderment towards the completely unnecessary - and often impossible to enforce - petty rules and regulations masquerading as “protection” for us. So much of the content available nowadays is made by small, independent producers like myself, and is very commonly produced on a “trade” basis, where no money is exchanged between the performers and content creators until the scene is sold later to a viewer base. Because of this, a lot of us fall into the categories of both “performer” AND “producer”. Are we supposed to regulate ourselves? Are we our own producers? I film most of my content outdoors in backwoods locations, am I supposed to be nailing “legible signage” to trees every time my friends and I hike out into the wild to shoot some content?

We have been enforcing regulations upon ourselves for over a decade and continue to improve and adapt as the industry evolve. Everything about this measure is unnecessary harassment and a violation of our rights as visual and performance artists who are simply trying to make a living creating work that we can be proud of, and, when we’re ready, talk about it with the people we love on our own terms and not on somebody else’s.