YAS Podcast: Michael McGrady #154 Transcript
*This transcript was auto-generated and may contain minor errors.* *This transcript was auto-generated and may contain minor errors.* Begin transcript after opening credits.
Daisy: Hello and welcome to YAS Podcast. My name is Daisy Ducati. I will be your host today. We are a nonprofit organization dedicated to changing public perception through media. And if you’re really enjoying our podcast, please consider donating at yaswork.org. We are here today with Michael McGrady Jr. A good friend of mine, and also the contributing legal editor for AVN magazine.
Um, how are you doing today, Michael?
MMcGrady: I’m good, Daisy. Thanks for having me.
Daisy: Yeah. I’m really excited to talk to you today. First, before we get started, what pronouns do
you use?
MMcGrady: Thank you for asking. I am, uh, he, him and I appreciate, uh, that [00:02:00] you’re asking like, a lot of people don’t do that anymore, given times we’re in, so thank you.
Daisy: Yeah, it’s, we’re in some weird times, but very weird times. Very weird times. We really try to respect people’s identity and representation here, so it’s important to us. Uh, so why don’t we begin by telling our listeners a little bit about who you are and what it is that you do.
MMcGrady: Alright. Um, so. As you said, my name’s Michael McGrady, um, Michael McGrady Jr.
To be specific, if my father knew what I did for a living, he’d probably disown me. Um, but I, uh, am the lead contributing editor, covering politics and legal that intersects with the adult entertainment industry and sets workers’ rights, uh, for AVN media network, which publishes AVN magazine and avn.com and contract.
So I cannot necessarily speak, uh, as an official representative of AVN, but uh, I am [00:03:00] often there writing and doing all sorts of crazy stuff. Um. And, uh, I also am a contributor to various publications. I’m a columnist for the Pitch Kansas City here in Missouri, where I live, and I contribute regularly to various publications about, uh, you know, tech about, uh, digital identity online for queer people, uh, like myself.
But I’m a bisexual man, but I’m very proud of being that and, uh, subjects and topics that I care deeply about. You know, um, before I started covering, you know, this space, I covered, um, marijuana, vaping, alcohol, you know, I’ve always wanted, I’ve always been gravitating towards what is traditionally known as the, the, the sin industries.
So, you know, uh, but I think I, uh, found my home covering porn and, you know, I, I’m very happy being here. So [00:04:00] kind of what I do.
Daisy: And we’re happy that you’re here doing the work that you do because it’s so important right now. We’re in such weird times in the industry in the legal regard. There’s so many,
MMcGrady: very much so.
Daisy: Yeah. It’s, it’s important to like, stay up to date on that. Um, so how did you, how did you get into journalism?
MMcGrady: So I actually. Never thought I would be a journalist. I majored in political science. I thought I was just gonna be working in government or some form of public service along those lines. But more or less, uh, I, I’ve always enjoyed writing and reading and all that.
So, you know, believe it or not, when I was in college, uh, as an undergraduate, like my first year or two, I was a, I, I thought I was a conservative as a, as a product of my parents. You know, very [00:05:00] typical political socialization. You’re, you think you have your parents’ viewpoints, but the more you grow, uh, you realize that that’s truly never really the case.
And so I quickly learned that I am, uh, who I am and who I am is someone who, uh, just wants to be someone that’s left alone. Let people live their lives, you know, people. Have bodily autonomy. People have their own freedom of speech. I guess I’m, I guess that’s a little more libertarian, but I guess I’m more left wing than that.
So it’s just, I really do care about respect and lgbtq plus rights and, you know, supporting the community that way. Um, that’s kind of what drove me into journalism in the first place. I started as a trade journalist covering tobacco and, you know, that sort of stuff. But, but I started to see that there’s a lot of, uh to [00:06:00] initiate what I would call, you know, prohibition or anything like that pro prohibitive mindset. It, it really does kind of spread across the spectrum of things that make you feel good. You know, uh, when I was doing this type of journalism, uh, one of my favorite organizations to talk to and work with was the Drug Policy Alliance and the Drug Policy Alliance, uh, said everybody’s on drugs, and that couldn’t be more true. Uh, and um, I, uh, I’m not just saying that I’m on drugs right now. I mean, I do, I have a beer right here, but other than that, it’s just like I, uh, took that kind of to heart and I was like, well, everybody gets horny, everybody gets, uh, attracted, everybody has some sort of sexual interest.
Daisy: Yeah.
MMcGrady: Um, and you know, and then that’s why. Exist. That’s why sets work exist. It’s, it’s, [00:07:00] um, it’s just something along those lines that I just, I gravitated towards and, you know, I, I’ve staged my entire professional career on it and, you know, I’m, I’m very proud of that.
Daisy: That’s awesome.
I’m so, again, I’m so glad you’re here doing the work that you do because we need you.
MMcGrady: We need you too, Daisy. So
Daisy: thank
you. We gotta, we gotta be in this together. Um, so how did you get involved with AVN with working for AVN?
MMcGrady: So AVN hired me, uh, in the summer of 2023.
Daisy: Mm-hmm.
MMcGrady: Uh, to the position. Um, I was a contributor for a lesser known smaller adult industry blog called Why Not? And, um, why not Was going through major, uh, institutional change and all that, and, [00:08:00] uh, a lot of bad stuff coming out about that company.
I just wanted to kind of jump ship and, uh, I reached out to actually Brian Gross, who is the PR guy for AVN and um, Brian actually. A lot to him for connecting me to, you know, the great folks over at AV n especially on the news side, Dan Miller, Peter Warren, and, um, you know, really just really kinda escalated from there and escalated in a good way.
Um, I care. I’ll do anything for, uh, to get this job out and all that so that I, I truly appreciate, not that get this job out, but to, uh, do this job accurately and effectively and for the benefit of the industry. So it’s, it’s, uh, it’s very nice to be here and doing all that, so
Daisy: That’s awesome. So let’s talk about a little bit.
About, uh, what’s going on in our world recently regarding [00:09:00] sex work laws. There’s been a lot of changing laws and a lot of new legislation that is directly affecting our industry. Um, so first let’s talk about the age verification stuff that’s going on. , So with all the age verification stuff that’s going on there, there’s a direct attack on the industry, basically.
Like what, what’s your perspective on this?
MMcGrady: Uh,
it is fair to say that it is a direct attack. You know, in the time spent, I’ve been covering age verification multiple years. Um. The, uh, it’s revealed that it’s not a child safety protocol. It’s not a child safety measure. It’s a measure that is, uh, advocated by proponents on both sides of the aisle.
Liberal and progressive, I mean, progressive and conservative.
Daisy: Mm-hmm.
MMcGrady: But conservatives view it as a censorship [00:10:00] tool to prevent, you know, uh, the distribution and sharing of information that is, uh, even remotely sexual in nature.
Daisy: Yeah.
MMcGrady: That doesn’t even have to do with pornography. It could be just as simple as, you know, bodily autonomy or
Daisy: mm-hmm.
MMcGrady: A webpage on Planned Parenthood’s website or, um, anything like that. But on the progressive side, it’s more or less a response to try and provide this sense of bipartisanship that, um. They want to have with conservatives in power now and it, it’s basically blowing up in their faces because it’s again, leading to, uh, sensorial measures that favor, conservative ideology more than, you know, a more liberal or more progressive or more pluralistic ideology. Um,
Daisy: yeah.
MMcGrady: What we saw with, uh, the Supreme Court, um, and Free Speech Coalition at all the, [00:11:00] um. That was something I’ve never seen in my time covering the First Amendment, seen, covering just the news in general where the Supreme Court rule six to three with the conservative majority, um, indicating that porn can be considered a lesser form of free speech, a lesser protected form of speech in the commission of quote, protecting minors.
Which, you know, I think we’re all for in this industry, but comes in the framework of, well, we have to now rely on these entire companies that we’ve never even heard of before, like Yoti or, uh, encode or anything like that, that we don’t even know who or what they’re tied to.
Daisy: Mm-hmm.
MMcGrady: And, uh, ultimately led into a whole characteristic of.
[00:12:00] Whole dynamic, not characteristics, sorry, of they’re creating a artificial market for these online safety
Daisy: Mm-hmm.
MMcGrady: software providers that companies like alo. KL um, web Group, Czech Republic, all these parent companies of the tube sites. Not to mention the parent companies of, you know, the studio sites, the actual studios themselves, the imprints, um, fan sites, uh, personal sites.
Um, they have to comply with these laws or face penalties that could ultimately ruin a small business, ruin a individual creator, um, by thousands of dollars, if not millions. Um, a lot of people overlook the fact that age verification is a labor issue in a lot of ways, and that’s important because, uh, the majority of people that work in adult entertainment are independent contractors
Daisy: mm-hmm.
MMcGrady: For small businesses. And, um, they may on average less than [00:13:00] six figures. Less than 50,000 in fact. Um, and that’s just the characteristic of a lot of people just trying to go independent, do their thing. But that’s because we’re in an ecosystem that’s so platform dependent and it’s more complicated than that.
Sorry, I’m ranting.
Daisy: No, it’s, and it’s frustrating because the, there’s already existing software to protect children from viewing adult content. Like there’s been- there’s been software since at least the nineties that can screen your internet traffic and make sure that you can’t access certain types of content, and all adult content has to be registered as adult content.
So adding this extra layer of putting the burden on content creators and the sites selling the content to additionally use this new software that, [00:14:00] again, you said we don’t know necessarily like what it’s connected to or where that information’s going. And then also people are having to put their IDs into this database that suddenly knows what kind of porn you watch is a very scary situation because you don’t know how that information’s being handled and stored.
MMcGrady: And so like one of the biggest talking points of these companies, um, when it comes to these age verification companies, you know, it’s not like they’re a legal company. These are established technology companies. You know, you look them up, they’re, they do, uh, B2B sales. They work in the B2B market, the business to business market.
And, um, you know, they are contracted with government agencies around the world. Yes. They, they’re high tech. They are, they exist and you know, that’s great, but. They’ve never done in their [00:15:00] history a major commercial rollout to address the scope and influx of traffic to a porn site.
Daisy: Yeah.
MMcGrady: Porn sites get a lot of traffic and what they are using to escalate and further scale out their ability to, um, meet the demand, is rely on artificial intelligence, rely on, um, very little human checks, very few, um, identity checks. Um, they’re using these AI augmented facial stands that guess someone’s age. And even though accuracy has most certainly improved. And it’s gotten much better to a, you know, a median age error of like, one to three years.[00:16:00]
Um, the, the software has not been trained on darker complexions of skin. They have not been trained on, uh, older models. They have not been trained on people with facial hair. They’ve not been trained on anything. They’re trained with images that are already available. And it’s also important to note that a lot of these models use image models, huge use language models and image models to be trained on images of children that are already on the internet.
And um, and they compare that to a image set to an adult. And that’s how you train that ai. And when you think of it, that’s exploitative in its nature too.
Daisy: Yeah.
MMcGrady: Um, because people should have the right to, you know, secure their biometrics, their uh, their bio, their my biometric data. And um, what I’ve seen is that [00:17:00] there are companies that then go forth and say, these scans take place just a second.
Then they mark a hash code or some sort of, uh, identifier that says, okay, we are, this person ing on from this IP address is an adult. And then they dump the data. They dumped the image, they dump any, uh, what is known as PPI, uh, uh, PII, I’m sorry, uh, personally, uh, identifying information, and they dump that and it’s deleted from their databases.
What I’m seeing though is that there’s still footprints left. There’s still digital footprints left that could lead to someone being identified if a hacker or a, uh, bad actor wants to use that data against someone. And there was just not too long ago, I just wrote about for AVN how one age verification provider literally is [00:18:00] retaining information of URLs, uh, two videos on a particular website, identifying what people are watching.
And you know, they say, oh, we’re secure. We have standards. We have standards. That’s great. The industry has standards. That’s great too. But you know, it’s, it’s security studies 1 0 1. Nothing is pure, truly secure. And you can’t just say, our systems are inpenetrable. Our systems are all this stuff in that.
So that that’s,
Daisy: and that,
MMcGrady: that’s something I really care about to say.
Daisy: That brings up another concern in an era where L-G-B-T-Q and all types of queer identities are being attacked.
MMcGrady: Mm-hmm.
Daisy: If someone is looking at a certain type of content, then they can be profiled a certain way, and [00:19:00] that can be a dangerous situation as well,
you know?
MMcGrady: And you know, that, that bothers me immensely too, because even though this data is not retained in large swaths, there’s still elements of it. There are still little pieces of still little cookie crumbs, right? A, a cookie trail, a crumb trail of what could be an identifying factor. Someone, uh, or something that leads to that person being found or even extorted through some sort of, you know, cyber attack or steam or something like that.
Daisy: Yeah.
MMcGrady: And being that, you know, LGBTQ people are already, um, in a society, in an environment that places them [00:20:00] below as second class citizens. This could be used to great defect, to great detriment t o censoring forms of expression that are otherwise still protected by the First Amendment.
Still legal, not even pornographic in nature and you know, are not even if anything controversial.
Daisy: Yeah.
MMcGrady: You know what I mean?
Daisy: Yeah.
It’s scary times, man, and like we don’t know where the laws are gonna go that are trying to criminalize queer people. And if there’s a bunch of saved data that connects people’s identity, like personal identity to queerness and then suddenly it is, that is criminal to be queer, then that information is out there and available, wouldn’t it?
Would normally not be, you know,
MMcGrady: and you
know, like, and that scares me too. You know, I’m, I’m a [00:21:00] part of that community as well, and it’s just, it, I live in a very conservative state. Um, but it’s just, I do that for family reasons, blah, blah, blah. But it, it’s more along the lines of you have to secure yourself.
You have to think of yourself first in a lot of situations. Whereas it shouldn’t have been like that or like before, or it’s gotten worse now where the anonymity, the benefits of the internet have, you know, are they’re disappearing
Daisy: and yeah.
MMcGrady: When anonymity is minimized, um, speech is minimized.
Daisy: Mm-hmm.
MMcGrady: And, you know, it’s.
That’s why we have VPNs. That’s why we have, uh, proxies. That’s why we have all this anonymity software to help circumvent these things. You [00:22:00] know, age verification laws are ultimately pointless when VPNs exist or even gonna do next outlaw VPNs or require age verification on VPNs. Like, yeah, that’s what this one lawmaker.
No, not one lawmaker- that’s what one regulator in United Kingdom wants to do. They want to force. Adults to verify their age to use A VPN. Yeah, I think that’s the children’s commissioner of the United Kingdom, or I mean the Children’s Commissioner of England. Um, so that’s, that’s one way they wanna do it, is they say, well, if children can download VPNs, blah, blah, blah, uh, they’re gonna see porn like, well, what if the, what if the parent wants the child to have a VPN to protect that child’s data?
Yeah, and you’re leaving so many back doors open a lot of, for exploitation of a child,
Daisy: there’s a lot of legitimate reasons to be using a VPN other than being able to view porn. [00:23:00]
MMcGrady: Yeah. I use VPNs for work all the time. I’m a, I’m a part-time college professor. I use a VPN for that. I’m a, a journalist as you know.
I use A VPN for that. Yeah. You know, it’s, I use different profiles in the VPN and all that. I have two different laptops I use for work. I have a phone that has two different sims and different VPNs built in. I have a DNS server built in with, uh, you know, a VPN to secure my stuff. You know, like I even use A VPN when I watch TV
You know, it’s just like I, I care about that stuff.
Daisy: Yeah. It’s a data security issue, and to restrict access to that is dangerous.
MMcGrady: And you know, United States doesn’t have a strong data law like Europe does or what California has. And you know, so we’re kind of stuck with this whole, well now we have the same consistent patchwork of age verification and, you know, quote [00:24:00] unquote privacy laws.
When in reality these privacy laws have nothing to do with privacy. It’s to verify your age in order to just do something as simple as jack off. So it’s just like, you know, I don’t wanna, like, there’s a reason why these laws are popping up and predominantly conservative environments.
Daisy: Yeah.
MMcGrady: And it’s because they wanna stop porn from trickling out.
But then you have social media networks like X, like Reddit, like Instagram.
Daisy: Mm-hmm.
MMcGrady: You know, there pipelines for content creators to get traffic, but if you’re gonna use that standard of porn, then why aren’t you doing that to platforms like that? You know what I mean?
Daisy: Yeah. And that also brings up another issue.
If all of the legitimate porn sites are restricted to [00:25:00] such an extent that it becomes impossible to operate. There will always be illegitimate porn sites that don’t follow laws in general, where the traffic ends up going.
MMcGrady: And that’s been proven.
Daisy: Yeah. And those sites are far more dangerous and far more likely to have illegal content and to not follow any sort of laws regarding access of minors.
So it actually makes the situation worse instead of better.
MMcGrady: And that’s true. And, you know, the, the Federal Trade Commission in the state of Utah was able to reach a settlement with alo, the, the parent company of PornHub recently.
Daisy: Mm-hmm.
MMcGrady: Um, but that settlement only deals with the fact that ALO could not properly prevent, you know, the activity of third party users uploading material that was unlawful.
That was, [00:26:00] uh. Considered CSAM or, uh, NPII or some other form of, you know, non-consensual material or, uh, sexual abuse imagery, uh, or was even, you know, content piracy or, you know, intellectual property theft. So the FTC ultimately is now co-opting the role of PornHub as just simply the platform owner, to be reporting further as an actor for the state. It suspected cases, things that aren’t, even if they are suspected or flagged as such, should go through the verification process. Go through the investigation, but are highly likely 99% of the time to be legal forms of expression.
Daisy: Mm-hmm.
MMcGrady: And you know, I don’t blame Alo for.
Wanting to [00:27:00] have a positive relationship. I shouldn’t say positive. A. A non carceral relationship with federal government.
Daisy: Yeah.
MMcGrady: Especially ’cause they missed that. But it’s important to note that I still think that the FTC settlement that was just recently passed is highly problematic. We’re gonna see a lot more of that moving forward.
Daisy: Yeah.
MMcGrady: We’re gonna see. As videos at syn, sex at Hamster.
Daisy: Mm-hmm.
MMcGrady: Ultimately getting boned from whatever government agency and whatever government, every country say, fuck y’all and all that.
Daisy: And it’s, it also ends up affecting what kind of content gets made it like, because all of these platforms are constantly under attack for like having to prove the [00:28:00] legitimacy of the content. Then they create new rules about what kind of content can be posted and it limits the creativity of the creators that are grown adults doing a job. And like I know from my personal experience, a lot of the content that I got in the industry to create as a content creator, I am no longer allowed to post on all of the platforms that I use because there, there’s just, they’re just tightening the choke hold on, what we’re allowed to make,
you know?
MMcGrady: Yeah. No, I, I can, I, I must certainly cannot, you know? Fathom the challenges that creators like yourself are going through? You know, I, I, uh, but I know further that, you know, we’re starting to see a regulatory model form out of, uh, United Kingdom, for example, where [00:29:00] strangulation pornography is ultimately illegal.
Daisy: Mm-hmm.
MMcGrady: Uh, and then, then other forms of. Porn that are, uh, you know, like age play or role playing or, you know, step sibling or step parent dynamics. You know, things that appear, um, as defined as simulated pornography.
Daisy: Yeah,
MMcGrady: simulated child pornography. Simulated child pornography, even though it’s, uh, you know.
We don’t call it that, but that’s the legal term for it. It’s, it’s where adults are simulating an age, they’re playing a role as, you know, someone younger than they may appear to be, uh, to feed the fetish, to feed the kink, to feed the audience interest. And you know, that’s always been protected here in the United States, but now we’re starting to see that in [00:30:00] the United Kingdom where it- they’re even consensual strangulation, consensual choking play, um, consensual kinks that involve some form of, you know, uh, consensual torture or anything like that, like CBT, uh, other forms of BDSM, all sorts of things that could be considered illegal
Daisy: mm-hmm.
MMcGrady: In these countries and, you know, studios.
Definitely do not know how to respond to that. And platforms definitely do not know how to respond to that. And I’m, I’m starting to see that, and frankly, I can’t answer that. I’m not an attorney, but it’s just how do you respond to that? It, it’s, it’s really hard to say, ’cause a lot of the, a lot of my friends in this industry do you know, particular fetish, do particular kinks like yourself.
So it’s just like, I, it’s very hard to address that. And I don’t know where we go [00:31:00] from there. You know what I mean?
Daisy: Yeah. And then also with the worldwide nature of online content creation, like it makes you wonder how these things will be enforced if something is created in California and then is then illegal in the UK, but someone views it in the UK and like how, how will these laws be used, you know?
MMcGrady: Of course, you know, like I, I, I’m hesitant to see, I’m hesitant to say this, but I, I feel like we’re about to see situations where creators that are based in the United States or Canada, or, you know, in North America, Mexico, even, uh, they, they have warrants for their arrest in different countries.
Daisy: Yeah.
MMcGrady: And, um.
That means they’re limited [00:32:00] on where they can travel. They’re limited on what they can do, especially if that particular country or countries have a uh, um, you know, extradition treaty or anything like that. And that’s something that I’m very, very concerned to see. Um, most pornography, uh, in Europe comes from the Czech Republic, comes from France, comes from Cyprus, comes from, uh, Romania. So it’s just like these, these countries, these foreign countries that own platforms, but the platform users are predominantly in the United States, but one country says you can’t do this. That’s a multi multinational attempt at regulating something that you cannot actually do to violate someone’s sovereignty or, so that just gets into the whole concept of comparative law.
Rights that should judicial arrest it, it, it gets, it gets complicated and they, [00:33:00] they’re doing that on purpose.
Daisy: Mm-hmm.
MMcGrady: It may, it, it really does feel like that.
Daisy: Yeah. It’s, it’s so complicated. It’s so complicated. And now it’s like all the changing laws in the US I’ve heard all sorts of stories of performers coming from other countries and having problems at the border.
And just all sorts of sex workers just for having a sex work, social media presence. And it’s, it’s a crazy time we’re living in.
MMcGrady: Um, but like to build on that, I, I, I, I can’t speak to this. I just heard rumors, right? I can’t speak to this as fact, I just speak to this as you know, I’ve heard rumors. It’s just how have we not seen viral news reports of set being, you know, arrested by ICE. You know, it’s just like, I probably can’t say that because I probably us, but it’s just like, [00:34:00] that is, that is a logical question to ask.
Daisy: Yeah. It’s, it’s definitely happening with happening whether the news reports on it or not, it’s definitely happening.
On that note, we are going to take a brief break we’ll be right back in just a moment.
The Queer Sex Workers Initiative for refugees in Kenya is doing incredible work despite the hurdles they experience in a country where being queer or a sex worker is illegal, they pay rent to maintain a shelter for their community members. One where they provide food and teach skills like creating crafts and jewelry.
Their shelter and work is a safe haven for Kenyan refugees. That identify as queer and or a sex worker. Visit QSWIR.org to learn more and to donate to their mission.
Daisy: And we are back with YAS Podcast I’m here with Michael McGrady. Um, [00:35:00] so Michael, let’s talk about what’s going on in Michigan right now. They’re trying to pass a new law that is going to affect all of us in a lot of ways, what, what do you think about what’s going on there?
MMcGrady: So, uh, it’s important to note that I, I truly believe this law is just for show.
Daisy: Yeah.
MMcGrady: Uh, it’s a complete just vote getter, you know, panty dropper for campaign dollars, right? Yeah. Uh, but a team of Republicans in Michigan have proposed a bill called the Anti-Corruption of Public Morals Act.
Uh, which would ostensibly, not ostensibly would in theory, ban all pornography
Daisy: Yeah.
MMcGrady: Uh, in the state of Michigan. And if porn exists or anything along that line, or is there, uh, it’s punishable by felony [00:36:00] convictions. Uh, six figure fines.
Mm-hmm.
And porn producers and content creators. Could even be placed on a, uh, sexual offender list, sexual offender registry as they’re trying to define.
And, uh, this, the person that’s leading this, his name’s, uh, Josh Schriver or, uh, Schriver, I can’t pronounce his name, but, uh, representative Josh Schriver of, uh, Michigan. He’s a, he’s what I would call a, uh, c uh, Christian Nationalist, uh, Catholic Integralist, or, uh, he’s very far right.
Daisy: Yeah,
MMcGrady: whatever you wanna call it.
Uh, and, um, he’s trying to make it illegal to watch porn use a VPN to circumvent the law, to watch porn, and to produce and distribute pornography within the state of Missouri. I mean, not Missouri, but the state of Michigan. I’m so sorry. Um, I live in Missouri, so, you know, M’s uh, but the state of [00:37:00] Michigan, uh, um.
Again, I, I don’t think it’s going to go anywhere, but it’s interesting to look at just how stupid this bill is.
Daisy: Yeah.
MMcGrady: You
know what I mean?
Daisy: And also like how are they going to define pornography and how is this actually going to be enforced? And so
MMcGrady: I
actually have a definition for what they would consider prohibited materials right here.
It’s as depiction, description, or simulation, whether real animated, digitally generated, written or auditory. A sexual acts that include any of the following, vaginal or anal intercourse, fellatio or conulingus, masturbation, ejaculation or orgasm penetration, sexual devices, group sex, bondage, domination, or sadomasochism.
Acts involving bodily fluids for sexual arousal, erotic autonomous sensory, meridian response content, moaning or sexual voice content animated, [00:38:00] virtual or sexual activity generated by artificial intelligence depictions of characters acting or resembling minors in sexual context and any other pornographic material.
Daisy: So according to this, definition,
MMcGrady: everything,
Daisy: the the song, love to Love You Baby. The disco song would be illegal.
MMcGrady: According to this definition, Romeo and Juliet would be illegal.
Daisy: This is absurd. It
MMcGrady: gets better. Well, it gets worse actually, but better to laugh at, but worse because this is what people truly believe. Some of these people truly believe. Other forms of prohibited material include any depiction, description or simulation, whether real animated, digitally generated, written or auditory, that includes a disconnection between biology and gender by an individual of one biological sets imitating, depicting, or representing himself or herself to be of the other biological sex by means of a combination [00:39:00] of attire, cosmetology, or prosthetics, or as having a reproductive nature contrary to the individual’s biological sex, which by definition is they’re trying to make it a crime to be transgender.
Daisy: Wow.
MMcGrady: Which is just abhorrent and
Daisy: yeah,
MMcGrady: really fucking terrible.
Daisy: That’s horrible. And also I’ve noticed with, lately with all of these laws that are attacking queer people and adult content, there seems to be this conflation of queer gender representation with porn. Like, because you are trans, you are inherently sex worker. You know, have you noticed that trans people have been lumped in as explicit content because they’re-
MMcGrady: You have a lot of trans friends. I have a lot of trans friends in this [00:40:00] industry. I can’t speak to it because I’m cisgendered, but everything I’ve seen is a false conflation of gender identity with pornographic material.
Daisy: Yeah.
MMcGrady: Because they assume just because someone saw a, a YouTube video with, excuse me, with a, a trans woman.
Daisy: Mm-hmm.
MMcGrady: that it’s ultimately porn graphic, you know, they saw someone holding a bud, like, and who just so happens to be a trans woman. Uh, you know, apparently cisgendered straight men who are conservative are triggered by, you know, a trans woman co-opting their light beer.
Uh, you know, that goes all the way back to that stuff. And it’s just like, it’s, it’s stuff like that. It’s really nasty stuff and it’s, it’s acceptable now. And that’s, [00:41:00] you know, everybody has the right to free speech. Even in a lot of situations, what we would consider hate speech is protected by the First Amendment.
Daisy: Yeah.
MMcGrady: Even Disfavored speech, you know, disfavored speech in porn. .
You know, it’s protected by the First Amendment. A lot of this shit is, but you know, what they’re trying to do now is they’re literally trying to regulate and criminalize entire existence.
Daisy: Mm-hmm.
MMcGrady: And that itself is against what America is about.
Yes. America isn’t perfect. Um, the truth. That is the truth. But in recent decades, you know, we have this thing called the 14th Amendment, you know, equal protection under the law and fifth and 14th Amendment, equal protection under the law. No, we gave women the right to vote in the 1920s. It’s the shame to say that now I feel like the 20th century was more progressive than the [00:42:00] 21st.
Daisy: Yeah.
MMcGrady: And it’s, it’s, it’s very hard to say that.
Daisy: It, it
MMcGrady: especially very hard to say that, especially now.
Daisy: It’s a scary time we’re living in, but yeah, I’ve just, I’ve noticed lately that there’s like this, this conservative desire to, like, it’s almost as if conservatives are so obsessed with what’s beneath trans people’s clothing, that they themselves can’t separate gender identity from sex acts,
you know?
MMcGrady: Mm-hmm.
Daisy: And
MMcGrady: Well it’s how they’re socialized
it’s how they’re
Indoctrinated, I shouldn’t say indoctrinated, it’s just how they were, not necessarily how they’re indoctrinated. It’s just a lot of the people that make these claims, right, they’re, they’re socialized to believe that things are one way or another.
Daisy: Mm-hmm.
MMcGrady: And [00:43:00] then from there, um, it’s also just people ultimately in these groups have never actually like spoken to a trans person.
They’ve never
Daisy: Yeah,
MMcGrady: spoken to a lesbian, they’ve never spoken to a gay man. They’ve never spoken to, you know, a queer person. They’ve never spoken to someone who is gender diverse. You know what I mean? And then they realize once they do, they, they earn some form of tolerance.
Daisy: Mm-hmm.
MMcGrady: Or they
not earn it.
They gain it because they realize they’re just like human beings, just like you and I. And then they start to realize like just because some guy is dating a trans woman or some, uh, trans man is dating an a cis woman or something like that. It has nothing to do with anything. You know, they’re, they’re happy.
They’re,
Daisy: yeah.
MMcGrady: If anything, they’re, they’re probably straight in that point. They’ll push like, you know, like, I don’t [00:44:00] wanna re-litigate, you know, everything I was taught in sexual studies and my gender studies courses and everything I learned at the Kinsey Institute and all that. But it’s just like, you know, there’s nothing wrong with being trans.
There’s nothing wrong with being gender nonconforming. It’s in fact it, it, it’s, it’s natural. It’s who you are. It’s scientifically proven.
Daisy: Mm-hmm.
MMcGrady: Uh, and when we say that, they’re like, well, it’s, you can’t have, it’s not science. The conservatives say that. And they was like, well, okay, so are you talking about genitalia or actual like identity?
And then they say, well, identities not real. It’s sociology. It was like, well, sociology is still science you moron,
Daisy: yeah.
MMcGrady: It’s not even sociology, it’s psychology. Psychology is still science. So it’s just like, I dunno, it’s complicated, right?
Daisy: There’s an [00:45:00] ignorance problem going on. You know,
MMcGrady: it’s not even just a systematic ignorance.
It’s a willful ignorance.
Daisy: Yes. And a glorification of ignorance, almost
MMcGrady: truly.
Daisy: Yeah. Uh,
it’s man. So in your opinion, what, what can we do going forward as, as sex workers, as queer people? What can we do going forward to fight this cultural and political shift that’s happening right now?
MMcGrady: Well, it’s important to note, I’m not necessarily a sex worker.
I’m an ally, definitely, and I work in an allied possession position. What I would recommend, what I would say is that people have the right to be who they are.
Daisy: Mm-hmm.
MMcGrady: Regardless of who’s in power, the dominant [00:46:00] perception of the time, and any delineation of that. Anything that goes against that is just bullshit because people have these rights, people have the ability to identify themselves how they were born.
Daisy: Mm-hmm.
MMcGrady: They have the right to do all of these things and it’s not harming anybody. You’re not losing rights. In fact, just because someone wants rights, that doesn’t mean that you’re gonna lose rights.
Daisy: Mm-hmm.
MMcGrady: You know, that’s what I would tell that, that ultra conservatives, but at the end of the day, what I would tell my brothers and sisters in sex work, my fellow human beings in the industry, you know, just keep being true to yourself and history will prove us right. Always has.
Daisy: Yeah, [00:47:00] I hope so. I know
MMcGrady: it’s gonna hurt. It’s gonna suck. It’s gonna be a long time. And, you know, I’m, I’m here to support all of you in the best way I can, but you know. It’s, it’s, it’s just utter bull. It’s just utter bullshit that we have to be going through this again.
Daisy: Yeah.
MMcGrady: But you know, unfortunately, history repeats itself and we, it’s our time, it’s our generation’s time to reclaim our rights.
Daisy: Yep. That’s true. That’s true. We have to stay strong and keep fighting. Not allow our rights to be taken from us. Thank you. This has been awesome talking to you today. I’m really glad we got to have you on.
Um,
MMcGrady: you know,
I, I’ve missed you and your partner since we connected and y’all have been great to me. And, you know, looking forward to seeing you all again in [00:48:00] January and, um, you know. And, you know, uh, just keep up your great work too, Daisy. You’re doing wonderful things and you know, I think your podcast is doing great as well, so that’s awesome.
Daisy: Thank you so much. Is there anything else that you’d like to say to our listeners before we close out?
MMcGrady: Uh, vote when you can, um, take a look at my work at AVN uh, I am on Blue Sky.
Daisy: Yes.
MMcGrady: My username on Blue Sky is MDMCJR.press.
Um, follow me there. We can connect there. I answered most of my dms. Uh, also email me. If you have tips or news or you just wanna share feedback or hate mail, either one. Uh, but other than that, thank you for having me. It’s always good being on, uh, you know, industry podcasts, and, you know, it’s [00:49:00] always good just talking to friends and like-minded folks.
Daisy: Totally. Thank you so much. It’s been wonderful. And this has been another episode of YAS P odcast. Please make sure you like and subscribe, and if you have enjoyed listening to our talk today, you can also donate. We are a tax deductible nonprofit, so thank you so much.
MMcGrady: Right, and uh, just to specify really quick, I’ve views do not necessarily reflect those of a BN or my publishers.
I’m just saying like, that’s just my personal view. All right, so please keep that in mind everybody, and thank you again.
Daisy: Thank you.