Speaker 1
This is Bruce Friedman of Adult Site Broker and welcome to Adult Site Broker Talk, where each week we interview one of the movers and shakers of the adult industry and we give you a tip on buying and selling websites. This week we'll be speaking with Phoenix Calida of SwapUSA in part one of a two-part interview. There are some upcoming events we'll be attending. December 3rd and 4th, I'll be at Affiliate World Conference in Bangkok. December 7th through the 9th, I'll be sponsoring AW Summit Elite in Ko Chang, Thailand. And to start the year right, I'll be in Hollywood for XBiz LA. I hope to see many of you at these events. If you'd like to sit down and discuss business at any of these shows, contact us at adultsitebroker.com. We're proud to announce our latest project, thewaronporn.com. You'll find articles on age verification laws and other attacks on our industry. It's to raise awareness of our industry's plight in the war on porn. You'll find all that and more at thewaronporn.com. Now time for our properties of the week for sale at Adult Site Broker. We have a premium AI companion platform focused on emotional realism and deep memory. Users interact with lifelike companions that remember every detail and respond with real emotion. We have a network of BDSM subreddits. It has over 1.49 million users, over 3.8 million posts, and almost 45,000 comments. There's a porn picture site with both a Web3 and a Web2 domain. The keyword of the domains is one of the most globally recognized in search terms in the world, porn. We have a buyer who's looking for dating and lifestyle sites in Europe. They would also consider other geos. We're offering a strip chat white label. The average user spends 24 minutes on the site. We have a network of interracial reality hardcore sites. The main site has reality hardcore porn with amateur girls as well as some porn stars. There's a unique platform that bridges the gap between mainstream social link services like Linktree and adult content creators on platforms like OnlyFans. They combine a bio link with the ability to send virtual gifts. We're offering a growing free porn gaming site with adult sex games. The site is owned by one of the top entrepreneurs in our industry. And there's a highly active, organically grown Reddit community centered around the stocking and foot fetish niches. For more information, go to our listings page at adultsitebroker.com. If you have any questions, please contact us on our website. Now time for this week's interview. My guest today on Adult Site Broker Talk is Phoenix from SwapUSA. Phoenix, thanks for being with us on Adult Site Broker Talk.
Speaker 2
Thank you so much for having me. I'm super excited to be here.
Speaker 1
I'm glad we finally got it together. We've been talking for a while. Phoenix is a longtime advocate for sex worker rights. Originally from Chicago, Phoenix experienced both poverty and police violence, and as a result, became determined to advocate for sex worker rights to prevent others from having to experience similar issues. When not talking about sex workers' rights, she can be found in the garden or under a pile of yarn and crochet hooks. Swap USA is a national grassroots social justice network dedicated to the fundamental human rights of sex workers and their communities, focusing on ending violence and stigma through education, community building, and advocacy. Their goal is to uplift and protect sex workers through advocacy, education, and community support. So, Phoenix, besides what I just said, what is Swap USA and what is it that you guys do?
Speaker 2
Right. So Swap USA, of course, is a 501c3. I always feel that it's relevant to specify that because a lot of sex worker orgs don't have that distinction. So there's not a lot of 501c3s. Yeah. So we are that. But mostly our goal is to push for decriminalization of sex work in the United States, as well as developing ways to combat sex trafficking, ways to uplift sex worker voices, ways to help sex workers who have been arrested and are part of the criminal justice system. And we do that through basic community education. We do that through outreach and building networks with sex workers in person. And we also do that with policymaking. We talk to lawmakers and judges and people who are, apologies, and we also talk to people who create policy and people who are in tune with lawmakers and things like that to try to create policies that are rooted in harm reduction as opposed to criminalization and punishment of sex workers.
Speaker 1
Yeah, which is a long time coming. I mean, when I was single, I was certainly a consumer of sex workers. And now working in the adult industry, I consider myself a sex worker. All of us in adult are sex workers. And this never should have been illegal. If you look at some of the states like Nevada and some of the countries like the Netherlands where sex work is legal, they've got the right idea, right?
Speaker 2
Yeah, I think that they're definitely better than criminalization. They do have legal models. We would like to go more towards decrim, which is in New Zealand and recently Belgium. I'm very excited about Belgium. I'm super looking forward to what they're doing. So now that they change their sex work policy, sex workers qualify for things like paid maternity leave, retirement benefits and other types of social services that they had previously been denied access to. So I'm just sort of looking at Belgium like, please bring that here. We need that here.
Speaker 1
Yeah. You know, to me, it's kind of like the legalization of marijuana. There are some states where it's legal, but nationally, it's just such a leap to have a national law. And both of those things should be legal.
Speaker 2
Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think that the most frustrating thing is that when you really get down to sort of like the brass tacks of it, I think that people don't actually oppose sex work as much as they think they do. There's just been so much propaganda around sex work, right? So all these people are like, oh, but like everyone in the industry is, you know, has a pimp and is being trafficked or they're, you know, mentally unstable or they're a drug addict and they can't take care of themselves. And it's like a lot of that is not true, actually. That is not representative of most sex workers. And, you know, I think that once people realize that, then it's like, oh, maybe we shouldn't be treating sex workers and we shouldn't have these type of laws, you know, in place as we do. So, you know, a lot of community education, hopefully, is going to bring people around. I'm hoping.
Speaker 1
Here's hoping. I mean, they have had a bill for a while pending here in Thailand to make sex work decriminalized. And most people don't realize this, but sex work is illegal in Thailand. So they're working on decriminalizing it here.
Speaker 2
I would love for that to happen. And it's always so fascinating to me because people don't really have a grasp of what criminalization of sex work looks like in practice. Right. And now when people start seeing things like, so you thought it was a good idea to arrest like a 25 year old woman and take her kids away from her because she trades sexual services to pay her rent. Like, does that really make sense? Does it?
Speaker 1
Yeah, exactly. Were you a sex worker at one time?
Speaker 2
Yes, I was actually. I was working in Chicago for quite some time.
Speaker 1
Okay. Tell me about it.
Speaker 2
Yeah. So I did escorting. I did various types of in-person work. a little bit of fetish work. And then at one point, I was actually working outdoors because I was struggling with homelessness at the time. Things were really rough. And that was actually when I had my instances, my run-ins with the police, which gave me a certain perspective. Nothing will change our politics faster than being on the wrong side of a police interaction.
Speaker 1
No, they're the worst. They take such advantage of sex workers, right?
Speaker 2
Oh, constantly. It was a very common thing where they would go to where sex workers were working and particularly like at the end of the night and be like, either you give me what you earned or you're getting arrested. Or they would find sex workers and be like, either you're giving me sexual services or I'm arresting you. And so it was, you know, like you spend, you know, you spend the whole night working and you're like, okay, just take my rent money then, I guess,
Speaker 1
because I don't want to go to jail. Robbery or rape, you choose. Oh my God.
Speaker 2
Yeah, it was really brutal out there. So that was kind of the start of my sex work advocacy because I was like, this is messed up.
Speaker 1
And these are the people who are supposed to be protecting you from things like that, from being robbed, from being raped, and they're doing it.
Speaker 2
Right. And that's also, you know, the thing, too, because then if you, not even from a cop, but if you are assaulted or if someone robs you or if someone rapes you, do you really want to go to police if you're a sex worker? Because those are the same guys that last week, you know, were harassing you. And it's just, you know, it's not great. It's not great for community relations. I'll say that.
Speaker 1
No, it certainly isn't. So describe the pen pal program that I've heard so much about.
Speaker 2
Oh, right. So that is with Between Us and Swap Behind Bars, which is sort of like a sister organization, if you will. And they primarily focus on sex workers who have been incarcerated.
Speaker 1
Yes, they've been on the podcast, as you know.
Speaker 2
We love them.
Speaker 1
Yes, we do.
Speaker 2
And one of the things that we all work together on is a pen pal program where you can actually write to sex workers who have been incarcerated. We have Amazon wish lists for things like, you know, books, different types of supplies for, you know, like essentially arts and crafts. People request things who are people who are engaging in like continuing continuing education. They need school supplies, basically. And it's just really nice. Like, you know, every around Christmas time, we always get together and do like a Christmas card writing sort of thing. So people can have Christmas cards because once you're incarcerated, it's just sort of like you're dead to the world. Like, it's kind of like everyone forgets about you and you're just sort of alone. And we don't want sex workers to have to feel like that. And then, of course, we also have a mentor program. We mentor sex workers who are incarcerated. And then we also have, with the pen pals, we try to give them supplies once they get out, hopefully to prevent recidivism, obviously, but also just because it's the right thing to do. Because when you're getting out, you might not really have anything. You know, you might not have a phone. You might not have somewhere to go. You might not have basic supplies. A lot of times people who are getting out, they don't have immediate access to their medications, which can be kind of crucial, you know. So we really want to make sure that when folks get out, they can at least meet their basic needs until they can get back on their feet. So that's all kind of tied into our pen pal program. I feel like I said more.
Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah, I met Blair last year at Expos LA and she's fabulous.
Speaker 2
I love Blair so much.
Speaker 1
Yes, absolutely. It was a great interview, and if anybody hasn't heard it, Blair Hopkins from Swap Behind Bars, you definitely need to give that a listen because it's fascinating. So talk a bit about the current struggles the sex worker rights movement is facing today.
Speaker 2
There's so many places to go with that question. Okay, so I will say one of the biggest issues that we've had historically in getting people on board with sex worker rights is that they find the concept of sex work to be distasteful or immoral, right? And so they don't really want to get involved because they're like, well, whatever's happening to sex workers doesn't impact me. But I'm hoping that, you know, with this current administration, with some of the current policies and legislation that's going on, I'm hoping more people are seeing that actually sex workers are just the canary in the coal mine in a lot of instances. When it comes to like censorship bills, when it comes to state surveillance, when it comes to age verification. Yes. Yes. Because, you know, that was a lot of the age verification started off on the basis of protecting minors from porn, which in American speak means we are going to pass the most ridiculous things you've ever seen and pretend it's about saving children. As it tends to go. So the age verification laws started and now we're seeing this backlash that's coming because people are realizing like, oh, you didn't actually just mean like literal porn. You meant a ton of things. You meant anything that portrays, right, social media, anything that portrays LGTBQ people in a positive light, anything about like birth control, reproductive health, safer sex practices, how to use condoms, like all those sort of things. And now the video games, right, with the whole issue that's going on with the payment processors vsun mastercard somehow due to collective shout which is a group in australia which is apparently uh now influencing global policy which is terrifying global shout yeah they uh yeah they're a group in australia collective shout i'm sorry and their thing is we want to ban porn everywhere and they basically are the ones who got the payment processors to ban a bunch of games on stream i
Speaker 1
don't know if you saw that yeah i did on steam yeah and they were the ones who were behind that
Speaker 2
And then, of course, there's the bill that just passed in the UK, which is...
Speaker 1
Oh, yeah, the Online Safety Act. Yes.
Speaker 2
Am I allowed to curse on here? I don't know.
Speaker 1
As much as you fucking want.
Speaker 2
Okay. So that shit is a clusterfuck, okay? It is just a clusterfuck. So they passed that in the UK, and now suddenly you have to basically do age verification for everything. Like, to use a dating website, you have to upload your ID. They banned minors from looking at resources about what to do if you've been sexually assaulted or you want to report a sexual assault, how to stop drinking, stopping smoking. All that stuff is banned. And the irony, the one that I do appreciate in, you know, in my own twisted way, is that the NoFap forum on Reddit got banned.
Speaker 1
Oh, no.
Speaker 2
And I think that's beautiful.
Speaker 1
Oh, God. Oh, God.
Speaker 2
Because if folks don't know NoFap is.
Speaker 1
Those guys.
Speaker 2
Right? I know. I know, it's terrible. NoFap is a community that is basically anti-porn, anti-mustubation.
Speaker 1
Bunch of freaking losers.
Speaker 2
They're so weird. They're so weird. Yeah. But yeah, I do appreciate the irony that one of the anti-porn groups actually got banned because they're anti-porn, but this is what happens. Yeah, I'm amused by that one.
Speaker 1
Yeah, in America, we've got the most perverted president in the history of the country. I think he has a slight edge over Clinton. And as much as I loved Bill as a president, I haven't loved a lot of the things I've found out since he left office with his ties with Jeffrey Epstein and all of that. It's pretty disgusting. But here we've got the most perverted president in the history of the country. He's a rapist. He probably was involved with Epstein and what Epstein was doing. I don't know that for sure. It's kind of like what Bill Maher likes to say. I don't know it for sure, but I just know it's true.
Speaker 2
Right.
Speaker 1
Right. I forget exactly how he says it, but it's pretty good. Anyway, yeah. So his administration is behind all of this. And it's not that he's doing it, but the people like Russell Vogt, who is one of the worst human beings on God's earth in his administration, are doing just some horrible things. And it just kills me. It just kills me because it's such a hypocrisy, you know?
Speaker 2
Yeah. Oh, absolutely. One of the things that really has my attention, everything has my attention at this point with this administration. It's like it demands your constant attention and surveillance because everything is awful. But one of the things that is fascinating to me is that there's all this discussion about what Trump, etc. was doing with Epstein. There's all these accusations of, you know, everything from like pedophilia to sexual assault, you know, and all these sorts of things. And in the meantime, they keep talking about how they're tough on crime. And based on the reports I'm seeing, they're actually diverting like federal law enforcement from investigating sex trafficking instead to focus on deporting people. And it's like, maybe we should focus on the sex trafficking more so than deporting someone who's been here for 20 years.
Speaker 1
Yeah. And who hasn't committed any crimes and all of that. We could go on all night about that bullshit. What are your thoughts on decriminalization versus other models?
Speaker 2
I think that decriminalization would be the best model, at least initially, because that gives us the most leeway. A lot of people point to legalization, right? But the thing that isn't necessarily considered is that it would be the government ultimately who is responsible for determining what makes something legal versus illegal. And a lot of times what we found out is in places that have legal models is that not everyone who's a sex worker can necessarily meet the legal requirements. So they're still criminalized. Right. So still at risk of arrest, possibly deportation, depending on their immigration status, you know, state surveillance, police abuse, harassment, and even exploitation. You know, if someone knows that you're working illegally, they can extort you in various ways. So that's sort of why we lean towards decrim. I think a lot of folks just sort of assume that legal means anyone can do it, but they haven't necessarily considered that there's a bunch of, you know, like laws and policies and rules and regulations and what that really looks like in practice. One of the things I'd like to point to is, of course, obviously everyone knows that sex workers are in Las Vegas, but it's the rest of Nevada that has the brothels that are legal, right?
Speaker 1
Correct. There are no legal brothels in Las Vegas, unlike what a lot of people think, but there are lots of prostitutes in Las Vegas working illegally.
Speaker 2
Exactly. And one of the reasons for that is because the way Nevada law is written in terms of...
Speaker 1
I hear your cat, by the way. It's not even in the room.
Speaker 2
Like, it's so brutal. Like, he's on the other side of the door.
Speaker 1
It's like my moaning dog. It's a good background. Go ahead.
Speaker 2
It's like, I can hear you in there. But, you know, one of the things about Nevada that people don't realize is the reason, one of the reasons that there are brothels in the rest of Nevada and not specifically in Las Vegas is because the way the statute is written is that there's a population cap. You can't have a brothel in a county that has so many, like a certain amount of people in it. That's why the brothels are all rural.
Speaker 1
Yeah. Oh, they're very rural. I don't know for sure. I've just heard. But anyway, go ahead.
Speaker 2
They are. But yeah, but that's the reason is because the way the law is written, you can only have so many people in a county that also has a brothel. And so it's like if we extrapolate that, like, okay, we obviously know there's sex workers in, you know, large cities like LA and Oakland and New York and Chicago and Atlanta and Dallas and Houston. What happens if suddenly all those like if we do a federal nationwide legalization model and it's based off Nevada, what happens to all those workers now? Because they're still technically working illegally because they're living in counties above that population cap. So it's like, what did we really resolve by legalization?
Speaker 1
Just to criminalize it, open brothels wherever you want to open brothels. They should be able to have brothels in Oakland, in New York, in Las Vegas. It certainly would make it a lot more convenient for poor guys who are looking to get laid and otherwise have to drive for two hours. Again, I've just heard.
Speaker 2
And it would also make it more convenient for sex workers. In order to do my job, I have to move like two hours away from home to a place where I don't know anybody and I don't have a support system. Like, who wants to do that?
Speaker 1
So they work illegally, right.
Speaker 2
Right. And then it's like, so, but then what was the point of legalization if people can't meet the requirements? And so that's kind of why we're more on the decrim end of things.
Speaker 1
Sure. I understand completely. By the way, what are your thoughts on the Nordic model? I know what my thoughts are, but what are yours? I think you've already answered that question. Okay. Moving on. No, go ahead.
Speaker 2
I fucking hate the Nordic model. Yes, so do I. So much. It is like the most nonsensical thing that I have ever encountered in my life. And I have encountered some nonsensical things. So it starts off with the premise that sex work is inherently harmful to women. What? Why? Why? I mean, I guess not everybody deserves bodily autonomy or something. I don't know.
Speaker 1
Well, I give you Roe versus Wade. So, yeah. When it comes to that.
Speaker 2
And, you know, so like that's a huge part of the problem with it. And then also, a lot of this stuff is only popular because of the propaganda around it. If people really knew how it worked, they would not be so supportive, right? Of course, the Nordic model is the idea that technically speaking, sex workers aren't criminalized, but their clients are. Which doesn't make sense because how do you make money when your clients are criminals, right? Because now your client pool has gone down. So that's not helping. And then also this idea that sex workers aren't arrested for sex work, but they're still punished in other ways. And I don't think people realize that, right? So they had, in Norway, they had what, Operation Homeless, where basically police surveilled sex workers, found out who the sex workers were, and then went around to all their landlords and said that if you don't evict this person, we're going to arrest you for living off the proceeds of prostitution, because they're using their sex work earnings to pay their rent. And so they just made a bunch of women homeless. And I'm like, how the fuck does this help women? Because your whole thing about the Nordic model was that sex work hurts women and we need to save women. That was part of
Speaker 1
their law. Holy shit. Yeah. Yeah. Like it's illegal to rent to a sex worker. Yeah. So sex workers get
Speaker 2
evicted like routinely. I'm like, that's not helping women. Sex workers who are immigrants routinely get deported. That's not helping women. Right. And then my own personal one, because this story like just infuriates me every time I talk about the Nordic model. Sorry, I'm kind of going on a tangent here. But there was a bar in Sweden that essentially racially profiles its customers and it won't let Asian women in because the town that the bar is in has Asian women who are migrants there who do sex work. And the bar's argument was that they were helping support the Nordic model and ending demand for sex work by denying entry to just any Asian woman that they felt like on a whether she was a sex worker or not.
Speaker 1
I just happen to be married to an Asian woman, so that really fucking pisses me off.
Speaker 2
And so what happened is the women sued the bar because they're like, we aren't even sex workers. Why can't we go to the bar? They lost. And then they appealed and they lost again.
Speaker 1
Fuck.
Speaker 2
Yeah, so basically Sweden said, it's okay to racially profile your customers. And obviously it's bad enough in Nordic countries, but also me, I'm trying to be, you know, I live in the U S and I am black and we kind of have a history here of not letting black people in certain establishments. So like, aside from all the other things about the Nordic model, and there's so many things, I also have to worry about that from like, what does that mean for non-white people in the United States? If we, if we bring the Nordic model here, like, are we just going to go back to like, you know, Jim Crow era segregation because it's ending demand for sex work
Speaker 1
under this administration i wouldn't put it past them they they keep winding the clock back i don't know how far back they're gonna wind it but i would certainly be concerned yeah i feel like i'm
Speaker 2
simultaneously living in like 1960 1860 and like 1360 just all at once and i don't i don't like it
Speaker 1
no i don't either i don't either why should sex worker rights matter to non-sex workers well i
Speaker 2
think one of the biggest things and hopefully what we're starting to see now or more people are starting to see is that sex workers rights are first of all because sex workers are people let's just start with that people deserve rights and sex workers are people like let's let's just make that the basis but also because you know as i mentioned before a lot of the stuff that is aimed at sex workers is not solely aimed at sex workers right because as i said like you know stuff that was aimed at stopping sex workers now all of a sudden it's video games and now they're going after um erotica, written erotica books, right? And it's going after like some of these groups. Oh my gosh, I can't even like just off the deep end with some of these groups that are anti-sex work. Like they've argued that we shouldn't have fashion magazines because having like a woman in a swimsuit on the
Speaker 1
cover of a magazine is pornographic. They get rid of Sports Illustrated too. That's interesting.
Speaker 2
Yeah. And there's actually, shoot, I can't remember what magazine it was, but actually Walmart did cater to one of these groups and pulled one of the like fashion magazines, like L or Vogue or
Speaker 1
something like that. That doesn't surprise me from the Walton family at all. Not at all,
Speaker 2
at all. But you used to be able to buy it, um, like up at the, you know, like the register, they used to just have, you know, the, how they have the little thing with the magazines by the register. Yeah. They've gotten rid of certain fashion magazines there because of this type of thing. Like, and it's, you know, cause, and that's something I try to really explain to people is you might see a sex worker, right? And be like, oh, this person is a sex worker. Clearly they're advertising and, you know, they're in a bikini by a pool saying, you know, come book with me and this and that. But what I'm trying to get people to understand is that also applies to you, right? If you just happen to be a regular person on vacation, a woman on vacation in a bikini at the pool, the people who are anti-porn don't make a distinction because you don't have an ad at the
Speaker 1
bottom of your picture. You're still a woman in a bikini. And AI certainly doesn't. It does
Speaker 2
not oh the ai stuff is a mess oh but yeah so it's just like we're losing all these rights because y'all were okay with letting it happen to sex workers and now it's like i think it's uh georgia is trying to put a ban on um getting a birth control sent to like mail order birth control
Speaker 1
sent because that's pornographic right we're seeing the book why am i not shocked georgia Oh, geez.
Speaker 2
Yeah. And, you know, we're seeing book bans everywhere, like Texas, Florida, Louisiana, Oklahoma, right?
Speaker 1
Burning books is back. Yep.
Speaker 2
Yeah. When I name a state that shocks you, let me know.
Speaker 1
Oh, no, I will definitely like, definitely. California. No, wait. Okay.
Speaker 2
But it's like, you know, so now we're banning books. And because these books are quote unquote pornographic for things that aren't even remotely pornographic. And so it's like, but you know, I really want folks to be like, this started with sex work and no one cared because it was just sex workers. And now all of a sudden, like a book about a gay couple is your librarian is going to be arrested if that book is in your library. You know, like we really are in this together, whether it's your video games or your books or your general freedom of expression, or if you happen to be queer or gay or trans, or, you You know, you happen to dress in a certain way. Like, it's never just about sex work. So we really are in this together as a team.
Speaker 1
I voted for Mayor Pete for president in the primary. And God, I hope he becomes president. That would really stick it to a lot of these assholes, wouldn't it? Man, it would stick it to a lot of these assholes. And a lot of things would change in the country. And he's, to me, he's the best person for the job. He's brilliant. So that's just my two cents. give me a brief rundown of the current policies that censor sex work you touched on them but why
Speaker 2
don't you give me some more right so uh what we're looking at right now is uh we're they're attempting to well okay ones that have already passed of course the biggest one was sesta fosta which was just an absolute nightmare still is yes still is uh which basically made it illegal to allegedly, allegedly designed to stop online trafficking, right? And this is how we ended up like with things tied to the shutdown of Backpage, Redbook, different places where people were advertising online. And then it also basically made people scared to talk about sex work online in a general sense. So at the time, there were different people who were running like bad date lists, right? So if you had a client who was abusive or didn't, you know, was just a bad client stayed their time or whatever. There was a list of being like, hey, watch out for this person. Here's their contact info. A bunch of those disappeared under SESTA-FOSTA because it's illegal to talk about those things. How this makes sex workers safer and stops trafficking,
Speaker 1
I don't know. It had nothing to do with trafficking. Thank you again, Kamala. I really appreciate it. She was one of the biggest advocates for that law when she was in the Senate. So she was a sponsor. It's not just the Republicans. None of them are our friends. Absolutely. And so,
Speaker 2
yeah, so there was SESTA-FOSTA. And now we're looking at stuff like COSA that is getting bipartisan. Well, as you said, no one's our friends. That one has bipartisan. Is that back?
Speaker 1
It's back. It's back. Oh, shit. I shouldn't be surprised in this administration.
Speaker 2
No, no. Right. And so it's the Kids Online Safety Act. And it's supposed to, I guess, protect kids from seeing nipples or something i don't know um but i'm just so i'm just so over it
Speaker 1
like yeah i know they keep coming up with these dumb laws yes um but of course one of the people
Speaker 2
who is behind kosa is um what is her name joni ernst i think she's from iowa yuck yeah yeah and uh she's a republican and her thing is um that she explicitly said that she wants to use kosa to ban lgbtq content online because it's poisoning the mind of children probably a closet lesbian i'm just guessing uh she's like as a side note um outside of swap stuff i also have a podcast and i do like news stuff oh really i covered her i do yeah and i covered her when she ran for her seat and her political ad was essentially like the rape joke from um what is that movie the squeal like a pig. Yeah. Like that was her original campaign. And I was like, that's an interesting choice. Yeah. Where she was like, I'm going to Washington to make them squeal like pigs. And I was like, all right, this is going to be one to watch. And she did not disappoint. She has been one to watch, but yeah, so there's COSA. And then of course, all the state verification laws, which are just an absolute nightmare of what you can access, what you can't access. And, uh, you know, Of course, because, you know, who doesn't have a VPN at this point? If you don't have one, you really just should get one.
Speaker 1
All children, all children do. That's the point.
Speaker 2
Right.
Speaker 1
All kids, if they don't have a VPN, they know how to use Google. What do they call it? Incognito.
Speaker 2
Oh, yeah. Yeah. I think just as a side note, I think my favorite thing about the UK bill is all the kids who started using like video game characters for the facial recognition. But because it's like AI that's doing the facial recognition, it's reading them as people. And so there's a bunch of people who got around the facial recognition.
Speaker 1
I love it. I absolutely love it. By the way, I'll throw another, I'll throw a plug in myself for the war on porn.com, which we do. And that has articles about all the things we've been talking about, all of the anti-porn and anti-sex work laws and media coverage and the like. So it's important that people check that out daily. Hello again. Okay. So why should sex worker rights matter to
Speaker 2
me personally? Well, because I think that it's good to be a good person. And if there's laws that are disproportionately hurting people, particularly vulnerable people, you should be upset about that. Like, I don't understand why you wouldn't be. I think that's always one of my first thoughts, you know, is like, well, but sex workers are people. Why do you want sex workers to be hurt? That's weird. You're weird if you want that. Just I'm just saying, you know, but again, it comes back to you as a person and us as people and who we are as a nation and who we are as a global community. And if they're coming for our rights, they're coming for yours. Like, if nothing else but a sense of self-preservation. And I would like more people to really get on board with that and really understand that.
Speaker 1
I just watched a series about 9-11 and the years following up to when Bin Laden got caught. And that was exactly my thought. Who are we as a nation, you know? Because, God, we did some horrible things as a country. I was embarrassed to be an American when George W. Bush was the president. I was embarrassed when I would go travel to other countries. And they say, hey, where are you from? I go in from the U.S. You know, I didn't even want to say it. Because so many people just hated the U.S. And for good reason. For very good reason. And, well, look who's in the White House now. This is Trump, too. If you thought the first time was bad. Jeez.
Speaker 2
anyway yeah that's uh i have a lot of international uh friends who live internationally and um a lot of folks had before all this happened like two years ago we tried to plan a meetup and uh it was like oh you guys should come to the u.s and you know we should all hang out together and now uh everyone's like yeah never go on there again and i'm like okay thanks no exactly yeah thanks trump
Speaker 1
thanks for the memories i don't even like to say his name i i just usually call him you know the orange blob or something like that online. My broker tip today is part three of how to buy a site. Last week we talked about finding the right site to buy. Once you find it, what do you do? Once you've either reached the broker of the site or the seller, review the information about it. The broker should provide you with the following, a profit and loss statement of at least three years that's up to date. If it's June and they give you financials only through the end of the previous year, you need to see what the site is doing now, not last year. If it's a pay site, get a username and password for the site so that you can review the content. Ask how often the site is updated. Get some history on the site. How long has it been in business? The story behind the site and why the seller wants to sell. Get an inventory of the content and how much of it has current technologies. Find out if all the content is exclusive to that site. Ask the seller if the content has ever been on VOD or DVD. See if there are any clip stores the content is on. Find out how much the content costs to produce and what the current cost to production is. Very importantly, see if this operation can run without the owner. Do they do the shooting themselves or do they hire someone to do it? And if there's an outside producer, will that person continue to provide content for the site? Find out how many new joins and rebuilds there are a day. Ask them what's the retention rate on the site. And find out if they do advertising on the site and where they get their traffic. Ask for Google Analytics access so you can see where the traffic comes from. This information will give you the opportunity to truly evaluate what it is you're buying. Then if everything looks good to you and you want the site, it's time to make an offer. Only you can decide what the site is worth to you. If you're working with a broker, say, oh, I don't know, adult site broker, of course your broker can help you determine the value of the site. We'll talk about this subject more next week. And next week, we'll once again be speaking with Phoenix Calida of SwopUSA. And that's it for this week's adult site broker talk. I'd once again like to thank my guest, Phoenix Calida. Talk to you again next week on Adult Site Broker Talk. I'm Bruce Friedman.
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