Lawyers, academics and pornography stars mingled Saturday at the World Pornography Conference, an event billed as a study of “eroticism and the 1st Amendment.”
Anti-porn activists criticized California State University at Northridge for being co-host of the conference with the Free Speech Coalition, a trade association for the adult entertainment industry.
“They’re using the credibility and respect of the California State University system to promote pornography,” Steve Frank said Friday, the first day of the three-day conference.
Conference organizers dismissed the criticism. “We’re not endorsing pornography any more than if we held a conference on the news media or serial killers,” said James Elias, director of university’s Center for Sex Research.
The daughter of Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt said the porn industry’s defense of free-speech rights was a charade.
“They’re really exploiting the 1st Amendment,” Tonya Flynt-Vega said. “. . . None of this has anything to do with the 1st Amendment.”
Those in attendance included Laurie Holmes, widow of porn star John Holmes, and Nadine Strossen, the first woman president of the American Civil Liberties Union, who gave a speech on what she considered recent threats to free speech.
