Adult Site Broker Talk Episode 214 with Ricci Levy of the Woodhull Freedom Foundation

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 Ricci Levy of Woodhall Freedom Foundation. We’ve doubled our affiliate payouts at ASB Cash. Now when you refer sellers or buyers to us, you’ll receive 20% of our broker commission on any and all sales that result from that referral for life. Check out ASB Cash for more details and to sign up. And we’re proud to announce our latest project, thewaronporn.com. You’ll find articles from industry websites as well as mainstream publications. It’s designed to raise awareness of our industry’s plight in the war on porn and the numerous attacks on our industry. You’ll find all that and more at thewaronporn.com. Now time for our property of the week that’s for sale at Adult Site Broker. We’ve reduced the price on our network of sites in the Bukake and Gangbag niches. They’ve been in business since 2009 when the first site came online. The owner shoots his own content in swingers clubs in his local area. He’d be available for a period of time to shoot content and train someone to take his place doing production. The content model is brilliant. Guys pay for entrance to the club and this pays for the talent and the production of the content as well as the money going to the club owner. So the content cost is zero. Yes, you heard right. The website income has been consistent and continues to grow. The websites and content make this a perfect turnkey business for anyone looking to own their own pay sites or for a larger company. There’s a huge opportunity for growth. Now only $199,000. Now time for this week’s interview. My guest today on Adult Site Broker Talk is Ricky Levy of the Woodhull Freedom Foundation. Ricci, thanks for being with us on Adult Site Broker Talk. Thanks for having me, Bruce. I’m delighted and excited. I am too. I’ve been looking forward to this since we met in January. Yes, at XBIZ. Yes, I asked you on the spot and you said yes. She’s been engaged in sexual freedom activism for several decades. In 2003, she helped found the Woodhole Freedom Foundation, a nonpartisan, non-profit human rights organization dedicated to defending the personal autonomy of all individuals. As the executive director, then president and CEO, Ricky has led Woodhole for more than 20 years. Ricky has traveled around the country offering testimony and speaking at conferences, often presenting contentious issues in a way that allows for a collaborative dialogue to build bridges and foster alliances. Whether focused on censorship, the decriminalization of sex work, the shackling of incarcerated women in labor, or the right to family and reproductive justice, you can find Ricky at the forefront, bringing human rights to the conversation. Since its inception, the Foundation has advocated for sexual freedom as a fundamental human right worthy of its place alongside hard fought liberties, including freedom of expression, the right to family, and the right to privacy. Whether talking with students about the legitimacy of all consenting families or successfully imploring Congress to eliminate condoms as evidence of prostitution, Woodhole worked alongside allies representing specific issues, identities, and communities while simultaneously serving as an umbrella advocate for sexual rights as a whole. The Woodhole Freedom Foundation works to change those laws, policies, and practices across a range of issues with one thing in common. They deny or threaten our fundamental human rights to sexual freedom. Woodhole was instrumental in the inclusion of domestic partner benefits as a component of same sex marriage, a detail at risk in the original legislation. They played a key role in the termination of Washington DC’s prostitution free zones, which infracted on legally defensible rights and testified and lobbied from a human rights perspective on behalf of efforts to end the practice of shackling incarcerated women during labor and childbirth in Florida prisons. Why am I not surprised it’s Florida? Woodhole also successfully lobbied to change the laws regarding sexting between minors, but it’s not just about individual legal changes. In addition to inducing legislative, judicial, and corporate accountability and progress, the Woodhole Freedom Foundation is the preeminent voice emanthing from the intersection of sexual rights and human rights, insisting that the United States protect human rights, including those related to sexual freedom, rather than limit them. Woodhole was the lead plaintiff in Woodhole Freedom Foundation versus the United States, the only federal challenge to the deadly foster unconstitutional legislation. And Ricky, that’s all the time we have today. I’m sorry. I was just thinking, I want to meet that person and I want to get involved in that or something. Yeah, really? Yeah, I got through that. That was amazing. That was. Thank you. Thank you. So now that you said all that, what shall we talk about? Oh, I don’t know that much. For those who have never heard of you, what is the Woodhole Freedom Foundation, besides what I just said, and how does your work relate to the adult industry? There are people who haven’t heard of me. Yeah, one or two. Okay. Well, for them. So Woodhole was founded to be a human rights organization. We were founded in 2003. So we’re in our 21st year and I’ve been here from the very beginning. And one of the things that we learned or that we knew early on was that the adult industry is one of the easiest targets for agendas that will impact the entire population. So what do I mean by that? Censorship is insidious. It’s dangerous. It’s damaging. But it’s just a tool in a toolbox used to restrict our freedoms and to limit our access to adult material to sex ed. If you look at the country and you say as we have for years, oh no, look at Florida. You’re missing the fact that Florida led to Texas and that while we were looking at Florida and Texas, the whole country was being flooded with mirror legislation that was passing all across the country. So the adult industry is where it starts. And so go to the root of the tree. That’s where we need to stop it. Yeah, absolutely. What is sexual freedom and what makes it a human right? Sexual freedom as a human right is essential for promoting dignity, equality and well-being for everybody. Doesn’t matter what their sexual orientation is, their gender identity or their expression. It involves creating and protecting a society where everyone can live authentically and without fear of discrimination or violence. At its heart, it’s an individual’s autonomy over their own body and their choices related to sexuality. What do you see as the greatest threat to sexual freedom? Well, my flip answer would be religion. But let me put a qualifier on that person. I’m going to say that it’s not religion. I’m going to say that it’s the people who weaponize religion as an excuse for restricting and limiting our rights to our own bodies, to our relationships, to what we are able to see, what we’re able to do, what we can watch, what we can listen to. And I would say that there’s a deliberate drive to ensure ignorance. If you don’t know about it, you might not want to do it is the very flawed thinking. I don’t want to just say the right because unfortunately it’s the right and the left in the middle. In a world that is largely out of control, certainly out of any individual’s control, it’s our nature to look for something we can control. So we restrict. Yeah, if they ban porn, then pretty soon they’re in our bedrooms. They are in our bedrooms. If you look at abortion rights, they are totally in our bedroom. And we have a Supreme Court justice who has actually stated that he wants to revisit Lawrence v. Texas. So for anybody who doesn’t know, that was a case in Texas that effectively ended the criminalization of homosexuality, sodomy, which is anything except any sexual engagement except penis and vagina, generally for the purpose of procreation. If Lawrence v. Texas is revisited and has the same outcome as Roe v. Wade, it’s important to know that those laws are still on the books just like the abortion laws were on the books in all the states. So if they overturn Lawrence v. Texas, instantly lots of sex and sexuality becomes against the law. And what happens to the marriages and the families that have formed? I totally lost my way because I’m really passionate about that. Oh, the greatest threat to sexual freedom. Yeah, absolutely. We were talking between ourselves before this about Project 2025, which is going to be delivered to us. Should there be a second Trump presidency? Talk a little bit about that. It is Project 2025. And after you listen to this entire podcast, just Google Project 2025. There are so many names as contributors to this treatise on the transition. Should Trump, I don’t even know if I can say it, win the election. I got a little taste there in the back of my throat. Sorry about that. But it’s backed by the Horizon Foundation, which is a very far right radical group. And they lay out in this very, very long document everything that they’re going to do. And first and foremost is restrict the rights of individuals and shift the government largely to be under the direct control of the president. It’s debatable today if the three forms of government designed to make sure we don’t have a dictator or functioning that way anymore. But certainly they will cease functioning as checks on each other. Well, it’s certainly unconstitutional. Yes, but has that stopped this person? No, nothing stops him. No, and it’s overwhelming to think about. People say, oh, if that happens, I’m going to leave this country. Well, it’s not so good anyplace else. I mean, surely if you love your country that much, you can stay and fight for it. Stand next to me. Yeah, absolutely. As I talked to you from Thailand, but that’s another story. Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t leave for those reasons, but I left and I’m happy I’m here. Let’s just put it that way. The adult industry is large, really, really large. Now if we all came together, we’d be an incredibly powerful force. What do you think keeps us from collaborating? Oh, that’s a good question. I know because I asked it. Yes, yes, you’re very clever. What keeps us from collaborating? Well, several things. I’m going to take a tiny little detour. In the nonprofit world, what keeps us from collaborating more than we do is that we’re competing for the same funds. In the adult industry, I think a lot of it is about money. Money is the root of all evil. Money fuels all the engines. Money, money, money. In this case, I do think number one, money because people are very busy running their businesses or their studios or their platforms. With few exceptions, they’re not looking necessarily at the greater good. They’re not trying to make a difference in the world. They’re just trying to make their world as comfortable and successful as possible. I think that that’s one reason. I think that the other reason is I don’t think everybody understands what’s at risk, that if these laws succeed in eliminating adult access to adult material, it’s not going to stop with Pornhub or Chatter Bay. That’s just the easy targets. It didn’t stop with Craigslist. Didn’t stop with Backpage. Take down the giants, and then it’s a lot easier to eliminate the rest of the population. Although I will say when it comes to Backpage, they did enough things to get themselves in trouble from what I understand. It wasn’t strictly doing ads for sex workers. There was a lot of other stuff going on too. I can’t disagree with you because I don’t know for sure. I talked to a competitor who knew a lot about the case before he had to turn his site off the day that FOSTA CESTA passed. A very successful site, by the way. He told me a lot about Backpage, and it was pretty eye-opening. That’s interesting. Okay. However, they cast such a wide net, and the government did. They tried everything. The only thing they didn’t try was actually nothing. They tried everything. I think part of that is to send a message. Don’t mess with us, or we will tie you up in court and drive you to suicide. Anthony Comstock said, "The justices have cited Comstock’s law, which is just horrifying. Absolutely horrifying." You want to give a summary on that too, since a lot of people might not be familiar with it? Absolutely. Anthony Comstock was a man who personally was horrified at his inability to stop masturbating, and who publicly went after anything sexual or having to do with sex. One of his favorite targets was Victoria Woodhull, our namesake. We weren’t ... Not weak. I wasn’t there. I feel old sometimes, but I’m not that ... Yeah, that was like in the 1850s, wasn’t it? Yes, it was, and I’m really well for my age. I was going to say. So Anthony Comstock was successful in getting a law passed all by himself that gave him superpowers to limit what was sent through the mail. So any Margaret Sanger, any people who were sending even marital, how to make marital sex better, or how to please your husband, or how to stop having babies, all of that information, according to him was obscene. It ended up being the obscenity statute. Yes, yes. And I brought him up because he was so proud of himself that he drove X number of women to commit suicide rather than continue to be harassed and tormented by him and his quest to eliminate all traces of sex and sexuality from the public eye, which sounds a lot like what I think is going on today. Yeah, I agree. I completely agree. It’s talking about going back to the future, huh? Yes, which is why I thought I was there. Yeah, tell me about it. How does your work expand beyond the adult industry? Well, let’s see. So as you read in our introduction, we address a lot of issues and we testify in often in a framework of human rights under the sexual freedom umbrella, our dignity and autonomy, our personal liberty, health and well-being, which is access to sexual freedom, the ability to make informed decisions about sexual health or seek appropriate health care services to have fulfilling and safe sex. Our work extends beyond the adult industry, but is at its core the adult industry because adult performer is a label about the type of work you do. That doesn’t mean that defines you. You can be a parent, a husband, a child. And by child, I don’t mean minor. I meant someone’s child. We do work on reproductive rights, freedom from violence. We went to Geneva in 2011 as part of the first universal periodic review, which is a function of the United Nations that reviews countries on their human rights violations. And 2011 was the first time the United States was ever reviewed. And we worked with allies over there to lobby to have the United States agree. Now, this sounds so simple, but really it was a very heavy lift. To have the United States agree, essentially that violence against sex workers is a human rights violation. It should be pretty obvious. It should. Yes. In agreeing to accept what was called recommendation 86, in agreeing to accept it, the United States was also agreeing to address it. Of course, we’ve had some follow-ups to the UPR universal periodic review, but it’s not a frame that carries weight in court. And calling the United States to task is as daunting as it sounds. That’s why organizations like Wood Hall exist, because we’re not daunted. But you shouldn’t be. You obviously proven your worth. I think we have, yes. So should we be fighting in the courts or in the streets and why? My answer is yes. We should be fighting in the courts as we are doing, and we should be fighting in the streets. If nothing else comes from fighting in the streets, it puts faces on the people who are impacted. It’s easy to build a case against an unseen and someone who appears to be unknown to you, individual. You can build a case. You can get angry. You can think they should be swept off the earth because you’ve never seen them. You think you’ve never met them. They’re just nameless, faceless individuals. Fighting into the streets puts faces. It also raises awareness. You know, for people who aren’t in the same circles that you and I are in, Bruce, if I said we’re fighting to stop the war on porn, they would probably step away from me as someone who was talking nonsense. But there is a war. It’s a war on sex. Don’t I know? Yes, how is Thailand? Time to plug our website, thewaronporn.com, which I know you’re familiar with, Ricky, and with articles on all of the attacks, age verification, and all other things that have been being perpetrated against us. It’s an excellent site. It’s a one-stop resource for all of the materials that are out there. Yeah, it’s a labor of love. It definitely is. Yes, it shows. You’ve been doing this for a long time. What inspired you back in the beginning and what keeps you here today? Well, I kind of fell into this by accident. I had gone to a street fair in New York, but I would have to go further back to my very young years as a young adult. My best friend, my very best friend, was one of the first deaths from AIDS. This was back before they knew it was AIDS. They called it GRIID, Gay-Related Immune Disorder. Oh, really? Never heard that. Yes, because they didn’t know HIV/AIDS. But watching my friend try to navigate the world as a gay man made me want to change that world. So I was very open to the idea of finding something good that I could do. At that point, I had my own consulting business and I continued to kind of straddle the line between the for-profit world and the not-for-profit world. And then I realized I just had to do this. I had to go all in. And the framing as human rights, not any specific identity. We have a lot of identity politics in this country. Point to you. Yes, we do. And sometimes that keeps us from collaborating too, going back to an earlier question. But that’s what inspired me back in the beginning. And it probably doesn’t sound like I’m telling you the truth, but it’s what inspires me every single day. Now, I believe it. I know you. I believe it. Thank you. I 100% believe it. You guys have a new project. Tell me about it. Oh, we do. I’m so excited. I’m so glad you asked me about this. It’s called Fact-Chept by Woodhull. That’s Fact-Chept by Woodhull. We are debunking or verifying popular myths. There’s so much disinformation out in the world. And I’m not saying misinformation because misinformation to me just means, you know, I shared something that was wrong or someone shared something wrong, but it didn’t have a specific agenda. It wasn’t deliberate. When I talk about disinformation, I mean deliberately spread BS. Are we talking about Trump again? Well, we might be. Yes. I mean, he certainly is one person who just has a nodding acquaintance with truth. And I’m not even sure they nod often. But I’m talking about weaponizing sound bites. Our opponents in this war on sex are phenomenal at claiming the platform, claiming and framing. And then we’re caught scrambling for how to respond. This is a tool. These debunked myths are sound bites, their responses, they are academic. They’re all footnoted. They’re very exciting. And we started going back to the beginning of our call with the myths around pornography because that’s the root of the tree. That’s where it all starts. And it spreads from the censoring of porn to the censoring of library books to elimination of sex, dating schools. But we started with the root. There are at this point, I think there are five myths. Well worth looking at. It’s on our website, which is woodhauled. O-D-H-U-L-L foundation.org. Yep. There will be a link on our podcast page with all of your social media so people can click away. Perfect. Thank you so much for doing that. I do it all the time. It’s going to be an evergreen project in my middle of the night musings. My hope is that we become the snopes of sexual freedom. Very nice. Haven’t heard the word snopes for a long time. I know. I wish the copywriter trademark had expired. Yeah, really. You work to have prostitution decriminalized. What about trafficking? Okay, so trafficking and prostitution are not the same thing. Trafficking is wrong and we would fight to protect people from being trafficked, but we would fight differently than the nonsense that’s being spewed as cures for trafficking, like f-s-s-s-t-a-p-p-s-t-a. Yeah, we need more organizations like the Cupcake Girls who speak the truth about trafficking. Yes, and it’s easy because, again, framing and claiming the narrative, prostitution has been lumped with trafficking and it’s totally not the same. Yeah. Thanks, Madam Vice President for Foste Sesta. Yeah, I’m not going to forget that, Mary. I didn’t vote for her in the primary and I wasn’t thrilled I had to vote for when I voted for Biden, but oh well. Yes, but remember, if Biden, yeah. Yeah, if Biden didn’t win, Trump would have. So there you go. Right. So keep voting for Biden. You’re fighting against age verification laws. I know that doesn’t mean you think children should be allowed to watch porn. Talk a little bit about that. Well, of course, I don’t think children should be allowed to watch porn. Well, I am fighting against the laws, but let me put a comma instead of a period. It’s about the implementation. That’s what I’m fighting. The way these laws are crafted is going to be a total intrusion on everyone’s privacy. It’s already happening. It is totally happening. And what’s the response? Did people stop looking at porn? No, of course they didn’t. They found VPNs and they’re watching it there. And that’s not just adults, I’m sure. Well, exactly. I mean, if they’re trying to keep kids off of porn, these aren’t going to work because the kids know VPNs better than the adults do. Oh, way better. My grandchildren are much better with anything that’s technology than I am. Of course. They have the solution before I even know the question. Exactly. Yep. It’s their birthright as kids. It definitely is. You know, something to think about around age verification. When we say minors, protecting minors. A person is a minor until they’re over 18. So you picture a toddler, but the reality is you’re really talking about an adult too. And it is also other adults who are impacted by this law. But if you only look at age verification, of course it makes sense and nobody wants children to be looking at material that isn’t age appropriate. Absolutely. And if you look at the good people in our industry, who are the ones that we know and deal with, that is the prevailing thought. Nobody’s wanting to sell porn to kids. And another thing is if the people, if the adults have to go through these age verification checks, they’re more likely to go to a site that is overseas where they don’t have them. So all they’re doing is they’re just hurting our industry. And I’ve heard estimates of as many as 90% when age verification comes up that people click out. So they’re just all they’re doing is harming the industry and they know that. Of course they know that. That’s the goal. Absolutely. They know that. Yes. Yes. Absolutely. That’s what it was. Yeah. Well, it didn’t work. No, it didn’t. But that was the goal to make it so onerous that people would stop producing any adult content. It didn’t work. No, it didn’t. And this won’t either. We’re going to beat it. I love the people at Free Speech Coalition, Allison, Mike, as I’m sure you do. And they’re just doing fabulous things over there to try to keep these laws off the books and to make it so our industry can continue operating. We just since January, we submitted testimony in 18 hearings. We partnered with the Free Speech Coalition on identifying the legislation, putting out the call for other organizations to join in the fight and submit their own testimony. We did a shared letter with Seekus, the sexuality information organization. People need to support FSC and people need to support Wood Hall. I was just going to say that if you didn’t, but I knew you would. There’s been a lot of action at the federal level around bills that will actually censor the internet. Can you give us an idea of what’s happening now and how it relates to the adult industry? Well, if we make it to the end of May without the Kids Online Safety Act passing, I think we could take a tiny breath. The Kids Online Safety Act is like the culmination of everything bad about age verification. And again, claiming and framing, this is not about kids safety. This is about limiting all access to adult material. So at the federal level, it’s been a tough legislative session because there’s so much going on at the state level. And the bills at the federal level are just so, they’re so bad. They’re so bad we partnered with our allies at Fight for the Future to do, I think it was a whole week of bad internet bills just to try to raise awareness. We love working with our allies all across all of the various issues that we talked about earlier. What can be done alone can generally be done so much better in collaboration with others. Absolutely. And I should give the disclaimer that we’re recording this in early May and it will run sometime in July. So that bill will have already, well, we’ll know what happened anyway. How is Woodhull funded and how can people in our industry help? Woodhull is primarily funded by individual donors and people can help by making a donation. Look on your page, find our links and go in and make a donation. This work is certainly a labor of love, but laborers of love for 21 years, it’s more than a labor of love. Well, they take money. They take money. Yeah. I read a piece the other day that said non-profits, which we are, all donations are tax deductible. But it said non-profits should stop referring to themselves as non-profits because while we’re not supposed to make a profit, it costs money to do the work we’re doing. That’s a good point. Why do you think our arguments aren’t moving the opposition to change what they’re doing? I actually have an answer to that. I think we’re fighting the wrong battles, Bruce. We’re fighting as if age verification is the ultimate goal and that the ultimate goal truly is to protect children. I don’t believe that is the ultimate goal. I believe the ultimate goal is to erase sex and sexuality from schools, from libraries, from the internet. And so when we respond to the age verification bills or when Allison testifies about the harms of these bills, the reason no one’s moving, well, it’s twofold. One is because that’s not what it’s about. So the information’s interesting, but irrelevant to the ultimate goal. But the other is claiming and framing, right? Who’s going to stand against a bill that says it’s going to protect children? That’s how fast it passed with only two NAVOs. Yeah. And who’s going to come out and say that they support something that the adult industry’s for? Porn is bad. Well, you should check out Fat Check on our website and see if it is bad because it isn’t. We know that. But what I’m saying is that’s the prevailing opinion. Right. So here’s what we talk about. If the government said they were going to limit chocolate consumption, all the people who love chocolate would start to talk among themselves. The chocolate manufacturers who make candy would have emergency meetings. The government is saying chocolate is bad for you. It causes your toes to fall off, whatever they can throw at the wall. And the industry and the consumers all stay up and say, "Wait, you can’t take this away. It’s my living. It’s my pleasure. It’s something I enjoy. You can’t take it away." And the odds are that whatever measure they were proposing would either fail or be repealed. But when it comes to adult content, when it comes to pornography, when it comes to sex and sexuality, people don’t stand up because society says, "Ooh, porn or ooh, I don’t want to hear about your sex life." So of course, Free Speech Coalition has a wonderful voice in industry and in courts. It’s a place where Wood Hall has a unique value to the adult industry because we’re a human rights organization. And what we’re saying can’t be discounted by saying, "Well, of course they would say that. They’re the association for all the people who produce the porn." Or, "They are a porn producer. We’re not. We’re a human rights organization." And that’s why earlier I said, "Yes, the industry needs to support FSC and Wood Hall because together we can save and reverse a lot of the damage being done." Well, that just leads into my last question. What can adult industry professionals do to support Wood Hall’s work? Donate, be generous as if your business depended on our success because it does. Thank you, Bruce. My broker tip today is part five of How to Buy a Site. Last week we talked about how to determine the value of a site, how to negotiate the sale, and how to get to the point of drawing up an agreement. So now you’re talking to your attorney and you’re having them draft an agreement. What should be in it? Well, your attorney should guide you through the legal side, but here are some considerations to keep in mind from a buying standpoint. What’s the date you’d like to close? Make sure you know you’ll have the money to either pay the deposit or the entire amount of the purchase by that date. I’ve had buyers who aren’t ready and that just causes issues. Make sure that all of the assets you’re purchasing are in that agreement, such as every domain included in the sale, processing and payment accounts, relationships with vendors, all records including 2257 data, software to run the sites, and any other assets such as source code for the sites. Of course, it should spell out any payment schedule if there is one. Who’s responsible for closing costs, such as paying for escrow? And there are always terms that are unique to yours in the seller’s situation. This assumes you’re the party responsible for drawing up the agreement. If the seller is drawing up the agreement, then it’s important that you express all of this to your attorney so they can check the seller’s agreement and see if any changes are necessary. We’ll talk about this subject more next week. And next week we’ll be speaking with Chris Irwin, a Beard Finder. And that’s it for this week’s Adult Site Broker Talk. I’d once again like to thank my guest, Ricci Levy of Woodhall Freedom Foundation. Talk to you again next week on Adult Site Broker Talk. I’m Bruce Friedman. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) [BLANK_AUDIO]