CANOGA PARK, Calif. — The Free Speech Coalition today honored recipients of the 2016 FSC Awards at a luncheon at the 2016 XBIZ Show.
The ceremony was hosted by adult legend jessica drake at the Andaz hotel’s Panorama Ballroom and included co-hosts FSC spokesman Mike Stabile, FSC Membership Director Joanne Cachapero, Wasteland.com’s Colin Rowntree, Classic Erotica’s Lynn Swanson, Adam & Eve’s Bob Christianson and Jeffrey Douglas, an industry attorney and FSC Board Chair.
The FSC Awards recognizes industry professionals and businesses for excellence in business standards and representing a pro-adult image through advocacy and actions. Recipients are determined by the FSC board of directors.
The 2016 FSC Awards recipients honored today included:
Legacy Award: Penthouse’s Kelli Holland
Performer of the Year Award: Ela Darling
Man of the Year: Wicked Picture’s Steve Orenstein (publicist Daniel Metcalf accepting)
Woman of the Year: CalExotics' Sue Colvin
Pleasure Products Company of the Year: The Screaming O (founder Justin Ross accepting)
Retailer of the Year: Good Vibrations
Production Company of the Year: Mile High Media (publicist Dusty Marie accepting)
Internet Company of the Year: BaDoink.com (CEO Todd Glider accepting)
Christian Mann Courage and Leadership Award: FSC Staff, including Diane Duke (accepting via video), Joanne Cachapero and Julie X
Leadership Award: IVD’s Frank and Michael Koretsky.
Each of the recipients, individuals and company reps, offered their thanks for the FSC’s accomplishments and the hard work its staff did in 2015, and gave personal accounts as to why the trade organization has positively affected their livelihoods.
In particular, it was Holland’s personal and persuasive speech using a first-person approach that rose to attention the need for additional business community involvement, particularly more funding to the FSC, to help an industry that is fighting for its survival in California.
“I really want to thank FSC for being FSC,” Holland said upon accepting her FSC Legacy Award. “I really realize that how much we don’t appreciate you as much to the extent we should.
“I want to apologize for every time that I walked by in the hallway at the a show and didn’t stop to say thank you … to say that you’re doing a good job,” she said. “I want to apologize on my behalf of my overlord parent corporate that didn’t take a phone call … for money. I want to apologize for everyone in this industry who didn’t take that phone call when they needed to.
“We have to imagine and realize who we all are,” she said. “We are a group that is comprised of the renegades and the rebels and the outliers; we are not a group that is used to circling our wagons and playing well with each other.
“So when the FSC came on the scene together 25 years ago, they took on the hardest task imaginable — to try to corral all the renegade children who are now grown-ups and wearing suits, but who are still children at heart, to try get them to move in one direction, which was to their benefit,” she said.
“And we still deny that the threat is as great as it is. But it is that great. And it does threaten us and our industry, and it does threaten us globally
“[The FSC is] out there on the frontlines, fighting the battle and dragging us in to our safe spaces — kicking and screaming,” she said.
“So thank you for that, and I will guarantee you I will never pass through a hallway without giving you a hug and saying thank you and telling how great the work you do. And I will always take your phone call.”
Yesterday, at the 2016 XBIZ Show, the FSC legal panel made an appeal to those in the adult entertainment industry — from small to big companies — to help fund the trade organization for some of the challenges the industry currently faces.
The panel on Thursday included Douglas, and attorneys Karen Tynan and Jonathan Gottfried, who both have worked for the benefit of FSC members as well as numerous other adult entertainment companies and their owners. The seminar also included Australia’s Fiona Patten, a member of the Australian Parliament under the Sex Party, who is on a road trip visiting Californian legislators in Sacramento, Calif.
Douglas, on behalf of the other panelists, said that the current hot-button issues that need to be tackled head-on by the FSC are Los Angeles County’s Measure B condom law, which is currently unenforceable but on the books; the new set of porn-unfriendly Cal/OSHA regulations that will be decided this year; and an initiative that could create a statewide condom law if Californians approve it in the Nov. 8 ballot. All of these issues were brought upon by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation’s president, Michael Weinstein, who sponsored each one of them.
Douglas said that the fight against the AHF’s missions and drive takes dollars, and that the underfunded FSC needs to be better supported to take on Weinstein and his mission — to wage a war of attrition against the adult industry.
“We need to have numbers of members, and we need to raise money,” Douglas said. “We can beat the fight. The Free Speech Coalition is ready to fight your battle to defend your profession and your livelihood, but we can’t do it without your involvement."
Pictured: Recipients of the 2016 FSC Awards at a luncheon at the 2016 XBIZ Show
