Play that tiny violin a little louder, Mr. Snowflake.
Am I the only one sick of Americans with stupid, frivolous lawsuits trying to choke as much money out of people as they can?
Dad Seeks $4M After Daughter Sees Gay Porn
(Knoxville, Tennessee) A Tennessee man who once was a Big Brother contestant is seeking $4-million in damages after his young daughter opened a mailing containing gay pornography.
Kent Blackwelder, who appeared in Big Brother 2″ in 2001 and now runs a sandwich shop, has filed a federal lawsuit against Delaware-based Specialty Publications which promotes adult gay material.
The lawsuit claims that the mailing was “unsolicited” and that his 12-year old daughter opened the envelope that said on the outside “free DVD” thinking it was from the Disney Corp.
Instead, the envelope contained the DVD “Titan Men’s Farm Fresh,” and promotional material for a gay adult magazine. “[His daughter], being a curious child and thinking the free DVD offer was for a Disney movie, opened the envelope at which time she was horribly shocked to see numerous sexually explicit photographs of completely nude males,” the lawsuit claims.
“She ran to her father to show him what she had found, and he likewise was shocked, disgusted and enraged.”
The lawsuit accuses Specialty Publications of inflicting extreme emotional distress on both the 12-year old and Blackwelder.
The suit alleges the company flagrantly violated federal law governing the mailing of sexually oriented advertisements.
“As a result of the negligence of Specialty Publications, the [Blackwelders] have sustained great pain of body and mind and emotional stress, including shock, horror, humiliation and embarrassment as well as anxiety,” according to the lawsuit.
Oh, please. Pain of body and mind? Emotional distress?
I’ve got a news flash for you, buddy. Your daughter has probably already seen gay porn. Your daughter, if she’s anything like most of the pre-teen girls I know (admittedly few at this point, would be a little odd for a man my age…), avidly hunts for gay porn, discusses it with her friends, maybe even writes or draws a little of it herself. In fact, young girls of this generation seem to be practically obsessed with gay porn, to levels I don’t quite understand. They imagine pairings in every TV show they watch, get starry-eyed over the cute gay boys at their schools, and could probably teach you a few words in Japanese whose meanings would absolutely horrify you.
You apparently haven’t learned something about kids: Kids are horny little monsters, and even when they’re too young for that, they’re horribly curious about the birds and the bees just because you deny them knowledge and treat them as if they’ll be sullied by simple biological facts regarding Tab A, Slot B, and alternate insertions in Slot C. The more taboo you make sex of any kind, gay or straight, seem…the more they’re going to want to know about it, and the more they’ll giggle about it behind their hands.
So trust me, I doubt your daughter suffered $4,000,000 worth of trauma. She was probably surprised, maybe even a little curious, but a startled reaction of “oh my god, Daddy, those men are boinking!” doesn’t constitute emotional distress. Stop misusing terms like emotional distress, shock, or horror just to make yourself or your kid sound like a delicate, special little flower, wilting and fragile. Emotional distress is what Vietnam vets suffer. Shock is what ensues after severe injury causes temporary cognitive shutdown while the body deals with the pain. Horror is what happens when a pissed-off fag sick of idiotic lawsuits comes after you with a chainsaw and you narrowly escape with four of your fingers intact - and not the collective four you’ll need to wank off to your own glorious pity party, either. You want emotional distress? I’ve got your emotional distress right here, buddy.
Or maybe you’re suing not for your daughter’s emotional distress, but your own wounded ego. Maybe you’re a typical insecure straight man who flips the second anyone questions his sexuality. Oh dear; now the neighbors might think you’re gay. Now your daughter might think you’re gay! Swing those balls around like a sledgehammer, Mr. Man, and assert your heterosexuality! How much is enough to make people believe you’re straight? Not nearly as much as it would cost to literally make you straight, I think. You know what Hooper X said; “Deny, deny, deny…”
Maybe you ordered that little sampler for yourself. Wouldn’t that be amusing. Either way, it’s pretty obvious that this is the story of a washed-up starlet wannabe hoping to make another grab for the limelight, and pocket a little cash while he’s at it.
Jesus flippin’ Christ doing the Charleston on a trampoline.
I hate people.
Listen to DR Streaming Radio
February 22nd, 2008 at 1:06 am
Ohhh, haha, that’s delicious!
Whilst I don’t think a porn company should be doing that kind general free distribution (assuming that he didn’t, as you say, order it himself), this is such an overreaction that it could only happen in America. You guys have some really special nutcases, Adri, and you have my sincerest sympathies for it.
February 22nd, 2008 at 2:28 am
12? 12’s a little early for the gay porn. Now, by 15 (if she’s anything like any girls I ever know), she’ll be into yaoi, and by 17, she won’t be.
February 22nd, 2008 at 5:05 am
I’ve known a lot of girls who were VERY interested in such things at that age… Scary pre-teen fangirls are very frightening. But yeah, that is rather excessive…
Adri S.
February 22nd, 2008 at 5:33 am
I remember reading my first slash at around age 12 or 13 and being completely fascinated. I thought it was new and interesting! And by 14 I was dabbling in writing the stuff - and had graduated to femmeslash. And that was in 1997-1998.
Kids are a lot more savvy at age 12-13 (or think they are, at least) than they were ten years ago, and the idea of fandom, especially pertaining to anime, has exploded. Anything you want to find is incredibly easy, given the surplus of information, not to mention internet users. I’d be surprised to find a middle school girl who hasn’t swooned to explicit fanfiction.
February 22nd, 2008 at 6:48 am
Not to defend them, but if I got a free dvd in the mail and thought it was a disney movie, because I’m a 12 year old retard, and it turned out to be het porn, I’d be a little appalled myself.
Though probably I wouldn’t sue the company like an emo wangstard jackass.
February 22nd, 2008 at 2:36 pm
I probably discovered slash at around 11 or 12. I doubt it traumatised me. I’m also curious as to how he managed to sustain pain of body from this. Fell over from shock and hit his head on the table? Seems a little odd.
February 22nd, 2008 at 4:08 pm
At 12, I wouldn’t doubt that she’d be a little surprised at finding a gay porn dvd, but I’m sure she’s no stranger to the idea. Especially nowadays, kids aren’t as naive as you might like them to be. Hell, I know I wasn’t. I hadn’t been for a long time.
But then that’s me, and as you’ve probably all realized by now, I can be a little speshul sometimes. >_>;
February 22nd, 2008 at 5:54 pm
Well, my mom started discussing hetero sex with me when I was twelve. I was so nonplused by it that I didn’t bother telling my mom about the sex scenes in “Valley of the Horses,” later that year. And, of course, I’d eavesdropped my mom having sex with her husband by then. That didn’t cause me physical harm. This, by the way, was in ‘85, and long before my realization that I myself was Bi; I was a rather late bloomer in that respect.
Gay sex, when I learned of it, didn’t traumatize me. What did, was when a gay friend, who I didn’t know was gay, stopped coming to outings with the rest of our friends. We saw him later in a movie theater; he was wearing a ball-chain necklace with a series of rings colored in the Rainbow. I wish now I’d said, “I know you’re gay, Raymond; I’m still your friend,” instead of, “Oh, these are pretty,” but I was too uncertain of myself at the time (another traumatizing event was occurring at the same time: a straight friend, old enough to be my father, with a daughter my age and a wife, was trying to buy my affections and get me into bed with him).
February 23rd, 2008 at 7:11 pm
I’d be surprised to find a middle school girl who hasn’t swooned to explicit fanfiction.
Surprise. =P (Didn’t get into slash until I was around 16. But this is more of a general anti-fanfiction preference, combined with fandoms that didn’t lend themselves to explicit fiction, combined with a science-book-and-video-game nerd’s stereotypical lack of interest in people relations than anything else. So I’m willing to consider myself and my friends an exception to the rule).
I’m not sure what to think about this. It’s a few steps above sueing people for coffee burns (dude, whether or not kids are likely not to be scarred pornography, gay or straight, the legal age *still* is 18), but it’s still a symptom of our litigation-happy society. I can’t get myself angry at this guy though; him and his “emotional distress” lawyerese is a symptom of the sickness of our society.
February 24th, 2008 at 5:16 am
Way to go, Adri. Just when I posted about the same story, find out you’re a step ahead of me again. Oh well. At least some of us are paying attention, and appalled. Excellent post.
February 24th, 2008 at 11:53 pm
Things like this piss me off. Jesus, junk mail is bad, but don’t freaking sue over it! To my knowledge, there is no law against sending that stuff via mail…but there is a law against opening someone else’s mail. Titan should press charges against the daughter for violating the sanctity of the US Postal Service! *grins*
February 25th, 2008 at 3:22 am
Really, you shouldn’t judge twelve year olds so harshly. When I was that age, I did not read a single fanfiction, or fantasize about slash pairings of any kind. It was exclusively original fiction… Though I do believe I was around 11.
Though for me, that’s just something I shake my head at, mutter about “crazy Americans” and don’t give it a second thought.