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Joe Francis, Again

Thomas

I just love to type these words: Joe Francis is in trouble again.

AP is reporting that Ashley Dupre, the sex worker who became famous in the Spitzer case, was in a GGW video. She was 17. She was drunk. She is suing.

Joe Francis, child abuser, might have to seriously consider not filming any more underage girls. But … would the GGW franchise survive?

20 thoughts on Joe Francis, Again

  1. I have a hunch that much of porn requires selling the fantasy that their claimed 18-year-old models are really 16 year olds who winked their way in. Without admitting it of course, but it’s a distinct presence.

  3. Hmmn, I was wondering why the GGW commercials have been running double-time. Gotta make up for those lawsuits!

  4. What does make me sad about this is that because Ashley is a sex worker, it seems less likely that the public will be on her side. It even seems possible that they will actively oppose her, and even that the judge/jury will take her less seriously. Sigh.

  5. Francis made a public $1 million offer for Dupre to appear in a “Girls Gone Wild” video and go on a promotional tour, then rescinded the offer after he realized he already had footage of Dupre from 2003…Francis also said he would be happy to discuss the $1 million offer with her again.

    Well, that’s one way to patronize someone who’s just sued you. “Aww, you’re so cute when your angry. Wanna show me your tits?”

  6. ‘Sleazebag sued by greedy opportunist whose only claim to fame is having slept with an asshole politician.’ Yay.

  8. What does make me sad about this is that because Ashley is a sex worker, it seems less likely that the public will be on her side. It even seems possible that they will actively oppose her, and even that the judge/jury will take her less seriously.

    This will probably make you sigh even harder, but … she could always use the old stereotype of the Good Girl Turned Bad By a Man. IOW, she could claim that she was going along fine with her suburban middle-class life until Joe Francis showed up.

    I think there are probably enough parents with teenage daughters out there who will buy a story that she didn’t do all of this on her own, she was tricked into it by an Evil Man.

    Not that I blame her for suing — rescinding the offer so he could use previously shot footage of her for free was a spectacularly assholish thing for Francis to do. And not even checking if she was of age in that footage or not just points out what a moron the guy is.

  10. Oh god! Anything to get rid of those horrible commercials!

    Seriously, I’ll take commercials about any kind of woo instead of those!

  11. Why is she suing now? Maybe because someone is suddenly using the footage that she thought was long forgotten? Maybe because she feels cheated that Joe Francis gets to make a killing off of something she did when she was just 17, and that she got nothing for except a tee shirt and a few drinks? Maybe because, now, publicly identified as a sex worker and afraid she’ll never be famous for anything but being sexual for money, she thinks the best move is to try to get as much money out of it as she can? Maybe she doesn’t care if the whole world sees her naked at 17, but she thinks Joe Francis is a tool.

    I don’t know the woman, but I can see a lot of reasons.

  12. Why is she suing only NOW?

    Probably because Francis publicly offered her $1 million to go on tour and then just as publicly reneged on the deal when he found out he already had footage of her that he could exploit without laying out a dime.

    It’s the same bogus thing that happens with Playboy and other skin magazines — once they shoot pictures of you, they can use them for years with no further compensation, which frankly sucks. Perfectly legal, but sucks. If they’re making money for 8 or 10 years from the same photo shoot, why should the model only get a one-time payment?

  14. Joe Francis, child abuser, might have to seriously consider not filming any more underage girls. But … would the GGW franchise survive?

    That feels a little dishonest to me. I mean, Francis is a piece of garbage who has abused or exploited a lot of women, but calling him a child abuser because some of the women he abused were half a year younger than others strikes me as intentional dishonestly. We aren’t talking about 10 year olds here. Theres no real magical difference between 17 and 18 and pretending there is to try to take down someone like Francis, while expedient, minimizes the perceived effect of his behavior on women over the age of 18. If what he does is wrong, then its wrong and we should address that.

  15. William, if you followed the link you know that child abuse was the charge Francis plead to.

    Also, while there is nothing magical about the age of 18, that’s true of many bright-line rules. Preventing adults from molesting children essentially requires an arbitrary age or ages.

  16. When my former stepdaughter was 17 or so, she and her hawt friends had no problems getting “VIP cards” from clubs that would let them come in and drink without having their IDs checked. (She told her mother and me about this years after the fact.) These girls weren’t molested, but they were being used as eye candy.

    Borderline sexual exploitation of underage girls is still sexual exploitation. And Thomas is absolutely correct in that, if you attack any bright-line rule as being “arbitrary,” you’ll be left with no rules at all.

  17. William, if you followed the link you know that child abuse was the charge Francis plead to.

    I’m aware that its the charge he plead to, but I still feel like thats obfuscating the issue. Francis is a serial abuser of women. Everyone here should know he’s scum by now. Calling him a child abuser to malign him just a little bit further muddies the waters. It also kind of implies that he is somehow worse because his activity have harmed some women a hair younger than others.

    Also, while there is nothing magical about the age of 18, that’s true of many bright-line rules. Preventing adults from molesting children essentially requires an arbitrary age or ages.

    I wasn’t arguing against the concept of ages of consent and you know it (the part where I talked about the difference between 17 and 18 vs 10 should have been a tip off). I was pointing out that scoring points off Francis by calling him a child abuser was cheap, unnecessary, and really advanced your schadenfreude far more than any of the important discussions to be had here. I was pointing out that Francis’ exploitive behavior should be criminal regardless of how old the people in question happen to be.

    Borderline sexual exploitation of underage girls is still sexual exploitation.

    The point I was making was that borderline sexual exploitation is wrong and a couple of months to one side of an arbitrary line doesn’t really factor in.

    Thomas is absolutely correct in that, if you attack any bright-line rule as being “arbitrary,” you’ll be left with no rules at all.

    Well then, its a good thing I didn’t do that. Although I’d make the argument you won’t be left with no rules but rather that you’d be left with rules that actually addressed the issues at hand.

  18. Well, put it this way, William: Call it an arbitrary line, a bright line or whatever you want; if a guy like Francis trips over it, it’s OK with me.

  19. Well, put it this way, William: Call it an arbitrary line, a bright line or whatever you want; if a guy like Francis trips over it, it’s OK with me.

    And thats fine. Al Capone ended up going to prison for tax evasion. I’m not saying that I have a problem with Francis being nailed for child abuse if thats what authorities were able to find that stuck. I’m saying that when discussing Francs, and the damage he does, focusing on one charge because it sounds more incriminating serves to undermine the impact of his other crimes. The OP of the post was mocking, but I felt that underneath that was something ugly.

    I don’t think the major problem most people here have with Francis is that he occasionally features women under the age of 18 in his videos. That certainly isn’t my major beef with the guy. By focusing on him being a child abuser its almost as (and the perceptions of those having it) shifts from being about a guy who has built a fortune on deceiving and exploiting women to one about a creepy guy who likes to take pictures of underage girls. The only difference between Ms. Dupre and any of the thousands of other women who have been exploited by Francis is that the exploitation she experienced happened a few months before it would have been perfectly legal. Yet Tomas decided to focus on the age thing. Not the exploitation thing (outside of age), not the fact that Francis regularly gets consent from women who are drunk (if even then), not the shitty contracts or shady business practices, just the fact that sometimes the women being exploited happen to be on the wrong side of an arbitrary line. If thats criminal in a given jurisdiction, I have no problem with Francis being prosecuted. But in a discussion about the effects of Francis’ behavior it really doesn’t seem like the primary thing to worry about. Seems kind of like going to Gitmo and complaining about the wallpaper.

  20. Francis is a freak – wish he’d slide under a gas truck and die tasting his own blood.

    And where the hell were these girls’ parents, when they should have been instilling the lesson of “Don’t get naked for a freak with a bus & a camcorder” ?

    (prob gonna get shouted down for that one)

    “Why is she suing now? …. Maybe because, now, publicly identified as a sex worker and afraid she’ll never be famous for anything but being sexual for money, she thinks the best move is to try to get as much money out of it as she can? “

    Didn’t I read somewhere that she picked up something like 3/4MM dollars after the Spitzer business, when over a million people downloaded her (aspiring singer) song @ $0.78 to her?

    Could be the fame thing – I know I wouldn’t recognize her if I ran into her in the supermarket…

    – MuscleDaddy

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