Over at the docweasel.com site, we regularly host camgirls’ sites. In fact, the site is an exemplar of many of the soft-core pr0n and gambling sites we host on our servers.
From Jawa Report: “Porn Star” Zoey Zane.
True to form, the news media has been “sexing up” Emily’s story by reporting on Emily’s “secret life” as a “porn star.” To most people, the term “porn star” conjures up images of a woman making wild sex videos with random dudes for money. Now, it may not matter to most people whether the world remembers Emily Sander as a girl who made wild sex videos with random dudes for money, but I’ll wager it matters to her friends and family. By all accounts, Emily Sander was a young girl who posed for some nude photos. To a lot of folks, there’s a difference between posing for nude photos and being a “porn star.”
Hold on there now, forces of outrage. You are quibbling over a distinction without a difference here:
She was not some silly girl playfully posting some nude shots on her MySpace page. She had at least 2 professional sites dedicated to regular posting of soft-core modeling, including penetration with toys and lesbian photo shoots. Some of the vids say 2004, and it sure looks like her, but you be the judge (if reports are correct and the vids are dated correctly, she would have been 16 at the time.)
Both these sites are now defunct, but they were zoeyzane.com and zoeymodel.com. There may have been others. She had a large affiliate program. I would venture to say her sites were a lucrative source of income. She charged a monthly subscription and updated frequently. I take it she did not run the sites personally, but under contract to a pr0n licenser who ran the sites and administered fees.
Now, we can quibble over the word “star”- she wasn’t Ginger Lynn. But by the definition of the word “porn star” to the person on the street, a cam girl who made her living by posting naked and sexual action pics of herself for the purpose of financial gain, on a regular basis (perhaps for 3 years) would fit just about anyone’s definition of having worked in the pr0n industry, “star” or no.
What happened to her is regrettable. But the girl was a what we usually call a “cam-ho”- she had a wish-list, she charged a monthly subscription to see new sets of her naked, and in photo shoots with professional photographers engaging in sex with other girls. This wasn’t some amateur posting pix her boyfriend took of her for kicks.
You really can’t fault the MSM for this one guys. They are calling a spade a spade. By internet standards, she was a porn star. Try googling her and see how many pre-murder hits come up for her personal porn sites.
Its not an small number.
I don’t have the moral sqeamishness of the Jawa Report. Here are pages of galleries we posted as affiliates of the company that managed her to advertise her site. No one associated with her estate has asked us to take them down (if they do, we will).
Just a voice of reason here, don’t hate the messenger.
UPDATE: from Jawa Report Zoey Zane Update
3. Whether “Zoey Zane” Was a “Porn Star”
In the comments to my initial post on “Zoey Zane,” Jawa commenter Doc Weasel clams that my information on Emily Sander’s online business activities was incorrect, and “Zoey Zane” was, by any reasonable standard, pretty much a bona fide “porn star”–i.e., having wild sex with random dudes on video. My earlier opinion that she wasn’t was formed based on statements of some folks who claimed to have worked with her and the images of her I found on the web, all of which were just nudes. ZoeyZane.com, for example, says the following:Now, due to your irresponsible journalism and not checking your facts before sending out this info over the news wire, you have turned this into a PR feeding frenzy for the sole purpose of creating drama to draw in viewers. We want to set the record straight. Emily was a solo nude model whose site went live September 25, 2007. She was exactly that – a solo girl model. [demonstrably untrue, see photos- Ed]
I doubt the MSM reporters would recognize the distinction in any event, but if Doc Weasel is correct, then my earlier indictment of the MSM was premature, and my thanks to Doc Weasel for setting the record straight. That said, the question of whether the young woman was a “porn star” was only a question of whether the MSM got the story straight or was sensationalizing the story, not whether Emily Sander was a sympathetic figure. She’s a sympathetic figure whether she was a “porn star” or not.
4. Whether Zoey Zane’s Pictures Were “Shameful”
Contrary to statements made in the comments, my own decision to not link to naked pics of Zoey Zane / Emily Sander wasn’t because I was “ashamed for her” or anything of the sort. As far as I’m concerned, the “morality” of any person’s life choices is between that person and God. I enjoy sex and naked women as much as the next guy–or gal… or, person of unspecified gender, for that matter. From all accounts, Emily Sander wasn’t some sort of “victim” of the porn business or anything like that.
This story isn’t the real-life version of “8mm” or something. Not that the porn business hasn’t had its share of life tragedies over the years, but the Zoey Zane story certainly doesn’t appear to be one of them. In any event, my own choice to not link to naked pictures of Emily Sander arose out of respect for the family and an interest in keeping the attention where it should be–on a murderer who took a young, innocent life.
Emily Sander didn’t, as far as we know, do anything out-of-the-ordinary or particularly blameworthy to cause her own death. As far as anyone can tell right now, Emily had the misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and the “porn star” angle is merely a titillating and irrelevant distraction.
My answer to those points:
I’m not judging her “morality” or saying she was murdered because of her activity. That’s irrelevant to the guilt of her murderer.
However, the fact she did online porn is a relevant fact in the story, its of interest, and its a valid point. Readers make choose to make more of it than it’s intrinsically worth, but the reporter does nothing wrong in reporting it, and would in fact be remiss in not reporting it.
It is quite possible that the fact in some way relates to her murder. Any and all facts about her could be germane to convicting her killer, and therefore should be reported.
More than the morality of stripping on cam, I question her judgment in accompanying a guy she didn’t know to his hotel room, alone, in the middle of the night. You have got to wonder what that was all about.
I don’t think its irresponsible speculation to mention that while probably most pr0n models are not prostitutes, undeniably some are. I’m not a reporter nor a cop, so I’m well within my bounds to wonder wtf was going on when she left the bar with that guy in the middle of the night and went, willingly by all accounts, to his hotel.
In this case, the fact that she was in the pr0n industry might have a BIG bearing on the case.
Finally, the claim that she only did solo work is false. I have links if you want them, or go to the docweasel.com site front page and click the links – there are pics of her with other girls engaged in sexual acts. She was demonstrably not a solo model. She did indulge in penetration and oral sexual acts on camera. She was not “solo” in all the sessions.
She does penetration, masturbation and other acts in the pics. Whether or not she is a “Playboy” style model is open to interpretation, I guess, Playboy isn’t what it once was (in fact, not having seen it in decades I’m not sure what it truly is anymore) but it conjures up the notion of tasteful and partial nudity and nothing more. Not that it makes her any more or less moral or whatever judgment people like ‘dorian gray” have on the matter, just that the people now writing in her site are either unaware of her activities or wish to obscure them a bit out of respect. Look at the pix: I’d call her more of a Hustler model if anything, but again, we’re splitting hairs here (no pun intended).
While I sympathize, I have no reason to gloss over exactly the type of model she was. She posed for sex shots, not just nude modeling, period.
For once, the media is not the villain in this story.
UPDATE: 12.19.07 Her murderer caught in Mexico, faces extradition to the US under the terms that he not face the death penalty.
Man held over teenage web porn star killing
A MAN has been arrested over the gruesome killing of a US student who lived a double life as a web sex starlet.
Israel Mireles, 24, was arrested in Mexico over the death of Emily Sander and would be extradited to the US, police said yesterday.
Ms Sander, 18, was last seen alive on November 23 when she left a bar in El Dorado, Kansas, with a man identified as Mr Mireles.
The disappearance of the Butler Community College student drew nationwide attention after the discovery that she also led a secret life as an internet pornography model named Zoey Zane.
Her body was found six days later, about 80km east of El Dorado, as police traced the route they believed Mr Mireles took to pick up his 16-year-old girlfriend Victoria Martens.
Mr Mireles became the focus of the investigation after police found large quantities of blood in a motel room where he had been staying.
Authorities said a bedspread missing from the motel room was found close to Ms Sander’s body.
Police have not released details about the cause of Ms Sander’s death, but say her internet activity had no connection to her disappearance.
Well, of course the police have been known to be fallible, but I’ll take them at their word, at least until more facts come out. I still aver that the fact she posed nude online is relevant, of interest and demonstrably true. Therefore, its news and fair game to print. I’m no fan of the MSM, but they are not culpable in this case.