Tag Archives: LGBT Rights

MICHAEL LUCAS TO DEBATE AT OXFORD UNIVERSITY

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

April 19, 2010 (New York, NY) — Lucas Entertainment President and CEO Michael Lucas will participate in Oxford Union’s upcoming debate on Thursday, June 3rd, held at Oxford University in England. Lucas will be debating in proposition of the motion “This House Believes That The Gay Rights Movement Has Undermined Family Values.” Click here to view Lucas’ invitation.

When asked why Lucas was chosen as a debater, Alexander Lau, organizer of the debate said, “First, we thought that his resolute identification with the Jewish community, in the context of open homosexuality, would lend him strong opinions on the ‘family values’ around which our debate centres. Second, his vociferous advocation of safe sex in the gay community epitomises attempts by the gay rights movement to appear more closely aligned to traditional mores, and to move away from old stereotypes. Michael’s position at the forefront of the gay entertainment industry can but make this message all the more compelling.”

“Oxford University is a world-renowned institution, and a global leader in education and scholarship,” said Lucas. “I am honored that Oxford chose me as a debater on such an interesting and important topic. I will do my best to convey how the LGBT community has expanded and improved upon concepts about what it means to be a family.”

Michael Lucas

In the past, Lucas has lectured on topics ranging from the adult industry, safe sex, and relationships, to politics, the LGBT community, and Israel. Lucas has previously spoken at Yale University (first at a master’s tea, then as a member of a panel discussion on pornography), New York University, Rutgers University, and Stanford University. His appearance at Stanford sparked five highly discussed articles in the school’s press:

http://www.stanforddaily.com/2008/02/14/adult-film-stars-remarks-spark-debate/

http://www.stanforddaily.com/2008/02/14/silencing-speakers/

http://www.stanforddaily.com/2008/02/14/op-ed-racism-and-intolerance-disappointing-at-a-liberal-university/

http://www.stanforddaily.com/2008/02/15/lucas-talks-safe-sex-aids-and-controversy/

http://www.stanforddaily.com/2008/02/19/op-edthe-power-of-knowledge/

Lucas’ article “On Gay Porn” was included in a 2006 volume of the Yale Journal of Law and Feminism.

Oxford Union

The Oxford Union is the world’s most prestigious debating society, with an unparalleled reputation for bringing international guests and speakers to Oxford. Established in 1823, it aims to promote debate and discussion not just in Oxford University, but across the globe. Previous speakers include former U.S. Attorney General and Senator Robert Kennedy, Vogue Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour, scientist Albert Einstein, numerous British Prime Ministers, several United States Presidents, and many other important individuals from a range of disciplines.

ABOUT MICHAEL LUCAS Michael Lucas is the most mainstreamed, provocative, and controversial figure in gay adult entertainment. With his unparalleled character, activism, and distinction, Michael Lucas is at the forefront of his industry and beyond. In a rarity in the adult world, Lucas has transcended his notoriety into mainstream pop culture, fashion and politics. With a gamut of celebrity friends and colleagues, Michael Lucas’ fame has progressed into all facets of media. Lucas has been featured in thousands of articles, interviews, and appearances. Michael Lucas is a new breed of celebrity: a porn star evolved.

MICHAEL LUCAS: ON “SUPERGAYS”

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Hey guys:

Here’s another column of mine that was featured in The Advocate. I welcome your comments after the article.

As an adult performer and entrepreneur, I receive, gratifyingly, a lot of respect in both the gay and the straight community. If I see discrimination, ironically, it’s mostly from our community.

As far as the establishment goes, I have been invited to speak at some pretty prestigious institutions, including Yale, Rutgers, Stanford, and Oxford, among others. The mainstream press has written numerous articles about me. I have been profiled in New York Magazine and The New Republic. And I have appeared on TV channels from HBO to NY1.

At the same time, one of my best friends, an anchor at the gay TV station Logo, didn’t just fail to get me on the network (though he tried), he was also told by his superiors not to socialize with me in public. It could damage the channel’s image, he was told.

When I went to the GLAAD Media Awards as the guest of one of the honorees, pictures of me on the red carpet appeared on WireImage.com. They were removed, on the request of GLAAD, within hours. It took some calls from GLAAD donors to have the pictures put back the next day. I guess that shows that GLAAD really does have some clout with the media: It can make pictures appear and disappear at will. But what a pathetic way to use its power.

One of the more bizarre examples of LGBT-on-LGBT discrimination I encountered over the years was from the respected organization Out Professionals. It refused to publish ads from my company (looking for, no, not the next hot porn star, but rather for an accountant) on its job board, depriving its membership of a well-paid job opportunity just to make a stand — well, against what actually?

I suspect that people who have experienced discrimination all their lives, who have been viewed as damaged or immoral or, in many cases, lesser than the “normal” guys and gals, sometimes have a tendency to turn from the discriminated to discriminator. They seek somebody who is even lesser than they are — and who better to target than the pornographer? Except maybe the drag queens and transgender people whose place in our community is still subject of debate in some circles … or the “dykes on bikes” who, when they lead gay pride parades, maybe don’t show us in quite the light in which some of our supergays would like us viewed?

Supergays and superlesbians don’t like our diversity. They want to streamline us as gymgoing, straight-acting professionals, sanitized for your protection. Anderson Cooper will be their perfect role model, assuming he ever comes out of the closet.

Porn stars and drag queens were never in the closet. We were always brave and out there because, yes, it is brave to be a drag queen, and you have to have guts to be in porn in our society. It’s the nonhomogenized part of our movement that keeps LGBT culture alive — a culture that is born out of our early experience of being different than the majority and our struggle to turn this experience of difference into a source of strength, creativity, and uniqueness. Supergays try to deny the validity of this experience. By telling us to conform and look and behave just like them, to fit in, to pass, they blunt one of the greatest strengths we have as LGBT individuals.

But let me tell you this: The existence of people like me may be a big inconvenience to the supergays. But they all buy my porn. And so I smile, though sadly.

MICHAEL LUCAS: CELEBRATION OF COURAGE NOT SO COURAGEOUS

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This article by Michael Lucas was recently published by the Advocate. Be sure to leave your comments below!

I recently attended IGLHRC’s 20th anniversary celebration, an awards presentation and fund-raiser promisingly called “A Celebration of Courage.” But I didn’t see much courage in what IGLHRC is doing.

The acronym stands for International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, and the group is tasked with the mission, as its website states, of “advancing human rights for everyone, everywhere to end discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.”

It was a nice event, a cocktail party at which my boyfriend and I made a donation; there were pretty views over New York from the penthouse at New York University’s Kimmel Center, white wine, and a serious, professional crowd. And the awards they gave were certainly well deserved: Barney Frank is indeed a vocal spokesman for our causes, and Colombia Diversa, Colombia’s LGBT advocacy group, did an amazing job of advancing LGBT rights in the country in record time.

However, what I heard about IGLHRC’s work left me not just unimpressed. It left me deeply disappointed.

I salute IGLHRC for its involvement in Uganda, where international pressure seems to have put a stop to a proposed law that would allow for the execution of gay people in certain circumstances. But all the rest of the talk was about work in countries where it’s actually pretty easy to advocate for LGBT rights and, while sometimes difficult, far from impossible to live as an out gay person: Mexico, Brazil, Jamaica, Belize.

Not one word about the places where the real atrocities against LGBT people take place today — the countries oppressed by Islam: for example, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq (yes, even after the “liberation”), the Palestinian territories. Consider:

• These countries (and only these countries) have the death penalty for same-sex intercourse on their books: Saudi Arabia, Iran, Mauritania, Sudan, Yemen, and parts of Nigeria and Somalia. What do they have in common? They suffer from Islamic governments.

• Most, if not all, other countries governed by Islam forbid same-sex relations under penalty of lengthy jail times and public floggings.

• General estimates are that the Iranian government has executed over 4,000 gay people since the Islamic revolution in 1979. London-based group Iraqi LGBT reports that at least 720 LGBT men and women have been murdered by extremist militias in the last six years, while the government has largely overlooked the roaming death squads engaged in “moral cleansing.” And of course none of these numbers count the honor killings, in which families who find out that one of their members is gay or lesbian are obligated to and “honored” by killing that person.

Nowhere else in the world, since the end of the Third Reich, has such systematic oppression and extermination been committed against gays and lesbians.

At the event, Amikaeyla Gaston, the Jamaican-born writer and poet, read movingly from her autobiography about being raped by two men in Jamaica. She spoke about asking her gay friend to help her.

At least she had hope for help. People in Islamic countries have no hope for help. They are persecuted by their families in league with their clerics in league with their governments. They have nowhere to turn. Not even, it seems, the international LGBT community, which prefers to hold a cloak of silence over that part of the world.

IGLHRC has staff assigned to this area, so the organization must know what goes on there, and for all I know, it has useful programs in the region. If it does, the group prefers to keep silent about it.

So why does the region which today is most cruel toward gay and lesbian people get a free pass? Is it politically incorrect to get involved where the need is most dire? Is it once again the word “Islam” that makes criticism and, indeed, humane intervention impossible? Or are we just simply too intimidated by the Islamists and their fatwas to help those of our gay brothers and sisters who are today in most danger?

I am infuriated that an organization that is actually familiar with this situation and that could at least make visible the abuse, if not stop it, chooses to keep silent. The betrayal of our brothers and sisters who are suffering under Islam is infuriating, dishonest, cowardly, and a sickness of the politically correct. IGLHRC grew out of a brave mission to the old Soviet Union in the early ’90s to lobby against the Soviet sodomy law that punished consensual sex between men with five years imprisonment.

How about another mission, this time to Saudi Arabia, where consensual sex between men is punished by death?

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