Nutter Friendly Hotels

Nordic Choice Hotels have been pedalling ludicrous propaganda equating porn with child sex trafficking.

The HR & Manager for the company spewed that 1.2 million children are trafficked annually and many of them are sold into the porn industry. To show their commitment to this nonsense, the hotel chain has now banned adult entertainment from the in-room offerings at its 168-properties around the Nordic region.

Nordic Choice Hotels CEO, Torgeir Silseth spouted:

We believe it is a natural part of our social responsibility to not support an industry that contributes to trafficking or other forms of trafficking.

So if you must stay at Comfort Inns, 'Quality' Inns or Clarion hotels, you had better take your own entertainment.

LodgeNet, a major distributor of adult entertainment through its hotel cable TV network, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection..

US nutter campaigners will be well pleased, they have been campaigning against hotel room porn for quite a while. Unfortunately for them it probably just means that people are downloading or bringing their own porn.

LodgeNet said that fewer hotels used its services --- 1.5 million currently, down from two million in 2009 --- and guests ordered fewer pay-per-view movies. For years LodgeNet has been under threats posed by laptops, streaming Internet TV and portable devices. But prior to the boom of portable electronics, the hotel room was a virtual monopoly for cable TV suppliers. One of its most lucrative areas is porn. Analysts back in 2011 speculated that about half of the company's revenue came from adult entertainment.

Robert P. George is McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University. Shaykh Hamza Yusuf is co-founder and a member of the faculty of Zaytuna College. They have authored a widely circulated open letter to hoteliers, moralising about the supposed evils of hotel room porn:

We are, respectively, a Christian and a Muslim, but we appeal to you not on the basis of truths revealed in our scriptures but on the basis of a commitment that should be shared by all people of reason and goodwill: a commitment to human dignity and the common good. As teachers and as parents, we seek a society in which young people are encouraged to respect others and themselves--treating no one as an impersonal object or thing. We hope that you share our desire to build such a society.

Pornography is degrading, dehumanizing, and corrupting. It undermines self-respect and respect for others. It reduces persons--creatures bearing profound, inherent, and equal dignity--to the status of objects. It robs a central aspect of our humanity--our sexuality--of its dignity and beauty. It ensnares some in addiction. It deprives others of their sense of self-worth. It teaches our young people to settle for the cheap satisfactions of lust, rather than to do the hard, yet ultimately liberating and fulfilling, work of love.

We recognize that we are asking you to abandon a profitable aspect of your business, but we hope that you will muster the conviction and strength of will to make that sacrifice and to explain it to your stockholders. We urge you to do away with pornography in your hotels because it is morally wrong to seek to profit from the suffering, degradation, or corruption of others. Some might say that you are simply honoring the free choices of your customers. However, you are doing much more than that. You are placing temptation in their path--temptation for the sake of profit. That is unjust. Moreover, the fact that something is chosen freely does not make it right; nor does it ensure that the choice will not be damaging to those who make it or to the larger community where degrading practices and materials flourish.

We beg you to consider the young woman who is depicted as a sexual object in these movies, as nothing but a bundle of raw animal appetites whose sex organs are displayed to the voyeurs of the world and whose body is used in loveless and utterly depersonalized sex acts. Surely we should regard that young woman as we would regard a sister, daughter, or mother. She is a precious member of the human family. You may say that she freely chooses to compromise her dignity in this way, and in some cases that would be true, but that gives you no right to avail yourself of her self-degradation for the sake of financial gain. Would you be willing to profit from her self-degradation if she were your sister? Would you be willing to profit from her self-degradation if she were your own beloved daughter?

Furthermore, we trust that you need no reminding of the fact that something's being legal does not make it right. For example, denying black men and women and their families access to hotel rooms--and tables in restaurants, as well as other amenities and opportunities--was, for countless shameful years, perfectly legal. In some circumstances, it even made financial sense for hotel owners and operators in racist cultures to engage in segregationist practices even when not compelled by law to do so. However, this was deeply morally wrong. Shame on those who denied their brothers and sisters of color the equal treatment to which they were morally entitled. Shame on you if you hide behind legality to peddle immorality in the pursuit of money.

Our purpose is not to condemn you and your company but to call you to your highest and best self. We have no desire to hurt your business. On the contrary, we want you and your business to succeed financially--for your sake; for the sake of your stockholders, employees, and contract partners; and for the sake of the communities that your hotels serve. We believe that the properly regulated market economy serves the good of all by providing products and services at reasonable prices and by generating prosperity and social mobility. But the market itself cannot provide the moral values that make it a truly humane and just institution. We--owners, managers, employees, customers--must bring those values to the market. There are some things--inhuman things, unjust things, de-humanizing things--that should not be sold. There must be some things that, for the sake of human dignity and the common good, we must refuse to sell--even it if means forgoing profit.

Marriott International has announced plans to phase out pay-per-view adult movies from its hotel rooms. According to USA Today, the company said:

Changing technology and how guests access entertainment has reduced the revenue hotels and their owners derive from in-room movies, including adult content.

Joe McInerney, CEO of the American Hotel and Lodging Association, added:

It is a hotel's prerogative, as well as a business decision, regarding what services it provides to its guests, including those striving to enhance their family-friendly image.

Porn will be phased out first in new hotels as old video systems are replaced with on-demand services.

Offsite: Shrewd

20th March 2012. See  article from  business.avn.com

AVN commentators suggested that maybe there is some shrewd business thinking going on.

Bill Marriott told an interviewer from the Associated Press:

I've always been concerned about [pornographic] movies in rooms. In the next three or four years, we won't have any more of those. That's something we've had a real problem with because the Church is very, very opposed to pornography, as it should be, and we are for families. But the owners of our hotels were making a lot of money. In fact, the only movies that make any money are pornography.

The Church, of course, is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, or Mormons. And according to one hotel insider, porn accounts for 80 to 90 percent of all in-room movie purchases?

Now Marriott can keep the religious nutters happy by turning off their in-house porn systems. But the replacement entertainment will provide internet access and a high definition TV for a suitable fee...

...Which will of course be used to watch porn.

Following news reports that an unnamed hotel chain customer of in-room television provider LodgeNet was planning to phase out in-room porn, Marriott said that it was the chain in question.

But the company announcement also strongly implied, though it did not actually state, that existing rooms will continue to serve up adult fare while new rooms being built over the next several years will not.

Indeed, the announcement made to USA Today actually augurs more access to adult content in Marriott rooms in the future rather than less. Considering the company's stated commitment to upgrading in-room technologies that will supersede the traditional way in which video and other in-room entertainment has been made available to its customers, guests can look forward to unlimited access to desired content of all types.

The company said in response to a query by USA Today:

It is our practice to keep adult content out of the reach of children and unavailable to any adult who chooses not to view it. We have strong controls in place that allow guests to block these materials. Changing technology and how guests access entertainment has reduced the revenue hotels and their owners derive from in-room movies, including adult content. We are working with in-room entertainment providers and technology vendors to transition to the next generation of in-room entertainment. This new platform of Internet-based video-on-demand will facilitate our exit from the traditional hotel video systems that included adult content in the menu selection, and will also provide guests greater choice and control over what they watch across our system.

In a confusing statement perhaps referring to to existing hotel movie service, Marriott added:

As we transition to this new platform, adult content will be off the menu for virtually all of our newly built hotels. Over the next few years, this will be the policy across our system.

Free Wi-Fi and widespread availability of Web-based adult-entertainment viewing may be contributing to pressure on LodgeNet, which provides various electronic guest-services to 1.9 million hotel rooms.

LodgeNet gets more than half of its revenue from providing hotels with guest services, including movies and entertainment viewing, Interactive TV, high-speed Internet access, and other connectivity solutions.

The decline in per room revenue continued to be driven by conservative consumer buying patterns as well as less popular theatrical content during the quarter as compared to the year-earlier period, LodgeNet stated.

Adult-entertainment viewing undoubtedly is a big-ticket item for LodgeNet and other vendors in their in-room, on-demand offerings, and the widespread availability of porn on guests' laptops these days may be contributing to the less popular theatrical content which LodgeNet referred to.

Overall, LodgeNet has been hurt by the slump in business travel and materially lower purchases by consumers.

A county in Minnesota is taking a stance about pornography. In most situations, Winona County will no longer reimburse workers for staying at hotels that offer pay-per view pornography.

Winona County is now the first in the USA to pass a clean hotel policy. The decision makes employees stay in porn-free hotels if they want reimbursement.

Chuck Derry with the Gender Violence Institute claims: Contemporary pornography 90% of it is degrading and violent towards women and girls. For the board members, it was an ethical decision. Derry says, The public is not going to pay for employees that stay in establishments that support this kind of material.

Policy initiators hope this action will cause a ripple effect throughout the US.

A Minnesota lawmaker wants state employees to stay out of hotels with violent porn while traveling for work.

A bill sponsored by Democratic Senator Tarryl Clark of St. Cloud could prohibit spending public dollars at in-state hotels or meeting facilities that provide their customers with pornographic materials that link sex with violence. Non-violent adult movies would be OK.

The bill gets a hearing in a Senate committee on Wednesday.

The Department of Administration would keep a directory of approved facilities to help employees plan travel.

Update: Unanimous

11th March 2010. Based on article from politicsinminnesota.com

A bill that would prohibit state employees and elected officials from spending public dollars at hotels that offer customers access to violent pornographic movies has passed unanimously out of a Senate committee.

The measure, introduced by Sen. Tarryl Clark, DFL-St. Cloud, cleared the Senate's State and Local Government Operation and Oversight Committee and will proceed directly to the floor.

The legislation allows for state employees to ignore the prohibition if there's no porn-free facility available. But they're required to provide a written explanation as to why they opted to stay in a hotel providing access to pornographic materials. The legislation defines that term as a sexually explicit image or performance that objectifies or exploits its subjects by eroticizing domination, degradation, or violence.

Only one person testified against the bill. Francis Jenkins White told legislators that sexual role play involving blindfolds or handcuffs is perfectly natural and should not be regulated in any way by the state. The bill is a classic case of trying to regulate someone's thoughts and desires, he said.

The only senator who expressed some misgivings about the legislation was Claire Robling, GOP-Jordan. She noted that pornography is all over the Internet and that the legislation would do little to limit access to such materials. Someone coming in with a computer could still be viewing it, Robling said.

Update: Voted Down in House Committee

18th March 2010.  From business.avn.com

A Minnesota House committee has voted down a bill that would have prevented state employees from using state funds at hotels or meeting facilities in the state that provide pay-per-view violent porn for guests.

The bill, HF 3287, which was introduced on March 1 by Larry Haws was taken up by the State and Local Government Operations Reform, Technology and Elections Committee, but didn't make it out.

The Senate version, SF 2861, was introduced in late February by Tarryl Clark, and passed the State and Local Government Operations and Oversight Committee last week.

Language from the House version included:

Constitutional officers, members of the legislature, an agency and its employees must ask if a facility is a preferred site and must use a preferred site when selecting lodging or facilities for state employees traveling on state business and when selecting facilities for conferences, meetings, education or training sessions, and similar events in Minnesota sponsored by state agencies unless:

Preferred site means lodging that can demonstrate, upon request, that it has adopted clean hotel policies and procedures;

Clean hotel policies and procedures means reasonable policies and procedures that eliminate within the facility the availability of sexually explicit work with depictions of sexual conduct that objectifies and exploits its subjects by eroticizing domination, degradation, or violence.

The Senate version awaits a final vote.

A movement to make porn films condom-only is sure to gain further traction as two groups plan to protest the Marriott hotel chain.

The AIDS Healthcare Foundation and Pink Cross Foundation claim Marriott acts as a middleman in selling condom-less porn productions because it makes millions from the pay-per-view lineup it offers in its hotel rooms.

The groups are planning a Porn In at the downtown Los Angeles Marriott. They also will announce a viral and print ad campaign for a hotel boycott.

They will protest in front of the Figueroa Street Marriott with banners and three-foot wide condoms. Later, a press conference will be held in a hotel room with streaming porn on the room's flat screen.

Michael Weinstein, president of AIDS Healthcare Foundation, said that until he gets a commitment from Marriott officials to block condomless adult films to their hotel guests he will urge a public boycott of the entire Marriott chain, which pencils out to about 3,000.

We want to highlight the brazen hypocrisy — the Mormon Marriott's moral masquerade — of such a so-called family oriented hotel chain profiteering off adult films that endanger the lives of the performers acting in them, Weinstein said.

The AIDS Healthcare Foundation has taken a stand after an adult performer tested positive for HIV several months ago.