Beyond The Controversy

Nudism.TV Anticipates Fall Launch

(Nudism.TV)

Nudism.TV is on track to launch its new platform this fall, after overcoming a social media storm that included death threats to its creator and his family.

Pasha Knight was understandably reluctant to discuss the personal attacks he endured when an “influencer” linked him to a Pennsylvania child pornography case, failing to make it clear that the court case did not involve charges against him but, rather, a challenge to the state’s Internet Child Pornography Act by the Center for Democracy & Technology, the American Civil Liberties Union, and Plantagenet, Inc.

The social media attack identified Pasha as Pavel Ushakov, the first person named as a “child pornographer” under the Pennsylvania law passed on February 21, 2002.

The court document stated that, on April 22, 2002, Special Agent Dennis Guzy Sr., the supervisory special agent in charge of the Child Sexual Exploitation Unit, “contacted a child pornographer the OAG had identified in Ohio, Pavel Ushakov, and informed him that the OAG had identified child pornography on his web site. Mr. Ushakov was told by Agent Guzy that he could continue his Internet business if he removed the offending images from his web site.”

The document went on to say, “The OAG decided to contact Mr. Ushakov directly because ‘it was a very unique case.’ The web site he administered was ‘devoted towards nudism’ and included pictures of nude adults and children. Agent Guzy was concerned that ‘if we followed the normal practice and contacted the ISP and asked them to deny access to the site, it would deny access to the entire site which included the adult male and female nudism pictures which were not in violation of Pennsylvania law.”

Note that the Internet Child Pornography Act defined pornography as “sexual intercourse ... masturbation, sadism, masochism, bestiality, fellatio, cunnilingus, lewd exhibition of the genitals or nudity if such nudity is depicted for the purpose of sexual stimulation or gratification of any person who might view such depiction.” Nudism is not pornography under that definition.

Ushakov, however, responded to the request by removing the child images from his site.

The court determined in its ruling on the case that “Pennsylvania’s Internet Child Pornography Act … and the Informal Notice process used by defendant to implement the Act are declared unconstitutional.”

Those facts were ignored in the social media attack on Pasha and Nudism.TV, and under the relentless pressure, he removed the images of children from the NTV website, announcing that the site would include only adult nudist videos going forward.