Flava Works

Flava Works, Inc.

Company type	Private
Industry	Gay pornography
Founded	1999
Headquarters	Miami, Florida, United States
Products	Pornographic films, magazines, and Internet services
Website	http://www.flavaworks.com/

Flava Works, based in Miami, Florida, and Chicago, Illinois, is a company that produces gay pornography featuring men of color.

Products

The products marketed by Flava Works include DVDs and the magazine Flavamen, which are sold through its Cocostore website and bookstores and videos stores around the world. Flava Works also operates several websites that offfer pornographic images and videos.

The company's operations started with the site "CocoBoyz" when it was founded in 1999. In 2000 Flava Works started Thugboy and a year later expanded to several others such as the "Cocodorm," where young men of color are hired to live together in a dorm-like environment. The Miami Herald described the operation as follows: "Cocodorm offers its young, muscular males $1,200 a month—along with free room and board—while requiring they masturbate and have group sex in front of [web] cameras." The Cocodorm eventually spawned the other operations of the company, such as the production of higher-quality pornographic DVDs.

The Chicago Controversy over Bareback Sex

In its Winter, 2006, report on sexually transmitted diseases, the Chicago Department of Public Health documented a high incidence of sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV, among the models of the Cocodorm, which was located in Chicago at the time. Indeed, the Cocodorm models practiced bareback sex, as witnessed by DVDs that Flava Works produced under titles such as "Raw Thugs," "Breion in the Raw", etc. The first several DVDs of the "Dorm Life" series also featured "unsafe" sexual practices.

The Cocodorm defended itself against the accusations contained in the report, claiming them to be untrue. A few weeks later, the company announced a series of initiatives to promote safe sex, both in its operations and in the larger community. Shortly after headquarters were moved to Miami, although it is unclear whether this controversy had anything to do with the move.

The "House Next Door" Controversy

On May 8, 2007, NBC 6 aired a news investigation under the title, "The House Next Door." The investigation was devoted to the fact that the relocated Cocodorm operates in a residential neighborhood, where adult businesses are not permitted. Models were shown half dressed behind windows, and these images were juxtaposed with those of children playing in the street, unsuspecting neighbors being interviewed, and so forth.

This report gave rise to another public controversy and investigations by the Miami Department of Code Enforcement. On August 13, 2007, and after "three acrimonious public meetings … in sessions going past midnight," Miami's Code Enforcement Board ruled that Flava Works was "illegally running an adult entertainment business out of a single-family home … and ordered that those operations cease." However, Flava Works appealed this decision, invoking First Amendment rights and arguing that it is not running an adult-oriented business out of the "house next door"; the business is not taking place in a residential neighborhood in Miami, but rather in virtual space. A ruling on the matter is currently (November, 2008) pending in federal court. The case has attracted some interest in legal circles.

File:Dorm Life X Cover.jpg

Cover of the "Dorm Life X" DVD.

Meanwhile, the Cocodorm is continuing its operation. Indeed, to poke fun at the public outcry, in July, 2007, Flava Works released a DVD with the title, "The House Next Door," the tenth in its "Dorm Life" series. The cover featured three bare-chested models in front of the now infamous residence, with arrows pointing at its windows accompanied by explicit references to sexual acts occurring inside the building. In a further move documenting its defiance, the Cocostore has recently started featuring new bareback DVDs under the title, "Raw Rods." Although these are produced by a different company, Rockafellas Entertainment, some of the models appearing in them are familiar Cocodorm faces.

An Internet-Age Controversy at the Intersection of Race, Morality, and Public Health

One of the reasons for the very public criticism of Flava Works is that the company is owned by a white businessman, Phillip Bleicher. Some members of the Black LGBT community, such as the blogger Jasmyne Cannick, claimed that Bleicher manipulates and exploits the young black men featured in Flava Works' products. In one blog, Cannick wrote: "Equally distressing are reports centering around the conditions under which the young men worked. Most of them are reportedly at-risk youths, runaways, homeless and easily manipulated." However, the debate about Flava Works in the Black community was by no means unanimous in its condemnation.

But not only race is an issue in the controversy over the "house next door." The legal case pending in federal court involves the question of whether webcams filming sexual acts and broadcasting them over the Internet constitute an adult-oriented business not permitted in a residential neighborhood. Furthermore, the debate is affected by a number of complicated conflicts of interest. To mention only two: (1) the conflict between legitimate concerns for public health, on the one hand, and the freedom of individuals to have "unsafe" sex; (2) the conflict between the American society's publicly declared morality of sexual modesty, on the one hand, and the widespread use of pornography, on the other.

Notable Performers

• Alex Flex
• Baby Boy
• Breion Diamond
• Castro
• Elmo Jackson
• Flamez
• N'Tice
• Prophet
• Prince Junior
• Shorty J
• Smooth
• Tyson

See also

• List of gay porn stars
• List of gay pornographic movie studios
• Pornography