The National Education Association turns down porn company donations

Today's program was brought to you by the color green, the number 6, and the letters "O yeah, F me up the A with your giant C, MF-er": film company Assence Artists, which is releasing now-retired porn star Sasha Grey's adult film Anal Artists next week, has announced that they plan on donating part of the proceeds of the film to the National Education Association's Read Across America program. Unfortunately for the charitable folks at Assence Artists, however, NEA officials have turned down the donations; and, in so doing, an opportunity to pornify the titles of literary classics on required reading lists (A Tale of Two Titties? David Cop-a-Feel? All's Well That Ends With Someone's Face Covered in Jism? Jesus Christ, NEA, Moby Dick? You can't tell us you weren't at least thinking about it). 

In a statement to HuffPo Monday, the NEA, which is the nation's largest teachers' union, said that Grey is "not affiliated with the National Education Association's Read Across America program, nor has she been invited or endorsed by NEA to read at any of the association's Read Across America Day events, and NEA will not accept any donations from her latest, or any, of her films." Some of you may remember that Grey also came under fire for appearing as a celebrity guest reader at a Compton, Calif. elementary school as part of the school district's Guest Reading Program (which is not directly affiliated with the NEA or Read Across America). 

Howard Levine, the head of the company that is releasing Anal Artists, says that the NEA's refusal to accept the donation is nothing less than discrimination against Grey and her porn past. "Anyone that's supporting reading and helping kids and donating money to their cause should be accepted," Levine said Monday. "I don't understand why they would not accept that - only that she was in adult films."

Granted, a source close to Grey says that Levine's decision to make the donation in her name was made without her knowledge, so it seems like the company is not as concerned with getting kids to read Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH as it is with capitalizing on Grey's name to get some press. However, the American school system isn't, like, exactly in a position to turn down tons o' money, and Grey has always been an advocate for promoting literacy in public schools, so maybe these people should stop thinking of her as the star of Anal Artists and Anal Cavity Search 6 and start thinking of her as that beautiful but mediocre actress in that totally forgettable Steven Soderbergh film from a few years back.

(Also, can we please discuss how impossible it is to find clothed pictures of this woman on Google Search? If her vagina robbed a bank, and I had to describe it to a police sketch artist, they'd pick it up and haul it down to the station within ten minutes. I mean, I guess I could turn the Safe Search on if I really wanted to, so it's not like I'm complaining, but I've been trying to find a photo for the past ten minutes, and I already feel like I'm flipping through Polaroids of old friends. Oh, OK, here's one. That's...better, I guess).