Is it wrong to post pics of people in our community who have passed away,such as Phoebe?

Phoebe passed away?

I don't know why it would be. In any other facet of life we don't stop talking about, posting pictures of, referencing, etc. the dead. Why would this area be any different?

Depends on the context of the post. Tribute posts, memories etc are all ok. If someone is trying to profit off of them (without permission), then that's wrong.

Wait, what? When did Phoebe pass? How?

It appears she passed on roughly a year ago. Cause of death is unknown, but that's often a private matter.

Here's the relatively recent thread where I first learned of it:
https://umd.net/forums/is-there-anywhere-i-can-get-phoebes-vids

Very sad.

Perhaps a new tag/filter?

Just kidding

Seriously, I think it's a case by case matter and respectng whether or not that individual could be considered a 'public figure' by meaure of that person's own intention or not.

We post pictures of Natalie Wood and also a number of now deceased models (who signed releases when they were alive) appear in numerous scenes still for sale.

I feel its odd to specifically mention the person in the picture is dead because it's a buzzkill to having a wank.

Any scene is a moment frozen in time. And people can and will die at any age. I don't think there's anything wrong with posting promo pics, or links to where scenes are still on sale, for models who have passed on, though I wouldn't mention the fact - the being dead is a "here and now" thing and so out of time compared to the scene.

We can still enjoy old movies for what they are, even if all the actors who appear in them are long-dead. But you wouldn't expect an announcement at the start of a film recounting everyone in it who'd died since. A wam scene is just a movie, after all.

If used in the appropriate way, I.e. legally purchased, my personal opinion is that's it's ok to continue to enjoy content made for public consumption, i remember having a CT scan the day Bowie died, and they the headphones they gave me played Bowie for the entire time.
If you stop celebrating creative people and their art because they die it would be a very dull world.
Posting things that people were ashamed of and distanced themselves from whilst alive makes things more complicated however.

This!

The problem with serious life events such as death (and sometimes marriage, divorce, disease, etc.) is that it generally brings family members out of the woodwork. In some cases, family members may learn about the deceased's wam work, and being of a sexual nature, it may be something they'd be best not knowing about. What we do in private is our own business, but a wam model's 'private life' is on public display. When researching life events for the deceased, it probably comes as a rude shock to learn that they sold some of their imagery on a sex site.

What I'm saying is Natalie Wood's pie scene, and a wam model's pie-with-a-dildo scene are very different. So, continuing the sale of deceased people's wam work is probably not a wise thing to do, as that aspect of their life ought to also be put to rest, as far as any public awareness of it is concerned.

The late Rob Blaine, a true wam pioneer, created one of the first succesful wam websites and it was later taken over by another person. I kind of remember that his family knew about his wam tendencies, so passing the website on wasn't a bad thing. However if a producer wishes to hide their identity from their family and friends, the site ought to be taken down. Family usually wants to remember someone a certain way, and to suddenly learn that they ran a wam website might be a bad thing in their eyes. Just my observations on it since you asked.

But posting such pictures in our community is not a bad thing, but remember that UMD posts may be found in Google searches, so we may be sharing such images to more than our community.

There was a model who appeared in two volumes of SlapstickStuff, and those two volumes were long ago removed from the store by Rich.

I'm not sure if SStuff ever commented on why he removed these volumes or not. But the impression got around -- and it's entirely possible that this was just a rumor with no basis in fact -- that the model had died and that was the reason for the removal. Also, of course, even if this is true, SStuff might not have removed the video because he felt it was responsibility; it also possibly could have been at the request of family members of the deceased.

It does say in the Rules for posting pics the pics must be yours Or you have permission to post.

I don't follow this. Most (all?) WAM models use aliases, so there's no more chance of them being outed posthumously than there was beforehand? Unless I'm missing something, I don't see what would increase the risk?

I suppose time should be a consideration. This isn't related to messy work, but I've noticed a top-shelf magazine's Twitter account publishing Readers' Wives photos from 1980s issues. At the time, there would have been no concept of photos ending up being shared on the internet up to 40 years later, and clearly all the surviving models will have moved on in their lives by now. Seems a bit wrong to me.

Then again, the photographing of mask-less models in a tiny room in the middle of a pandemic doesn't sit easily with me, either, so why should I be surprised?

I shot videos before with a local model. She did not use her real name, yet someone recognized her and wrote to her employer, and it resulted in her being fired from her job. She (or I) had never mentioned the UMD to anyone local, so someone simply recognized her from Facebook and was obviously on the UMD and realized it was the same person. So there is that risk, but I agree that it doesn't increase posthumously. I guess it's up to whoever the person signed the model release for, and they can take down content out of respect or not, as they see fit.

Wow that's a shitty thing to do, did you or the model ever figure out who it was on here? I hope they were banned from the site!

How does that even work? Like they just send something like this to the business and she gets fired.


Subject: "Your employee has previously worked as a model"

"Dear Sir/Madam,

It has come to my attention that your employee has previously worked as a model doing WAM Fetish work. You can verify this by following the below links, and purchasing and watching the clips to verify their content:
umd.net/Batman-pies-poisonIvy
umd.net/HumanGarbageDisposal5
umd.net/khaleesi_cakestomp

I alert you to this out of concern that patrons of your business familair with these titles but offended by the content will cease to do business with you over the fact that the model works for you in an unrelated capacity, and urge you to fire your employee.

King Regards,
- troublemaker"

From what I am reading and what I know there are several issues involved. One is the person circumstances, legal issues and then there are the moral issues. Sometimes these are the same thing and other times there can be conflict of interest relating to the person in question and their wishes as to what is to be done with the material as well. With some cultures its not allowed to show photos or images of decease persons or even mention their name(s).

For anyone who might care about the specific case I mentioned above, I got this private response from Rich, which he said I was free to post here:

*****************

My model "Chelsea" did pass away tragically, and suddenly, just over 2
years ago.

No one from her family contacted me (I did donate to her memorial fund,
and got a message back from her mom thanking me, but that was all). I
honestly don't even think they knew she worked with me. I pulled the
scenes because it just felt wrong to keep selling them after her
passing. This was a personal decision on my end.

I thought about making an announcement to this effect, but as a friend
pointed out, drawing attention to her passing (and the scenes I was
going to pull) ran completely counter to removing the clips out of her
respect for her passing. So I just deleted the listings and the pages
quietly.

Over two years, people have individually emailed me asking what happened
to her clips, and I always tell them the truth. So I guess that's how
"rumors" spread. But honestly, I'm ALWAYS honest in a one-to-one convo,
so I wish people had simply emailed me directly if they wanted the whole
story, rather than speculating.

Anyway, you're free to clarify your remarks on the UMD or post some of
this email directly. Your call.