Names and faces

Former Playboy model Pamela Anderson has teamed with a rabbi to speak out against pornography. An opinion piece by Anderson and Rabbi Shmuley Boteach published by The Wall Street Journal cited the latest sexting scandal involving former Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner in calling for “an honest dialogue” about the dangers of pornography and “an honor code to tamp it down.” The essay calls pornography “a public hazard of unprecedented seriousness.” It closes by saying “porn is for losers” and calls it “a boring wasteful and dead-end outlet for people too lazy to reap the ample rewards of healthy sexuality.” Anderson has appeared on the cover of Playboy 14 times, most recently in December for the magazine’s final nude issue.

Gabrielle Union said she cannot take lightly rape allegations from the past against Nate Parker, who directed her in The Birth of a Nation and co-stars in the film in which she plays a rape victim. In an opinion piece Friday for the Los Angeles Times, Union wrote that she has been “in a state of stomach-churning confusion” since learning about the allegations against Parker. Union said she was raped at gunpoint 24 years ago and took the role because she “related to the experience.” “I knew I could walk out of our movie and speak to the audience about what it feels like to be a survivor,” Union wrote. Parker was acquitted in a 1999 rape case and maintains his innocence. His accuser killed herself in 2012. Union said she doesn’t know what happened in Parker’s case but sees the film as “an opportunity to inform and educate so that these situations cease to occur.” The Birth of a Nation, about Nat Turner’s 1831 slave rebellion, will premiere Oct. 7.

Union

Anderson