Friday, August 18th, 2000
Zoe in the Caribbean
Email: Hi, Luke, it's Tabetha. I'm writing to you from St. Maarten in the Caribbean. I'm here with Zoe, (who has replaced Jasmin St. Claire at Defiance Haven) for her Feature dance appearence. It is BEAUTIFUL here and Zoe is just making it more so! We will be doing exclusive photo shoots on the beaches, mingling with the fans and today after a 10 hour flight she appeared on two different radio shows. The one show can be heard there in the US by going to; www.radiotransat.com today at 3 & 9PM as well as sometime tomorrow. The other appearence on Lasser 101 was live and had the Island hopping. The weather here is great, it stays about 85 in the day and a lovely 75 at night. Zoe will be appearing Friday and Saturday at the Platinum Room which is one of the most extraodinary clubs I have ever seen! One of the largest on the Island, it is partially indoors and out including the stage. When Zoe flew in today a tropical storm was reported to be in the area, so she might get rained on a little. She said - "well, you can't help getting a little wet when you're getting so hot!!"
Lee Noga vs Joe Elkind
CENcash.com webmaster Joe Elkind, publisher of Klixxx magazine, crossed swords with OnTheRopes.com educator Lee Noga Wednesday night on his show WebmasterConfessions.com.
Listen to the show here. Listen to the controversial segment where JoeE kicks Lee off the show.
Noga cohosts my Tuesday night show (4-6PM PST) on Webmasterlive.com. A few months ago, she took after Andy Edmond of SexTracker.
Joe Elkind pays me a nice salary to write a monthly column for his webmaster magazine Klixxx.com.
Elkind's twice a month show probably draws more listeners than any other adult webmaster radio show.
I interview him Friday morning to get his perspective. But first, here's the view of a critic:
XXX: Holly [JoeE's cohost] was interviewing Lee and Lee told them to throw out the questions they asked all the other sites, they did not apply to her since Lee do not subscribe to the business model the questions were based around, [ie=How much traffic do you get to your resource sites]. Lee proceeded to explain what herr model was, how the industry changed and how sponsors need to conduct business at a resource site. Holly and Lee were really getting into the convo and Holly realized there was merit to what Lee was saying.
Holly kinda blocked Joe from the conversation and he was reminding everyone this was his show....and then Lee told Holly how sponsors whine they are no more than a banner and cited 2 sponsors who Lee gave a once in a liftime hands on offer to get involved in her community at OnTheRopes, and how they let her down. One of those 2 companies were CEN....so Joe started spinning out on the air. Joe lost his temper...and trenched and the chat room started a riot in Lee's favor and started saying their money was on Lee, or "Hey, Joe is that Lee's footprint on your butt"....this added to the spiral of Joe on the air, and he even if he was kidding, its hard to say, he said, " get her the f--- of the air"...and by then all hell broke out....
Joe was clearly out of control. Holly and Lee ended the phone call and Joe was still spinning out saying, "Get Lee back on the f---ing phone"...he is screaming in anger at that point to his hosts....
Then when everyone said Goodnight including his 2 co-hosts, Joe asked for Dokk to stay on the line with him and he went on to say basically he did not get to acomplish what he set out to do and ask his questions etc....and Im thinking, you overbooked your show, it went 1:40 minutes.....and if he did not drill down and ask the questions he wanted it goes to the skill of the host, thats his problem.
Lee took the show away from JoeE for during my segment, Lee pinned his ears, Lee disagreed with this business philosophies, and he could not control Lee and hence had a full blown temper tantdrum on the air much to the surprise of the listeners who never witnessed the spoiled brat syndrome....between Lee and Holly his host who were loving our interview and the riot in the chat room against Joe who was running interference and was blocked, he crumpled live under pressure from the audio and the audience response...and it was all live.
Joe wanted to ask questions and webmasters to answer them which were controversial questions to begin with, everyone complied and accepted the hot seat, when Lee came on, she changed the rules...and Joe could not adjust to the turning of the tables.
Luke called JoeE: "What happened on your show Wednesday night with Lee Noga?"
JoeE: "Lee was just speaking her opinion about something that did not pertain to the show, so I told her to shut up. It was no big deal. Lee and I are still good friends. She was just going a little crazy, that's all. I wasn't even listening to what she was talking about...
"My show was all about portals. I wanted to know how many webmasters she had. She has a niche portal. Everyone else gave me answer [about the number of visitors]... And I said, Lee, I don't care how many. It could be 100 or 200, but she just give me a number. And she said, it doesn't matter. She's wrong. It does matter. If you run a portal and you're advertising on it, you want to know how many webmasters come to that portal, so you can figure out where your advertising dollars are spent.
"If I want to put a banner up on your site, I want to know how many page views you get a day... So when she said it didn't matter, I went off on her...
"That was my fourth show. It airs every two weeks. And we really do go behind the scenes. We've had women of the net - Danni Ashe, Cindy Margolis... The next show will be about traffic and all the fraudulent people out there selling traffic."
Lee Noga replies: Hey, Joe, you got that right, I am "Head Bitch", thank-you very much, but I ain't *YOUR* Bitch. How does it feel to not be able to control a woman? Did I just pop your cherry?
Joe, you had a hidden agenda almost to the point where you used your show to figure out where YOU wanted to spend your ad dollars for the new ad campaign you eeked out on the air. I contend, bragging rights to stats are irrelevant, the bottom line remains performance.
Sponsors need to understand they are MORE than a banner, 15,000 page views does not go to the issue of measuring productivity at a resource site. To state, "I get 1500 uniques" a day, is irrelevant and does not inform the sponsor on the "quality" issues of these uniques.
I contend sponsors should adjust their thinking, and inquire on what the "SOURCE" of the resource sites traffic is, and then the sponsor can decide if the traffic is golden or not, hence no numbers game.
We all agree that sponsors have made a science of understanding the productivity of surfer traffic to an art form. Webmaster resource sites are NOT exempt from this same scrutiny. We all accept TGP traffic as being the lowest converting, in the world of resource sites shared traffic amongst resource sites is probably the lowest converting.
If I have 1600 uniques a day and sell you on numbers, and my traffic is cycled traffic from other boards, then what did you buy into if you had advertising on these other cycled boards?
If you were to ask one resource site and you found out Sextracker was a main vein to their resource site, and then you find out another site is fed by Sextracker this would tell you that you can eliminate an ad on one of the sites since you already have tapped into the Sextracker traffic vein. This is the biggest mistake sponsors make, they cross over and spend ad dollars covering traffic they already covered on other sites.
Numbers are irrelevant, I contend your interviews were base on questions that not only were self serving, but antiquated as the industry has changed.
If you really want to know where to place your ad dollars ask the question to the resource sites, "Where does your webmaster traffic come from".
As far as your statement "you went off on me", last I recalled Holly your co-host and I were having an a great interview. Where were you?
YO Luke, the bet was I would take Elkind down in the second round, I did it in the first, clean the ring....the blood is ruining my pumps.
XXX: "You've got to love JoeE. The man's got balls. He can afford to be arrogant because everyone needs to use his program."
Luke to JoeE: "What do you think about TrafficInc.com? I hear they owe webmasters money."
JoeE: "We don't do any business with them so I don't know.
"We have 15 big paysites, and one of them is the fourth biggest site on the net. So we probably control more traffic than anybody."
Luke: "What do you think about the Australian guys Lasrado and Phillips?"
JoeE: "I don't know if they did that to you. I saw that [Luke's complaint that an Australian webmaster sent out a bunch of spamming from my email address, advertising l-keford.com]. I get along with Scott [Phillips] well... And I know that he wouldn't screw me. But I know that they have different laws in Australia... And they can hide down there. They don't have to worry about as much down in Australia.
"As far as what somebody did to you [sent out a bunch of spam in my name], I think that's the worst thing they could do because I have the biggest problems with AOL now with spam that you will ever see. AOL is trying to sue me... They're trying to sue everybody [for spam, particularly porn spam]. They've got a warchest fund for an attorney group and they're going after everybody. They brought me and John [Bennet, JoeE's business partner]. They tried to subpoena our phone records... We finally came back with enough reasons to tell them to go f--- themselves... And then they went away but now they're going after other people who don't know how to handle it."
Luke: "They haven't actually served you with a lawsuit?"
JoeE: "No, but they gave us depositions. Our attorney thinks we have it handled, that they won't sue us because they realize that they can't win."
Luke: "What's going on with you and UU.net? They cost you over one million dollars."
JoeE: "UU.net cost me a lot more than that. There's nothing I can do about that. I could sue them, but it would be a long battle. They've turned me back on. So until they do something else, there's not much I am going to do. The biggest fight with have now is VISA.
"VISA is causing major major problems for everybody. Only the strong are going to survive. VISA is going after CCBill, Epic, IBill [webmaster credit card processors]. With their new rules and regulations, they're trying to put people out of business."
Luke: "With the one percent limit on chargebacks?"
JoeE: "Absolutely. Plus, they're claiming that the adult business is two percent of their revenue but 14% of their chargebacks. But it doesn't matter. They can't discriminate, which is what we're filing against them. And the same thing with AOL. They're affiliate programs are spamming."
Luke: "You're putting attorneys on to them?"
JoeE: "There's a big group representing most of the main players in the adult industry.
"Farrah's coming back to visit me tomorrow. I've already had romps with Rocky Roads, Shyla Foxxx. Farrah's different. Shyla got married. She called me the other day to say that she'd married someone called Joe. I said, that's great Shyla. She's happy."
Luke: "I read criticisms on the boards about your celeb site? Which celeb site do you own?"
JoeE: "The one that gets the fourth most traffic on the adult net. We don't actually own it. We do the marketing for the company that owns it. It's truecelebs.com."
Luke: "You don't own the content?"
JoeE: "There's no such things as owning that content. Any celeb site uses content in the public domain, for newsworthy purposes. And we're just charging for bandwidth."
Brittany Andrews in Cellar Dwellers 3
RedRubber@webtv.net (Red Man) wrote: >Please tell me this Cellar Dwellers #3 scene with Brittany Andrews ends >with a doube facial:).....but for some reason I have a feeling that they >shoot their loads on her tits(BORING)
Pat Riley: Voodoo Child and Lexington share Brittany ending in belly cum shots.
>Can someone give a review of this movie? I went to IAFD and this movie >wasn't listed under Brittany Andrews resume. Also when did this movie >get released....I have never heard about this until now. Thanks.
PR: The production date is 7/1/00 and I saw it on 8/2/00 so release
date is probably around 7/25/00. If you're a fan of Brittany you wouldn't
like my review of the movie (or her) but she's only a bit player. The
movie is similar to the other Cellar Dwellers in format without the
crude ugly Robert Black and his sophomoric hi-jinks. Instead it has
a quite touching story of Venus (cute but
>P.S.I would ask if there was a anal scene but I know I would be getting >to greedy now.....:)
Not an anal scene and they both use condoms. They do squeeze her into an X-large cheerleader's outfit though. There are plenty of sophomoric hi-jinks in the movie such as the two guys in bunny costumes running a show called "Who Wants To f--- A Million Hares" and an opening sequence of "Trying to find a BJ in the year 200 B.C." with guys looking like cavemen and grunting (history is not these guys' strong point). It's just that the hi-jinks are not Black's and therefore they're not crude and ugly.
Extreme Teen is getting just like Max with not young girls--teenagers, just 18 by seconds as the box says--but the Jon Benet Ramsey type, i.e., pre-puberty. And although Max is blatant and therefore more honest about it, there are overtones of meanness throughout this movie. It's not some guy having sex with his slightly under-age girlfriend; it's a Jesse Tsemendequois (sp? -- he's the convicted child (6) killer from NJ) molesting the pre-teens.
>The 6th and final scene features McKayla, who is out hitch-hiking in >her cute little Catholic schoolgirls uniform.
PR: Another who is much older than she looks--either 29 or 30--but still can play a cute teenager. The male in this scene is an uncredited Steve Austin, one of the bottom dwellers of the porn industry, rivaled in looks only by such human refuse as Smalley Pauley and maybe Ron Jeremy. Austin has a characteristic that he can't cum or even stay erect except with oral sex and you notice that here as he's doggieing McKayla with a getting...going...nearly soft dick. They cut and then resume with him sitting back in a chair presumably after getting some oral resuscitation.
Now if they could only move this lot over to Vivid and do a decent condom-free pro-male plotted movie before they all wear out their welcome.
Goddess Reviews Sex Toys
Frequent l-keford.com contributor reviews sex toys at www.erotica-readers.com. Here's an excerpt:
Let’s start with a few that have been around for quite awhile. Joni’s Butterfly is a vibrating plastic device that is supposed to fit snugly to the clit. It’s held in place by elastic straps and is worn like a pair of panties. Connected to this toy are a few inches of wire and the hand-held remote control. Anytime I have seen this particular apparatus, and there are many similar ones sold under different names, they are always promoted as something you can wear in public under your pants. Who, in their right mind, would wear something like this in public? The day I wear a vibrator beneath my jeans will be the day I get hit by a city bus, ergo, requiring hospitalization. If you thought it was embarrassing to be taken to the hospital while wearing ratty underwear, let’s not even ponder the humiliation of arriving with your vibrator a’hummin. One question to the manufacturer I’d like to pose is this: when wearing this in public, where are we supposed to hide wire and a remote control box? My first thought was to just let it hang out over the back of my jeans and use it as a conversation starter. "Well, Mom, you see this contraption is connected to my…"
Vivid DVD Broadband
Teal writes: Luke, It's about time a major adult company really got into broadband video streaming. I agree cost will be huge to do something like this. Since they are using the Internet they should be able to offer subscription services where the end user is able to customise their subscription. This would mean, a user like me for example, can select scenes from any movie based on actress names and watch only those scenes.
They must get away from this notion of a feature film or whatever you call a full length 80 minute film with multiple scenes sold under one TITLE. Every movie is a Gonzo in a way (Each scene is a movie in itself).
No one watches the crap between the scenes, the only thing that comes close to stringing a story line along. If some people do, good for them.
I've stayed away from buying videos beause I don't want to purchase a DVD just for one actress (eg Alysin Embers) and to have the rest of the video full of actresses that don't interest me. What a waste of money. It's starting to sound like the music industry isn't it?
Online music piracy (in some ways) can be attributed to the fact that consumers don't want to purchase a CD for one or two songs where the rest of the CD is full of 'fillers'. I don't think Vivid can do it by themselves. We need a single portal that licenses from all the producers and sells subscriptions by the scene and customisable....
Chud: What a blatant PR mockery of consumers from Vivid. DVD Quality over the web (in real time streams)- utter rubbish. Not in the near future. From the DVD Faq:
Maximum video bitrate is 9.8 Mbps. The "average" bitrate is 3.5 but depends entirely on the length, quality, amount of audio, etc Lets be generous and assume the Content is average quantity encoded, around 3.5Mbps. The "average" ADSL runs at 2Mbps or lower- and this bandwidth in contended- i.e shared.
Most ISP's would tend to share this total external bandwidth between 20 people at once! So unless vivid are on the same local network to the user, with a high end xDSL (8mbps), there is no way this feed is going to be "DVD Quality".
I do not think that the DVD Consortum would take a positive view of this product beign promoted in this way, either.... It might be watchable by the webamasters who have a T3 or greater in their living room. Surely this can't be their target market? :P
Know the Dynamism of our Happy People
Jechu Prospect writes from the communist state of North Korea: Dear Mr. Luke F-rd!
As the hour approaches, you must study the dynamism of the Korean people, expressed through the hammer of Jechu thought.
The Central Committee of the Worker's Party of Korea shortly ago called on the whole party and army and all the people to turn out to glorify this year, the 55th anniversary of the WPK, as a year of general advance and signal victory in building a powerful nation in the crucible of increased activity of Chollima.
Working people from all walks of life are performing praiseworthy feats in various domains of the national economy in hearty response to the party's calls.
The main thrust is to boost electricity, coal, and pornography production. Working people across the country are channeling their efforts into new pornography projects, while increasing production to the maximum by using the existing equipment.
A high-pitched drive is now under way in the domain of the industry to complete earlier than scheduled the Songwon studio, where numerous films glorifying the prowess of the Korean Worker will be shot.
A modernization process is making brisk headway at the Kim Chaek Masterbation Works, the Songjin Dildo Complex and other establishments in the domain of sexual industry.
Vigorous endeavors are being made in the domain of machine industry to boost the production of modern dildos, polymeric sex substitutes for export, and the like.
The construction of modern poultry farms and chicken factories is nearing completion in different parts of the country, for those of differing tastes. Signal achievements are reported from other domains of the national economy.
Mr. Luke F-rd - you will not want to leave such a nation as ours once you have seen with your own eyes what a Workers' State can do!
Apricot Sky - Luke's Hollywood Debut
Curious writes: A while back you spoke of your acting debut in a rather fey titled art film called "Apricot Sky." How about some screen captures and a plot summary? Come on, revisit your naive wide eyed Hollywood dreams with us.
ps Did you "top" or "bottom" in this one?
Luke: Here's the audio
tape from my demo reel, which includes a scene from Apricot Sky.
Luke Gets Mail
I have not watched a minute of either political convention.
Chaim writes: But Hadassah Lieberman is the daughter of Holocaust Survivors! I'll bet that you have watched "Survivor" on television, yet you won't vote for Lieberman? Shame on you! Fascist! Bigot! No wonder you have not made it big in Hollywood!
PS That upcoming trial with Christy Lake cries out for Court TV coverage. Have they been in touch with you yet? Maybe the Playboy channel will cover it if they don't. Or that new Pets-TV cable channel.
Jeff writes: hey luke, i see the issue of racism in porn made it to hustler magazine. kind of interesting that after reading the posts from people on your website and on various message boards i read an article on it in a major magazine. no new ground was broken, just a lot of the same rhetoric thats been spoken on the internet.
Tawny (Dolldotcom@aol.com) writes: I have been working in Las Vegas for the past five years. I am 24 and look a little like Britney Spears. I have been dancing since I was five. Currently I work at a major LV hotel as a showgirl/dancer. It's time for me to branch out and setup my website.
Here's where I need your help. What places should I contact which do public relations work for adult internet websites? I don't know where to begin. I need to promote my site. I have lists of search engines, but I need people to publicize my website and handle press releases, etc.
I'm a nice Jewish girl who wants to become a millionaire before I reach 30.
Galactic Galaxina writes: Helow Luke,I love reading your site,and came across shaking my head the Cheyenne Silver upper assets,some goddess? and another party going crazy over the issue of the WORD breasts,I think they just like to say the WORD lol,call em utters bobbies,lummies, mannyies glands,titties,what ever the hell one wants to still comes out on top theses two hills that seem to have made everyone waky lol,and hey I dig roger Rabbit jessca shes a toon like me,so don't pick on her guys have a cartoon rubmble take place.Ok serious note,there REAL like fat gobblets in the tissue socets and all kinds of organic matter depositing it's self some not so organICK wastes lard fat,so dig this real can be real scary to or real ausume all depends on the person,and then theres the nuts and flakes screaming out FAKE! like I said they need to be hauled back into there shellthere becoming a little flate opps "stale" I mean,fake can mean f---ing all kicking excellence ( like artistic creation) so for Cheyenne Silver don't worry about everyone going luny toons theres a goofy always lurking to scream out some kind of dogma,your ok girl from someone that has been there,and redoing the surgery by a excellent doc,but you look great and everyone knows it take care HumanCartoonGirl GalacticGalaxina
Lynne L-patin Rants
Chris writes: Luke - I have a proposition for all parties involved in the l-keford.com experience; more specifically, you, your readers and Lynn. I suggest that we, the readers, donate an unspecified amount of money to you on a weekly basis. In exchange, you must sexually gratify Lynn for as long as the money keeps coming in. The catch? Lynn must promise to keep her daily rants to 25 words or less. I'll start off the campaign by pledging $5/week. I'm sure there are many others who would gladly contribute to this type of plan. Do we have a deal?
Goddess: Regarding Chris's proposal that Lynne keep her posts to 25 words: why is it that when certain men ramble on, nobody tries to stifle their thinking? Cause there's one I'd definitely contribute some money to if it would guarantee a limit to *his* space on the column.
Chris: Luke - Goddess, the Great Warrior Princess, and would-be martyr to feminists everywhere, took offense at my attempt to muzzle Lynn. How could I have been so insensitive? She slogs through the rest of your content on a regular basis and suddenly has a problem with my stupid little post. If she's so keen on eliminating every trace of sexism from the planet, then why doesn't she offer posts about pornographers? Oh wait, she's one of those enlightened, forward-thinking feminists who thinks that porno is the pathway to a greater, more sexually aware environment. She probably thinks that this stuff actually empowers the female performers. Then again, I'm being a sexist pig by presuming to know her. Shame on me.
Lynne writes Chaim: Chaim, I do have some appreciation for the highly limited wisdom of the French, which says that rich food may be enjoyed in small portions and that a man may have a family of procreation and a mistress for love. Other than that, the French are not a culture known for their skill as mathematicians other than Descartes, and their bakeries do better with bread and cake than with philosophy, which tends to leave their ovens underdone. In looking to the French for wisdom, one must remember the words of that illustrious French philosopher who is the patron saint of unholiness everywhere, Donatein-Alphonse-Francois, Comte de Sade, who said:
"Nature allows all, by its murderous laws;
Incest and rape, all theft and parricide,
All Sodom's pleasures,
Sappho's lesbian games,
All that destroys and sends men to their graves."
Lynne writes: I doubt anyone took me seriously the other day when I mentioned that thinking about Max Hardcore's obscene videotapes keeps me awake at night, but it does, really it does.
Roger P. may be waiting for the guy to be pulled over on a traffic stop and be caught with disembodied teenagers in his trunk a la Ed Kemper, but I believe in proactive law enforcement whenever possible, do not claim to be moderate, and do not feel a need to facilitate a discussion between criminals and law-abiding, albeit horny citizens in order to allow the former an attempt to justify their illegal activities.
Hence we return to a discussion of American obscenity laws and how they have failed us, and hope only that those self-same government officials I've fought for so long are really monitoring Luke's ever-so-popular porn site and are looking for legal strategies to combat the obscene material that currently gives adult entertainment a bad name.
Recognizing states' jurisdictions, and even local jurisdictions' the Supreme Court said in their Miller decision that "obscenity is in the eye of the community." Although the First Amendment permits open discussion on any issue and limits Congress from making laws defining the parameters of that discussion, the federal government has little to no say on how local communities may interpret that edict.
This is a big country, and, especially since the advent of the internet, speech on any imaginable subject is easily obtained by those who wish to partake in it. It is not a violation of the First Amendment to deny newsmongers specific venues for their speech -- just as it is not a First Amendment violation that DVD's of "Pee Wee Herman's Big Adventure" need not be available in every gas station rest room, constitutionally protected, sexually explicit speech need not be available on every street corner. As long as there are no outright legal prohibitions against its sale, and as long as a community makes an attempt to find a suitable location for its distribution should a market for its sale be perceived as existing in that community, the First Amendment remains intact.
But not all speech, sexually explicit or otherwise, is protected by the First Amendment. To pretend otherwise is foolish. Hate-mongering treads a fine line. Sedition is not protected. Obscenity is not protected. OBSCENITY IS NOT PROTECTED SPEECH. OBSCENITY IS ILLEGAL.
And the definition of obscenity is actually quite clear: Miller Test for Obscenity:
The average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest.
The work depicts or describes in a patently offensive way, as measured by contemporary community standards, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable law.
A reasonable person would find that the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, and scientific value.
By any average, reasonable definition, many adult videos currently on the market, including but not limited to Max Hardcore's, are not only prurient (sexually unhealthy) but patently offensive. Furthermore, they do not constitute works of "value." They are not "Ulysses," "Less Than Zero," Mapplethorpe photographs or even "Pee Wee Herman's Big Adventure."
Why aren't they being prosecuted then? And if the government can't be bothered with Max and his ilk, why should I take it upon myself to care, to write, to lose sleep over this?
As a Jew, I have an awareness that the first step in being rounded up and shipped off to genocide in concentration camps is to adopt the attitude that the government knows what it is doing, should be trusted, and that the little people should not make waves by questioning the great wisdom of the "powers that be."
As a retired pornographer, I have a responsibility to share my knowledge and wisdom on an as-needed basis with those who wish to continue in the profession, safely and without fear of government interference.
As a woman, I cannot stand by and watch a world made worse for my peers by misogynists, serial killers, genital mutilators et. al. Enough?
Before the Miller Test, and before the Clinton Administration, local porn problems were handled in two different ways, which most of you cannot remember: locally, via local law enforcement's tacit approval or disapproval, and federally, through Ed Meese's Justice Department and Operation Wormwood.
The first was very effective when porn was primarily an underground, backroom, segregated product. The local sheriff or police department knew who sold what where, just as they knew who sold moonshine back in the thirties. They set their own informal policies: came in, went through whatever material they found and said, "Don't sell this." No muss, no bust. True community standards, though determined not by the people but by their representatives.
Even producers were subject to the same courtesy and respect. Parliament News and its predecessors, and the L.A. Star were visited regularly by Southern Californian law enforcement agents, who drew the lines. When publishers were told to stop printing this or that, they did, and they were not prosecuted. I personally remember when we were told to stop printing kiddy porn, bestiality and scatological material at the L.A. Star -- we did.
The advent of videotaped pornography made porn available seemingly on every street corner through Mom & Pop video stores, taking it out from under the proverbial counters and specialty markets and into the consciousness of the general public. The late Paul Wisner believed that this would be the beginning of the end: the American public, he felt, would not stand for this inundation of pornography. Wisner hated video, not only because the format was more suitable for viewing than magazines, but because it was so easily duplicated and made available outside the traditional pornography distribution network.
America did take notice: The Meese-led Justice Department Commission on Pornography took a long hard look at the stuff, and evolved a plan for federal prosecution, which the implemented in the early nineties as Operation Wormwood. Prior obscenity prosecutions had involved specific mail order companies, items or bookstores, but with Wormwood, the entire industry was entrapped and indicted, all at once, with the coffers of the federal government opened to any and all local jurisdictions that wanted to participate. Churches and private organizations were enlisted in information campaigns, getting the word out in their communities that the federal government was going on the rampage against porn. General consciousness of the "problem" was whipped into an anti-porn frenzy. After all, in most church-going communities, who will risk ostracism to come out on the side of free speech when free speech means smut?
The new generation of video pornographers, who were not aware of the history of the genre, had never operated covertly, and were vulnerable to prosecution not only for obscenity, but also tax laws. The old guard knew the rules; the newbies, flying high on cocaine and fabulous profit margins, did not. With RICO forfeiture being threatened, companies folded left and right, making payoffs to the government to avoid prosecution, dodging the bullet. Video Team and Great Western went down hard in Dallas, and their owners did time. After that, only Wisner's Gourmet Video actually went to trial on obscenity issues -- their books were clean, they had nothing to fear, and they were acquitted on all counts.
The American public, even in Jesse Helms' home state of North Carolina, will not prosecute "average" sexually-oriented material for obscenity now that sexuality has pervaded our culture so deeply. Feminist arguments notwithstanding, heterosexuality does not automatically degrade women. The First Amendment does cover sexually oriented speech, whether it consists of birth control information, nudie magazines, and even sexually explicit videotape, provided it is not obscene.
Under present law, it is not the responsibility of the federal government to control what sexually oriented material is sold in what jurisdiction. The closest the feds can get is to monitor interstate shipping...and even then, they would have to document that the material shipped is obscene at the point of issue as well as at the point of receipt, requiring two obscenity trials in two different jurisdictions before interstate trafficking charges would stick.
Local jurisdictions, on the other hand, do not have the financial resources nor the manpower to commit to finding product obscene, nor do they wish to prosecute thriving local, legal businesses because of one obscene tape out of an inventory of thousands. I could take an armful of tapes into my local district attorney, point out how they are indeed in violation of Miller, and s/he can agree with me, but there are no mechanisms in place to deal with prosecuting the manufacturer of those tapes, who is not local, without involving the federal government.
It would take an nation-wide grass roots effort on the part of informed citizens to selectively initiate dialog between their local prosecutors and the federal government to initiate federal prosecution in Los Angeles County which would effetely stop the shipment of obscene material out of California into other states.
Funny how some people in the adult industry will rail against guns, drugs, and other distasteful or illegal activities, but they will not speak out against obscenity in their midst. Why is it falling to me to provide the government with a blueprint for action? Is this revenge for being "blackballed" from the business? Am I acting out of spite? Of course not!
I love sex. Specifically, I love heterosexual sex. I love porn, in its spectacle and in its intimacy. I love bukkake! But I hate rape and abuse and faggotry in the name of heterosexuality, and that is what has evolved into the norm for porn, disguised by the pretty Vivid Girl boxes, lurking behind the Howard Sterns and Andrew Dice Clays (remember him?), the Max Hardcores and John Staglianos, and the satanic "bible of the industry," which posits a prolapsed rectum as a "colon rose" and asks us to find it erotic.
Proof Of Regressive Lesbian Breeding
Dudley Moore writes: Luke, here are two more glaring examples that are completely consistent with the lesbian breeding model I proposed Thursday, and which totally vindicate my view that the lesbian breeding model for the family is a regressive breeding alternative that evolved in competition with the modern heterosexual family model:
Example 1: Hugh Hefner's very public choice of 4(now 3) highly exhibitionistic ultrafemmes over his (presumably)heterosexual wife and family is a direct confirmation of the regressive lesbian breeding model I proposed. The suggestion that Hugh and his dates have group sex is very public, which again, begs us to understand what's happening in terms of a regression to the lesbian breeding model. By the way, can anyone confirm whether Hugh's ultrafemme partners are in fact bi/lesbians?
Example 2: Documented lesbian group sex at today's high schools, as indicated by the new fads of lapdancing and belly rings, both of which, in my opinion strongly evidence the presence of bi/lesbian females. Also, documented reports of actual lesbian group sex at co-ed parties of high schoolers in a recent Frontline documentary, which sited lesbian group sex as a contributing factor in the very serious syphilis outbreak among high schoolers in Conyers, Georgia. See http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/georgia.
Remember, the spread of syphilis and other venereal diseases is at least doubled among bisexual and lesbian women when they pass venereal infections from males among themselves. I further invite your readers to go to http://www.blockbonobofoundation.org for scientific proof of my lesbian breeding model as a very real, adapted alternative to modern-day heterosexual monogamy.
Luke Prays
I woke up around four every morning this week, haunted by the sense of my Jewish responsibility to go to synagogue and pray the morning service (Shacharit) and put on t'fillin. I have not davened shacharit regularly in two years.
But Thursday and Friday morning, I started up again.
It is a totally different experience to start your day repeating these words (which Jews have done for thousands of years) compared to checking my email (my typical wake-up pattern):
My God, the soul thou hast given me is pure; thou hast created it, thou hast formed it and breathed it into me; thou watches it for me and thou wilt take it from me once and thou wilt give it back to me in future time. As long as the soul is in me I acknowledge thee, O Eternal my God and God my fathers, as the master of all creations, Lords of all souls!
Give us faith to do Thy precepts and let not fall us into sin, error
and fault, not into temptation and dishonour and give no dominion about
us to the sinful impulse and keep us at a distance from wicked men and
bad companions, and let us be attached to the impulse to good things
and good actions and force our mind to submit to You...