Friday, October 20th, 2000
Does Babenet Require HIV Testing?
Luke asks porn stud Jeremy Steele who replies: Luke, They Did, Yes, when they were doing live hardcore shows.. In fact The manager at the time.. Had it timed to being valid exactely 30 days to the hour of the day that the test was taken.. One time I was told my test was expired because it was literally two hours old that 30th day... Right now, however, they are not doing any live hardcore couples shows.. It's been a while since it was up, and there's no sign as to if and when it will start again.
Rape, Abuse Necessary For Porno Stardom?
Bitkicker writes on RAME: I also find it strange that the consensus on this group seems to be that one can be an adult film star without any previous history of rape/molestation/abuse. As if somehow in this world where, yes unfortunately, having sex still carries with it some stigma, a healthy person would have no problem being seen by millions with cum on her face, giving rimjobs, etc. No, I'm no crackpot like Andrea Dworkin. I don't believe there is an army of armed goons on every porn set forcing the girls to have sex. That's not necessary, when girls will "consent" to any act imaginable, given their history.
There is a difference in using sex for career advancement behind the scenes, and being filmed for all posterity. If a model has to sleep around to get work, no one outside her immediate circle will necessarily be the wiser. She can maintain some semblence of a legitimate image. If said model becomes a porn star, now potentially millions will be watching. I wouldn't necessarily object to the former, as it's more rational. Becoming an adult entertainer just doesn't make sense for pure monetary reasons. Therefore, emotional issues are the only possible motivation.
Pat Riley replies: Hmmm. If everyone were perfectly logical all the time and balanced the long-term costs versus the short term advantages and had all the opportunities that they should have in society, maybe you might be right. Unfortunately that's not the case for many people.
Firstly, "abuse" is a much abused
Secondly, not all girls in the industry do every "act imaginable". I don't believe Tera Patrick for example has been used by Max, nor has she appeared in one of Anabolic/Diabolic's people-abuse movies, nor IIRC has she even done a Bukkake or for that matter appeared in Doctor Fellatio. Many preserve some modicum of self-respect.
Speaking generally and specifically not about Tera nor one of the "promoted as highly educated" old biddies Tal keeps going on about, I don't believe that any significant number of the girls in the industry were abused (see definition above) in their childhood. I do believe that most come from broken--in some fashion: unmarried mother, divorced, widowed--homes. Many seem to have moved around a lot as a child, and many seem to have no education beyond a GED which is usually very easy to get in most states and is typical of the girl who gets pregnant before she finishes high school. Many admit to unmarried motherhood and for many from the state of their bellies it's obvious whether they admit it or not.
Drug-abuse, alcoholism, and a generally rebellious attitude seem common among most of the girls, things that are evident in their first movies, not something for which you can blame the industry. Despite all the "legalize drugs" crowd, I have first hand knowledge of the use of marijuana being of considerable detriment to the academic progress of teenagers and consequently their job prospects.
Consequently picture the rebellious teenager, not working in school, perhaps with an addiction problem, pregnant or an unmarried mother, with an unsupportive single parent. Just what sort of normal job do you think such a person will get? A succession of jobs at minimum wage is about the best she's going to achieve and that's not going to support her and her child(ren), nor provide the thrill-a-minute lifestyle she seeks.
But there is one job she's eminently equipped to handle: a whore in some form or another. And it pays well in the short term and that's all she's really concerned about. If she thought about the long-term consequences she would have never become an unmarried mother and she would have put aside the pot or booze and worked in school. So she can hook on the streets or through some outcall hooker service both of which have pimp problems and some risk, or she can join the relative safety of the porn business. She also probably is or has aspirations to dance in the nudie bar, something which pays more than the porn business but as a career suffers from the same short-termism as porn. Eventually she'll pay the price (as will we, watching her do a comeback at age 50) but this is not very visible to the teenager or twentysomething. So the upshot of all this is that the female porn performer is making a rational decision to her and for her situation and given her short term mindset. No child abuse necessary.
BTW, this has arisen or has been exacerbated by the generally libertarian stance of "Let them stew in their own juices; we owe no duty to anyone else in society" that seems prevalent on usenet and in this group and is probably more common in the degraded culture of society generally that has developed in the last ten or twenty years.
As to Tera in particular, I have no idea as to her motherhood status but she does look a little flabby around the belly. Further she's far too big and heavy to be a top level fashion model. No way is she going to compete with the likes of Kate Moss or for that matter any of the girls I see in the fashion magazines. What does she have left? How rebellious is she? Is she willing to work at school and forgo nice clothes for a few years and then take a boring job which requires getting out of bed at 7.00 a.m. each day and which doesn't provide enough bucks for the designer dress she was wearing at the AVN awards? Or is it easier for her to just spread her thighs a few times a week on video or a web site?
Kate Hudson's Arrival On L.A.X.
From the LAWeekly.com: According to Mr. Marigold, a self-described “world’s leading authority on the X-rated industry,” use of movie reviews and other “quote socially redeeming material unquote” as the pretext for celebrity front pages is far from unprecedented: Past X . . . Press cover girls have included Kim Basinger, Liv Tyler and Boogie Nights “Roller Girl” Heather Graham. Has this sort of “fair use” ever drawn legal action by the studios? Never, says Marigold. (A legal expert agrees that the film review probably protects the use of the cover photo by X . . . Press, although he says it is a gray area. Hudson’s representative was unavailable for comment.) The standard, Marigold claims, is “Any publicity is better than no publicity. Or, in the words of legendary Twentieth Century Fox publicist Jed Fore, ‘Sell it, don’t smell it.’”
Ed Powers Dirty Debutantes
Ballyhoo writes on RAME: Is it my imagination or has the quality of his movies slightly worsened? I love the series but I noticed ever since he changed his studio/bedroom, the colors don't seem right anymore. Anyone agree?
Dishman replies: Yes. I think it has something to do with the type of camera he has been using. He must have watched a Rob Black or Michael Raven video and decided that he, too, needed the stupid video effects instead of a good, clean picture where we can clearly see what's going on.
As far as Ed in general, I have a love/hate relationship. I love alot of the fresh, young women has has procurred and used over the years but I hate him as a performer. Lately, since he started the marathon video output, the quality of both has gone downhill. There have been many of the DD 2000 vids I haven't even bothered to rent. And since he lost(fired?) Jake Steed, it's been much worse. The prospect of Ed being the only male performer on these vids make it a dismal one at best.
Pat Riley adds: It can get worse. In #155 he has a guy called Erv The Perv who's the manager/pimp/boyfriend of Gina Fox to supposedly perform a scene with her. Erv looks somewhat like Ron Jeremy...well, a cross between Ron Jeremy and an aged Hells Angel...well, maybe Don Marque from the Dane Productions movies...hey, all three rolled into one! IOW he's disgusting and to top it off he can't manage to get an erection. For about 30 minutes he tries to get his flaccid dick to stand up, makes jokes about it, licks her feet, etc. She works hard too--you can see the sweat forming on her--and although she's not exactly a 10 she should be able to get most males up. I mean we're not talking Roseanne level here. Well, I think Erv finally gets the head in (manually) for about ten seconds (the FF button is taking a beating and I'm nearly asleep) but that's it. Ed steps in and suggests that he can save the day! The ego of this guy! So she gives Ed a BJ. Of course one could also question how Gina could actually take up with such an ugly guy but that's not the point.
Dishman replies: Now that just about sums up how bad Ed has gotten. Why on earth would anyone put this footage in a video that is being commercially released? Does Ed really think we would be interested in seeing some loser attempting (and failing) to get it up ? Is it just to prove (again) what a wonderful, virile stud Ed is ? Come on, I don't want to see crap like this and I doubt anyone else does either.
On the one hand, I don't blame Ed for continuing to perform in front of the camera as I, too, would like to be the one screwing most of these youngish girls. Once he steps behind the camera and gets someone else to do the stud work, he will no longer get to sample all these cuties. We know they are not going to do him for free and if he pays them to screw him, that would be illegal ;o). So performing is his only way to continue to get all that good stuff.
I'm willing to bet Ed's overall sales are taking as bad a beating as Riley's FF button since he's gone into overdrive mode and starting releasing 3 vid as week. Maybe he's trying to make as much money as possible before calling it quits sometime soon. Hey, it was a good concept in it's day but I think he stayed too long at the party.
Rob contributes: I have nothing intelligent to contribute to this thread aside from commenting that I've never seen a RAME subject heading with the words: "Ed Powers" and "quality" together. Weird.
Voyager7 writes: He lost it when he went from his upper lower class bedroom set with the black lacquer furniture and his secret charm, his black sox, errr I mean his ever present purple bedspread. (it was a set, dry wall went up about 12 feet, well maybe 16 feet, two 4x8 ft. sheets on top of each other....
Once in the peeps, I awoke after flipping to one of his scenes and the camera for a few seconds was pointed at about a 60 degree angle to the ceiling. You could see the "bedroom" was a dry wall enclosure within some warehouse with about 50 ft. steel girder ceilings) He musta lost his lease, had to hock his camera(s) to get his new frilly female oriented digs. Now his camera work is still poor, but where before he had at least some sort of acceptable lower level porn lighting, his scenes now are aglow in a sea of yellow and orange tints.
Fortunately for us, he didn't have to hock his black sox!
Mike South On Eyada.com
Mike writes: hey Luke, just wanted to let everyone know I will be on Eyada.com Friday night Oct. 20th. at 10PM EDT. I highly suggest everyone give it a look I will have 2 doll babies on the show with me and there are cameras in the studio so they will be able to see us and I expect the girls to put on quite a show. thats the Bob Berkowitz show on www.eyada.com.
Also, yes, I have talked to AVN about taking over for Gene Ross, no final decision has been made, if and when I am officially offered the position I will tell everyone all about it.
Luke Gets Mail
Aghast writes: The shirtless Christlike pose of you from "Sell Me Your Soul" was truly disturbing. You have very large areolas for a man, you know.
Chaim writes: I had to have lunch yesterday with two 40-ish spinster/divorced women, out of shape, bitter, angry; the sort of women who have lost the ability to produce estrogen and are instead cranking out male sex hormones. A very very grim experience. Such women should be kept out of sight, at home, raising their teenage children or grandkids, or they should be sent to special cities run by lesbians where they can be themselves without offending anyone else. A few dates with that young woman and you will thank God that you were rejected by all the spinsters you sought.
Rumdar writes: Unfortunately I have dated a few. Another phenomena of this type of woman is they cannot relax and be grateful there is someone out there who still has an interest in porking them. They make the same unreasonable demands they did when they were 25 and young enough to get away with it.. When they can't find some jerk to buy into their shtick they become more bitter and angry. They eventually get a dog or cat and give up altogether. "I am not going to date again until I find that special guy who is interested in a serious relationship" Good Luck..Mr. Wonderful never shows up and eventually the animals dies. Very gloomy.
Ian Elliott writes: Re the following in your 19 October bulletin: "Since you are on the topic of sports. You should consider the media play between the 4x100 relay team including Marice Green,(which I would agree was unsportsman like conduct) as they gloated and posed before the crowd after their victory..."
I've come across a number of similarly critical remarks about the behaviour of the US 4x100m relay team after their Sydney success, and it appears that the team have felt obliged to apologize for it. I am neither black nor American, but I watched the episode on British television and remarked to my wife at the time how nice it was to see these young men so pleased with their own performance. The exaggerated posturing was obviously a bit of fun - not an indication that they thought themselves better than everyone else. The episode strikes me as just another example of a humourless media criticising something perfectly innocent just for the sake of a divisive headline.
Andy writes: porn has become the mysogenystic garbage feminists have always said it was. these girls aren't having sex, they are being abused. how can anyone defend max hardcore?
Baal Worship In Porn Valley
Today's Chick tract retells the Biblical story of Ahab and Jezebel. Their foolish earthly lust and disrespect for the one true God cost them dearly in the end. Porners won't you learn from their mistakes? Brother Chick beseeches you to turn back to God. Click here: Going To The Dogs
Give Me Your Soul
Director Paul Cowan's National Film Board of Canada 80-minute documentary "Give Me Your Soul" on the sex industry shows on the Canadian TV program "The Passionate Eye" October 29th at 10PM on CBC Newsworld (there is also a channel, Newsworld International, that airs in the United States).
From the NFB.ca website:
Enter the strange world of commercial porn films, where voyeurism meets the profit motive to the tune of $8 billion a year. The feature-length NFB documentary Give Me Your Soul… premieres at 10:00 pm, Sunday, October 29 on CBC Newsworld's The Passionate Eye Sunday Showcase.
Filmmaker Paul Cowan encounters an unusual cast of real-life characters, observing their pursuit of fame and fortune with a seasoned cinematographer's eye. From the casting couch to the shooting stage and the world's first porn conference, Cowan reveals a complex human drama in which dark comedy vies with genuine pathos.
There's Katie June Moon, who gets on a Greyhound bus in Tennessee and gets off in Los Angeles, determined to be a porn star. And her mother Dolly, a stage mama who proudly displays childhood snaps of her little girl, already dolled up to look like a sexpot.
Then there's Bill Margold, a former actor, now "managing" young talent, who takes Katie underwing. Margold remembers his pleasure in humiliating female co-stars; revenge, he says, against all those blond cheerleaders who rejected him in highschool.
Among the predictable array of sleazy producers and agents are more surprising characters like Luke F-rd, a troubled convert to orthodox Judaism, who hosts one website on ethics and another on the porn trade. Ford incurs the wrath of the industry when he goes public with news of an HIV epidemic among porn actors.
And there are the performers themselves - JD Ram, a conflicted young man with a shot at stardom, and Kimberly Jade, whose flourishing career goes terribly wrong.
In the best documentary tradition, Cowan avoids sensationalism or easy conclusions, creating instead a complex tableau of life inside the porn industry, offering a film that elicits a range of responses.
Give Me Your Soul… was directed and photographed by Paul Cowan, and edited by Hannele Halm. It was produced by Adam Symansky and Paul Cowan for the National Film Board of Canada. Sally Bochner is executive producer.
Luke says: I appear early in the program, in a black executioner's mask peering in through a window. Underneath reads the captions: "By the late 20th Century, watching porn had become chic. Although being a porn star was still a very questionable career move."
Then the scene shifts to the 1998 World Pornography Conference in Universal City.
The narration, written by director Paul Cowan, is intelligent and perceptive.
"But society's acceptance of porn is not without limits. Those who do porn, the actors, are still considered misfits. This is a film about them."
The title of the documentary, "Give Me Your Soul," comes from a Bill Margold quote.
Shortly after the title sequence, the NFB follows Dr. Susan Block into the ladies room.
"Inside the room are two journalists. Matt Labash, who writes for the Weekly Standard. And Luke F-rd, who has a website devoted to the porn business."
Soon we see Brittany Andrews tell journalists: "I'm a model. I masturbate. And I'm an actress, all in one. I'm a multi-faceted female."
Matt Labash tells the camera: "It's pretty simple. These people like to f---. More than that, they like to watch people f---. You can ascribe all sorts of purpose to it and make it a discipline and a field of study. But that, at the end of the day, is what it is."
Luke: "I really do think there is room for serious academic study of pornography. I don't have as harsh a view as Matt. Pornography may be the very best revelation of basic male nature. The male animal is not a very nice animal. The greatest task of every civilization is what do you do with the men. Men have to be domesticated... Traditionally that has been through marriage. Pornography reveals what men want."
We then cut to the fans panel at the conference.
Dr. Kaplan tells the small crowd. "Sex has never been easy for me. I attract women sometimes but they don't get where I am coming from. I do something dumb to screw it up."
Narrator: "The one panel at PornCon that almost nobody attends is perhaps the most revealing. It's made up of men who watch porn, a lot. It's mostly single lonely men but they have a champion."
Bill Margold: "My name is Bill Margold for those who don't know me. And if you don't, then you're big trouble because I've been around a very long time [but not involved in one leading porn film] and hopefully you've jacked off to me."
Dr. Kaplan then leads a chant. "I masturbate. It feels good. I am proud." Few people join in.
The camera then cuts to an earnest elderly academic who talks about the many professional conferences he's attended. "I considered myself very liberal, sophisticated and open minded."
Narrator: "At the end of the conference, there's one final consciousness raiser."
Professor: "I've seen more intelligence, more humanism, more sensitivity than in many professional meetings."
Applause.
Narrator: "Bill Margold thrives on the adulation..."
Camera pans celebrating hugging porners then cuts to me sitting soberly alone at the back of the room.
Narrator: "After the excitement of PornCon, Bill Margold retreats to his sanctuary where he lives alone."
Bill on the phone: "Michael has already told Christian [Mann] that the one word he wants to see on Jeffrey's [Douglas] resume is 'resign.'"
Narrator: "His meager income comes from managing his small small apartment block and being the trade fair coordinator for the Free Speech Coalition [and setting up wealthy fans with porn stars]."
Bill: "I knew I wanted to get into the business to be the very first person to write about it."
The camera cuts to me spraying down the path outside my apartment.
Narrator: "Not far from Margold's apartment is Luke F-rd's one room converted garage. It is here where Ford writes his website devoted to the porn industry. On the site, which gets 50,000 hits a day, Ford often posts his reader's sexual musings. Like Ford, many of them have a troubled relationship with porn.
"A few years ago, Ford converted to Judaism. Later, when he started writing on porn, he neglected to tell his rabbi what he was up to."
The camera cuts to Rob Spallone's shooting house on Grimes Street in Woodland Hills.
Narrator: "Part of Luke F-rd's job is covering porn shoots. That's not as easy as it seems. Ford's take on the business is not particularly porn friendly which closes a lot of doors. This is one of the few locations where Ford is welcome. That's because the landlord, Rob Spallone, like Ford, does not always play by the rules."
Rob: "They've got to get nastier than that."
Luke: "I mainly write about the people in the industry. I concentrate on the human drama. Still, writing about pornography places me in conflict with my religion and with my highest ideals. The way I justify it to myself and to my coreligionists is that I am simply writing on a part of life. There are journalists who cover mafia, there are journalists who cover communism, there are journalists who cover porn."
Paul Cowan to Rob Spallone: "Why are you friends with Luke and nobody else is?"
Rob: "You don't know the story of how I met Luke? I'm going to have to tell you. Jim DiGiorgio called me up one day and said 'Your name is all over the website.' He reads it to me that Rob Spallone is some wiseguy from New York who goes around beating people up with a baseball bat. I say, what? Tell him to be in my office tomorrow at 2PM.
"Luke's in the office sitting there and I say, 'If I'm such a bad guy, wouldn't I f---ing kill you?' And he got all nervous. I scared the s--- out of him.
"Yeah, I did beat up a guy with a baseball bat but that was only because he owed my company money and he didn't pay. He deserved it and he knew he deserved it. That's where I got that little bit of a reputation."
We cut to Bill Margold talking to Dirty Bob on the phone about picking up a new girl at the bus station.
Narrator: "Margold's apartment often serves as a crashpad for new girls. A way station on the way to God knows where... The one time there wasn't a girl staying there was when Bill had a girlfriend, Viper. When Viper dropped him after three years, Margold found out that his heart could be broken. For all practical purposes, that heart is now off limits."
Bill: "This maybe the first time I've ever gone to a bus station to get a girl. This is amazing because you always have these horror stories about our industry. These girls getting off the bus and getting whisked into the dens of pornographic iniquity. I've been to the airport 100 times."
Narrator: "The girl that Bill will soon pick up was attracted to the world of sex early on. The day she turned 18, she walked down to the local strip club and got naked.
"Bill Margold is closing in on the new kid. He won't have sex with her. He won't make any money from her. But unwittingly she validates who he is.
"Bill's new girl [Katie June] has already made a couple of adult films. Now she wants to move into the big time."
Bill tells Katie: "You're not doing anything illegal. You may be shattering moralities..."
Katie giggles: "What does 'shattering moralities' mean?"
Bill: "Having sex and getting paid for it, performing in front of a camera, taking what people tend to hold as sacred and making it into a performing art..."
The scene switches to World Modeling. Jim South Jr takes Polaroids of a nude Katie June.
Narrator: "Jim South Jr is the designated shooter here [of nude new talent]. In the last four years, Junior has managed the concentration to shoot the last four shots several thousand times."
Paul: "So Jim what potential do you see for Katie?"
Jim South Sr: "She's natural breasted, which does help... She's young looking... She's not an older girl. She seems very enthusiastic. I'm told that she does boy-girl and girl-girl. I think we can just about book her every day while she's here."
Katie: "When I was in high school, I was a cheerleader. I had girl friends, guy friends. I did things with them. I was very sociable. But I had a talent that nobody else really understood. Which was, I loved sex."
Katie talks about making porn a career. She praises her "wonderful mother" who packed her bags for the trip to Porn Valley.
Bill: "I'm concerned for her. I think that Katie June needs to be educated on contraception. She admitted to not taking any birth control or doing anything to prevent pregnancy. I will try and see to it that she goes to one of the holistic clinics and gets a diaphragm."
Camera cuts to Jim South on the phone with a client.
Jim looks uncomfortable with his conversation being taped.
Jim to client: "You can tell them that you shoot the regular stuff but that you've got this shoot bimdeedeedebom... That and I am on camera right now. They're doing a documentary... No, no, no, that's fine. I have't said anything yet."
Richard Pacheco talks about his career.
Richard: "Then the kids came and everything went up into the attic."
Narrator: "One of the attic videos is this one [picture shows a lamp swaying on a table next to a bed, with loud sounds of two people having sex] which was shot by the film director's son [Anthony Spinelli's son, possibly Mitchell] which chronicles Richard Pacheco's big scene with Seka. The boy had never witnessed live sex before and was so shocked that he had fled the set and left the camera running."