Sunday, June 17th, 2001

President Bush bones up on porn for impending obscenity crackdown - Pictures don't lie! Do they?

John Ashcroft's first obscenity prosecution - Public Enemy # 1 . . . DICK DUNDEE !

In Celebration Of The Los Angeles Lakers

Porn star Sinnamon writes on BigDoggie.net: Because I am so very ecstatic about the Laker's victory, I am offering a special rate for the next 3 days. I won't say how much, but at this rate, you'l definatley want to give it a go! Email me for more details, the special begins Monday and lasts for 3 days only! All you have to do is email me with the subject, "the Lakers rule the courts!" in the subject line to receive this deal of a lifetime...

Marlowe writes: Kimberly Kupps is astounding. You can NOT go wrong with her. I saw her twice and am still reeling months later!

Patrick Riley Answers Heather Barron's Questions

>Heather Barron Asks The Tough Questions >What is the average life span of the female porn star?

Pat Riley writes: Any answer would be meaningless. There are hundreds of girls who enter the porn industry each year and disappear after a couple of (usually pro-am) movies. Against that there are people like Chloe Nichole who seem to go on forever.

>Who has or is having the longest lived career?

Female: probably Sharon Mitchell (the blood lady) who does an occasional sexual appearance. Male: Joey Silvera or if you count people who haven't been seen in a while, Eric Edwards. The latter had on-screen sex in the sixties, seventies, eighties, and nineties (1995).

>Does f---ing at volume change the size of texture of the clit > or the inner or outer lips?

Are you looking for a depreciation deduction?

>Do you know of a porn star who actually screamed or cried > during anal or while being DP'd?

For real, yes, Aspen Brock. Others in similar situations such as Rochelle DeVore in 18 And Nasty #21 are probable but any on-screen evidence is not shown.

>Are there any porn stars that made movies while pregnant?

Are you crazy? There's a whole subset of porn devoted to videoing preggers having sex. See the Ready To Drop series. Some have appeared in a non-pregnant state either before or after. Best known: Sunset Thomas.

>Were any porn stars actually so nervous in a scene that they were > shaking?

Plenty of shaking porn stars in the pro-am. How about catatonic as in Halo in Real Sex Magazine #16?

Heather Barron writes Luke: Just wanted to say that your discussion of the hierarchy of the sex industry was right on target. I think a lot of porn stars don't want to admit to escorting because it makes them seem too accessible and as if they are common. However, making $500-1500 for a full day of f---ing strangers on film and doing a video which might show the female talent or sex act in a degrading light, seems well, desperate and driven by a need for attention, money for drugs or a sign of deep rooted problems. I have seen Christy Myst in person and I think she is downright beautiful. Why she'd allow Extreme to market her in the light they did is a mystery to me. Gang bang hardcore with a degrading slant, "slut" labeling, facials, in poor taste box covers...

Imagine a man showing up on your doorstep with flowers, candy and giving you a big hug. You go out to dinner with him for 2 hour and talk like you are old friends. You then go back to a private location, talk some more, about your lives, your hopes, your fears and your goals for the future...then you play all night long. There still seems something more respectful about that then the world of porn unless of course you are friends with your porn co-workers. Sex amongst strangers that don't attempt to connect on an emotional or mental level is degrading, whether it be in porn or in life. Television, film and radio have a way of adding flash and texture to anything. Everyone wants to be in the presence of a movie star and many porn girls are convinced they are of this category. But my guess is, not too many big ticket legit actors and actresses currently have to suck dick to pay their rent. But keep reading...

I saw a comment somewhere, Jenna described as an Erotic Artist by one of her publicity people. I tuned into JennaVision for the first time last night and saw a 3 way with Jenna, Asia and some guy. The camera work was incredible. First shot; Jenna rubbing her own pussy....you think it's a masturbation scene with Jenna alone. Wrong. Camera pulls back. Asia under her licking her. A girl/girl? Wrong. Camera pulls back. Asia being f---ed missionary. The advent of surprise and tease do make porn an art form. And all 3 look like they are having a great time. There is even one moment where Asia smiles at Jenna jokingly and you wonder if they are enjoying some private joke. The scene held my attention for over 30 minutes and 3 orgasms worth. After watching it, I didn't doubt whether Jenna or Asia were performance artists. In fact, I was convinced they were. I still don't know who the guy was and I really don't care. What can I say, I'm a typical guy.

While Tracy Lord is constantly bashed for one thing or another, I think she's a good symbol of porn in America. She did manage to crossover to mainstream TV and film. The last appearance of her on Stern showed real regret in her eyes though. You can tell she couldn't get ahead because of the stigma. She wanted to put porn behind her and she couldn't. Contemporary America wants nothing to do with porn in mainstream TV. You can put a porn star on an adult themed comedy or an interview show but those who work in the sex industry, whether they be strippers, porn stars, escorts or adult models will always be separated from the real world and all that wholesome programming.

I remember the first day I arrived in LA about a year ago. I couldn't figure out where all these young girls were getting the money to drive $50-70,000 cars. They were wearing designer clothes and hanging out all day, shopping, sipping coffee at cafes and well, doing nothing really. On the east coast, there is less of that. A pretty 20 year old will be seen driving a used Ford Taurus with dents. She's on her way to her $9 an hour job as a receptionist. And she's saving what she can so she can take a class in Microsoft Excel and go to the beach with her boyfriend during the summer. Los Angeles is f---ed up. Nothing here is real. And if women didn't have pussies, they'd most certainly be walking.

So, back to the initial question...who's a bigger whore, an escort or a porn star?...the adult film company or the pimp? That's like asking who's to blame, the drug dealer or the addict? If you are not making a positive impact on society and to the future generations, you will eventually be forgotten and disposed of. Good triumphs over evil...at least in the movies.

Where Do You Go To Find Quality People?

I entered porn in the fall of 1995 because I thought it would be the most likely place to find people who practiced the type of values I aspired to - self discipline, self denial, restraint, dignity, ambition, charity and commitment to family.

["Brandy Alexandre chirps: If it weren't for the Judaism I could have sworn you were looking for me. It is sad to see these qualities absent in porn. It's as if they embrace society's assessment of them like being obscene is a good thing (but getting pissed off when they are asked to pay for obscenity they create) and give up all goals efforts towards being quality individuals. It's a "why bother, I'm already a loser because I'm in porn" attitude."]

Instead I found that many pornographers despised these values, instead prefering to lead dissolute lives devoted to their own temporary pleasures, no matter what the cost to their own longterm happiness and the health of those around them.

Orthodox Judaism is my home today because I've located there the greatest concentration of the highest quality people - folks who pay their taxes, support their family, give charity, pursue learning and frequently deny themselves present pleasures for the sake of future benefit.

I walked to my shul Saturday morning to spend four hours with elevated people studying and reciting elevated texts in an elevated manner. Then I hung out at kiddish (food and drink in a sanctified atmosphere) and talked with quality friends. I hoped that one of them would invite me home for lunch but when that did not turn out, I walked to another shul where the davening (prayers) got out later. On my way, I ran into some Australian acquaintances who invited me to their beautiful home in Beverly Hills for lunch.

On the way, our lively conversation was spoiled by a car whizzing by blaring loud rock music. The car pulled into the driveway ahead of us and parked. The music stopped. As we walked by, a young man emerged out of the car and walking to his front door, he suddenly yelled at us, with an angry disgusted look on his face, "Do you know where I can find quality people? Because I ain't meeting any."

We were stunned. Why was he talking to us? We were Orthodox Jews, dressed in our finest Sabbath suits, minding our own business.

But he kept jabbering at us. "I'm Jewish. I don't know where to go to meet quality people."

I answer: "Try XXX synagogue, it is on the corner of X and Y streets."

He answered: "I went there once but I didn't meet anyone. And I don't like to go to those places alone. I want someone to go with me."

The answer to his desire of where to find quality people is precisely at synagogues and churches like I mentioned. But there's no quick fix to an empty life. One has to clean up one's speech, dress and behavior, then put yourself around quality people, and over time, if one is worthy, one will make quality friends. But few people are going to befriend an angry uncouth young man who drives around blaring loud obnoxious music.

Then I proceeded on to a gorgeous lunch with wonderful Australians, one of whom was a learned and famous rabbi.

Luke Gets Mail

Lujumar writes: I live in argentina, i love porn, I´m a jewish nice girl, and where is Jon Dough? I love him

Gregory Bowman writes: Hey Luke I just got off the phone with Ashley and she said I can come swimming!! But I had to promise not to pee in the pool. and Devin Saphire I bet doesn't even have a pool. If she did I would make sure to pee in it.

BobBlec from PsT writes: After having gotten to know Ashley Kennedy in #!!!!!!pornstar-trading, I have no doubt that neither the AVN or the Jenna situations were anything more than unfortunate occurrances. I've found her to be very intelligent, and highly conscientious about her work. She has a personality that's powerful enough to light a small town, but at the same time, she's just incredibly cool, too. Ashley's writing is very professional, but she's also got a lot of character, and it's not difficult to respect her as a person, in addition to her professionalism. Plus, she's got a killer set of bazongas!

DSmith writes: Want to know one reason porn marriages fail? Because non-porn wives get older. They're great, but they get older. And the porn stars that their husbands spend their days on the set with get younger and younger. And the wife starts to wonder...is she measuring up? And is her husband simply admiring a pretty face or figure, or is he thinking, "maybe I should do her?"

DvonZell@aol.com writes: Hey Luke what ever happened to Kid Vegas has he finally quited down or is he even still in the biz .....just wondering ..I used to shoot his videos before I went to prison now IM free and looking for work let me know what you know on this Kid Vegas legend

Rachel Worth writes: Luke, Sorry to hear about Brooke Lane's problems subsequent to the filming of Sopornos 3 on June 8. She was quite wonderful on the yacht. You missed a great time, Luke, but I understand your commitment to your therapy. Everyone can check out the fun at http://www.worth-a-million.com for the behind-the-scenes report along with 56 photos. Luckily, I left before the fight broke out between Rob and the yacht owners that you wrote about. Too bad it ended that way. I really had a lot of fun. Jim and Rob were great to me, and the movie looks to be a MUST-SEE.

from jeff in nyc regarding the comments made by inside.com about opie and anthony, I'd like to point out that while they certainly make more money than most of their listeners opie still takes the Long Island Railroad into work every day and anthony drives himself in from Brooklyn. Compare this to Howard Stern(the man they want to emulate)who is driven to and from work in a limo and makes 10 times more money than opie and anthony. As far as raunch being promoted by Viacom/Infinity broadcasting, if shows like Stern and O+A draw ratings and sell ads(which they do very well)what would you expect them to do? promote shows that don't make them money?it's a simple case of good business. By the way, opie+anthony are not Jewish, so dr pierce has no leg to stand on regarding this situation.

Lynne writes: I spent the morning at www.msmuffin.com, reading Muffin's really slick comics. Muffin, a hooker in in real life, does a strip about Muffin, a hooker. Clean art and clever writing makes her work a pleasure to read. Check it out!

Dianna writes Luke: I could not help but compare the difference between the pictures of you on last Sunday's shoot and those from the TV show. On Spallone's set, with the porners, you were relaxed, and the photos are beautiful. On the TV show, you are nervous, and not nearly as attractive.

Luke, for all intents and purposes, you were in daycare yourself during your first four years, when you were passed from caretaker to caretaker on account of your mother's illness. It made you incapable of bonding with any woman -- deep inside, you know that, just as you become attached to her, you'll be torn away. Daycare often has a similar effect.

Bad Jews

Gregory Bowman writes: Luke; I was having a lovely conversation with a friend of mine who happens to be Orthodox like you, and I brought up the question, as Im confident you have discussed before on your site: "Why are all the money makers in porn Jewish?" Yes it is a generalization but to some extent true. After a lengthy discussion, the conclusion was from my good friend that those in porn who are Jews are the "bad Jews". At which time I posed the question; are there not "bad Gentiles too?" Luke would you care to explain from an Orthodox viewpoint my over-simplification of "bad Jews"?

Luke says: You are exactly right. There are bad Jews like there are bad Gentiles and bad Christians and bad blacks.

Gregory replies: Well then the question, Luke, why is the porn industry not a mix of the "bad"? Why is it primarily run by Jews?

Luke says: For the answer to that, you have to read my essay on Jews in porn. On the surface, it seems difficult to understand. Why Italians can be found in porn makes sense as Italians have criminality in their genes, look at the Mafia.

But quickly, here are a few reasons for Jewish domination of pornography:

If the Torah [Pentateuch] commands Jews "to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation," and Judaism strongly opposes porn, why do Jews dominate porn?

The main answer is simple. Jews in porn, like most Jews in academia, media and entertainment, are Jewish in name only. They do little in Jewish life, rarely belong to a synagogue and ignore the Torah. Neither rooted in their own tradition or in that of the majority Christian tradition, they live in a community of rebels.

Why does porn attract so many non-Jewish Jews?

· Used to hatred from society, Jews will do its dirty work - such as money lending in the Middle Ages or porn today - to make money. Persecuted for millennia in the various societies they've lived in, many Jews developed an allegiance to their own survival as their highest value and care little about the survival of the persecuting society. Even when Jews live in a society that welcomes them instead of harassing them, many Jews hate the majority culture.

· Because Jews frequently despise the majority culture, and despite being traditional in most of their values and rituals, Jews seem open to new ways of doing business. Not rooted in the status quo that frequently hates them, Jews often lead the way in the application of new technology - such as printing presses, radio, TV, cable television, VCRs and computers. And the most popular application of new technology for millennia has been porn.

· Because of Judaism's emphasis on education and verbal dexterity, Jews dominate academia, entertainment and media generally.

· Belonging to the "Chosen Ones" brings self-confidence, and it takes a strong sense of self to thrive in an industry like porn that is disdained by the public. Male performers particularly need confidence to achieve on camera erections.

Pornographer Seymore Butts attributes the large number of Jews in porn to the desire for profits. "Jews gravitate towards money. "We're smart people who've been persecuted throughout time. The weak of our people were weeded out. The strong-willed Jews survived...from Egypt to Germany.

"Blacks, for instance, are athletically superior (more muscle fiber per square inch of flesh) because they were bred that way. We killed the weak ones off. The ones that survived were the big ones, the fast ones, the strongest ones, the fighters, the ones that could work the most, with the biggest cocks... Jews same thing. We network, the one thing that blacks don't do. They're still killing each other. We support each other. The worst that we will do is sue each other.

"If four people compete for a job, and three of them are goyim [non-Jews], the Jew, all things being equal, will get the job. That's the way I work. If I've got three actors going for a part, and one of them is Jewish, and they're all in the same ballpark... Sue me."

Bad Jews and Dumb Goyim - The Torah is Meant to Keep the Two Apart

Chaim Amalek writes: God chose the jews to be the MasterRace of mankind. However, He soon realized that this had cruel consequences for the less intelligent goyim of creation, so to protect them from the depredations of the jews while still providing free will to one and all, he gave the jews the Torah (both written and oral) by which they might be fenced in. Rest assured that those jews who today live on the Toral Corral (like Chaim Amalek) are no threat to the gentle gentiles of the world. It is the secular liberal jew, with his notions of marxism, tolerance of the sodomite and the transgendered, creator both of socialism and feminism, who is the mortal enemy of the gentile world. I say this in the hope that when you goyim awake from your deep moral stupor (an increasingly unlikely event) and begin dealing with the Jew problem in your midst, you will leave me alone. I hope this clears everything up.

Connect The Dots, You Dumb Goyim

Chaim Amalek writes: Luke, I have just discovered that the "Laura Croft" Tomb Raider franchise is a tool of racial genocide. The evidence:

1. Made by jewish Hollywood

2. Geared to young adolescent white males

3. The star of the movie (herself rumored to have engaged in the most unnatural of relationships) is the daughter of a man who shills for the Chabad movement (who also appears in the movie). I leave it to the more intellectually ambitious among your readers to connect the dots.

Transcript Of Talk Of The Nation

06/14/2001
NPR: Talk of the Nation
Copyright 2001 National Public Radio, Inc.

JUAN WILLIAMS, host: It's TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Juan Williams. It's a taboo topic. No one casually admits to watching pornography in the way people mention that they saw a ballgame or Hollywood movie last night. But Americans are watching pornography. In fact, the entertainment dollars spent to buy pornographic movies is far greater than the money spent to buy baseball, basketball or football tickets. And as The New York Times recently reported in its Sunday Magazine, if you include the money spent on pornography in hotels, phone sex, pay-per-view sex movies on cable and satellite TV, as well as the Internet and magazines, then it's obvious that pornography is very big American business. What does the tremendous success of pornography tell us about America? How has pornography jumped into the mainstream of American life from the seedy, rundown stores that were once the only source of so-called dirty movies? And how can it be that major American corporations, including Marriott and General Motors face no backlash from either the religious community or the political right wing for their involvement with the growing porn industry? Pornography: You may know what it is when you see it, but do you realize the extent of its popularity? And why does it remain the pink elephant in the room of American morality? Our guests this hour on TALK OF THE NATION are Frank Rich, senior staff writer at The New York Times Magazine, which recently published his piece about pornography. It was headlined Naked Capitalists. Welcome to TALK OF THE NATION, Frank Rich.

Mr. FRANK RICH (The New York Times): Nice to talk to you, Juan.

WILLIAMS: Thanks for coming. Also with us today is Paul Fishbein, founder and editor of AVN, the Adult Video News. Paul, welcome to TALK OF THE NATION.

Mr. PAUL FISHBEIN (Editor, AVN): Hi. How are you?

WILLIAMS: Fine, thank you. Well, I wanted to ask you, Frank, to begin by reminding everyone that you were once The New York Times theater critic, and you recently wrote in this New York Times Magazine piece--you said--this is a quote--"At $10 billion, porn is no longer a sideshow to the mainstream, like, say, the $600 million Broadway theater industry. Porn is now the mainstream." Is porn really mainstream, Frank?

Mr. RICH: I don't know if it's really mainstream, but clearly it's mainstream in the sense that middle America is watching it. A lot of people are watching it, and one of the things I learned in doing this piece is, I realized it was all around me in my daily life, more than I thought. I'd never really looked, for instance, in my own Time Warner cable service to see that all the high-numbered channels were running porn pay-per-view all night, or noticed as I traveled around the country there's this whole network of strip clubs--one of them is, of course, quite in the news now in Atlanta--where porn performers appear. So it's there. It's everywhere. It's coming in by satellite, by cable as well as video rentals and the rest of it, and yet, we all sort of pretend it's not there, so it's sort of a closeted mainstream part of the culture.

WILLIAMS: Well, what does it say, then, to you--I mean, you're not just a theater critic, you're not just a senior staff writer at The Times, but you're a cultural critic to my mind, and I wonder what it says to you. I know at the end of your article in the magazine you wrote that `moralists like to see in pornography a decline in our standards, but in truth, it's an all-too-ringing affirmation of them,' meaning our standards, and you said that `porn is no more or less imaginative than much of the junk in the entertainment mainstream, though unlike much of that junk, it does have an undeniable practical use. In that regard, anyway, there may be no other product in the entire cultural marketplace that is more explicitly American.'

Mr. RICH: Well, yes. It certainly has its pragmatic use, which we don't have to go into this afternoon. But look, this is a week when a major television network debuted a series in prime time, when kids can see it, with rats, you know, attacking humans or being dropped on humans. The level of our pop culture is not extraordinarily high, with some exceptions, and a lot of the porn--or a lot of it that I watched for this piece is sort of in the same vein. It's very formulaic. I find it deadening. I know some people find it erotic, but then some people find, you know, "The Weakest Link" entertaining. I don't find that entertaining, either. A lot of it is funny, or meant to be funny, some of it's meant to be suspenseful. So it sort of is part of the same pop culture pot, except that it has explicit sex in it. But even the explicit sex, to my mind, at least in the material I saw, is so formulaic, it's structured as ritualistically as a joke on a sitcom or, you know, something in a martial arts movie in terms of when the sex scenes come in.

WILLIAMS: Paul Fishbein, founder and editor of the Adult Video News, which is now a very large publication, very successful--Paul, I wanted to ask you to fill us in on exactly how successful the porn industry is in this country. I know that--I read a quote from you when you said it appeals to all demographics. So that means all corners of American life, you can find pornography.

Mr. FISHBEIN: Right. I think if you discuss with, say, a video retailer who has either an adult section or has an adult store, who are their customers--or ask who their customers are, and you'll find that there are couples, married couples or dating couples, you'll find older men in their 60s, you'll find kids in college, you'll find everything in between. And in some cases, when stores are merchandised a certain way, women going in by themselves--with their girlfriends or by themselves to buy some sort of a movie, a DVD or perhaps a novelty item. And, you know, when you talk to retailers, you find that it spans across all demographics, age groups, racial lines. Economic barriers are broken. I mean, it just--it's sex, sex sells, and we're all sexual people, so I think everybody has some sort of interest in sexual material.

WILLIAMS: But, you know, Paul, I was surprised when I read that women are the fastest-growing segment of the porn-buying audience. I thought, you know, generally--maybe I'm falling for stereotypes--women were not interested in porn.

Mr. FISHBEIN: You're going back to a stereotype that I guess traditionally was in place. If you kind of look at the history of this business and remember that people would have to go to a theater to see an adult movie prior to the late '70s or early '80s, so the image of a man in a raincoat going into a theater is correct. I mean, that's really what the audience was. With the advent of home video, people were now able to watch this in the privacy of their own home, so no longer did they have to go out in public and risk seeing a neighbor or venture into a seedy part of town to go into a theater. They could go into their local store, take a tape home, and watch it in the privacy of their own home. So you have privacy and you have the matter of somebody making a personal choice that nobody has to know about, and if the husband brings it home, nobody has to know that the woman is watching it. So, again, because most pornographic material is consumed in the privacy of one's home, it's a whole different ballgame than going into a theater and being seen in public. So I think that's why women who are interested in erotic material now can consume it in much more privacy.

WILLIAMS: Now, Frank, you went around America looking--because I think you were just stunned at the numbers, at the extent to which this was a successful enterprise. Am I right?

Mr. RICH: That's right. I mean, when I first read some of the numbers in Variety a couple of years ago that I started, it flagged me in a way. And as someone who likes to look at the culture and try to read it as best I can, I thought, `Gee, this is something that's not normally covered by The New York Times,' or, for that matter, Variety or NPR or any mainstream media, except as a joke or something to pump up numbers. In sweep weeks, there'll always be a local, you know, TV news item about a crackdown on a sex show or something. So I thought it might be interesting to see what it was really about.

WILLIAMS: And, Frank, when you went out there, what did you find? I mean are you now convinced that, in fact, there was this sort of underbelly that you were unaware of in American culture?

Mr. RICH: I guess I was fascinated by--first of all, the people I met in the business often seemed to me to be like the audience: middle class, fairly diverse, ethnically diverse, diverse in age, diverse in gender and, you know, some of them were Republicans even. They're small-business people. The pie is huge, but there's no company as big in itself as a Paramount or a Sony. And so in some ways, I could see why this business is connected to a mass public, because in some ways they're more in touch with America, or middle America, I suspect, than most people on the other side of the Hollywood Hills are.

WILLIAMS: Frank, there's someone here who wants to challenge your numbers. Doug in Chicago, go right ahead.

DOUG: I have no problems with pornography or what its moral status is in the country or anything like that. I just think that Frank has repeated a number that's oft been repeated, and this idea that the porn industry is a $10 to $14 billion enterprise is just ridiculous if you look at the actual numbers and you look at the value of both the units of videos being sold and the amount of money made by such enterprises as Playboy and whatnot. I believe Forbes recently had a pretty good article debunking the numbers and saying that the porn industry is probably somewhere between a $3 to $5 billion industry, still enormous, but just nowhere near as big a cultural phenomenon as Mr. Rich's piece would suggest, nor the--and I believe a lot of the numbers come from the AVN publication.

WILLIAMS: Well, hang on a second, Doug. I know you directed the question at Frank, but let me ask Paul, who's with Adult Video News, to comment on the exact number.

Mr. FISHBEIN: OK. Well, let me answer this question in two parts. The Forbes article that he's talking about was the second of two Forbes.com articles that came out three days apart, the first of which supported the numbers that were in Frank's article. The second one was a reporter who was trying to take a shot, but did not do the research to substantiate his comments. I can speak for the video industry and a number of slightly above $4 billion, and where those numbers come from--there are two tracking services that Video Business and Video Store magazine use, as well as Billboard, that track the rentals and the sales of tapes in America. They only track the numbers in video stores. They do not track them in adult stores. We take a number that VSDA, the Video Software Dealers Association, used to publish of approximately 16 percent of the market being adult. When you take that number and you combine it with a very low estimate of what the 3,500 adult-only stores in this country do in rentals and sales, you come up with a number over $4 billion. That's just video sales and rentals in retail locations. That does not include mail order, that does not include Internet, that does not include cable television, that does not include satellite, that does not include magazines, this does not include any of these other areas, so...

WILLIAMS: Well, Doug, what was your point? Mr. FISHBEIN: ...I can speak only for video.

DOUG: There's, let's say, 100 to 125 million households in America, and if we're talking about $14 billion...

Mr. RICH: Well, the 14...

Mr. FISHBEIN: I'm not. I'm speaking...

Mr. RICH: Well, let me--if I could just jump in here a second.

DOUG: ...(unintelligible) the average household spends $140 or so a month on...

WILLIAMS: But, Doug, you're not arguing that, in fact, it's not truly a major segment of our entertainment industry at this point.

DOUG: Yeah. I'm arguing that it is not as big as all the other movies and all the other publications,

WILLIAMS: Right. OK. All right. Let me let Frank jump back in here.

Mr. RICH: Let me just say something. I read the Forbes piece, too, and first of all, it had a very broad spread and didn't include some sectors that I included in coming at this number, including some that Paul mentioned and also some additional ones, like, for instance, the sex entertainment circuit and so on and so forth. I never used the $14 billion figure. That's a figure the Chicago Tribune used, which I cited in my piece as a high-end estimate. The $10 billion that I arrived at, I arrived at not just by relying on the adult industry, but actually by talking to other people in the non-adult entertainment industry, particularly with access to things like pay-per-view stuff and satellite stuff. But let's say for the sake of argument that the Forbes figure is right, which gets back to your point. Well, let's say it is 3 to 5 billion, or 5 billion--it certainly isn't 3--that's still bigger than major-league baseball, bigger than--10 times the size of the Broadway theater, bigger than the NFL and so on. It is a major business, and I do think the $10 billion figure is closer to accurate than 5 billion anyway.

Mr. FISHBEIN: No, I'm just here to tell you that the $4 billion number for retail is correct, and it's backed up not by AVN sources but by sources outside of AVN and what we do.

WILLIAMS: So, Frank, let me just put a pointed, very quick question--we have about 10 seconds here before the break--does this mean that we are all a bunch of hypocrites in America, that people don't admit that they watch it? But gee whiz, it looks like everybody and their neighbor's watching.

Mr. RICH: I don't know. I think some people do admit they watch it. I've found this out since I've done the piece, since I've had people asking me where they can find more stuff. But there's a certain amount of hypocrisy in a puritan base in this country that still exists.

WILLIAMS: It's TALK OF THE NATION. Paul Fishbein, I wanted to ask you about the involvement of major American corporations. Earlier we heard Frank suggest that while there are small companies, mom-and-pop operations all around, but one of the things that stood out to be was the involvement of major companies like General Motors, the Marriott Corporation, many of these hotel chains. Is big business now comfortable, if you'll excuse the analogy, being in bed with the porn industry?

Mr. FISHBEIN: Well, none of the companies mentioned ever comment on it. You know, again, it sells. If you go and talk to any of the hotel chains or any of the pay-per-view companies that put the movies into the hotel rooms, adult outsells the mainstream Hollywood movies like 10-to-1. That's huge business, you know, income for people who are staying in a hotel and shelling out $10 to watch a movie, in some cases, more.

WILLIAMS: I saw in one article, Paul, it said that half of the guests staying at American hotels watch pornographic films.

Mr. FISHBEIN: I don't know. You know, it's sitting there, it's with the push of a button you can get it, so I guess it expands the audience a little bit. People who may not go to a video store and rent a movie may watch a movie. Same thing withe the pay-per-view in the homes. You know, DirecTV is owned by Hughes Corporation, which is General Motors, and I know for a fact in talking to people who place product into the pay-per-view channels that the adult is just huge business for these companies, and they're not going to turn their back on profits. I mean, they're beholden to their stockholders and to the bottom line. And I think that culturally we're at a much different place now than we were 10 or even 20 years ago in terms of acceptability, especially because, remember, that people have to make a choice to watch these films. It's not coming over broadcast television. You have to make a choice to put a tape in a machine or a disk in a machine, or to actually shell out that money and push a button to watch it on pay-per-view. So you have to do something in order to see the material. And people are making that choice, which I think is an important part...

WILLIAMS: Now, Frank, I was going to say to you that when I think of even sort of mainstream cable, like HBO, and I think of shows like "Sex in the City" or even "The Sopranos," there's a certain pornographic element there.

Mr. RICH: Yeah, I guess so. I'm not sure I would include those shows in that category. To me, they're, you know, R-rated or often R-rated entertainment, say, by Hollywood standards. But if you stay up later at night and watch HBO, you're going to see G-string divas, real sex, you're going to see similar things on Showtime, on Cinemax, and indeed, you'll see some of the product of the adult industry somewhat edited to be not super-hard core on those services, and there's a reason for that. That drives a lot of the business, and so "Sex in the City" and "The Sopranos," which are classy shows and are, you know, more adventurous than network television are less the story than what goes on around midnight on these channels. And then again, you know, Time Warner, for instance, which owns HBO, offers, at last in my neighborhood in New York City, quite a bit of hard-core pay-per-view that not only, I gather, from my research does better, as Paul was saying, in hotel rooms, does better than Hollywood movies that are pay-per-view, but do so with almost no promotion and at a higher ticket price. It might be 3.95 to watch "Erin Brockovich," but it might be 6.95 or 8.95 to watch an adult product, and yet, still adult product does incredibly well...

Mr. RICH: ...with no flyers for it in your monthly bill or anything.

WILLIAMS: Very quickly, Frank, what about AOL, Yahoo! and their involvement in terms of opening the Internet to pornography?

Mr. RICH: Well, they don't really open the Internet. They just--if they provide free access to the Internet, anyone who has access to the Internet, no matter what the service, can get to pornographic sites unless you have blockers, which, of course, a lot of parents and schools put on so kids can't get to it, which I feel is appropriate. But it's pretty easy to go into any search engine and find porn on the Internet. There are so many sites. Some of them are profitable, some of them are completely amateur. There's a lot of even free porn, incredibly enough. People, I guess, just do it for their own amusement on the Internet.

WILLIAMS: But it's one of the few sectors in terms of Internet commerce that's a money-maker.

Mr. RICH: It is, and again, it's because it--those points that Paul Fishbein made earlier about the fact that you can do this privately has led a lot to this explosion, more than perhaps any kind of changing mores. When you--no one knows if you're watching this stuff on the Internet, and similarly, if you have an adult movie at a hotel or you get it off your cable or satellite service, it's not going to say the title. It's just going to say `movie, 8.95,' or `pay-per-view.' So there's this anonymity which allows people to do it private and expands the audience.

WILLIAMS: Michael in Watertown, Massachusetts, welcome to TALK OF THE NATION.

MICHAEL (Caller): Hi. A couple of comments, first that the at least still semi-licit nature of the material increases, the valence of it, and it means that people are willing to pay more for it, and that inflates the figures. The main point I wanted to bring up was that this shows up an interesting split in the American conservative movement between, say, the--you might characterize them as the religious fundamentalists or religious conservatives or social conservatives, and the very pro-business or sometimes Libertarian conservatives, and this relates back to the interesting work that was done a while back by--I think it was Joseph Schumpeter, whose claim was that the market was the ultimate destroyer of traditional values.

WILLIAMS: What do you think, Paul?

Mr. FISHBEIN: Well, I agree. I was always amused by who I would call the vocal minority, which would be your religious right, that they would try to spend the time and the money and the effort to increase family values by telling people what they can and can't do in the privacy of their own home. It's a concept that doesn't work, because it doesn't--for me, what I say in public or what I do in public doesn't matter what I do in the privacy of my own home, with my life, with my family. It's my choice. And people don't want to be told what to do. There are a small group of followers, but most people are really free thinkers, and they kind of figure it out. And so why spend your time and money trying to change people's values, you know? Be concerned with real issues in our society. So I always found that kind of amusing. And again, the caller is absolutely correct. It is a split within the conservative community, because you've got pro-business and you've got profits, and this helps increase the bottom lines of many corporations, and yet, these are the same group of people that are trying to impose those morals on society in saying, `This is wrong. We have to protect our children.' Well, I hate to tell you, it's up to the parents to protect their children, and adults make choices.

WILLIAMS: All right. Let me go to William in Memphis. William, you're on TALK OF THE NATION. Welcome.

WILLIAM (Caller): Good afternoon. I had a conversation with a prominent clinical psychologist who offered the opinion that pornography is not a moral thing. It simply fills a need in people's lives that can be compared to food. We need food, we need sexual activity, and pornography fills a void that's not filled by our other social activities.

WILLIAMS: Well, wait a second, William. Why wouldn't you go on a date or, you know, have a wife or husband?

WILLIAM: Well, perhaps the wife or husband isn't--nobody can completely meet the emotional and physical needs of somebody else. It's just not going to happen.

WILLIAMS: So, William, would you think then that pornography actually helps marriages?

WILLIAM: Oh, probably so, yes, sir.

WILLIAMS: Huh. That's an interesting point. Thanks for...

WILLIAM: Well, my whole point is this is not a moral problem. It's simply a human problem...

WILLIAMS: I get you. Yeah.

WILLIAM: ...or a human thing.

WILLIAMS: Thanks for the call, William. Now, Frank Rich, I noticed in your article, you said there is no safer sex than pornography, so would you think that the onset of AIDS has actually added to the business?

Mr. RICH: That's an interesting question. I don't know that for a fact, but interestingly, the tragedy of AIDS started around the same time as the proliferation of the VCR machine, and so it may have been a double-barreled incentive for people to buy porn, one, to be able to do it privately, as we were talking about, and two, it's not sexual adventurousness of a kind that is dangerous for the consumer. I also want to say just in terms of that caller's last remark, one thing I did for this piece is I spent an evening watching a live show done on the Playboy Channel called "Night Calls." It's done out of Los Angeles, which is a national call-in show like this one, although on television, where the hostesses are two porn stars and people call in often, incredibly enough, while they're involved in some sort of sexual activity, either to talk about it or look for tips, and many of the people who are calling in are couples. And so clearly, for some couples, pornography may be some sort of romantic or sexual aid, and I guess that's not a surprise, but it was sort of a graphic example of it. People are even willing to reveal themselves on the phone as being involved in that.

WILLIAMS: So you don't think--and I remember once someone said to me they thought pornography broke down family life, that it hurt marriages. You wouldn't agree, Frank?

Mr. RICH: I certainly think it might break down the family lives of people who are performing in pornography. In terms of the people who watch it, I have no idea. I don't know if there's any way to verify that. It may help some people and hurt others. It may become, like anything else in our society, a destructive addiction for some people. But it's not something I've researched and, you know, I just don't know the answer to that.

WILLIAMS: All right. Joining us now from her office is Jane Hamilton, who's known to her fans as Veronica Hart. Jane is a producer and director for VCA Pictures. Jane Hamilton, welcome to TALK OF THE NATION.

Ms. JANE HAMILTON (Producer/Director, VCA Pictures): Hi, Juan. How are you today?

WILLIAMS: Fine, thank you, Jane. Fine, thanks. Now, Jane, you started in this pornography business in front of the camera, and now you're a producer. So how did you make the shift?

Ms. HAMILTON: Gosh, that happened over a number of years, Juan. It took some time in doing it, and a number of things. Like you said, I started performing in front of the camera, and then I fell in love and got married and wasn't comfortable being in front of the camera anymore, and started producing shows and then spent a long time on the road dancing as a feature dancer.

WILLIAMS: Well, what do you think about the business? What do you tell your friends about it? Does your family know what you do?

Ms. HAMILTON: Absolutely. I called Mom and Dad right away before I ever made my first movie and told them what was going on.

WILLIAMS: How old were you?

Ms. HAMILTON: Twenty-two.

WILLIAMS: And what did Mom and Dad say?

Ms. HAMILTON: My dad, of course, thought I was kidding. I said, you know, `Daddy, I called to tell you something. I'm going to make an adult movie tomorrow.' And he laughed; he got the biggest kick out of that. He said, `That's really funny. Now, really, what'd you call for?' And I said, `No, Dad, I really am going to do this.' And he laughed again. He said, `OK, come on, what's up?' And I said, `Dad, I'm doing this.' And he goes, `Oh. Well. I'll be sure and tell Mother.'

WILLIAMS: Well, yes, I think that's a good idea. But you mean (technical difficulties) Jane, don't do this'?

Ms. HAMILTON: You know what? I've always done what I wanted to do with my life. I was very lucky to have my parents' support in everything that I've done, not always doing things that they wanted me to do, but they were always very supportive of the choices that I made. I had moved to England for three years. I graduated early from high school. I graduated early from college. I tried different things out. I came into this business as a decision. You know, I wasn't some poor little girl who couldn't do anything else, who was lost. I found a business that, at that time, suited my talents and what I wanted out of life.

WILLIAMS: Now do you find that the business is tawdry and demeaning to women?

Ms. HAMILTON: You know what? The business is everything, OK? That's like saying, `Are all radio shows great?' Do you have radio shows that are demeaning to women? Do you have movies that are demeaning to women? Obviously, it's a huge, huge genre, and you can find whatever you want to find within the confines of what we call porn or adult entertainment.

WILLIAMS: You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News. Now, Jane, I wanted to ask you about the audience, the market. Who is it that you're trying to reach? And who is that you think is buying all these pornographic videos?

Ms. HAMILTON: It's everyone. Oh, my goodness. Now here at VCA Pictures, we do try to appeal to the couples market, and a lot of people assume, because I'm a female, that I go for the female market. I do, but I don't think it's gender based. In other words, just because you're a female and you're a director or producer in the business doesn't mean that you'll put out great products for couples. And the same thing with men; because you're a man doesn't mean that you won't put out great products for women or couples. I don't think it has to do with gender. I love to tell stories, OK? Started as an actress. And so all my stories are about either relationships or, you know, things that we can relate to, things that appeal to us. I either want to tell relationship-driven stories or else I like to do fun, fluffy things.

WILLIAMS: By the way, did your parents ever see one of these movies? And what was their response?

Ms. HAMILTON: Well, you know, a long time ago I used to take out all the sexual content, the explicit sex content, and I would show them the acting parts. One of the interesting things that you'll see about the movies from when I first started over 20 years ago to today is, say, we would have 15 minutes of development and acting to finally get to what would be a five-minute sex scene. Today those numbers are reversed. I usually have about five minutes of setup or acting, and then we'll have something like a 10- to 15-minute sex scene.

WILLIAMS: And, in fact, you said that now this--you've been in the business 20 years, so I suppose you're in your 40s now. Is there a big...

Ms. HAMILTON: Yes, I'm 44.

WILLIAMS: Is there a bigger audience for mature performers?

Ms. HAMILTON: I'm sorry?

WILLIAMS: Well... Ms. HAMILTON: Are there more performers once you...

WILLIAMS: No, is there a bigger audience, with baby boomers aging, for older performers in these pornographic videos?

Ms. HAMILTON: Well, of course, of course. And that's for all the reasons that Frank has mentioned and Paul has mentioned. You know, it's gone out of the seedy theaters, you know, we've brought it into our homes, and it's now a mainstream part of our culture. Adult entertainment is very much accepted. There's still a double standard about it. I don't know, you know, when or if that will ever completely go away, but it's much more accepted. The fact that I'm talking to you right now on National Public Radio kind of says it all, doesn't it?

WILLIAMS: I think it does say something. Let's go to Bob, who's in Los Angeles. Bob, you're on TALK OF THE NATION. Welcome.

BOB (Caller): Hi. Thanks. I was just sending you an e-mail, but I got on the line here. I just wanted to talk about--you know, we're discussing this program here today on porn, and about the hypocrisy about, and people's stigma about, admitting to watching it. And I would like to bring it home and offer a challenge. I mean, we're all talking about `other people' and `isn't it interesting what they do?' Well, I want to know your personal feelings. Do you watch it? What about Frank and Paul? Why can't we talk about sex in this society?

Ms. HAMILTON: Well, I'll tell you about that. I'll tell you what: I go to work every day. I get here about, oh, 8:30 or 9:00 in the morning. And if I'm not preparing for a shoot, if I'm not getting actors for a shoot, if I'm not shooting, then I'm actually editing the product, OK? So I spend my whole day watching what I do, so I spend most of my day watching explicit sex, and I spend most of my day watching people acting, OK? When I go home, the last thing I want to do, actually, is put in an adult movie. I do it to occasionally see other people's work. I do it to just see what's going on out there. But very seldom...

BOB: So let me bring it, though, to Juan, Frank and Paul. Ms. HAMILTON: ...do I find it riveting as a movie, you know? I like the real thing. I think it's much more exciting to have real, physical, intimate contact with another person. BOB: Well, let's bring it closer to--are you there?

Mr. FISHBEIN: Well, obviously, at AVN, we all watch a lot of adult movies, 'cause that's what we do for a living. So--but, again, within like Jane is talking about, it's within the context of our business and what we do for a business. But yeah, we, and I, see a lot of it. Mr. RICH: I can answer this question, really, in my piece in The Times. I can't say I've seen any porn, or much of it, since college when I was with friends. It was the vogue then, in fact, in the early days of the free--when Jane was working the business. I watched some--you know, a fair amount, for this piece, and found it fairly boring. I can't imagine I would do it as a continuing process, but I don't watch prime-time TV that often, either, so there you go.

WILLIAMS: All right. We're talking about the business of pornography. Frank Rich, there was a letter to the editors in The New York Times complaining about your article, and it said that--the complaint was about a quote in the piece that came from a man by the name of Michael Raven, who is a top adult director as is described in your article. And the quote said, "I've leaned toward the right in my politics, but I'm bothered by the Republicans' association with the religious right. I know from my experience of religious people that those who protest and scream the loudest usually have the biggest collection of adult"--I guess "adult videos under their bed." And the letter writer said, `Gee, that's one-sided. You know, you wouldn't say that about someone who was complaining about legal abortion in this country or anything else.'

Mr. RICH: Well, the person who was saying this, Michael Raven, is from Texas and from a very religious and religious conservative family, and in the context of the piece, he was speaking about his own experience of being a product of that background and really talking about his own family. It wasn't meant to be a scientific figure. Who knows? But one thing I did find in my reporting and talking to people in the mainstream, so-called regular entertainment industry about the distribution of these movies by satellite and cable, the fact is, there is a tremendous amount of measurable distribution, not through video stores, but through satellite and cable in what we think of as the Bible Belt. So probably there are other examples, and Michael Raven's family isn't unique. Is it true of everyone? I'm sure not.

WILLIAMS: Now, Jane Hamilton, what do you find is sort of the limit in terms of religious tolerance? For instance, do Muslims, do Jews, do Christians all allow for your product, or do you find that there are certain groups that say, `No, can't tolerate it; we find this insidious'?

Ms. HAMILTON: I mean, we know that there are certain groups who do find this insidious. I think what's significant is that they are, as Paul said before, a minority. They're a very vocal minority, but they're very organized, and I guess, because they're not enjoying sex with their partners, they have lots of time on their hands to write letters and to protest and to call senators and what have you. So actually, I think they get an inordinate amount of publicity. I think there are many people where--that like adult entertainment, and many people that don't. Some are religious; some are not. Some have very happy sexual lives; some people don't. I mean, you know, just because you don't appreciate adult entertainment doesn't mean there's anything wrong with you. It's funny, because a lot of the women today have come up to me, and they said the only thing that they don't like about the adult industry is, if they're not vocal about liking it, they're now seen as square or not sexy or not hip. Isn't that funny, you know? And that's bad, too. I mean, the whole basis of America is that we have a choice, and that's all we're saying. Obviously, this is a choice that many people are making, or I wouldn't be able to make movies.

WILLIAMS: Now, Paul, I wanted to read you an e-mail and ask you to quickly respond. It comes from Mike Booster(ph) in Reno, and Mike writes, `How is Marriott involved in the porn business? The Marriott family is prominent in the Mormon Church.'

Mr. FISHBEIN: Well, you just have to go to a Marriott Hotel and flip on your TV and pay-per-view the movies, and there they are.

Mr. RICH: In fact, there was a...

Ms. HAMILTON: Well...

Mr. FISHBEIN: Adult movies in Marriott hotels.

Ms. HAMILTON: Utah itself, I think, has inordinately high numbers of people that call in for the adult products.

Mr. FISHBEIN: Yeah, and...

WILLIAMS: Oh, you mean they call in and buy it over the phone or something?

Ms. HAMILTON: Correct. Correct.

Mr. FISHBEIN: Well, a retailer in Utah won an obscenity case this year simply because the attorney was able to prove that the community tolerates the material simply because of the hotel across the street from the store where people were renting the adult movies in the hotel day and night.

Mr. RICH: Yeah, exactly. There was a front-page story in The Times, in fact, well before my piece, and in court he pointed to a Marriott hotel and said, `You can't say I'm violating the community standard if right around the corner people are ordering the stuff night and day over pay-per-view.'

WILLIAMS: Hm. Let's go to Tim in Seattle. Tim, you're on TALK OF THE NATION. Welcome.

TIM (Caller): Yes. I was surprised to see a very large billboard, and the billboard simply read, `Stop looking at porn!' with a big exclamation point. And it got me to thinking that there can be a kind of ...(unintelligible) effect of it. One of your guests, the lady, mentioned that there are some people that find some benefit of porn and there are some people that are hurt by porn. Well, I would ask her, what percentage of the population smoke from the age of 13 till they die and die of perfectly ordinary consequences as opposed to lung cancer or emphysema?

WILLIAMS: Well, hang on, Tim, because this is--I mean, you're making a parallel between consumption of tobacco and consumption of pornography, and saying that in the way that tobacco might lead to--I think it's proven--leads to cancer, that consumption of pornography might lead to some damage to your psychological health?

TIM: My question is, how long do you think it will be before we start seeing public service announcements of the kind we're all familiar with on television with the guy with a cigarette in his ear, saying, `The only thing dumber than a cigarette in your ear is one in your mouth,' a public service announcement saying, you know, `Stop looking at porn, people, it's bad for you'?

WILLIAMS: Jane Hamilton?

Ms. HAMILTON: That will never happen, I don't think, because these are special-interest groups that are protesting it. When you have a majority of people that want to not have this service, perhaps that will happen, but I don't believe that is the case here in the United States.

WILLIAMS: Well, hang on a second, now, Tim and Jane, because we have an e-mail here from Herb in Palo Alto, California, and Herb writes, `I may not be'--wait. `I am beginning clinical treatment for my addiction to pornography, a large part of it being Internet-based. I see it perhaps as the most insidious threat to our society for at least two reasons. One, any fetish or fantasy that you wish to see, and those you don't even think of, are at your fingertips. Trips to, among other places, specialty porn shops and peep shows, are no longer necessary. And second, sooner or later, a drug addict begins to show signs of a physical addiction, but in the case of pornography, there are no physical scars. The damage is all done to the mind, the heart and the soul.'

Ms. HAMILTON: I feel so badly for him. I feel so badly that his life has gotten so skewed and so out of whack. But again, like a person who's addicted to food, who's tremendously obese--do you know what I mean? People have a tendency to get addicted to things. Does that mean we outlaw food because it's been proven that the majority of people in the United States are overweight? So now we're going to ration out food at the grocery store?

TIM: Earlier you were talking to a caller named William, and he said--you said, `William, why don't--if someone is--if it's like--if sex can be compared to food for people, why don't you go out and have dates?' And my response to that was it's just so hugely easier to simply, you know, pick up a porn magazine or a video than to go to all the trouble of, you know, lining yourself up a lady who's going to go out with you in the first place, and then making the date, and not to mention the resources. I mean, think of the resources necessary for you to become addicted to dating.

Ms. HAMILTON: But also, what an assumption to think that if you took a lady out on a date that she'd want to sleep with you.

WILLIAMS: Well, no, I wasn't suggesting that, but I am suggesting that, oftentimes, if you go on a date and build a relationship with a person of the other sex, you know what might happen? You might enter into a sexual relationship.

Ms. HAMILTON: Correct, but what about--you've just had an add-on for the guys that are the fathers that are now taking care of the children, and I have to tell you, what about the guy who works all day long, he spends a whole night with his children, he's got to get their homework done, he's got to get the food made, he's got to get the dinner done? And he doesn't have time to go out on a date. But he has time to either go on his computer or to turn on his VCR, or he has time to turn on the cable television. You know what I mean? Should he be denied sexual fulfillment because he's trying to be a good father and a good person and a good member of society?

WILLIAMS: No, I think--I understand your point, but I think, though, the caller--this earlier caller that we're referring back to, William from Memphis, was making the point that, psychologically, porn fills a vacuum in the lives of people who might be lonely...

Ms. HAMILTON: Yes, and you know what? I know I've got many fans, and the only contacts that they have with women in a sexual context is watching the movies. And if they didn't have that, they would have nothing.

WILLIAMS: Wait a minute. Why can't they have female companionship?

Ms. HAMILTON: I suppose they could have e-mails. Some of these guys don't even have computers, but they can...

WILLIAMS: No, no, I said female companionship, not female computers. Female companionship--why can't they meet women? I mean...

Ms. HAMILTON: You know, gosh, I wish I could say why some people have problems...

WILLIAMS: Right, but, Jane, that's not...

Ms. HAMILTON: ...actually joining with other people.

WILLIAMS: Right. But, Jane, I think...

Ms. HAMILTON: Unfortunately, there's a lot of members in society who aren't social and are not able to have relationships.

WILLIAMS: Well, actually, though, I think the reason we're doing this show today is because, as Frank Rich's piece demonstrates and Paul Fishbein's numbers demonstrate, it's normal now. I mean, porn is all through America. It's not some lonely characters off in some strange place.

Mr. FISHBEIN: Well, exactly. I mean, one thing I discovered doing this piece--I have a son, an older son who goes to, shall we say, an Ivy League university. And he asked me what I was working on, and I told him, and it turned out that he was more knowledgeable about the subject than I was, and in a very unembarrassed way at this Ivy League school, which, shall we say, has produced presidents of the United States, there was a porn-watching club with boys and girls in it, doing it as a lark, drinking beer, and to them it was, you know, maybe the way going to the "Rocky Horror Picture Show" was 25 years ago for my generation. And so things have changed; there's no question about it.

WILLIAMS: You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News. Let's go to Lawrence, who's in Boston. Lawrence, you're on TALK OF THE NATION. Welcome.

LAWRENCE: One of the things I'd like to comment on is that recent neurological studies indicate that, although we've known for a long time that males are much more lateralized in terms of left brain and right brain than women, this had not been really thought about in terms of pornography. But this is the basic reason that most pornography is seen by men, just the same way that men think more in contrast because of that left brain, right brain, and women think more in terms of context. This is why you don't find men buying those millions and millions of romance novels, because that's context. Men like picture after picture after picture, as in Playboy or in porn. They can't really think about bringing all these women home, but it's the variety that entices them, just as women are enticed by the context. And that's really why pornography, although it's not dangerous to men, it makes them do it in secret, because women, most of them, don't like it. They think it's degrading. Men are built differently.

Ms. HAMILTON: I disagree. The original studies were shown at first--that were done by the Kinsey Institute showed that men were visually stimulated and that women were tactilely stimulated. I think that's changed. I think because of things like MTV, you know, sexual media, women are much more apt to be visually stimulated now than they ever have been before. I think it's not just biological; I think it's actually getting exposed to the material and seeing it. And women now are being able to embrace their own sexuality. You asked if I thought it was demeaning; gosh, is it demeaning for a woman to go in and to get an X-rated videotape, to say that `I'm a sexual being and I have control over my own sexuality and I'm not ashamed of it'? I see that as an advancement for women, certainly not one that degrades them.