Various talent and crew complain that they were not paid for last summer's porn fantasy camp in Mexico overseen by Scott Stein, who works for Metro and is developing a second edition.
From the 3/26 edition
of www.geneross.com: "Sources
indicate that the "various talent" Luke F-rd refers to when he comments
on his site about certain people not being paid by Scott Stein [smspromotions.com
] for the Mexican trip last year were, Malitia, Temptress and Eve Adams.
No "crew" was involved. Stein wouldn't comment on the names of the performers,
but he did say this: "I've never been contacted by Luke F-rd. I guess
that's a loss. But if he were to check his facts, three people were
not paid because they did not live up to their commitments. The other
40 were paid. Their [the Mexican three] commitment to me was to be available
and socialize with the
guests, x-amount of hours per day. They did not live up to their signed
agreement. So, I did not pay them. They stayed in their rooms doing
whatever. I wasn't even asking them to do anything out of the norm.
It was like please sit by the pool, go horseback riding, be accessible
to the guests. They didn't do that. This is also timely given that Luke's
reporting on this five months later. As far as 'crew' I had one person
working for me. That person was compensated. All of the "crew" were
hired by Pleasure Productions. The only crew I had was Rebecca Bardoux
who served as a talent coordinator. I pride myself on my stellar and
ethical reputation in the adult industry from my days as AVN's managing
editor to my current title as director of marketing for Metro. I offer
an open invitation to Luke F-rd to contact me."
Penthouse is shooting its first hardcore movie. Titled "Strangers," it's directed by Stuart Canterbury and stars Melanie Stone, Sana Fey, Nick East, Kyle Stone and a couple of Eurobabes.
Pansies Doom Free Speech Coalition
The Free Speech Coalition's Insurance Coordinator, Greg Zeboray, has unexpectedly resigned from the porn trade group, effective immediately. Three weeks ago, Russ Hampshire resigned from the testosterone challenged board. A few months before him, AVN publisher Paul Fishbein left.
Luke hears whispers that the FSC is in disarray and that its dominating powers (AVN, VCA, Vivid, Gloria Leonard, Kat Sunlove, Jeffrey Douglas, Phil Berman and Mark Kernes) are pansies and poofters.
Gloria Leonard phoned Luke at 2:18PM: "Why didn't you contact me for the other side?"
Luke: "I will be."
Gloria: "You will be? You're a f---ing asshole. Don't ever put my f---ing name on your f---ing site again. Don't ever contact me. We are done."
Click. Gloria hangs up.
Expect a big announcement soon from Sacramento lobbyist Mike Ross who appears to be outhustling the FSC (in California, Indiana and New York particularly) in representing the porn industry's political interests.
LA MIRADA- About 60 Southern California gentlemen's club owners met Sunday, February 28 in response to a call put out by Bill Gammoh and Bassam Moussa, owners of the Pelican Club in La Habra.
First Amendment attorney Roger Jon Diamond chaired the meeting which included presentations by Mike Ross of AEIEF and attorneys John Weston, George Mull and Steve Jacobsen who were arguing for a new statewide cabaret owners association which would lobby and litigate to stop over-regulation by local governments. As FSC's lobbyist, I spoke against such a splintering of the industry and encouraged participants to maintain a unified front against our common enemy.
But after Harry Mohney of Déjà vu and Mike Galardi of Cheetah's offered to contribute the first $45,000 in funding needed, the vote went in favor of forming an as-yet-unnamed new group for club owners. Peter Luster of Déjà vu volunteered as interim president for the first month and plans were made for the formation of a board of directors with regional representation from around the state.
According to Gammoh, considerably more money has been raised to date and the group's first action will be an effort to change the statewide definition of "solicitation for prostitution" to exclude lap dancing and other cabaret activities.
Former FSC Insurance Coordinator Greg Zeboray, a fulltime insurance broker based in San Clemente, www.zeboray.com, writes: "The board of directors and myself have had difficulties in helping them understand the problems they face in the insurance world, and it finally got to where I had to move on, in order to continue to properly serve the adult industry.
"To all of those currently covered under the FSC related insurance plans, have no fear: there will be no immediate impact on your insurance coverage, and should a change take place I will work with you to make it as smooth as possible, while maintaining your insurability. Yes, I will continue to be your agent, and yes, you still have insurance.
"I am in no way leaving the adult industry. In fact, my presence within it will be greater than it had been in the past. I wish the FSC well, and hope they are able to meet their objectives in the years to come. I thank them for the relationship we had maintained."
Luke talked to Zeboray by phone around 1PM: "I originally resigned in October of 1998," said Greg. "Gloria Leonard asked me to rescind my resignation until the week after the CES...when there would be a new board of directors and a new direction that she thought would be more conducive to insurance benefits.
"I met with the board in January and they agreed to nullify the contract that I had with them and to do business under completely different terms but I fought the same battles... When Russell Hampshire quit, that was a major blow to the board of directors. Russell is the person in the industry who I have the most respect for, not just as a human but as a business man. Although I've worked in the adult industry since 1992, I am not in the adult industry, so I view business respect as in the real world...or as Russell loves to say, 'the straight world.'"
Greg Zeboray: "Russell will love to tell you that he and I occassionally butted heads... I didn't get carte blanche with everything I wanted, which is how it should've been. But when I had a legitimate reason for wanting to do something and I was able to present it in a manner that everybody could see it made sense, I could count on Russell's support, and that included the insurance benefits.
"Some of the board of directors [of the Free Speech Coalition] seem to think that insurance companies are standing in line to do business with the adult industry. It couldn't be further from the truth. I have fought so hard to get the little bit [of insurance coverage] that we have and I have fought so hard to keep it. Russell told me March 23, 'It is so hard to find people to insure the adult industry, that when you get them, you better suck their ass, because if you lose them, you won't get another one.'
"After over three years of trying to convince members of the board that they better start trying to treat these companies with some respect and honoring their commitments, I gave up.
"The Sharon Mitchell incident [her organization AIM also offers health insurance] was a perfect example of a couple of leading board members [Gloria Leonard, Jeffrey Douglas?] who appeared more interested in protecting their friends than the benefits of their members. From the day she [Mitchell] started selling insurance and of course lied and claimed she wasn't offering it to Free Speech members and talent which we proved was false, I started telling the board of directors that you have a talent group plan through Maxicare that is teetering on the edge of collapse because of lack of enrollment [only 23 performers have signed up]. If you send clients to AIM or Sharon Mitchell, that is tantamount to Vivid introducing their best client to a competitor and then standing back and saying, 'Why is my business going downhill?'
Greg Zeboray: "Every time her insurance person writes performers insurance, they are deleting the pool of potential insureres and they are helping to destroy the group medical plan FSC has. I guarantee you that when Maxicare tells FSC no more, nobody else is going to come in and offer them [insurance coverage]. Their track record will not warrant it.
"Now this is hearsay. But apparently Jeffrey Douglas told Ken Michaels [of AVN] that competition is good. Well, as a matter of you and Gene Ross competing on the internet, competition is good. When youare the executive director of a trade association that has a group medical plan teetering on the edge of collapse, competition is not good. Because when the plan goes away, it damages all of your credibility and it damages your membership.
"I got an email from Gloria on Monday which led to me resigning. She said, in effect, that I must wind down my vendetta against Sharon Mitchell. I responded to Gloria, this is not just my problem. But they don't grasp that. That their friend is doing something to damage the association. Because their so concerned about their friends.
"But the board members, particularly its officers, are representing people who are paying them to represent them. Everything else should be second to that. If it damaged the entire industry for Jeffrey Douglas [FSC executive director] to represent a rapist (Douglas is a criminal defense attorney), in my opinion Jeffrey has to decide to either only represent the FSC or only the rapist. You can't stand on the fence and try to be friends to both sides. You have to go to your friend Sharon Mitchell and say, 'Sharon, you've stepped over the line and I can't support you.'
"Based on knowledge, respect, business acumen, Russell [Hampshire] was the power behind the throne [of the FSC]. And when Russell left, it allowed this political vacuum to pick up speed."
Sharon Mitchell told
www.geneross.com: ""It wasn't
me and FSC. I have nothing to do with FSC. It looks like we've [me and
AIM] gathered enough evidence, and I'm going to proceed with a lawsuit
for slanderous, libelous material and tort against Greg Zeboray. This
is a pretty ugly one. This is something I'm not pleased about, but if
you had seen anything of the faxing that went out - four or five different
people called me up [with information]. He [Zeboray] apparently had
this one slanderous fax which he e-mailed to people. It was very damaging.
'Sharon and AIM Must Be Stopped' was the title of it. It was very slanderous.
I didn't know about it until I had been losing some donors [money people],
and I knew it was because of Greg. It just sounded like Greg's words
coming out of their mouths. His feelings were
very hurt when he decided not to make him the AIM insurance agent. I
had my own reasons for doing this. They were based on business, and
some personal. I had some past experience with Greg in the Free Speech
Coalition, and it was just - I kind of had the opinion that Greg's a
little bit of a s--- stirrer to begin with."
FSC President Gloria
Leonard told www.geneross.com:
"I know that there's some bad blood there [between Zeboray and Mitchell].
And I've told this to Sharon's face. I felt that because Greg worked
so hard in trying to establish insurance for our industry, and had been
so supportive of Sharon and the industry - his website contained all
of her s--- at one time - that she went and she engaged another insurance
person to handle insurance over at her office. I frankly told her that
smacked to me of being disloyal and
ungrateful. She had at least owed him [Zeboray] the courtesy of discussing
it with him before she went ahead and did such a thing...
"He's [Zeboray] got this vendetta-thing going toward her..."
A few weeks ago, Zeboray sent this note to Free Speech Coalition board members:
"AIM and Sharon Must Be Stopped"
"We [the FSC and myself] have been fighting to increase enrollment on our Maxicare plan, and thus keep the only true group medical program in effect, and Sharon knows this. With her decision to offer insurance through AIM, she is depleting the pool of potential insureds, and putting your Maxicare plan at even greater risk of failure.
"While I acknowledged a personal motive, you must acknowledge that the damage being done is significant. If the FSC loses the Maxicare plan, how - with our current track record can I convince another company to take the same risk. I don't believe I can.
"I ask that any of you who are currently supporting or doing business with AIM, PLEASE STOP. Every time money or testing clients are sent to her, you are helping destroy your [FSC] one and only group medical insurance program. I ask you: would Vivid send its entire customer base down the street to a competitor? I don't think so. By continuing to supply AIM, that is what you are doing.
"By the way, the program offered at AIM is the same Blue Cross plan we have available, so there is no benefit [to insureds] by choosing AIM's program."
Seymore Butts fiance Alisha Klass tells www.geneross.com: “I have the opportunity to be the world’s first true superstar. Since I conquered adult I now have mainstream and music. Right? I’m working, working, working. By the time I’m 30 I’ll have done it.”
Bianca Trump Speaks Out on Breast Implants
Bianca Trump had breast surgery for the fourth time Saturday. She writes: "Cosmetic surgery was ultimately my choice. But I was young and dumb. I did it to get the contract with Leisure Time. The pressure mainly came from Mark Carriere, the owner of the company. He paid for all the surgery they felt I needed. As well, they gave me money to sit around and spend while I recovered. They leased me a new apartment and paid for a new car. And every two weeks they gave me a check. All that for just a few "minor enhancements," as they put it. Jim South was my agent at the time. He in no way discouraged me from making this choice. In fact this was early 1990. None of the silicone scare info was out yet. So everyone encouraged my involvement with this company.
"I was not the only
idiot. There was Mona Lisa, Savannah, Rebecca
Wild, Terri Weigel, and several others that signed the same contracts.
"So thanks to all the
encouragement I received from these people in the
industry, I am now on implant replacement surgery #4. I just finished
[the latest surgery] Saturday. I have permanent silicone poisoning.
I will never get a dime from the manufacturer that made my implants.
They are now out of business. I was never on the initial "sue" bandwagon.
I was not eligible at the time because I had no existing problems then.
Mine waited to leak after the manufacturer paid their claims and went
out of business. Once a problem always a problem.
"I have admitted I was
young and dumb and ultimately made the worst decision of my life to
have plastic surgery. It's about time that the supposed
figures that we all looked up to, admit they gave us bad advice. Knowingly
or not. An apology for our suffering
would be nice."
Guest Columnist Rodger Jacobs Writes:
Can you imagine producing
a porno variation of "Gone with the Wind" and having the balls to call
it "Gone with the Wind"? Well, that's exactly what Thomas Paine has
done with his XXX re-working of the Otto Preminger classic "Laura",
and I'm honestly surprised and chagrined that no one at
Legend Video seems to be concerned over Paine's plagiarism, as evidenced
by the fact that they never even compelled him to change the title.
In the 1944 flick "Laura" Dana Andrews plays a detective assigned to
the murder investigation of Laura Hunt (Gene Tierney) who finds himself
falling in love with a portrait of her. It's bad enough that Burt Reynolds
shamelessly ripped off the award-winning classic with his 1981 cop thriller
"Sharky's Machine" (based on a novel by William Diehl) but at least
he didn't call it "Laura", for f---'s sake.
At the opening of Paine's "Laura" we come upon Randee Lee getting f---ed by the character of Wilford Chase. As Randee and Chase enjoy a lackluster sexual encounter a stalker observes them through the bedroom window. When Chase gets out of bed to fetch a glass of water the stalker breaks in and murders Randee, shooting her point blank in the face with a 9mm handgun. Enter Earl Slate as Detective Chip Mosby, our Dana Andrews impersonator. It seems that this is the house of famous fashion designer Laura Jefferson (Lauren Montgomery) but the victim laying on the floor with a rearranged face is not Laura but just some bimbo named Marie Wells that Wilford f---s when his friend Laura is away from home (yeah, Wilford's married and has to take his bim's to Laura's house). It seems that Laura's missing and fiancee Alistair Snide (Dave Cummings) demands an explanation from the homicide crew on scene. They don't have one --- all they know is that someone wanted Laura dead and they killed Marie instead. Poor Marie.
Well, wouldn't ya know it? There's a portrait of Laura Jefferson on the wall of the apartment and Detective Mosby looks upon the picture longingly. Can you say fantasy sequence? That's right, ol' Chip Mosby imagines himself in a lusty romantic encounter with Laura for our second lukewarm encounter (Lauren Montgomery is indeed a good cocksucker, however). When Chip snaps out of his reverie we are taken to an orgy featuring Timber, Malitia, the guy who was screwing Randee Lee before she got her face blown off, and a few more girls and guys. It doesn't make any sense plot-wise except that damn stalker is looking on through the window again. Busy boy. He gets around a lot.
So now we're back at Laura's apartment, where it seems Detective Chip has been spending all of his time. He calls a friend at vice and asks about an outcall service where "you can get anything you want". Wow! They have outcall services like that? Chip calls the outcall service and requests --- you guessed it --- a girl who looks just like Laura Jefferson. Now, in capable hands the story could've started getting interesting and creepy right about now (just like the original) but Paine is rushing us to a conclusion, so Chip screws the outcall chippie and then LAURA JEFFERSON HERSELF SHOWS UP!! What do you think happens? Well, they f--- and that's the end of the movie.
It seems that Thomas Paine embarked on this venture wishing to re-interpret "Laura" for the raincoat crowd and created a product that is wholly unsatisfactory for the latter bunch and a lame attempt at doing the former. You know you've fallen pretty low when you can't even successfully plagiarize another movie.
Gloria Leonard: "Around
1978, the definitive adult homage to the movie "Laura" was "Fiona on
Fire" starring Abigail Clayton. Of course, it was shot as a 35mm movie,
not a video, giving it style, depth of field and a lushness no longer
present in the flat world of video. Interesting how everyone thinks
they're re-inventing the wheel."
...........................................................
The strip club chain Spearmint Rhino owes various porners thousands of dollars. John Gray of Adult Stars Quest magazine writes: "You write about Dyana Lauren doing a movie deal with Spearmint Rhino. Make sure she gets $$ up front. John Gray of S.R . owes me $5,000 for Advertising and owes thousands to billboard companies in Vegas."
Porners should check Luke's Ethics Rankings before doing business. S.R. only gets one out of five stars from Luke, a WATCH OUT! ranking.
Rob Black's company Extreme Associates is moving next week to Van Nuys, half a mile from Adult Video News. Rob and company are supposed to go to Spagos for dinner tonight with Al Goldstein.
From www.geneross.com
3/25: "The supposed dinner at Spagos with Al Goldstein and Rob Black
being so openly discussed on the Luke F-rd site isn’t coming off. Says
Black: “When Al came into town recently he wanted to do interviews with
us for Midnight Blue. Al told me he wound up liking
me even though he didn’t think he would. When Al got back in town a
couple of days ago, I got a call Friday. Al’s people wanted to know
if we’d go to dinner. Cool, I thought. They set up the apointment, except
David Aaron Clark f---ed up the dates. It was supposed to have been
last night. Goldstein was yelling something about incompetence. And
we’re not going out tonight.”
Email: "Such an asshole. You can hear the contempt in his writing. He's so jealous of you he could puke."
Kid Vegas is a real male sex performer. He stands about 5'9", and has done various roles in low budget porn over the past six months. www.geneross.com reports that Vegas has delivered his first movie, The Whoremaster, to Legend. Jeff Steward told www.geneross.com: "It's very disturbing. I'm going to have to have the lawyers take a look at it before we decide to put it out. It's one of the most disturbing pieces of video I've ever witnessed. It could be banned from the entire world. The lawyers MUST take a look at it and give us the thumbs up on this project. There's a lot of gun play, drugs, rock n' roll."
Kid Vegas writes to Luke: "I just returned from Texas with my friend Johnny Toxic. His show was great. We found a girl out there for my movie, & just finished my first movie The Whoremaster. We start working on Viva Kid Vegas this weekend.
"Damien Michaels the fag, wanna-be performer & so called agent decided to involve his ass in my business. He also decided to try & tempt me into busting his face open in front of my friends place "Notorious Productions", but I had to refrain because the the little pussy would probably call the police, or sue me. I want to set the record straight, I want to make an offer for him to fight me in the ring at the Tony Eveready & Rob Black fight. If you are tough enough to get beat up you little pussy Damien Michaels you will show up to fight me punk. Let Me know if you have any balls little man, or shall we call you a little girl. He is a liar about his 300 girls, the little man probably has about 5 all from trailer parks throughout the mid-west."
Damien responds: "This crackhead kid got his girlfriend pregnant. He doesn't pay his bills. I called her to see if she wanted to do a girl-girl scene to pay her bills. She said, 'I'll work but don't tell Kid Vegas.' Then he called me from out of state, calling me names... I told him to speak to me in person...
"So I see this kid at Notorious... I was laughing at him... I'm not even going to waste my f---ing energy with you, you little f---ing punk jerkoff... I'm a businessman. I've appeared in over 700 movies. I'm not going to raise my hand. I don't waste my time with little idiots.
"I told him, 'move away from me because I'm going to f---ing hurt you bad.' Then Jim Lane came out, and Paul and Michelle and I told them to move this kid away from my face before I hurt him.
"I feel bad for him. I don't want to hurt the kid. He's confused. That's what drugs do to you."
Kid Sparkle from Leisure Time says to Kid Vegas: "I'm just curious why Mr. Vegas won't challenge me to fight him in the ring. Give me a call Kid. Johnny knows how to get a hold of me. If my phone doesn't ring tomorrow, We'll all know how much talk you really are.... I'd fight you in front of AVN. we could film it. I'll call it...KID VEGAS-SNUFFED..."
In the 3/29/99 issue of the venerable magazine The New Yorker, writer James Atlas (who specializes in writing on academia and will publish next year a book on Saul Bellow, the University of Chicago don and novelist whose niece I once dated) analyzes academia's fascination with porn.
Writing under the headline "The Loose Canon," Atlas begins by describing his lunch with UC Berkeley Professor Linda Williams. Her 1989 book Hard Core (just reprinted in an illustrated version) inaugurated the current reign of leftist feminist pornologists whose ranks include Marxist Laura Kipnis (tenured prof at Northwestern who published Bound and Gagged: Pornography and the Politics of Pornography in America), Chris Straayer (a New York University prof who published Deviant Eyes, Deviant Bodies: Sexual Reorientation in Film and Video), Constance Penley (film-studies prof at UC Santa Barbara), Alan Soble, Garry Leonard and Joanna Frueh.
Prometheus Books porn critic Pat Riley used Dr. Linda Williams' book Hard Core "to combat insomnia. Impenetrable prose, references galore to her mates in academia - there's really only one sociologist here doing any work out there, the rest are just quoting each other - and lack of a clear direction put this in the top ten of the most boring books to have even the slightest connection to the porno industry.
"With Hardcore, you know you're in trouble by page three when she starts quoting Foucault with the phrase "Foucault reminds us..." as though he were the great god from whose lips all wisdom falls. You don't know who Foucault was? He was the father of deconstructionism [not true - that was perhaps Jacques Derrida, Foucault was more of a poststructuralist], a method of generating psychobabble that is much revered by academia. But he's not quite so revered by the homosexual intelligentsia (although they don't talk about it) because, when he found out he was HIV positive, he hopped on a plane to San Francisco (he was French) to make a tour of the bathhouses and thereby infect others. Totally unrepentant, he justifies it in his diaries with more of the usual psychobabble."
Williams teaches a graduate course entitled "Pornographies On/scene" which appears in the syllabus as Rhetoric 241. Students must study such drivel as Michel Foucault's History of Sexuality and the essay "Pleasure: A Political Issue" by Marxist critic Fredric Jameson, as well as write a 20-page paper "on some aspect of visual pornography."
Williams: "I teach it as a genre - a genre about pleasures. Not that it isn't also about power, but mostly it's about pleasure, this elusive and almost philosophical problem, especially in the visual realm of representation. We know pleasure when we feel it, but what does that mean?"
I remember sitting in on Williams keynote address to the World Pornography Conference. No one appeared to have the foggiest clue what she was talking about.
Williams told the New Yorker: "When I taught a porn course to undergraduates at U.C.-Irvine, most of them just laughed their way through the films, and I've had a number of students say they couldn't do the course after the first day. They used to have trouble with gay-oriented films: when it came to anal penetration, they just couldn't watch. But I teach graduate students now, and they're a lot less homophobic."
James Atlas writes: "It's a little weird to contemplate Ph.D. candidates fanning out across the aisles of porn emporia with their Bic pens and spiral notebooks like Claude Levi-Strauss among the Nambikwara, but it has a certain logic... Cross-dressing as a literary theme, queer theory and S&M studies have displaced deconstruction and postcolonialism as the cutting-edge mode of discourse." (New Yorker, 3/29/99)
Almost all of the media famous writers on porn are women - from academics like Williams, Penley and Kipnis to social activists like Wendy McElroy, Susie Bright to porn stars like Annie Sprinkle to Nina Hartley. "Hiring a man to write on porn is like dog bites man," ex-porn star Richard Pacheco told me ruefully last year.
"Hartley and Sprinkle are well-known proponents of the "sex-positive" outlook," writes Atlas. "Sprinkle's secret of how to achieve a "five-minute orgasm is something of a legend in the porn world." Huh?
"I don't really like pornography," admits Kipnis. "I'm disturbed by it. I look at small numbers of examples and make big generalities. But I'm interested in things that disturb me."
Atlas concludes as a skeptic of porn studies. "[A] blue movie is still a blue movie, even if it's screened in Rhetoric 241."
His Holiness, Pope John Paul II wrote on RAME: "Probably the rapidly increasing social acceptibility of porn and adult video is driving academic interest as much as the need to shock. What would have been completely beyond the pale a decade ago, now only slightly tweeks the arts/ humanties crowd--they can get away with cheap gimmicks like adding off-the-shelf porn vids to their installations, so they'll do it (anything to get press). I expect this trend to intensify as they get into some of the hardercore materials (extreme anal, DPs, gangbangs). Who knows, they might even begin producing something on their own. But a basic start on the artistic front would be a comprehensive basic look at the aesthetics/poetics of porn, as well as the development of a canon of the most significant works. What makes a good porn film good? I rate "Latex" and "Shock" are two of the best works of porn ever, in any medium, but they don't do much for me (and many others) sexually. Is there a role for this sort of stylized porn in nonsexualized mainstream art forms, or can it only be taken in a context of pornography? What are the styles and forms of modern porn?
"AVN has some very practical categories--film, video, gonzo, wall-to-wall--that will manage, but only up to a limit. Any RAME reader could list at least fifty different porn categories, niches, and fetishes; a detailed examination of their similarities and differences would be a very basic first step. What's the role of music, of script, of individual personalities in porn? When is porn artistic and when is it merely functional? "Bad Wives" was clearly meant to be seen in different context than "f--- You Ass Whore", and vice versa. I'm not even scratching the surface with what could be done on the artistic/ critical front. Hundreds of thesis could be writen, dozen of professors could make tenure while analyzing this stuff, which heretofore has been forbidden. It's (almost) virgin academic territory.
"The growing size and
prominence of the industry will bring more and more respectable researchers
who will be able to offer more objective explorations of the history,
business, and production sides of porn. How big is the industry, really?
How many tapes actually sell? Or rent? (AVN puts out figures, but they
are alternately dismissed as too low or too high.) How is the industry
organized? What are the respective roles of talent companies, distributors,
directors, video production companies, video rental stores, etc., etc.
What is or was the role of organized crime, if any? Where does the
money go and how does it flow? Who rents porn? What do they really want?
What are the different market subgroups? What techniques are best for
infiltrating advertising into potentially hostile mass media? Again,
just the first few things to come to mind.
"Legal research is one of the few areas where there is some work being done, from zoning to age-of-consent to the status of the concept of obscenity (apparently on life support)--there's room for much more. Gangbangs, felching, and urination are legal (in most states)--how is five finger fisting obscene where four fingers are fine? Should socially conservative local governments be able to set limits on forms of adult broadcasting (cable, satellite, internet) that cover their territory? Do porn stars deserve any--even the most basic-- forms of employee protections (which they now seem to lack). Porn has essentially been decriminalized, rather than legalized, and the efforts that it will take to bring it out of legal limbo are going to be huge.
"Feminists are going to need to refine, even redefine their ideas of porn, and they are going to be headed in different directions. Some are going to find the most extreme stuff (it almost proves some of their ideas, you know--it's not hard to argue that the appeal of Max Hardcore is his intense degradation and humiliation of women) and drag it out to shock and sicken the majority of people who don't know and don't want to know about it. Others are going to start watching Andrew Blake (especially his later works) and add him to the lesbian/ feminist canon of saints. The public flaunting of extreme forms of sexuality in the manner of Madonna during her "Sex" period is becoming fashionable in academic lesbian and feminist circles, to the horror of Dworkinites. This internal debate has started with (admittedly flakey) Camille Paglia--it will widen.
"The area where the most work has been done is the psychology of porn, yet this is probably the least fertile ground. Sexuality is likely to stay a mystery now and forever, and porn will remain impenetrable to analysis. It is always possible to document the forms and techniques (the aesthetics) of a given media, explaining why they work or how they function as part of a whole is much more difficult. We're never gonna know whether gang-bangs are great because the performers are closet homos, or the viewers are, or whether the degradation of the woman is important, or maybe an atavistic memory of war-rape and wife capture--...These are not areas for research, they are mysteries. The psychological appeal of porn for a given individual can be examined, and large- scale survey studies would be very useful, but the questions involving the psychology of sexuality are simply not going to be answered. Even asking them is borderline stupid. Hence the mediocrity of some much of recent academic work. On the level of the individual and large-scale survey, there are many possible topics for research. A look at the lives of porn stars and what effect their career has on their lives would be an important start. Robert Stoller did some brilliant work on individual psychological profiles of individual profiles, but this sort of work needs to be deeper on the individual level, and much broader when attempting a survey. Anyway, Stoller's dead, and nobody's doing anything now, with the exception of interviewers like Anthony Petkovich. The typical porn star interview, while useful, is not going to be able to support the weight of serious research. Are all porn stars victims of some sort of sexual abuse? Are they all drug addicts? Or just stupid? Does it really ruin their lives? To what degree does exhibitionism or desire for fame (of any sort) play a part? To what degree does on-screen bisexuality (and other relatively unusual sex acts) affect women's personal lives, both during and after their careers? What factors lead to their entrance to the industry, what causes their departure, and how many really leave (entering alternate forms of sex work--escorting, for example--seems a popular option)? All basic questions. We don't have authoritative answers to them. And I won't even start on how much practical large-scale survey research could be done on the viewers of porn. Not even gonna touch that one.
"Yes, many of the questions
I have raised can easily be answered (and I personally don't need any
answers) by many of us on RAME, either individually or by long-running
posting threads. But few of them are getting the kind of academic scrutiny
that can provide lasting answers, or at least
solid progress towards a better picture. There are writers out there
working on these questions, excellent ones, and AVN is always covering
the progress of the adult industry, usually as well as could be hoped.
But our writers, while experts in our field, are amateurs for the purposes
of academic research. No offense is intended or should be taken--But
until one of us is a
tenured prof in an appropriate university department, we're all dedicated
amateurs. And daily coverage of the AVN and Luke F-rd variety--while
extensive--is essentially journalistic, and only a starting point for
study. Ford's compilation of Subject materials and Bios is a good step
in the right
direction, as is RAME.net's archive. But any serious progress is going
to come from the ivory tower, if it comes at all--and only if they ask
the right questions, hopefully with the advice and guidance of all the
dedicated amateurs."
Illustrator Eric Stanten Dead
Tim Evanson writes on RAME: The erotic illustrator Ernest Stanten -- who drew the infamous pin-up poster featuring Bettie Page -- died last week. He was 72. Stanten worked under the pseudonym Eric Stanton, and was called the "Father of Fetish" and "Eric the Wild." His work was once confiscated by New York police, and although considered taboo it was also pathbreaking. Several books were written about him, including the illustrated "Eric Stanton: Dominant Wives and Other Stories." Most of his illustrations were commissioned by private citizens. He was fond of painting images of dominant women engaged in a wide range of fetishes. His pictures were printed in more than 100 adult novels and magazines. His most famous painting was of Bettie Page, an icon of World War II. Stanten moved from New York City to rural Connecticut in the late 70s, and was a quiet, solitary man. He continued to work almost to the end, eventually succumbing after a long illness. Stanten served in the Navy during World War II and was a knife thrower and grave digger as well as illustrator. He also worked as a cartoonist for the "New York Daily News" and the "Brooklyn Mirror."
...........................................................
Carl Bernstein Ross on Trail of Marc Wallice
Doom writes on RAME: "Dropped by geneross.com to see how Carl Bernstein Ross was coming on his quest to find the truth of the Wallice affair. A few new items of note were there.
"First, Patrick Collins (Wallice's boss at the time) told Ross that Wallice was very reluctant to go in for a HIV test. Collins more or less forced Wallice to go with him to get the test that confirmed Wallice's HIV status (author's note: more evidence, Mr. Zeboray.)
"Next up was an interview with Jim South. Carl Bernstein Ross apparently told South that there were allegations made on RAME in recent weeks that South knew Wallice was HIV + and allowed him to work scenes anyway. I personally do not remember such allegations. A quick stroll down DejaNews lane confirmed that no post containing "Jim South" and these alleged allegations were made from 1/1/99 to present. Perhaps the person who allegedly alleged this X-No-Archives their posts. Or maybe DejaNews and I somehow missed the relevant post. The alternative explanation, that Carl Bernstein Ross just used RAME as a heavy so he could get South's story without incurring South's ire is just too cynical to contemplate. AVN has high journalistic standards and would never do something unethical like that.
"Even more vexing than phantom posts was a quote South provided Ross. First, a paraphrase from C.B. Ross. (Jim South) said that it's not an uncommon occurrence to have wrong information like 49 & female appear as it did on Wallice's 3/30/99 ELISA test. Now, the quote. South: "In a meeting of free speech, it was discussed by Bill Margold that that isn't uncommon. It really isn't. We've found everything in the world from the wrong name, or somebody walking in to get a test where they don't even ask for ID. They can come back and say they're female when they're not. They can have the age screwed up. [...]"
"This is truly outrageous. f---ing lives are at stake! How in the hell is this supposed sloppiness a defense? Wouldn't someone who gave a damn about the lives of the talent demand a lab that was accurate and precise? A lab that at least always asked for the identification of the person taking the damn test? A lab that bothers to note the correct sex of the test taker? Doesn't UCLA have a noted clinic? Luke, perhaps you could ring them up and ask how "common" these types of errors are at their facility. Or the tests at Cedars. Luke, can you walk in tomorrow at Cedars and tell them you're female and have them type that up on your test?"
Luke had blood drawn Tuesday morning at Brontman's Medical Center on Venice Blvd, and like all blood laboratories, they were meticulous to note the correct information on my test, including age and sex.
Luke received this email from a porner, responding to the point that "up to eight porn girls" may have been infected with HIV by Marc Wallice. "Do you have "up to eight" producers of PM's [production managers] who were responsible for the documentation on those sets?
"I handled lots of documentation, including various HIV tests, from different performers. I never saw a deliberately forged one. Then again, I never saw Marc's.
"At the very least, the PM/producer must collude with the performer re a bad test, because he's responsible for vetting the age documentation, much of which was/is offered in the form of an photocopy on an HIV test. These are the unethical people that needed to be culled out. They want women dead.
"About a year ago, I worked for an unnamed company with no ethics, which received performers from an unnamed source with low ethics. When some of the performers were asked to present their HIV (Elisa, at the time) tests, they said, "Huh? No one has ever asked me for that before..." Innocently I asked, "So who have you worked for?"
"The next day I called the unnamed source and said, "Do not repeat this on my watch."
"I rarely had a mistake come through on an HIV test that wasn't totally explanatory (middle name for first name, garbled "porn name" spelling). The Santa Monica and North Hollywood clinics are extremely careful. When I first started vetting hetero documentation, I called up the clinics and spoke with the administrators to learn how the ID was processed, since I'd had problems with problematic ID in the gay world.
"I'm dying to get the
real scoop on Jim South. It's tangled up somewhere
in our San Fernando Valley Sheriff law enforcement system. Jim has
altogether too much power and I don't know why. Back in the Adult Video
Association Jim was often the voice of sanity... He's predictable...so
are rattlesnakes...but I'd rather have him at my back than Stevie Hirsch!
"You are a refreshing,
cool breeze amidst the hot air coming outta the
Valjean offices."
Email: "It seems indignant postulating about the Marc Wallice situation is your bag, man, and with all due respect to you and your freedom to post whatever you want on whoever you want, consider the whole big HIV s---hammer from some other angles.
"First: The alleged
HIV testing facilities. Are they, at the very least, state licensed
and or FDA approved? I thought laboratories were under the guidance
of the Food and Drug Administration. Sure out there in California there's
a s---load of FDA inspectors who should be alerted to these labs alleged
screwing up of identifications of patient/client testing. Consider,
for example, the mess regarding the New York Blood Center. Not to digress,
but the Blood Center...the second largest blood banking organization
in the country, were the subject of a lengthy probe by the state attorney
general's office regarding lab testing procedures and regulations. Apparently
some tainted blood got out (there was an AIDS activist teen named Joey-his
last name fails me-he was a high-profile media friendly kid); some people
got very sick as a result and in addition to the groundswell of civil
litigation, some persons responsible for the operation are in jail for
a very long time.
To wit-The people running these...if they are screwing up procedures
in
their labs...should have been getting something called a 486-a citation
from
the FDA.
"Many times these result in fines and criminal prosecution which of course opens the flood gates to civil litigation. I ask you Lukester, has the state attorney general's office or the nearest FDA office in L.A. County been contacted about this? Consider if a person got, via a screwed up id profile, the wrong HIV test result. It has happened over the years where someone tested false positive for the virus then later found out they were not infected because the lab screwed up. I know of a 68 year old European immigrant I once worked with who claims to neither had sex, shot up drugs or had a drug transfusion and somehow got a false positive for the HIV test only to learn later that the testing lab had fouled up her id. "You bet honey," she told me."I sue those motherf---ers asses off."
"Anyhow, that any responsible
porn producer responsible for checking the
status of a performer's HIV test results can go ahead with a 30-ish
male
being a 49 year old female is criminally negligent. Not only is Wallice/Goldberg
at fault and the smut producers in question but those so-called testing
facilities...if they can f--- up in one case...how many more can they
get wrong? You've repeatedly alluded to 8 in your postings but I wonder
how many more are out there that haven't been discovered yet? It's gotta
be way more than 8."
Robert Kumar writes
to www.geneross.com: "Dear Gene,
I believe that the only reason you get even half as many hits is because
of Luke F-rd mentioning your website. Your primary press is through
his website. If he did not mention you, you would hardly have any readership.
It's ironic that
the man who made Luke F-rd is the man who Luke F-rd is making.
"It's true that you were the person who gave Luke F-rd credibility by mentioning him in your editorials in AVN [that's how I found out about it]. It's is even more true that your readership on your website is due to Luke F-rd. I furthermore do not appreciate the garbage at the side of your page specifically all the B.S. advertising. It just makes you look as commercial as you AVN'ers really are.
"I have written to Luke about three times to find out about advertising on his site and he does not even respond to me. Is you motive profit? Do you want to eventually charge for the site? Why not put banners on top, bottom, and both sides of your measly content. In a nutshell, your site is just like the VIVID's and VCA's you support so much [corporate and hard to identify with].
"P.S. I am not one of this industry's active members. This is coming from a genuine real person who has never been associated with anyone in the industry."
Luke: I don't remember receiving any emails from a Robert Kumar.
I believe that the primary reason www.geneross.com gets hits is that it is an excellent site full of timely news about the porn industry.
Luke F-rd made Luke F-rd. Neither Gene Ross or Bill Margold or anyone else was responsible for my place, however large or small, in porn. If Gene had never written a word about me in AVN, I would still be living in my 400 square foot grovel surrounded by ten year's worth of AVN back issues and Torah commentaries.
Luke believes that it is the moral responsibility of businessmen like Paul Fishbein (AVN publisher) to make as large a profit as possible (while playing within the moral rules of the game). I see nothing wrong with the tiny amount of ads on www.geneross.com. The site is costing Paul, at least initially, far more than it brings in in advertising revenue, I suspect. Whether the site goes pay or free is morally neutral.
Luke enjoys poking fun at Paul, Gene, AVN and the industry in general. That I run wild and crazy accusations and rants on my site does not mean that I endorse them. They either interest or amuse me. I'm no porn authority, and I don't dictate who will go to heaven or hell. I don't treat porn as sacred. Many of the people who this site beats up on the most are folks Luke respects the most, such as Paul Fishbein and Russ Hampshire.
Gene Ross replies to
Robert Kumar: "You're correct to a point. I made Luke, could it possibly
be that I'm breaking him? If, as you say, my readership is all thanks
to Luke F-rd, that's because he isn't being read like he used to, and
people have nested in a place to satisfy the fix for the real
story - not just posts from other sites that pass off as news. I've
been at this game a helluva lot longer than Luke F-rd, and I wish him
well in his new endeavors whatever those may be. I can't speak for the
"garbage" and "B.S. advertising." Why don't you address those people
directly and tell them exactly how you really feel. And, are you saying
that, because you wrote Luke three times about advertising without response
from him, that he's a bad business man or simply disorganized? Shudder
to think.
"Perhaps more evidence of why people are leaving your "boy" Luke in droves [actually, the number of hits on www.l-keford.com is unchanged since the start of www.geneross.com] is the following bit of horse manure that occurred on his site yesterday. Ford quotes as gospel some guy named Doom who's under the impression that there was no mention on RAME of allegations about Jim South covering up Marc Wallice's condition, that I trumped up the matter to use RAME as a heavy "to get South's story without incurring South's ire." Doom boy, who uses DejaNews as his authoritative source, says no allegations were posted against South from "1/99 to present."
"Really? How about Luke F-rd's own site?
"I quote from Luke 1/31/99: 'If Mark Kernes and AVN are doing a true exposé on the Marc Wallice situation, I applaud them. But only if they name ALL names involved in Wallice being allowed to continue working while HIV positive. It ain't all Marc. My feeling is that if AVN is now ready to lay it all at Marc Wallice's doorstep, that it's to cover Jim South's involvement. But if it's AVN we're not going to hear that.' Luke's not saying this directly, of course, he's not that much of an idiot. He's quoting another of his intrepid sources to make indirect accusations. Using them, if you will, as a heavy to get a slam on South without incurring South's ire."
Doom replies: "Carl Bernstein Ross assuaged my fears about AVN's journalistic standards with his (C.B. Ross's) reply to my previous post. Folks, my faith in AVN has been restored and they indeed do not practice unethical, shoddy journalism.
"C.B. Ross doesn't seem
very internet-savvy. He cited RAME as the source of the recent Jim South
rumor when it was apparently one of your sources.
He thinks DejaNews isn't a valid resource to check on what's been posted
to RAME.
"He still hasn't produced
the relevant post to RAME, nor will he. If the casino owned by Kid Vegas's
dad would put a line on whether your source posted his accusations to
RAME in recent weeks, I would bet heavily on "no"."