Archives - Friday, May 14th, 1999

Farrell Timlake of Xplor Media Group, writes for www.geneross.com.

When we first ran into Chuck and Burt from Zane [at AVN's Cancun Conference], we simultaneously asked the same question, where is the price fixing meeting? Indeed, I was happy to hear that we were not the only paranoid company attending the conference sponsored by AVN in Cancun. What, besides getting shut out of some sort of industry insider super scheme would compel us to spend that much money to hang out with a lot of people who on any other day of the year has us pulling out hair out by the roots?

I know we were surprised to see an effigy of Rob Black burning in the middle of the room with distributors dancing around it and several lawyers chanting like witch doctors trying to rid the room of liability and culpability.

...Russ [Hampshire] said I should be shut up and pay more attention, because I might learn something.

The power of this statement put a deep glow of understanding on me quicker than a tan on Jennifer Rosenblatt. Jennifer, oh Jenny. We spent a lot of quality time with Jennifer who is a fun, beautiful, vivacious, intelligent woman and a wonderful dancer.

Citizens Group For Integrity in Pornography

Luke's thinking of starting a citizens group for Integrity in Pornography. We should first march on Metro, chanting "Hey ho, hey ho, Mafia has got to go," protesting the way they bounce checks on innocent porners. Next we demonstrate outside of AVN demanding the firing of Mean Gene Ross, and a more accurate Top 60 Sales Based on Wholesale & Distributor Reports. From there to Vivid to demand that Janine really do a guy and the company stop cutting scenes out of its DVDs. Are you with me? Can you rewrite any negro spirituals to fit the theme? We shall overcome.

Stacey Valentine is a Babe

Dan writes on RAME: I had a great pleasure today of meeting Stacey Valentine at an instore signing today. I've not been a fan prior and only really knew about her from seeing some Club mag girl/girl layouts. That, and hearing about her upcoming documentary in this ng and on ET. I have to say she's far more beautiful in person with her face having softer features and those beautiful eyes. And, of course, those incredible breasts (I admit I'm a breast man and proud of it). But, to top it off she seemed very pleasant and actually nice to chat with. We talked about the documentary which should see the theatre by yr's end, magazine layouts, suggestions of her videos I'd like, and even non-porn stuff. She just seemed like a nice person, not dripping in attitude or acting like "here's your autograph, now give me your $$ and get lost". I was very impressed with her personality and from that and her beauty (of course) I'll check out her videos and may end up being a fan. www.stacyvalentine.com. Webmaster Don Osterholt claims her name is spelled "Stacy" but Luke has always seen it as "Stacey."

Help Me, I'm a Victim of Pornography

Check out www.victimsofpornography.org for more heartrending stories:

Sarah Suckme writes: "I was married to an abusive husband for over 18 years. He used me to act out his pornographic fantasies. Disrespect, anger, belittlement, humiliation, pain, confusion, and brokeness are just a few of the words that describe how I felt as I recall what I went through. I have blocked out so much just to keep my sanity. I tried so hard to measure up and perform like the women and men in the pictures. I thought it would save my marriage. I soon learned that I was nothing but an object to be used and abused for his sexual pleasures."

Martin Brimmer writes to Luke: "Luke: This new riff you're on of pasting porners names into sordid news stories is a true lowering of the bar for you. Kindly delete my name from the Victims of Pornography piece running on your page today or I'll come down there and hang you by the balls from the roof of the Flynt building."

Peter North's ex-wife writes: "My husband had a large collection of bizarre S & M and bondage pornography that he kept in the nightstand drawer in our bedroom. On one occasion he tied me to our bed and sodomized me."

Ron Jeremy's ex-wife writes: "I have been married for over 14 year. My husband has been addicted to pornography all this time. I hate to even use that word. He has used printed material video, Internet and has been to adult bookstores. He dragged me into this addiction for years, and I followed along just to please him. But I finally couldn't take it anymore. He became physically, mentally and verbally abusive to me. The hardest thing to take is when he tells me that pornography has had no effect on our family. God help us."

Convicted killer Arthur Gary Bishop: "During my trial, Rabbi Luke F-rd testified about the adverse effects of pornography. As I listened to his explanations, I could discern how my own life desires escalated these normal feelings become desensitized, and they end to act out what they have seen. So it was with me. I am a homosexual pedophile convicted of murder, and pornography was a determining factor in my downfall. Somehow I became sexually attracted to young boys, and I would fantasize them naked...I would need pictures that were more explicit and shortly became commonplace and acceptable. Finding and procuring sexually arousing materials became an obsession. For me, seeing pornography was like lighting a fuse on a stick of dynamite; I became stimulated and had to gratify my urges and explode. The day came when I invited a small neighborhood boy into my apartment, molested him and then killed him in fear of being caught. Over the few years I kidnapped, sexually abused, and murdered four other boys. I lost all sense of decency and respect for humanity and life...If pornographic material would have been unavailable to me in my early stages; it is most probable that my sexual activities would not have escalated to the degree they did."

Former homosexual Matt Ramsey testifies: "As an individual addicted to pornography too many years of my life, I experienced desensitization to what Î was involved in. As I reflect on my past, I was involved with teenagers in pedophile behavior. I got interested in homosexual behavior to some degree because of pornography. I though, "This lifestyle or behavior is 'normal' because it is in these magazines. And if it weren't normal, it wouldn't be in these magazines. I now have AIDS and they say that if it weren't for pornography I probably wouldn't have it today."

Alec Metro says: "I have lived in prison a long time now and I've met a lot of men who were motivated to violence just like me. And without exception, every one of them was deeply involved in pornography, without a question, deeply influenced and consumed by an addiction to pornography."

Teenage girl: "When I was 8 years old my father made me look at pictures that showed girls doing sexual things to men in books. I went along with him, not knowing any better. He continued to rape me and use me for 4 years while using these books. Now at 16 I have found that I have a serious STD that has no cure. I have been with no one but my father. What will I tell my husband someday? I may die for this disease. Pornography has ruined my life."

Farrah f---me: "I worked with a group of men that had pornography in their desks. Each day I was subject to sexually suggestive names, comments, and propositions. I just asked to be left alone to no avail. One night when I was working late and as I walked across the parking lot for my car, I heard a familiar voice. One of the men I worked with called my name, then approached me. As we talked it was clear he had one thing on his mind, I was going to have sex with him. I had to fight him off, and luckily escaped his sick fantasies that he said all women really wanted; those of the stories in the magazines."

Free Speech Coalition executive director Jeffrey Douglas says: "For pornography to be harmless, the people who are depicted in its images would have to be unreal - mere symbols of something philosophical and intangible. However, the women violated in pornography are human beings. Beyond the glossy pages, the naked and used women are real, as real as all other women who work and live side-by-side with men who sustain a regular diet of pornography. Pornography makes women chattel, and all women have reason to fear that the attitudes of the men with whom they live and work are transformed by the images of pornography. Pornography operates in a subliminal way, as a manifestation of the inequality of the sexes and a rationale for sex discrimination and sexual harassment. Depicting women as anonymous, ever-wanting/waiting, empty sex toys for men, stripping and exposing their bodies for monetary gain and entertainment cannot possibly translate into a message that can exist in harmony with equality, dignity and humanity."

FSC President Gloria Leonard says: "Pornography "educates" its consumers with information that is not only highly inaccurate, but also misleading and dangerous. It portrays unhealthy and antisocial kinds of sexual activity, such as sadomasochism, abuse, and humiliation of females, involvement of children, incest, group sex, voyeurism, sexual degradation, bestiality, necrophilia, torture, objectification, and sanction of "the rape myth." Consumers (including children) learn and will more easily accept the idea of forced sex as reasonable and justified, and could very easily become desensitized to extremely dangerous antisocial behavior. As such, the dulling of the moral senses can affect the safety of women. It also creates a culture that trivializes rape and other sex crimes. Moreover, even non-violent pornography seriously undermines the value of women in real life. In the porn world, a woman's value is directly linked to her sexual desirability, according to pornography's artificial, glossy, airbrushed criterion. Without regard to her as woman of dignity, intelligence, political autonomy, wisdom, and personality, pornography reinforces sexual stereotypes and promulgates a demeaning message about the role of women in society. The addictive nature of pornography creates a self-perpetuating cycle, magnified by the fact that exposure to pornography lessens repulsion to pornography and desensitizes its consumers of its harms. Properly evaluated, pornography looses its definition as "thought" or "speech" but rather becomes an action, in and of itself."

Lolli Lollipop testifies:
I was married for nearly 12 years to a man who was addicted to pornography. It controlled his life, and nearly destroyed mine. What began as a curiosity for him ended as torture for me as he acted out his sadistic fantasies.

Pornography captured him as a young teenager, and its power over him grew until it consumed him. His sexual desires and fantasies were molded by the images he saw in books, magazines, and videos.

The physical violence began early in our marriage when he told me people were addicted to perverted sex and magazines and that I needed to understand what they were feeling. He held me down and would not let me free while he forced painful violent intercourse. When he finished, he was filled with remorse over what he had done and swore he'd never do it again. As time went on however, he gradually acted as though he had a right to use force to do whatever he wanted to me. Our marriage license became a license to rape.

His favorite fantasies centered around inflicting pain on his eager-to-be-hurt partner (the rape myth). Intuitively I knew this was connected to his addiction to pornography. Even though I was really uninformed about pornography, I wrote in my journal: Tell me what I just gave away isn't part of a pornographic fantasy somewhere. I feel like I'm being stomped on, betrayed into something pornographic. This isn't an expression of love-I'm being exploited and used to make up somebody's personal X-rated film.

Part of his foreplay technique was to see how much of his hand he could fit into my body-two fingers, three, all five. Or he would put both of his hands at the base of one of my breasts and squeeze hard-as though he was trying to rip the breast right off my body. He used to tease me by threatening to attach clips with colorful streamers to my nipples, saying that he had seen it somewhere and he really liked it. He tried all kinds of ways to turn me on spanking me with his penis, covering me with his semen, (involuntary) oral se. He even tried putting Ben-Gay in my body-I will never forget the incredible burning. Oh, the nightmares Not only did I experience nightmares during my waking hours, but in my sleep I dreamed I was being chased, mutilated, literally torn apart, and killed by my husband.

Then in 1981 he acted out his most dangerous fantasy. One morning a few days after I got home from the hospital where I had had an ovary removed, I woke up to danger and started struggling to get away. The more I struggled, the more he insisted. I could not believe it when he climbed on top of me. The weight of his body against my incision shot pain and terror all through me. He forced French kissing, held me down at my arms and forced my legs open as he threatened to penetrate. He was filled with angry, animal like passion has he moved against my body, as though the next move would be intercourse. He was acting out his fantasy of the rape myth, hoping I would be turned on--but I was terrified. I struggled, tried to move away but could not. I yelled for him to stop, but he would not stop until that magical moment when he saw that I was really about to go crazy.

I was devastated! I could not believe what was happening to me. My journal reads; can't you wait until I'm healed? You're nothing but a sick animal, like a lion waiting to pounce at a weak moment so you can devour and destroy me. I very nearly took my life that August day; instead I retreated into a silent world of pain and terror, a gray world with no color, no life, no feelings, no desires. It has been five years since I took steps to get out. Recovery has been a long, difficult (and expensive) process. Since leaving the relationship, I have seen very clearly the link between my ex-husband's addiction to pornography and the pain and degradation I suffered. We were both victims of this industry, which very nearly destroyed both of our lives.