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Archives - Friday, May 21st, 1999

I was born early. Throughout my life I've liked to arrive not only on time, but early.

Tuesday morning, 5/18, I left home at 11AM to catch my 1:55PM Air Canada flight to Montreal. By noon I was sitting at gate 24A ready to board.

I reread the 1994 book Piety and Power by Israeli journalist David Landau, about the haredim (literally, those who tremble before God, God-fearers), ultra religious Jews who are growing in strength and numbers. There are about 13 million Jews in the world, and about one million are haredim. About half of the Jews in the world are secular and rapidly assimilating. I am a non-orthodox religious Jew, who does fear God but is not haredi. A large source of my courage is that because I fear God, I fear people less. We will all fear something. I fear the God of the Ten Commandments.

Different people are motivated differently. I get much of my motivation fleeing undesirable outcomes (sickness, poverty, loneliness, etc). I find fear a powerful motivator, frequently more so than love.

Many haredi rabbis forbid their flock to own VCRs, "an instrument of Satan."

A group of Gerer Hasidic rabbis declared: "We are horrified to learn that a terrible breach has been made in the "wall of purity"by the introduction of the weapon of destruction called VIDEO. This evil instrument has already destroyed kosher Jewish homes, and many are the corpses it leaves strewn in its wake.

"...[Video] turns out to be the ugliest and most loathsome instrument of debauchery. It has penetrated into our camp through its use mainly at weddings [Hasidim videotaping their weddings]. But such is the way of the Evil Inclination: today he tells you to do this, and tomorrow do that - until the members of the family sin by watching things that are forbidden, and then degenerates even further by watching ugly VIDEO films obtainable in shops."

Landau writes on page 234 of his 1994 book: "The problem was apparently two-fold. First, people were 'watching things that are forbidden' - that is, they were taking home their video-films after the wedding and watching that which they were physically prevented [forbidden by Jewish religious law] to watch at the wedding itself: the opposite sex dancing. Precisely because haredi weddings have such rigorous separation between men and women, each side tends to celebrate with unselfconscious abandon. The girls and young women seem as oblivious of the video-team (usually non-haredi males) as of the male waiters who pass freely between the two halves of the hall.

"Second and worse, some youngsters were renting adult films. In a society where cinema-going is forbidden and television is taboo, this is indeed a serious breach. The decision, initiated in Israeli mitnagdic circles and endorsed by the hasidim too (apart from Lubavitch), was that the obvious educational and entertainment potential of the VCR would have to be foregone in order to guard the 'wall of purity.'"

A friend of my hero Dennis Prager, www.dennisprager.net, an orthodox Jew, has his wife go through the newspaper each morning before he will read it, and tear out all immodest ads and pictures. The man wishes to be turned on only by his wife, and to not see other women immodestly dressed. Luke finds this humorous but understandable and even noble.

Many religious Jews would not see the Steven Spieldberg film Schindler's List because of the sex scenes.

Raised a Seventh Day Adventist (who also forbid attending the cinema), Luke did not see his first film in a theater until age 14 (Raiders of the Lost Ark). My family first bought a TV around the same time. I don't regret this, though rebellion against such strictures largely motivates my choice of career today.

For weeks I've been boasting that the National Film Board of Canada is flying me to Montreal and housing me for five days in a classy hotel (Delta Montreal).

The plane is filled with people heading to the Web Expo, an internet porn convention at Montreal's Wyndham hotel. I feel lust for a short blonde wearing glasses, tennis shoes and tight shorts. I don't know if she and the other beautiful women on the flight are porners, but I suspect so. [Later, I see her and her boyfriend at the Web Expo.]

Boarding my plane, I meet someone I know - Al Hanan, Director of West Coast operations for www.adultstarsmagazine.com.

My flight arrives at 10PM Montreal time (I finish my book). Paul Cowan, director of the Film Board documentary on Sex and Censorship, meets me at the airport. He and his wife have a cold. This is my first time in Canada (though I've lived in the US since 1977).

Paul has been working fulltime on this documentary for two years (eating up a $400,000 budget). The documentary will probably be shown on the CBC (Canada's public broadcasting network). Montreal seems quaint with its ancient stone buildings (city was founded in the early 16th Century and has long been dominated by Roman Catholicism). Most of the street signs and billboards are in French, though the English have long dominated (through money, power) the city.

Paul is an atheist. His wife studies Buddhism and works for the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Company, similar to the BBC). She hosts a radio show on jazz. They have two daughters and live in the affluent English-speaking city of Westmount. Both also speak French.

I stay at the Delta Montreal on President Kennedy Avenue, one of the few streets with an English name. I'm three blocks from the convention and next to McGill University.

In his hotel room, Luke flips on his TV, which he rarely watches at home. I browse through the channels for ten minutes and check out the adult offerings (though Luke has been firmly gripped by porn loathing the last few weeks). But I can't imagine spending $10 for a video, when I have far too many unwatched vids in my cupboard at home.

At 2:30 AM, Wednesday morning, I take two Tylenol PM tablets and fall asleep.

At 7:15 AM, I meet Paul Cowan outside my hotel and we meander through morning rush hour traffic for 30 minutes to the Montreal home of the National Film Board. The building used to house 800 employees, but budget cutbacks have reduced the number to 300.

I spend the day reading excerpts from my web site and RAME (newsgroup rec.arts.movies.erotica) postings while Paul videotapes me. We work in a largely deserted and dirty section of the building, an abandoned warehouse. Paul shoots the camera, Craig overlooks the sound. We're assisted by two attractive women, Valerie (brunette) and Siya (a Greek blonde).

We finish by 5PM and Paul returns me to my hotel. He points out the Wyndham, but I get confused and walk around the city looking for it. Eventually a concierge at a rival hotel points me in the right direction and I arrive at the Web Expo shortly before 7:30 PM, the end of Wednesday's registration period.

Thursday morning I open up the Montreal Gazette and find this headline on page three "Actress sues over porn video." Story details how Montreal "actress" Mary-Lou Wiseblatt, who played Roxanne in Video Virgin, claims that she exclusively owns the copyright to her performance, and that the producers Caroline and Daniel McAlear were supposed to pay her a fair share of the profits.

Wiseblatt claims the producers took advantage of her fragile mental state whose symptoms include chronic panic disorder, agoraphobia, anxiety and bouts of depression.

Wiseblatt says about 20,000 copies of Video Virgin sold for $30 each, that pictures of her performance appear on Caroline’s website, called the Caroline Cox Amateur Fan Club.

At 8:30 AM, I meet Cowan, Craig and Siya at the Web Expo. I feel exhausted, dizzy and depressed. But after three cups of coffee and 30 minutes of conversation about myself, I'm revived. We attend the two morning seminars with about 200 people crammed in a room.

The four panelists are leading webmasters RB, John Bennet (JB), Fantasyman (FM) of www.Cybererotica.com (probably the internet porn site with the most content and highest total payouts to webmasters (over 50 employees), Seth Warshavsky's IEG (150 employees) is the most publicized internet porn site, but within the industry CE is the most respected) and Greg Dumas. This is FM's first time to participate in a panel discussion. Previously he's always declined invitations, not wanting to give away his enormous knowledge.

An intense chain smoker about 45 years of age, he wears glasses and looks like a New York Jew. His biggest hobby is race car driving and he's moving into the mainstream internet world. FM entered the phone sex industry in 1986, three years after it began. Most of the leading porn webmasters come from a background in pay-per-call services, usually phone sex which they euphemistically refer to as "audio text." Conscious of the lack of social acceptance of their product, porners routinely use euphemisms such as "adult" for porn, and "dancing" and "gentlemen's clubs" for strip joints.

All the panelists appear cerebral, with little triangular heads. The crowd is 90% sleazy men, many with ponytails, tattoos, piercings and other outward manifestations of internal distress. Porn internet, like the rest of the sex industry, appears dominated by blunt, fast-talking, self-aware secular New York Jews whose mannerisms approximate the Mafia. Relationships and credibility are everything.

Greg Dumas, who was recently bought out by New Frontier (stock trades under NOOF) seems a cut above his peers. He appears a decent man who might even read books, says Cowan. "Most everyone else has a patina of sleeze."

FM started www.cybererotica.com in 1995 with the former ad manager for Hustler, Paul Lesser. Paul signs the checks and works with employees while FM specializes in marketing. CE (Cybererotica aka Voice Media Inc techinically based in Nevada but operations are located in Chatsworth) has paid webmasters over $20 million during its three years, and currently pays out $2 million a month. CE throws two lush parties at the Web Expo, spending about $100,000 at the Expo. On Tuesday of this week, CE had 6000 signups.

FM has mentored numerous webmasters, including Rob Gould from VCA's Babenet operation. At the 1997 IA2000 convention, Rob said publicly that he started making money on the internet after he began listening to FM.

Rob stole his "rockn'rollers" payout system from CE, shortly after going to a long lunch with FM and learning how FM ran CE's webmaster program. Babenet ripped Luke off for about $1500 and I've heard other complaints from webmasters about Babenet's deceptive practices.

FM, who was recently ripped off by IGalley, no longer consults with other webmasters unless he's given a piece of the action. FM's first partner in phone sex stole a big check from AT&T and disappeared.

Steve Cohen, who's spent time in prison for fraud according to IEG, owns www.sex.com. He claims that he secured the domain name in 1976. IEG's Seth Warshavsky disagrees and he’s suing Cohen over the matter, claiming that the person who registered www.sex.com misspelled her own name twice on the registration paper. This indicates fraud as it is extremely rare for a person to misspell her own name.

I hear that Cohen is trying to trademark "sex.com" and will then sue people who use that name.

The panel discussion begins with talk about the future of internet porn. Panelists predict consolidation ahead. Capitalism tends towards monopoly. Businessmen rarely get together without making deals that decrease competition, reduce output, raise prices and defraud the public.

Contrary to the 4/19/99 article in Time, panelists don't believe there will be more IPOs (Initial Public Offerings, i.e., to enter the stock market) by porn companies because of public distaste for such businesses. Banks don't want to lend money or invest in such operations.

In the April Time, Karl Taro Greenfield wrote a one-page article headlined "Taking Stock in Smut" about porn webmasters who want to take their companies public. Chief among them is Seth Warshavsky, who claims that his www.clublove.com site has 115,000 subscribers. He also offers the opportunity to watch brain surgery or sex-change operations online.

Seth owns IEG with 4 Star Financial Services, an investment company. They claim IEG will generate $100 million in revenue this year and $35 million profit.

Several porn companies have already gone public, including Playboy (1993) and New Frontier Media last year.

Greenfield writes: "The stigma of adult content has been enough to frighten away top-tier underwriters like DLJ and Goldman Sachs. But for second-tier underwriters, the seamy associations might be worth the bottom-line bump. Craig Gould, vice president of National Securities, a firm that says it is likely to be in on the deal, believes the company can be floated, pointing out that BearStearns found a way to take Playboy public: "History has shown that Wall Street has raised money for adult companies," he says. Fidelity and Warburg Pincus hold blocks of Playboy stock, while BearStearns and T. Rowe Price own positions in Spice Enterainment…"

To be in a position to be bought out, webmasters need legal original content, with releases and trademarks.

RB: "All us guys sitting up here right now have been successful and we're looking for liquidity [to be bought out].

JB, a muscular with a triangular head, entered phone sex in 1991 and the internet in 1995. "I see more legal issues. We'll be under the microscope more than we were three years ago."

A webmaster asks about the suggestions he received to improve his hits - place outrageous words (such as lolita) as Meta Tags on his pages, the nastier the better. FM advises that such words better reflect the content of the site. Pages with 'lolita' should be for teen sites.

FM: "Let me tell you a story about search engines. A guy was monitoring Magellan to find out which words were submitted most. And he found "girlz," and other common misspellings. He put those words in his meta tags and boom, his hits went up."

JB: "You've got to keep track of what people are looking for. And as for those guys who promise to submit your pages to search engines for $100, ask yourself, why aren't they doing that for their own pages? Don't waste your money on such services."

Greg Dumas started in porn with Hustler magazine and went online in 1995. "VISA is scrutinizing adult transactions on the internet and making things difficult. Wall Street tends to not like adult companies."

JB: "NASDAQ changed its rules April 7 to not allow adult companies. Bulletin boards have changed their requirements so that you can no longer use a corporate shell to go public [like Metro did]. Club Love (IEG) claims that it is going to go public... It is not going to happen. There is not a market maker that will take anybody [porno] public on NASDAQ. Rick's Cabaret was the last adult company to go public. NASDAQ does not want adult companies."

Around October, 1998, VISA level a huge fine on the biggest company carrying out third-party credit card transactions in adult internet - DMR. VISA has the legal right to levy fines on companies whose charge-bakcs exceed 2.5%. DMR passed on, it says, 30% of the fine to those internet sites (including CE) whose charge-backs exceeded 2.5%. Thus, various sites suddenly received a huge bill at the end of last year, putting many of them out of business.

FM and numerous other webmasters who got bills from DMR were furious. FM had recommended DMR to many of his peers. He now offers his peers the services of his legal team so they can sue DMR.

JB: "You say you change your content once a month. Change it twice a month. Find out why people are canceling. Maybe they find your site hard to navigate. You think it looks great. Ask the people who cancel why they're canceling. You may find out you have broken links."

FM: "The industry standard is to keep your customers for two-and-a-half months. Cyberotica average 4.3 months."

JB: "The longer you keep them, the more profit you will make."

Marketing internet sites and keeping customers resembles the business of selling magazine subscriptions.

Greg: "We test our sites with all different browsers, including old versions of AOL."

FM: "I've noticed people on their tour pages [to their paysite] put links to places other than their paysite. When we grab them [surfers], we keep track of them. We give them no links other than to the pay site. If they start to back up, type away or bookmark away, we close the browser, open up another browser and sell them another pay site. If you do that just once, you've doubled your exposure."

FM: "People who deceptively offer free trials and tell people that they are never going to get charged for anything, then people open up their credit card bills and find they have been charged... You can't play the consumer to be a stupid person... This creates complaints to the FTC, to VISA..."

Greg Dumas: "Make your terms and conditions readable. Even if a lawyer wrote them, make them readable. Let people know that they will get billed every month unless they cancel. These people are looking for immediate gratification. They may be drunk or smoking... Make your terms easy to read, it will make life easier for you in reducing charge-backs."

JB: "When we moved our terms and conditions button from the bottom of the page to the top, our join rate changed from one in 450, to one in 10,000."

FM: "The first paragraph of our terms says that this will renew each month for $29:95 and tells them how they can cancel. Why did your signups go down when you placed the terms button on top? Because you gave them a dose of reality before you delivered the goods."

JB: "All these companies using deceptive practices devalue the real estate for everybody."

The word sex was probably not even used in the first hour.

Paul Cowan tells me at lunch: "You get a bunch of males together talking about sex and the business of sex and it turns into who swings the bigger dick."

Luke: "They divide themselves into hierarchies quickly. They need to know who is in charge."

The Canadians are astounded by how fat Americans are. Americans truly seem to stand out as far larger and fatter than other people.

I see David Schlesinger of Vivid, the former director of PR who now concentrates his talents on Vivid's internet sites. He is the only rep of Vivid at the conference.

I run into a couple in their 40s who have five kids. They run about 40 free sex sites. They don't want their picture taken or their names mentioned but they do want free publicity for their sites.

I'm told that AVN publisher Paul Fishbein is a control freak who has no employees who stand up to him. Well, I know that ad manager Jennifer Rosenblatt screams at him regularly.

Conference organizers warn porners that the hotel is also hosting a young beauty pageant for girls 12-20 and that the Wyndham hotel had complaints that some of the underage girls in the pageant were asked by internet porners if they wanted to pose for nude pictures.

Conference organizer: "The first two floors of the hotel are taken by young ladies who we don't want to photograph. Above them is a pediatrician conventions. We have the top floors."

Widespread laughter.

The web expo www.webexpo.net is run by Fay Sharpe of TradeShow Productions. They get mixed marks from the porners. Exhibits are only open two days, but many porners had the impression that they would be open for four days. Food is pitiful.

From the 5/15/99 Montreal Gazette:

Sharp, whose TradeShow Productions is spending $100,000 U.S. to put on X Web Expo, said there was enormous demand for exhibit space. She had sold all 60 of the 8-foot-by-10-foot booths by January and said she could have sold double the floor space.

"Basically, we have a lot of businesspeople who are selling products that happen to be adult," said Sharp, who balks at the word "porn," preferring "adult entertainment."

"This is not a porn convention, this is businesspeople," she said.

Sharp, based in a small town in the U.S. Midwest that she doesn't want to name, is cashing in on the booming demand for titillating material by staging industry trade shows, including AdultDex in Las Vegas every November. Last year, that show, which also features adult CD-ROM and video distributors, attracted 10,000 people.

Sykk Boy writes on www.condomchronicles.com: "I take great exception to your "article" on WebExpo.
I have a f---ing ponytail, a man whom I have bought content from has piercings and a ponytail, in fact my partner isn a new business venture has a pionytail, piercings and tats, and they are far more business like than those clean cut IBM f---ing clones out there...I and they probably make a f--- of a lot more money than you do too...the thing that's great about this business is that you don't have to be some namby, pamby kissass suit and tie type of prick to make a living....see, I own my own non-adult company plus have been bought into buy a larger, powerful company...it wasn't because i had snazzy suits or a $50 haircut..it's because of what i have upstairs....I run my f---ing business ethically and profitably, without f---ing anyone or pissing off anyone (ok a few, but who hasn't). In fact when i do business, i much more trust someone with a ponytail and at least an earring moreso than a "clean cut" gee whiz, beav, type of person...no actually, I do business with professionals....no matter their dress or appearance...

and as for Faye..i have NEVER seen a woman work as hard as i saw her work and i was only there until Saturday morning.....

If you were any good as a reporter or even a writer, you would be writing for the Chronicles...

Lee writes: "After reading you write up on your site about web expo, I am appalled. I was there and for you to say that "The crowd is 90% sleazy men, many with ponytails, tattoos, piercings and other outward manifestations of internal distress."

Please, the people I met and do business with do NOT fall into this category. The people in our industry who are respected and successful run successful companies and do all they can to help out others. Not only do I enjoy doing business with them, I call many of them my friends. I for one am a clean cut 26 year old male who by looking at me, porn is the LAST thing people think I do.

So please Luke, give us a break from your bull-s--- and go back to reporting ficticious stories and rumors about the adult video industry...oh wait...I heard they don't want you either.

***

The first conference after lunch is a panel of reps from third party billing companies like DMR. They face an angry crowd. First big question comes from a prominent webmasters who yells loudly at the female representing DMR, "why should I trust you with my money?"

Third party billing services for adult internet sites typically charge fees of around 15%.

DMR rep Kelly Kruse: "We are the biggest. That's probably why we got fined by VISA. Adult internet is a victim of its own success."

She holds up a copy of the internet magazine "The internet standard." The March 22 issue cover story is on the success of internet sex sites. The headline reads, "The lessons of porn." The crowd is in no mood to listen to her lengthy answer. "Because of the success of everyone in this room, you have required the global economy to take notice."

FM takes over and pounds the rep with loud harsh questions and statements.

A man in the audience yells at FM, "Let her talk."

Kelly: "I just got off the phone with the CEO of our corporation and he has new information that will dramatically change the way this industry does business."

FM: "I have a question for IBill and Epic. I understand that you are going to watch what we do like a hawk, and if you have a problem with what we're doing, you will let us know. Rather than retroactively deciding to charge us thousands of dollars. And that if you make a mistake, are you going to pass those costs on to webmasters, like DMR did?"

Firms competing with DMR say they will not.

FM: "If you decide to change your policies back in October, would you make us aware of them in October or would you wait a few months like DMR?"

Reps say they would alert webmasters immediately to policy changes.

FM: "I want DMR to know that they are going to have some competition, me."

Loud applause. Webmasters generally support and respect FM.

Epic: The industry began to top out in October of last year. We saw the industry had peaked and that transactions had topped out. When that happens, charge-backs shoot above 2.5%. We immediately instituted some tough rules which resulted in a drop in transactions. We lost 2%. We expected a 10-15% drop and our charge-back rate is below the VISA requirement (of 2.5%). There is nobody in this room who is not being watched by VISA. They scrutinize the way we handle cancellations, the way we handle customer email... Customer service. Every transaction run through our system is scrubbed against people who have defrauded us. If they pass that, they're scrubbed for velocity, for credit card use, for limits... They're scrubbed against other databases, against ABS (American Banking System)..."

FM: "Is there anything in your [Epic, and IBill] agreements with webmasters, that allows you to pass along third party fines [like DMR did]?"

Reps say no.

Luke's surprised that given the venom in the room, the DMR female rep does not burst into tears. She does not appear visibly shaken.

DMR Rep: "Just to answer your question..."

FM interrupts: "Yeah, answer the question. Don't bulls--- because nobody wants to hear the bulls---."

Upset webmaster to DMR: "Why didn't you just pro-rate your premium [to absorb the VISA fine]? Because we're all in this together. And all the little guys are going to go out of business. We guys who control the traffic realize that the only reason we need you [third party billers] is the access to the bankers. And I can talk to bankers."

DMR rep: "We just got off the phone with VISA this morning and VISA has implemented a new policy that I want to share with this group today... They are going to be able identify every transaction (to see whether it is porno)... That information will make it impossible for any of us not to comply with the rules that they set forth. That change will dramatically affect the industry. We were the catalyst for this change. We have 400 employees..."

FM: "You don't want to address our questions. You don't understand what is going on."

Loud applause.

DMR rep: "Really, I appreciate..."

FM: "I told many of these good people to sign up with your company. And now they're going broke because of you. What am I suppose to tell them?"

IBill rep: "I understand the undercurrents..."

Loud laughter.

IBill: "I mean overcurrents... I respect everybody's opinions and concerns but perhaps there are other questions..."

Ten minutes later, Luke asks a question of the DMR rep. "Why are so many people annoyed with you?"

Loud laughter.

DMR rep: "We are in this together. Because of the size of our transaction volume, we were levied tremendous fines by VISA [because of the excessive levels of charge-backs in the adult internet business]. Those fines were then in turn passed down to our customers base [whose chargebacks exceeded 2.5%]."

Why? Because DMR did not have reserves to pay the VISA fine. So DMR passed on 30% of the fine based on the chargeback rates of its customers.

A webmaster makes the point that as signups fall, the charge-back percentage will grow. The nature of free trials tends to increase the percentage of charge-backs. People would sign up because they thought the site was free, then they check their credit card bill and find out that they were charged.

Because of problems with third-party billing, CE has taken these credit-card transactions in-house and added a staff to deal with customer complaints. Third-party billing companies were hiring out customer service which frequently resulted in lousy customer service, angry customers and an increased percentage of chargebacks.

VISA wants to cut down the number of complaint calls, and the number of charge-backs.

Recurring billing will never disappear. AOL and the Wall Street Journal etc use recurring billing.

IBill rep: "VISA has some funky rules. If they wanted to enforce them, they could choose to not do business with you."

I hear that numerous online merchants outside of porno are having problems with chargebacks. People will order merchandise, such as books or toys or computer equipment. They will receive the equipment and then call their credit card company and refuse to pay the bill, claiming they were ripped off somehow by the merchant.

Credit cards, says a rep, are antiquated. They are meant for in-store transaction where you have to present ID, and sign your signature... But there is no alternative on the horizon.

Attractive DMR rep Kelly Kruse of www.eliancecorp.com, has been with the company only ten weeks.

"If I could've spoken about where we are going with VISA... We are only group out of these guys who are talking with VISA about how we are going to handle these problems. We are not providing band-aid solutions. We are building foreign banking relationships... We did $30 million in revenue last year. We serve 10,000 web merchants."

"We had some customers that had charge-backs in the range of 70-80% [indicating a fraudulent operation].

"This move by VISA shook everyone's cage. VISA had not been managing tightly to this figure [2.5%]. We're going to analyze how much risk management [DMR can handle]..."

A webmaster, Mark Tiarra of the non-profit organization UAS (United Adult Sites), says that he has a list of the most frequently submitted words to the Lycos search engine.

FM: "Mark is the type of guy who, when someone got ripped off $100 by their ISP (internet service provider), he spent hours getting the guy's money back. All these nightmare stories. I consider him the Jimmy Hoffa of our industry. He's a pillar of the community."

There's loud laughter and the first applause of the day.

FM refers to the Mafia associate who ran the Teamsters union before getting whacked. To FM, comparing someone to Hoffa is a compliment. In the sex industry, the Mafia are the good guys and the FBI and the police are the bad guys.

A tall black webmaster with curly hair that falls to his waist complains that the number of his pay site members has leveled off and that his attrition rate equals his new signups. What should he do?

FM: "By adding more content, you can keep your members longer. Place notifications of your new content on your main member page. The only other thing you can do is get more traffic. Once you get more traffic, you will take your signup number higher, but again, you'll eventually reach a plateu [where your attrition rate will equal your new signups]."

FM: "We give away a free month's membership to anyone who reports a dead link on our site."

The panelists talk about the difficulties of operating pay sites. Third party processing is just the latest problem. Unless you have particularly powerful content, it's best to keep your internet sites free and send your traffic to high-paying advertisers like Cybererotica.

FM: "I remember when AT&T would monitor our 900 lines, and if the talk got too hot, they would discontinue them. And we might have spent $20,000 worth of advertising for that particular line. And the FCC gave us problems... There will always be a demand for what we do [sexual stimulation] and there will always be people supplying this demand. And there will always be obstacles... If we regulate ourselves and stop people from scamming with free signups, we won't have outside forces regulating us."

A webmaster says that he saw Mike Wallice on his flight to Montreal but there's no sign of 60 Minutes at the Web Expo.

Paul Cowan says that while doing research for his documentary, he joined about ten porn paysites and about half scammed him through such techniques as making it almost impossible to quit while billing his credit card every month. I told Paul that if you have problems with any credit card transaction, and the merchant won't give you satisfaction, simply inform your credit card that you refuse to pay a certain bill for such and such a reason, and almost always the credit card company will take your side with the merchant. This is called a "charge-back," and is a merchant nightmare with credit card processing because credit card processing agencies like VISA fine merchants who have high charge-back rates (over 2.5%). The higher a merchant's charge-back rate, the more likely it is that he is doing dishonest business. Honest merchants satisfy their customers or offer easy refunds to unsatisfied customers.

Paul: "One company kept referring me to different phone number. Finally I got an 818 area code and an answer machine. I said, 'If you don't take me off of your database within 24 hours, I and the National Film Board of Canada will sue you for fraud.' And they took me off. I tried for two weeks to get off that site and I couldn't do it."

A mainstream journalist friend phoned me a month ago complaining about Sean Michaels web site which kept billing him for eight unwanted months and would not offer him a proper refund.

Paul began work on his documentary "Sex and Censorship" in the summer of 1997. I met him at the World Pornography Conference at the Universal Sheraton in August, 1998.

"I've never seen so many older men wearing suspenders and ponytails," remembers Cowan. Along with Rick and Siya, we talk over lunch.

A media person tells me that most everyone at this Web Expo looks like a low-life. That if they weren't doing porn, they'd live on the streets.

Paul: "Over the past year that I've been filming Luke, I've seen him descend from being slightly above the gutter to being several leagues into it. I don't know how long he can last in this business until he becomes one of them. In another six months, I suspect you'll be wearing a ponytail, suspenders, unbuttoned shirts and gold chains around your neck. Though you don't have a hairy chest."

That Paul thinks that I've descended over the past nine months shocks me. A couple of other people have told me the same thing. I've got to get out of porn.

"It's clear when you look at the footage," says Cowan. "When you're in the middle of it [porn], you have a certain emotional response. Then, when you look at it later, and it's just there cold on the TV screen, you can see much more then when you were there at the moment. So, I've seen you deteriorate. Scary."

Luke: "Wow."

Paul: "We're not sure what that 'wow' means. Whether it is a wow of incredulity or a wow of a new insight."

Luke: "Other people have told me that but I did not buy it."

Paul: "It's there on the film."

Sia: "Listen to your mother."

Luke: "I don't understand that because by the World Pornography Conference, I'd been in the business three years already."

Paul: "That's scary that's there has been a significant deterioration in the last year."

Luke: "By becoming more coarse?"

Paul: "Oh yeah. More inured to the disgusting nature of this industry. You're talking about blowjobs from porners like it was acceptable practice."

Luke: "It's not?"

Paul: "It's accepted practice within this world."

We look around the room at the conference attendees.

Paul: "Look at all these guys. They look like they are cut from the same mold.

"After spending time with Ford over the past year, I can tell you that all this stuff he claims about feeling guilt is a sham."

Siya: "I don't trust Luke. Turn that machine off."

Luke turns off his $20 Sony tape recorder.

Luke thinks that he needs to spend less time around the porn industry and more time pursuing other things, like Judaism. I've distanced myself from the industry over the past two months, attending no sets. I need to set up more boundaries and behavioral limits between myself and porn. Examples could include not socializing with the industry, dressing in a suit and tie when around it as a physical reminder of my separateness, and consciously choosing to use less crude language. Behavior affects the heart more than the heart affects action.

Over the past couple of weeks I've come to thinking of writing on porn as resembling sitting on a toilet and watching your feces swirl around in the bowl. They are an interesting reflection of oneself and surely worthy of scientific research, but on another level, they are disgusting and impolite and not acceptable to talk about publicly.

Cowan lugs his heavy camera, tripod and Luke to the exhibit hall. I feel too tired to carry anything. I keep calling him "Cowen."

Paul: "It's ‘Cowan.’ Luke thinks everyone is Jewish."

Luke: "You can't get me anywhere unless you lead me by talking about me."

Paul: "Then Luke comes drooling, like a dog."

Paul says that the Russian Jewess Mila told him that she has not had sex off film for three years.

At 3PM, Thursday, I run into Marc Medoff, who wears a torn and a High Society T-shirt full of holes, which dates back eight years to the time he worked on the magazine with such folks as Richard Hollander. Medoff, who writes regularly for Swank, Hustler Erotic Video Guide and other sex magazines, conducted a Deep Throat search for Arrow Video in Cuba for two weeks and he sampled some of the local delights. Marc regards "prostitution" as a harsh term to describe his transactions, a term "denigrating of female sexuality."

At 4PM, Paul Cowan brings Commander Andre Bouchard over to the convention. Butch runs Montreal's policing of alcohol, prostitution, gambling, narcotics as well as heading the motorcycle squad which looks over the local biker gangs. It is called HARM, Hells Angels Rock Machine after the two main gangs who are fighting each other.

Butch: "I've worked in vice for 30 years.

"Prostitution per se is not illegal in Canada. So long as there no juvenile involved or street solicitation. We've only had one bust in the last few years and the problem was that it was a public place. It was a club that anybody could get into. And you could see what was going on. You had voyeurs and they were doing sexual acts that went overboard for that milieu, it was not a private house. We received complaints. We did undercover investigation.

"The only way we could do undercover investigation was to send in a married couple. That went well. I don't go into private homes unless it involves juveniles."

Luke: "So if a businessman comes into hotel, and from his hotel room, looks through the newspaper and orders an escort?"

Butch: "Keeping a whorehouse is illegal...

"My father is a cop and all six of his kids are cops, five boys and one girl.

"You are not allowed to solicit sex for money in a public place. If I walk up to a car and I see a girl having sex with a guy in the car, even if he paid her, I can't accuse him because I can't prove that she solicited him. Regarding escorts, if we can prove that the person running the escort agency is making money off of prostitution, then we can prosecute. But the girl can not be accused.

"We don't complaints about escorts in Montreal because they are not bothering anybody. It's rare that the girls are going to be sick or on drugs. It's unlikely that the girl is going to rob you because it is a lucrative business here in Montreal."

Canada's age of consent is 18.

Butch: "Most of the [escort] agencies are run by organized crime. But there are so many other aspects of organized crime, such as the drug trade, gambling, money lending, illegal booze and cigarettes... We sink our teeth more into that. With prostitution, we say that there is not really a victim unless it is the prostitution on the streets. I've always said that the girls do prostitution on the streets are the victims. Most of these street girls are sick, have a drug problem, AIDS, venereal diseases...

"Back in the 1970s, if a girl got caught [in prostitution], she'd be arrested and forced to take a test. And if she was sick, they'd put her in jail and treat her and they wouldn't let her out until the disease went away. But we can't do that anymore. That's against people's rights. Everybody's got rights. Soliciting is only an infraction. We can only give the girl and the client a ticket.

"In the past couple of years, instead of going after the girls, I'm going after the clients. I put young [female] police officers on the streets. The clients drive up in their cars and when they solicit my officers, I arrest the client for soliciting for sex. So we're not hurting the girls, but we're getting the street trade down.

"If we get a call that says someone is running 15-year old girls, we’ll set up in a hotel room and we’ll play tourists. And we’ll try to get some of these girls to come in. If an operator uses juveniles, he’ll go to jail.

"Montreal is pretty clean. There are a lot of escort services. They advertise in the newspaper. If it were illegal, they wouldn’t put it in the newspaper. An escort is for escort, we can think what we want. I have to prove that it is illegal."

Luke: "What happened to lapdances?"

Butch: "Back in 1992, the police officers in Ontario went after a tavern that had girls rubbing up against clients. The police lost the case, then it went to the Superior Court of Ontario where they won. In Montreal, the clubs had put in cubicles where guys could rub up against a girl for $10. They said they could do that because it was not public, because they were in a cubicle. I said fine, I’m going to say that is prostitution. I’m not going to go after the girl, but I am going to accuse the owner of the bar of keeping a common body house [whore house] and the client and the girl of being found in a common body house. We did that about six times. It was a five year court battle and we never let up. We nailed them every time. I met with all the owners and warned them.

"We’re not repressive. We use community policing, so our approach is more open. The owners received documentation from us asking them to decease until the Supreme Court of Canada makes a decision [about the legality of lap dances]. They refused and we just kept at them. And eventually, in 1997, the Supreme Court declared lap dancing a form of prostitution and since then it’s disappeared from Montreal. What goes on in the outskirts is not my domain.

"We get complaints from club owners in Montreal who say ‘they just move to another part of the province.’ I tell them to make a complaint to the chief of police in that area.

"We now have officers who patrol the internet fulltime. And if they spot something illegal, they will advise the legal authorities of that area, such as California.

"And when my officers run across anything coming from Montreal, I will get a phone call, and within 25 minutes I will have warrants and we’ll be at their house… We did one [arrest] this year already. For child pornography. But that’s rare.

"As for dancing on stage, we’ll tolerate girls who rub up against each other. But in Montreal we don’t have men and women doing a dance. They know that it is not acceptable for them to go through with the sexual act in public.

"We get along great with the owners. They always want to push the envelope more and more but I am there to tell them no."

Luke: "Many cities do not allow police to stay in the Vice Squad for longer than a couple of years for fear that they will become corrupted."

Butch: "First of all, most of these stories of police corruption come from cities where police are underpaid. A starting constable in Montreal earns $58,000 a year. With overtime, he will make $75,000. I make a good salary. We have not had one officer thrown out of the Morality section since I’ve been a police officer (30 years). Anytime we suspect that someone is having a problem, we transfer them back to a regular uniform. I have 32 offices and there is no way they could do something without me knowing about it. And there is no way that I could do something without them knowing about it. We don’t even think about taking something on the side.

"I’ve been married 26 years. I have one daughter. Most of my officers are married. I have a couple of homosexuals working for me. They do a great job. They’re married, or they’re in relationships."

Luke: "How do you keep it from rubbing off on your soul?"

Butch: "It’s rough. It makes you look cold. I notice that at the beginning my officers are gungho, then they get used to it. I tell my officers, it doesn’t have to bother you. I don’t want your opinion. I will tell you honestly that some things they [girls] do are very erotic. My police officers are men… It can be erotic, but if they do something illegal, then... What my officers think doesn't matter.

"We have psychiatrists and psychologists who work with our department. And if I notice something awry, right away I pull them off the street. With 30 years service, I think my judgement is pretty good. We might talk with their wives. I’ve had the spouses work one night with us, as observers. A lot of wives were astonished that their husbands had to go into strip clubs or discoteques to pick up hookers… It helped demystify what they were doing.

"My officers work in civilian clothes. They can wear their hair as long as they want. They can wear earrings and nose rings and whatever they want… It’s a leisure job. They can drink on the job, though not to excess. They can pick their hours.

"The morality and narcotics division that I run is the cream of the crop. That’s where they [police department] gets its officers from. With their experience, they go to the exams and pass easier than other police officers. Usually they last about three years with us and then move on.

"Club owners will call me when they have problems and I will go in there and try to help them out. You will get a few owners who are hard headed and want nothing to do with you and that’s fine. We’ll do it their way then.

"Some of the strip clubs are associated with organized crime (do money laundering, etc), but not the majority. Most of the clubs are family [businesses] that have owned clubs for 50 years.

"The Mafia is big in Montreal. But the biggest problem we have now in Montreal is the Hells Angel club and the war they are having with the [rival biker club] Rock Machine. They’ve been in a bloody war since 1993 and 127 people have been killed, usually by bombs… The Russian Mafia is coming in. We’ll try to nip things in the bud."

Thursday evening Paul Cowan went drinking with Butch at a strip club and had a few too many. Lucky he wasn’t arrested driving home in an intoxicated state.

Luke met at 5:30 with filmmaker Marielle Nitoslawska and her assistant Melissa to discuss their project

tentatively entitled "Bad Girls". Melissa says it "will focus on women in pornography and corresponding social attitudes, as well as looking at the trend towards incorporating pornography into academia. It's envisioned to be a Canada/France co-production, made for a TV audience."

Melissa writes 5/26: "Read your report on Montreal. Particularly interested in your discussions with 'Mr. Morality' - very different than local perceptions. Butch sounds like a decent, well-meaning guy, but the general perception here (at least amongst the 'subculture') is that the Morality Squad is not particularly unbiased - targeting those living 'alternative' lifestyles. They're rather notorious for busting gay clubs and private swingers' functions, while leaving the bulk of Montreal's sexual activities (ie. heterosexual) pretty much untouched. On a humorous note, the term 'common body house' makes a lot more sense and is infinitely more adult-sounding; but the actual term they use, I believe, is the much more antiquated 'common bawdy house'. It just sounds so ridiculously Victorian.... In keeping with the title of the squad itself, I suppose."

 

Luke was supposed to go to synagogue Thursday night to observe Shuvuot, one of the three Jewish festivals. But he was too tired and spent the evening in bed. On Friday, with callous disregard for his religion, Luke wandered down to the Web Expo at 11AM and met up with Paul Cowan and his sound man Craig.

Paul tapes me as I interview Parthena (a Greek word for virgin), a college student of Greek ancestry, who works as an ad rep for the Canadian internet porn company Web Dream (416-815-0035), in business three years.

Parthena: "We give people what they want… You see it [porn] seeping into all aspects of the culture."

Luke: "Do you tell your classmates what you do?"

Parthena: "No, I tell them that I work in internet sales."

Luke: "Do you feel that this industry has dirtied you?"

Parthena: "No, not at all. Before this I did cabinet design. I worked with wood. That’s a manual labor job. This is the first job I’ve worked in where I get no harassment. This is a business and that is how people treat it. It’s no different from selling cars."

Luke: "Do your live sex feeds have in and out penetration?"

Parthena: "There are no couples involved. Just single girls with toys. Four hour shifts. They have a health benefit program. We work on Bay Street, the Wall Street of Canada. The men get off several times in one show.

"The performers are mainly women. The business side is all men except for me and one other girl."

I tried to secure an interview with FM for Paul Cowan but he declines, instead pointing me towards his new front man, Johnathan Silverstein, a short young bald Jew who started out in phone sex in 1994.

John: "It was a logical progression from listening to a girl to actually being able to see who you are talking to… I started with a company that advertised phone sex lines on the internet. I didn’t have a computer or a website, but I found people who did and I put the two together. One thing led to another which led to live teleconferencing sites.

"I was the director of sales and marketing for IEG for two years."

Luke: "Did Seth abuse you terribly?"

John: "Absolutely not. I wouldn’t allow that. When I left IEG [end of 1998], I had no intention of doing this. I planned to go into business for myself. I talked to FM as a friend and he proceeded to give me the best offer I’ve ever gotten."

Luke: "So are you the nice guy front for Cybererotica?"

John: "No, I am the working president. Yes I am a nice guy and a lot of people know me but I am not a front. I handle the day-to-day administration of the business."

Luke: "How come so many people hate Seth?"

Johnathan: "I couldn’t speak for other people. I like Seth… He could’ve made it difficult for me to work for FM, but Seth gave me his blessing."

Luke: "Who are the biggest porn internet companies?"

John: "I would say that CE is the largest and has more members and content. Does more volume in traffic. IEG and RJB Telecom and Cyber Entertainment Network are all big and we do business with all of them."

Luke: "What happened between CE and DMR?"

John: "That happened before I got here… Companies [porn internet] use third party processing companies. You pay exorbitant fees (up to 15%) for them to provide a service. If anything happens with that processing company, they need to take responsibility and pay the penalty."

Luke: "But aren’t they paying a penalty because you guys had a charge-back rate above 2.5%?"

John: "I don’t know if that is the case. I only know the end result. We got hit hard.

"We now do most of our own credit card processing and customer service. We make it easy for people to join and to cancel. We retain customers 4-6 months."

Luke: "I get complaints from people who visit my site, click on a CE link, and then they can’t get away. You keep popping new browsers on them and my surfers end up rebooting their computers to get away."

John: "You should join our Follow Me program, so you can get credit for any site that they join. For the user, I don’t think it is too monotonous. They’re looking for sex. They might not like what they see on CE, so they back out. And so we send them another one of our sites. And you wouldn’t believe the conversion ratios. If people don’t sign up for CE, don’t you as a business person want another shot at them? Don’t you want five shots at them?"

Luke: "Surfers don’t like it because they can’t get back…"

John: "We don’t make it like that. If you close the browser several times, it’s done. Is it an annoyance to some? Maybe. But some like the sites they see and join, which makes us all money."

Luke: "What are the big changes you see in this industry over the next few months?"

John: "The larger players in the industry are in a position to make the changes… To self regulate and be fair to people. A lot of the smaller players have given us a bad name and that has given a black eye to the industry. Especially with deceptive "free membership" offers.

"VISA and the banks don’t want to deal all the customer service calls they get [from people who feel they’ve been ripped off]. So they’re trying to put a stringent policy into effect so that the industry as a whole will lower its charge-back rates. We don’t want to deal with the charge-backs, they cost us money. If you come to us and say you didn’t like what you saw, or that you couldn’t cancel in time, we will credit you and that won’t cost us an additional fee."

Next I go to the IEG booth and chat with Lauren Montgomery, the most impressive woman at the Expo to Paul Cowan because of her intelligence and humanity. She’s bruised from stunt work on Tuesday in a Robert DeNiro movie.

"They dropped a digital camera on my foot. It wasn’t part of the plan, dammit, I was only supposed to fall over a couch.

"I’ve made about eight movies over the past few months, which for me is a lot. The best scene I did was for Metro’s Flesh Peddlers 6. One of my first gonzos. I did this crazy scene with Tyce Bune. I just did a movie for Nitro, Two of a Kind, starring me and Johnny Black and Tyce Bune. Johnny and I did Business As Usual for Nitro director Jennifer James, who comes from the mainstream."

Lauren’s breast implants turn two years old in June. She says that you lose breast sensitivity when you get implants. "I’m just starting to get back my sensitivity. It takes a while to heal those nerve endings."

Luke: "In my experience, the girls with the smallest tits had the most sensitivity there and girls with the biggest tits had the least. Are you still swinging wildly?"

Lauren: "I’m dating wildly now. This is the first time I’ve lived alone. In my eyes, I’ve been single since January. My boyfriend asked me to quit the biz, and I said ‘later, unless you are going to pay my bills.’ Why? Are you interested Luke?"

Luke blushes. "Would it compromise my professional integrity?"

Lauren: "Probably yes. You’re so bad. You’re blushing. So, I’ve been swinging wildly in my own bedroom. I had this great party in February. I had about 50 people over… By three AM, there were four people in my bed, four people in my guest bed and I had to sleep on my couch because everybody was having sex all over the place and they all fell asleep on my bed. So my dogs and I crawled up on my couch."

Luke: "Did your dogs get involved in the sex?"

Lauren: "This is a great story. I can’t tell you who it was because you know them. But a friend of mine was at the party. He’s on my couch and I am on my knees and I’m giving him a blowjob. And suddenly, one of my dogs is humping the guy’s leg. Everybody in the room was laughing. The guy went beet red. He lost his erection.

"I’m not interested in having anyone pay my bills. I want to become a millionaire on my own. I never want some guy to look at me and say, ‘I own you.’

"I’ve always been the girl next door, the girl that guys loved to take home to their mom. Now that I’m not that girl anymore, guys are afraid to take me home to their parents. That’s been an adjustment for me.

"I will not date within the industry. I don’t think that men in the industry are the type of men that I want to spend my life with."

Luke: "You don’t want to marry a guy who wears a long pony tail and sports tattoos and piercings?"

Lauren: "No. I don’t like tattoos and piercings… I want someone who is responsible and educated. It’s not that guys in the business are scumbags, I just don’t approve of their work ethic. And on an intellectual level, they’re not stimulating to me."

Luke: "You don’t find a lot of intellectual stimulation with the men in this industry?"

Lauren looks upset: "God Luke, you’re going to crucify me. In all fairness, there are many educated bright people in this industry, I think that maybe it is the insecurity factor. There is something there, the work ethic. I like businessmen. I like computer geeks. I want to be with a man who can program in C and build websites and carry on in a normal job. Why? Maybe the security level of that, I don’t know. But that’s what I am attracted to. I adore the guys I work with but I don’t want to date them."

Luke: "Who are the extremely intelligent bright guys in the industry?"

Lauren: "I don’t want to go there. That’s mean. I don’t want to sound like a snob and have people hating me because I love people in this business dearly. They’re my family.

"From a professional standpoint, I don’t think it is wise to date within the industry. People learn your business and everyone gossips about you. I don’t want to bring my boyfriend or husband to the set. If you worked in an office, would you take your wife with you every day to sit around and watch you work? No. It’s the same principle, yet these girls continually have to bring their boyfriends to the set. It’s bulls---. They need to separate home from work. You stay home and get a job instead of sitting around and watching me do mine. Porno husbands just sit around and watch their women have sex for money and they sit back and reap the benefits. I don’t want to be with someone like that, who sits back while I lie on my back and make the money while they’re watching sports on TV all day. Go out and get a job and have your own life so that when I come home, we have something interesting to talk about. I sure as hell don’t want to talk about porn. I don’t want to gossip about people in porn. I want to talk about current events, art, music, the latest cinema releases…

"When I walk off of a porn set, I’m done. I don’t go home and say, ‘oh this guy today had such a big dick.’ It’s over. I’m me again, I’m not Lauren Montgomery anymore."

Luke: "Do you fear that this [porno] will haunt you for the rest of your life?"

Lauren: "Yes. I think about, am I going to have kids some day. And some kid in their class will have a dad who has porno movies in his house and they see me. And suddenly the whole neighborhood knows. Is my child going to be ostracized for that? That scares me. I had to make that decision, take that risk, when I decided to get in [to porn]. Now I need to make the decision whether I will ever have children."

Montgomery writes to me 5/26: "Thanks for sending me copy. You misconstrued a few comments. You really should have let me approve it first before you posted it. You conveniently left out some of our dialogue. The husbands and boyfriends of porn are not exactly my best friends right now, but, hey, someone has to kick them in the ass. Just for the record, I am very aware that not all the boyfriends and husbands of porn actresses are lazy bums. There are some very patient and loving men out there and bless their hearts. It is not easy to love a beautiful woman and I imagine that it is even more difficult to love her when her job entails her f---ing other people all day."

Next Luke talks to www.Videosecrets.com operations manager Kevin Burke.

Kevin: "We put out more porn than anybody in the world. Between our six live feeds working 24 hours a day, that’s 240 hours of porn a day.

"Our studios are in Toronto, Canada, and our corporate offices are just outside of Malibu, CA."

Luke: "Why do most of your peers not show penetration?"

Kevin: "Maybe they just don’t like sex the way we do. I don’t know. There’s some legal risk. I believe we have our bases covered. Most of the fears come from inside the US and our studios are located in Toronto, and Canada has just announced that it will not be regulating the internet. The day they tell us that we can’t do hardcore and can’t penetrate, we won’t. We’re not doing anything illegal. We’ve been doing this three years.

"We push out 14 frames per second but if the end user has a slower modem, they may only get 5. The picture occupies about 1/8th of the screen."

Luke: "Why would people watch stuff on the internet when video quality is so much better?"

Kevin: "The main reason is the interaction. You can go in there and make a personal request and have your fantasy fulfilled instantly. Many customers build relationships with the models. We sell blocks of time, such as three hours for $99. That works out at 55c a minute.

"We do everything in house. We process our own credit cards, do customer service, etc… We’re a bunch of guys (11 of us) who went to school together. We have 16 [office] employees and over 200 models."

Next Luke wanders over to the www.adultstarsmagazine.com booth where I schmooze with Angela Summers. Spending time with her makes one believe that sex workers can be classy, intelligent and proud.

David Bernstein, VP for Sales and Marketing for the magazine, tells me:

Jill Kelly has been appointed as Vice President of Marketing for Adult Stars Magazine. Jill will also be writing a monthly column in ASM featuring industry news, gossip and what's happening in the life and career of Jill Kelly.

Peter North will also be writing a monthly column focusing on behind-the-scenes news in the adult world, plus ighlights of his ongoing "North Pole Series".

Zarah Lee (featured in ASM May '99) will be author to ASM's new Fetish Column. She's hot, beautiful and ore than qualified to comment and advise on even the wildest types of fetish.

Gail Harris comes by, a pretty English blonde who I’ve watched all convention but was not sure who she was.

From Yorkshire, Gail came to the US in 1986. She appeared in numerous Roger Korman B movies and layouts for such photographers as Ken Marcus. About 1990, she formed her own company, www.falconfoto.com and www.falconfoto.net.

"I came up with [the magazine] Barely Legal. I put the package together and took it up to LFP. I produced the first few issues. They were responsible for publishing it and getting it out on the newsstands. It was so successful that they took it in-house. They bought me out a couple of years ago. My name was on the masthead as Gail Zachary, my maiden name. I am single again [divorced]."

Luke: "Is it hard for you as a woman working in a male dominated industry?"

Gail: "At first people didn’t take much notice of me. It took me a while to persuade them to go with Barely Legal. Once I did that, and it was a phenomenal success, I have publishers making me offers on magazines before anybody saw it… I have major publishers asking my advice about certain fetishes and why their magazines aren’t working, etc…

"After Barely Legal, I started Hotel Girls. I’m now starting two new ones. One’s young girl magazine and one is a completely new concept.

"We shoot videos too [single girl masturbation]. Mainly we shoot stills. And then, since we had to fly a girl in for a few days, we decided that we might as well also do videos. We have 225 videos. We sell them by mail order and to the Playboy catalogue.

"We divide by niches. Big boob, young girl, asian, black, butt… When a girl comes to see us, she never does a general girl. We always find some catch. If she has nice legs, we shoot her for a leg magazine. If she looks young, we shoot her for a Barely Legal type magazine. If she’s busty, we shoot her for a Busty magazine. The hardest girls to sell now are the pretty girls unless she is absolutely stunning.

"We studied the niches. We have standing orders at the antique stores to buy 1950s stockings and lingerie. We have shoes made in England with six inch heels. We concentrate on what they want, the different angles that the guy wants to see, and all the different tweaks that you need to do to get the leg guy interested. And not every photographer gets it down. One photographer may be great at legs may not be good at young girl stuff."

Luke: "How young do you go?"

Gail: "They have to be legal. Over 18. Looking young. It’s a fantasy. A lot of guys say to me, ‘I like your young girl stuff but it’s not hardcore.’ And I have to explain to them ‘that the guys who like the young girl series like the fact that they are sweet and innocent and naïve and she’s not really sure she wants to do it. If a girl comes in and does three guys, she’s not young, sweet and innocent anymore and the whole fantasy is blown. I see this in letters from readers all the time.

"We deal with every talent agent in LA. We advertise everywhere. We’ve shot about 4000 girls. And we also buy out other people. I own all the Penthouse material from the 1970s and 1980s and some unusual British photography. We’ve just started selling to websites. Our business has been print for years. Now the internet has come up and we’re digitizing our photos and color-correct it.

"I don’t really have any competitors. Most of my competitors are individual photographers. And I’m one of the few who owns a library. We have over a billion images."

Luke: "What do you your parents think?"

Gail: "My mom helps me in the business. Some of my friends from school know and they think it is cool.
"Guys come to work for me and think it’s going to be exciting. And after a couple of months, they’re "I don’t want that as my screen saver, give me a beach scene.’

"I’ve become more open-minded. I realize that guys like all types of women."

Luke: "Do you now think of men as perverts?"

Gail: "No, quite the opposite. I find it interesting to get into the mind of the guy and find out what he likes. And that’s what we have to do to shoot something he likes. If he’s into plump women, we have to put our mind in that arena, and think ‘what it is it he likes about them? Is it the touch of the stocking, the smell, the legs, the feet, the heels?’

"Female sexuality is probably just as disgusting. Female sexuality is more cerebral. They think more. As a woman, I have an outside point of view. As a guy, you probably have a taste. If you like pretty young girls, it’d be hard to understand the guy who likes leg girls or butts."

Luke: "I have a fetish for blonde business owners [like Gail Harris]."

Gail laughs. "That’s kinda what my new magazine is about. You’ll have to wait to see."

Luke: "They’re behind the desk, they have computers and power. Women on top."

Gail smiles: "It has to do with power."

Gail shows us a photo of an old lady in lingerie. "She’s our top selling video," says Harris.

Paul: "You’re kidding."

Gail: "She outsells our pretty girl videos ten to one. We get a lot more money for our fat bitches and our pregnant women. Anything that is more unusual."

Paul: "When you want to find a 70-year old woman to do this, where do you start looking?"

Gail’s assistant Tig Pena, a pierced young man who sat across the aisle from me on the flight back to Los Angeles, says: "We advertise locally for plus size models, over 40 models, and you’d be surprised how many women… It’s an ego boost to them."

Gail: "I’ll send a team to swinger conventions and find people there. We used to pay agents a dollar per year… So if they found a 75-year old woman, we’d pay them a $75 finders fee.

"It depends on how you shoot it. If you’ve got a girl with nice legs, it’s important that you shoot them at the right angle."

Paul: "I can’t imagine what the shooting aesthetic would be for that woman [a grandma type]."

Gail: "They want to see them in lingerie."

Tig: "And they want to see them take off their clothes. They want to see them in old lady dresses, and corsets…"

Gail: "And the older woman section mainly appeals to men between the ages of 20-28."

Next Luke and Paul interview two innocent young women, in their early 20s, who live in Northern Ontario. They’re starting www.northporn.com.

Stacey Kragero is at stacey@northporn.com. And slender Tanya Richer is at Tanya@northporn.com.

Stacey: "Our content is going to be Canadian women doing stereotypical Canadian things… Standing outside of igloos, camping, fishing, outdoorsy, sporty… Girls in a canoe. They want to see what they’re girlfriends are doing now, naked. Swimming in the pool and running through the bush."

Luke: "Is there a lot of inbreeding in Northern Canada?"

Stacey: "Absolutely not.

"We’re going to try to keep all our content local. Our live feeds will come from Toronto."

Luke: "Have you felt a tremendous urge to disrobe in front of the camera?"

Stacey: "No. I just want to exploit those who feel they have to take off their clothes.

"I work at an ISP. It was fun to see how easy it was to make money. We wanted to try it at least once. We’re going in small. We’ve done a lot of research. For six months. There’s a lot of money out there and I want a piece of it."

Luke: "Are you and Tanya lesbian lovers?"

Stacey: "Absolutely not. Our boyfriends wouldn’t let us. I’m still batting for the home team."

Luke: "So you and your girlfriend wanted to do something for Canada."

Stacey: "Yes. Men love white Canadian women and we’re going to show them.

"This internet business is such a fraternity. They give you everything you ask for. I want to look at this, and they say, you better think of this and this… Every time I think I’m at the end, I have to start all over again.

"We have private investors who put up the money. They think it is a fantastic idea."

Luke: "Isn’t this a man’s job?"

Stacey: "I was surprised that there weren’t more women here. Even getting the girls to do pictures, they feel more comfortable with a woman there. We’re going to be different because it is not red and black and manly. There are a huge percentage of women traveling the net and we want to address both."

Luke: "Do you really think women are going to pay money to look at naked women?"

Stacey: "Do you know how many women are on there? Ohmigod. Women are 40% of the market."

Luke: "No way. No way that women are 40% of the market to look at naked pictures."

Stacey: "Yes way. It’s totally anonymous. For video, you have to go into the store, give your name, get a membership… What’s the first thing you did when you got on the internet, everyone went to the dirty sites. It’s curiosity and it is safe."

Luke: "Yeah, but did you spend any money to look at naked pictures?"

Stacey: "No, I didn’t have to because my friends would take out their credit cards and I could look over their shoulders."

Luke to Tanya: "Did you spend money to look at nude pics?"

Tanya: "No, but I’m a goodie goodie."

Stacey: "You can do all your online shopping. You can go into a sex store and buy all your toys, your panties… It’s not the lesbian community that is taking this over, it’s straight women with husbands and jobs…"

Luke: "Do your friends worry that this will corrupt you?"

Tanya: "A bit."

Stacey: "My boyfriend is a librarian but he is straight. He’s very supportive. He realizes that this is a business. His only concern was that one day he’d show up and there’d be 50 people in the bed, and I’d be going, "But I brought them all for you.’ They fear that our ideals will change."

Luke: "Do you guys share boyfriends?"

Tanya: "No. I told you I was a goody goody."

Stacey: "Yeah, I get to be the raunchier one."

Luke: "Aren’t they concerned about you being surrounded by such a bunch of sleazeballs?"

Stacey: "Yeah, apparently we are at a five day orgy. NOT. It is just a business. There are many preconceptions about this business but content is content."

Luke: "Haven’t you had a bunch of guys hitting on you and making crude comments?"

Both girls say yes.

Stacey: "But that happens anywhere you go."

Tanya: "I expect it to be really trashy but everyone is friendly and helpful. These are businessmen."

Luke: "Don’t you worry about what will happen to your soul?"

Stacey: "Oh gosh no, this is business. It doesn’t matter what it is. Tanya, 23, is already going to hell, this is ok."

Luke: "Do your parents know you are here?"

Stacey, 26: "She was more afraid of us driving up than what we were doing here. I’m afraid of flying. It was an eight hour drive."

Luke: "Did your parents abuse you and that’s why you’re doing this?"

Stacey: "No, it was because they were so supportive that I can do this. My mom thinks this is hilarious. When I told them that I was doing this, they didn’t bat an eyelash, which I found concerning. ‘Stacey, you’re an odd duck. You’ll try anything once. If you need anything, let us know.’

I spent Friday night in bed, listening to the loud moans and grunts coming from the amorous couple in the next room. Saturday morning I catch a taxi to synagogue SharHaShomoyim in the rich English city of Westmount, about 15 minutes drive from my hotel. It's a huge luxurious synagogue, probably Montreal's richest (followed by the Reform temple Emmanuel). It’s affiliated with the Conservative denomination of Judaism. It's in the German rationalist tradition. Temple officers sit upfront in hugely luxurious chairs wearing tall black top hats. There's an all-male choir led by a young Englishman. It's the only Conservative synagogue I know of that seats men and women separately (all orthodox synagogues don't and almost all Conservative synagogues and all Reform synagogues seat men and women together).

A matronly woman in her early 50s picks me up and gives me a tour of the synagogue, which has 60 employees. Services last from 8:45 AM to 12:15 PM, which are then followed by a luxurious kiddish (lunch). Beverly then takes me on a walking tour of downtown Westmount. We meet her friend Jane, an elegant speaker of German, English and French about 50 yo. We take a taxi to the top of Mount Royal (from which the city got its name) and walk around the top. I tend to pick up people who want to help me as I stumble through life.

Beverly has degrees in economics, international relations and psychology and gives me a quick ten minute session. I need to clean up my life and live morally. She's a moral, talkative atheist socialist ex-union organizer.

 

After a nap in my hotel room, I meet Paul Cowan and his assistant Craig at 7PM and we tour a couple of Montreal's sex shops. First stop is the strip club Super Sex, perhaps the city's best. Its billboard advertises such "dancers" as Alex Taylor, Bonita Saint and other Penthouse Pets of the Month. We spend about 90 minutes shooting me walking around outside and reflecting on my Montreal experience.

Montreal has a liberal sexual atmosphere with numerous strip clubs, escort services and widely available porn. I'm impressed how little crime the city has. Sex businesses do not seem to have deteriorated the atmosphere. Police, sex operators and citizens have friendly relations which contrast with Los Angeles, New York and Toronto.

Sunday morning I meet Al Hanan and Angela Summers at the airport. Numerous Air Canada personnel are accompanied by their young daughters, who appear to range in age from five to thirteen. Adorable girls who deliver some of the announcements over the Public Address system.

Eden Rae responds to my 1/20/99 update:

I laughingly just read Regan's bulls-------here is what he didn't say. He tells girls on the phone that he offers, as a FREE service to the girls, a place to stay when they fly in. What he does NOT say is anything about f---ing him. He also says NOTHING about the audition tapes he blackmails girls into doing. So what happens is girls fly in or take a bus in, get there, are told they have to screw him to get work, on tape. He does not let girls use his phone, so they are, in effect, cut off from the world. He still doesnt say anything about screwing him daily til long afterwards. He takes them out to meet people, til late at night, then tries to force them to screw him. If they refuse he treats them like s---, argues with them, and tries to coerce them into it. If they hold their ground he tells them they have to get a hotel the next day. THEN he tries to keep them from doing it! He makes them go back to g=his apt. after going to see people and then makes them watch a video of some chick that he evidently had totally brainwashed saying you have to f--- anyone to work in this business--if your agent says he wants to f--- then you f--- him and on and on before he will take them to a hotel. Maybe he was having a memory lapse when he talked to you--------but thats the way he REALLY operates.

Harry writes Luke:

I really like Montreal. It's a great town. It's also the only town in which I partake of the lovely, plentiful and cheap escorts. A peculiar vice, and one I only indulge in in Canada. Why, I'm not sure. (Why only Canada, I mean.) I think it's because the women are beautiful, the activity is relatively legal and the accents enchanting. And there are tons of web sites with pictures and reviews, allowing selection with little chance of getting ripped off or disappointed. Which hotel are you in? I travel a lot, concentrating on Marriott's when I can. The Marriott Chatau-Champlain is a pretty nice one. It's also very tall, which I like. The better rooms have bidets, which to this American, are quite peculiar. And they have bathrobes, which appeals to me for some strange reason. Oh, and in Canada, the in-room pay per view movies (which I have figured out how to get for free) are full hardcore, not the psuedo-hardcore Spice Hot crap."

Luke's dad writes:

Very soon your birthday [5/28] but I leave shortly for meetings and writing before I forget. We both wish you a very happy day. The best we could wish you materially is good health and Mum tells me the wonderful news that you are feeling better than you have for a long time. So glad the new medication seems to be working. Don't overdo things trading on your newfound strength. Nurse it until it grows and then you will be able to be bolder taking more risks and doing much more but for now it is a tender plant this newfound health. I guess nobody's life is really ordinary but yours takes the bun. It saddens me when I think of many things that have overtaken you which you did not seek. Every life has some of these but yours came so early. Ultimately the eternal scale of things can balance out equalities if we let it and co-operate. Take comfort in that and thank God for what you have which is much more than perhaps half the world. You are probably neither hunger or cold and you can speak and write the language and your physical appearance does not arouse disgust---great plusses--all yours. I still think God has some very special purpose in your life but it won't be achieved without repentance and dedication to the unpopular ethical absolutes and their Author. In your heart you know this so I will not enlarge on it. We love you dearly and want to see you lastingly happy-not without flimsy Hollywood success or worldly fame but lasting peace and joy of heart and fellowship with folks who love you and wish to protect you. Mum [counsels women with PMS] was on TV this week and came across great. Has had over seventy enquiries as a result. Despite her weariness she has the great satisfaction that she is helping people and that there will always be people who remember her with great gratitude. That's the test of a life isn’t it? How much will one be missed? Happy birthday and all our love. Dad.