Thursday, September 9th, 1999
Professional Slits Craving Respectability
"Connor O'Boyle" elborba@yahoo.com writes: Furthering the trend of professional slits clamoring for respectability in the legitimate entertainment field, Tiffany Minx and Jill Kelly landed roles in the new Long Beach Dub All Stars video for the forthcoming single "Trailer Ras" directed by Bill Henderson and airing on MTV at the end of this month.
The Dub All Stars comprise the remnants of the popular group Sublime which disbanded in 1996 following the death of their singer/songwriter/guitarist Bradley Novell in 1996. Greg Dark co-directed Sublime's second video "Wrong Way" which recived heavy rotation on MTV in 1997 and helped launch his career as a much sought after music video director. Chaisy Lain(sp?) and TT Boy also had small bits in the "Wrong Way" video with TT playing a cop and Lain a garden variety street whore.
Sublime and now Dub manager Jon Phillips was the one who tapped Dark to co-direct "Wrong Way," thus inadvertantly helping launch the smut legend's straight video career. Phillips recently contacted Dark about possibly directing the new Dub video for their first single "Trailer Ras" but was brusquely blown off when told the budget was $100,000. Phillips was taken aback.
"Dark scoffed when told the budget was 'only' 100,000 and said he won't work with budgets that small. He's not Mark Romanek or Martin Scorcesse and seemingly forgot I was the one who helped launch his legitimate music video career in the first place. It's regretable because if it wasn't for "Wrong Way" he'd still be doing porn which he vows he hates doing."
Susan Faludi also graces the cover of this week's Newsweek with the lead story excerpting passages from her forthcoming book on men and feminism.
Luke on Dr. Susan Block Show
Do you remember when rock was young? Me and Suzy had so much fun. Holding hands and singing songs, we never thought the crocodile rock would last. (Elton John)
On Saturday night, August 21, Luke appeared on the Dr. Susan Block TV show. Here are some excerpts, many ripped out of context:
Suzy: I'm in my big brass bed with adult industry provocateur Luke F-rd... And we received a few threats tonight... people who wanted to come down here and beat you up...
I met you two years ago at our villa in the Hollywood Hills.
Luke: About six months ago, I had a sabbath dinner at the home right next to your villa... A couple who belongs to my synagogue lives there.
Suzy: You've made quite a name for yourself.
Luke: Primarily by being adversarial and weird...
Suzy: Is that what you planned?
Luke: I've always had many feelings about pornography... My book is fairly objective and so is much of my website. But in my daily updates, for me to get out of bed in the morning...my updates are bizarre, throwing everything in there...fairy tales, journalism, emails, without verification... A whole melange and it confuses and upsets people. At first they came to l-keford.com for disinterested journalism, which is how I started, and then I got bored with journalism and started making things up.
Suzy: You do have to take a moment... I read a couple of things and said really! And then I realized that you were just satirizing... Really, all 67 contract girls of Vivid Video got AIDS, amazing!
Luke: It's truly adult entertainment. Adults have to use their minds to figure out what is going on on my site. It's not idiot proof, but by keeping things on an intelligent level so that anyone who reads my site regularly will require an IQ over 100.
Suzy: Satire shouldn't be idiot proof. When we did our presentation of the Porn Award to Kenneth Star, we chose someone who looked like Kenneth Star... And now when people watch it on the web, they think it is Kenneth Star.
Max, Suzy's hubby: The best part was that a lot of porn people [at the World Pornography Conference] said, how did you get Star to come down here?
Suzy: That's the sweetness of parody, to fool some people. But you've been doing more than fooling, you've been getting these people where it hurts.
I've gotten really a few threats since I announced that I would have you... Can I come over to the Speakeasy and I am going to beat him up... I said no.
Max: A couple of years ago, a religious man came in and stabbed me...
Suzy: I don't agree with a lot of your points, but I think you are a sign of the X industry having grown up that there is someone like Luke is doing what he's doing. It's a sign that the industry is being taken seriously. Don't expect this will go away. There will be more Luke F-rds.
Max: And we should all be watched... And we should tell some stories and some fairy tales.
Suzy: It's a sign that the industry is coming up from underground and seeing the light. And there are people who are commenting, and commenting seriously, and not just trying to sell the videos. And spending their lives to comment...
Max: It is the Mafia. Not only in the porn industry, but also in the NY Times distribution system... Almost all distribution systems belong to the Mafia.
Luke: I think that what truly distinguishes my work is that I think that I am the only person who's devoted years of his life, fulltime, to writing on the industry, and yet is not a supporter of the industry. I think I am the only person who writes on it fulltime who is not opposed to censorship.
It is very difficult for anyone who doesn't support the industry to be around it for very long, for they will find it too appalling. Other mainstream writers will come in a for a week to do one story...
Suzy: I would recommend that you go to a proctologist Luke, to remove that stick from your butt. Though it is amusing to read your dialogues with your mom and dad and Nice Jewish Girl, all about saving you. It is quite a morality play. Will Luke become a porner or go to Jerusalem to bring peace to the Middle East.
Max: I've known several generations [of pornographers]... And in many ways, their fathers were more gentlemanly... Yeah, they killed a few people... But hey Johnson, killed hundreds of thousands of people... Pornographers killed a lot less people than [president] Johnson. What about the exploitation of a child working at McDonalds who's treated like s---. Capitalism is awful. I'm a monarchist. I'm into artisans...
Luke: I don't believe that pornography is evil or one of the ten greatest problems facing the United States... I do think on net, it is a negative. I think Hollywood, and TV and rock music are fundamentally destructive.
Suzy: This is all just electronic theater. And to say that theater is immoral is painful. I'm one of those liberal Jews. I know that you're not supposed to make a graven images, that it is idolatry, but it is also beauty... That is one of the reasons that Jews like me move away... Because it leaves out the possibility of art...And I am one of the first to admit that most pornography is not art.
Luke: I think that there are greater things in life than art. To the extent that art ennobles people, elevates people and causes them to treat each other more decently, art is good. To the extent glorifies death and separates people, then art is bad.
Suzy: The good to me is what Rabbi Hillel said, do not do unto others what you would not like them to do to you. But that is not religious, it is just ethical... Religion has inspired so much more killing than pornography.
Luke: If I had to take a sample of people whose lives were immersed in pornography, and take a sample whose lives were immersed in religion, I would expect the religious to have better family lives, more solid marriages and better relations with their children.
Max: Many porn women come from very religious backgrounds.
Luke: Religion can be done horribly just like love can be a disaster for some people. There's nothing that can't be perversed.
Suzy: I'm sick of the porn industry emphasizing anal. I believe that the industry made a deal with the police [1980] to avoid other taboo things [incest fantasies, golden showers, fisting]... OK, the one taboo thing we can do is anal, which is much more unhealthy for people than watching an incest fantasy.
Max: [Los Angeles Police Department Vice Detective] Lt. Lloyd Martin had one of the greatest child pornography collections in the world... He used to take children up to Malibu, and hang them over the cliff, and say, did somebody touch your penis? Did somebody teach your peepee? The police business is an awful business with high suicide and killing rates. A hundred times more awful than pornography.
All I've done is what this guy does, if somebody sends me an email about f---ing a dog or whatever, print it...
Suzy: Because pornography is taboo, we just don't have our best and our brightest involved.
Max: It's the only film business that doesn't use technology to fake it. Imagine if they did NYPD Blue and actually shot someone. I can duplicate anal sex with a dildo and some cameras...
Suzy to Luke: Your success is due to the internet. You can publish on your own and not spend money on paper or distribution... The internet brings together these very disparate fields, like religion and pornography, bringing it together in your website and you as a person... Before religion and pornography would only meet at protest marches.
Luke: Right. I don't deal well with authority, a boss, an editor. On my website, I can write whatever the hell I want...
Suzy: So what has it done for your sex life?
Luke: It's considerably diminished the number of sex partners and experimentation... I've grown turned off to illicit sex. I just want to get married, have kids... Since I've started writing on porn, I've only slept with about ten women (over the past four years). Though I did get some cool blowjobs after the New Times cover story, and Fox Files...
Suzy: Don't you think that sex is the essence of life?
Luke: No, but it isn't number ten either.
Suzy: Sex is the great motivator.
Luke: Yes. I work hard so that I can get some prime pussy.
Suzy: The Greeks believed that sex, eros, and death were in opposition. Some like to put them together to create eroticism.
Luke: Right, and that troubles me. I find it easier to view pornography than violent Hollywood movies. Hollywood's preoccupation with death really bothers me though there is a strand even in pornography that flirts with death. There are the forces of life and the forces of death, and we should choose life.
Suzy: I agree. And I think it is unfortunate that some of the more creative pornographers are doing the more dastardly death-oriented stuff.
Max: What do we do about those people who can only masturbate to Jesus or God?
Luke: Some people can only sexually relate to magazines or they channel their sexuality into their religion...
Max: Do you truly think that these people like Steve Hirsch are worse than the Rockefellers, who used to shoot their employees?
Luke: I'm against people shooting their employees. I don't know if Steve Hirsch is worse than John D. Rockefeller. Do I think that pornographers are more destructive than lawyers? No.
Max: I was kept out of jail by lawyers. They are the last front against the landlords, and those miserable motherf---ers who want to throw you in jail... Lawyers are like you. They mumble and jumble and confuse everything and they make it expensive for you to throw me into jail.
Suzy points to Luke while speaking to Max: He [Luke] hates the ACLU.
Max: The ACLU got my children back when I was prosecuted in Rhode Island. I've spent 18 months in prison for my work. I'm the most prosecuted publisher this century.
Luke: I'm not for jailing you Max, but when you push the boundaries...
Max: I want to push the boundaries everywhere. I want to be able to tell people that you've got five minutes and you can live as you wish... You're just a sperm and a cunt... And then you come out, and someone bangs you on the head...
Suzy: We're ethical hedonists.
Luke: I think that is a huge improvement on many of your peers.
Max: There's the hurling complex. Whenever you deal with sex, people are hurling things at you. They're hurling bricks, names... And I'm just a nice Italian boy who likes sex.
Suzy: And I'm a nice Jewish girl who likes sex. They call me a slut, a whore, a psuedo professional porn queen, and that from someone who posed naked for her lover while she was still married... Yes, Dr. Laura, I am speaking of you.
Luke: I think you guys bring it on yourselves. I don't endorse the more vitriolic language used on you...
Suzy: We do bring it on ourselves in the sense that we are poets and artists and if you're not doing something to upset some people, you're not doing much.
Max; My main job, as it is your job, is to destabilize society so that we wake up to what we have. You destabilize all these guys, writing about them in their lingerie.
Suzy: Sex and God have so much in common. They're both great passions. The passion of eroticism and the passion of mysticism. The passion to breakthrough to another side. Who do we call out to when we orgasm? God. It is a spiritual quest. Even Buttman, even though I am not on that highway... I don't view these people as immoral. They make mistakes. Buttman certainly did down in Brazil when he met that AIDS carrier.
When sexual mores upon up in societies, violent crime rates go down. When you're more forgiving on the sexual end, that makes people less pent up...
Luke: There's a statement in Judaism that the signature of God is truth. So if what you say is true, it is true and I will deal with its implications.
My instinct is to attribute America's decline in abortion and violent crime to its return to religion...
Suzy: If there was a real return to religion, Bill Clinton would've been out of there right away.
Max: Since the invention of the printing press, artists have been prosecuted. I am a wonderful pornographer and a wonderful man. I care about people and I teach them about sex. I use dicks and asses and tits and eyes and smiles... I've been prosecuted 22 times... And I am tired of it. They put us in jail... You've got the Hirsches, all those pornographers... I had a pornographer call me up the other day. I have a radical new movie. I have 17 scenes. Wow, you're really radical.
Suzy: The porn industry is very formulaic.
Max: They've taken porn away from wonderful artists like me the ability to say that it is beautiful and luscious and created by the gods...
Luke: But some of the stuff you've made is repellant.
Max: Not repellant, no, no, no... What I showed you was the underbelly of the reality of it.
Luke: Not all things should be trafficked in, like child pornography.
Max: No, no, all things should be trafficked in... We have to see the truth before we can heal our souls.
Luke: I disagree with trafficking in naked pictures of nine year old girls.
Max: Nine year old girls have been running around naked for centuries...
Suzy: It's not like you're putting a dildo up them.
Luke: I don't believe in publishing pictures of nine year old girls with their legs spread [like was published in some of Max's 1970s publications like Finger and Love].
Max: Then you don't believe in talking. When I did that many years ago, I didn't hire people. I said what is in your household? What is happening?
Luke: And people would write in with stories about having sex with three-year old kids...
Max: And you know why? Because it was happening. And unless we know what is happening and why it is happening, we can't cure it.
Luke: These were graphic and titillating stories of the joys of having sex with young children.
Max: And do you know why? Because I'm a publisher, not an editor.
Suzy: He published everything.
Max: I decided to tell the truth and to look at our society as it stands. Because if we do not understand that, we understand s---, Luke.
Suzy: Just because he published it, does not mean that he approved of it.
Max: I published dogs f---ing farmers. I published s--- eaters...
Suzy: He hasn't published any dogs f---ing farmers since we got married. But if we don't know that, we don't know s---. We don't know how to talk to each other. We just throw blame at each other.
Eversince they've made the laws stricter about child pornography, hundreds of thousands of kids have been killed... Because when the banker molests the child, and he faces the death penalty, do you know what he is going to do first? He's going to kill the child. We have to have absolute compassion.
Suzy: Do you believe in capitol punishment?
Luke: Strongly, but only for murder, not for child molestation.
Max: I want to get a hold of the children before the tobacco companies get a hold of the children. Usually we have 12 and 14 year olds who call the show. I tell them, listen, you're born, you came out of a cunt...
Suzy: We don't have sex with them, we just talk to them.
Mad Jack's Pictures
Las Vegas porner Mad Jack, PR man for KBeech Video, snapped these photos of a Danger Boy shoot August 22 starring Mila, Katya and Jennifer Leigh.
Lori White writes the LATimes.com: In response to "L.A. Economy's Dirty Secret: Porn Is Thriving" (Sept. 1), on the porn industry in the Valley: How would you like to have some of this scum operating on your street the way we do, in our beautiful residential area? Why would you dignify this industry by putting this coverage in your paper and on the front page to boot? We would like to get these slimes out of the Valley and you glorify them with this article about how much money they're raking in, what a profitable industry it is.
If it's so darn profitable, why don't they take their action to some studio instead of invading family neighborhoods with their fifth? Who is benefiting from their presence in the Valley besides them? You make it sound like the Valley is gaining revenue from having them here. I'd like to know how, other than renting houses. If I were moving to this area, I sure wouldn't look for a house in an area known as the porn capital of California! What an insult to the people of the Valley.
Jeremy Steele Cleans Up Luke's Mistakes
Luke... Please Print all of this... After reading my "Jeremy Steele Dishes" Expose, I realized that you omitted many words from sentances and many sentances from my spoken narratives to you, to where parts of it are difficult to impossible to understand... there's a pattern in you here displayed which goes back to the very first time you had a short bio on me that only said the rumours about me.. which came to from my mouth.. without explaining that all these stories were fictitious and how they came about.. of course, you corrected that to a significant extent.. as I hope you will do here..
For example, you omit my narrative of how and why I didn't go after Steve Austin that night of the 97 XRCO awards... how we were gonna let bygones be bygones... but then I get a three way call from Solveig and Santino Lee at 3:30 am explaining what happened that night with Santino and TT BOY.. thus leaving me to conclude that I will definitely not get back with World Modeling, now that I know they're making s--- up that Santino said TT has aids. There's also a few mistakes..
When you asked me if (5th paragraph down from top) if Eden really got all those degrees, my answer was "I don't know", not "no".. but that she's a pathological liar, so I doubt it.
2 more paragraphs down... "I begged and pleaded for MONEY FOR (should be added) her operation (from my Dad)". You also mentioned that I said I had "about 60 bags of weed".. I said "a 60 (dollar) bag of weed". My song is titled "God of YOUR Domain", and the last world in the lyrics you quoted should read "them", not "it" ("it" doesn't rhyme too well)...
Then, I have question marks to the grammar and editing of the first sentance of each of the next two paragraphs. Also, to clarify, I said there's only one song of my pending first album that was written before I got in the porn biz... and that it's the only simple pop-like song of all of them.
When I said 2 paragraphs later that I don't consider myself a great artist, as far as talent... I was referring to my Drawing skills, which I make up for with tenacity.
Regarding my ex's comments.. she says I threatened to attack her publically and ruin her career.. These are more lies... She says I left harrassing messages on her voice mail.. The ONLY message I left is a few weeks ago, telling her my Father's P. O. Box mailing address so to send him the money she owes (as if she ever will).. I also mentioned that I've learned that she owes other people money as well, but that my Dad had saved her life and she gave him her word and that this has nothing to do with her and I.. And I said that if she doesn't pay him that it is a good gage of how evil she really is. What part of that was a threat?
So this addressed her other moronic lie as well about how she had no address by which to reach him (not that she doesn't know my P. O. Box address if she has any questions).
To clarify.. Nick Richmond of Primal World Talent and Management offered me the first day we met.. $250 to have him blow me, not "F---" Also, when I said that if I was into guys I'd have been doing them by now.. "I'd have much more fun"... if I was, that is.. based on how many guys gawk, gaze.. and the lack of head tripping, mind runaround games and bulls--- they play compared to females. Who said the part towards the end that started "XX:"? Not me.
Regarding my KKK catalog.. A friend once sent me photo copies of this KKK racist, Daniel Carver mail order catalog.. he's the guy that's been on Howard Stern quite a number of times... I still have it because some of it is funny as hell.. funnier than Archie Bunker... although it's imcredibly moronic, absurd and I have never ordered anything from it, thank you, nor plan to. I've worked with a good number of darker skinned females, as well as f---ed a few "blacks" in my private life.. I love all the beautiful women of the world.. if I have a problem with any race in particular the most, it's probably whites.. specifically american, esp regarding women.. but I'll still give everyone a chance based on who they are individually.
My ex used to tell "nigger" jokes in company of others and it was always embarassing and distressful to me.. I forgave to some extent her extreme feelings because of her rape.. but the way she would say the word "nigger: itself with this loud accented spitefulness was really, really disturbed. She's explained to me why she could never work with blacks.. she's been involved many hours on the internet news yak-yak group writing about how wrong it is if it is held against a female performer if she say chooses that she doesn't like working with blacks across the board; that it is their personal preference and right to choose... and that they shouldn't be forced or coerced to do so for political reasons where they would have no choice about it if they wanted to preserve a good public image... And now she's done an "interracial" scene? Well, that's good... one big step towards her recovery perhaps... but I've got to see it to believe it.. I'm sure her motorcycle brothers would love it, too.
One time a black man who was doing business with us, who was at our house and had been there a few times before... touched her on the shoulder and she cringed... He commented indirectly to her how she doesn't seem to like him. She's said to me she would lose it if she ever worked with a black guy. She's says I'm lying through my teeth about things and am a bitter man for leaving her.. yes I'm a bitter man.. and a significant part of my bitterness relates to the fact that she wouldn't leave, not that she did leave... and that it took over a month and half and a lot of audacious evil s--- in between until she finally left after her "Jan 1, 1999, the latest", date. `Finally, she said that my Father sent her money against her wishes... that too is bulls---... she never objected to it.. What was her alleged insistence... that she be allowed to slowly suffer and die? That may be a few other people's wish for, but it was never hers.
Next Porn Star Suicide?
From the newsgroup rec.arts.movies.erotica (RAME):
Steve nominates: Annabel Chong, Aspen Brock, Marc Wallace.
Dick Cidar nominates: Max Hardcore, Ed Powers, Rob Black.
Phil Goldmarx nominates: Luke F-rd, Heaven Leigh, Nena Cherry.
David Aaron Clark writes: First, let me say this is a tacky, tacky thread, and I'm ashamed of you for starting it. Having that out of the way: 1. Annabel is actually very unlikely; I know her quite well, and despite the tragic portrayal in the documentary, etc, she is actually quite cool, together, and making her way. She did a great job in my newest show, "Poison Candy." She looks better than ever and is clean, sober and smart from all her travails. 2. Marc Wallace: don't know him. Many would wish, huh? Nah, better if he dies a slow death of his own making ... 3. Aspen Brock. Ding Ding! We have a winner! Funny, but when I first saw the thread I thought, "I think I'll be a cranky bastard and nominate Aspen Brock" since my observations over unpublicized behavior by her point toward a definite death wish. But this is really, really an inhumane, callous thread, and I'll be ashamed at whatever fellow RAMErs continue it.
Diesel adds: As if being a RAMER isn't shame enough! Here are my suspects for upcoming suicides: Jill Kelly---for what happened to Cal Jammer, Eric Price--for abandoning Paula Price and for his homo past, Bianca Trump.
Luke: I agree with David Clark... And many of the nominations are ludicrous - folks like Jill Kelly, Annabel Chong and Ed Powers are among the sanest and best grounded folks in porn. But there is a core of stinging truth to the shocking thread, and that is - porn tends to unhinge many people and send them mad. Porno, like rock n'roll and MTV, is frequently a path to destruction.
Bissell writes: I just saw the latest MDD and the interview with Aspen Brock was the saddest 5 minutes I have ever witnessed. I think this was much worse than the Gang Bang Audition scene. Her Anabolic scene may have been physical torture, but the Ed Powers scene was pure mental torture, for the audience and especially for her. She was describing how screw-up her life was. Suffice to say she was not happy. Ed tried to offer his sympathy but you know that goes. After this how can anyone get aroused?
Slash: Well, she's an honest chick. I saw that too and said, well, here's another porn suicide waiting to happen. I still dig this chick.
Voyager7: I saw her in Up Your Ass #11 recently. She looked chipper and very perky.... Took Lex and Jake, every which way..... and just :-) :-) :-)'d.
Chupatinha: The interview was sad but she managed to burn in the actual sex scene, even though she had to f--- ED! I went out and found her other videos after seeing her scene here, she was NASTY and enjoyed it.
CindyPapa: Aspen Brock w/Ed Powers? Is this the alleged bestiality video rumor that is making the rounds in another RAME thread?
Crystalllude writes on RAME: I know Peter North has done gay porno under a different name where he takes a cock in his ass but does he ever suck cock in these movies? If so, is he enthusiastac about it? What about the late John Holmes? Heard he was quite the devotee of the public toilet glory hole, but did he prefer to give or receive? I can't imagine his freakishly enormous honker fitting through that rather small hole in the stall partition so he must have been more often than not a "catcher" in these encounters. Just curious.
Oliver Lu: If he ever did suck cock, it would explain why he has such large loads now. You see, the semen goes into his body where it gets stored until later use...kind of like that mythical tribe in Africa with the interesting puberty initiation rite(s) for males.
Brownout
Luke F-rd Wire Services Ltd.:
The New York Post’s “Page Six” huddles today with former NFL football great and lapsed African-American erotic icon Jim Brown--who stands “accused of smashing the windows of wife Monique's car with a shovel on June 15 and then threatening to kill her.”
This is not the first time Hall of Famer Brown--who once bared his sizeable ebony choad in a Playgirl Magazine centerspread--has scrimmaged with the second sex. In Life Magazine, dated May 23, 1969, profiling “the black John Wayne”--who in the sixties made “eight [now-unwatchable] films in three years”--a reporter writes: “I had read the press accounts of his being charged--and acquitted-- in assault and paternity cases in Cleveland..and the more recent case in Los Angeles, when he was accused of throwing a model friend off his apartment balcony. Brown was fined $300 for interfering with law officers after a policeman trying to enter the apartment had run into a smartly deployed Brown forearm...”
The model, Eva Bohn-Chin, was severely injured in the balcony “fall,” but declined to press charges.
Kvelled Jim Brown to Life: “...I have a fantastic rapport with girls. I can relate to them. They relate to me. All my trouble has been caused by other people interfering." (A girl’s mother in Cleveland, nosy neighbors in Los Angeles.)
And unforgettably: “...A black maid in a white dress served [Brown] a large bowl of red beans and hocks, which he ate with a golden spoon.”
Thirty years and five months later, spoon-fed has-been Jim Brown is still protesting his innocence: "This case doesn't involve me,” said defendant Brown out side the courtroom. “What could I testify to?” At the heart of Brown’s “defence” was the O.J.-tested strategy in which the accused sits mute and dazed throughout the trial.
Coming soon from l-keford.com: A special post-verdict Jim Brown update focusing on the erotopathic link between much-accused gal-whacker Brown and his sexually dysfunctional, Harvard-”educated” chronicler, James Toback, author of 1970’s out-of-print hagiography aptly entitled "Jim The Author's Self-Centered Memoir on the Great Jim Brown." [As a filmmaker, Toback-- best-known for “The Pickup Artist”, “Two Girls and A Guy” and 1978’s sadistic “Fingers” with Jim Brown and Harvey Keitel--is hilariously depantsed in Kurt Andersen’s Spy, dated March ‘89: ”Squirm-o-Rama: James Toback’s Guide to, uh, Casting Actresses”].
Is Pedophilia So Bad?
David Austin writes on RAME: The relevant group was the American Psychological Association. The controversy has been fueled by commentary from many who have either not read or have (deliberately?) misread the article itself: Rind, B., Tromovitch, P., & Bauserman, R. (1998). "A meta-analytic examination of assumed properties of child sexual abuse using college samples." _Psychological Bulletin_ 124, 22-53.
Very briefly and oversimply, this re-analysis of previously published data found that there was good reason to think that _some_ types of behavior classified as sexually abusive were _somewhat less harmful_ than others _in the population studied_ (a population that consisted of people who made it to college and hence contained no one who was so severely harmed that they could not make it that far). This much was dead clear in the article itself. So far as I know, the article itself is not readily available on-line.
http://www.apa.org/releases/childsexabuse.html contains the APA statement on the controversy. The APA leadership has been harshly criticized by some of its own members for what they take to be its failure to defend legitimate research forcefully enough; some of those critics felt strongly enough to resign from the APA. Among the first to propagate misrepresentations of the article was Radio Dr. Laura Schlesinger. The Family Research Council and the Christian Coalition helped to spread her word.
AP (among many other news organizations) covered the congressional vote to "condemn" the study:
House Condemns Child Sex Abuse Study July 12, 1999 By JIM ABRAMS Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The House on Monday unanimously condemned a 1998
article in an American Psychological Association journal.... The House
voted 355-0 to denounce the study in the Psychological Bulletin, one
of the APA's 37 journals, that Rep. Matt Salmon, R-Ariz., sponsor of
the resolution, called the "emancipation proclamation of pedophiles."
Thirteen voted "present."
The July 1998 article analyzed the findings of 59 earlier studies involving
college students who had been sexually abused before the age of 18,
concluding that not all victims viewed their experiences negatively
and that lasting negative effects were less serious in many cases than
commonly believed.
Here's an excerpt from Carol Tavris's _LA Times_ 7/19/99 op-ed piece, "The politics of sex abuse."
I [Carol Tavris] guess I should be reassured to know that Congress disapproves of pedophilia and the sexual abuse of children. On July 12, the House voted unanimously to denounce a study that the resolution's sponsor, Matt Salmon (R-Ariz.), called "the emancipation proclamation of pedophiles." In a stunning display of scientific illiteracy and moral posturing, Congress misunderstood the message, so they condemned the messenger.
What got Congress riled was an article published last year in the journal
Psychological Bulletin, which is to behavioral science what the Journal
of the American Medical Association is to medicine. Articles must pass
rigorous peer review, during which they are scrutinized for their methods,
statistics and conclusions. The authors of the article ... statistically
analyzed 59 studies, involving more than 37,000 men and women, on the
effects of childhood sexual abuse on college students. (A previous paper
reviewed studies of more than 12,000 adults in the general population.)
Perhaps the researchers' most inflammatory finding, however, was that not all experiences of child-adult sexual contact have equally emotional consequences nor can they be lumped together as "abuse." Being molested at the age of 5 is not comparable to choosing to have sex at 15. Indeed, the researchers found that two thirds of males who, as children or teenagers, had had sexual experiences with adults did not react negatively.
Shouldn't this be good news? Shouldn't we be glad to know which experiences are in fact traumatic for children, and which are not upsetting to them? Shouldn't we be pleased to get more evidence of the heartening resilience of children? And "more" evidence it is, for abundant research now shows that most people, over time, cope successfully with adversity-even war. Many not only survive, but find meaning and strength in the experience, discovering psychological resources they did not know they had.
But the fact that many people survive life's losses and cruelties is
surely no endorsement of child abuse, rape, or war. A criminal act is
still a criminal act, ... the fact that many people recover on their
own says nothing about the importance of promoting interventions that
help those who cannot.
On Tuesday, Luke discussed pedophilia with porno dad Martin Brimmer, recently deceased, who took a courageous stance against the sexual abuse of children.
Brimmer, a veteran screenwriter who's decided to retire, and return to his real name Rodger Jacobs, told me: "Buccolini is right. Your site has gone downhill... All that Morality in Media crap... Those studies are so skewed. You may as well quote a porn industry study on porn."
Luke: MIM is the mirror image of porno. I find their stuff interesting. I'd forgotten what the other side was like.
Jacobs: "They lump everything together. Some pedophile, child porn, and the mainstream porn industry. It's all the same to them. Kiddie porn and a Sin City movie, they don't draw a distinction."
Luke: "There is a distinction? Anyway, I did not know the pro-pedophilia beliefs of the World Pornography Conference organizers like CSUN professor Vern Bullough."
Jacobs: "But that kind of stuff has nothing to do with our industry and it doesn't reflect well even lumped into a website that has anything to do with our business."
Luke: "I'm shocked and horrified that I may have run something damaging to the interests of the porn industry... Literally, pedophiles and child porn may have nothing to do with the mainstream porn industry, but figuratively it does. The porn industry promotes the expansion of sexual boundaries."
Rodger: "But I would argue to you that the internet has done more damage in that respect than the porn industry. The tons of readily available pornographic material on the net... Stuff promoting pedophilia and bestiality... The internet has done a tremendous job in breaking down barriers. It's almost as if the internet is going to force Western culture to redefine what is pornographic and what is taboo."
Luke disagrees. What will primarily define what is licit in Western culture, particularly American, is religion, particularly Christianity, which remains unalterably opposed to porno and all sex outside of marriage.
Rodger: "In Japan, for instance, they have some wild fetishes. They have a lot of teen sex videos. It's very popular there and it is not illegal. All these schoolgirl scenarios, particularly schoolgirl rape... Rape in general [as an entertainment theme but not in reality, Japan has low rates of criminal violence] is very popular in Japan, especially in the last ten years when women have become less subjugated and moved into the workforce, which is against [traditional] Japanese culture."
Luke: If violent pornography led to rape, one would expect Japan to be filled with rape, but it has very low rates of violence.
Rodger: "If you look at Japanese porno website, you'll find stuff that violates US standards... I wrote about this extreme and illegal porn for Hustler. Some of my points did not get through because David [Buchbinder, Hustler features editor] cut them.
"Our culture here is so puritanical compared to the rest of the globe, who has more tolerance... Canada and Great Britain have restraints against pornography, but in terms of TV and magazines and newspaper on a newsstand that a ten-year old can buy, they are still more liberal than we are... Britain and Canada has shown full front nudity long before the US. When I was 13 years old, I was turning on reruns of Monty Python's Flying Circus on PBS and seeing nudity..."
Luke: "I did that, also with Benny Hill..."
Rodger: Until they put him in syndication and he got sanitized... They had the uncensored stuff on PBS for a while."
Luke: What prompted the retirement of Martin Brimmer?
Rodger: Martin got tired. He wrote over 200 screenplays over seven years, finally won the AVN award [whooopy doo]... A big part of it was working with Johnathan Morgan and Wicked... They allowed me to expand and explore some boundaries... Not only making story intensive films but films that tiptoed around what was acceptable... Indigo Delta... How often have you seen an X-rated film where the lead character is a serial killer?
Luke: What progress.
Rodger: Pornogothic was a vampire film... We had a Hollywood make-up person who made up the vampires... We had blood and special effects... The lead character, played by Brad Armstrong, is a cop investigating these vampire killings who questions the existence of God. How often do you see a theme like that in an adult film?
So with Johnathan, I got to do a lot of the things I've always wanted to do.
Luke: Sounds homoerotic.
Rodger: It almost became, whenever I'd get an assignment after that, can I top what I did before? Can I fulfill myself creatively like I did with Johnathan? And the answer invariably was no.
Luke: Reminds of King David, in the book of Samuel, mourning the death of his buddy Johnathan. "Your love was sweeter to me than the love of women," said David.
Rodger: The assignments were getting harder and harder to write and there seemed to be less point in doing it. It's an extremely limited genre.
Luke: Duh.
Rodger: On No Man's Land... Emerson and I started out with volume eight to twenty seven, and I think I ran the gamut of every possible lesbian storyline you can come up with. It's like writing detective novels. Pretty soon you'll run out of mystery plots.
Over the years, as I did more and more magazine work, porn screenwriting accounted for less and less of my income. It got to the point where it was only 40% of my income... It became easier to turn down assignments and resign than to sit here and wrestle for weeks with something that normally would've taken me two days to write...
Luke: Do you find porn journalism more fulfilling than porn screenwriting?
Rodger: That too is a limited field. I'm getting tired of the reviews... After a while, there are only so many ways that you can describe the action. For a while it becomes a challenge, and then it becomes downright dull.
Luke: How do folks like Gene Ross and Paul Fishbein put in almost 20 years doing this?
Rodger: They're editors now. They have other people do the bulk of the reviews.
Luke: What do you tell people in your community [in Northern California] about what you do for a living?
Rodger: I don't talk to anyone in my community. It's a small town. I tell them that I am a magazine writer. Usually I admit mostly adult magazines and small mainstream magazines.
Luke: Like Panic, it's content was shocking.
Rodger: I didn't have a problem with it except for the interview with the necro-cannibal. It was just a typical sub-culture magazine. I'm writing an article for them on the death motifs in the novels and short fiction of Jack London. That's far removed from an interview with Alisha Klass.
Living in Benicia, it's been easier to pull away from the porn industry. The pace is more laid back... Rent is cheaper...
Luke: What does your girlfriend think of your work in porno?
Rodger: At first she thought it was unique and interesting and when she saw how inundated I was with the business, not only writing screenplays but ad copy and video reviews and magazine articles, it became overwhelming. There's a lot of pornographic material around me at any given time. She's glad to see me back out of the business and she's rightfully more proud of the stuff I do in mainstream than the stuff I do in porn.
Luke: I can identify with that. That's why I'm toning down my website. Make it more acceptable for the chicks I date... I'll probably lose some readership... I'm lucky that Craig is so busy with Fantastic he can't see what's going on... Though I doubt if he'd care if I write about Hungarian poetry, so long as I get the hits.
F--- 'em All
The Rabbi Stiffkugel has averted his gaze to AGV's f--- ‘em All 2 , starring Tabitha and narrated by the ubiquitious Professor Mike. He is pleasantly impressed. Like the rather un-professorial looking Mike's Freshman Fantasies line, this series comes up with a variety of imaginative scenarios. With FF, it's supposedly the girls who disclose their fantasies and then act them out. f--- Them All is more like a "You Asked For It" of porn. Fans send in E-mails and Tabitha fills the orders. In one segment, the fans sent in their pictures and she fills them. This particular segment was a bit suspicious in that the guest couple looked an awful lot like porn pros, but what the hell. At least it wasn't Dave Hardman and a deaf mute, and the sex was good. They even waived to a construction crew building a house nearby. The R S will be writing in soon, hoping to smuggle himself onto the set of the next episode by scanning an old picture from his days as a soldier in the 7-day war. Or maybe he'll suggest a scene to be shot at the Temple Beth Porno. In the meantime, he gives this one a solid 8.
Luke IMs Kendra Jade
KendraJXXX: sup Luzdedos1: baby Luzdedos1: my pecker is up when i think about U! KendraJXXX: took u long enuff to answet Luzdedos1: I was off doing something and just checked my screen. How are u? KendraJXXX: fine...i cant believe u did not know that was not me in those pix Luzdedos1: I just have u on my mind Luzdedos1: wherever i look, i see your smiling face KendraJXXX: liar Luzdedos1: what's new? KendraJXXX: nothing at all KendraJXXX: you? Luzdedos1: any scoop for Luke? KendraJXXX: nope...any scoop for k.j? Luzdedos1: i am getting ready for rosh hashana, and yom kippur. going to jewish classes. I bought a cell phone and a $50 a month plan from Pac Bell. KendraJXXX: cool.you are so la now! Luzdedos1: Yeah baby! KendraJXXX: mine costs 150 a month, and i get 1500 minutes Luzdedos1: wow, i get 300 mins Luzdedos1: a week Luzdedos1: is everyone being good to you? KendraJXXX: damn.well i dont have roam or long distance charges...do u? Luzdedos1: yes KendraJXXX: everyone is always good to me Luzdedos1: are you shooting or what are you doing? KendraJXXX: i am not doing nothing right now. im on vacation Luzdedos1: aRE YOU READING ANY BOOKS, DOING ANY SELF IMPROVEMENT, SOUL WORK? Luzdedos1: :) KendraJXXX: no, but i am writning a lot KendraJXXX: how could i improve?? im perfect Luzdedos1: cool, what are you writing, can u send me some? KendraJXXX: lots of poems still...and my book
comp: hey, how'd it go with linda? Luzdedos1: good, very encouraging... comp: really? do tell Luzdedos1: she did not tell me the remedy, nor give me another one comp: oh man Luzdedos1: she said i was on track, that progress would be slow but steady comp: what was her reasoning? Luzdedos1: she said she enjoyed my book, we spent about 30-40 mins, $175 comp: yeah, i've paid him $100 or 125 for nothing more than a handshake more than once. i hate that. :) Luzdedos1: she said my lack of nightmares was significant, as my dream life has normalized comp: has she been following the site? Luzdedos1: no, but I showed her the Talking Blue riff on me, gun photos, talked about that...the changes with my writing and site the last few months Luzdedos1: i gave her several articles on me comp: well, i think your site is more indicitive. comp: the fact you kept writing about yourself and NJG might have been a sign you couldn't write abotu porn any more, which could have been a progress indicator comp: did you mention the cfs coming back, and the 3 week cold? Luzdedos1: yes, she thought it was a stage Luzdedos1: because they were definitely not relapses like I've experienced in the past comp: old symptoms coming back, like i said? Luzdedos1: yeah, maybe, the cold was a cleaning out time, perhaps. she said. comp: that's what a cold is. sneezing, running nose, coughing. all expulsions