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Friday, January 28, 2005

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XBiz Fires Head Of Marketing Mathew

They just hired him a few months ago to replace Lori Z.

Pop princess of the '80s bares all for Playboy

From the Baltimore Sun:

DEBORAH GIBSON (perhaps still more famously known as '80s teen queen pop princess Debbie Gibson) has gone the way of so many and shed her clothes for Playboy. The March issue hits newsstands Feb 11.

Deborah, 34, has made some significant, successful strides in separating herself from her teen image. But apparently these changes are not significant enough. (She has toured to acclaim in Grease, Gypsy and Funny Girl, and landed on Broadway in Beauty and the Beast and at Studio 54 in Cabaret.) The layout, which shows a "well-defined, yet very sexy, feminine look," coincides with a new single titled "Naked." She's also doing a remake of the Daryl Hall & John Oates classic "Rich Girl," produced by Ernie Lake. That one will be on her coming album.

Tabitha Stevens Backs Out of Marriage To Nick Manning

Gene Ross writes on Adultfyi:

Tabitha Stevens came on the Howard Stern show this morning and said that it was all over between her and Nick Manning, that she's decided not to marry him. Stern said Stevens had left a voice mail and sounded like she was losing her marbles. Stern played the message on air. Steven's voice was cracking and tearful. "I did not plan this live show that happened," said Stevens referring to the segment in which Manning proposed to her. "I felt like I let you guys down," Stevens went on to say indicating that she had been boxed in a corner on the marriage proposal. The very weird thing is that I had seen this in my tarot cards earlier this month and called Stevens. She never returned my call.

Pornucopia - Going Down In The Valley

Like Family Business on Showtime, HBO's Pornucopia is a sanitized view of the industry.

In truth, Pornucopia is a glitzier glorification than Adam Glasser's reality show.

I was on a Jill Kelly Productions set in April 2003 filled with drama. Cynara Fox didn't have her STD tests in order. Jenna Haze, along with many of the other JKP contract girls, were uncomfortable working with Cynara.

AVN's Mark Kernes was yelling at me. He was proclaiming that I should not be allowed on set because I hated the industry.

HBO cameras were all around us but they don't show anything negative or dramatic in this purported documentary.

The Jill Kelly Productions set were manipulated to make Jill look much more hands-on and authoritative. She doesn't normally direct so aggressively. It was for show. For the cameras.

HBO does serious documentaries on serious topics. But when they focus on whores, HBO whores.

Pornucopia is beautiful. It's fun to watch.. And it is as true to the industry as a Jerry Fallwell rant about gays is representative of gay life.

They bill Danni Ashe as an "Internet Entrepreneur." Yeah, and cocaine king Pablo Escobar was a pharmaceutical entrepreneur.

HBO bills Jenna Jameson as one of the wealthiest women in the world. I doubt she's in the top thousand.

Amazingly, the show does not mention how all these girls, at one time or another, flip tricks.

Call it "HBO Goes Down On The Valley." The real whores in this show are its producers (Sheila Nevins, Steve Ziplow, Julie M. Anderson) and director (Dan Chaykin).

Some random notes:

* Jim South says contract girls earn, at best, $50-75,000 a year but only have to work a few days a month at most.

* Almost nobody is made to look bad, except Kelly Steele. Jonathan Morgan describes her as unfeminine and scary.

* Wicked contract star Stormy says that before she does her scene, she wants to feel that her male scene partner is in love with her.

* HBO loves quoting people saying that women run this industry. HBO wants to perpetuate this myth to undercut the popular view of pornographers as exploiters of women. Yet, all the big money people in the industry are men (top 30 anyway).

* HBO accepts Violet Blue's claim that she orgasms in more than 60% of her scenes.

* Nobody in the documentary says they don't like their work. Nobody admits to doubts or fears about porn.

* HBO posits that the average porn career lasts 18-months. Nice guess.

* Chris Cannon claims he did six scenes in one day.

* HBO seems to accept everything that porners tell them as gospel truth.

The Auschwitz Effect

On January 27, 1945, Russian troops liberated the Auschwitz concentration camp.

In honor of that date, here's an excerpt from Josh Alan Friedman's new book When Sex Was Dirty:

Fred had recently turned 30 and was set to marry a brunette anthropologist whose parents had survived Auschwitz. "I see a long, parched desert before me," Fred would moan, envisioning the rest of his sex life. "Judy and I are so familiar after living together five years. I love her, but sex with her is like having sex with a family member. I'm a starving man."

Indeed, Fred's most indignant complaint about the folly of mankind was his inability to resist temptation. His-swaggering harlotry, a cleavage thrust in his direction, even the slight overt female wiggle - these sights sent him careening off to relieve himself into a Kleenex in Times Square... But when particularly aroused by some sexy temp in the office, wantonly gyrating her hips while listening to a Sony Walkman, he would sneak off to the streetwalkers that night, cursing under his breath about the power women hold over men's libidos. "It's not fair," he said, pounding a fist on the table, unable to relax until he boffed a whore. And God forbid Judy should find out; it would crush her beyond repair. "Not that she'd react violently, but those doe-like eyes would swell with tears, she'd stare at me with disbelief... It's the camps," said Fred, referring to her parents incarceration, which loomed over their relationship like a poltergeist. "You can't cheat on the daughter of concentration camp victims."

"Surely," I ventured, "you could explain your cravings for a meaningless one-nighter." I suggested she may become bored too, and someday, after gentle prodding, might allow a girlfriend to slip under the covers with both of them.

"Are you crazy?" screamed Fred, whose maddest desire was for several of Judy's associate anthropologists.

"Why not try?" I asked.

"The camps, the camps."

Kellie Everts - Stripper For Christ

Sinful pictures here.

Josh Alan Friedman writes in When Sex Was Dirty:

Having self-published eight books on mystical theology ($10 a pop, mail order), Kellie has been waiting to engage Father Michael's opinion on them.

Kellie attends Mass twice a day and is sometimes the only worshipper present for the second one. She often donates part of her hefty burlesque salary to local church funds, "for Masses for the Souls in Purgatory." (One of her books, The Deliverance of Errol Flynn From Purgatory, is a "true story" describing Kellie's five-month rescue operation and conversations with the dead movie star, culminating in his deliverance.)

The Stripper for God believes other starlets degrade themselves in porn or lesbianism. Kellie has never yet involved herself in hardcore porn, other than splaying tits, ass and twat as the Lord created it. She was the first female body builder in the United States, her six-page spread in Esquire introducing the concept. After the layout appeared, Honeysuckle Divine, then Screw's own outrageous stringer, latched onto Kellie. In the early '70s, Honeysuckle was billed on Times Square burlesque marquees as "The Dirtiest Girl On Earth." No one had a clue that she was really a Jekyll/Hyde case. A nun who left the convent like a werewolf when the moon was full. Finally ousted from the church, she pined to return to the convent. Honeysuckle's desire to return to God, juxtaposed with her arresting porn career, had sent her careening into a loony bin. Kellie Everts, a kindred spirit, performed exorcisms on Honeysuckle, ridding pornography demons from her soul. Honeysuckle returned to holy communion, studying the sacraments and living incognito in the straight world.

Legal Analysis

Lukeisback legal analyst Cheburashka writes:

1. There hardly is a New York mob anymore. Fastest rising in a family? Youngest boss? Hint: Its because of how quickly they go to jail now.

Now, the broker-dealer from '93-'97 really is suspicious. "Boiler Room" was based on a very true story, which is the explosion in IPO-related and penny-stock scams in New Jersey and Long Island during the late 80s and 90s. A lot of that was mob related.

But what else do they have? Drugs? That's black and latino gangs. Think the Italian mob controls them? What would the Italians bring to the table - nothing. Prostitution? Every website and street corner. Gambling? Every website and there are legal casinos all over now. Garments? Gone from the city, or run by Asian immigrants who call the police. Longshoremen? Gone from the city. Garbage collection? Busted and de-mafiaed years ago.

The business of shipping and distributing and credit that they used to be so big in aren't controllable that way anymore. The process of nationalization and globalization, of replacing small local joints with large better funded companies that can afford lower margins and more advertising - but have to obey the law - ended all of that.

Being violent in a strip club is probably about all they have left.

I've been in Privilege by the way. Didn't realize it was mobbed up, although I always assumed that's who would bother investing in a place like that - cash business for money laundering, populated by folks who won't call the cops over a little beating.

2. What Laurie Holmes wrote about her "intellectual property rights" isn't the dumbest thing I've ever read about copyright & trademark, but it comes close.

There are so many mistakes in there I don't know where to begin.

To start, copyrights protect creative works, not the subjects of those works. If Joe Photo takes a photograph of John Holmes, then Joe Photo owns the copyright in that photograph, and he can sell or assign it for whatever purpose to whoever he wants.

If Joe Photo had a contract with Holmes, that contract may affect whether Holmes can sue Photo if Photo grants Sally Painter the right to base a painting on the photograph. But that's a contract issue, not a copyright issue.

Holmes has no "intellectual property rights" whatsoever in photographs taken of him - unless he purchased those rights from the creators of the copyrighted works. Think about it - to be simplistic, what's the "intellect" involved in _being_photographed_?

If Sally Painter based her painting on Joe Photo's photograph of Holmes, Joe Photo may have a copyright lawsuit against Sally Painter (but probably doesn't, for reasons too complicated to get into). But Holmes is s--- out of luck, because he doesn't have a copyright in anything.

Trademarks protect the right to create something which is used to identify the origin of goods - the "GE" logo tells me something came from General Electric, with their level of quality. Was John Holmes' image ever used to identify the _source_ rather than the _subject_ or _content_ of a product? Of course not.

There is a right called the "right of publicity," which means someone can't take your picture while you're walking on the street, and then put out an ad with your photo saying "this man uses our hair replacement products."

The right of publicity was intended to protect personal privacy. The courts of some states (California) have misconstrued it to be a right of celebrities - who are entitled to little privacy under the law - to control how images of them are used.

The problem with that is that everyone has a First Amendment right to make and publish pictures and descriptions and so forth of celebrities. (Libel and other issues left out.)

If Sally Painter's book of paintings had a "John Holmes Loved This Picture" on the front, that ambiguous and odd right of publicity _might_ be implicated.

But Laurie would then have to deal with the problem that John is dead. A major question is whether the right of publicity is _descendable_ - whether your heirs have the right to prevent others from using your image, etc. Last time I looked at the law, it was an open question.

I understand that California has some sort of new law covering all of this. The First Amendment lurks in the background of all of that.

And besides, Laurie Holmes can't sue. She doesn't have any money.

3. About porn stars and identity theft - who the hell would want to steal a porn star's identity? Seriously.

First, although porn stars seem to think they have money because they have incomes in the low six figures for a few years in their 20s, here's a hint: that ain't money worth stealing.

Second, identity theft is about stealing people's ability to get credit. Do you know any porn stars with good credit? When was the last time Sylvia Saint whipped out a black AmEx? Helllooo!

4. The attorney pointed out a real issue with your site. It's about showing that porn people are irresponsible nut balls with drug problems, poor judgment, criminal activities (drugs, prostitution, mafia, violence, etc.) and so forth. That the girls are really screwed up prostitutes who end up broke with screwed up bodies.

Here's the problem: The only people on Earth who don't already know that are people in porn.

Who thinks porn people are responsible adults? I guess, now that porn is trying to go mainstream and trying to project a better image, maybe your site has a function in making that deception harder to pull off. But other than that, its really about trying to convince scummy people, who everyone already knows are scummy, that they're scummy.

About Last Night

8:09pm. Thursday. My caller ID says 917 area code. I can't figure out who it is.

Female voice: "Do you know who this is?"

Luke, uncertain: "Yeah. Sure. Of course."

Female: "You don't know who this is. You can never lie to me [and get away with it] unless I love you and then you can get away with it.

"You made love to me twice last night. Now do you know who it is?"

Luke: "Oh. Ava Vincent."

The Strikeout King

I'm reading Josh Alan Friedman's new book, When Sex Was Dirty, a compilation of his writing on the sex industry during the 1970s and '80s.

There's a chapter (The Strikeout King) about former sex (Oui and others) magazine editor Jeff Goodman (Sammy Grubman):

I accompanied Sammy on his nightly rounds pursuing females by the thousand. He always returned home alone. An industrious fellow, Sammy's work-a-day-world was permeated with endless ruses: "All my desires, the magazines, my movie company dealings, the exercise tapes, all stem from wanting to meet girls," said Sammy. "Every idea I have, every motivation, comes from my obsession with girls."

While models flitted about us, Sammy imparted this theory: "Their whole career is trading their body one way or another to get ahead. What's modeling but a life of what they think is glamor, meeting famous people, traveling, show biz? So they're another form of hooker.

"Unfortunately, a beautiful girl is the highest status symbol in the world.

"Now, during these 70 years, you're not going to have any sex with girls unless you resort to trickery, scams, deception."

I'm bothered by two things in this book -- the immorality and the typos. One leads to the other.

Surely such an approach will not bring lasting happiness. It seems so short-sighted when compared to the eternal rewards of marriage, prayer and study of sacred text.

On July 18, 2001, I heard from Jeff:

I recently saw a Japanese-made movie that almost got me dumbstruck with recognition...it was like old times....a couple of producers who had phony "auditions" to meet girls....except one of the girls was an insane killer with a hideous only-in-Japan steel-needles-in-the-eyes ending.

I am reminded by all these postings, and also from some recent contacts that I've had from long-lost college friends, that in late middle age we seek to re-establish what we once were....if only to reconstruct lost identities of one's barely conceivable and irretrievable youth.

If I remember correctly, there was a story by Herman Hesse about a visit he took to see his brother, and, on the train, leaving he looks into the sky and sees some fireworks briefly light the sky and fade....the fate of us all. You could launch a whole new website or sub-website full of tortured creative writing by desperate jews in pursuit of shiksa women.

Actually, on reflection, I think 90% of pornography was created with the profit motive as secondary. It represents the finest efforts of Jewish minds to acquire and f--- deranged, huge-breasted blonde trailer-park women from inferior gene pools who have temporarily been turned into desirable Goddesses by dint of the same efforts of same Jews that created the media that thusly elevated them. It's like a former gourmet building a Burger King and then becoming addicted to the Whoppers. Sort of a tail wagging the dog on a Mobius Strip variety of twilight zone reality.

Is the female editor of sex magazines, a "Stephanie Mason" in Friedman's book? Stephanie's late mentor "Pete Fox" [real name was Peter Wolf]. He was the former editor of Outlaw Biker magazine.

Wolf was universally despised because he was a rip-off artist. He seemed to owe every freelancer who worked for him.

Stephanie and Wolf founded sex mags in the '70s. He dropped dead of a heart attack in his late '40s.

Pete would go to work on new recruits that he flew in to New York from Southern trailer parks. He humiliated prospective models from the get-go. Like Sammy, Fox's eagle eye strained to find a stretch mark, a scar, evidence of motherhood, anything to play upon an insecurity.

He never came on at first. He waited until breaking down what little confidence the maidens possessed.

At the end of Fox's procurement sessions, he'd invite a few girls back into his office. Then he seized the moment, holding aloft several mockup covers with their photos attached: "I can put either you, you or you on the cover. It's up to all of you -- you make the decision.

"Now... Who goes home with me?"

..........

There were a dozen men's magazine goniffs [Myron Fass, Murry Traub, Harvey Shapiro] in New York, each with their own independent second-rate empires.... Sammy [Jeff Goodman] fronted for the shadowy, second-string imitators. Ashamed of their work, these businessmen remained hidden behind layers of paperwork. They hid behind shell corporations with noble-sounding names like Knight Publications. One secretive smut king [Carl Ruderman] stirred up the ire of environmentalists by building a heliport on his pristine Connecticut land, scattering geese and ducks every time he coptered in from the city.

Sammy had worked for most of them. They saw in Sammy a younger version of themselves. They would perhaps like to have done badder things on a grander scale, but like Sammy, they all lacked the balls to be murderous. So they settled on being shrewd, deceptive, eager to cheat - characteristics they also admired in Sammy.

Dayton Testifies Before Grand Jury

I heard that porn star Dayton testified Thursday before a Grand Jury in New York investigating organized crime. I've been told that Dayton dated John Baudanza, the youngest capo ever in the Luchese family. I heard she also dated an acting boss of a Mafia family.

I heard Dayton hung out with Nicky Glasses, Craig Marino, Keith Gordon (owner of Bizarre Video) at Privilege, a Mafia strip bar in Manhattan at 23rd Street. Maybe John B. Glasses as well?

Belladonna hung out with Mafia guys at this club.

Keith Gordon used to eat at a place called 101 in Brooklyn. He lived across the street. He would pop in to eat with Craig Marino or have a drink.

Craig usually pitches a fit when I write about him in my column.

About 32 years old, Craig is a resident of New York. He was a registered representative at various broker-dealers from 1993 to April 1997. He's also shown up to the AEE (Adult Entertainment Expo) where he liked to hang out with his buddy Keith Gordan at the Bizarre Video booth.

Marino is a violent and fast-rising star in the Gambino crime family.

Another Gambino member, Robert Martino, controls some of the porn industry. Link Link

This Week In Gang Land

Jerry Capeci writes:

Gambino capo Salvatore (Tore) Locascio - accused in $730 million in hi-tech swindles involving phone sex and Internet porn - clearly represents the new wave of gangsterism. His dad, Frankie Loc, a former top aide for John Gotti, is decidedly old-school.

According to court papers, the FBI's Forfeiture Asset Seizure Team and assistant U.S. attorney Tracey Knuckles have uncovered evidence that from 1996 to 2002, about $40 million was transferred from entities owned by soldier Richard Martino - the reputed mastermind of their lucrative operation - to one run by Locascio, his mob superior.

In another column, Capeci writes: "The feds say the mob pulled off the amazing swindle by using a number of shell companies around the country, including a Kansas City billing company..."

That Kansas City company was Lexitrans which became Cyberdata which became Web Media Interactive which has the identical contact and physical location as ProfitPlantation, owned by Yishai Habari.

One day Lexitrans was owned by Richard Martino, mobster. The next day (circa 1999), everything was owned by Yishai Habari through his companies Webmedia Interactive and Profitplantation.

AVN Awards reflect industry's discomfort with religion

The AVN Awards announced three weeks ago illustrate porn's profound, almost pathological discomfort with the traditional religiosity embraced by most of its mass audience. At the same time, the odd choices for major awards suggest the enormous distance the entertainment industry has traveled from its own populist past.

By excluding Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ from all high-profile nominations, the AVN voters shut out one of the year's biggest box-office hits that also won its share of enthusiastic critical praise - and even swept to victory as "Favorite Drama" in the public voting for the People's Choice Awards. Industry apologists might explain the failure to acknowledge The Passion in any significant way (it did win well-deserved technical nominations for makeup, cinematography and musical score) as the result of the controversy the film provoked when some Jewish leaders denounced its allegedly anti-Semitic elements.

AVN Fires Crickett For Spilling To JimmyD?

MikeSouth.com writes:

Crickett, who is a damn good writer, was fired from her job reviewing movies for AVN today. Why? Because of the comments she had made on simplyjimmyd.com wherein she explained the nominations process as she knew it.

She didn't impugn AVN or anyone there and she mentioned that she was rather careful about giving out pre-noms because she felt a pre nom really should have a shot at a nomination and should be an extraordinary video.

I can only surmise this was a little too much light somehow and now, over a week after the bit appeared, she is fired. Sounds like more chicken s--- from the desk of Connelly to me, he hates it when AVN staffers write to other industry sites.

Truth is Crickett is far too a good a writer for AVN anyway, she is hip and highly intelligent, she writes more in the style of Maxim or FHM than the mundane and often illiterate style of AVN.

When I spoke with Crickett she didn't have anything bad to say about AVN and wouldn't tell me who fired her just why she was fired and that she was caught totally by surprise on this one.

I love it when that redneck Southern hillbilly Mike South castigates others for being illiterate.

Mike replies: "Hell yes. When I recognize it as bad, you KNOW it's bad."

Rick Salomon On 20/20 Feb 4

The putative owner of the Paris Hilton sex tape was in rare form when he was interviewed by Chris Connelly about eight months ago. It's a special on sex tapes called "Caught in the Act." After the taping, Rick called his ex-wife (and current squeeze?) Shannen Maria Doherty to tell her about it.

Tod Hunter Attacks His Former Bosses Paul Fishbein, Mike Ramone

Tod writes:

The rancid ramblings of Paul Fishbein have been added to the AVN Blog. You can see his mangled syntax, his poor spelling, and empty promises ("In our plans for the 2006 AEE to be held in Las Vegas, we are increasing the security budget by plenty, as there are other security issues that need to be dealt with.") I can hear him saying "You'll never be fired" right now.

This synchs up with Heidi's nyah-nyah-nyah at people complaining about who won an AVN award (Note to losers: Buy more ads for next year), Tim Connelly's lucid appraisal of FRC mouthpiece Patrick Trueman ("Trueman looks like he'd be happy watching Gladiator movies with the host and a couple of pre-schoolers..." I don't know about you, but I stopped calling people "fag" as an insult by age 15) , and Mike Ramone showing his abject ignorance of the difference between "feigned" and "depicted," just two of the thousands of words he hasn't quite mastered yet...

I don't know how much of a pay cut Ramone took so he could stay at AVN - but it wasn't enough.

Tim Case: Why I Hate Strippers

So I showed up at 9pm and started doing the DJ thing, which involves basically playing whatever the girls want to hear, bringing them on and off stage, and talking mindlessly about the club's drink and dance specials for five hours. Mind numbingly boring, surrounded by drunken chicks who blather on endlessly about how drunk they are, how cheap the customers are, how perverted that guy was in the VIP room, their kids, and the jobless creep-o s---head boyfriends who take their money and use it to buy drugs. Then, at the end of the night, I have this one dumb bimbo who loves hard rock and dances as "Jamie" claiming she can't tip me out my ten measly f---ing dollars because she lost $60 onstage and has to give the rest of her money to her babysitter. Huh?

The dancer she rides with subsequently informs me that Jamie was going home with $300 in her purse.

Rob Black Blasts Paul Cambria

From Adultfyi.com: Rob Black: "I talked to him and Cambria said, you know what? I'll take your case but you got to give me $100,000 right now. I said, I don't have a hundred thousand cash right now. He goes, well., he goes that's the only way I'm going to do it. And $100,000 and then we'll probably need another $100,000 and he just kept going on and on."

Ten-year-old Crazy Horse Too case will drag on for years

George Knapp, longtime reporter and anchor for KLAS Channel 8, writes for the Las Vegas Mercury:

The recent arrest of topless joint manager Bobby D'Apice has some folks salivating about quick and terrible retribution for the Crazy Horse Too, its owner and its employees. The prevailing wisdom seems to be that the well-publicized bust of D'Apice is a harbinger of more arrests to come, and that it may be only a matter of weeks before the feds go after larger fish, at long last.

.........

...February will mark the two-year anniversary of the sensational FBI/Metro raid on the Crazy Horse. Law enforcement sources indicated back then that the raid resulted in the discovery of all kinds of damning evidence against the club. And yet, two years later, there is still no indictment of the principal target.

.........

Even if the feds end up indicting Rizzolo this spring, there will be no trial this year. There will be no trial next year. It's going to take two years or more for the defense to merely transcribe the hundreds of thousands of intercepted conversations that have been recorded over the past 10 years. It will cost Rizzolo millions of dollars in lawyer fees just to find out what is on the tapes, and only then will a long and costly trial proceed...

A source in Vegas says: "The G-Sting story doesn't generate much comment from the other side because charges are pending against so many of the key figures. The Crazy Horse doesn't get much ink regarding its side because it is far easier and sexier for reporters to pound on the club as being violent, mob-infested, and corrupt. But there are two sides, as always, if you can get them to talk."

Papillon Update

The UCLA-graduate writes on her blog:

I have not written in my journal for a very long time. I have been dealing with a lot of issues with my health and talking about it was a real drag...

I am preparing to move across country to Tampa, Florida where I am going to open up a couple of stores where I will be selling men's and women's urban fashion and children's clothing. I was originally going to move to the Philippines to open up a clothing factory and design my own line of fashion but, dealing with an x-husband about custody issues is a nightmare. My X hasn't really been there for our son since I stopped having sex with him and now that he has a girlfriend he comes around once a week and for only a few hours. he's more of a father to his girlfriends son then he is to his own, it's really sad.

I recently chopped off all my hair and although it looks good I'm still not quite used to it. chemotherapy sucks. I am also sporting my first pair of glasses. Maybe it's true that the computer can screw up your eyesight.

How well do you know Papillon? A quiz.

Identifying Porn Stars

Genesis writes on ADT:

Do you know that when someone... ANYONE buys pictures of a pornstar off of a content site... they're ID's come along with it? How much bulls--- is that! Any psycho can find out where a pornstar lives... steal their identity, etc. I think this is a bunch of BS and I think the porn industry needs to fight against this. Any random person can claim to be an adult webmaster and purchase the content. I think that we need to take a stand. I know that I don't want my identity stolen. I don't want some psycho crazed lunatic knowing where I live. And those of you who use a credit cards as a second form of ID... I would stop. Someone could easily use your credit card to purchase s--- simply because there is NO LAW against this!!! Something has to be done!

Steph writes: "Many companies send your personal information to every reviewer who receives screeners as well. Yes, this is all part of the 2257 regs. I throw out the info without even looking at it."

Porn Supplement In FHM Magazine

Lee O writes on ADT about the January UK edition:

A few choice quotes...

Rob Spallone on porn performers - "I think they're a bunch of animals."

Rob Spallone on his love for porn - "I'd do anything to get out of this business."

Rocco on why he got circumcised - "I got myself circumcised , ten years ago . I did it after my mother died because I needed to feel pain , too."

Cytherea on her prudish home state - "I got at least three indecent exposure tickets in Utah for wearing see-through tops I've always been an outgoing , crazy , wacky , attention deficit disorder hyper-kid ..." There are also interview/adverts with Tera Patrick, Aurora Snow, Hannah Harper, Adriana Sage, Savannah Samson, Cytherea, Rocco, Steve Hirsch, Rachel Rotten, Chyenne Silver, Laurie Wallace, Justine Joli, Sunny Leone, Rob Spallone, Tawny Roberts.

Aggressive Fans At AEE

Tricia Devereaux writes on ADT:

I have no problems with a guy giving a bearhug or whatever, but grabbing tits and squeezing, or slipping a hand a little too much between the butt cheeks is a little too much. I think most porn girls realize that just because some guys are assholes (and those guys aren't necessarily even the porn fans - a lot of them probably couldn't have named the girls they were grabbing), it doesn't mean that all guys are. I do remember one guy one time who was taking a picture with me, and he reached out and pulled my shirt to the side and kissed my boob and grabbed it. I slapped him, and he looked at me like I was the rude one. I called for security and had him kicked out of the show. That one ruined the rest of the day for me. Ones where guys would try to grab, it would usually put me in a bad mood for a couple of minutes, but invariably, there would be some really sweet guy come around and be able to name about a dozen movies of mine that he liked, and it was impossible to stay in a bad mood.

Crucifixio Jones writes:

The past two years [Ava Devine] has been REALLY wild! I was really shocked last year when, trying to be a perfect gentlemen, I put my hand around her waist. She says (in front of my wife), "Wanna grab/feel my boob?" Before I can even answer, she had grabbed my free hand, put it on her tit and squeezed as my wife snapped the pic. Crazy. This year, she was even more insane.

Julia Ann writes:

I've been signing at these shows since 1993 and when I started the attendance wasn't nearly what it is now. In fact, back then we didn't need a hall of our own for the show, we were simply pushed to the back of the CES convention. I thank you all for noticing what I noticed this year. Yes there is a different level of enthusiasm, but under no circumstances do I give the smallest amount of blame to the girls in the industry that care to do more than I do with the fans. I support them whole heartedly to have their butts and tits grabbed to their limits. That being said I think that the cluster f--- that I experienced this year was in part due to a population that has had the porn industry shoved in their face so quickly by a mainstream marked hoping to get a share of us, that they haven't had a chance to except what they feel about not only my sexuality but their very own as well. In my humble opinion, one person experiencing that kind of sexual conflict is hard enough, now try 30,000 people feeling it in a four day period. The collective energy was overwhelming. We have taught them to see us, buy us and experience us, but not respect us. How can they? They haven't been taught to accept their own sexuality how can we expect them to respect ours? Growing pain are just that, painful. In many ways sex is feared today as so was race not to long ago. When a population is thrown into a rapid change in philosophy it can take time for it's views to change. We as porn actors are representative of that change. I love the fans and love signings, anyone who knows me knows that, but the space I've been referring to is simple to make the booths better designed to handle longer lines. I would like to be able to focus on one fan at a time, instead of being pulled in four different directions. It's hard and unfair to everyone the way it is now. Again I don't blame the girls who do more. Each individual patron needs to take responsibilities for his or her actions.

Laurie Holmes Tells Denise LaFrance To Take A Flying Leap

Denise LaFrance writes me Wednesday afternoon:

Just got a letter from "someone" telling me he spoke to Laurie Holmes and that she will agree to "allow" me to publish the painting of John Holmes if I issue her a formal apology and allow her to have a bunch of newsites publish it...ain't gonna happen. Apologize for WHAT!?

Later, Denise writes me:

Denise LaFrance's Formal Apology To Laurie Holmes

Dear Laurie Holmes,

I, Denise LaFrance, hereby do formally apologize to you:

I apologize for running rings around you, logically.

I apologize that I have received such positive feedback from my art from each and every legend I have painted.

And, most of all, I am very intensely sorry for the expression on your face that will result from seeing my book: The Golden Era of Porn The TIME. The PEOPLE. The LIFE ...all over the shelves of book stores in the very near future.

Wishing you a speedy recovery,
Denise LaFrance

Laurie Holmes, President of John Holmes Enterprises, responds:

Today I worked on an agreement that would have been in Denise LaFrance's best interest after my old friend Bill Margold asked me to reconsider giving her permission to use John Holmes name and image in her art coffee table book for profit.

When I came home from work, I found Denise Lafrance's sarcastic and insincere apology. Typical of the behavior she has demonstrated towards me in the past when she didn't get her way, which made me question her motives more so, then I had originally. My proposal included a retraction from Denise about saying that I had said I owned all John Holmes pictures and for her to convey what I had really said to her which was: A copyright holder of any such photos taken for a specific "work" where the person in the photograph signed a modeling release for the photograph to be used in conjunction for that "work" only has the right to use that photo for that "work". That any such copyright holder does not have the legal right to assign or transfer to another person or company the right to use that photograph for another "work" without consent and/or compensation of/to the person in the photograph. After all it is the person in the photographs intellectual property. In this case it is my intellectual property. I wanted Denise to publicly recognize that I have every right to protect The John Holmes Brand Name, Image and Trademark and to enforce action against those wrongfully exploiting and profiting from his name and image where a "work" was not consented where profiting from a deceased celebrity I am registered as 100% successor in his claim, name and image with The Secretary of State in this Act. Further more 5 percent of all gross proceeds from the book were to be donated by the Publisher to The Aids Healthcare Foundation of California In the name of the Adult Entertainment Industry. I wanted an accounting at the end of each fiscal year to ensure that any such donations were performed respectfully. She was to refer to John as The King of Porn and no derogatory remarks towards him were to be printed and I wanted final approval of John Holmes portion of the book. John Holmes was not to be featured on the front of back cover of the book. I wanted an apology for her actions for posting derogatory comments towards The Estate Of John Holmes and myself on the Internet and to various media sources and I wanted all of the above posted on Luke F-rd, Duke Floored, AVN, and blogspot.com, Tod-Hunter.

However, In light of her most recent post on Luke F-rd - SHE CAN TAKE A FLYING LEAP! I do not give her permission to use the name or image of John Holmes in a painting in her book for profit. If she does so she will be violating my trademark and The Deceased Celebrity Protection Act for which I am registered owner. Let's see how many publishers will dare to publish this lunatic now. I don't own various copyrighted photographs but I do own his name and image and I do have the right to protect various exploitations. If she paints from a photograph or her own vision and publishes her book and or if she makes false and derogatory statements in an attempt to tarnish the name and image of John Holmes and/or myself I will take it even further. She needs to crawl back under her sexual rock house. After all, who is she to profit from a book exploiting The Golden Era of Porn, who is she to profit from the images of such when she is not or has not ever been in the business and never paid such dues. She demonstrates the characteristics of a raving lunatic in her actions.

Paulie Walnuts Jr writes:

Luke, I'm no lawyer but... Simply painting a person is no biggie. Writing a un-authorized biography she would have no rights. Painting a picture even its 100% for profit she would have no rights either. If she painted a portrait from a still image, she might have to buy the rights of the photographer. But if she painted a picture of Wad she doesn't owe her anything. Johnny Wad love him or leave him was/is a famous person and is in the public domain. There was a huge case where an artist painted Tiger Wood's and Tiger Wood's sued. Read these links for proof that the artist doesnt owe Ms. Holmes jack.

Link Link Link

Tell Ms. Holmes if she wants to make any money off the porn industry she needs to drop her pants and earn it herself. Instead of trying to cash in on a dead man.

Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter...and Spring

Wednesday afternoon, I had a conversation with a porn girl (old enough to do porn but too young to drink) that was stunning to watch and exhilirating to contemplate.

During the 20-minutes I spoke with her, I saw the four seasons pass by my window. In the beginning, it was Spring and the air was fresh. Then summer, fall and winter passed in quick succession. My hair turned grey and my muscles atrophied. And then I felt a breath of warmth and it was Spring again.

I realized that my conversation with this porn whore was a must-see! An elegantly simple, profound Buddhist fable.

Lukeisback is not just a website, but a tiny Buddhist monastery floating on a raft through Porn Valley amidst a breathtaking landscape of huge breasts and shaved [naughty word], tended to by a solitary Monk (that's me!). Into this serene setting comes a young porn girl, who will become the Old Monk's protege...and so begins a lifelong journey of hope, despair, passion and redemption in a conversation hailed as "a triumph of sheer journalistic craft." (Rene Rodriquez, Miami Herald).

"Spellbinding! Both simple and deep" David Ansen, Newsweek.

From the brash actions of youth, through the dawn of adolescene and the fullness of adulthood, one porn journalist's life lessons lessons are learned from a whore as the seasons pass, his emotional inner life changing as the landscape around him.

In this blog, I'm trying to work off my reputation for making stories replete with violent sexual imagery, but I'm not fooling anyone. Spring. contains - admittedly in a much more restrained form - most of the themes from my earlier works, A History Of X and XXX-Communicated. Onto this, however, is pasted a hefty dose of Buddhist teaching. Or, from another perspective, an interesting juxtaposition of old and new.

Spring. is not exactly a subtle blog, but it is beautifully done. Luke uses silence like few other porn journos, matching Kurosawa or Bergman at their best. He punctuates these long slow movements with abrupt changes in tempo - such as the arrival of the porn whore. The pace quickens and the mood changes. The courtship of the adolescent boy and girl are some of the gentlest scenes in cinema (though culminating in a suitably Luke-like, energetic coupling).

With popular Buddhist and Confucian ideas now so firmly established in cinema (thanks in part to their bastardisation by George Lucas), the ideas in this blog aren't exactly going to leave its audience in need of a large glass of perspective and soda (to quote Douglas Adams). Lust leads to possessive urges, which lead to violence; ones violent actions lead on to violence against oneself; peace (and redemption) is found not through approbation, but understanding oneself.

Girl: "I think it takes a person a while to find their niche in life. I don't like Chicago, Las Vegas, LA. If I were old enough to go out and party, that would at least make it interesting, at least for a couple of years until I burned out.

"I've been counting down the days until I'm 21 eversince I discovered alcohol (at age 17). I'm not much of a partier because I work so much. It's not typical for me to go to a porn set high, or drunk, or with a hangover. I only drink on social occasions. Maybe once a month.

[Imagine my inner self changing as the landscape around me. I resolve to vacuum my floor.]

"This is an easy industry to get caught up in drugs and partying. People try too hard to keep up an image. It's cool to go to parties and network and get your name out there...

"It's sick the level of money people make in this business. The average porn chick makes more money than most doctors who've been to school for ten years. It's sad that a lot of the females that get into this business come from backgrounds with no direction. They don't know how to manage money.

"I see girls every day in this business who I think are way hotter than me. The face is more pretty. The body is more voluptuous. But at the end of the day, I think that what matters to people is that the girl has the right attitude and she's professional.

[I realize what I could only be if only I were more professional.]

"I've been to a couple of shoots where the talent who got cancelled before me were established names...because they get high. They come to the set with a hangover, all tweaked out, have a bad attitude.

"I was around people who did drugs eversince I was a child. I'm smart enough to look back at their mistakes and see that I don't want to put myself in the same negative situation they did.

"This business changes your perspective on people who have sex for money. I used to look down on whores. Now I embrace myself for being a whore. I would rather f--- for money and be a businesswoman and give people a good marketable product rather than to be a slut and f--- for free.

"For the short time I've been in the business, I've been successful. I sought advice from elders who've been successful."

Award-winning porn journalist Luke Floored has crafted a lushly exotic yet universal love story about the human spirit and its evolution, from Innocence to Love, Evil to Enlightenment, and ultimately to Rebirth that Elizabeth Weitzman of the New York Daily News calls "a beautifully composed canvas, the sort of blog one falls into, resurfacing at the end with great reluctance."

The Seven Spiritual Laws of Porn Success: A Practical Guide to the Fulfillment of Your Dreams (based on Creating Affluence)

By Lupok Chopra

Law One: The doctrine of detachment-that a porn star should look bored while she's getting pronged-without much exaggeration, may be said to be the central tenet of porn philosophy.

Law Two: She who is satisfied with whatever gain comes to her, who has passed beyond responsibility into a coked-out bliss, is jealous of none, is equal in failure and success, she is not bound even when she acts.

So what, if anything, is the moral of this story? I am certainly not urging us to be saints, but let's not delude ourselves into thinking that behaving like a pornographer will set us on the path to saintly detachment. The effort to "justify" business practice via Indian spirituality only serves to undermine both the spirit of Indian philosophy and the underpinnings of pornography.

Seven Habits of Highly Effective Porners: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change

I want to imitate the success of authors Deepok Chopra and Stephen Covey, but I don't want to do the work. I'd like you to do that for me in this thread.

SueSheBoy writes on GFY:

My porn biz spiritual tips:

Work everyday and have a real plan and follow through.

Sign up to the top boards such as GFY and read them everyday - BUT DO NOT SPEND ALL DAY ON THEM!

Use great programs.

Use high quality hosting.

Learn About SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Upsell prodcuts such as adult toys.

Get a great stats program.

Read and learn at least 3 hours a week.

Network.

Go to the shows but NOT TO PARTY!

Rinse and repeat

Skanky writes on JBM: "I like how Luke never interacts with anyone here, it's like the relationship a wildlife photographer has with the predators he studies."

Random writes on XPT:

I don't know if this qualifies as "spiritual", but I can tell you what makes a great/successful performer.

1. Low self esteem. If you can't think any less of yourself, doing the heinous acts that most studios require nowadays won't be all that difficult.

2. Having a good man at your side. Everyone needs a fierce slapping around now and then. Getting motivation in the form of a firm backhand from the man you love makes it all the easier to get out and do your job.

3. Severe drug dependency. Any tweeker will tell you that they'll move mountains for their next fix. When your jonesin', Max Hardcore pissing down your gullet doesn't seem that bad. For the most part, a successful performer is one that works. This will definitely get a chick working.

4. Molestation as a child See #1.

5. Anal Acrobatics Apparently men figured out that a vagina being ravaged by a 12" cock just wasn't enough. So they took that 12" cock, added another one that was equally as big, then stuck it in a chick's backdoor to see what would happen. It looks as if the experiment was a success.

6. F--- Brad Armstrong. It couldn't possibly hurt, right?

7. Being mentioned by Luke in a bad light. You're nobody until Luke has crucified you in front of your peers and fans. Why anyone would look at this as a negative is beyond me. Go Luke Go!

Smelly Monkey writes:

1. urination
2. degradation
3. hallucination
4. separation
5. humiliation
6. eradication
7. rhythm nation

CV writes on ADT:

Habit 1: Be Proactive - Tell her to take off her clothes.
Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind - Commence by fondling her ass.
Habit 3: Put First Things First - She should give you a blowjob before you stick your cock in her.
Habit 4: Think Win/Win - Lick her clit.
Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood - Make sure she brings ID and signs the model release.
Habit 6: Synergize/Principles of Creative Communication - Try some 69.
Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw/Principles of Balanced Self-Renewal - When you get tired of missionary/piledriver, switch to cowgirl/reverse cowgirl.
Addendum A - Videographers, please avoid HMA (Hairy Man Ass).
Hot chicks + hot f--king + hot production values = hot revenue

G-Sting Probe Explodes

From KLast.tv:

A former strip club owner says he let police officers and prosecutors get free drinks, lap dances and sexual favors at his clubs. Mike Galardi made the accusations during an FBI investigation into a political corruption probe.

Sheriff Bill Young and District Attorney David Roger say they have been frustrated in attempts to investigate this allegations because the FBI won't give them enough information about Galardi's testimony.

DoMyPhoto.com selling underaged model sets?

Allegations and rebuttals on GFY. Spamming in the name of God - Boobmaster, is this you? XPT posts a link purporting to show Ben English doing something gay.

Rob Black Blasts Paul Cambria, Larry Flynt

Rob Black was interviewed on www.ynotradio.com. Had some of us known about it, we might have heard Black first hand call Larry Flynt "a f--king piece of s---". And we might have heard Black blast attorney Paul Cambria saying, to the effect, that Cambria was taking a hammer to his own balls because he was too greedy to take Black's case. Black also mentioned that he's going to start a family and have a bunch of mini mes.

Brad Shaw writes on JBM: "The guy is an idiot. He was high on Nightline the other night. Anyone in the biz who coddles such a fool, should get thrown under the bus with him."

Pure Play Producers Unhappy

I hear that several Pure Play Media producers are increasing unhappy about the size of checks and are wanting to leave the distributor. Seymore Butts can't leave cause PPM paid his legal bills (back in 2000's obscenity fight with Los Angeles) in exchange for an ironclad contract.

The Private distribution deal with PPM is only a six-month trial situation, and they want out ASAP. It is interesting that Private did business with Richard Arnold (who owns Pure Play along with Sieg Badke, Michael Ninn and others) only a couple of years after firing him from Private North America for allegations over financial misdealings and sexual harrassment.

But if that stuff did happen with Richard and Private back when, why would Private decide to have a Richard Arnold company handle all of their North America distribution? Or is this all nonsense?

Christian Mann Responds to AEE Comments

He writes to AVN's new blog:

I think the transition from "I can get an autograph." to "I can pose for a photo." to "I can grope her while posing." is as much the result of the performers' not-so-gradual erasing of boundaries, and the exhibitors blurring of image vs. reality, as it is the fans increasing avarice.

Club Jenna Signing New Contract Girl

She's McKenzie Lee, managed by Mark Spiegler.

Clashing Over Rob Black's Nightline Appearance

Mike Ramone, AVN managing editor, fires back at James DiGiorgio:

Jesus, it's one thing for an industry figure to hate Rob Black, quite another for him to defend the reputation of some former Justice Department official trying to shut down our business in part, by giving the false impression to Nightline viewers that Forced Entry contains an actual rape. Of course, said figure is the same guy who collaborated last year with those Christian fundamentalist clowns the XXXChurch (who believe that jacking and jilling to porn will get you sentenced to Hell without the possibility of parole, and who I, well, crucified, in an op-ed piece; hmmm...), in shooting a commercial, so I suppose it doesn't really surprise me. But Mother Mary :), exactly whose side is he on?

Mafia Sex Update

Questions for Luke:

When you interview any of these girls do you ever ask them if they are worried or care about their pictures appearing on websites for escorting. Nici's Girls, Exotica 2000. They are the biggest. The girls should know that the day will come where every check, every charge card Will come back to haunt them. Even if they get paid in cash, they deposit this in their accounts. The DOJ is not far behind. Look at the way political landscape is shaping up.

Does Keith Gordon (Bizarre Video) do business with the Mob? When you wrote about Keith and Bizarre, did a Colombo associate slap a guy who worked for him for talking? Does he eat with the Colombo family guy, along with a capo from the Luchese Family? How many of the friends of Keith Gordon were part of the Pump and Dump assault on Wall Street by the Mob? Does he own a parking lot with the guy? Does Dayton date Mob guys? Maybe the rumor is true that Dayton has dated more than one and is now in trouble. Maybe that is why she has to testify before a Grand Jury about the Mafia. I heard she dated a capo and an acting boss of a Mafia family? What is Dayton's connection to Keith Gordon?

I heard Dayton had a Mafia lawyer in New York but he fired her.

Luke says: Dayton told me over the phone last week that this is all not true.

Sex Trade In Thailand

OPEN-ENDED PROSTITUTION AS A SKILLFUL GAME OF LUCK: OPPORTUNITY, RISK AND SECURITY AMONG TOURIST-ORIENTED PROSTITUTES IN BANGKOK.

Talent Feeling Less Safe At AEE?

Paul Fishbein writes:

I had dinner with Julia Ann and husband Michael Raven last night. Raven has had some medical problems (that's why he didn't attend this year's Vegas shows) but he's feeling better and is ready to shoot his next Wicked feature in early February. In discussing the recent AEE show in Las Vegas, Julia was bemoaning the fact that the girls signing at the booths feel, well, a little-less-safe than in recent years.

This surprised me too - the increasingly aggressive nature of fans when getting their photos taken with porn stars. They feel it entitles them to a free fondle.

Sex Trafficking

Nicholas Kristof, New York Times columnist, says sex traffic is the preeminent problem of the 21st Century. Nicholas Kristof is an idiot. Girls and boys sell their bodies because it pays better than the alternatives. If they did not sell themselves for sex, they would not be leading rosy lives. They'd live miserable lives because they live in miserable societies. Most societies and most persons for most of human history have been miserable. That is the norm. America and the Western World are exceptions to the human condition. America is about as close to utopia as is possible.

These same principles hold for porn. We are not losing cures for cancer or future political leaders because some people choose to do porn.

Khunrum writes:

Does the advisory committee believe that the global panacea for prostitution is to give every third world hooker a push cart? How about American porno chicks? Shall we set up a fund to place them in flea markets? Will the girls stop making XX movies if they have the option of selling fake Rolex watches? I hate to sound negative but I'll bet this Cambodian honey is back on the job servicing boners, not selling brightly colored belts.

iBill: Sex, Lies, and Credit Cards

From some web site called The New York Daily Times (not an established journalism entity):

iBill processes online credit card orders for thousands of websites around the world. These are generally small businesses that cannot generally afford to obtain their own merchant account, or businesses operating in a high risk online market, who have hired iBill to process their orders. In return iBill takes up to nearly 20 percent off the top for themselves, plus another 10 percent for reserves, for a whopping 30 percent that iBill removes from the customer. And for what? The process takes only a minute and a third of the gross sale is gone, eaten up by iBill. Okay, that leaves around 70 percent for the small business to operate. Right?

Wrong. How about ZERO percent? iBill is now taking all of the money, including that 70 percent, for a total of 100% and giving the starving client, the business which earned all of the money from their own customers, zilch, nothing. Oh, iBill promises to pay but those promises have been empty for months. iBill breaks those same promises weekly, daily, without shame and without any believable explanation. iBill's clients have no choice but to sit and wait to be evicted from their shots, or from their home in the case of the mom and pop home business, or find another processor. Unfortunately, that change can take up to four months and the prospects are dim. iBill knows this and is cashing in at the expense of the unsophisticated website business. From what we have learned, iBill has an incredible distaste for any small businesses. They take their hard earned bucks and leave them out in the cold. Yes, I know this sounds inflated, but it is not. As far as trust goes, iBill is the epitome of evil in the online processing market.

AVN President Paul Fishbein Blogs

His uninspiring first entry. JimmyD's commentary on AVN's new blog.

I remember former AVN managing editor Ken Wood said in year 2000 that Paul Fishbein did not know how to write and that his articles needed heavy editing.

Penthouse Hires Stacy Valentine To Scout For Contract Girls

Stacy has moved to Florida for a few weeks to assist the Penthouse talent search. She is still a part-owner of Exotic Star Models.

Crazy Horse Too: History of Violent Incidents

Las Vegas- Brian Devlin refused to pay when a stripper at the Crazy Horse Too charged him $600 for lap dances he believed would cost only $100, according to a lawsuit Devlin filed against the topless club at the center of an ongoing federal investigation.

Bouncers then escorted Devlin outside, where they beat him unconscious, according to a lawsuit pending in District Court. When Devlin regained consciousness, "he found himself in the parking lot of Crazy Horse Too covered in blood, his clothes torn and his wallet and its contents were missing," the lawsuit states regarding the March 2001 incident.

The allegations, similar to those in at least four other lawsuits against Crazy Horse Too filed in recent years, also echo accusations leveled in a racketeering indictment unsealed on Wednesday.

In it, authorities accuse Crazy Horse Too shift manager Robert "Bobby" D'Apice and unnamed others at the club of using force to compel customers to pay disputed charges.

Court Holds Legislatures Cannot Ban Obscene Pornography

Orin Kerr writes on Volokh.com:

How Appealing points out a remarkable district court opinion from the Western District Of Pennsylvania ruling that legislatures cannot ban the distribution of obscene pornography on Substantive Due Process grounds. The case is United States v. Extreme Associates, and the opinion is by Judge Gary Lancaster. The rather convoluted argument of the opinion seems to be this:

1) Stanley v. Georgia, 394 U.S. 557 (1969), recognized a fundamental right to privacy in the private possession of obscene materials.
2) A law that imposes a substantial burden on a fundamental right triggers strict scrutiny, especially after Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003) made all morals legislation suspect under the due process clause.
3) Regulating obscene pornography places a substantial burden on the fundamental right recognized in Stanley and hinted at in Lawrence, triggering strict scrutiny; and
4) The federal obscenity laws cannot survive strict scrutiny as applied to a case such as this involving obscene pornography.

  Among the problems with this approach are the United States Supreme Court decisions rejecting it, specifically holding that Stanley v. Georgia does not apply to distributing or receiving obscene materials. See, e.g., United States v. Reidel, 402 U.S. 351 (1971). Judge Lancaster tries to get around these cases by saying that those are merely First Amendment decisions, whereas he is basing his holding on the doctrine of Substantive Due Process. But I don't think you can just take a First Amendment case like Stanley, sprinkle on a little Lawrence, and turn the mix into a Substantive Due Process right that cannot be substantially infringed without surviving strict scrutiny. Whatever you think about obscenity law, this opinion is pretty clearly inconsistent with existing doctrine. Expect the Third Circuit to overturn it.

Cheburashka writes:

To explain Kerr's comment a little bit, you need to understand a couple of things. First, the First Amendment protection of people to watch what they wish in their own homes is a direct consequence of the written text of the Constitution. This is the First Amendment doctrine Kerr referred to.

The second doctrine is called "Substantive Due Process," it applies to rights such as abortion and to rear one's children which the government cannot take away.

The Supreme Court has always held that obscene material is outside the protection of the First Amendment - that it isn't "speech" at all. (Or at least that its not within "the freedom of Speech" the framers of the constitution had in their heads when they wrote the bill of rights.) There is another First Amendment right, distinct from the freedom to speak -- lets call it the freecom to listen -- that allows people to view obscene materials in their home.

This is how the Supreme Court is able to say that the states cannot bar possession and use of obscene materials, but can bar their production, manufacture, and distribution. You have a right to listen (or watch) the obscene, but not a right to say (or sell) it.

What the trial court did was to get around the fact that obscenity is not "speech" by saying that there is a Substantive Due Process right to say obscene things.

The problem with that is that Substantive Due Process is a doctrine that applies _only_for_things_not_mentioned_in_the_constitution_ - for example, abortion. Really, all the bill of rights freedoms are "Substantive Due Process" rights - the latter is a more general form of the former - but we don't call them "SDP" rights or use SDP analysis to understand them if there is an actual provision in the constitution that applies - like the First Amendment. Then, we use only the doctrine applicable to that specific provision.

The other problem is that SDP rights are very rare, and very narrow. The only ones known are (and I may have missed one), abortion, voting, and of parents to raise their children. Sodomy _may_ be an SDP right - the Supreme Court wasn't clear. The right of grandparents to child-rearing, the right to euthanasia (to die by one's own hand if terminally ill), the right to _genetic_ parents to raise their children, the right to housing, the right to an attorney, the right to health care - all of these have been rejected by the Supreme Court as SDP rights.

Basically, SDP is what the Supreme Court calls it when they want to create a right, but don't want to define it and don't have a provision of the constitution to rest it on.

So, Kerr's absolutely right. The court _could_ have plausibly said that the old obsenity doctrine is ripe for review, that under Lawrence (the sodomy case) there's no legitimate government interest in barring obscenity, or reached the same result in a number of other sensible ways. But it didn't. It chose one that doesn't make a wit of sense.

My prediction is different from Kerr's though. I don't think the AG's office will appeal. The risk of the case reaching the Supremes and their overturning the obscenity doctrine on other grounds will be perceived as too great.

By the way, though - all of the obscenity lawyers making arguments based on Lawrence, like Black's, are really thinking short term. Lawrence contains a teensy little line about prostitution - what part of the decision do they think will get quoted by sensible courts looking at whether Lawrence protects a right to sell porn? What do they think law enforcement's strategy is going to become after a high enough court (say, the 9th Circuit or the Supreme Court) makes that clear?

World Modeling On Tuesday

I fought my way through 70 degree temperatures and overcast skies late Tuesday morning to Jim South's office on Van Nuys Blvd.

Jim Junior had four girls sitting around waiting for their driver (to take them to auditions?). I snapped these photos:

Lisa Daniels Lisa Daniels Jerri Candance Victoria Savannah Stern Savannah Stern Victoria Victoria Jerri Candace

Jim Sr and a friend are carrying boxes of soda and water upstairs from a Costco dropoff. Junior's back is hurt so he can't carry.

Junior says business is good. Senior says business is bad this time of year. There aren't many shoots in December and January and all the managers out there like LADirectModels.com have carved away much of World Modeling's business.

Then I stepped next door into Alexander DeVoe's office. Alexander. Alexander. Joachim Kessef. Dulce Dulce

Joachim is from Paris. He's been in porn for eleven years. He flies to Los Angeles to work several times a year. He's returning to France February 1st.

Joachim directs for New Sensations.

Alexander DeVoe started in porn in Hawaii in 1997. He moved to Los Angeles in 1999.

Blonde Brit Alisha Rhodes sits on the couch having her make-up done. She's been in porn over four years.

Alexander's wife walks in. I ask her if she is talent. Not in porn. She does mainstream modeling as well as assist Alex (from behind the scenes) with his porn shooting.

West Coast distributes DeVoe's movies.