|
Business Nobody knows how big the porn industry is. With few exceptions, such as Playboy, New Frontier (NOOF), Private, Beate Uhse on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, porn companies are privately held and its owners have little incentive to reveal accurate financial information to the public. The best we can do is compare and contrast the various estimates. The porn industry (through its trade magazine Adult Video News) tends to inflate its size because that makes porn seem more powerful and respectable. Conservative critics of porn usually want to lowball the size of the industry to make it appear more marginal. When AVN estimates U.S. DVD sales and rentals for 2005 at $4.28 billion, there is no way that that figure is an underestimate (because it would be against porn's interest to underestimate its size and AVN is the spokesman for porn). When AVN notes that that sales and rental figure has been essentially flat since 1996, there is no way that AVN is underestimating. When AVN (and the U.S.'s largest porn distributor IVD) said there were almost 13,600 new releases in 2005, there is no way they are underestimating. Porn has released about 10,000 or more titles annually (according to AVN and IVD) since 1999. AVN estimates $1.006 billion in wholesale porn VHS and DVD sales in 2005. Since 1996, AVN has estimated wholesale porn DVD and VHS sales at no less than about $800 million. The Video Software Dealers Association (VSDA) is the trade group for American DVD/Video/software dealers. Their incentive is to make their industry look as powerful as possible. There's no way they are underestimating their industry's size. VSDA estimates U.S. DVD/video sales and rentals at $24.3 billion for 2005. That's up from the VSDA's $20 billion estimate for 2000. According to page 19 of Corbell.com's DVD Statistical Report, 8th Edition, the 2005 Annual Report on the Home Entertainment Industry from the VSDA placed Adult DVDs as comprising 2% of all DVD releases. If this 2% held over for total share of the DVD market, that would make porn DVD sales and rentals a $486 million business for 2005. On page 20 of that same report from Corbell, it lists the top six genres for sell-through DVDs: Feature Films (51%), Children's Theatrical (17%), TV (16%), Special Interest (8%), Children's Non-Theatrical (5%) and Music (3%). Adult does not show up. If Adult comprised only 3% of the sell-through DVD market, then it would've shown up in this listing (sourced by Corbell's report to recordingmedia.org and www.uands.com), I believe. That means that Adult must comprise no more than 2% of the sell-through DVD market or that the two sources for Corbell's listing do not consider Adult sales. According to the VSDA, there are approximately twice as many dollars spent on sales as rentals. If this ratio holds for porn, DVD/video sales would amount to $324 million for 2005. According to the VSDA Annual Report 2005, DVD comprises over 90% of the home video market. According to the Digital Entertainment Group (quoted in the June 8, 2006 issue of DVD News), the DVD format will be 99% of the business in 2006 with VHS making up 1% of the market. Tom Adams of Adams Media Research told Dan Ackman of Forbes (article published May 25, 2001) that porn, at most, accounted for 10% of total DVD/video sales and rentals. Tom Adams said his $1.8 billion estimate of aggregate porn sales and rentals for 2000 was "generous." The 10% estimate would place porn sales and rentals for U.S. DVD and video in 2005 at $2.43. If the mainstream ratio of twice as many dollars spent on sales compared to rentals held for porn, DVD/VHS sales would amount to $1.6 billion in 2005 (of which DVD sales increasingly creep each day towards 100% of that figure). Here's another way of looking at DVD sales: If there were 13,600 releases in 2005, the highest possible average (median) number of units sold per title would be 1,000 (according to the majority of my sources in the know) and the median retail price would be about $10 each (half of new releases are comps which retail for about $5 each and original movies at anywhere from $5-$60 each with the majority of original new releases selling retail for around $15 each), which would make for total DVD sales for 2005 releases at $136 million. According to experienced distributors, dollar sales for new titles the calendar year they are released are about half of those for catalogue (older titles). So the combined DVD sales of new titles ($136 million) and catalogue ($272) would equal $408 million for 2005. A leading porn distributor told me that the six biggest porn production companies (in order: Evil Angel ($20 million), Vivid ($20 million), Zero Tolerance ($15 million), Red Light District, Anabolic/Diabolic, Adam & Eve) would sell no more than $100 million (wholesale?) a year worldwide. In February 2007, I learn that from a source in distribution that porn DVD sales for 2006 were down 10% from the year before and my source expects such sales to drop 15% in 2007. Here are some of the most commonly offered numbers on the industry: * $57 billion worldwide, and $20 billion in the US. Source: AVN President Paul Fishbein told 60 Minutes (November 21, 2003) but there's no evidence presented to support this guess. * AVN reported in its January 2006 issue that the porn industry did $12.6 billion business in the U.S. in 2005. $4.28 billion is in sales and rentals of DVDs. * $10-$14 billion annually in the US according to the May 18, 2001 New York Times article by Frank Rich. This figure is an extrapolation of work done by Forrester Research, which in 1998 released a study that claimed the online porn industry did $750 million to $1 billion annually. * Forrester researcher Tom Rhinelander told Dan Ackman for his May 25, 2001 Forbes piece that the company had given up trying to estimate the size of the porn industry, online or otherwise. * A March 2000 study by Datamonitor estimated Adult content to comprise 69% (about $1 billion of a total of $1.4 billion) of content revenues in the United States and Western Europe for 1998. That Datamonitor study predicted that online porn revenues would reach $3.1 billion in the U.S. and Western Europe in 2003. * In a March 2001 column for the Wall Street Journal online, veteran journalist and author Lewis Perdue estimated that payments for bandwidth (half of all bandwidth) to transmit porn at about $2 billion annually. Perdue stuck by this figure in his October 2002 book EroticaBiz: How Sex Shaped the Internet. The book was commissioned by Harper Collins but was eventually self-published through IUniverse. * LAT 4/19/06: The porn industry's main trade publication, Adult Video News, estimated [U.S.] 2005 sales at $12.6 billion. But that figure is difficult to verify because porn companies are private and closely held. As with Hollywood, DVDs account for the largest piece of the porn industry's revenue - 34%; for mainstream studios, they account for nearly 50%. * WSJ 7/20/06: "Jupiter Research, a New York-based technology-research firm, estimates that adult content on the Web may generate only about $250 million a year in U.S. revenue. At the other extreme, Adult Video News, an industry publication, estimates the figure at $2.5 billion." Dan Ackman writes in Forbes, May 25, 2001:
Richard Corliss writes for Time magazine online May 7, 2005:
Lewis Perdue writes in EroticaBiz:
Jonathan Silverstein writes for ABC News Jan 19, 2006:
Global Entertainment Expenditures According to www.uands.com, consumer spending (for movies, TV shows, DVD, VOD, PPV, VHS etc but not for internet subscriptions) for 2006 will be $83.1 billion (cited in the July 6, 2006 issue of DVD News). If porn accounted for (at most) 2% of DVD sales (see pages 19, 20 of Corbell.com's DVD Statistical Report, 8th Edition) and if this number holds true for porn's percentage of global spending on entertainment, then porn worldwide would be a $1.662 billion industry. VSDA estimates U.S. DVD/video sales and rentals at $24.3 billion for 2005. The 2% figure would place U.S. porn DVD/VHS sales and rentals at $486 million for 2005. The most commonly cited number for porn's worldwide size is $57 billion (including internet subscriptions), which is what AVN President Paul Fishbein told 60 Minutes (Nov 21, 2003 broadcast). Here's the breakdown of the worldwide entertainment industry from www.uands.com:
As porn receives no money from box office sales, 2% of the remaining revenues would amount to about $1.25 billion. 1/5/07 AVN Estimates For Industry Size 2006
AVN report. New York Times reports. The AVN report says: "AVN estimates that revenue from Video Sale & Rental at retail brick and mortal locations has fallen by around 12% from $3.4 billion to $3.2 billion. As compared to the mainstream sales and rental, adult is only around 14% of the size of that $24.6 billion dollar market. (The Entertainment Marketing Association (formerly VSDA) does not include stores that sell only adult product in its reports, thus estimates have been put forth previously that the adult market is 10% of the size of mainstream.)" 2/8/07
................... Shortly after videocassette recorders (VCRs) began selling to consumers in 1975, porn became the first industry to widely distribute its product on the new medium, even though only one home in a thousand had a VCR in the late 1970s. Through 1983, X-rated videos accounted for about three-quarters of all rentals and sales of videotapes. That number is now about 20%. Examples such as VCRs yesterday and CD ROMs today demonstrate that porn leads the way in the popular application of new communication technology. Going back thirty thousand years, we find among the first drawings explicit images of vulvas and breasts. Discussions of sex appear in the earliest writings. The Bible, for instance, features the erotic Song of Songs. Early painting, fiction and photography focused on the naked human body. The desire for material to stimulate masturbation helped invent the novel. Fanny Hill appeared eight years after the first English novel in 1640. Among the earliest moving pictures was an 1896 stag film. By the 1920s, America had a booming porn industry. Pornographers seized quickly on cable TV's public access programming to produce raunchy shows such as Ugly George - who goes around with a camera asking women to undress - and Midnight Blue - by another New Yorker - Screw Editor Al Goldstein. After the break-up of Bell's monopoly on long-distance calling, purveyors of phone sex led the way in the technology and marketing of pay-per-call services. The latest technical application of porn flows through the information highway known as the Internet. In the early 1980s, the French had a prototype of the information highway. The government provided every French household with a terminal connected to a nationwide computer system. "The French government hired academics to do all kinds of studies anticipating the wholesome things people would do with the terminals, like check classified ads or railroad schedules," writes Howard Rheingold in his book The Virtual Community. "To their utter amazement, what the French really wanted to do was talk dirty. When the network started up, the first summer they spent such an amazing amount of time typing X-rated messages to one another that they overloaded the system and brought the network down." At the end of the 20th Century, Cyberporn is the envy of the internet. "While many other Web outposts are flailing, adult sites are taking in millions of dollars a month. Find a Web site that is in the black and, chances are, its business and content are distinctly blue." (Wall Street Journal, 5/20/97) Customers can view explicit fare on the net without having to slink into a sleazy sex shop or even visit the back room of the neighborhood video store. Instead, they can stroke to raunchy pictures in their own home or office. Why is pornography so closely linked to new communication technologies? Because porn taps into insatiable desires. Men particularly long for an infinite variety of sexual partners. The desire for "pornography is always unsatisfied," says Walter Kendrick, author of the 1987 book The Secret Museum: Pornography in Modern Culture. "It's always a substitute for the contact between two bodies, so there's a drive behind it that doesn't exist in other genres." Independent feminist Camille Paglia says art and technology flow from male sexuality. "Phallic aggression and projection are intrinsic to Western conceptualization. Arrow, eye, gun, cinema: the blazing light beam of Apollonian transcendence. Cinema is the culmination of the obsessive mechanistic male drive in western culture." Despite improvements in technology, not much has changed for the better since Woody Allen said two decades ago: "There are three things wrong with pornographic movies - they're immoral, they're degrading and the lighting is terrible." Though porn leads the way in applying new technologies, the technical level of the final product seems low. While knocking out their videos, pornographers repeat like a mantra "it's just a f---in' porno" to most technical suggestions from their crew. Productions are quick, nasty and short on budget for two main reasons: Legal difficulties in selling porn interstate and the disappearance of adult theaters. In 1978, the height of the Golden Age, pornographers made about 100 hardcore movies at a typical cost in 1997 dollars of about $500,000. Not one movie in 1996 was made at half the budget. Instead of 100 sex flicks, however, 1996 produced 8000, many of them made for a few thousand dollars. Best seller of the '90s, John Wayne Bobbitt: Uncut, sold about 100,000 tapes. Anything over 1000 units is a success for a bondage or fetish tape. A hardcore tape made for $25,000 needs to sell at least 5000 copies to break even. Few producers make a video and try to sell it. Rather, they first get a budget and check from a production or distribution company. Many companies such as VCA and Vivid both produce and distribute porn. An X-rated video may leave at anywhere from $3-$20 each, and the distributor and store add on five dollars each. Bianca Trump provided this expense breakdown to RAME: PROFIT AND LOSS BUDGET (ONE 5 SCENE MOVIE/ TWO DAY SHOOT) PRE PRODUCTION · script $500.00 · production manager $250.00 · director $1000.00 =$1750.00 PRODUCTION · location $2000.00 · camera and lights $1000.00 · cinematographer $700.00 · 3 man crew $1500.00 · stills $600.00 · director $1000.00 · production manager $250.00 =$7050.00 TALENT · B/G scene $850.00 · G/G scene $1750.00 · B/G/G scene $2050.00 · B/B/G scene $1100.00* · B/G scene $850.00 =$6600.00 POST PRODUCTION · editing $1500.00 · chromes $80.00 · duplication (3000) $5100.00 · box photographer $1500.00 · box art work $2000.00 · film work & separ. $1800.00 · slicks (5000) $950.00 · boxes (5000) $1350.00 · plastic holders $160.00 · labels $40.00 · A.V.N. advert. $2450.00 · distribution fee $3750.00 = $20680.00 GRAND TOTAL = $36080.00 PROFIT MINIMUM· domestic (3000) x $10.00 = $30000.00· cable $15000.00· foreign $15000.00· satellite $1000.00 = 61000.00 PROFIT TOTAL = $24920.00 AVERAGE· Total w/ (4000) domestic sales (& cable, foreign, satellite = $71000.00 PROFIT TOTAL = $34920.00 ABOVE AVERAGE· total w/(5000) domestic sales (& cable, foreign, satellite) = $81000.00 PROFIT TOTAL = $44920.00 "These are the low-end figures based on the minimum sales to cable, foreign, & satellite companies," says Trump. "One of the reasons that movies are so bad," says ex-performer Brandy Alexandre, "is that not one person sees the project through. Neither writer nor editor is at the shoot. And the director rarely participates in the editing." That's why few videos put a picture to a name at the beginning so the viewer can identify who's who. S. Andrew Roberts edited Brooklyn Night, Guess Again and The Ultimate Squirting Machine. "I'm a rare breed who not only researches the stage names but tries to place both the name and the performer's image on the screen at the same time so that new actresses are identified." Of all the production values in videotapes, sound suffers most. Good sound requires expensive boom mikes. But in most tape productions, the sound guy uses only a hand-held mike to catch everything. You frequently hear every creak and ambient sound. Wireless body mikes present unique problems in porn. "And, you just can't hand the lunch man a boom and expect he would know how to work it," says Roberts. "A lot can be done in post-production if you take the time. But that again equates to budget." Most porn videos shoot three to six hours of footage for one movie. Most of it is never used because of retakes, bloopers, screwups, waiting for wood, etc... "Even when a softcore version is not planned," says Roberts, "some footage invariably ends up being softcore by the framing or camera angle - close-up face shots, wide shots from certain angles that block the view of the penetration, etc... If the budget is small, no extra footage is specifically shot as "softcore" and it's up to the editor to piece together whatever footage is non-explicit. "In some cases, a separate scene is shot. This is the easier, quickest, most effective method yet most directors and producers will not do it because it's time consuming. John T. Bone does it because he can't tolerate the notion of softcore sex but must comply with the wishes of his client. He leaves the room after the hardcore scene is shot, allowing the cameraman to direct the softcore segment. All the performers put their clothes back on and start all over again, deliberately hiding their dicks. "In most cases, during the hardcore shooting, the director will yell "Softcore" and the performer will try to close up any gaps between them that would allow penetration to be seen or the cameraman will shift to a slightly different angle to avoid seeing the penetration. This method has two major flaws. First, it stops the flow of the sex. The passion between the performers ceases as they attempt to comply with the director's order. Often this results in a loss of concentration for the male and having to stop tape as they wait for wood again. Second, some short glimpses of penetration are still shot as the cameraman and the direct cannot have their eyes on every part of the screen image. This makes for a nerve wracking edit session for the editor. These are the moments when it takes all my self control to not throw the tapes out the window and throttle the director." (RAME) Brandy Alexandre says "I'd be surprised if a quarter of porn performers gave a damn about what the end product looks like or who views it." "The foremost clue in your search for a couple's film is to look for tapes originally shot on film," says The Couple's Guide To The Best Erotic Videos. "Everyone knows that film - with the required attendant equipment and personnel - is more expensive than videotape. And the added expense shows. Film almost always looks better. "Tape has a brightness about it, a clarity that just doesn't look as good as film. You see too much…" Pornographers appear to try harder when they shoot on film. They feel more inspired to create a quality product when they have decent costumes, sets, and equipment. They feel better working for a production company that wants to go first class. (Ibid.) During the 1990s, Vivid and VCA consistently turned out videos with comparatively high production values. Beginners to hardcore should stick with the pros, advises Couple Guide. On the other hand, the advent of high-quality video equipment makes possible a slew of amateur productions for every fetish. Many times pornographers apply new technologies but find no market. For instance, the linear transfer of adult movies onto CD-ROM is dead writes AVN Publisher Paul Fishbein in the 9/96 issue of his magazine. "Why anyone thought that people would want to watch whole adult movies on a little three-inch window on their computers was always beyond me. Why people would want to play an interactive video game with sex on their computer is another story. Truly interactive, new sex CD-ROMS sell well. "Adult manufacturers flooded the CD-ROM market ... Endless titles, all linear transfers (many deceitfully marketed as interactive, when they weren't) hit the market in varying price categories and much of it was rejected by the consumer." DCOLDMAN writes: "CD-ROM has struck me as a bad deal since day one. Who wants to sit in front his computer and masturbate; you might get jism on the keys." (RAME) Arcus Media developed the world's first adult CD-ROM Virtual Valerie. "For those who want to make sure there's a lot of computer in their computer-sex, Virtual Valerie 2 is the way to go. A thousandfold improvement over the original, it's one of the few adult CD-ROMs with a sense of humor." (AFW 97) In a 1995 Los Angeles Times profile of the four young men who developed New Machine, which made The Interactive Adventures of Seymore Butts II, Robert Jones wrote: "If the New Age of telecommunications is a great beast slouching toward us all, then surely this is its underbelly. New Machine, operated by a group of 25-year olds, does not look anything like the smooth palaces of the Silicon Valley. This dark place, with its computers spewing smut, is hardly the environment where you would expect to find anyone making serious contributions to the electronic future. "But New Machine, and companies like it, may be doing just that. In the end, it could be places like this - and not Time/Warner or Microsoft - that first explore some of the more interesting niches of the New Age, particularly those areas advancing the ephemeral lures of interactivity." One tracking firm, PC Data of Reston, Va., estimates that 100 or so porn producers control about 20% of the consumer CD-ROM market, which would put their total sales in 1996 at half-a-billion dollars. "If you look at the history of pornography and new technologies, the track record has been pretty good," says author Walter Kendrick. "Usually everyone has come out ahead. The pornography people have gotten what they want, which is a more vivid way of portraying sex. And the technology has benefited from their experimentation. The need for innovation in pornography is so great that it usually gets to a new medium first and finds out what can be done and what can't." Technological advance makes it easy for fans to discuss the technical and other merits of porn through the medium of internet newsgroups such as RAME - rec.arts.movies.erotica. Much of the information above comes from RAME's FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions - compiled by the "Director." Led by Vivid, VCA and the Europeans, pornographers returned to shooting on film in 1990. At the same time as a handful of companies began shooting features again on film, John Stagliano's 1989 video The Adventures of Buttman developed a whole new genre that came to dominate the overall porn market. Whether you call this new approach gonzo, reality porn or pro-am, it has several distinctive features: A hand-held camera, no scripts, and spontaneous sex. By the early '90s, most porn seemed in the gonzo mold, a term invented by Adult Video News in 1991 for Moonlight's Radical Affairs series. The ease with which people could purchase and use video cameras spawned a new generation of pornographers like Ed Powers, John Stagliano and Max Hardcore. "Real sex - the amateur generation - became more interesting than seeing Jonathan Morgan playing a detective in a one-day wonder," writes Paul Fishbein. "Amateur video...begat pro-am which begat gonzo. It's all practically the same thing." (AVN 9/96) According to AVN, sales and rentals of adult tapes in general interest video stores increased 75% from 1991 to 1993's total of $2.1 billion. They then doubled their total to $4.5 billion by 1997. By JEFF CRAIG -- Express Writer
With his wife Evlira Famiglietti, Ken Guarino ranks near the top of porn's most powerful. Guarino dined with John Gotti shortly before the Gambino leader was imprisoned in 1992. Lucky to avoid MIPORN conviction, he controls one of the four main producers of sex videos along with Vivid, VCA and Leisure Time. Owner of the North Star distributorship, the Italian-American took over Intropics and Cal Vista Video, revived dormant lines like Paradise Visuals and Soho Video and added a magazine publication company to create "the closest thing to vertical integration in the entertainment industry, period." (AVN) Majority owner of the porn conglomerate South Pointe Enterprises, Inc., the corporate parent of Metro Home Video, the first publicly-traded porn company, Guarino sent his company public in 1994 "to become more acceptable" by buying an inactive corporate shell rather than using the traditional method of a public offering. An expert corporate shell shuffler, Guarino, like Sturman and Milton Luros, spends his considerable talents creating dummy corporations and business spider webs to launder mob money, avoid taxes and set up large offshore savings accounts. Adult Video News gushes about the mobbed-up company's NASDAQ listing in its 10/94 issue: "...no move in industry history; no television interview or personal appearance; no post-adult career of an actress or actor; no court victory; no business success or humanitarian gesture; does more to promote the social and legal acceptance of adult entertainment than the simple act of placing South Pointe on the same legal and financial level as thousands of other public companies that provide jobs, make products and provide services to the consuming and investing public." Like Walt Disney Co., South Pointe profited from the video sell-through market which priced tapes for purchase rather than rental. Children's and adult titles "are the only video categories the customer will want to view over and over" noted Guarino. "I've got big ideas. I see a big future for this business... I look around and see guys in this business just living week to week, with no discipline or business sense. "The cheap videos where a guy comes to fix the TV and - bang - they're in bed five minutes later are out," says Guarino. "People are more sophisticated these days. They want believable plots along with the sex. I want conflict, pacing. I want people to watch to the end." Plotted porn helped cable sales boom during the 1990s. By 1994, Graf Pay Per View Inc., the publicly traded New York operator of Spice, boasted almost 10 million subscribers. By 1997, it had 20 million. In 1996, Americans spent more than $8 billion dollars on porn videos, live sex acts, peep shows, adult cable fare, sex devices, computer porn and sex magazines - an amount much larger than Hollywood's domestic box office receipts and larger than all the revenues generated by rock and country music recordings. "Americans now spend more money at strip clubs than at Broadway, off-Broadway, regional and nonprofit theaters; at the opera, the ballet, and jazz and classical music performances - combined." (US News 2/10/97) Sociologist Charles Winick notes that the sexual content of American culture changed more in two decades than it had in the previous two centuries. Over a quarter of a century ago, a federal study of pornography estimated that the total retail value of all the hardcore porn in the United States was no more than $10 million, and perhaps less than $5 million. Many of the profits from porn today go to the Mafia and to mainstream businesses such as mom and pop video stores, by long-distance carriers like AT&T, cable companies like Time Warner and Tele-Communications Inc, and hotel chains like Marriott, Hyatt, and Holiday Inn that earn millions of dollars each year supplying adult films to their guests. (US News 2/10/97) The growth of sex videos during the '80s and '90s coincided with the opening of large strip clubs across the country. Explicit videos serve as promotion for live performances. The number of strip clubs approximately doubled between 1987 and 1992 as rentals of hardcore videotapes quadrupled. The U.S. now hosts 2500 clubs. Top porn actresses earn $15,000 - $20,000 a week to unclothe there; doing four 20-minute shows each evening. Another half-dozen top porn performers earn $8,000 - $15,000 a week. "Feature dancers are now paid, for the most part, according to the "credits" they have accumulated - their appearances in hardcore films, on video-box covers, in men's magazine photo spreads. In the hierarchy of sex workers, strippers always used to look down at porn stars, viewing their work with distaste. Now strippers from all over the United States are flocking to Southern California and competing for roles in hardcore films." (Ibid.) The road to porn goes through the office of World Modeling. "Behind an unmarked door lies a room the size and shabby complexion of a one-man private-detective agency," writes Susan Faludi, "dust-covered vertical blinds quiver in stale air circulated by a floor fan. A tired gray-blue carpet with a permanent crease down the middle is flanked by two chipped desks, each with an overflowing ashtray and five-line phone, which blinks and rings ceaselessly from nine to six. The company sign, with a blue-globe logo, has presided over the street for fourteen of the firm's nineteen years, an example of discreet advertisement from a more decorous time: "Figure Photography Films. Wanted: Figure Models for Immediate Placement. 986-4316. Suite 203." The ad is for the World Modeling Talent Agency, central casting for the nation's pornographic film, video and magazine industries.... In a world where desire is packaged in videocassettes and marketed in magazines, where self-worth is quantified by exposure, World Modeling has become the last-chance opportunity for a generation desperately seeking "immediate placement"." (The New Yorker, 11/30/95) Los Angeles magazine gave a glowing profile of premier porn talent agent Jim South in its April, 1997 issue. A tall man in his fifties who wears a black pompadour and big cowboy-style belt buckles, South grew up in a conservative Catholic home in Dallas. He sold insurance for several years before moving to Los Angeles in 1968 and opening a fashion-modeling agency in Sherman Oaks. In 1975 he married a Hispanic woman who later gave birth to two sons. Jim and his wife rarely talk. One of his sons works with Jim at World Modeling, an office notorious for its high turnover of staff. Jim moved to his present location at 4524 Van Nuys Boulevard in 1976. Two years later, a pornographer offered him $200 a day to find girls to appear in Super 8 movies. By the retirement of agent Bill Margold in 1984, Jim ranked number one. He cites several reasons for his success. "I've never moved my location. I'm in fifteen newspapers. I require a mandatory AIDS test. And after my girls do their first job, I get their Polaroid replaced with a glossy print." Other reasons at least as important to Jim's success include a deal on the mandatory insurance all shooters must carry and other savvy business practices. South tells media such as Los Angeles magazine that he doesn't socialize with his clientele and that he has a strict "no dating the clients" rule for his employees. "It wouldn't be fair," Jim says. "It would be taking advantage." World Modeling abides by these rules as much as the Mafia sticks to its prohibition against drug dealing. Few girls complain about sexual harassment from World Modeling but Jim and his boys enjoy, according to rumor, more than their share of blowjobs and other sexual favors from eager porn girls. Jim South Jr. dated for weeks a favorite of his dad's - Krysti Myst. Jim South and his competitor Reb Sawitz hate each other, and each may have funded a physical attack on the other. In the mid'80s, a thug broke Jim's arms. He's suffered sundry other beatings and bruises from unhappy pornographers, parents of spouses. South also feuds with veteran performer Mike Horner. Jim forbids producers who want to work with World Modeling from using Mike. Horner criticizes Jim for, among other things, procuring women new to the biz for the exploits of sadists Max Hardcore and John T. Bone. Reb says he doesn't work with men like Max "who abuse women." Both Jim South and Reb Sawitz come across as low key and direct though Jim appears more slick and a better businessman. Jim's World Modeling is a one-stop for porn production. South not only provides talent for pornographers, he also connects them with scripts, locations, editing facilities and liability insurance. A trafficker in human flesh since the '60s, Reb introduced to porn such favorites as Amber Lynn, Renee Bond, Kelly O'Dell, Danyel Cheeks and Nikki Dial. Reb took off most of 1975-83 to play softball tournaments around America while Margold ran the office and sent him regular checks. Sawitz doesn't long for the good ol' days. He insists that adult entertainment is much better today than in the so-called Golden Age. "Things are much more liberal. Some of the laws are more clearly defined. "There used to be a lot of concern about the police and there were the occasional busts. I remember the long, involved routes we'd have to take just to get to the set and we'd be driving all over town only to have the police waiting for us when we arrived." Reb takes 10% of a dancer's fee and for everything else, he, like Jim South, takes $65 a day. He pumps prospective clients with questions, but not as harshly as Margold. "I question them as to their backgrounds. What kind of work have you done? Why are you doing this? What do you want to do? What do they not want to do? After I get that information, I tell them what's available. Then we check to see if they are of legal age." Most of Reb's problems have been personal rather than professional. In 1982 a car hit him. In 1989 he broke a leg. In 1992, "a three-ounce spleen turns out to be seven pounds and had to be removed. I almost died, but I was working from bed in the intensive care unit. I booked people out of the hospital." Reb owns a big house with seven bedrooms (but only one bathroom). Many of his employees and performers stay with him. In his early 50s, Reb's the same age as his mother when she died of cancer. Sawitz survived serious cancer surgery in the spring of 1997, but returned to Pretty Girl a couple of months later. America like Reb and Jim supply almost all of the world's porn stars and much of its porn. Russell Hampshire presides over the US's biggest production company VCA, which did over $15 million worth of business in 1994. "I've never made a film in my life," Russ told Adult Video News. "I don't know which end of the camera to look at, so I hire people that know production." VCA began as a videotape distributor, the biggest according to Hampshire who owned the company with Walter Gernert. Then in 1978, just four years after the first consumer-model videocassette recorders started filtering into the marketplace, VCA began to buy films and release them to videotape. After escaping from the MIPORN investigation with paltry fines and probation, Hampshire and Gernert shifted into product. VCA's first was Cafe Flesh in 1982. Rinse Dream's movie is about as far out as VCA will go. The company avoids fetish videos. "We aim for a mainstream audience," says Hampshire. In 1984, Tony Lovitt came on board and took charge of production. He signed the Dark Brothers and wrote most of their scripts during the '80s. "The way production would work is, someone would bring a project to me," explains Lovitt. "I would look it over, find out who the director would be, and the stars, and if I thought it was viable, I would bring it to Russell for the final okay on the budget." When every video production company (save Vivid and Caballero) turned to video features because of the costs of film production, VCA released several feature films per year through 1994. In 1991, VCA and its leadership got a true test of the company's resiliency when VCA, Russ, and several of his employees were indicted on obscenity charges in Alabama. In the eventual plea bargain, VCA paid two million dollars worth of fines, and Hampshire spent a year in prison. His staff received suspended sentences and probation. "His minions carry out his philosophy of the company to a high degree," says Lovitt. "He found out when he was away that the mentality of the company is his, imbued in his employees..." (AVN 12/94 p.150) VCA sells cable rights to over 85% of its straight products. And for the first time, it has two contract girls - Sunset Thomas and Julie Ashton, as well as director Michael Ninn. Since VCA's brush with the feds, it has toned down its product, much to the dismay of porn fans such as RAME's Imperator. Once a pillar of quality porn, he writes, with the rights to most of the classics and the best directors, including Gregory Dark and John Leslie, VCA has turned bland and pretentious. "It's not just the Sex, Latex and Shock disasters; it's Leslie and Dark's departures, the unending and mind-numbing hype, the plastic, and, most of all, the spineless self-censorship of anything that might be considered remotely offensive. If there's a company that can afford to combat a nuisance obscenity lawsuit, it's VCA... VCA wants to squeeze the last cent out of the fan with minimum risk. They did not withdraw the offensive tapes from circulation after all, they chopped them abruptly and re-released them without any warning on the box." VCA tapes begin with obnoxious messages wrapped in the American flag about fans having a moral obligation to defend their rights to jerk off. "That said, VCA is no Leisure Time rip-off. The technical qualities of its major productions are impeccable. And their latest endeavor, VCA Platinum Plus, gives feature films containing at least six sex scenes and over 100 minutes long, frequently demonstrating some heat. "Juli Ashton is the hottest item in the contemporary sex scene and VCA is wise enough to capitalize on her potential. Every VCA tape gives her fan club information. Work her relentlessly, VCA. Refuse her a moment's rest. I want at least 100 movies out of this incredible creature, and I want them NOW. Gimme, gimme, gimme." (Imperator) During its twelve-year rise to dominance, Vivid carved out a niche on the softest edge of the hardcore spectrum. Receiving most of its income from sales to cable TV, the company's productions usually feature a story, beautiful women and lush sets. The world's largest producer of shot-on-film pornography, Vivid shoots four news movies a month on 16mm film as well as four on video. Expenses for each average $60,000. The company now earns most of its revenues from cable TV sales. White Vivid girls earn up to $100,000 a year for about 20 sex scenes and a dozen personal appearances. They make most of their money, from $8,000 - $15,000 a week, stripping at clubs. Asian Kobe Tai and black Heather Hunter earn about half as much as their lighter skinned sisters. Vivid signed Heather Locklear in early 1997. "No surprises here," writes Jaydee on RAME. "Vivid signs another dead f---. I always thought she was good looking, but what a cardboard partner." RAME's Imperator reviews Cloud 9 from director Derrick Lane. "The merits one expects from Vivid are there. The casting is excellent: Racquel Darrian is the big star, and is in every sex scene of the film, frequently accompanied by Felecia, Asia Carrera and Barbara Doll. The only two blokes are Steven St. Croix and Derrick. The production is technically impeccable... We seldom get squalid sets from Vivid. Cloud 9 is shot at at an attractive house with a good pool. Derrick does an excellent job with the camera and his editor is - uncharacteristically for Vivid - patient. This is a far cry from the numerous three-second cuts the latest Paul Thomas productions suffered from. "The film's - and Vivid's - primary flaw is a lack of sexual heat. Vivid films are shot on purpose with a detached air. There is no sweat, no hint of the primal heat that is sex. Racquel just lies there... Even the usually feisty Barbara Doll is subdued... That's the problem with Vivid. It's not the absence of anals and raunch. It's that the people look like mannequins. Vivid product needs smiles, laughter, heat and sweat. They claim they make "couples" porn. This is not how couples behave in bed, lying around looking pretty." Hawaii, directed by Toni English, continued Imperator's pleasant Vivid experiences. "This effort is the opposite of what we've come to expect from Vivid in recent years. For once the sex scenes are long and patiently shot..." (RAME) AVN 8/96: "In the company's never-ending attempt to gain acceptance in mainstream America, Vivid Video held a "Club Pornography" bash on a Sunday night at the popular nightclub Dragonfly. "Vivid was approached by Dragonfly's owners with the idea of giving non-industry types the chance to rub shoulders with the likes of Janine and Nikki Tyler, without having to go to a local strip club." The opening pages of the July 1997 issue of Spy Magazine feature a two-page advertisement for FreshJive clothing starring Vivid Girls Chasey Lain, Janine, Jen Teal and Kobe Tai. In spoof mode, "Templeton Peck" writes: "Citing increased Q ratings, post-feminist attitudes regarding sex, and a widespread acceptance of pornography among younger Americans, some analysts feel that a mainstream embrace of porn may be as little as a few years away. This public approval may spark a "gold rush" mentality, as citizens presently employed in more mundane occupations are drawn in large numbers to an industry built entirely on the promise of young, eager female flesh. Such an influx of new people would produce a ripple effect, resulting in ever-greater respect and admiration for those willing to align themselves with "X". School-age children will add "porn star" to the list of things they want to be when they grow up, and Chasey (Lain) will replace Chelsea (Clinton) as the number one role model for young girls. Boys, who all secretly want to be porn stars anyway, will stop trying to "Be Like Mike" and start trying to "Cum Like Pete"." (RAME) As a child, Vivid owner Steve Hirsch worked with his sister Marjorie, who oversees production at Vivid, in their father's porn warehouse. Former stockbroker and Reuben Sturman lieutenant, Fred Hirsch started his own Los Angeles porn company with money from the porn godfather. In keeping with porn's assault on the Judeo-Christian ethic, Steve Hirsch, Vivid and several of the Vivid girls support the radical animal rights group PETA (People For The Ethical Treatment of Animals] which equates the value of human life with animal life. The founder of PETA, Sandra Neukirk, sees no moral difference between America's barbecuing of 6,000,000 million chickens a year to Germany's murder of 6,000,000 Jews in the Holocaust. Vivid auctioned off parts of its billboard on Sunset Boulevard to raise money for PETA. Vivid Girls paraded around at the auction wearing nothing but PETA T-shirts. A favorite target of the feds, Mark Carriere appears the richest and most hated man in porn, the only pornographer consistently described by his peers as "evil." Mark so cowers persons in Porn Valley that none are willing to go on the record with their allegations about him which include the wildest and cruelest deeds you can imagine. "I've got three friends coming into town this weekend and you're going to f--- them," goes a routine anecdote about Mark and a porn girl. "No, I'm not," says the porn girl. "Then I'll have you beat up," says Mark. The girl gives in. Tiring of this treatment, she soon joins a growing number of persons who flee the biz to get away from Mark. According to stories circulating in the biz, some persons who've refused Mark's requests have been severely beaten; others, such as his former executive Perry Ross who officially died of a drug overdose, murdered. Mark Carriere - his real name - owned Video Exclusives before shutting it down and starting up Leisure Time, which he values at $60 million. He's trying to sell it for $30 million but no one wants to pay that money for a porn business. He made his fortune turning out one-day wonders and compilation tapes. He owns about half of the industry's library tape. Mark cut scripts and prices in the '80s, forcing the competition to follow but no one could turn out sexvids as profitably as him. For the first time since 1990, Mark doesn't have criminal charges hanging over his head. In February 1996 a federal judge sentenced Carriere to three years probation, 2400 hours of community service and a fine of $850,000 for interstate transportation of obscene material. Carriere also agreed to donate $250,000 to three children's charities. Mark may have avoided jail time by squealing to the feds about veteran New York pornographer Ted Rothstein. Al Goldstein broke the news in an editorial in his Screw Magazine, 7/15/96. "He [Carriere] caved in to [that] pressure and delivered to the FBI a true prize: Teddy Rothstein, a pivotal figure in the distribution of adult material nationwide." Rothstein's attorney, Paul Cambria of Buffalo, says that the testimony Carriere gave the government was untrue. "He made up things about Teddy Rothstein so he could escape going to jail." When Zane Entertainment declared chapter eleven bankruptcy at the end of 1996, porn lost a company that led the genre in bad taste. Sorority Sluts: Passed Out "is the most morally reprehensible tape Zane has ever released, and possibly the most morally repulsive video of 1996," says AFW. "It takes Zane's fratboy mentality to its logical conclusions. "Three horny bitches go to the frat house to get laid. Marki, a red-haired strumpet, plays pool with Rick Masters and Johnny Thrust. They get her drunk, and end up banging both ends on the pool table. When Marki gets queasy and ralphs, Bret Singer f---s her up the ass while pushing her face into a pool of her own vomit. Next, alluring white trash Alabama is discovered by two brothers after passing out while attempting autoerotic asphyxiation.... She asks the fellows to choke her while they f--- her up the ass. They comply." (AFW 97) Days Gone By appeared in 1988. "Unless you're into guys buggering each other while they lap female pussies, this one's a sleazy stomach-turner," advises Bob Rimmer. Zane filed for bankruptcy because of bad investments in the CD ROM business, litigation with Max Hardcore and the pulling of the Cherry Poppers line which represented one quarter of their business. Numerous companies such as Tim Lake's Odyssey Video Group follow the lead of John Stagliano's Evil Angel Video in requiring producers to finance their own productions which they then distribute, taking a cut for their work. The system works more like a franchise than the Vivid and VCA arrangement. Those companies hire directors and give them budgets to produce product. Open, unassuming and vulnerable, Wicked owner Steve Orenstein presents a sharp contrast to the typically close-lipped approach of Sturman, Hampshire and and Carriere. Eighteen months after splitting off from Reuben Gottesman's Xcitement Video in 1993, Steve hired Caballero's head of sales Joy King. "Everyone thought that I had hired Joy to do sales. But no, I had a sales person. I hired her to do publicity. I needed PR. Sales come from that. You can fight to sell all day long, but when you get the right PR, buyers come to you." When Steve combined the talents of King with Jenna Jameson in early 1995, Wicked rose to the top of the small porn companies. Despite its success, Steve's company remains a family affair. Orenstein's mom keeps track of his books. Joy King's younger sister began as a receptionist. She now helps the head of overseas sales as well as dates Steve. They've been together since the beginning of 1996. "I live with a very straight girl who has a hard time with this business. "I have a typical Jewish mother," says Orenstein. "No woman is ever good enough for her son." Too shy to swing, Steve never "lived the life" of a pornographer though he did date performer P.J. Sparxx for six months. "I'm not an exhibitionist. I'm not in this business because I'm the type of guy who'd be drawn to it. I fell into it." Born in 6/30/62, Orenstein moved from New York to Los Angeles at age 15. His mother worked for a porn magazine distributor and Steve helped out during summer vacations. After dropping out of college at 19, he worked full time for an adult bookstore. Then he moved on to California Liquid Publishing Company owned by Al Tapper. After two years, in October of 1984, Reuben Gottesman hired Steve to run the warehouse of Xcitement Video. Both men were busted for selling Traci Lords tapes in 1988. Steve received five years probation. Gottesman and Orenstein parted ways in March 1993 and Steve formed Wicked. "The Clinton administration has been much more mellow [about prosecuting pornographers]," says Orenstein. "I only ship to distributors. I don't ship to stores. Because I have a prior conviction, I'll go to jail if I get convicted again." Wicked's web site, along with the sites of the other major porn production companies, has yet to turn a profit. "I've found that the guys making the big money in their web sites are ripping off people. They don't have to worry about their reputations. They steal content, double bill... I can't do that. So we struggle..." In 1994, Wicked spent $21,000 to make Haunted Nights, Steve's biggest budgeted production to that point. It won the 1995 AVN Best Video Award. The next year he made Blue Movie, Wicked's sole shot-on-film effort which cost $80,000. In 1996, Wicked made Conquest, which cost $110,000. In 1997, Wicked plans a $150,000 firefighting movie. "When I started in 1994, $15,000 was the high end." Steve's in-house director is Brad Armstrong. "I'd never make a movie myself," says Orenstein. "But I can spot problems. After they put it all together, I ask, 'what if this happens, or that happens?'... I have no interest in going further than that." Selling 30,000 units in nine months, Conquest earned its way quicker than most of Wicked's productions. Though Steve held off selling it to cable TV for six months, he eventually made a deal with Spice for $15,000 for American rights. Orenstein's adopted much of Steve Hirsch's philosophy, including lush production values and contract girls. "Steve started Vivid in 1985 and hasn't done much wrong since... He usually does things first. "My company combines the methods of VCA and Vivid. I do business like Russ Hampshire [VCA owner] does business [honestly] but the look of my business is more like Vivid." Until 1996, Steve told strangers that he worked in video. Now he tells them he produces adult movies. "Most want a free tape." "When it comes to good-looking erotic stars and high production values, the United States rules the world.... If for no other reason than advanced dentistry, our stars are heads, shoulders and teeth above all others. "In my European tape-viewing experience, the German women are pale and dumpy, the men Nazi-like; the French have a lean, feral cast, especially the guys; the English have pale skin and really big bottoms; the Scandinavians are good-looking but appear bored; and the Eastern Europeans…should do something about those serious skin rashes." (Steve Brent, author of Couples Guide To The Best Erotic Videos)) Pornographers like Private travel the world in search of beautiful women willing to fornicate in front of their cameras. With demand for fresh meat inexhaustible, producers collect money, and pack their camcorders for exotic location such as Israel, South America, South Africa, Australia and parts of Asia. Porn locations provide a way to measure a country's freedom. If one sees a porno shot in a particular nation, one knows there's liberty in that country. Freedom to f--- on film goes hand-in-groin with relative freedom of speech and expression. Since the end of apartheid, one can videotape sex in South Africa as well as sell sexvids, but few other places in the Dark Continent are as open. You're not likely to find The Girls of Mozambique or Nelli Does Nigeria. Popular Asian locations include Thailand and the Philippines because of their beautiful women and scenery and low currency values. But you can't make porn in Communist North Korea or China. Depending on the country, European productions can show anything - from bestiality to urination to bondage videos featuring hardcore sex. According to a representative of one of Europe's largest packager and distributor Scala Agenturn, based in the Netherlands, only about ten percent of American XXX product is saleable in Europe because of its bad technical quality. Times have changed since Europe would take any American porn. "Domestic producers of adult films and videos, who once depended on selling their titles to European countries for huge profits, are discovering that a large glut of product is forcing prices down, making much of their product unwanted in many countries across the pond. "American pornography, once the staple diet of consumers in Germany, France, Spain and the like, has been displaced by the quality production values and sexual heat of Sweden's Private Video... Germany's Moli Exclusive line of high-budget features, big Italian productions such as Marco Polo and an unlimited supply of European product that covers the broad spectrum of sexual tastes." (AVN 9/94 p.181) Says a leading American exporter, David Kravis of Coastline Films: "Two years ago [1992], American product was king, but we've run up against competition from the European productions. I put the blame on our (American) industry for...generic product." Europeans prefer film to video. "The most popular American titles are the older ones such as Amanda by Night and I Like To Watch," says Betty Geerts of Scala. Most of the older Caballero 35mm titles still sell well as do VCA and Vivid features. American gay tapes also sell well because "they are superior." In Denmark, the Theander brothers own the largest porn publishing house in the world, while partners Becke Uhe and Hans Maer pour out product from Germany. Sweden's Private - founded first as a porn magazine by Berthe Milton - produces much of the world's highest quality porn, combining Vivid's touch with production values with fresh girl and nasty sex. Milton began publishing Private magazine in the 1960s. Content with the magazine's slow but steady growth, Berthe in 1990 had only four employees - one for each edition of his magazine published each year. In 1990, Berthe handed over control of his company to his like-named son in 1990 who overflowed with new ideas for the company. The younger Berthe Milton started a videotape line based around Private magazine's worldwide success. Each issue of Private Video Magazine features six to eight sexual vignettes. Next came Private Films - full-length video features of reckless sex taped in beautiful locations around the world, including Costa Rica, Thailand and Australia. "The only place we had a problem was in Russia," Milton told AVN. "We couldn't do anything there until we had gotten permission from the local crime bosses. "We always use new, fresh talent," says Milton. "Normally we never use any talent more than three times. We never use porn stars..." AVN: "The Emmanuelle series plus the Mermaids series, plus some of the freshest, dirtiest, most lushly-photographed hardcore in recent memory, equals Private Film. When you add the twin penchants Private has for showcasing American stars in heights that they may have not reached in domestic productions (reference Kitty Yung in Virgin Treasures or Lydia Chanel in Anal Clinic, or Danyel Cheeks in Anal Manor, for example) and finding some incredible European new faces and bodies, we're talking instant-classic status." (AVN 10/94 p.66) AVN says Private Video Magazine 5 "…has in abundance what many big-budget adult videos lack: incredible, outrageous, unbelievable sex action from beginning to end. "The women - mostly new to U.S. audiences - are strikingly beautiful and uninhibited; there's not a scene that doesn't include anal; several of the scenes are gangbangs; there's plenty of DP action; and to top it all of there are no less than 20 pop shots, 15 of them facials." "Private cranks out features with great production values, gorgeous performers who aren't stale or feel the need to bleach their hair, tattoo themselves, and then go from a 34B to 40D bust size, non-offensive looking dudes, and plenty of hardcore sex every time out of the block," writes RAME moderator Brad Williams. "Private thrives. They run billboards in California hyping their latest releases. Private is living proof that big budgeted, well produced material that is shot over several days instead of an afternoon has a substantial market." AVN reviews Anal Manor. "You're not likely to recognize many faces in this cast [except for Danyel Cheeks], but being an all-anal feature, faces aren't the focus of attention. A Marquis de Sade cult, replete with masked monks and submissive, butt-cleaving babes all called Justine, sets the tone for a well-shot, handsomely mounted romp. Eleven nasty scenes - including a DP, four-on-one, multiple simultaneous cumshots...and a chrome dildo attached to an arm stump. Absolutely filthy." Swede Nic Cramer directs
both mainstream and pornographic flicks for Private including Apocalypse
2, shot in the Philippines. "A chancy combination of two amalgamate themes
(sex and war) succeeds. Copulation is rampant and can be seen continuously
through mortar fire on bamboo shoots and inside camouflage tents." (AVN
97) Michael Ricaud directed Beauties in Paradise. "Lush beaches, emerald forests and luscious foreign youngsters are eager for nasty booty bustin' and facial frostings in one of the finest imports since Australian Toaster Biscuits. Exterior locales are exploited for maximum effect in a tale of two sisters who dash off to become papaya juice waitresses at a remote resort for widowers." (AVN 97) Ricaud made Skin 3 - the umpteenth steal of The Story of O - "timid young thing sent to chateau by boyfriend who wants her to be a better slut, she does, she comes home and writes about it. "The cast is composed of equal parts American and European actors, including Keisha and a hairy brute named Siegfried who seems to be the Gallic Ron Jeremy. Perfect bodied Eurasian princess Gyn Seng steals the show, as she submits her enchanting coochie to the increasingly humiliating sex." (David Aaron Clarke) One of Europe top directors, Michael drowned while shooting a feature in the Seychelles for Private. He was standing on a rock, overlooking the scene, when a wave knocked him over. AVN: "One of the few amenities one can usually count on in life is the Private line, so consistently delirious in its devotion to classic tease, nasty butt-f---ing, multiple facial shots and a bevy of international to-die for babes to whom the term "breast augmentation" is a foreign concept. A gaggle of Venezuelan Venuses, those nut-brown beauties endowed with great, meaty-but-firm butts which true ass-lovers kneel down and supplicate over is reason enough to recommend the tape." Critic Pat Riley stopped watching Private after their first 18 movies "due to total disgust at their attitude to the women. How many times can you stand some guy call the girl a "salope" and "putain" and then watch while he gangbangs (rapes?) her with his sleazy buddies. Yecch! And all that looking at the camera while she's getting screwed. Everything's group sex...a sperm war… "Pornoland discovered the foreign movie during 1995/96," writes Riley, "or saw how well the Private series was doing for Odyssey and tried to hop on the bandwagon by flooding the market with every scrap of dreck that could be scavenged from the archives of their European counterparts. Battalions of porno producers, directors, and actors marched in lockstep into the Eastern block countries to video their dalliances with the local hookers in crumbling hotels and then inflicted the results on us. Locals churned the video cameras faster, producing tape after tape of copious facials, anals, double penetrations, double anals, and gang bangs but nary a hint of personality, romance nor even a last name to most of the performers. When the travelogues of Budapest started to pall, the Czech Republic became the hunting ground and now Russia and Romania; not to be outdone, Private headed to South Africa after hitting Indonesia and the Philippines." AVN advises retailers that if they stock only one "Eurof---fest tape, Viola Video 2 from Pleasure Productions is it.... All in German... A potpourri of porn resides between the reels of this gem. Five thermal segments featuring Double Penetration, a double anal, oral, straight, girl/girl, and a hot solo with a three foot long parsnip. Long scenes, attractive women, great camera-work, lavish sets, a purple candle getting shoved up some Kraut's ass..." German production company Magma erupts with molten porn. Take Anal Power for instance. "A dance instructor copping a feel is the lead-in for the first part of this nefarious video from overseas... A non-stop anal flick which uses many angles of penetration made popular by Max Hardcore. The girls range from average to gorgeous and are all eager to bend over." (AVN 97) Time International wrote 3/24/97 that Budapest, Hungary is the new European center for the production of porno. After Communism's collapse in 1989, Hungarians explored the limits of freedom. Says former Foreign Minister Geza Jeszenszky: "People hated the restrictions and rushed to obtain formerly forbidden fruits, including pornography." Hungary produces about 150 sex films a year, about 10% of Europe's total. Time: "But the Hungarian porn business has a sinister side. Young children - usually homeless or neglected by their parents - are being lured off the streets with promises of glamorous careers in modeling. It's only later - often too late - that they learn what they're really required to do. In the provincial town of Eger in northern Hungary, a man was arrested last June for featuring girls between the ages of 10 and 15 in his pornographic films." Photojournalist Istvan Kovacs made the first all-Hungarian skin flick, and over the past five years, he's produced more than 30 features through his production and distribution company Luxx Video. "It used to be a novelty for foreigners to use girls from behind the Iron Curtain," says Kovacs. "But that's no longer the reason they come. Hungarian girls work well, it's cheaper to film here and there are lots of great venues." With the average Hungarian bringing home only $220 a month, there's no shortage of eager youngsters who hope to earn anywhere from $100 to $5000 a day to perform in porno. Anita Rinaldi, a former hairdresser from the industrial town of Dunaujvaros in southern Hungary, entered porn at age 19. Five years later she owns Hungary's largest sex model agency, Touch Me Productions. "I never enjoy the sex in the films," says Anita. "I'm just acting. I can separate my body and my soul." (Time) Censorship varies throughout Europe. England and Ireland are the most repressive. Both cut scenes considered too sexy from mainstream movies (no X is allowed). While Ireland is sensitive to blasphemy (Monty Python's Life of Brian didn't make the cut), violence in film is ok. The British frequently censor violence in movies. Sweden rejected the violent Belgian film Man Bites Dog, but it has no barriers to sexual content. As a producer of porn, Sweden lags behind Germany and the Netherlands. Germany and Holland have little censorship. Says Pat Kelly of the Europa Times, "This liberal system confounds its critics by pointing out that despite a lack of censorious control, Holland has a lower crime rate than many of its counterparts with strict film guidelines." Spain, Europe's second biggest porn consumer, and Portugal have no censorship laws. Porn tastes vary around the world. Americans seem obsessed with size - big breasts and big dicks and the Europeans in raunch. The Japanese appear more interested in youth and the British in schoolboy punishment. Randy Jorgenson founded Adults Only Video, Canada's largest retailer of hardcore sex films and magazines. Since 1987 he's transformed Adults Only from a single outlet in Saskatchewan into a company with 500 employees, annual sales of $25 million and 80 stores stretching from Kingston, Ontario to Victoria. He used to run a muffler shop in his home town of Moosomin, Saskatchewan, before owning an industrial tools franchise, managing hotels and exported cars to the U.S.. Then Randy stumbled into his fortune. "Farm-boy friendly but ambitious and shrewd as well, Jorgensen markets hardcore films and magazines the way other businessmen sell fast food and kid's clothing. He has a corporate logo to identify his stores. He advertises in newspapers, on radio stations and in the Yellow Pages, and he has conducted market surveys to determine what type of people are renting his movies." (Macleans 10/11/93) "Most people think of adult video stores as sleazy, back-alley operations patronized by dirty old men in trench coats," says Jorgensen. "But image is important to us. Many of our customers are well-educated people with lots of disposable income. Our stores are designed to make them feel comfortable." Macleans: "Located mostly in strip malls between, say, a real-estate office and a pet office, the Adults Only stores bring dirty movies into the clean streets of middle-class Canada. They are the most visible sign of a spreading trend: pornography in the home." Most Southeast Asian porn comes from Japan which boasts a $10 billion a year industry that produces over 10,000 sex videos a year. "The most sophisticated distribution system in the world retails the product via video stores, convenience stores, vending machines, even mom and pop groceries." (Speed Tribes) "The Japanese get their cheap sex from foreigners then come home and have normal relations with their own kind," says Max Volume. "Japanese women are socialized to be passive. The girls in Jap porn do the same thing every time: they lie on their back, turn their head to one side, and close their eyes. That's about the only thing that turns me off about them. I want a girl who grabs me with two hands, looks in my eyes and demands I f--- her brains out. "Japan was lucky enough to keep Christianity and Freud out of their country, which probably has a lot to do with them being much more casual about sex." (RAME) Many of the Japanese porn stars go on to careers in TV or modeling. To taste the current sex environment in Japan with its reduced interpretation of the censorship laws, one has to only go into the local video shop and see the walls of Schoolgirl videos (aged 14-18), enema/peeing vids, and bestiality vids. If you have the 10,000 yen or so, all videos are available uncensored. Japanese Jew Karl Taro Greenfield describes Japan's porno industry in his 1994 book Speed Tribes. Like porn users around the world, Japanese men thirst for fresh meat, literally maguro which translates to "tuna", the nickname for the females in Japanese sex videos. The typical male performer earns $100 per pop shot while the women make up to $6000 a day. Unlike the American industry, Japanese porn does not regularly test performers for the HIV virus. Greenfield profiles leading Japanese director Shoji Onodera. "He could tell instantly if a girl would work out... He turned down beautiful girls with fulsome figures whom the crew was catcalling for, and chose… homely girls who'd turn out to have that animal sexuality... The girl who was shy but liked it. The girl who was a little insecure about her looks and so was pleased to be regarded as a sex object, flattered to be in a porno film, thrilled that men all around Japan would be masturbating into tissues at the sight of her pussy wet and split on the television screen." In Japanese porn, as American, the male usually ejaculates on to the female's face, no matter how difficult the sexual position they are in at the time of the male orgasm. "...Demon, who has holding Emi in midair and penetrating her from behind, had to throw Emi down on the bed and flip her over in order to come in her face." (Greenfield) The Japanese series Sperm Face features eight to ten guys jerking off onto a girls face. "The Japanese girls I know have muscular legs," says Max Volume, "mostly from all the walking they have to do. The main problem is that the Japanese porn directors do not know how to lens a porn film, thus we do not get clear and good shots of thighs and butts bent over. These directors play to what they perceive as the Japanese male's desire to see women as submissive, thus the long shots of Japanese girls lying on their backs naked." "They have flatter asses than the US," says John Nowakoski, "but no ass is too flat once it's bent over and sticking in your face... Japanese women have beautiful faces, and that look a Japanese woman gets when she hits orgasm...roar.... See it in person and you'll never be the same again." The biggest problem with Japanese girls, writes Max Volume, "is their incisors which stick out like fangs..." One must look long and hard to find Chinese porn. The production is usually amateurish and the sex random - "meaning that there's no buildup or any of the usual cues that come with hardcore movie... The performers exaggerate their movements and facial expressions... Sometimes the women can be truly skanky, most likely prostitutes hired off the streets." (Onanist of RAME) If Chinese police catch someone making porn, they frequently execute them. While pornographers Russ Hampshire, Ken Guarino and Steve Hirsch rose to power during the 1980s and 90s, Reuben Sturman and the Perainos either spent their time serving time or defending themselves in court. In October 1993, non-member associates of the Colombo family, Louis and Joseph Peraino were sentenced to three years and 18 months for violating conditions of probation, which prohibited them from engaging in porn and associating with convicted felons. The Italian-American ultimately responsible for convicting Gotti and who led the government's onslaught against organized crime, Rudolph Giulani, became on January 2nd, 1994, the 107th mayor of New York. Mafia associate Martin Hodas, the flamboyant entrepreneur who introduced the coin-operated peep machines to Times Square, transforming 42nd Street into a porno-amusement park, returned with three sprawling emporiums in 1994. According to the New York Daily News, the reemergence of Hodas is the most striking revelation in its 1994 investigation of the storefront porn industry which seemed to be dying a slow death but steady death in the late '80s, "but has become a neighborhood scourge across the city. The City Planning Commission counts 177 storefront sex shops, a figure even higher than in the mid-'70s, when the Times Square scene was still close to its height. "Behind the increase is a dramatic transformation in the sex industry. No longer is it the sole domain of the mob, whose grip has been weakened by rubouts and prosecutions." The investments of Hodas placed him in direct competition with Mafia associate Richard Basciano and threatened New York's makeover of Times Square. At one time, Richard owned eleven sex shops in the area, employing 400 people. By 1996, Basciano and Hodas made peace with City plans to transform the area and sold their shops. The strip in midtown Manhattan between Seventh and Eighth Avenues called "the Deuce" used to be lined by porn theaters but now the area seems safe for families. Gone are most of the peep shows, prostitutes and three-card-Monte scam artists. Maria Alvarado coordinates tourism services for the Time Square Business Improvement District. "One summer, when I was about to give birth to my first child, I came down to have lunch with my husband, who worked on 43rd and Sixth. I took the E train, so I had to walk down 42nd. Here I was, eight months pregnant, and I was offered everything from sex to cocaine." "You could buy anything you wanted, whether it was drugs, or girls or boys or green cards or telephone cards. You felt like you were walking through this hellish zone," remembers Cora Cahan, who presides over New 42nd Street Inc.. In 1978 more than twice as many street crimes were reported on the block as on any other block in the entire city. In 1984 the city planning-commission chair said that 42nd "is the one street where the city has lost control." Walt Disney Company numbers among the new merchants. Its wholesome image is everything Times Square was not. After two decades of abandoned plans, stalled construction and expensive lawsuits, Times Square's makeover is "one of the great success stories of 20th century urban America," says Brendan Sexton, president of the Municipal Art Society. "New York City's government is acting against the pollution of the social atmosphere," writes George Will in 1996. "The city says those effects [of pornography] include decreased property values, retarded economic development, damage to neighborhood character and to children. And when such businesses are clustered, there is increased illegal sexual activities and other crime, as well as loitering and littering and other nuisances. The new zoning law will disperse such businesses... "The pornographers say that precisely probing the various secondary effects is problematic. However, precision should not be necessary. One does not need a moral micrometer to gauge that the sex industry turned Times Square into a slum... "Selling pornography is not a crime, but by catering to, and inflaming, vulgarians' sensibilities, it contributes to the coarsening of the culture which erodes civility." (Newsweek 11/11/96) Politicians, civic leaders, citizen groups, the religious and law enforcement overwhelmingly agree that porn shops increase crime and deteriorate neighborhoods. Almost all representatives of traditional values such as the above also agree that use of porn produces similar effects in individuals to what it does to neighborhoods. Pornographers, and academic, legal and media elites usually disagree with these claims but few of them want to live in areas close to porn shops. Columnist Don Boyett served on The Orlando Sentinel's editorial board for years. He remembers property owners pleading for support to clean up South Orange Blossom Trail, filled with crime, strip joints and porn shops. Their primary interest: crime and plummeting property values. "Drive into Seminole County from the south on U.S. Highway 17-92 and what is the first thing that hits you? A large billboard advertising a nude bar's clothing boutique… "Next thing you notice are blaring signs in front of scrub parlors, nudie bars and clearly non-family video shops. "Is this the sort of seedy community you would invest in? Would that picture cause you to say, ''Hey, I'd like to live in this community?''? "Those who live and own traditional businesses in that area now are concerned. It's not just property values. They know porn brings drugs; drugs bring other crimes. Most people don't want to live near enterprises considered sordid. Not even the owners of those businesses live next door." (Sentinel 7/4/97) By mid-1996, federal prosecutors had either on trial or under indictment "practically all persons reputed to be underworld members and associates in the porn industry." (Kelly) Some of the thugs got away, others didn't. Law enforcement lost a big federal obscenity case against the Perainos-owned AFV Releasing in Las Vegas in the summer of 1996. After two hours of deliberations, the jury acquitted Louis and Joseph Peraino of obscenity and racketeering charges. Defense attorney Dominic Gentile says the government has been out to get the Perainos since 1972 when "Deep Throat brought the dirty movie business out from the underground and into the sunshine. The government hoped to drive it back underground with this conviction." Gentile says the prosecution was a last vestige of the late-1980s onslaught against several Los Angeles pornographers. Charges pended against Northridge resident Anthony Peraino when he died at age 80 in October 1996. The Perainos sold AFV Releasing later in the year to Las Vegas pornographer Ray Pistol. In September 1996, Ken Guarino's North Star Distributors plead guilty in Las Vegas District Court to a federal charge of obscenity. As part of the deal, the government dismissed charges against Guarino personally and Salvatore Richichi. In November 1996, a federal judge in the Southern District of Florida sentenced Salvatore's father Natale to six years in prison for his convictions of racketeering and extortion. The Florida case demonstrated the infiltration of the Mafia into the strip bar industry in Florida and neighboring states. To Bill Kelly and many others in law enforcement, the government since Bill Clinton became president, hasn't prosecuted pornographers with enough energy. Kelly wrote in the spring 1997 issue of Morality in Media about South Florida, which symbolizes the state of the nation in this regard. "…Obscenity matters are either in a low-priority or no-priority condition, with neither law enforcement nor prosecutors moving these cases forward. While most Federal and state courts have held that the judge or jury in an obscenity case must acquit if the particular hardcore video is "accepted" by the community, it would appear that in much of South Florida, the test being used by prosecutors is whether porn is "tolerated" by the community - a test that has little if anything to do with "standards of decency" and that clearly favors the porn merchants." Patrick Trueman served under President Bush as chief of the U.S. Justice Department's Exploitation and Obscenity section. "I maintain the war is over. The pornographer has won." During the late '80s and early '90s, federal agents launched a series on pornographers, culminating in more than 20 convictions, prison sentences and millions of dollars in fines. "These businesses in Los Angeles know they can ship around the country because no one is coming after them," said Trueman, now director of government affairs for the American Family Association, an anti-porn group based in Tupelo, Miss. (Los Angeles Daily News 12-11-94) "If you don't bring the cases, then you, Mr. U.S. Attorney are setting the community standard - and the community standard is anything goes." In its 7-22-96 issue, Insight magazine revealed that Trueman's handpicked assistant George Burgasser probably gave confidential Justice Department documents to star pornography lawyer Arthur Schwartz, wrecking the Department's huge Blue Darcy case against Houston pornographers and leading to the murder of a porn informant. Insight also showed how Trueman and Burgasser saw to it that a Justice Department attorney who sought to have the leaks investigated, was harassed and demoted. In January 1997, Guarino and Natale Richichi plead guilty to charges of conspiracy to defraud the government. Had the case proceeded to trial, the government said in the Memoranda of Plea Agreement that it would have presented evidence that Richichi is a "capo in the Gambino crime family of Cosa Nostra" and that Guarino made "tribute payments" to Richichi for protection of his multi-million dollar pornography empire against extortion attempts by other factions of the Mafia. By signing the agreements, Guarino and Richichi acknowledged that "each understood the factual basis for his plea. "Unlike most [captains] who can only deal with the boss of their family through an adviser, and who would not be in a position to advise higher ranking members of other La Cosa Nostra families, Richichi has dealt directly with John Gotti… "…He has also been intercepted providing extensive advice to Frank Salemme Jr., the boss of the New England La Cosa Nostra family. Richichi is also known to be highly respected by other La Cosa Nostra families and (captains) of various La Cosa Nostra families who reside in the Las Vegas area appear to give Richichi deference as well." Ken paid Natalie Richichi, a confidante of John Gotti, and his son Salvatore $15,000 a month for protection, as well as laundered millions of dollars, say the FBI. Guarino paid the money to prevent invasion of his porn empire, for permission from the New England branch of Cosa Nostra to operate a precious metals business in the Northeast and to use his influence with union officials for favorable treatment. In April 1997, Kenneth Francis Guarino was sentenced to 16-months in federal prison and fined $250,000. Veteran porn busters like Larry Parrish, who prosecuted Deep Throat, and Bruce Taylor, who prosecuted Sturman in Cleveland, devote their considerable talents to protecting "decency." Taylor formed the nationwide National Law Center which assists local prosecutors with their "obscenity" trials. In 1996, Parrish moved to Memphis with funding from a local church. Working in conjunction with the District Attorney, he filed charges of obscenity and racketeering against all of the city's topless bars. The governments' successful prosecutions of Sturman, Guarino and Gotti, and the Mafia's own rubouts of leading pornographers like DiBernardo, dealt heavy blows to the mob's domination of porn. How significant only time will tell. The 2-13-98 edition of the Economist focused on the international sex trade, "the black sheep of the entertainment industry, in parts hugely lucrative, in parts pitifully poorly paid. Riddled with malpractice and sleaze, it unites one of the world's oldest businesses, prostitution, and one of its newest, Internet sex. Just possibly, respectability beckons." The Economist points out that most sex aids are manufactred by China, a rare country that still uses slavery. Many American and most West European pornographers use East Europeans in their productions. They cost less and do more. Budapest is now the porn production capital of Europe, eclipsing Amsterdam and Copenhagen. "Stars' fees have dropped sharply. Even excruciating or humiliating acts usually cost the producer only two or three hundred dollars, roughly a third of the fees paid ten years ago." For the ruthless entrepreneur, "the road to riches is clear and brutal: cut costs by treating your workers abominably. Women and girls can be enticed (or kidnapped) from poor countries, smuggled into rich ones and worked as sex slaves." "A lot of people in the sex industry don't know very much about sex," British pornographer Tuppy Owens told the Economist. "They're just ignorant chauvinist men." Tuppy says customers get what they deserve. "The people doing the good things aren't the ones making the money. People actually want the bad stuff." "There are still people who think that putting any old sex scene on screen will make them a fortune," a European pornographer told the Economist. "All it really does is drive down prices." "All developed economies have conceded that the business is impossible to stamp out," writes the Economist. "Tolerating prostitution while leaving it technically illegal or semi-legal encourages corruption: policemen are paid to turn a blind eye. It also renders the workers helpless against their employers. Until recently, sex slaves who escaped from brothels in most European countries were usually deported as illegal aliens, which hardly helped the authorities nail their oppressors. The inexorable trend, in both law and public morals, is towards legalisation of what is already tolerated." Mingus of RAME finds bad porn a downer. He knows when he pays that the video he buys or rents may be worthless. Yet, "it's not the disquieting feeling of being gipped or having wasted money… Nor is it the simple but lamentable fact of having wasted valuable moments of your life in futile pursuit of pleasure… It's something more dispiriting than all that, that subtle yet awful cloud that settles over one when coming to the end of another bad porn vid. "And that's even if you fast-forward through the whole thing! Bad porn - desultory performances, ugly people, droopy dicks, f---ed up camera angles, exclusive reliance on extreme and anonymous closeups, even zapping thru a tape full of such crap is bad for your mental health. It conjures up an aura of personal doom, and this is not a good thing. Bad porn, unerotic filmed sex, is inherently morbid. (On the other hand, hot porn can be positively thrilling.)I rented 3 flicks for 7 bucks a couple of days ago, Asses Galore 9, Up YourAss 4, and Max Hardcore's Chicks for Free. The last two I picked up primarily because of good things said about them on this newsgroup. Many of the posters here are obviously far more generous to, and/or much more easily pleased by porn product than I, because zapping thru these flicks brought the cloud of doom upon me, people. Renting porn is risk-taking by definition. Still, I should known better than to rent Asses Galore 9, since the boxcover makes a big deal out of the fact that the flick is directed by busy porn stud Vince Vouyer, a dubious selling point if ever there was one. Earlier editions of the series had some hot moment, though, so I chose AG 9 over the other finalist, an Al Borda Dirty vid with nice open assholes on the cover. (I'm sure it's clear by now that anal sex is what I want to see in a porn vid.) Even though Vince's lukewarm stud work is mercifully relegated to the last scene, this flick was a wash, hot ass f---able chicks, including Olivia Del Rio, wasted by whack camerawork and other soft dicks in place of Vince's. Anonymous closeups serve as the anal part of scenes for the most part. Alex Sanders got hard to assf--- a chick late in the flick, but Vince only gave us a minute - that's 60 seconds - of good penetration, not nearly enough to choke the chicken. I did my best Jesse Jackson, though, keeping hope alive until the very end. But there was no blues that I could use, and my mood began to sag. "Prolific RAME reviewer Roger T. Pipe called Up Your Ass 4 a must-see, and even though I've already seen enough lame Sean Michaels flicks and dick work to last a lifetime, I was too intrigued by his glowing, rapturous description of the Allyssa Love/Tom Byron scene to not give it a shot. Sean does most of the rest of the f---ing in the flick, with lots of his customary handheld dick packing, all useless, no surprise there. And I didn't have but so high hope for the Allyssa scene, for Sean's direction/camerawork is usually maddeningly distracted to me. It wasn't worthless, but I sure got mad at Sean for that goddamn wandering camera, constantly going away from the action as Tommy pounded Allyssa's ass. Whenever Sean lucked up on a good shot, you'd best believe he immediately panned to something else, a softcore full body, of her bruised ankle, a shot of the furniture. I suppose I should be grateful he didn't give us a shot of himself wanking his foot long softy. Not a must-see, but not completely ruined by would-be auteur Sean. So I'd have to put this flick in the mediocre category. I wasn't despondent, but clearly something was rotten in the state of Denmark. Which brings us to Max's Chicks for Fee. Max reminds me of that old Bessie Smith song, "You Been a Good Old Wagon, Honey But You Done Broke Down." Without getting into a long thing about the aesthetics and philosophy of Max, at one time he was one of the most reliable providers of sustained anal penetration in the porn business. "Now he uses speculums and toys to compensate for an obviously balky boner, and that shit is just not interesting. He needs the speculums to inspire penetratable rigidity now (much more than in the past - the truth is that he's always been into f---ing chicks with his toys, all fast-forward material for me) so these days, if you wanna see Max assf---ing a chick, you also gotta see that stupid-ass speculum or dildo jammed up her pussy. Without the objects, Max cannot stay hard for any length of time. It's been an evolutionary process, as I say, and as I approach 40, I know my dick doesn't jump to it with the alacrity of former years, so I'm not going to make fun of his obvious aging. But as a pornographer, the boy is losing it, and watching or zapping thru his vids is becoming an increasingly cheerless affair. Suffice it to say, by the time I had got thru those three flicks Tuesday, I didn't feel too good no more. Then again, last night I rented Buda, and it had plenty of good erotic ass f---ing, and instead of clouds of doom I breathed in an atmosphere of accessible pleasure." (RAME) One of porn's sharpest observers uses the email address Dithering@Hotmail.com. He writes on RAME 3/98: "The American economy is unique in that it is consumer oriented. Our economy is basically a buyer's market. Consumers can get virtually any product they want at prices the rest of the world only dreams of. For example, American consumers pay $19.95 per month for unlimited internet access on top of relatively cheap phone-line charges. Europeans have higher overall costs, primarily because their economic system operates differently for all kinds of historical reasons. Japan is a producer-oriented economy. Their consumers get shafted by high prices at almost every level, from taxi fares to fruit prices. So we are spoiled. "As a spoiled consumer, I can get products tailored to my whims by letting the supplier know how I feel since I am never the only person who feels that way. If they are unresponsive, I simply shift to another supplier. How many brands of toilet tissue does Procter & Gamble supply? How many diaper brands or detergent brands are there? "The only industry that won't refine their products once they get wind of consumer disinterest is the adult industry. They make no effort to systematically study or communicate with their customer base. They churn out horrible, undifferentiated products (brands) to what they perceive are morons who will rent anything. And that is basically what happens. People rent this junk en masse, so the industry says "what the f---?". "Why change anything since these dunderheads will simply keep renting?" So I guess we get what we deserve. "The only vehicle to communicate intelligently with the decision-makers is RAME. I suspect a lot more lurk in this newsgroup than we realize, but nothing changes for the better. I bet Ed Powers lurks here, but look at his lack of effort to improve. I like his cute, fresh women; and I enjoy how his openings bring out the personalities and ethnic backgrounds of his models. But I despise his shoddy, unacceptable camera work. Yet his refusal to improve that aspect of his MDD series shows his complete disdain for the consumer. Why not make an effort to convert a good product into an excellent product? Answer: he doesn't give a whit about what a dunderhead renter thinks. An interesting attitude in a consumer-oriented economy. "When I first encountered Rodney Moore's Creme De LaFace series, I thought I had found heaven. It took around 15 tapes before I realized I was actually in hell and called it quits with Rodney's work. I mean, I tried. I want cum-shots directly into a woman's mouth that are swallowed. Not drooled or bubbled or smeared or snowballed into someone else's mouth. No shot or wine glasses, no shower curtains, no plates; none of that. Just swallowed. And the more copious the volume, the better. But the fantasy aspect of this fetish to me is ruined by unattractive women. When this thread began, I was optimistic that Rodney Moore would use the feedback to retweak his product line to expand his fan base and recapture lost customers like myself. But the opposite has occurred. Rodney has locked himself into an adamant position. He feels female talent falls into two, and only two categories: either his version of the girl-next-door or overexposed bleached-blondes with screw-on breasts. He uses the latter as his mantra to justify staying just the way he is. So be it. "I think both sides should just declare a truce and move on. But it confirms my cynical theory that the adult industry has a filthy view of itself, it's employees, and its customers. And the public keeps on renting and buying whatever is churned out. So I guess we get what we deserve, n'est ce pas? "I am forever amazed by the power of makeup to create the illusion of beauty, both in my personal life and on film. I have thrice hadgirlfriends I thought were drop-dead beauties during the courtship phase. You know; the lunches, the dinners, the movies, and all that. To my chagrin, the initial "morning afters" were underwhelming. Each of those "beauties" were actually average or slightly above-average looking women. That after-the-fact realization did not diminish my attraction to them one iota. But it stunned me how big the gap was between natural beauty and make-up-enhanced beauty. I suspect one reason for your large following is most men tacitly realize that most women are average looking. Many of your models are just like the women we live and work with. But most men also appreciate the tasteful investment certain women make in enhancing their looks towards our fantasy ideals if they aren't inherently stunning to begin with. "Ed Powers was fortunate with his timing, much like many of the current crop of marginal, cry-baby athletes who won the date-of-birth lottery. Sometimes that happens, and Powers has amassed a fortune. So he won, and by the time market forces (the so-called Invisible Hand) drive his revenues down, he won't care. In his mind, he got over on the teeming masses of unwashed, stupid, low-budget people who rent and buy pornographic films. And he has. All he really needs is professional camera-work to boost his MDD brand into the stratosphere. But he doesn't give a flip about improving his product. For what? A stupid stroke-off loser? Two-Fisted posted an excellent analysis on the inertia of the rental outlets. They keep reordering Powers' tapes because it was a successful product-line in the past. They could care less if the current product is stale. But in doing so, they create a circular and misleading business model. If the only tapes available to me when I am drunk or hard-up are MDD or some unknown brand that looks like a Leisure Time rip-off, then I will rent the MDD... " |