INTRODUCTION
Though Americans spend more on sexual entertainment than on Hollywood movies, more on porn than on rock music, most of us know little about the industry that strokes our deepest fantasies. "Some day there will be big fat books," predicted director William Rotsler in 1974, "with titles like Early Porno, The Love Directors, Stars of the Golden Age of Pornopix, The Films of Marilyn Chambers, How Deep Throat Was Made..." He couldn't have been more wrong. Despite porn's proliferation, nobody wrote anything close to what Rotsler prophesied.For the past three years, I've ventured into virgin territory to write the first comprehensive history of porn. An immaculate conception of three wise men (Dennis Prager, Robert Stoller and Jim Holliday) and a virgin (me), my book fleshes out the 100 years of sex in movies, concentrating on the quarter century since Deep Throat when porn joined popular culture. As well as describing dozens of films, I sketch such important personalities as Linda Lovelace, Harry Reems, Gerard Damiano, Georgina Spelvin, Traci Lords, Ginger Lynn, John Stagliano, Gregory Dark and others.
Why read about porn? To learn about yourself and the world. The industry provides a superb testing ground for finding out what men want. Unless pornographers satisfy the needs of millions, they go bankrupt. While Ph.D.s theorize about sexuality, pornographers deal with its reality. By studying porn therefore, we are far less likely to study nothing than if we undertook graduate work in sociology. The sex industry grosses billions of dollars each year by appealing to the male daydream, to what motivates many of us, to get out of bed in the morning to go to work. Revolving around lust and money, porn springs from the most primal desires.
Pornographers, to varying degrees, live out the fantasies that haunt millions. By delving deep inside porn stars, we discover the results of getting what you want. Does fame, fortune and f---ing lead to happiness? The lives of such "actresses" as Marilyn Chambers, Ginger Lynn and Savannah provide differing answers.
That you picked up this book and read thus far indicates you probably agree that to ignore porn is to ignore life, to avoid facing dreams made flesh. Males learn quickly that few females and the religious will explore such visions. A lad who wants to win friends and influence people does not discuss them in mixed company. While women complain that men refuse to open up, men know that to voice what we truly think about invites shock, derision and anger.
Women who seek to understand men should rent a few X-rated videos. Say, Anal Analysis. That's what your loving father, husband, brother and friend ponder. Anal Analysis. Women Who Suck Cock and Eat Cum. Black f---ers.
I'm sorry I had to be the one to give the bad news.
Porn acts out our dirty desires. It does the things we can't or shouldn't, such as screw the neighbor's wife. Videos like Anal Destroyer do not create man in their image as much as we create Anal Destroyer. That virtually all men in all cultures in all history desired an infinite variety of sex partners, and raped on mass when they could get away with it, debunks the notion that Hugh Hefner created promiscuity.
Most of my friends and religious community passionately oppose my decision to research porn. At best, they think it odd. At worst, evil. So why did I do it? To stroke my two greatest interests - myself and the world. By exploring porn, I explore myself. I explore the fantasies that I rarely utter. And by understanding them, I feel more at peace. At least until my mighty motivator rises again.
Through understanding the sex industry, I better understand humanity. It's wonderful to desire a better world, but first you must face reality. If you don't get your premises right, your crusade may do more harm than good. To understand that porn springs from male desire more than male desire springs from porn, would save thousands of activists from wasting their time. Their focus is wrong. To adjust a quote from Shakespeare, our problems are not in our stars, or in our porn, but in ourselves. Inanimate objects like videos or guns or nuclear weapons do not cause evil, notes Dennis Prager. People do. If a man remains single all his life because he will only settle down with a Vivid girl, that is his fault, not porn's.
More than any other living person, Prager influences my world view. The KABC talk show host and independent Jewish theologian wrote such books as Think A Second Time. The late UCLA psychiatrist Dr. Robert Stoller shapes my psychology of sex. For instance, I follow his style of using S-M to describe the spectrum of behavior that ranges from sadism to masochism instead of the traditional duality S&M. Finally, I regard Jim Holliday as the historian of porn. He and his 1986 book are only the best.
Please note the following sign posts on our journey:
AFW = Adam Film World
AVN = Adult Video News
HEVG = Hustler Erotic Video Guide
RAME = rec.arts.movies.erotica newsgroup
ASM = alt.sex.movies
DP = double penetration
I thank Adult Video News and Knight Publications for allowing me to quote
from their copyrighted magazines. Out of the hundreds of persons I talked
to in the course of researching this book, these were particularly helpful
- Michael Louis Albo, Craig Anthony, the Director, Paul Fishbein, Jim
Holliday, Imperator, Bill Margold, Cash Markman, Roger T. Pipe, Sheldon
Ranz, Pat Riley, Jared Rutter, Ron Sullivan, Ron Vogel, Wally Wharton,
Brad Williams, Hart Williams.