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Private

Sweden's Private - founded first as a porn magazine by Berthe Milton - produces much of the world's highest quality porn, combining high production values with fresh girls 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 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."

Since the mid-1960s, Berth Milton Sr. "has been a determined one-man, single-product campaign for the recognition of the role of pornography in human sexuality, for its legalization in the statute books, for its acceptance in society and, perhaps above all, for its buyers to have quality in content and style." (Porn Gold)

Berth's father ran Milton's Tivoli, Sweden's biggest

travelling fairground. Young Berthe remembers going to school in seven different cities. "Although I was physically the same strength, I could not be in the football team or the hockey team because I was always moving about. I also realized very quickly that any friends I made I was going to lose after a month or so."

Milton developed a deep self-sufficiency which prevented him from delegating work. He suspected everybody and acted in a hostile manner towards those who left his company.

Berthe became a car salesman for Volkswagen. "I reached the top in Sweden. I made more money than the managing director of the company. I was selling a hell of a lot of cars. They had a work study engineer trail me to see how I could sell so many in one month. I know that when they teach salesmen to sell cars they still use the 'Milton Method.'"

Using his savings, Milton opened a dirty book shop before moving into publishing in 1966. "When I saw all the rubbish published and sold for a tremendous amount of money, I said: 'I can do better than that.' Everybody was printing 36 black and white pictures in 36 pages. I started with a well-designed layout, with text and with color." (Porn Gold)

His biggest problem was finding models. "It was more difficult then. A girl showing herself off in the nude, spreading her legs, that was a big thing.

"At that time no magazine in black and white sold more than 5,000 copies. I had to sell more than 10,000 copies to get my money back. So we printed 10,000.

"I sold it myself. For example, I saw a man wheeling his little kiosk out at three o'clock in the afternoon because the evening papers were due. I went up to him because he had some Danish black and white magazines. I said, you can buy this one instead - Private No 1! 'How much did I pay for it?' he asked. I said eight crowns. 'All right, eight crowns - but what do I have to pay you?' Eight crowns. 'Jesus Christ,' he said, 'what am I supposed to sell it for?' Sixteen crowns. 'Oh, come on, forget it!' SO I said, all right, I'll give you three magazines. When you've sold them, give me a ring. The next day he called and said, 'Mr. Milton, I sold the magazines, could you come over with another five?'

SO I went over with another five. The next day, he called again, and said, 'Could you come over with another five?' Then I said to him, 'Listen to me, I'm not going to deliver five magazines. Take two hundred, pay for them cash, and when Private No. 2 is out, if you have any left I'll take them back and give you No. 2 for them.' Before the end of the month, he had sold a thousand. He made more money out of Private than he did from the rest of the kiosk. Then I realized the potential of the magazine."

Berthe slowly pushed the sexual envelope, making his pictures increasingly explicit. Not wanting to be harassed by the police, he took his photographs before going to press, to the Ministry of Justice for their approval.

In 1967, he began showing couples. Issue #8 showed penetration. Cum shots followed soon after.

Private's circulation passed 40,000 and it stayed ahead of its competition through the '90s. The magazine has stayed in basically the same format as its first issue though the number of pages has increased.

Milton appeared frequently in his magazine, holding his camera while naked women draped themselves over his expensive suit or Rolls-Royce. In editorials under the headline 'Moral?', he articulated his philosophy.

In Private No. 8, Berthe published a set of four photographs. Three show graphic acts of violence, the fourth shows a couple having sex.

"With the approval of the censoring authorities in question," Milton wrote, "abnormal and horrible acts of violence have been shown in the greater part of our civilization - distributed via newspapers, magazines, film and television.

"Murders and throat-cuttings are obviously matters within the limits of decency.

"Why is it then, that in so many parts of the world realism in love-making and sexual intercourse between human beings are not allowed to be shown?

"There is only one picture in this spread showing normal human behavior. Without violence, without bestiality, without hatred, without revenge. It is not a proof of the Swedish 'sin,' just normal good sense and honesty."

Many newspapers reproduced the set. All of them censoring the same photograph. Milton had made his point, writes Porn Gold.

Many of his models volunteered to appear in his magazine. "I got a letter from a woman in Germany saying that read Private with her husband and she would like to appear in themagazine with him. I was just taking off for Germany in a couple of days, so I said I would go and see her. Her husband was running a factory with five thousand employees. They had a beautiful house and two daughters, nine and tens years old. She was an ex-fashion model, a beautiful woman aged 39 or 40. When I showed up there, he said, 'I'm not certain I can do it in front of the camera, but you can use my wife. She would like to do it.' SO she came up to Stockholm and did the set, one lesbian scene and one with a young guy. She didn't ask for any money; I paid for the trip up to Stockholm, the hotel and food and so on. On another occasion I had a marvellous guy and a beautiful Thai girl. He was a fashion designer with one factory in France and one in Thailand. He met his wife there. They wanted to come over to Sweden and pose for the magazine. So, I brought them over and we had a marvellous time together. Later she was pregnant, and he wanted her to be photographed together with him and another guy, making love when she was heavily pregnant. They came up to Stockholm, and we shot the set." (Porn Gold)

With money flowing in from his magazine, Milton tried making films. "They were so good they were copied by the Danish and the German companies. When I sold a thousand, they sold ten thousand. A man from England came to Sweden to buy my films. My latest film, the best one, was ready and I had 200 copies. When he arrived, I put it in the projector and he said, 'Yes, it is a fantastic film you've done, but I saw it a few days ago in Amsterdam.' So before I'd even sold the film, it was copied in Amsterdam. Then I said to myself, no more, I'm going to do magazines. OK, they can make imitations, try to do the things I'm doing but at least they can't just push it in a machine and copy it."

Milton also published Pirate, a magazine devoted to saliromania - defiling sex usually by means of urination or defecation. "There is a certain demand for piss and shit. I can tell you about one person who phoned me from Colombia in South America and asked me if I could arrange to photograph a girl shitting in his mouth. I said I could and he came over. That is not unique, because lots of people are involved in shit and piss…. I came across a couple in France who were in that… I bought a set from a photographer and published it in Pirate No. 1. The response I got from all over the world was tremendous. Sexual angles are so varied that you can't believe what people want to do… We've stopped it now because I didn't like it." (Porn Gold)

By the late '80s, Private magazine sold about 100,000 copies an issue, 40,000 in Germany. That was more than twice the highest circulation of either of its leading competitors, Foxy Lady and Color Climax.

Some of Private's product is specially edited for American consumption by Los Angeles resident and RAME contributor S. Andrew Roberts, who snipped scenes from Private 21, 22. "…The ones that the powers that be determined they would have a hard time defending should a bible-thumping district attorney decide to charge them with obscenity…"

Taylor: "I beg to differ--they're rather the scenes that a big, profitable company like Private can make money without, and rather than refrain from short-changing us in the U.S. and taking the slim chance that their work could be attacked, they cut them out entirely and make their work a little more bland and unremarkable, just like a lot of other stuff out there. It's not as if this multinational company lacks the funds to defend their work if it should be attacked--they have more money than nearly anyone else in the business. It's rather that they don't care enough about their work or their customers to have the integrity to sell Americans the same product they sell everyone else, and they can get away with it because their videos are otherwise usually great and they can make money with them. I could understand fisting and peeing being cut from a Euro vid for the American market, because those are the most likely targets. However, rape scenes and incest are now being produced in several U.S. films that are from pretty big sources, like Elegant Angel's Robert Black. And if other companies, like Magma and a few others, show real incest between real-life sisters, then surely Private could show fake incest. They don't, because they don't have the integrity or the balls. For that, I fault them, and for that we all should--before everyone scales themselves back so much due to their own choices and cowardice that all we have is bland crap. VCA and VCX used to have the balls, and they offered a range of great classics with nearly everything intact--but now that they're so profitable with their bland BS, they don't offer their great classics that had rape or little girl themes or incest, except in hacked-to-bits versions that have been "cleaned up." Why? Only because they can afford to be "respectable" and sanitized--they'll make a profit with crap, so they give us crap." (newsgroup rec.arts.movies.erotica)

English Language Publisher Sought For Great Book On Private
2002-10-04 18:36:08

Thomas Sjoberg, thomas-sjoberg@swipnet.se, a Swedish journalist who's written a book on Berthe Milton Jr and Sr and their Private corporation, seeks an English language publisher for his work.

Private Affairs - A summary In November 1998 Private shares began to be sold at the Berlin Stock Exchange (Berliner Freiverkehr). Germany is Private's most important European market. A few months later Private had been accepted for trading on the U.S. Nasdaq National Market as the first adult entertainment company to be listed on the largest stock market in the world.

The global market for adult entertainment - video, strip joints, magazines, phone sex, escort service, cable-TV, satellite-TV and pay-TV, CD-ROM, Internet etc - was calculated by Private to be worth some 50 billion dollars in 1998. At least 30 of them should belong to the company, which released 70 new videos a year, distributed through some 50,000 points of sales, and toward the end of 1998 Private had over 210 titles in its library. The four magazines - Private, Pirate, Triple X, Private Sex - were printed in hundreds of thousands of copies and were pumped into the market through 180,000 points of sale around the globe, even in countries like Botswana, Malawi, Namibia, Zimbabwe and the Seychelles. Add to all this two, three new CD-ROM each month, the new DVD-techniques and all Privates other products like street wear and latex clothes, leather garments, sunglasses, energy drink, sex aids, fragrances, sex stimulating pills, condoms.

In Private's application for the listing on Nasdaq's National Market, the American porn market was presented, and thus Private's chances to succeed in the U.S. In 1996 the American people spent more than eight billion dollars on hard core videos, peep shows, live shows, cable-TV, sex aids, computer sex and sex magazines. There were more than 60,000 video film retailers and more than 25,000 of these rented films. The total sale of hard core videos was in 1997 more than 828 billion dollars.

There were four major cable-TV operators: Tele-Communications Inc., Time Warner Cable, MediaOne and Comcast. There were the soft core channels Playboy TV, AdulTVision, Spice Channel and The Adam & Eve Channel. And there were the seven hard core channels: Eurotica, Exotica, Exxxtasy, True Blue, X!, Xxxcite and XXXplore. The market for CD-ROM was estimated to some 300 million dollars a year.

The real potential is Internet. Private's Internet manager Björn Skärlén stated in the fall of 1999 that private.com had two million Internet visitors and 100 million hits each month. Private Club had 15,000 members doing 60,000 visits every day. They also made some 150,000 purchases a day. One year membership was 150 dollars and allowed access to private.com, Private Magazines, Private Videos, Private Style, Private Livesex, Private Channels with its videos, Private Models, Private Stars, Private Party, Private Pleasure, Private Line. Private sometimes cleaned its stock and sold old videos in package; four videos for 40 dollars.

This resulted in a turnover of 576,000 dollars the third quarter 1999, inclusive all Private's licence holders that used the company's products and hosted their own web sites. The sale through private.com increased by 45 percent each month. Add to this 250,000-300,000 dollars every month through sales on other web sites or shops that Private didn't control. The sale the same period in 1997 was maybe 30,000 dollars.

200 million people had access to Internet in the fall of 1999. In 2003 that figure would have increased to 500 millions. Private's future was definitely Internet and broadcasting. The goal was to have two million private.com members in 2003, out of a total of 500 million possible users. If so, Private would have a turnover of 300 million dollars. Around Private there is a global cooperation to make porn even more easily accessible. For instance, Spanish Telefónica, that transmit live sex-broadcastings, American Interpacket Networks, that is responsible for the satellite connection between Spain and the U.S. and Netsat Express, that provides DNS servers, and a Swedish Internet Service Provider company. Private's net sales in 2000 was 25,8 million dollars. The net income was 5,3 million. In the fall of 2001, Private was worth 450 billions dollars.

For a complete and updated financial information, see www.sec.gov In the beginning of the new millennium media and analysts hyped Private's Internet potential. On October 6th 2000 the renowned investment bank Ladenburg Thalmann & Co in New York published a report of the Private share and Private Media Group as a company and stated that the major growth potential was the company's Internet activities.

At private.com the members had access to every magazine published since 1965 - a total of 311 titles - and more than 700 video sequences from one hundred movies. They had access to sex games, chat rooms with porn models and pre views on new releases. The traffic through the web site consisted more than 100,000 links; 2,4 million visitors and 144 visited wed sites every month.

The Private Club mailing list had over 300,000 addresses and increased with some 1,500 new ones every day. The possibility to sell this computerized address bank could be very lucrative, according to Ladenburg Thalmann. Its analyze showed that Private was in a moment in hyper growth; the digitalization of the gigantic library was only the first step. It had already been profitable, a rare thing when it comes to Internet services. And with more than 200,000 points of sale Private operates a distribution network that reaches over 35 countries all over the world. The company was embarking on a major initiative to capture one-third of the market in which it competes, either alone or in conjunction with other solid industry players.

"We believe that Private Media Group is extremely well-positioned - both operationally and financially - as one of the largest owners and distributors of adult content in the world. If the company can continue to execute on its business plans, we expect Private to continue to be one of the few investable companies in its industry," Ladenburg Thalmann wrote in the report.

A Chapter Outline for Private with Milton and Milton

Below is a brief description of each chapter of the book.

Part I -- The Porn King (1926-2000)

Chapter 1 -- At the Minister of Justice Berth Milton Sr. pays a visit to the Swedish Minister of Justice to find out whether or not he can publish images of intercourse.

Chapter 2 -- The Tivoli King's Sons A brief look at Milton Sr.'s rather chaotic childhood.

Chapter 3 -- Henry Miller Letters from the famous author concerning the first issues of Private.

Chapter 4 -- At the Office The daily grind in the early days of Private.

Chapter 5 -- Family Man An introduction to Milton Sr.'s family.

Chapter 6 -- The Sex Lady A look at how Milton Sr. got the well respected, internationally renowned sex therapist Maj-Briht Bergström-Walan as columnist for the magazine.

Chapter 7 -- Lady f-ck Milton Sr. buys a Rolls Royce called Lady f-ck, and we meet the driver and girlfriend/model Lucienne Camille.

Chapter 8 -- Photo Shoots Stories from various sets.

Chapter 9 -- Miss Suck Milton senior meets British Jill Maddox/Georgena Rhodes, who becomes a model in Private, aka "Mademoiselle Baisser"; close ups while performing fellatio. Also becomes juniors mistress. She leaves senior when she meets count Bertil Bernadotte, second cousin to Swedish King Carl Gustaf. Tabloid press writes about the scandal: Porn actress marries into the Royal Family.

Chapter 10 -- Bankruptcy A description of the struggling business.

Chapter 11 -- Spain The story about Milton Sr.'s move from Sweden to Spain.

Chapter 12 -- On the Rocks A continued description of life in Spain.

Chapter 13 -- The Taxman Jan Pallin, brother of Milton Sr, finds himself with a heavy tax debt and suspects that this is senior's revenge for leaving him in Spain. One of seniors twin daughters fall in love with her uncle and they later get married and have two sons.

Chapter 14 -- The End Milton Sr. ends up in prison after abusing his 10-year-old son.

Part II -- The Porn Kid (1955-1990)

Chapter 14 -- Junior Milton Jr. decides he wants to take over the business.

Chapter 15 -- Örebro Bounce back to Milton Jr.'s childhood. Living with his father, the porn king, and working in the sex shop at age 11. The experience of watching his father filming and sleeping with models.

Chapter 16 -- Marlboro Time Milton Jr.'s years at sea.

Chapter 17 - The Health Club Milton Jr. starts a gym in Stockholm.

Chapter 18 -- Torpedo The police investigation into accusations that Milton Jr. hired thugs to collect money.

Chapter 19 -- Montemar Milton Jr. buys a hotel on the Spanish island of Ibiza from Selim Dangoor, aka "the banqir of the mob".

Chapter 20 -- The Bjuhr Cartel The police investigate Milton Jr.'s connections with infamous gangster.

Chapter 21 -- Manifestation Milton Jr.'s first years as the new porn king with scene of him burning his father's most hardcore photographs.

Chapter 22 -- Kim Swedish model does a photo shoot for Milton Jr. in Ibiza

Chapter 23 - The First Film A famous Swedish pop producer makes Private's first porn video.

Chapter 25 -- The Breakthrough Milton Jr. starts up process for worldwide distribution.

Chapter 26 -- Linda Milton Jr. meets his fiancée.

Chapter 27 -- Costa Rica Producer Peter Backman shoots first porn films ever made in Costa Rica

Chapter 24 -- Fist Funk Serious Swedish music producers write soundtracks to 27 Private videos.

Chapter 25 -- The Meeting in Cannes Milton Jr. meets Penthouse publisher Bob Guccione to discuss possible business cooperation.

Chapter 26 -- Private with Milton The author spends time with Milton Jr. during the summer of 1995.

Chapter 27 -- Struggling for the Empire Milton Sr. starts the battle with his son, claiming Milton Jr. has stolen the company and robbed him blind.

Chapter 28 -- Private Lady Milton Jr. gets bright idea: a floating porn fair in the Mediterranean. He is accused of treating models as sex slaves on the ship.

Chapter 29 -- Blackmail A well-known Swedish motorcycle gang threatens Milton Jr.: "Pay 40,000 dollars or else ..."

Chapter 30 -- The Stock Exchange Listing Private goes public on Nasdaq and the author meets Milton Jr. in Barcelona.

Chapter 31 -- The Accountant The author meets Tom Björklund at Ernst & Young.

Chapter 32 - The Mouth-to-Mouth Method Private becomes the world's leading Internet porn content provider.

Part 3-In Woodman Land

Chapter 33 -- Budapest Star porn producer Pierre Woodman arrives in Hungary in January 2000 to recruit new Private models.

Chapter 34 -- L'homme du bois The Woodman-story. The author meets him in Paris and is invited to dinner at his home.

Chapter 35 -- Room 301 Woodman casts young Hungarian women, films and has sex with them in room 301 at a respectable hotel in Budapest.

Chapter 36 -- Superf-ckers A detailed description of a photo shoot and a movie set.

Chapter 37 -- The Contract What the models have to sign in order to work for Private.

Chapter 38 - Sasha The sad story of an under aged Russian model who is mistreated in Bali and Paris by Woodman and other mean and finally ends up in Sweden as Milton Jr.'s protégé.

Part 4-Clean but Hunted (1990-2001)

Chapter 39 Millennium (This chapter is included in translation) Milton Jr. celebrates with huge party in Berlin and signs historic agreement with Penthouse.

Chapter 40 -- Call Girl Scenes from a movie set in Paris at the first Private/Penthouse production.

Chapter 41 -- Father-in-Law Makes Movies An interview with Jerker Swande, aka John Millerman, Milton Jr.'s father-in-law, who directed The Uranus Experiment and other films.

Chapter 42 -- Fundraising Pro The Private promotion machine, with scenes from the AVN Awards in Las Vegas.

Chapter 43 -- Image Consultant The story of how Milton Jr. is turned into a respected businessman, profiled in Forbes, Businessweek and other lifestyle magazines.

Chapter 44 --The Money Shot Describes how porn became hip in the 90s. A look at much money Private earns.

Chapter 45 -- The Boy Who Didn't Want to Pay Taxes Swedish tax authorities hunt Milton Jr. for $670,000 in tax debt. Milton Jr. is accused of deliberately spreading misleading information.

Chapter 46 -- Hells Angels Milton Sr. and Hells Angels start a business together. Hells Angels threaten to start producing magazines and videos under Private/Pirate label. Also describes how Milton Jr. stole the Private trademark from his father.

Millennium

BERLIN Six of Private's top actresses stepped onto the stage at Metropol, Berlin's largest discotheque. They were there for one reason --- to give two thousand people something in return for their patience by showing them what it was that Private actually sells.

It was two in the morning and the people gathered there were tired of the fashion show, the laser show, the latex show. They were tired of the huge crowd and waiting forever to get a drink at the bars. They were also all riled up from spending the day a the erotic fair Venus '99, where they'd walked around the displays and stared at crotches spread wide open, naked breasts with mousetraps clamped on the nipples, anal sex, gay sex, golden showers and "normal" sex.

They'd stood in line to get autographs from porn stars. They'd posed with women in front of their friend's cameras. Some got to grab the women's tits. And they'd seen the poster for A Private Night, which promised an "erotic show" with "original Private girls" in the colossal neo-classic dance club at Nollendorfplatz 5. At this point, the party had been going on for six hours.

The tickets for the show included free drinks and the alcohol, smoke, low lights and heavy dance music were only increasing expectations. The crowd had seen Monique, Bettina, Anastasia, Caroline, Vivienne and Wanda climb all over each other on the couch next to the VIP bar, where they sat with the cherubian, cigar smoking Hungarian adult film director István Kovacs and the tiny little skin head who went by the nickname, "the porn dwarf."

Private was the biggest and best in the industry --- that's how the company marketed itself on all fronts. Biggest because their name was the world's best-known brand for hard pornography. Biggest because the company pumped out 65 films a year and was leading online development. Biggest because it existed in 35 countries around the globe. Biggest because it was the only pornography company listed on the Nasdaq exchange in the United States. And best because Private made the world's most profitable porn. Best because it was the only company in the industry to translate its films into 11 languages. And --- in order to distinguish it as better than all the rest --- best because it was the only company that didn't allow its actresses to be on display at the erotic fair.

Visitors to the fair were, of course, disappointed. It was possible for people to think that Private was distancing itself from its target group, since only trade industry types were allowed into the displays or VIP lounge --- a rule that was clearly displayed on a neon sign. But that was the way Private wanted it.

People, not least the journalists in attendance, were supposed to learn that the company didn't work like the competition. Private was all about modern business with big ambitions to spread its special lifestyle concept throughout the world. And the business was always "tremendous," the impact was always "enormous," --- Berth Milton's favorite superlatives in his interviews with the German, English and French TV channels.

If you wanted to rise out of the porn gutter, it wasn't going to happen by being vulgar. The way to do it was to prove you could mingle with the elite crowd, and that's why Private's actresses would wear clothes when clothes were appropriate and strip down only as a special treat at the end of the evening. Before Venus '99, Private's promotion manager Ole Nicolausson had it all figured out --- the actresses would definitely take their clothes off, but not before Metropol and only as the last number of the night. Until then they would represent the company in either the recently launched Danny Cook line from Private Circle or in latex from the Private Collection.

Nicolausson's strategy was to get the girls to show their personalities even when they weren't naked. Journalists and folks in the industry would see the women as interesting people to talk to and interview. The girls would then add to the suspense by surprising VIP guests during dinner at Hotel Berlin before the party, where they would hand out tickets to the evening's festivities. And thus the powerful contrast in seeing them naked on the stage at Metropol.

Ten minutes only. Anyone who missed it would have to wait a year at least to get another chance. A catwoman in red and black latex with a huge rubber dildo strapped to her hips, a couple of half-naked dark-skinned girls and the traditional group of fitness-types with their swollen muscles and washboard stomachs brought the Latex Fantasy Show to a close.

Metropol's owner had decided to go for the Egypt look. The place was filled with sphinxes and Egyptian dogs and the walls were covered in hieroglyphs. A gigantic pharaoh statue was rolled out onto the stage and on it perched Lilo Wanders, the transvestite host of the German porn show called Wa(h)re Liebe. Over the loudspeakers a voice boomed, "Let's start the music, come on Private strip girls!" and Bettina, Monique and the other actresses climbed on stage. They started dancing, fumbling at first but then more provocatively.

The view was blocked occasionally by an irritating group of photographers who zoomed in on the actresses private parts as they removed their clothes --- a top and skirt from Private's latex line --- and threw them up to Wanders on the statue. None of them were used to being on stage, so Nicolausson didn't require any solo dances. But together in the spotlights they seemed comfortable and eventually they started going wild with each other on the edge of the platform.

A guy from the crowd gave Monique a glass of wine and with a mischievous look poured the liquid over her breasts. The girls continued to dance, but the number almost too long and the actresses did their best not to look bored. The only one who seemed to be having any fun so far was Monique.

The show closed a little clumsily and received an applause that sounded a touch let down. Afterward, in the VIP bar Monique and Bettina, both now fully clothed, were sitting on a couch with Philippe Dean, one of Private's few male stars. Dean held a microphone shaped like a dildo while the blond, sinful Monique and the dark-haired, somewhat more sophisticated Bettina sat like objects in front of German RTL's cameras. The TV team was there to film a segment for a show called Rendezvous, and Dean was supposed to talk and play with the girls.

He had done a few films with Monique so they were rather familiar with each other's anatomies. She had nothing against a few deep, wet kisses or him pulling up her top to rub her breasts. Bettina, who sat to his right, spread her legs and pulled up her skirt --- there was nothing underneath it --- and let Dean go to work with the microphone exactly as if it was a real dildo; all with RTL's cameras rolling and while Dean asked the typical questions about what kind of sex they liked and whether or not they had boyfriends.

The guys standing around the couch and at the bar who weren't laughing did their best to look unimpressed. "Okay, we're not making love here," Bettina said with a smile. She then closed her legs and ended Dean's sick attempt to interview her privates.

Berth Milton had been to enough trade fairs and parties that lately he attended very few of them. He had handed over responsibility and representation for Venice '99 to other people. He himself was in London to launch a new energy drink called Private Dynamite at Bill Wyman's bar Sticky Fingers. The distributor for the English and Irish market had ordered 30,000 cans. They came in various blue colors and had images of Private actresses on them --- not naked, just faces.

Milton had already generated substantial attention in Great Britain for the Private Circle clothes line, which was marketed as street-smart style. And he'd also received good media coverage for the fact that both Massive Attack and Prodigy had written music for The Uranus Experiment.

PARIS Berth Milton felt he had good reason to spend big on the Millennium party in Berlin. Not only because the company was going to celebrate its 35th birthday, but because things had never gone so well for Private. Its stocks fluctuated between fifteen and twenty U.S. dollars and the large investment banks were waiting in line for the next big move. The company's website was visited by hundreds of thousands of surfers every month.

The media watched the company and its leader like never before, and not just the traditional porno rags and men's magazines, but international business publications like Forbes and The Economist and glossy lifestyle magazines like Vogue, Germany's Max and Spain's Man. The BBC had done two documentaries on the societal complications of modern pornography with Private as a main example. The German channels, of course, were close behind. Even the Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet --- which had long chased after Private's founder, Berth Milton Sr., and then shifted its hunt to Milton Jr. --- had given its female editors a two-page spread to write about "the new, hip porn," under the headline "The porn king's new clothes."

It was quite a move from the elitist, indignant tone that had otherwise been evident in the newspaper's previous coverage of him. Milton was most proud of the fact that Private and the American porno mag Penthouse had during the summer of 1999 signed a partnership agreement and produced films in both hard and soft versions. The victory had a special sweetness to it.

Milton Sr. and Penthouse's founder Bob Guccione had always had plans for a cooperation of some kind. But dad had never quite been able to bring the agreement to a close. The news about the agreement between Private and Penthouse caused Private's stock to jump a few dollars, which led to a call from Nasdaq exchange officials to Johan Gillborg, CEO for Milcap Media Group --- the Swedish division of the Private concern that had administered Private's entry into the exchange --- in Nacka, outside of Stockholm, to find out what had happened.

Gillborg yawned, checked the press releases in his computer, found the one that seemed to have the right date and told the curious woman on the other end of the line about the agreement. The agreement, considered a historic one in industry circles, included co-production of films for video, DVD and cable TV. Everything was to be marketed in each of the company's magazines and on the Private and Penthouse websites, which meant Private's brand would have unsurpassed exposure worldwide.

To celebrate the agreement --- the crown on Private's recent marketing efforts in the United States --- at the end of October, the company invited journalists and industry insiders to L'Etoile, a restaurant in Paris, only a few weeks before the Millennium party in Berlin. Private's PR department took care of the press coverage by sending invitations to a select group of publications and TV channels; there were 100 journalists in all. Each guest would cost 300 francs for appetizers and drinks at the bar. The bill for 30,000 francs is the equivalent of what it would cost to buy an ad in the French trade magazine Hot Video.

"An interesting event and very cost effective," wrote Private's marketing department in an internal memo. L'Etoile was packed with industry people, reporters, cameramen and women. Star director and producer Pierre Woodman sat in one of the couches with his velvet-eyed stable of ladies, that night made up of a Tania (Russof, his wife), a Susanna, an Inga and no less than three Gabriellas; the actress' stage names occasionally resulted in rather comic effects.

The journalists who covered the branch were all there: Massimo Bonera, a small, balding man from European Promotion Masters in San Marino, who looked like he'd just emerged from the boys' room and whose glasses were steamed up from all the beauty that surrounded him; David Chrizo from Hot Video, who had been covering Private since 1993 and whose only assignment was to write about porn industry; the anemic Joel Daguerre, who was working on a TV documentary about Woodman; and Yves Trevalec from RTL in Luxemburg, who was always anywhere there was nudity and whose huge camera always looked like it was about devour the porn stars.

Private had also shown up in full effect: marketing director Mĺrten Kull; production director Javier Sánchez, who had started his Private career with Milton Sr. in the 1980s; J.C. Jougla, Milton Jr.'s personal image consultant and friend of Swedish supermodel Emma Sjöberg and Ace of Base star Ulf Ekberg; press secretary Xavier Escolar from the headquarters in Barcelona; and Nathalie Michel from Private's Paris office. Kull was especially pleased by the fact that the Canal Plus program Journal du Hard was there. They had filmed Milton in Barcelona, they had footage from the first Private/Penthouse production shot the day before and they had filmed the move of the majority of Private's Swedish operations down to Spain. Journal du Hard constantly had fifteen to twenty million viewers.

The hours passed. The party was missing its main ingredient. Everyone was waiting for Berth Milton. Kull was worried that the Canal Plus crew was going to get tired and leave before his boss arrived. Extremely late --- fog in London and thrown off flight schedules --- Milton finally arrived like a presidential candidate on the campaign trail. Flashing cameras and the bright lights from TV cameras followed him from the sidewalk into the restaurant. Milton shook hands and nodded his head left and right as recognized people in attendance. He was wearing a three-piece business suit, a white shirt and tie and was clutching his cognac-colored leather briefcase. The hero had arrived.

Milton apparently hadn't had time to eat any breakfast that morning, having jumped straight into work at 7 a.m., but during the day Private's stock had gone up fifteen percent. He had just been at the prestigious Distripress conference in Rome, where new continents that had opened themselves up to his Nasdaq-listed hard pornography. Private's products would now be distributed in counties like New Caledonia, Ivory Coast and Tahiti. Milton made a point of it, just to show that Private was breaking down all boundaries.

In addition, in the next few days he would sign a contract with one of the largest Spanish and South American media concerns, a contract that would give Private exclusive rights to provide the porn content for a new Internet portal for the Spanish-speaking world. He hugged Pierre Woodman and kissed Tania Russof on the cheek. Woodman introduced him to the other models on the couch and Milton greeted them as politely as he did everyone else. He did interviews and, as expected, said everything was "tremendous" and "enormous."

Canal Plus had arranged a cell phone call between Milton and Bob Guccione and Milton was forced to dial the number to Penthouse's office in New York a handful of times before finally getting the legend on the line. The TV cameras captured it all as the two exchanged the standard phrases about the success that awaited them and as Milton reported on the fantastic reception in Paris.

Milton stayed at the party for a couple hours. Then he'd head back to the hotel to sleep and be on his way early the next morning. He was careful about partying, and he never rested on his laurels. But he had the world in his hands. The victories kept coming.

Back in Barcelona were Linda and the kids. And this father's persistent legal attacks were going nowhere. Berth Milton was 44 years old. The flowing blond hair had been trimmed long ago for a style that fit better with business meetings and boardrooms. He usually has a light suntan and looked to be in good physical shape. The market for Private --- films, magazines, sex-enhancing drugs, websites, clothes, sport drinks --- was insatiable. Milton was even talking about creating special "Private Resorts" in exotic places where couples could disappear into seclusion.

The future for Private, as Milton saw it, was that people wouldn't be able to do anything in life without in one way or another encountering the company's products. "We create a lifestyle and we do it very successfully," he had said to journalists in Paris. Berth Milton rang in the new millennium with a confirmation: everything seemed possible. It was almost too good to be true.

Chatper 37

Budapest. The Taverna is a non-descript, four-star Central European hotel in the center of Budapest on Váci utca, a popular walking street lined with shops selling furs, jewelry, souvenirs, jeans, shoes, porcelain dolls, sunglasses and overpriced knick-knacks. Over the hotel's entrance facing the shopping street, national flags fluttered listlessly in the afternoon breeze. There was France, Germany, England, Sweden and the EU-flag with its ring of gold stars on a blue background; an indication of the country's anxious dream of full membership in the enormous bureaucratic colossus known as the European Union, which is supposed to guarantee peace and harmony in Europe and a more even distribution of its many resources.

The Taverna was a member of the Hungarian Convention Bureau --- according to the hotel's website, a prestigious designation --- and confident that it was an important part of the country's official representation and incentive tourism program. The hotel's various restaurants were responsible for catering when the country's most important politicians were hosting guests. Indeed, the hotel had been named Official Caterer to Parliament.

Pierre Woodman checked in to the Taverna on a dry, cold snow-less Friday in January 2000. The hotel proceeded with its standard, uniform guest service. The restaurant filled at breakfast, lunch and dinner with hungry, whiny tourists. The man at the piano played his eternal mellow music whether you liked it or not.

And then, of course, there was the discreet treatment of the regular guest in room 301.

Woodman was there to make sure Private had new models. He was at one end of the company's giant porn factory. He was there to drain Hungary of its young, beautiful girls, who wanted some of the wealth that might be waiting for them just around the corner, who were intrigued by the money, travel and possibly the sex itself --- and to that extent they knew the real reason behind Woodman's work at the Taverna. Or perhaps they really thought there was a chance to land a proper fashion job.

Woodman said there were always girls who liked sex --- they either fantasized about it or they had just started to explore it with their boyfriends. Some had slept with a bunch of people; others were completely inexperienced but curious.

It was, of course, no coincidence that Woodman was in Budapest. Porn had been legal in Hungary for a couple of years (the country had historically been "the exit to the east," as he put it) and he compared it to Sweden, where he said you could always meet a woman at a bar and go home with her for the night, but you could never get a Swedish girl to take part in a casting, except on rare occasions.

In Hungary, it was the opposite. Here you could rarely count on a one-night-stand, but it was always easy to find girls for a casting. It was partly about money, he said. In Sweden, women earned enough money to resist his propositions. Swedish women saw Woodman as a monster. That he could live with. In Hungary, though, money was a powerful motivator. The chance to earn 300 - 500 U.S. dollars for the first movie was often an irresistible temptation. But there was another reason he was there. The debate about and awareness of sexual equality hadn't developed in Hungary as much as it had in the West. And, Private's products weren't for sale on the market in any easily recognizable way. The risk for the girls of being exposed at the magazine stand was minimal, which, in turn, lowered the risk that their families would find out about what they were doing.

Woodman was at the hotel to find girls that fit his, and Private's, requirements -- girls that fit the porn industry template based on 10 years of experience of what sold best. Currently that meant anal sex and double penetration, cascades of sperm on the girls' faces and gangbangs. And blowjobs, of course, or fellatio, or whatever you want to call it -- it was a classic scene that always satisfied the male audience.

Woodman wanted the models needed to look as young as possible, he was milking the Lolita trend for all it was worth. But he was also careful not to work with anyone below the 18-year-old age limit. That had happened once before; when Private found out about the faux pas, distribution of the film was stopped immediately, at least in the French market. If it had come out that one of the models - her name was Sasha - hadn't yet turned 18 when Golden Triangle was filmed in Bali, it could have caused Private's brand irreparable damage before its upcoming entry to the Nasdaq stock market in the United States. This was aside from the purely legal and moral aspects of the situation, of course.

The models would also be the most beautiful young women one could find. "Baby faces," was what Woodman was looking for. And they should be from the East - Hungary, the Czech Republic and Russia. Woodman had agencies in Budapest, Bratislava and Moscow and the local markets went crazy when he came to town.

For Woodman, being a pornographer was a gift from God and he never tried to hide what he was doing. It's possible he occasionally stepped over the line, but who was checking? According to his own calculations, he met between 600 and 800 girls a year, 250 of which would end up in a Private production. He had sex with about 250 of the hopeful models each year. In a single weekend he could meet 40 - 60 girls. Every month he spent between 20,000 and 30,000 U.S. dollars searching for new faces. The constant search for young women cost him about 1 million German marks every year, he said.

"And it's my money, not Privates. But I don't complain you know, it's my game. Berth never asks me to do this. He knows about it and is happy. And that's why I believe he respects me. He knows that I am 100 percent focused on Private's and Berth's success."

Woodman was accompanied by Gabriella Wolf, a 25-year-old blond who had been in a number of Private productions but had decided to give it up to become the Frenchman's talent scout in the Hungarian capital. She ran the Hungarian Private Agency together with Laszlo -- or Leslie, as it said on his business card - a former car salesman, ex boyfriend to Gabriella and a pleasant guy with kind eyes who wore stonewash jeans, a loud shirt and sneakers. Gabriella, Miss Hungary 1994, was pretty, easy to talk to and said herself that she liked to get in the face, preferably from many guys at once.

Woodman had a busy weekend ahead of him. He was going to meet up to 40 girls between 18 and 20 years old. He would personally call a few of them up to room 301, interview them about their experience and sexual fantasies, ask them to take off their clothes and take up the position on the bed - which meant getting on all fours, spreading your legs, arching your back and sticking your ass up in the air - and then comment on their physical assets.

He would videotape the whole thing and take stills with his Polaroid. And he would have sex with a bunch of them, in order to show them that anal sex was the ultimate pleasure. Even that would be filmed so that it could later be edited, but not censured, and sold on the market as part of the Woodman Casting series, which was Private's third-best-selling film label. So far about 20 or 30 of the films had been released and they were all authentic.

On each VHS tape, there was room for a handful of castings with the girls, who later signed contracts, took HIV tests and were then made-up, shaved, plucked and styled and used in two or three Private productions, films and/or magazines. That was the usual lifecycle for a model. Woodman didn't want to work with girls longer than that. He wanted to work with virgins, which meant they were virgins in the true sense of the word or hadn't yet worked in the porn industry. Only a few were promoted by Private and industry media as stars, allowing their face to pop up in films and magazines for many years.

Aside from his duties in room 301, that weekend Woodman would also find time for a photo shoot for one of Private's magazines and a scene for the third part of the gonzo-series known as Superf-ckers.