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Ira Levine Interview

We talk by phone Tuesday, February 22, 2005.

The previous night I reread much of the 1996 book Coming Attractions, which Ira wrote with the late UCLA psychiatrist Dr. Robert Stoller.

Nina Hartley is in the background as Ira (born 6/13/52) speaks.

Luke: "Tell me about your string of early successes that I read about in Coming Attractions?"

Ira: "Possibly an example of early potential gone wrong... I started writing early. I was one of those guys who always knew what he wanted to do. In the third grade, when people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I said, a writer.

"At age 14, I submitted a freelance fiction piece to Esquire. They didn't want that. They were doing a piece on teeny bopper types in 1968. They wanted me to submit a 1500-word essay on what it was like to be that age. They published it [in January issue?].

"That led to me getting a local column in the Denver Post [Ira grew up in Denver]. This was during the hippie anti-war movement era and they were looking for input for young people. I wrote a weekly opinion column when I was 16 and it was picked up for syndication [by the Des Moine Register syndicate] for four years. At our top, we were running in 120 newspapers a week.

"My first career ended when I was about 20."

Levine's parents were "classic upper-middle-class Jewish liberals." His father was a realtor.

Ira's older brother went the full journalism track and worked at CNN for 14 years.

Ira dropped out of high school in the eleventh grade. He did some talk radio from age 16 to 21.

"I already had a career. I already knew everything. Why should I stay in school? Just ask any 16-year old."

Ira moved to New York at age 21 to "lead the bohemian life of the writer." He was active in the anti-Vietnam war movement.

"I was always interested in sex. I recognized early in my life that my sexuality was differently oriented from other young people.

"I read voraciously about sex. I was a personal liberationist of the sort that was popular in the 1960s and '70s. It was natural that I would be drawn to a world where sexuality was open and unabashed."

Ira speaks so rapidly he has to force himself to take a breath.

"During my freelance journalism career, I interviewed Margaret St. James, who had just founded COYOTE [Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics, organization to decriminalize sex work and to make the lives of sex workers better]. It was the first sex worker organization in this country to achieve any notoriety.

"I found her fascinating. One thing led to another. We got to know each other better [including sexually] as a result of that interview. Much better. I moved out to San Francisco in early 1976. I left in July 1977. Much of that time, we lived together. I got the opportunity to work as a volunteer for COYOTE. I edited their newsletters. Margo was good at figuring out what people were useful for and putting them to work.

"I went on with my other writing efforts. It stuck in my head that [sex work] was an interesting subject area I'd like to know more about.

"I moved to Los Angeles in June 1983 with the vague notion of becoming a mainstream screenwriter. I got my first introduction to the world of porn because it was interwoven with the mainstream. Many mainstream aspiring screenwriters wrote for porn as a nighttime gig. I got a couple of script writing jobs [for porn] through the friend of a friend."

Luke: "At what point did you realize that you were fated to spend most of your [adult] life within the sex industry?"

Ira: "You find yourself in what you thought would be a two-minute situation and it's much more comfortable than it should be. Through those early contacts, I found myself working as a manager at a B-D [Bondage and Discipline] club in downtown Los Angeles. The manager job was no job at all. Your job was to time sessions and put money in a drawer. For a writer, you can't get a better job.

"I had a primitive small computer and I'd drag it into the office and sit and write all day and casually observe the comings and goings.

"One of the women who worked there did some parttime work as a porn performer, Tantala Random, got me [in 1984] a one-time gig rigging bondage on what was supposed to be Marilyn Chambers' last picture (Private Fantasies 6). They were going to pay me $100 to tie up Marilyn Chambers.

"It was such a great gig. Marilyn was sweet. She said, 'I don't care that's it comfortable. Just make me look good.'

"I felt that this was the job I was born to do. Who needs work?

"Of course my next crew jobs weren't like that. On my next gig, I graduated to C-light operator."

Luke: "How much effort have you put in the last ten years to making it in Hollywood?"

Ira: "None.

"I have been strong-armed into what some proposal for some crazy thing that somebody wanted to do.

"My experiences in the mainstream entertainment industry quickly convinced me that it was a far more venal, cruel, miserable, frustrating, rotten business than porn could ever be. When people put down porn as a terrible, degrading, horrible job, I just wonder if they've ever worked at a major studio.

"I had some experience working in mainstream and I met a much worse class of person overall.

"I'm sure I will get in trouble for saying that.

"I found the porn community friendlier. The work was steadier. In mainstream, you can make a killing but not a living. In porn, you can work regularly and have some semblance of a life.

"When I hear people complaining about this business, I think people came in here first and didn't have regular jobs in the real world, which can be unpleasant and exploitative.

"The grifters [thieves] you meet in mainstream entertainment are a lot slicker and therefore they are likely to be able to take much greater advantage.

"I did have a couple of [mainstream] screenplay deals. One produced mainstream feature but I am not going to name it because I am afraid someone might go see it."

Luke: "Go ahead and name it."

Ira: "All right. It's a picture called Man Outside (1986).

"In 1978-80, I worked as a staff writer for DeLaurentiss Productions in London. I got no credits out of that either."

Luke: "Do you have any children?"

Ira, who's slept with hundreds of women: "Nope."

Luke: "Are you sure?"

Ira: "Yep. I have always been careful.

"I have one prior marriage -- from 1986-88. It ended amicably. She's a body piercer."

Luke: "How did the publication of the book Coming Attractions affect your life?"

Ira: "There were some controversial things said in there and some people were critical, but overall, I would say it didn't have a great impact. I was settled in [porn]. It didn't have a huge impact on my life. I thought it would have more of one. I thought it would either jumpstart some literary career or it might have some impact on the work I was already doing in porn. But other than a generous review in AVN and some comments that generated, it came and went quickly."

Luke: "Are you still prone to the depression and mood disorder that Coming Attractions talks about?"

Ira: "The book boosted my morale and there were some other important things that happened in my life then and I began to recover from [depression].

"I began to feel much more centered and secure as my 30s progressed. By the time I was 40, I read back over that stuff and said, who was that guy?

"The last 15 years things have been on the upswing for me, and no medication..."

Luke: "How important do you think the desire to harm is in erotic excitement?"

Ira: "Stoller argued in Observing the Erotic Imagination that "the erotic imagination is energized by an element of harm."

"Stoller's view, which I share, is that the subliminal presence of a feeling of risk/danger/aggression/harm contributes to sexual fantasies, even if the person doing the fantasizing pictures him/herself as the object of some imaginary harm. The desire to harm is quite a different matter, involving direct intent turned toward another. While certainly some sexual fantasies partake of that desire, it doesn't have to apply in specific to every instance for Stoller's speculation to have some validity.

" In short: element of harm - desire to harm - two different things.

"The desire to harm is not a significant element. The desire for an element of risk, edginess and danger is a piece of the puzzle."

Luke: "Do you think that a significant part of the reason men buy pornography is to get vicarious revenge against women?"

Ira: "No. I don't think a vengeful desire motivates even the most hostile porn. That is a more pure animal aggression."

Luke: "Do you think the percentage of men who fear or hate women is higher among male porn consumers than the general public?"

Ira: "Lower. I think regular porn consumers are men who are fascinated by women. I don't think they have the bitter hostility of people who are sexually repressed. I think you will truly find hostility towards women among anti-pornography types who want to ban reproductive choice. Those are the guys who hate women."

Luke: "How did the book affect your relationship with Jim Holliday?"

Ira: "Not at all, oddly. I agree that he doesn't come across in that book as the most likable person. When I talked to him afterwards, in that inimitable fashion of his, he spun it so that it was really a book about him. Rather than seeing it as an attack on him, he saw it as a celebration of his genius in bringing all these bright people together."

Luke: "How long did you know Jim, how well, and how friendly were you?"

Ira: "Long, not terribly, and not terribly friendly. Our disagreement was not over the book but about my fundamental beliefs about porn which he did not share. I felt that porn could be a quality artistic medium. I felt a mission to make porn more intelligent and pitch it towards a more sophisticated audience. Jim saw me as a guy with subversive ideas who would wreck the fun of porn as he had always constructed it.

"Jim and I ran in different circles."

Luke: "How long did you know Robert Stoller and how frequently did you talk to him?"

Ira: "I knew Bob from 1985-89. I saw him at least twice a week. We spent hundreds of hours together.

"He was doing a parallel project on BDSM (bondage domination sado-masochism players) for his book Pain & Passion. In the course of that, it came to light that I was also working in porn. I got to see him regularly for that."

Luke: "How much of a role does the Mafia play in porn?"

Ira: "These days? Very little. The word 'mafia' means nothing in the modern world. It's a shorthand for lazy journalism. I don't think any one group of people has much influence over the direction of the industry anymore. I think that's old."

Luke: "Would it bother you if the role of organized crime was greater than you realized?"

Ira: "I prefer organized crime to disorganized crime. Would it bother me? No more than a lot of other things bother me."

Luke: "Have you gotten paid directly by organized crime?"

Ira: "No."

Luke: "Would it bother you if you were working for an outfit that was funded and controlled by organized crime?"

Ira: "It's almost impossible to draw a paycheck anywhere without somebody somewhere down the line having behavior or politics of which you wouldn't approve. No, I don't consider that to be part of my area of concern. My concern would be over working for anyone I considered a bad person. I judge my personalities, not by their friends."

Luke: "Do you consider people in organized crime bad people?"

Ira: "I don't know. If they are criminals, they are probably not nice people, though that is not necessarily true."

Luke: "Do you want to turn a blind eye towards the role of organized crime in the [porn] industry?"

Ira: "I never turn a blind eye to anything."

Luke: "What percentage of your peers would work in child pornography if it was legal?"

Ira: "None. Zero. Zip. It's not a legality matter."

Luke: "All the pioneers of the industry [Reuben Sturman, Paul Wisner, Milton Luros], when it was quasi-legal, did deal in child pornography."

Ira: "Do you know that?"

Luke: "Yep. All the pioneers of the industry did when they could. After Congress passed stiff laws against in it 1977, they stopped."

Ira: "I don't know that's true. No one has ever told me anything to that effect. Two, I think there's been a general consciousness raising in the society about the need to protect children from exploitation in labor of all sorts. The porn industry follows the curve of public opinion. You'd have a hard time finding anyone in porn who says it is ok to shoot minors."

Luke: "Do you support lowering the age of consent?"

Ira: "To 16. Young people are going to experiment with sex. I'm not sure that criminalizing the first few years of it does anything constructive."

Luke: "Would the Ira Levine of Coming Attractions regard the industry as responsible enough to police itself vis-a-vis sexually transmitted diseases?"

Ira: "Yes."

Luke: "In the book you say that porn equals prostitution. Have you changed your mind on that?"

Ira: "Out of all the things I said that I wish I could unsay, that would be first on the list. Bob Stoller tried everything to talk me out of that. He even disagreed in the book. I was trying to draw a parallel between porn and other kinds of sex work.

"There's always been a snobbery among people in different branches of sex work. I do this but I don't do that. I strip but I don't hook. I work in BDSM but I don't escort. As time has gone by, there's emerged a more communitarian feeling among sex workers.

"The community of performers has expanded it has brought in a greater variety. When I came in, there was a couple of hundred. Now there's a couple of thousand."

Luke: "On page 94, you say about interviewing people in porn: 'Almost all will give you a variation of the party line... You're almost always better off with a younger... performer. Out of the mouths of these babes come things closer to the truth.'

"I'm thinking about you. You were far more critical and far less concerned about the consequences of what you said in this book than you are today in this interview."

Ira: "Yes, because like lots of young people, I did not know as much as I thought I did.

"I wouldn't retract that initial observation...but they can also be wrong because they may not know much. The longer I've been here, the less obvious and clearcut things seem to be. Reality has set in. You watch people over 20 years and you see all kinds of contradictory behavior.

"That is what Robert was trying to tell me at the time.

"I was more blunt then but I wasn't more accurate."

Luke: "You're certainly more party-line today."

Ira: "I don't know that there is such a thing as a party-line."

Luke: "You said in the book: "By the time...you've been in this business ten years, it's very central to your life. So any attack on this business is an attack on your whole...life. You defend it to your last breath. Nina [Hartley] gets up there with a baseball bat ready to take on anyone with anything bad to say about the X-rated business...' That sounds like you."

Ira: "I've never been an uncritical defender of everything about this business. If I were, I'd have a much easier and more profitable life. I've made my share of enemies here by being outspoken.

"People who oppose pornography have a far more hostile agenda towards sex than anyone in the industry possibly could. I will defend this business against people who vary from cynically corrupt to simply fanatical and loony."

Luke: "You set up a straw man. Everybody in the industry has parts of the industry they're willing to criticize. That doesn't make you different from Steve Hirsch or Paul Fishbein. The degree to which you are willing to criticize the industry isn't much different from the degree to which all the leaders of the industry are willing to criticize it."

Ira: "I agree. You will find in any industry that people who stay in it for a long time wouldn't do so if they thought it was a bad enterprise. If I had a broad systemic critique of the industry as a whole, I'd be making that from the outside, not the inside."

Luke: "Why on earth would you equate opposition to pornography with opposition to sex when many of the religious people who oppose porn are married, have kids and may well have flourishing sex lives?"

Ira: "That depends on how you construct the idea of sexuality. If you construct it narrowly, then of course they are not enemies of sex. If you consider sex should only be for procreation, I consider that a narrow view that is unfriendly to any sex but their own."

I'm opposed to many forms of fire, such as fires that burn down homes and blaze out of control. I support other forms of fire, such as those fires that warm a fireplace and cook a meal. Anti-porn crusaders support sex within marriage but oppose sex publicly performed and distributed. That's hardly anti-sex anymore than opposing forest fires makes you anti-fire.

I'm sure there are forms of sexual expression, such as rape and incest and adult-child sex, that Ira wants to stay criminalized. And I am sure that most anti-porn activists are not agitating to make non-marital sex between adults, in private, illegal. So both sides support criminalizing various forms of sexual expression and legalizing other forms. It is just as dishonest to call one side anti-sex as it is to call pornographers pro-incest because some of their films romanticize incest (the original Taboo films where Tom Byron has sex with his "mom" Gloria Leonard).

Luke: "Why are you using this dishonest argument that people opposed to pornography are opposed to sex when almost everyone opposed to pornography supports sex within certain contexts?"

Ira repeats his answer. "Why aren't they satisfied observing those particular views in their own life and not force them on everyone else?"

Luke: "You are forcing your views on everyone else that pornography should be legal."

Ira: "I'm not trying to force those views."

Luke: "Do you believe that pornography should be legal?"

Ira: "Yes. But I wouldn't force anyone else to agree."

Luke: "You want to create a country where pornography is legal."

Ira: "Absolutely."

Luke: "So that's forcing your views on everyone else."

Ira: "I hardly agree. I'm not trying to force people to consume it. They're the ones who want to make it not free to do it. Let's not try to switch shoes on feet. I'm not trying to restrict other people's choices. They're trying to restrict my choices."

Luke: "You're trying to restrict their choice to live in a society not drenched with pornography."

Ira: "They may want to do that, but unfortunately for them, they represent a minority in society, and even if they represented a majority, they would still not have the right to force their restrictive views on how sexuality should be expressed."

Luke: "You don't see any part of what you're advocating as forcing your beliefs on other people?"

Ira: "Not in the slightest. If they don't like it, don't look.

"I believe the charge that society is being buried in pornography is false. You still have to be 18. You still have to get access to it. You still have to seek it out and find it. It's perfectly possible to live a long life in this society with very little exposure to pornography."

Luke: "On page 95 of your book, you say: 'No matter how often an outwardly charming, intelligent, likable, well-adjusted person sits up there on the Donahue Show and says, 'We're charming, likable, well-adjusted human beings,' no one is fooled. Everyone knows they're looking at a carefully trained, carefully chosen anomally. The public's idea about this industry is probably not far removed from the kind of industry it is: exploitative, with marginal personalities who can't integrate into society, self-destructive people living self-destructive lives.'"

Ira: "Wow, that was certainly a powerful statement. Good writing.

"Gee, I wish I could summon that level of indignation these days. That may have been a reflection of my own frustrations with the business. I was trying to break in.

"This business has changed a great deal in the years in between."

Luke: "Is it any less exploitative? Are the people in it any less self-destructive?"

Ira: "Yes to both questions. In those days, it was an industry with few options and choices. I meet all kinds of people now who are different from the people I met in 1984 when I first came in. There were more rebellious personalities working out issues choosing a career with more of an outlaw tinge. I don't think that is as true anymore. I think it has become an arm of the entertainment business overall. There is hardly a thing that you could say about pornography that you could not say with accuracy about the mainstream entertainment business, which is a harsh environment that chews up newcomers even more than porn does."

Luke: "What percentage of talent in this industry would you guess were sexually abused as kids?"

Ira: "It's not knowable. Another generalization I made back then was that there was a whole lot of them. I don't have any kind of statistical answer."

Luke: "Do you have a commonsensical answer?"

Ira: "It's not a matter of commonsense. There's a lot of sexual abuse out there. Perhaps in porn more people admit it."

Luke: "From the top of page 97: 'Most people in this business refuse to face the responsibilities of adult life. This business lets people extend the dysfunctional pattern of their families late into adulthood. That's why, no matter how old they are, performers are always referred to as boys and girls. They will always be infantilized by the business, and they will always be in the role of incest and abuse and molestation victims...'"

Ira: "Robert [Stoller] pleaded with me not to put that in there. I wish I'd listened. I don't think that was true then and I don't think it is true now.

"I had some sexual abuse in my own background and I think that colored my view of everything. I think I was talking more about me."

Luke: "Here you are talking about Nina and yourself: 'We both agreed we were self-invented characters. She is a sexual utopian, a believer in partner sharing and nonmonogamy, like me. A relentless propagandist for her point of view -- how society would be better off if everybody adopted these unconventional views: 'Pornographic films should be propaganda.' I hate propaganda... Propaganda is a dishonest art form."

Ira: "Some of that was said tongue-in-cheek. Nina and I were friends then.

"What I meant to say is that I am not a sexual utopian in the same way. I think sex has a light and a dark side. Nina, to a much greater extent, is an optimist.

"I don't think that if people led more sexually liberated lives, society would be a more harmonious place. It would be a place with happier individuals. Overall, do I think sexual repression is harmful for society? Yes. Do I think that porn has the primary responsibility for spreading that message? No. It's an artistic creative entertainment medium."

Luke: "Do you and Nina have many arguments about propaganda versus art?"

Ira: "No. I can't remember we've ever had that argument.

"I can be accused of being unconstructive in the same way as [playwright] Samuel Beckett. I'm likely to point to the unpleasant fact even if it is not necessarily the most important fact. It is just the one that engages my attention. Nina is a much sunnier personality."

Luke: "I haven't heard you pointing at unpleasant facts Beckett-like in our interview."

Ira: "Those facts are not necessarily about pornography."

Luke: "The Ira Levine in this book used to point out a lot of unpleasant facts about pornography."

Ira: "I'm not sure they were facts. They were opinions."

Luke: "Is it convenient that all your changes of opinion from this book make it easier for you to work in this industry?"

Ira: "No, they don't make it easier for me. Few offices that I go in to pitch deals have a copy of Coming Attractions sitting on the desk."

Luke: "I know, but if you were to say the same things now that you said in that book you'd be ostracized."

Ira: "Hardly. I can't think there's anything you could say that would prevent you from getting work. There are people who've had dark visions of sexuality who've done well in this business, such as Greg Dark. He never made any secret that sexual alienation powered his work. He got into this business by making an anti-porn documentary. He showed that around to various producers as his demo reel. That's what got him hired."

Luke: "It would be hard for you to be chair of AIM if you kept saying some of the things in this book."

Ira: "It was some of the things I was saying in that book that got me the chair of AIM. AIM will always be a controversial lightning rod. One of the reasons I became involved in AIM is that it is known that I am not in the pocket of any particular interest."

Luke: "Page 220: 'Whereas when we finish our day's work, we go into lives no more adult than those depicted on the tape.'"

Ira: "We get more ambitious people these days. It used to be more about people drifting in here looking for a quick buck. Now you have people with the dream of becoming big names and big celebrities. It's no longer an employer of last result. It's something people seek out. It used to be a place for unambitious people. Half of the guys of whom I would've said that 20 years ago now own big thriving production companies. It's not the slacker business it once was."

Luke: "You said: 'Part of the reason you see depression and suicide among us is genetic and biochemical and part is low self-esteem resulting from the way we live, the way society views the way we live, and out inability to see it as anything but moral weakness. I see this in myself. I see myself as a pretty well-adjusted madman.'"

Ira: "That was my opinion of myself then. I was projecting on to the world my own gloomy mindset. That same thing could be said of many of the aspiring personality types in mainstream. Suicide and depression and other things associated with porn are equally to be found in other branches of entertainment."

Luke: "Another quote: 'Not that there aren't rewards in this life. You get validation... Overall, the rewards have been less than the price paid. Five years ago I would have said, 'No, no, I love the way I am. It's liberating, it's wonderful, everyone should be like me, I wouldn't let it go for anything.' My feeling now is that I would be better off without it. I bought at too high a cost the existential freedom I enjoy as one of society's outlaws. The older I get, the less appealing it is.'"

Ira laughs: "That's depression talking. It's not as bad as if you went back to my highschool newspaper and read some of the things I wrote then. There's a narcissistic quality to that writing.

"I don't feel that way now. Now my life is good."

Luke: "Another quote: 'When you get performers to talk about incest, you will be amazed... Performers want to deny this is a factor... Y saying, 'Yeah, I was molested a couple of times when I was a kid, but I don't tell people that on talk shows. I don't want them to conclude that that's the reason I ended up as an X-rated performer...'"

Ira: "To some extent, that is true. People in this industry have been tarred as a bunch of victims who are only acting out the things that were imprinted on them when they were young. They are understandably defensive and prickly about talking about the things that happened to them when they were young. Most people lie about [these things]. It does not make for good social conversation."

Luke: "If you had to choose between a Marxist and a Freudian interpretation for why people go into sex work, would you still choose a Freudian one?"

Ira: "Nope. I would choose neither.

"If you look at sex work worldwide, the Marxist model works better. People are poor and their opportunities to advance themselves are small."

Luke: "What do you think the Ira Levine of 1988 would say if he heard the previous 90-minutes?"

Ira: "I think that Ira Levine would go, you go, dude. I never knew you had it in you."

Luke: "Any chance that the Ira Levine of 17 years ago would say that the Ira Levine of 2005 is Panglossian [over-positive]?"

Ira: "No."

Luke: "Have you become a relentless propagandist for porn?"

Ira: "No. I may be relentless but I'm not much of a propagandist. That's the tag people try to hang on me. Early in my porn career, the tag they used to try to hang on me was spoilsport. Wet blanket. Killjoy. Guy who should keep his mouth shut about this business. Now, you're in the pocket of the bosses. You're speaking for the guys who run the industry."

Luke: "And none of those perceptions of you that you just derided have truth to them?"

Ira: "I don't think so. I still manage to piss off people with things I say."

Luke: "Nobody who could put money in your pocket."

Ira: "I've quit all kinds of jobs."

Luke: "You're not saying things today that could take money out of your pocket."

Ira: "Hmm. The money that comes into my pocket is mostly derived from one or two sources with which I have no problem."

Luke: "When was the last time you quit a job in this business that was putting significant money in your pocket?"

Ira: "In 1997. I quit has head of production of a company where I was unhappy about the way they were treating people. There were a whole bunch of quits on principle in 1993-94 in the first HIV-scare. Since then, I've refused to work for companies that do not allow condom use. I used to think that condoms should be mandatory in the industry. I now know that's a pipedream and can't happen. I still feel that should be an option available to performers. That puts me out of line of a whole bunch of jobs that could put money in my pocket. I'd say that just about 60% of possible directing gigs went out the door. I won't even take a gig with companies who underpay people.

"As one gets older, one choosees one's battles more carefully. You can't fight them all and win.

"One thing that I find most upsetting is that I get accused of having all kinds of selfish motives for my participation in AIM.

"I make no money from doing it. I get a lot of grief. It's a lot of work."

Luke: "How satisfied are you that monies donated to AIM are properly accounted for?"

Ira: "I am quite satisfied, particularly at this point. We have good procedures now for tracking everything."

I read Ira some of Tony Montana's comments about AIM's accounting procedures. Ira has no comment: "If I were to spend my days answering everybody who had some vague claim of malfeasance in the structure of AIM, I would have no time to do the job I do."

Luke: "Wow, if there are that many comments about malfeasance at AIM..."

Ira: "No. I will stop you right there. It's not that there are that many people, it's that the same people, the same dozen people, never let up on this subject. AIM has few detractors. They are just noisy. As long as the vast majority of performers test at AIM and the vast majority of producers accept AIM tests, that's a testimonial for how good a job we're doing. People vote every month with their tests."

Luke: "That's in part because industry leaders [AVN, Free Speech Coalition] have made AIM the monopoly for industry STD testing. Do you support keeping AIM the monopoly for industry testing?"

Ira: "AIM was a bottom-up organizing effort that many producers were not thrilled to see.

"As for the monopoly, this is not the place where market economics is the best model. The fire department is also a monopoly and there is a good reason for that -- so that there can be consistency of standards. If you had a whole bunch of clinics doing different tests with different reporting forms...the chances of the error rate would go up.

"I take my share of lumps as I go to your website and others... If I were that kind of guy, a completely self-seeking sinister manipulative character, none of you would know anything about it. I'd be very rich. I'd have a house in Encino. And I would be invisible. I've had many opportunities to go that career track and I've always chosen to be public about my life and my point of view. I value the enmity of some of the people who don't like me. I get most of my criticism from trying to do what's right instead of simply taking care of myself."

Luke: "Let me present a challenge to what you just said: Maybe you have fewer talents for making money than making controversy?"

Ira: "Oh no, I make lots of money. I've been very successful. I've made about 700 movies. The instructional line Nina and I do for Adam & Eve has sold over 500,000 pieces. I've hardly had a day of unemployment in the last twelve years."