7/7/98

Journalist Mark Cromer is writing the forthcoming LA WEEKLY cover story on the porn HIV outbreak...probably out this Thursday. Look for Max Hardcore on the cover. I hear about Mark as I wander around pornville. From what I gather, he is industry friendly. A female friend (Suzannah Breslin) of Tony Tedeschi, another industry friendly writer, is working on the porn HIV outbreak story for Salon, an online zine.

8/20/98

Journalist Mark Cromer has produced a tame and predictable essay for the LA Weekly cover story on porn HIV's outbreak. He does not investigate how I and dozens of other persons in the industry came to believe that Wallice was HIV positive days and weeks before Marc consnted to take a PCR/DNA test. How come it took my reporting on this matter to produce the appopriate action?

"Yeah, I heard she's [Brooke Ashley] got AIDS or something, or HIV, whatever," says Midnight Video general manager Karl Sorvino, pointing out that his company did not shoot the video, but merely acquired it for sale. "It doesn't mean anything that she has AIDS. Look, this chick took 50 guys in the ass in one video! This is a surprise? If anyone was going to get it, it was Brooke. Now she's raising a big stink, but no one cares. The video was shot - of course it's going to be released." (LA Weekly)

8/22/98

Porners held a love-in on Ed Powers radio show on KLSX, FM 97.1, Los Angeles, Sunday morning from midnight to three AM. First up, two women [Katina and Violet] who started the Zine "Homewreckers" about fem porn and S-M (bytch007@aol.com).

Without his annoying co-host Elizabeth aka Bonita, Ed's show moved more smoothly.

Max Hardcore appeared about 12:20 AM, crowing about all his recent media coverage. Max said that the Premiere article mentioned him 46? times. That it was mainly about him [though overwhelmingly negative]. The article called him a "psychopath." Max said he was one, though he did not know what the word meant.

Max and Ed said they enjoyed the mainstream movie Boogie Nights. "I enjoyed the opportunity to look back," said Max. "I'm a historian. I appreciate this business's past…"

Max asks callers if they have girlfriends "who might be interested in getting into the wide world of modeling." They decline.

Max repeatedly plugs his videos, talent calls and web site throughout the show.

Caller Dan asks Max for his opinion of Penthouse magazine showing photos of women urinating.

"I think it's fantastic," says Max. "The peeing, the fisting… Hustler has that… It means that I won't be able to go to jail. Eventually we'll be able to put all that stuff into the tapes. I'm eventually going to re-release all my [US] movies with the European version [urination, vomiting, etc]."

Ed Powers then introduces Mark Cromer, a former AVN contributor who wrote an essay on the HIV outbreak in the latest LA Weekly.

Mark: "It's a great story. The mainstream media has generally ignored it."

Ed loved his article. "You showed how some people want it [the HIV outbreak and attendant controversy] to go away…"

Mark: "You're talking about Jim South?"

Ed tries to extricate himself from Mark's comment: "That time when he was standing there. [Mark's article reports on Jim South upraiding Margold for talking about the outbreak to a journalist]… When you get a media blitz, and so many people coming at you, you get tired…"

Mark: "Most of the people that I wanted to talk to, were very cooperative. It took me a long time to get to Mark Wallice… Max was very congenial and well spoken. Karl Sovino from Midnight Video… His real name is Kevin Beech…"

From Mark's article: "Yeah, I heard she's [Brooke Ashley] got AIDS or something, or HIV, whatever," says Midnight Video general manager Karl Sorvino, pointing out that his company did not shoot the video, but merely acquired it for sale. "It doesn't mean anything that she has AIDS. Look, this chick took 50 guys in the ass in one video! This is a surprise? If anyone was going to get it, it was Brooke. Now she's raising a big stink, but no one cares. The video was shot - of course it's going to be released."

Max, referring probably to the above: "Some people said some really stupid things in this article and need to be taken to the woodshed…"

Ed asked Mark Cromer if he agreed that Mark Wallice was a victim like all the other victims. Mark Cromer would not agree even though Ed kept pressing him to agree that Wallice was a victim.

Ed: "I think that what people in the industry do is noble. I think that entertaining and risking their lives like they do, is noble. We're really mainstream. That started with Deep Throat. We should not fight to say that we're mainstream, we are."

Mark Cromer keeps saying "right," reflecting his AVN-like bent.

Powers reads a two-minute statement, saying he'd be more careful to use condoms in the future.

Mark: "The general public perceives… 'Come on, these are porn stars. What do you expect? This is a surprise?' I think this [attitude] is unfortunate. You [Ed] said that what porn performers do is noble. I might phrase it differently but I understand your sentiments and where you are coming from. They are certainly performing an art which has high value in American culture as demonstrated by the demand for it. They are putting their lives on the line. The media coverage of this, including the LA Weekly, is going to push the issue of condom use higher… That can only be good."

Ed: "Don't you seem some hypocrisy in the condom use? Like, they don't use the condom in the oral scene?"

Mark: "Right. They'll pull the condom off and ejaculate into the woman's mouth, or into a cup and have her drink it. That's not safe sex.

"I think the policy on porn sets should be that the female performer should have the discretion to determine whether or not her male performer wears a condom."

Max: "That's pretty much the policy now. If a woman wants one, they wrap it up."

Mark: "I just saw the new AVN where Van Damage [from Extreme Associates] calls himself "the Bareback Vigilante." I guess that bareback would mean no condoms."

Max: "Well then, he's [Van Damage] an idiot."

Mark: "I guess that Van Damage is using that he's not going to use condoms, as a marketing strategy.

[In the ad, Van Damage sports a tattoo with a condom-like creature flipping the bird overlain by a red circle with a slash through it (the universal symbol of stop).]

Max: "RJ Reynolds had Joe Camel."

This Ed Powers show was the height of industry correctness with porners falling over themselves to agree with each other, to promote the use of condoms and to even take a whack at the cigarette companies.

Max: "I would like to say hi to Brooke Ashley, a great gal. Some people are saying this girl is a whore, she uses drugs… I don't know what's right. I just know that it is a tragedy for someone that nice…"

Mark: "My story was much longer. It was trimmed down. I wanted to note about the insidious things being said about Brooke Ashley and Mark Wallice, particularly Mark Wallice. I interviewed Laurie Holmes… She pointed out the vindictive rhetoric and finger-pointing and name-calling after it became known that Holmes was HIV positive."

[Mark writes in the LA Weekly: "Holmes' widow Laurie…says she saw the writing on the wall a long time ago, as her husband lay dying in his Sepulveda hospital bed. "I tried to warn everyone and they wouldn't listen," she says. "They were trying to say AIDS wasn't in the industry, and I'm like, "No, no, no!' They kept saying John contracted the virus outside of the industry, that he was a junkie and he was gay and all this stuff that simply wasn't true. They were just lies to protect the industry."]

Mark Cromer: "Fast forward ten years later and what happens. Mark Wallice is announced as HIV positive. Suddenly Wallice is a junkie, he does gay outcall, he does gay films… There's a striking parallel. As Laurie Holmes says, these are lies to protect the industry. Whether it is a coordinated approach or smear campaign, who's to say. The same thing about Brooke Ashley. This girl had a dope problem. This girl did alcohol. This girl used needles. You hear all this crap."

Candy Hill: "We want to hear that. To make us feel safer. We're ok. They were doing this and that but we can keep going."

Mark: "It's denial. Some of the things said about Holmes were true, but that doesn't mean that the person did not get it in the industry. Clearly, there is ample room for the virus to spread within the industry. And to some extent, it has, whether or not Mark Wallice was the index case. It came into the talent pool."

Max: "People have crazy conceptions about how porn stars live. We're serious people. We get up most days before noon. We drive nice shiny big cars and we only crash them occasionally. Excuse me, I need to take a hit off my crack pipe.

"I've stirred up a lot of stuff in the last two years but unless you know the real Max Hardcore [Paul Little]…"

Ed: "I never heard of anything."

Max: "Occasionally we'd have a crash and burn on a set. I've always tried to make the most intense things. I pour myself into a scene. I tell the girls that I know how to make great movies but I can't read minds. They have to speak up if something is not right. Some girls come on the set and are just shell-shocked by the experience. I've been in this business nine years and I'm constantly amazed at what the girls are willing to put up with… We're athletes. We slug it out in the heat of battle. We try to put on a good show for the people. Sometimes you get self-absorbed… I've made some mistakes with girls…

"In pro-football, if a player gets called off the field with a broken leg, they don't call the police. In the porn business, sometimes people get hurt. If you do anal sex, it's delicate… You've got to appreciate that the butt is not designed for the day after day abuse that you're likely to be subjected to in this business."

"Particularly in a Max Hardcore video," says a Brazilian porner friend of Max.

Max: "Seven years ago a scene consisted of seven minutes, a couple of positions and the pop shot. Nowadays, the scenes are longer and people expect more intense work. I'm compared to Rocco Siffredi… Intensity is what the public demands of us.

"We've made some serious missteps in how we approach this stuff. We've always tried to be fresh, dynamic and intense… I thought speculums was a cool idea because it shows the inside of a woman, but it was too much for normal public viewing. But I'm not normal. I'm a psycho."

Mark: "Porn today is not about turning you on. It's about showing you something that you haven't seen before and you may not want to see again. You have people like Mila, who's a great girl, but I saw this thing where she was squirting blue acrylic paint out of her ass."

Max: "That was the stupidest thing I have ever seen."

Mark: "You've got these gangbangs… What kind of guy wants to watch a film where there's one chick and 200 guys? He's got some issues he needs to resolve."

Ed Powers then claimed that he started modern gonzo porn with his 1988 series Bus Stop Tales. His competitors saw what he was doing, realized that Ed Powers had the nice guy niche sewn up, and decided to distinguish themselves through nastiness.

Mark: "Porn is making more money than ever but it's crappier than ever."

Ed and Max disagreed.

Mark: "You guys are within the realm of true artistic genre. Did you catch the tape Century Sex with the 100-year old woman?"

Max: "I want to see good piston-pumping action with guys with hard dicks doing it with good looking girls having a good time."

A caller named Greg [claimed he was a male performer] said that porn star Militia was willing to have sex with him without a condom until Greg insisted on using a condom. "She doesn't know me from Adam. I could be Joe Blow off the street, infected or not…"

Greg, Ed, Max and Mark all agreed that condom use takes no heat away from a sex scene. [Luke thinks this is a ludicrous claim, the sort of tripe that arises when members of any insular group want to close ranks and agree with each other about controversial questions. Condoms clearly detract from sexual heat in hardcore films.]

Ed Powers said that it did not matter if condom use hurt sales of porn videos.

Caller Sam: "Max, you're my hero. I loved this one scene you did in Europe. This girl lies on the table. After you have your way with her, you spit in her mouth. It was great, amazing…"

Max: "I would never do anything like that. It's disgusting."

Mark: "Sam, would you spit in your girlfriend's mouth?"

Sam: "No. How do I get into porno?"

Max: "Get a girl to perform with you… Call Jim South…"

Sam: "You do a service to society. You keep a lot of guys off the street. We get rid of our seed and we're cool."

Mark: "It's unfortunate that people, even in a joking manner, say that these tapes keep guys off the streets. There's the insinuation that people who watch this material are closet pedophiles or rapists. It echoes the arguments by the Christian right, that people who enjoy erotica are closet rapists."

Ed and Mark agree that rape is a power trip, a crime of violence rather than sex.

Mark: "I think that Max putting out tapes will have nothing to do with whether we are going to have more rapists or less rapists. We're just going more men and women who enjoy looking at that material."

Ed: "So Mark, what's your next article going to be about, Ed Powers and the radio show?"

Mark: "I'm doing a story on cults."

Ed: "I get a regular drug test and I challenge anybody to get one."

Max: "I wouldn't want to get one. I'd fail. [True]"

Felecia and her husband Matt appeared on the show to promote Felecia's sex career, particularly her pro-am line. "Directors in the bigger films start and stop," complained Felecia. "He has things that he wants to see in the video, a certain number of positions, etc... Lots of stop and start. You lose the heat and intensity."

Ed said how much he wants the camera on the face when a girls supposedly orgasms.

Ed Powers, Max Hardcore and Candy Hill said that everyone in the industry has to take HIV tests every month. This is a big myth. It is against the law for producers to require HIV tests. Nobody can be required to take an HIV test to get a job. Many performers work without current tests. Many performers take Elisa tests instead of the supposed standard PCR DNA.

If Jeffrey Douglas and the FSC were competent, they would know that it is against the law to require HIV tests, and they would adjust their policies and rhetoric accordingly.

Felecia: "I was on a set a few weeks ago, and three of us saw somebody who had changed a test. We threw him off and called Jim [South].

"Many of the bigger companies are notarizing the tests."

Ed and Max gave kudos to Jim South and World Modeling. "They make everybody submit IDs, then go get a test. Bring it back to the [World Modeling] office and put a stamp on it."

[Luke thought that Jim South had given up his seal?]

A new porn "director," Tyrone phoned to say that many performers on the condom-only list performed without condoms.

Mark Cromer tried to bring up Chessie Moore's bestiality video but Ed cut him off.

A caller complained about the porn boxcovers that use ebonics and racial terms in their videos. Max said that porners are imitating music companies. Mark pointed out that blacks like Mr. Markus are leading the way in producing such derogatory material.

Caller said that if the industry wants to become legitimate, they should pay performers residuals.

Felecia: "A lot of the women in our business are very well educated."

Caller: "You've got to be kidding. If you got 100 women…99% are back home [after retirement from porn] with their parents."

Felecia: "A lot of them earn six figures. A lot of them have invested their money and bought houses…"

Caller: "I know some of the black performers… You can't say that…"

Mark: "Felecia is correct. Many of the women make good money. The men are a whole other issue. But, there are women like Brooke Ashley…who pissed it all away. Like many performers in mainstream…"

8/5/99

Mark Cromer devotes part of his column in the September issue of Jail Babes to Luke F-rd:

"As dusk settled over Sunset Boulevard that night [of the May 27 Hustler Jail Babes party at the Rainbow], I stepped out to the patio to work my beer, when in between the parade of gleaming cleavage, fishnets and Armanis, I noticed a familiar figure skulking behind a telephone pole across the club's driveway, dressed in a suit and holding a mini-cam behind a newspaper as if on some half-assed undercover stakeout. Ah yea, our old friend Luke F-rd, on-line porn gossip columnist and perpetual pariah to the adult industry.

A few of the people milling around the front of the club seemed truly disturbed that Ford was even within eyesight, as if he were some cyber-sniper ready to give them a Lee Harvey Oswald makeover on his web page.

I decided to take my beer down to the street and have a chat with him. Ford flashed a sheepish grin as I approached, shaking his hand and asking him if he was going to come into the party or just watch other people arrive.

"Well, I guess I've been banned from all HUSTLER events," he said, explaining that he had been accused of misquoting a high-ranking Flynt employee. "As soon as they told me I wouldn't be allowed in, I decided to come right down and have a look."

I told him I didn't think it would be that big of a deal if he came in for a drink, but I don't think he ever made it inside the Rainbow, perhaps afraid he'd run into some of the competing porn journalists he's sparred with during the past year.

Still, it may have been for the best that Ford kept his distance from the soiree, as watching him get demolished at the bar by an enraged mob of porno "insiders" would have been too ugly and violent a scene for even me.

Photos from page seven of the September issue of Hustler Jail Babes.

Lynne L-patin Talks About Blowing Mark Cromer

10/29/99

Lynne L-patin, recently arrested and convicted for carrying a loaded weapon without a permit, is now a Hustler Jail Babe.

Lynne told Luke Friday morning: "I'm an official Hustler Jail Babe for having gotten David [Hardman] upset, and carrying a gun. And I've got tattoos and I f--- a black guy [Lucky, a big dicked black man who lives with her] on a concrete floor. And I'm 44 years old and in good enough shape to do it. Now all decent people can despise me and demonize me again.

"The interesting part of it was the journalist."

Luke: "Journalist, what's that?"

Lynne: "There's a journalist that sets these things up. Mark Cromer."

Luke: "I thought he was fired?"

Lynne: "Is he not a journalist?

"Well, he's still getting blown."

Luke:"Really?"

Lynne: "Usually he pays the performer a couple of dollars extra to blow him. Which is ridiculous but it gives him what he needs... I blow journalists for free. I'm not a slut. I'm a writer. People who can read and write, I'm happy to blow them.

"Of course that demonizes me completely. It makes it absolutely impossible to go out and get a hamburger. It's ok for him to stick his dick in my face and it's ok for me to suck it but it's not ok for me to call him afterwards and say, 'I enjoyed sucking your dick.' That's stalking. That's why women don't ask men out because men get upset and treat you even worse.

"It was a good scene. It was a catharsis... It confirmed my suspicion that I have no interest in sex whatsoever. It doesn't mean I can't have orgasms. It does mean that I'd rather be shopping. And when you met me, you wouldn't say that about me.

"If you find somebody who has a brain and you meet them in the context of porno, they're forced instantly to despise you because you're a woman and they wouldn't be there if they didn't have an issue with women. I have all these intergenerational relationships with young men so I can say, this is a mommy - son thing, not a sex thing.

"It all goes back to, how do I get a guy to take me to a movie without letting him know that I am interested?

"I was scheduled to work with Jack Hammer but he couldn't make it... Lucky has an extremely large black man's penis... But he doesn't hurt me...

"I've done a scene before with Jack Hammer and he was a little rough... So I thought I should call him so we could practice... I haven't had any sex since August. So I called him and said that it would be a good idea to practice. And he said, oh, ok, I'll call you back. Of course he didn't. So I called him again and then he cancelled. It helped me feel like a real criminal monster to get out there and know that I am that scary.

"They're expecting some 5'9" acne-scarred Harley-riding bulldog and they get me [Lynne is tiny]..."

Lynne: "I met Kid Vegas at [Jim Powers'] bukkake. And he and Lucky made a deal to go to some club later... And he's standing there talking to Lucky and talking about driving. And I drive. It's my car. Lucky has no car. So I said, excuse me but you need to be talking to me because I'm the one who's driving. They hate that.

"I drove back to my house and he followed me here. And he and Lucky went to some party in Hollwyood. I stayed home in bed... And Lucky says that Kid Vegas's opinion of me was that I am a space cadet. He thought that was pretty funny being that I am not.

"Kid Vegas abandoned Lucky at a club so he had to get a ride home from a stranger.

"I don't think any young male 25 or so has any business forming an opinion about me whatsoever because I am 20 years older than he and he can't possibly know what I know. And having a penis doesn't give you knowledge, wisdom, experience. In fact, if anything it tends to discourage those things and make you impetuous.

"Then I looked up Kid Vegas on the web, your site I think... And he can't spell... So I figure when he called me a space cadet, he meant something like "c-a-d-d-e-g."

"Cute kid though, and I can see why the same group that patted you [Luke] on the head, like him. Brings out the faggot in everybody.

"I was explaining this to Lucky, how did this guy get to be so important and get his name all around... He's a cute guy and these people don't want women...

"I start my community service Tuesday. And I'm going to see if I can make a deal with David [Hardman]'s sister Cynthina, I won't take any drugs for an entire month if she will lose 20 pounds. I don't think she can do it. I know I can do anything I want. And I'm just down to some really bad pot and some occassional champagne."

11/01/99

Lynne L-patin writes Luke: My "Jail Babes" experience is even funnier in print. Thanks. The big bruise on my left hip, from f---ing on the concrete floor, is starting to fade. This is the kind of thing that confirms my opinion that most pornographers have little or no experience with real sex -- I'm supposed to be howling "Harder, deeper," and because there's no resililency to concrete, my partner CAN'T go harder or deeper, because my spine can't flex and my hips can't get any leverage to thrust back.

So there we are on the concrete floor, having lousy sex, in uncomfortable positions, and I'm supposed to "act" (key word here) as if it is good sex, rather than simply having good sex and documenting it. Maybe the audience can't tell the difference. Maybe they've never had sex themselves. So is it deliberate? Setting up a sexual situation in which the woman will be guaranteed injury of some sort strikes me as either very misogynistic or very stupid, take your pick.

And the more I think about it, the "blowing the journalist in the bathroom" scenario is hysterical. What does it say about a guy when his sexual thrills come from being blown by a slut in a bathroom? (I'm not really a slut -- I just play one on TV. But it seems to work for men who aren't interested in the difference.) Does he make his wife dress up like a whore and blow him in the bathroom? Or does he have lousy sex with his wife, because good girls lie there like cold fish, and need the other because he married someone he coveted who could care less about his sexual needs? Maybe he's even afraid to share them!

1/20/00

Mark Cromer writes a hagiography of HIV positive porn stud Tony Montana in last week's LA Weekly:

Montana’s winds of fortune faded fast. "Basically, the calls just stopped. People wouldn’t return my calls, and when they did call it was to nervously ask me where I think I might have got it," he says. "I have no idea where I contracted it, nor do I care to speculate. The odds of what can happen ended up happening to me . . . It’s a crap shoot and I lost. It’s one of those things."

Aside from the help he received from AIM and a few close friends at Leisure Time Entertainment, Montana was all but abandoned overnight. On Internet gossip-column sites, a deluge of bitter speculation followed the announcement of his test results, with other porn performers and "industry insiders" asserting that Montana was gay, bisexual, a drug user and (evidently thrown in for good measure) abusive to his lovers.

Porn's Compassionate Conservatism

2/13/01

Mark Cromer, originator of Larry Flynt Publications "Jail Babes" video series and magazine, writes for TheNation.com:

It's hard to remember at times, but there was a brief, shining period when the concept of what was being filmed actually mattered. Stepping out of society's closet in the early seventies, American porno was a bastard art form that offered directors real freedom from conventional standards and restrictions. Filmmakers like Jonas Middleton, Robert McCallum, Cecil Howard, Henri Pachard and Kirdy Stevens explored the rich mines of human sexuality. Those men were joined by women like Helene Terrie, who wrote and produced Taboo, and Ann Perry and Maria Tobalina, both former presidents of the Adult Film Association of America. There were a lot of busts, trials and pain along the way.

Now the question arises, Why were those sacrifices made? Did those people sit in jail and prison just so others would censor themselves into depicting officially sanctioned sex? Was that the point? George W. Bush and John Ashcroft have won half the battle simply by showing up. Some in the business feel that even those of us shooting under the new guidelines will be targeted. As one producer noted, "They hate us all, and they'll come after the whole industry."

Fred writes: L-- The Cromer article gave rise to the following thoughts. Have you ever considered submitting articles/essays to various periodicals on your area of expertise? E.g. a periodical like the Nation, Salon, or some such thing?

How do you suppose Cromer wound up published in the Nation? Do you think an editor there asked him to write something? Or do you suppose he simply submitted it?

Are there "agents" who specialize in getting stuff like that published? If you started placing essays in magazines like the Nation or Salon, you could wind up being on the legitimate journalist circuit, and could start branching out pontificating on other subjects that you're interested in. (What would those other subjects be?)

Luke says: The Oral Law.

Pasadena's KPCC FM 99.3 Discusses Porn

7/20/01

I listened to Larry Mantle's show AirTalk on KPCC Friday morning.

Journalist Mark Cromer: "The Cambria List outlined a host of sexual acts...[that were possible targets for obscenity prosecution]. This list said that it would no longer be suitable to distribute films featuring black males with white females. But not the reverse because that would be condoned and sanctioned by the Republican party."

Host: "Where is the evidence for that?"

Mark; "I'm being somewhat facetious. But that was one of the more disturbing..."

Host: "But this comes from the industry..."

Mark: "Yes, but it responds to what they think the Republicans want to see. I think the Bush Administration is worse [than Regan and Bush Sr]. Evidence? John Ashcroft. And Bush on the campaign trail stated flatly that pornography has no place in a civil society."

Host: "That seems like a jump for the industry to take a statement like that, designed to appease the right, and turn that into prosecutions of the industry."

Attorney Jeffrey Douglas: "There have been two major federal sting operations in the last two Republican administrations. In 1987, about 30 mailorder companies were targeted under the name PostPorn. All but two of the companies targeted, the principles went to prison and the companies were disbanded. This was intended to eliminate, the Attorney General said, to eliminate the scourge of hardcore materials through the mail.

"Then in 1990, 30 more companies, primarily production companies were targeted. Because of a change in law and less ideology, only a small number of individuals were imprisoned and only two or three companies went out of business.

"What's striking is when one examines the materials targeted, they're indistinguishable from materials distributed, before, during and after the prosecutions. The arbitrariness of the obscenity definition allows for extraordinary discretion on the part of the feds."

Host to journalist Emmanuelle Richard: "Adult Video News... You tried to pin down where they got their figures and they won't able to give you good documentation."

Emmanuelle: "Dan Ackman from Forbes.com read the piece by Frank Rich published in the New York Times Sunday magazine. Ackman was suspicious of the figures and called AVN and asked them to break down the numbers. AVN, which is like the Variety of the porn industry, the editor there couldn't answer Ackman's questions. And of course the publisher Paul Fishbein couldn't answer any questions or return calls. Ackman did his own calculations."

Host: "And he came up with much lower figures."

Emmanuelle: "Nobody knows how big this industry is."

Host: "Mark, did you want to say something?"

Mark Cromer, stalwart industry defender: "I did. I'd really like to jump in and note that I am disturbed by the discussion is porn a four billion dollar or a ten billion dollar a year industry. I think the more pertinent point is that porn pervades in our culture, in our society, to the greatest extent it clearly ever has. I'm not sure what the point is when you have Forbes and these mainstream media outlets... I understand what Emmanuelle is saying about checking your sources, checking your facts, and doing your appropriate research and try to get a handle..."

Host: "You think it is nitpicking?"

Mark: "I think it is the Los Angeles Times or Forbes saying we've ignored this huge industry for so long and we can no longer ignore. Now we're going to tell you that it really isn't that big. But as it is getting bigger, we're going to start covering it. The clearest example of how mainstream porn is today is if you went to a university 20 years ago and asked a student, male or female, who their favorite porn star was, or favorite porn movie, you'd probably get laughed at, yelled at... They'd walk away from you. You do that today, you will get a male or female student, in many instances, tell you about their favorite porn star, what movies they're in... That shows how prevalent and accepted that really is and that's driving the Republicans crazy.

"The show's just starting [with the Bush administration]. If we can all get back here a year and a half from now, we could talk about some concrete examples. Maybe some people in the industry behind bars. Jeffrey's workload may have increased by then..."

Alex in Irvine calls: "I'm disturbed by the resurgency of teen porn and the push towards younger and younger looking girls. I don't see how that will help the cause of porn. It is alienating moderates... You see this push towards Barely Legal and the youngest teens on the web... I enjoy porn but I refuse to watch that stuff because it creates a really negative connotation towards the whole industry. It pushes to the forefront - this is what porn's about. Getting our kids screwed up."

Host: "Seems to me that niche products like Max Hardcore could be more off putting..."

Jeffrey: "Because there's so little capital required to enter the industry, a few thousand dollars can make you a producer, there's enormous competition. People on the production end are responsive to the slightest indication of trend from their audience. The flip side of the self censorship from the traditional portion of the industry is the new entrepreneurs who've never experienced a prosecution and can't imagine something could happen."

Mark: "I think it is absurd that an adult filmmaker is restricted in ways that a mainstream filmmaker would not be. The Graduate was essentially a film about incest. When Taboo [featuring mother - son sex] came out, it sold well. I don't think there's been an increase in mother - son incest."

Seymore Butts attorney Roger John Diamond: "We've asked the Deputy City Attorney handling this case, is this part of some giant conspiracy of the government to go after a lot of people or is this an isolated instance? We're told this has no connection with the Ashcroft or Bush Administration. This is an effort by the local vice squad. This case began before the Bush-Gore election. I think it is just a couple of vice squad guys looking for things to do."

Mark: "I was one of the guys who brought Larry Flynt into the video business in 1998. And people were telling us there was not that much money to be made... Hogwash. There's a lot of people in this business for one reason. There's a tremendous amount of money in this business.

"A little over a year ago, a partner and I pitched Playboy on a projected entitled 'Who Wants To Be A Porn Star?' And they looked at us and this droll staunchy voice says, 'I'm sorry, Mr. Cromer, but Playboy doesn't do porn.' I guess they've changed their mind."

Director Toni English phones: "I've been interviewed by Ralph Frammolino a few times and he always seemed amazed when I said pornography was so mainstream. And I had to point out that there are now two beat reporters at the LA Times assigned to cover pornography.

"Every time it's sweeps week, there's a local [TV] crew on one of my sets. It's a given because they know that's going to sell. They come in under all sorts of pretext to cover things they feel are socially relevant but really what they are there to do is to cover a set where women walk around with no clothes because they know it is titillating. And they know the audience is going to respond."

Host: "Do you tell people you work in pornography?"

Toni: "I don't champion the cause the way Jeffrey does. I make a lot of money in the business. I'm not prepared to tell everyone I deal with that that is one of the things that I do. I would not want to be defined in mainstream by doing low budget R-rated features either which happens to be a lucrative market.

"I don't watch pornography."

Host: "I hear that from so many people in the business, that they're not consumers of the product they create, which is so different from the business I work in where everybody listens to a lot of radio."

Jeff in Inglewood: "As a defender of civil liberties and an opponent of any kind of censorship, but I want to make a point about the complete decay this represents in the culture. The boom in pornography represents the alienation and despair underneath it. The victimization of people by it. And that it's a generalized pornographization of culture as a whole. That it gets promoted and treated as serious stuff and referred to as an industry..."

Host: "Objectively it is an industry."

Jeff: "I think of the sanitization of prostitution as sex workers. This is a horrific thing that women do, whether or not they say they're making a choice. That people sell their bodies for money is an act of despair and alienation and a lack of self worth."

Mark: "He considers two people filmed explicitly making love to be a sign of decay and victimization. I believe our society is in decay and the sign of that is violence, particularly violence against women, remains much more accepted, much more tolerated in our society that consenting adults making love before a camera.

"In other words, if I have a gun and I put it in a woman's face and pull the trigger and blow her face off, that film gets an R-rating. And everybody can and will take their six, seven and eight year old kids to see the film. If I put my penis in this woman's face and ejaculate on her face, that is considered filthy, dirty and wrong by many people in this society and that is rated X. Then we wonder why we have the rape rates and the violent crime rates we have."

[One major difference here is that the blowing off of a woman's face and other violence in film is simulated while the hardcore sex is real.]

Host: "Many people feel that is dehumanizing. Most of us don't know a lot of women who the act you just describe would be something they'd choose at the top of their list of consensual sex activity. Yet they know that's the money shot in the business."

Mark: "When I went to Cal Poly Pomona, I knew lots of girls..."

Hosts interrupts and cuts Mark off.