Tuesday's bust of Extreme Associates was the talk of the industry today, with AVN fielding calls from all over the country asking for details of what went down, and especially inquiring about the content of the material seized.
But with more federal anti-adult legislating pending in the U.S. House of Representatives, the question on everyone's mind is: Is this the beginning of a nationwide crackdown on adult material, or is this somehow an isolated incident?
"I did expect that Ashcroft would use the distraction effect of the war in Iraq to cover what would otherwise be the shock of proceeding against nationally-known web operations and tape operations," said J.D. Obenberger, a Chicago-based First Amendment attorney with strong interest in the adult Internet. "He apparently has done that, and this is not the kind of thing that is going to make much of a ripple in the mainstream press on the day that Saddam Hussein's statue gets toppled."
"All of this is looking through a smoked glass window," Obenberger continued, "and it's hard to know what factors might theoretically, possibly have constrained [them], but you know, there's no obvious reason why these tapes couldn't have been proceeded against a long time ago. It would appear to me to be the kind of thing where there's lots of latitude, freedom of action, freedom of discretion in when to time a raid. There's no compelling reason why it has to be done now... One can only wonder under these circumstances whether the Justice Department is using all of the tumult and excitement about the war in Iraq as a screening device as against what would otherwise be adverse public reaction to this raid."
Los Angeles attorney Jeffrey Douglas, however, thought that an Extreme bust was almost inevitable.
"Because Extreme Associates has positioned itself to be literally at the extreme end of all production," Douglas analyzed, "their prosecution was highly likely if not inevitable. That is, their content goes so far beyond that which any production that I'm aware of has undertaken in terms of depictions of non-consensual material, the purportedly HIV-positive gangbang, the depiction of incest, rape or rape of adult actresses portraying extremely young people, it was as predictable as anything in the world that they were going to get busted."
In a statement posted online earlier today, Extreme Associates owner Rob Black noted that of the five titles seized during the raid — Ass Clowns 3 , directed by Tom Zupko; Forced Entry , directed by Lizzie Borden; Cocktails 2 and 1001 Ways to Eat My Jizz , both directed by August Arkham; and Extreme Teen 24 , which had multiple directors — two of the titles — Ass Clowns 3 and Cocktails 2 — were "director's cuts." On its Website, Extreme notes that it only sells its director's cuts by mail order, and the implication is that those versions are harder than the versions available for rent or sale in video stores.
"In [ Ass Clowns 3 ], I kill Osama bin Laden by cutting his head off with a knife, and we shoot everybody else that's with his little group of murdering cutthroats," recalled veteran performer Dick Nasty. "There's lots of blood, and there's lots of, basically, rape; they all rape the American journalist before we go in and save her. I play a British Special Forces guy going in with and American Special Forces guy, and then we d.p. her, but when we do it, she's [consenting]."
But as inflammatory as blood and rape in a sexually-explicit movie may be, the "director's cut" has material almost guaranteed to upset any mainstream audience — especially if they sit in a jury box.
"To the best of my knowledge," said a knowledgeable source, "the difference in the director's cut of Ass Clowns 3 is, Brian Surewood plays a Christ-like figure who is nailed to a cross and crucified, and ther's an angel present, and he comes down off the cross and has anal sex with her. He essentially rapes the angel. In the non-director's cut version, the scene begins with it being blacked out, and [text] saying, 'To see the full version of this scene, ask for the director's cut,' and it begins with him just sort of walking; he's come down from the cross and is walking."
Extreme Teen 24 has at least one scene featuring an adult actress (Kiwi) playing what appears to be a pre-teen who lives in a crude tent in her parents' living room, wears pajamas with feet and constantly sucks on a lollipop. Valentino enters, and tells her he's a friend of Pokemon, and that Pokemon would want her to suck his cock, which she proceeds to do. The scene continues explicitly from there.
Forced Entry , of course, was the feature showcased in last year's Frontline episode, where various Frontline personnel claimed to have been sickened by the tape's depictions of forcible rape.
One performer who worked on Forced Entry , who asked not to be identified, said that where any other company, knowing that their material would form part of a mainstream porn "exposé", might tone down the content, Extreme would say, "Crank it up!"
"I think they enjoy 'poking the bear' at Extreme," the performer opined.
The question any adult industry member or supporter has to ask, after hearing details of the content of the seized Extreme titles has to be: How will any of this play in front of a jury?
Douglas was somewhat hopeful on that score.
"It doesn't take much of a memory to recall that when Hustler first was putting out its magazines, it was roundly condemned by other magazine publishers because it was going to bring so much heat onto their tame magazines by exceeding all known bounds of good taste," Douglas recalled. "Now, Larry Flynt is regarded as a hero because he fought back and, to a large extent, won, thus expanding the realm of First Amendment protections for everyone... If they [Extreme] manage to get acquitted, they're going to be heroes, because they will have extended the bounds of First Amendment tolerance."
But the search warrant served on Extreme reportedly came from the U.S. District Court of the Western District of Pennsylvania, and it has been widely reported that the pro-censorship organization Morality In Media considers Pennsylvania its first "saved" state, meaning that it considers Pennsylvanians to have less tolerance for, among other things, sexually explicit materials than other parts of the country.
But what does the fact that the feds have targeted Extreme mean for the adult industry at large?
"What will be significant is if this is the beginning or if this is simply an independent targeting of Extreme because of the content," Douglas analyzed. "The fact that there was only one search warrant executed in contrast to the past things is at least suggestive of the fact that this is an independent prosecution based on content and not the beginning of a dam breaking."
However, at an October, 2002 Free Speech Coalition general membership meeting, Obenberger predicted massive Justice Department prosecutions shortly after America went to war with Iraq.
"I think the Justice Department really is serious about this and is really trying to force these prosecutions and really trying to put people in jail," Obenberger said at the meeting, "and it is my hunch that only one thing is necessary for the triumph of evil... and that is that we await the initiation of hostilities in Iraq. Because what I think is going to happen is, they don't want an excuse that can be used as political capital, that 'you diverted important resources from the national defense and our safety to go prosecute pornographers.' So they're going to start military hostilities against Iraq and then sometime after January 1st, 2003, we can see indictments. I have received reports from certain U.S. districts in which white collar crime units are being directed to bring prosecutions."
Obenberger credits Internet attorney Greg Piccionelli as the origin of the prediction, but he himself stands by it also.
"I can only, notwithstanding the kinds of disclaimers they give in investment advertising, that 'past performance is no guarantee of future performance,' what we've seen recently is some action that, from what I'm able to infer, [says that that's] the direction they're headed in," Obenberger confirmed grimly. "What I've been telling people since I started doing adult Internet, is, if you see everybody doing 75-80 on a highway where the speed limit is 55, it is lunacy to pass them all at 95, because that's the first car that's going to get pulled over."
Douglas agreed with those points, both experientially and philosophically.
"I regard all obscenity prosecutions as being immoral, unconstitutional and evil," Douglas noted, "so I regard this [potential] prosecution as being therefore regrettable.
"However," he added, "Extreme Associates intentionally took chances that in my opinion are unconscionable for anyone other than the people in charge. That is, if parties are indicted who are simply employees of the organization, then they will have put others in jeopardy whom they should not have put in jeopardy."
Contrary to earlier reports, and according to a statement from attorney Alan Isaacman's office, Isaacman has not yet been retained by Extreme to represent them in this manner. Several other First Amendment attorneys in Southern California have already expressed reluctance to have anything to do with the case, for both philosophical and personal reasons, which may mean that if indicted, Extreme and its officers may have trouble finding competent counsel to represent them.
"Everything about their tapes, their marketing, the way they have just burnt every bridge that exists, is tragic," Douglas said sadly.
