Dear Judge Porn,
I know your name is actually Alex Kozinski, but I couldn't resist asking this rhetorical question: Should Judge Porn judge porn? Specifically, in your capacity as chief judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, you were given the case of Ira Isaacs, a producer and distributor of pornography. His defense is that the movies he sells are works of art and are therefore protected by the First Amendment.
As you must know, the U.S. Department of Justice Obscenity Task Force, which was formed in 2005 after Christian conservative groups pressured the Bush administration to crack down on porn, is "dedicated exclusively to the protection of America's children and families through enforcement of obscenity laws." But, rather than go after the makers of plain vanilla porn, these prosecutors focus on fetishes because a jury is more likely to find guilty a defendant who is responsible for porn flicks that feature defecation and sex with animals. Which of course brings up another rhetorical question: "Who's to say what art is?"
And so, Judge Porn, when jury selection began, you urged potential jurors to be open about their opinions. In the first hour, you dismissed 26 men and women who acknowledged that they could not be fair to defendant Isaacs because they were so repulsed by the subject matter of his products. At the end of the first day, from a panel of 100, half were excused. Isaacs himself admitted, "I think I'd freak out if I had to watch six hours of the stuff." And then the god of irony descended upon you. On a section of your own website that you mistakenly considered to be private, a Beverly Hills attorney-in the midst of a dispute with you about another matter-was able to find questionable material and download it on a CD, including:
A slide show strip-tease starring a transsexual. A slide show, "BrazilianHairCut," depicting a vagina being shaved. A close-up of a shaved crotch with the caption, "Democrats New Slogan-Read My Lips-No More Bush." A parody of the Mastercard commercial, depicting four women smiling for the camera, but one of them has her skirt hiked up far enough to reveal her pubic hair, accompanied by a punch line, "Your Beaver on the Internet: Priceless." A foreign commercial in which a woman rolls a cigar between her bare breasts (shades of Bill Clinton). A German commercial, "Nutcracker," in which a woman emerges from a shower, approaches a plate of walnuts, and cracks them by placing them between her buttocks and squeezing (shades of Hillary Clinton). "HomerLookAlike," with the face of Homer Simpson superimposed on a vagina. A half-dressed man cavorting with a sexually aroused farm animal.Photos of naked women on all fours who were painted to look like cows. A folder of "camel toe" photos with close-ups of female crotches in snug-fitting panties (no more obscene than similar images in a mainstream movie, The Weather Man). A woman in a shower massaging her breasts, each of which is larger than her head. A video, "Upside Down," presenting a contortionist couple performing oral sex on each other. A parody of a video, "BestWomanDriver," of a woman who, while driving a car, gives a male passenger a hand job until he ejaculates on her hand, and then she licks her fingers-all of which certainly seems safer than driving while text messaging. A video, "ChineseMassProduction," showing more than a hundred naked Asian couples simultaneously fucking in the exact same position. Plus urination, defecation-but not in a sexual context-and bestiality. Plus the only video that really got me aroused-a dog that can play ping-pong with his tail.
Well, Judge, you had to drop out of the Isaacs case. Not that you had necessarily violated the law. It's just that your collection could be perceived as tainting your decisions. What's more, it could conceivably spoil your chance to ever be appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court. And that makes me sad, because you are known as a strong defender of free speech.
It was poignant the way your wife came to your aid, though. "Alex is not into porn," she stated in a 2,000-word defense of you on her own website, "he is into funny-and sometimes funny has a sexual character." Yet another rhetorical question: Who's to say what's funny? May I suggest a game that's going around which the two of you might enjoy sharing with guests at your next dinner party? It's easy to play. All you do is take the name of your first pet and then the name of the first street you lived on, and the result will be your very own porn name.
Sincerely,
Skippy Broadway
Paul Krassner's latest book, Porn Soup, a self-published collection of his columns for AVN Online, is available at PaulKrassner.com.
This article originally appeared in the September 2008 issue of AVN Online magazine. To subscribe, visit AVNMediaNetwork.com/subscribe.
