Boris: "That's it? One course in 'The Big Picture,' 12 credits?" Harry: "It's very big. Twelve credits probably isn't enough, it's so big."
—from Creator
As my Editor In Chief Mike Ramone reminded me earlier this week when I started thinking about the topic of this editorial, "Don't forget to tie it into porn."
Actually, I get that a lot — every month, in fact, because as much as I like watching people fuck, both in person and on disk, I tend to write about politics. That's at least partly because I took to heart something Robert Heinlein put into the mouths of his characters in Stranger in a Strange Land:
"I don't pay attention to politics," says nurse Gillian Boardman, who's on the run from authorities because she's kidnapped her patient, the man from Mars.
"You should," responds her sometime-boyfriend, reporter Ben Caxton. "It's barely less important than your heartbeat."
Which, of course, is why I flew to D.C. in mid-March to attend a Senate subcommittee hearing on obscenity prosecution. Seems these jackasses in Washington have wish-fulfilled themselves a "mandate" to go after our industry, since persecuting porn is about the only thing Repugnicans can run on in 2006. The latest horseshit is about "trafficked women" in porn, which Sen. Brownback claims to have learned about from an L.A. city councilman — because, after all, all L.A. politicians are experts on the porn industry, aren't they? (Porn may have more than its share of foreign beauties, but every one I've met has a very official-looking set of IDs, which I'm guessing that no one who's arrived here in a cargo container is likely to have.)
But Heinlein's sage observation about the importance of politics seems lost on most of the 18- to 25-year-olds in this business, whose wide smiles, perky tits and casual attitude toward being seen humping on camera like wolverines in heat has landed them in the dough — certainly more dough than they'd likely see in a lifetime as a typist in the office pool, a research scientist, a medical technician or a counterperson in an establishment that serves 31 flavors of anything.
(Don't get me wrong: I know several starlets who are working their way through school this way, and actually plan to Be Something when they grow [further] up — but as things currently stand, there isn't a chance in hell that that "something" will be President, Senator, Best Actress Oscar Winner or any of a number of other positions effectively closed to anyone who's ever been seen humping on camera — even if you're Traci Lords.)
What most people don't understand is that, on one level, everything is about sex. All those conservative/religious types yammering about "family values" — where do these idiots think families come from?
But Brownback's hearing was a direct assault on the industry; what about the more subtle ones? For instance, the day after the hearing, all the major credit card companies agreed, after receiving letters from 43 state attorneys general as well as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, not to allow citizens to charge cigarettes bought over the Internet to their credit cards. But what the fuck, eh? You don't smoke, right?
It took the libertarian magazine Reason (reason.com) to point out, "The really interesting thing to think about is what happens when some enterprising government official tries to get credit card companies to take a similar stand against porn?"
That hit a little closer to home, didn't it? Makes you start wondering what other little bullshit bits of business are taking place right now that may also affect your livelihood, doesn't it? Of course, Reason pointed out, "Given the tremendous porn revenue stream out there, somehow their cooperation seems doubtful" — but let's remember that back in ’86, when Meese Commission member Alan Sears sent letters to all the 7-Elevens, warning them that they might be busted for obscenity for carrying Playboy and Penthouse, Southland Corp. pulled those magazines off the racks faster than you can suck down a Slurpee. It took some stores months before they realized that the letter was a crock of shit.
Didja know that if public schools want taxpayer funds for sex education, their message has to be one of complete abstinence? Despite the fact that polls show that teens in general are fucking like rabbits, and that kids who pledge to remain virgins until marriage get just as many STDs as the rest of them, usually from oral and anal sex? And what about that $15 billion Bush pledged to fight HIV in Africa? Forget seeing a penny of that if your healthcare agency even hints that condoms are the best method, and that women actually can get abortions. But what the hell; how many Nigerians are looking for work in Porn Valley?
Oh, yeah; and those Internet companies whose customers can no longer charge their ciggie-butts to their credit cards? Within three weeks after the ban went into effect, nearly all those companies went out of business.
Politics. Heartbeat. Think about it.
