This article originally ran in the July 2014 issue of AVN magazine, which celebrates the 40th anniversary of Hustler magazine. To see the accompanying article on landmarks in the four-decade history of Larry Flynt Publications, click here.
Hustler founder and publisher Larry Flynt talked to AVN recently to discuss the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the first issue of his iconic magazine, which debuted in July 1974 and has remained in publication ever since, provoking the perfect opportunity to corral the legendary agitator of public hypocrites, especially those in office. To speak with Flynt is to be reminded not only of the singularity and significance of his greatest achievements, but also the extent to which they and he are an immutable part of our history, despite the fact that he remains fully engaged in the day-to-day operations of his global adult entertainment empire. With a lot to be content about, and obviously proud of the things he has achieved over the past four decades in business, in the culture and especially in court (including the ultimate courtroom!), Flynt is surprisingly unboastful in conversation; but as this interview reveals, he remains the determined, opinionated and informed man of the people whose optimism, sophistication and homegrown humor shines through.
AVN: Thank you for taking the time to speak with us, Larry. We’re celebrating Hustler’s 40th anniversary in the July issue of AVN and figured we couldn’t do it without talking to you. So, the 40th anniversary of the first issue of Hustler magazine; is that what is literally being celebrated this year?
Larry Flynt: Yeah.
Does it feel like 40 years?
Yeah, every day of it. Sometimes it feels like longer.
What were your expectations for Hustler when you founded it in terms of how long it would last? Did you have any idea?
Well, I wanted to achieve a couple of things. When I was young I never read Playboy or Penthouse. I wasn’t a publisher of men’s magazines yet; what I had were these Hustler clubs open in the Midwest, where we had dancing girls. I knew that Penthouse and Playboy had started their magazines first and then started their clubs, but I would be doing the opposite by then starting the magazines. So, I’ll never forget, I went to a newsstand and bought two copies of Playboy and Penthouse for the first time. And I looked at them and I thought, “These guys just aren’t doing it right,” you know, because what they’re doing is they were selling the sizzle and not the steak. And I realized that that was because of the advertising component, and that they couldn’t get too explicit, because if a magazine loses its advertising base, that’s it.
So I made a calculated decision at that time that if I charged more for my magazines people would pay it, if I were delivering what the readers really wanted. And that was the simple formula that I went forward with and it worked, because my readers wanted it sexual and explicit, and they wanted the humor to be raunchy and barnyard-style, the kind of jokes you tell at work but you don’t tell at social gatherings. Those were the types of jokes people wanted, as well as the cartoons that people wanted to see. I also didn’t want to be pretentious about what I was doing. I felt that Hustler was to be an entertaining magazine; it was to be totally about America. But if you read Playboy at the time, it was more about lifestyle; who made the best martini and what kind of car you could buy, what kind of stereo you could buy.
Did you feel that in the same way Playboy supposedly reflected Hefner’s lifestyle, that Hustler should be a reflection of yours, and that you should be a strong presence to help personalize it?
Yes, but also I wasn’t trying to wrap my pornography in a bunch of socially redeeming articles so I could legally publish it. You know, I was getting arrested a lot in those days. I just decided that I’m going to give the readers what they wanted and that I’m going to take a First Amendment stand. I really wanted to expand the parameters of free speech, and I did just that, and I did it at the highest court in the land.
Do you feel as though that was the Golden Age of magazines, so that a magazine would afford you the perfect vehicle to do that?
No, we made things happen. We created that Golden Age, and the case I won against Jerry Falwell was the most important First Amendment case in the history of the country because for the first time pornography was deemed protected speech. It was a really significant ruling, especially when you consider that ... well, one way of understanding it better is that a part of Hustler’s editorial philosophy was to be offensive. I always felt that that’s where the First Amendment was important, because if you’re not going to offend anyone, you don’t need First Amendment protection. So it was the iconoclastic nature of Hustler’s overall appeal, the way it was no-holds-barred, not just with the photos but in the humor and the articles and everything else.
Do you feel as if you’ve succeeded beyond your wildest dreams in the sense that the goal post of offensiveness has moved so far?
You know, just look at television. The Jon Stewart show [i.e. The Daily Show] would not exist today had Hustler magazine not existed.
Does the magazine still reflect your personal obsessions? How involved in it are you now?
Well, I’m not nearly as involved as much as I used to be now that we’ve moved into broadcasting, and into gaming and retail and the internet; and we also do a lot of licensing, so I’m pretty busy now that we’re more diversified. But you’ve got to understand what’s happened to publishing, and it’s not just Hustler. The internet has essentially killed print media. We’ve lost probably 90 percent of our circulation over a twenty-year period.
I see you have also launched a new website for the magazine, so I’m wondering to what extent the magazine and Hustler editorial still has a role in defining the company. And I also read recently that someone had asked you about the possibility of the magazine closing, and you answered that if it did you wouldn’t even blink, that you aren’t sentimental about it.
I have always thought of business like a commodity, so to me the magazine and the pornography are no different from peanut butter; there’s either a market for it or not. But I realized very early on that the internet was going to affect print media, so I started to diversify and I’m glad that I did. Now, the reason why I started the online version of Hustler was to preserve the brand, but we offer a lot. You can watch any of the old classic movies on there, and you can go into our inventory of cartoons, articles and photo pictures from the last 20 years, so there’s a lot you can get for being an online member. All of it is available to you if you are a subscriber. I don’t know if we’ll make money with it, but we think it’s necessary in order to preserve the brand. Of course, we might have to close it down, but Hustler is still making money, so I don’t know how much longer that’s going to keep up.
That was a great pitch. Hustler magazine is still making money?
It’s still making money! But I don’t know for how much longer. I thought it would have been closed by now, but we’re still hanging in there.
Well, you know, “magazine” is just a word. It doesn’t necessarily have to be in print. But I wanted to follow up on the brand. Would you agree that the Hustler brand has already far eclipsed the magazine, that in the popular consciousness it’s just this bigger thing now?
Oh yeah, we have nightclubs operating in foreign countries; we have nightclubs and retail store in this country. We have the casino here in California, and we’re getting ready to open another one. The brand could not be stronger at this time.
So, 40 years is a real milestone and an occasion to reflect on both the past and the future. Do you have any plans to slow down yourself or even think about giving up the reins to someone else?
As long as I’m feeling well, I’m going to continue doing what I’m doing.
How do you feel?
I feel great. Other than not being able to walk, I’m in pretty damn good shape.
I have to agree with that, but 40 years is still an opportunity to look at the Hustler legacy, and also your legacy. It’s clear that you loom larger than the publication; you are this larger-than-life figure now. How do you see yourself? Are you a celebrity?
You know, I never think about that. I really don’t. I think I helped a lot of people make it through puberty over the last 40 years.
No doubt. Listen, I’m curious if you think you could do today what you accomplished with Hustler over the last four decades? If you came upon this landscape and you’re the same man you were but it’s today, could you replicate what you did?
It would be difficult, because history really evolves as culture evolves. You know, people look at history as something that happened a long time ago, but a facet of history is the way the culture evolves. For instance, if you look at the adult industry and how it started with the nudist magazines in the 1950s, and then in the ’60s there were the 16mm films and then later on Beta and VHS, and Playboy, Penthouse and then Hustler, it was more or less like watching the adult industry actually evolve.
Do you ever think to yourself, “Boy, I’m glad I was born when I was and that I had this incredible opportunity”? That it was a special time? Or do you think every time is special?
The ’60s, when I grew up, were no doubt a very special time, but I don’t like to pigeonhole ideas. I think that young people can make their way in the same way I made mine. You’ve just got to have the desire to do it. Without desire, you can’t accomplish anything. With desire, you can move mountains.
Do you have an opinion about the current adult entertainment business?
Yeah, it’s very disappointing. Most of the people working in it have really given it a bad reputation because they are being very tacky and cheap in the way they produce material and in the way they do business. I spoke at the AVN Show in Las Vegas a few years ago, and I said, “The future of this industry is about quality. Forget about the days when you could get a handheld camera and take a model into the woods and shoot a film in half an hour and get it to market.” I said, “Those days are gone. You are only going to be able to sell quality.” But they never seem to listen to that.
It’s still the Wild West out there. At some of the seminars at the recent Internext in New Orleans, the choice laid out for people was very clear: make fast money but leave your brand in tatters, or go about business conscientiously—meaning, by not fucking over the customer for a fast buck.
You hit the nail on the head; because that’s the only way there will ever be a revival in this industry is if people treat it like a business.
So what about the larger economy, the U.S. economy, and the global economy—are you optimistic?
Well, I’ll tell you, I feel pretty damn good about not only where we’re at, but where the world’s at, because we have a world economy now. People are always asking where the stock market is going to go, but the stock market is driven purely by earnings. As long as companies are making good earnings, the stock market is going to continue to grow. The biggest problem that we have to grapple with—and many other countries are experiencing the same problem—is income disparity between the people who have money and the people who have no money.
In the ’60s, we expected that our wages would grow between 3 and 5 percent a year. However, over the past ten years real wages have grown less than 1 percent. I mean, what you’re doing is pushing the middle class into poverty, and then you have a bunch of Republicans who simply don’t understand that because they want to hold on to every nickel they’ve got. But just like with a company, you have to put money back in to make things better. The rich have got to realize that they have to put money back in to make things better. That to me is the biggest problem.
Instead, they seem to want to commodify everything, every sector and every aspect of life.
Yeah, I don’t know if they’re mean-spirited or just ignorant. I haven’t figured it out yet.
This might be a good time to ask you if, skipping over 2014, you have a favorite horse yet for 2016.
Well, I can’t see me backing any of the Republicans because I’m just not a part of their playbook. I’ve never made a secret about my politics. You know, down through the years and down through the centuries, liberalism has always won. The fights have always been difficult, but I have always felt that if conservative values work for you and your family, that’s fine, but don’t be trying to impose them on other people. I just hope the Democrats run a good strong candidate. I would like to see Hillary Clinton run because she has the experience to be able to do the job.
The conservatives have been pumping people out of Liberty University for many years precisely to go into politics, getting their marching orders from the religious right. They’re all over the place, especially in the state legislatures. I mean, all politics is really local, don’t you think?
Well, even though I am as disenchanted as I am about politics, I don’t let it get me down because I’m optimistic about the future. It seems that when it appears to be the worst, it starts to get better.
Have you always been an optimist?
Always; I think you have to be. If you’re not an optimist, you just tear yourself down. In order to be successful, you have to be an optimist.
I have a question about the media I wanted to ask you. Did you ever think you would see the day when it was the mainstream that created a nationally known porn star? I’m talking about Belle Knox, the Duke student who is now a big name.
Well, before, it was Jenna Jameson and Tera Patrick to a certain extent.
Did the mainstream make them stars or did the adult industry?
I think it was both. Go all the way back to Marilyn Chambers. She was the Ivory Snow girl, and then she was propelled into a national thing. I think the mainstream media occasionally like to pick a long shot and turn them into a mainstream phenomenon.
Finally, one more question. What do you think your greatest attribute is as the leader of LFP?
Well, I don’t know what my greatest attribute is, but my greatest accomplishment has been to expand the parameters of free speech in what I think is a good way. I think if I have a legacy that will probably be it. I have always felt that the greatest right a nation could afford its people is the right to left alone, and that’s an ideal that I always pursued.
