A recent story reported that Hustler magazine is delivered every month to your congressman's office.
Tucked in a conservative-looking manila envelope, the latest edition of Hustler goes to all 535 members of Congress. Free of charge.
Not that most members want it, the story continues. It usually gets thrown in the circular file marked “trash.” But like clockwork, the story reports, it keeps coming, despite efforts to have it stopped.
The spokesman for Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah, recently tried to halt the mailing, and several members of Congress, the Salt Lake City Tribune story continues, have sued to make it stop, only to lose.
“It's a disgusting abuse of the system,” Cannon told the SLC Tribune. “It's a nasty, tricky little thing to do by a person with no conscience.”
The magazines have been coming for more than a decade at least. Publisher Larry Flynt says he started sending them as soon as his magazine began publication in 1974, but an Associated Press story from 1983 has Flynt initiating the mailings that year. Either way, he's not going to stop mailing Congress.
“I felt that they should be informed with what's going on in the rest of the world,” Flynt told SLC Tribune writer Thomas Burr. “Some of them didn't appreciate it much…I haven't had any plans to quit.”
It doesn't surprise him much that some members don't want the Beverly Hills, Calif.-based publication. “I would never force a subscription on someone who didn't want it,” Flynt says.
Daniel Weiss, a senior analyst for media and sexuality for the conservative religious group Focus on the Family, says that members of Congress who don't want the mailings should work with the Postal Service to make them stop. And if that doesn't work, they should ask the Justice Department to investigate whether the magazine is obscene and have it blocked.
“It seems like Flynt's trying to stick it to Congress,” Weiss said. “I don't know what I'd call it. Childish, perhaps.”
The story goes on to say that others in the sexually oriented business industry, though, think it's a good idea. “I have to respect his tenacity,” says Tom Hymes, a spokesman for the adult industry trade group Free Speech Coalition. “This is vintage Larry Flynt. And he certainly has a flair for publicity.”
