During the “Mind F#ck ’06” panel discussion at the January 2006 Internext convention, ClubJenna’s Jay Grdina admitted that had a problem with producers of what has come to be known as “extreme” content. “Everyone keeps pushing the envelope, and it’s making the industry look bad,” he asserted. “When people say, ‘These are your fellow pornographers,’ I say, “You’re right. How do I defend this?’”
Indeed, as pending obscenity cases against both Extreme Associates and Max Hardcore await outcome, the adult industry seems to have fallen prey to paranoia while waiting to see which side will prevail. Many argue that the cornerstones of extreme content – water sports, hardcore BDSM, fisting, simulated rape scenes, and other non-vanilla acts – draw unnecessary attention to the industry, making it harder for adult players who specialize in more traditional content to steer clear of negative stigma and possible prosecution. Meanwhile, many proponents of “extreme” say that the absence of clear legislation stipulating what constitutes “obscene” material gives them license to offer content that is clearly in demand. However, perhaps most telling about the current climate is that a number of extreme content producers declined to be interviewed for this article in order to avoid drawing attention to their activities.
Basic ethical questions about so-called “appropriate sexuality” remain, with webmasters on both sides of the issue. As the very future of adult content distribution faces its greatest foe in the form of an administration more concerned with wardrobe malfunctions than with international diplomacy, the line being drawn down the middle of the adult industry is creating a chasm of paranoia, resentment, and outright animosity.
“Like a toad that’s puffed itself up in order to look bigger than it really is, the federal government and its regional pockets of ultra-conservative sexual hysteria have done a great job of making pornographers, consumers of pornography, and those who simply enjoy a diverse diet of mutually consensual sexual activities afraid of their government and of one another,” says Darklady, a well-known proponent of extreme content who frequently voices her opinion at Darklady.com. “Instead of focusing on the importance of self ownership and responsible personal and professional behavior, we’ve started to play the neo-con’s game of paranoid finger-pointing, reaching emotional and poorly researched conclusions about things we don’t understand, and looking for ‘extreme’ scapegoats to blame our situation on.”
The business of “being bad”
Until the early ’90s, pornography mostly consisted of relatively tame “suck-and-fuck” action. However, with the Clinton administration and, more importantly, the Internet, attitudes toward adult content became progressively liberal, and a new breed of adult producers – including Hardcore, John Bowen, and Extreme Associates mastermind Rob Black –caused a commotion as they pioneered uncharted industry territory.
“I always noticed that there was nothing real, like in a real movie,” Black says. “It was really fluffy, pizza-delivery guy—that type of bullshit. I always wondered why nobody would do anything edgy, so to speak. Nobody was mixing drug use in the movies. Nobody was mixing the violence.” Inspired by forebears such as Gregory Dark, Black sought to mine human transgression for entertainment’s sake—and for notoriety.
Websites featuring extreme content quickly followed, with just about every fetish getting a spot on the Web, which offered unlimited potential to tap into niches not represented in traditional porn. Says Black, “I think more people would be into the crazy shit, but I think we’re so censored by our own industry that it never has a chance to get out to the public through [traditional] distribution channels. But when it’s on the Internet and it’s on [Video-on-Demand], then it’s open to 85 million people that have computers.”
Although most webmasters specializing in extreme concede their content doesn’t attract as much traffic as “mainstream” content, they maintain that the niche is lucrative. “What it comes down to is the quality of the site,” says Kenny B., webmaster for IACash.com (home of BioHarzardBitches.com and Lactalia.com). “Getting traffic for Bio Hazard Bitches has been relatively easy, as the majority of webmasters who see the quality of the site and our promotional content are quick to add it to their sites.”
“When we announced our webmaster program, within three hours I had over 15 webmasters sign up and had instant messages from people going, ‘Rob, we’ve been waiting for this! I have so much extreme traffic,’” says Black, while adding that “it’s not necessarily more profitable. You can’t sell it to cable. You can’t send it to a goddamn hotel chain.”
What’s more, you can’t shake the perception that extreme content is just too “specialized” to have broad appeal. “Due to the ever-increasing merging of softcore adult material and mainstream media, I would have to say that in the long run, softcore content [has] a greater revenue-gathering potential,” says FleshMerchant.com Chief Executive Officer Mack Diesel. “It has greater overall market appeal.”
The softer side of sex
Some softcore webmasters dispute the notion that they have it easier than their more extreme colleagues. “I think hardcore is pushed more in general,” says Rico of PanchoDog.com, which features several softcore sites. “Softcore has not been successfully traded by hardcore sites, compared to the opposite. This makes it hard for us to do business with hardcore programs and [limits] what softcore can do.” Some even have been penalized for being too tame. Steve Lightspeed, whose LightspeedCash program features several sites devoted to softcore teen content, claims that both Hustler and Vivid refused to distribute his company’s DVDs for just that reason. “They both said, ‘There is no market for softcore,’” Lightspeed says, adding, “I’m glad they think that. It means I won’t be competing with them.”
“I don’t think softcore is a huge market, but I’d rather have a good piece of the pie than a tiny piece of a huge pie,” Lightspeed continues. “In seven years, we’ve turned a profit every month, and we’ve seen almost constant growth—even when I hear other sponsors grumbling about a downturn. People ask how much money I make. I always say, ‘Enough to keep taking pictures of hot chicks. How much more do I need?’”
“From the first site we put up, we started to make a profit, and it has never been a challenge to find affiliates to promote our content,” claims James Cox, affiliate manager for SolarCash.com, home of non-nude sites such as TotalSuperCuties.com and topless sites like LoveLeia.com. “The online adult entertainment market is huge and very diverse. Softcore really is a large niche that can encompass many sub-niches, such as stockings, uniforms, busty, college, and others. I think any niche can be successful. The harder you work at it, the more successful you will be.”
“But the girls love it!”
The conundrum facing most extreme producers is the perception that they exploit helpless models for the sake of a quick buck. “People look at me and say, ‘How can you do this to these girls?’” says Dirty Danza, whose DirtyDanza.com features such “disgusting perversions” as “throat violation,” “fist fucking,” “cum spraying,” and “deep-throating.” “I say, ‘Hey, they called me!’ The girls know exactly what they are getting into. The same girls who were willing to shoot for $30 an hour [for] softcore—they’re going to shoot for a grand [in] hardcore easily.”
While some producers can cull from an existing stable of contract models who are comfortable with extreme content, not all models are willing to participate in the festivities. “Many girls won’t work for me if they know what I do,” Hardcore admits. “So it’s difficult to book some of the hottest talent.” Additionally, some models may require extra compensation for more extreme acts. BioHazardBitchesm.com’s Kenny B. says, “When we interview a model, she is asked to fill out a questionnaire [listing] a whole bunch of different activities they might perform in any given scene. Different scenes pay different rates; it’s all what the model is comfortable with.”
The power of the dark side
Extreme content has an enduring appeal for those who are fascinated by it. Then again, what constitutes “extreme” content is debatable. “The definition of what qualifies as ‘extreme’ varies from person to person,” says Darklady. “For some of us, watching tiny bleached blondes with fake boobs smiling through their facials is pretty extreme. I know plenty of rubber fetishists who think nothing of having someone pee on them while they’re in their sexiest latex, but who wonder what the hell porn is thinking when it depicts women having unprotected sex with multiple men who insert their sky-clad dicks into whatever orifice [they can], then move on to another orifice without cleaning off. So, what’s ‘extreme,’ and what makes us look bad?”
Hetero content isn’t the only porn to come under attack. For several years, many gay porn producers have criticized content producers like BarebackSex.com and other similar sites for containing content with condom-free sex, accusing them of fetishizing potentially life-threatening sexual behavior. Not so, says HotDesertKnights.com’s Bill Gardner, who directs much of the company’s content. “To say that guys are influenced to change the way they have sex in their personal lives because they watched two guys having sex without a condom in a film is to give the viewers very little credit. We don’t believe that someone watching a bareback film is going to rush out and have unprotected sex any more than we believe that watching any of the many criminal shows on television is going to cause people to go out and copy the crimes they see on TV. Adult entertainment is just that: It’s entertainment. It fulfills a fantasy and nothing more.”
Like Gardner, many extreme producers contend that watching their content won’t transform a decent person into an evil one. “You’d have to be a pretty fucked up human being to look at an extreme movie where three guys put their dicks in a girl’s asshole, then go out and get your two buddies and say, ‘Hey, let’s go find some girl off the street and fuckin’ rape her,” Black says. “If you take that pill, then you have to go after rock. You have to go after heavy metal. You have to go after violence in films. You have to go against violence in videogames. You have to go after everything else.”
“I think the idea that extreme content makes the industry look bad is ridiculous,” declares Darklady. “Coercion makes the industry look bad. Disregard for models makes the industry look bad. Bounced checks make the industry look bad. In other words, bad business practices make the industry look bad. And intolerance for the mutually consensual activities of others really makes the industry look bad, as far as I’m concerned.”
Yeah, but is it legal?
Most of those interviewed for this story claimed to keep representation on their payroll at all times in case of legal woes, although not all take their attorneys’ advice. “I listened to my lawyers at first, but when they started telling me I shouldn’t do this or that, I stopped listening,” says Hardcore. “I said, ‘Listen, don’t tell me what I can or cannot do. Just be there to defend me to the death if I get in trouble.”
Adds Dirty Danza, “My attorneys know that if I call them up and say, ‘Hey, I’ve got this brilliant idea: We’re gonna duct-tape a girl’s mouth open and do such and such to her,’ they’re just going to say, ‘Well, that’s Danza for you.’ My attorney is basically, like, ‘Hey, if you can afford to have me fight for you, then push it.’”
“If you aren’t willing to take the risk [of being prosecuted], you shouldn’t be in extreme,” states Chad Belville, an adult industry attorney.
Since most extreme content (excluding snuff films and child porn) is protected under the First Amendment, it’s up to individual communities to determine what is “obscene.” and prosecutable. As adult industry attorney Greg Piccionelli says, “Take, for example, a video of a woman giving a horse a blowjob that is produced in San Francisco. It may be that it’s never prosecuted in San Francisco, but if it’s shipped to Orem, Utah, a jury could find – applying the Miller test – that it is patently offensive by their community standards, appeals to prurient or deviant interests, and that it has no serious literary, artistic, or scientific value. Unless the woman has to give the horse a blowjob to save all of mankind, in which case the jury could find it to have serious value. You could actually make that case.
“The more extreme the material is, the more likely any given community is going to find that it’s outside their community standards,” Piccionelli warns. Both Belville and Piccionelli add that prosecutors are less likely to go after a company if the chances of a conviction are low. “As a prosecutor,” Piccionelli explains, “you don’t get anywhere by bringing cases that are lost, because it’s costly and it uses up the department’s resources. And it’s not good for your career. So you want to bring in cases that you can win.”
Piccionelli warns adult producers to refrain from antagonizing or criticizing government to avoid “vendetta prosecutions” and “trophy victories,” while Belville advises that companies producing extreme content need to make sure that they are legit. “If you become a target, then you likely will be convicted eventually of something. Al Capone was sent to prison [for] tax evasion because they couldn’t nail him on anything else, and that battle plan still works today. Keep the tax and business records in order and don’t draw attention to yourself.”
Then again, you could always just stick with the “safe” stuff. “Of course it is ‘safer’ to stick with mainstream porn,” Belville adds. “There are greater risks producing and distributing extreme content, but with greater risk comes greater profit if you do it right.”
And, although extreme producers often are criticized for “making the industry look bad,” it may in fact be that quite the opposite is true. “Extreme producers are the bastard, red-headed stepchildren that nobody seems to want to stand up for,” Belville notes. “However, the extreme producers are the ones that are really on the front lines making it possible for all of us to produce adult content. They’re the ones defending all of us right now.”
