Wednesday, March 22, 2000
Rated X - A Journey Through Porn
There's a new documentary on the porn industry. Tom Joad writes:
http://www.aint-it-cool-news.com/display.cgi?id=5477
Director Dag Yngvesson saw Carnal Encounters of the Barest Kind starring Bill Margold, back when he was a teenager. Now, as a young twenty-something, Dag tracked down Bill Margold a call in efforts to set up an interview. Dag sets out to make a documentary on the porno industry. Bill immediately sets Dag straight on the term pornography: "Since 1988, in California, we have been referred to as the adult entertainment unless your mind is dirty when you think of adult entertainment." Bill agrees to help Dag with his documentary of the adult entertainment industry and Dag is sent to meet Jim South.
Luke Gets Mail
Cougar writes: I'm a really big fan of Asian starlets Mia Smiles and Precious Jewel ( Asian girls are my favorite- bar none ). However, neither one of them seem to have a fan mail or e-mail address. Is there any way that they can be written by their fans? I'm also wondering what ever became of a Filipina starlet named Pearl Essence. She appeared in a handful of films, and then she just disappeared. What ever happened to her?
Mad Jack writes: Luke: I have to say that it only figures following your recent obsession with bestiality, that you would post a pic of yourself holding some poor, defenseless, little dog. I guess it took your homeland to make you feel comfortable enough to chase after your true peccadillo. Will we see you back in the states or are you going to "give the dog a bone" down under for good?
Nolan Quan Porner
Mark writes: You mention someone named Nolan Quan (as an employee of a porn internet company charged with interstate obscenity) an an article you posted at http://www.4porn.net/index75.html and http://www.4porn.net/a80.html -- now the same name has just come up in a context that you might find intriguing (and which might create some publicity for you and your book).
A publicly-traded company just announced a merger with a company called StreamMagic, with a president named Nolan Quan. Speculation is that Quan's business needed to do a funny reverse-merger deal because they are in the porn business and can't go public any other way. If this is the same Nolan Quan, and StreamMagic is actually in the porn business, then I think the business/financial media might be interested -- if there was some way to confirm it.
See http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/000321/qsound_lab_1.html (press release) and http://post.messages.yahoo.com/bbs?action=m&board=8729390&tid=qsnd&sid=8729390&mid=3090&n=1 (a pseudonymous Yahoo message board post referring to your article)
See also http://messages.yahoo.com/bbs?action=m&board=8729390&tid=qsnd&sid=8729390&mid=3086 and http://messages.yahoo.com/bbs?action=m&board=8729390&tid=qsnd&sid=8729390&mid=3087 (the latter two are message board posts discussing the merger of Qsound and StreamMagic).
BTW, find the early February article in "The Express" which alleges that Sex.com is part of a worldwide money laundering ring.
Luke's Niece Proves Link Between Porn And Violence
My niece, Sally Lorisch, an athletic 19-year old who's majoring in criminology at the University of Queensland (her older sister is pursuing a Ph.D. there in American History) writes the following paper for her Sociology of Crime and Deviance class. She received top marks, seven out of seven, for this:
Discuss the relationship between violence, gender and political acts with reference to serial killing OR assault and murder. In this exercise you are expected to discuss and critique the relevant theories with reference to the data that has been made available to you.
The phenomenon of serial murder is directly related to the patriarchal structure in which we live. From a feminist perspective, serial murders can be interpreted as sexually political acts perpetrated to reinforce these patriarchal societal systems (Caputi, 1989). Rather than these deeds being perpetrated by only a handful of members on the fringe of society, they are representative of one of many rituals performed by men, including the existence of pornography and the maintenance sex industry, to reinforce the status quo (Caputi, 1989). This tenet does not, however, account for all of the serial crime present in contemporary society, in particular those violations perpetrated by women, nor does it account for family and behavioural issues.
Nevertheless, the doctrine does sufficiently account for the majority of serial killers being male, as well as their particular choice of victim. The data has shown that the victims selected by the male serial killer are overwhelmingly lone young females, and to a lesser extent young males (Hickey, 1991). This victim selection is indicative of the patriarchal domination symbolic of these acts and in the contribution pornography plays in serial murder (Caputi, 1989). It has been argued that a man's predisposition to rape and kill women is intensified by pornography which "represents or describes degrading or abusive sexual behaviour so as to endorse and/or recommend the behaviour as described" (Russell, 1988). This degradation is similarly represented by the way in which female victims, specifically those in the sex industry, are treated by society. In the case of the Yorkshire Ripper in England, a police constable made the statement pertaining to the Ripper, "he has made it clear he hates prostitutes. Many people do. We as a police force, will continue to arrest prostitutes. But the Ripper is now killing innocent girls......Give yourself up before another innocent woman dies" (Caputi, 1989). Such a sentiment was also echoed by Ted Bundy. Statements such as these shift blame away from the male perpetrator to the female victim, and deny the regular occurance of such events, thereby successfully deluding the populous (Caputi, 1989).
However, it must also be recognised that not all cases of serial murder involve a male perpetrator. Indeed, figures show that between 1970 and 1988 there have been eleven cases of serial murder committed by females (Hickey, 1991). The doctrine also fails to account for the persuasive development and learning theories which highlight the importance of past experiences in the development of our behaviours and beliefs. A case study pertinent to this issue is the serial killer Edmund Kemper. As a young boy, Kemper experienced severe and traumatic episodes at the hands of his mother. Such episodes are widely believed to have contributed significantly to his future violent path (Douglas and Olshaker, 1998). Further, John Douglas, the pioneer psychological profiler believes that "virtually all of them (serial killers) come from abusive or otherwise severly dsyfunctional backgrounds" (Douglas and Olshaker, 1998). Numbers of such significance cannot be dismissed as having no effect on the perpetration of serial murder.
The importance of development and learning theories do not substantially deflect from the data indicating that serial murder is a political act. The profound number of male serial murderers and their hierarchy of victims, primarily being young females who are alone, indicates a patriarchal dominance inflicted upon women. Pornography and the accepted degredation of women within the sex industry are also indicative of these patriarchal influences within society. Indeed, it may be argued that the patriarchal structure of our society means that these violent serial murders are political acts designed to uphold patriarchy.
Italy gropes with nudity problem
ROME, March 21 (Reuters) - Italy's art galleries, magazines and television are full of it, but on Italian beaches, nudity remains strictly off-limits. Seeking to end this anomaly, Italian politicians on Tuesday unveiled two bills which would allow people to strip off at the seaside, thereby giving a lift to the local tourism industry.
Luke Visits Docs
Brisbane, Australia: 7AM, Wednesday.
Lord Peter Luther Christian writes:
Dear Mr. Ford:
Rise and shine! I love tending to my email first thing in the morning. This exercise lets me focus my thoughts for the events and deeds of the day. Especially when I am playing the role of tourist in a distant city, where changes in time zones and weather wreak havoc on one's constitution.
I had forgotten how downright muggy and warm it could get in Brisbane. (It must have been 80F the other day!) I had a very interesting conversation the other day. (As an aside, have you had the chance to meet Yossi Wernick or Uri Thermal?) But more on that later.
Your friend Lynne is clearly crying out for the love of Jesus even if she does not know it. Jesus is contesting Satan for your soul, Lynne, pulling in one direction even as Satan pulls in the other. I know that once I win Luke over to the side of God, you will follow, for such is your love for and devotion to Luke, that something very special can be made of it! It is God's plan that the two of you minister in the name of Christ to the lost sheep of the fornication factory that is California. I look forward to jointly ministering to the both of you upon my return to the States.
But that is for later. Right now, I just want to wish you a "good day, Mate" in the land on the top side (from where we stand!) of the globe.
Yours in Christian Devotion, Peter Luther Christian
Luke: How do you know me and my situation so well. I was just getting up.
Lord: Jesus knows when you sleep and when you arise. I am but his humble servant. (No, relax, this is not "The Matrix.")
Steve Neece writes: More thoughts.To Lynne;I wish you well in your relocation to Oregon.I don't know about Portland,but Eugene and Corvallis both have a lively counter culture that might offer you a bit of support and make relocation less lonely.You sound a lot like Annie Sprinkle in your outlook.Have you ever met her?The last I heard she was spending the winter on an island off the coast of Washington.You needn't apologize for putting his Lordship in his place.His selfrighteousness is rather annoying. Your Lordship,isn't your title self assumed and indicative of the deadly sin of pride ,not to mention bearing false witness? You seem to find great joy in slaughtering unoffending wallabies for your consumption.It sounds like hunting for sport rather than sustenance to me.You appear to be an unresolved homosexual that is given to all male gatherings;all in the name of fellowship,of course.I bet you have never married.Nothing wrong with that,neither have I .But you seem to loathe the idea of any kind of sex. Were it up to you,the human race would have become extinct eons ago.As with all religious fanatics,you are such because of flawed character and intellect. If you are indeed a peer of the realm ,send proof from Burke's Peerage to Luke and if he says it's legit I will apologize on that score.
XXXInsider: sorry to bother, mate, but doesn't the Buck Adams incident I was involved in earlier last summer seem a lot more likely with all this recent crap that Buck's been pulling?
Mike South: Re: Chaim Amalek. Gee Luke I haven't seen anyone this deserving of a ball gag since alicia klass. Please use your new gun and end his boring drivel.
Chaim Amalek writes: Luke, no doubt words by the thousands are spilling in from Lukeland re your family's bill of particulars against me. Let me, as the native-born jew you wish you were, cut through them all, and distill them to their essence.
OY VEY! Luke, your immediate female relatives include some of the most irritating yentas I have ever come across. I cannot say who is worse - Big Sister or Concerned StepMommie. The thought that people like this (especially BigSister) are wielding power over anyone anywhere in the world sends chills down my aged, curved, jewish spine.
Let me step back a bit for some perspective. These letters from your family cannot be serious, right? I mean, if you made them all up or edited out the really incriminating material, then maybe you are a bit of a wack job. Are you leaving something out, like the time you had public sex with the neighbor's pet ferret at the local police station, or the time you set your willy on fire whilst singing The Waltzing Matilda? If not, then the primary beef these wasp yentas have against you is that you are an asshole, and much worse, you are an asshole who is too close a relation of theirs and too public a person to shove into the closet. You are a shanda on the family (or at least to their career and social prospects). And maybe you are, but is that a commitable offense? The WASP yentas in your world seem to think it is. Know this Luke - they and their kind are among the enemies of human freedom! The average drug-challenged physically ill prostitute who works for my good friend Mike S. is far less of a menace to human freedom than my yenta-lawyer-sister and her kind. To be blunt about it, YOUR BIG SISTER IS AN APPALLING WOMAN. Well-intentioned yentas like her made the psychiatric Gulag of the old USSR hum with the misery of their good intentions, and are not blameless in the current fall of western civilization. (Why oh why did we ever give women the vote?) Totalitarianism is coming at us not through Big Brother and his secret policemen, but through Big Sister and Concerned StepMommie, and their grim faith in the redemptive power of psychiatry to remake the people around us in their image. They make Scientology look good.
Not that you are blameless in all this. I seem never to have learned the meaning of discretion, of maintaining certain useful fictions and omissions about yourself to make your life more palatable to the women in your family. You seem to tell the yentas in your life a whole lot more than they need to know. Show some balls and stop explaining yourself to them. The next time they get nosey, just tell them that you love them, that things are going well, but that it is, after all, my life, and not theirs.
PS Thanks for letting me run your web site these last few days, its been fun. And since I am in charge here, do you think Mike S. would object if I repeated some of the things you told me in confidence about him, like [deleted]? Not that I want to start a flame war here - you well know the favors Mike has done for me and the many kindnesses he has shown me in recent years.
lysa: Luke, for the sake of your family and your health, get the hell out of porn. You, as a Jew, should know that family ALWAYS comes first. Please.
Goddess writes: After reading all that stuff about your childhood, Luke, I have one piece of advice: find a good psychiatrist that offers family discounts. You're ALL nuts.
Louie Scorbick: Hey read your site today -- do you ever look around and shake your head in amazement at how many people take such an active interest in trying to psychoanalyze you? I don't just mean your family, they love you and care about you, but sheesh, all these letters detailing your past events,... no wonder you're freaking out! I would be too if everyone had an opinion on everything from the tone of my laugh to when I had mono fifteen years ago. No seriously, I don't mean to make light, as I've met you and hung out with you, and think that while you're introspective and maybe have some minor issues you're dealing with (who doesn't?) at your heart you're a good guy struggling with himself and finding his place in the world. Oh great, now I'm another person writing in with thoughts on your psyche. Anyway, I'll just add I know dozens of people much more screwed up than you, but with maybe 5% of the interest I'm seeing displayed. In a way it's a good thing because it means people care about you (or at least, on your site, are entertained by you), but it's bad because I don't think you require remotely this much analysis. People struggle with s--- everyday. We all handle it differently. I'm not sure it helps to have a bunch of people staring at your every move, though, especially your family. If anything, I think it'll just cause you to act weirder, almost as a show for them.
George: I never realized that there are so many psychiatrists/psychologists out there that seem to be able to diagnose what your problems are. Could you imagine what it would be like to have all of those people in the same room? It would be best if none of them had any sharp objects. I'm sure if they had some crayons and paper it would be OK. And if they were locked up in a room for a few hours I bet that all a person would find after is a big brown pile.
But there is one thing that concerns me about you Luke. Is it true you were born in Australia? And you left there to go live in the Excited States? At least you didn't go somewhere that has cold winters. Like where I live. Winnipeg, Canada. It isn't called Winterpeg for nothing. Seven months of winter and five months of tough skating! Actually the people living here year round are the ones that need the psychiatrists. Summer is nice, but when it's thirty below zero you gotta wonder how crazy a person must be to stay here.
Which brings me back to you Luke. You live in California don't you? Don't you worry about waking up some morning and realizing it's the big one, and the whole west coast is going to fall into the ocean? I have been to Los Angeles a few times and I kept hoping nothing was going to happen while I was there. Maybe some of the things all those psychiatrists are saying might just have some validity to them. Just kidding Luke. If you were anywhere close to what they all are saying you would probably have a straight jacket for every day clothing and have to have someone spoon feed your Pablum to you. Keep your chin up Luke. Just imagine how many problems they all must have seeing as how they all seem to know so much about them.
ZHR29: luke, why is gene ross's sight identicle to porngossip.com and since nobody answered my question if debi diamond is dead...i am lead to believe she just may be...care to sound in on this
Luzdedos1: dunno
The NJG: did you see those luke pix? LOL
The NJG: that first one!
BrandyAlx1: No, he has new pics?
The NJG: so hilarious!
The NJG: yeah lukey as a dorky teen boy!
BrandyAlx1: lol
The NJG: o are you looking?
BrandyAlx1: yep
The NJG: I was dying of laughter!
BrandyAlx1: His sister is kinda pretty
The NJG: you know there's other pix there where is part gorgeous,
I mean STUNNING, and very british!
The NJG: if we had gone to college together I would definitely have
stalked him!
BrandyAlx1: lol
The NJG: yep
The NJG: esp. where he has the brit shaggy boy cut
The NJG: oh that was SO my type
The NJG: I would have been batting my big blue eyes at him and smiling..!
BrandyAlx1: lol
BrandyAlx1: He looks so happy and cheerful in these earlier pictures
The NJG: but you know, I think he always had some weird kind of girl
problem going on ... as cute as he used to be...he was a freak towards
women, and he still is only worse so
The NJG: oh god brandy send him this log! he'd love it
BrandyAlx1: You talking about this Sierra College picture? Yeah, cutie
The NJG: and several others
The NJG: I mean, I would have been like smile smile SMILE, hey luke....:-)
:-)
BrandyAlx1: Well, that's his screwy religious upbringing
The NJG: you know, he would not have been able to resist
The NJG: I dunno, he's just a freaky weird guy with problems dealing
with chix...too bad too, he used to be really really cute, but now,
he's just aging and normal looking, he doesn't have that gorgeous
brit boy thing going for him anymore, and now he makes really bad
fashion choices, before he was more brit
BrandyAlx1: This 1980 pic is adorable!
The NJG: thing is he had real beauty at one time...it's all been squandered
though by him
BrandyAlx1: no kidding. I woulda jumped him bones in a heartbeat.
The NJG: I would have tried to make him fall in love with me
BrandyAlx1: Interesting stuff
The NJG: luke's father was cheating while luke's sick mother was ill?
what a bastard!
BrandyAlx1: Looks more like he was grooming a replacement.
Pop Shots As Reassurance Therapy
By Louie the Jew Scorbick (Galifrey@aol.com)
Ever wonder why porn films always feature the external pop shot onto the woman's face, chest or other body parts? Ever wonder why, unlike porn from Asia and other countries, American porn focuses on the variety of degrading ways cum can be used to splash upon the female partner? Well, the reason is simple. Ego soothing.
In real life, we men gotta work hard in bed. Every day, after a long day at work, we then have spend all night working our asses off to try to get our women "there", help them to reach that elusive and nebulous area known as the female orgasm. This can involve positions and techniques we guys might not normally go for, but in the interest of diplomacy, we gotta give it the ole' "college try". So we do. Often with less then stellar results.
But in porn, all bets are off. We wanna see the guy get his, but not only that, we want to see him get it the way we want to get it if only we had the balls to get it that way. In other words: Fantasy.
And what's fantasy? Why, for the American male, that's a world where women not only never have an orgasm, but a world where women don't even care that they never have orgasms. Has there ever been a porno where the woman complains she didn't come? Hell no! And how often do women even fake cuming in pornos? Rarely, if ever. Why? Easy. It's all about the guy. Porn is fantasy for men, and in the guy's fantasy, the woman exists exclusively to give the guy pleasure. Her whole raison d'etre is to make the guy cum. His sexual pleasure is tantamount. What he wants, she does.
So how does the pop shot related to this? Easy. When a guy pulls out and cums, he's shouting out for the world to see, "here's my orgasm! worship me!" and the woman moans with pleasure and takes each squirting gob of jism. With each buckshot, the man is saying, "I don't care if you came, I'm coming!" and in the porn world, the woman is completely satisfied by his coming. That jizz is all there is. Her orgasm? Not relevant here.
Thus, on a very subtle psychological level, the cumshot reassures us, the male viewer, 'hey, in this world, it's okay you're a lousy lay who can't get your girlfriend to have an orgasm! In this world, these woman just want you to come. That's all they care about. See? That bleached blond starlet just took forty two gallons of Peter North's egg white on her chin with a moan of exctasy. She was never remotely sexually aroused the entire time, and couldn't care less. What more could you want?"
And that, my friends, is the origin of the external pop shot onto the woman's face. In short, it's because you're pathetic.
Next week's lecture: "Porn tape as five sex scene metaphor for the mortality of existence".
Ogman: please tell me that you are kidding!; as an humorous aside, this is fairly amusing but other than that it is total bulls---. the idea that pornography is fundamentally based upon female degradation is rather prevalent whenever the subject is discussed but it breaks down when you consider how many females enjoy porn, not to mention the ones that go into the business. if anything, the continued and hammered notion that these women are so base and ignorant as to not realize that they are perpetuating this is far more insulting than being slopped with spooge: "here, stupid pornlet, let me save you from the horrors you inflict upon yourself, though you are too foolish to realize what you are doing! oh, these terrible men!" how noble, how gauche. as i have said before, degradation is an overall ingredient to sex whether or not it is overtly present; its overtones are evident because we are humbled both by our lack of clothing and our desires and passions and this is plain old cool. i hope your girlfriend or whatever enjoys the 2-minute respect you show her - Missionary style, in the dark, with your socks on, preferrably when she's ovulating (procreation!; not recreation!), supporting the full weight of your body, while you slobber on the side of her head and say good old-fashioned, Christian things like "I love you. You're so special to me. Did you remember to mail the rent yesterday?" and "Is it cold in here?" - before you roll over and pass out in the middle of leno's monologue because she certainly does not realize that she is f---ing someone who would be far better off reading a book on armchair psychology than practicing it. poorly. damnably so.
Pat Riley On Piercings And Perversions
Pat Riley writes on RAME: I'm being exceedingly nice and lenient to you "all the world's tattood and pierced" freaks letting you get get away with the argument that somehow mainstream movie performers and similar are representative of the middle class. As a group they're almost as freaky as the porn performers. IOW if you can't show each and every one is a walking sideshow tattoo- and piercing-wise, you might as well just throw in the towel right now.
Like lots of guys on this group you have a particular fetish interest and are desperate to see yourself as mainstream. Hence the "prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt" approach. The last time this subject came up I seem to remember one of the proponents of "every last woman is a tattoo freak and carries at least ten pounds of body jewelry or will in the very near future" ridiculed the idea of no piercings with an assertion that almost all women were pierced...earrings. "Nah, nah, I got you!" What a fool.
I'm not denying that there a some non-porn pierced and tattooed females out there and there are probably more belly piercings than anything else--you bring up some good examples--but the sort of tattoos and piercings one sees in the porn industry are rare and limited to guests on Jenny Jones and workers at Burger King.
...The taxpayer part of me says thank god for Jesse Helms and so does the cynical "I know if academia study this subject they're going to do it dishonestly" side but if you had it supervised by (say) the guy who wrote "The Bell Curve" and William Buckley we could actually glean some reasonable information from a large study.
Searching For Deep Inside Cindy Plenum
Cicero writes on RAME: Does anyone know where I can get a copy of any of the videos of Cindy Plenum, especially "Deep Inside Cindy Plenum?" I think it was made about 1984. I read an interview of her by some French publication that appeared on Luke F-rd's web site. All of my usual sources do not have her videos in stock.
Black Out
Emmett writes: Bigdog you are a genius! Everything you said is right on the money! We need more people like us speak up against the crap Afro-American porn stars face and the crap they do to themselves! Everyone wants to forget about it and ignore it. Well I can't do that!
As much as I love seeing porn stars like Monique, Cherry Lee, Xtacee, Cinnabunz, and Obsession; I want to see other female porn-stars besides them. I love seeing Lexington Steele, Jake Steed, Wesley Pipes, Mr. Marcus, and Sean Michaels but I am tired of seeing them.
Caucasian porn has an echelon of stars. With Afro-Americans you just keep seeing the same people. They are super hot but too much of one star can be boring at times and I am tired of it. I know I am not the only one. People need to speak out more. Mostly Afro-American performers! I am tired of going to the Internet Adult Movie Database and seeing practically no reviews on Afro-American porn.
Lynn is absolutely right. No wants to review porn. If that is the case then why don't producers higher someone to review it or just have on of the others stars to review it. There is always a way! I am also tired of not seeing full Afro-American porn stars. It's like porn only choose a few black porn stars who have white features to make it to the top. Just let in a few in the door for whatever a reason, but just only a few and that's it.
Afro-American porn stars need to stop putting poor English language on the box cover and stop calling their women "Bitch, Whore, Slut,etc.". That crap just doesn't sell. Besides women with color have the best facials because you can see every ounce of ejaculate that hits their face. It almost glows while it droops down from their bodies.
In conclusion both sides are guilty of f---ing. I wish they all would just get over what ever the hell their thinking and make Afro-American just like the way Caucasians make them. And Stop adding some type of "black this or black that" to the titles. It makes me not want to pick it up as well.
Emmett writes: Dear Lynn, I would love to review your films but the video stores in NJ (And mostly likely the whole damn country) only purchase a few interracial tapes since they believe it would hurt their business if they sell an abundant amount of Afro-American porn. So I have never heard of those titles you mentioned. I like the name of those titles even though it still have some type of color stigma attached to it. You are also very accurate about Afro-American porn receiving zero reviews. Most reviewers are anti-Afro-American porn, thus the films never get reviewed. I am also sorry to read that you won't be producing anymore Afro-American porn. America is just too damn racists and prejudice. Can't stand to see people with color f--- unless they have Caucasian characteristics like "Dee". I hope some day you will change your mind and I wish you well on what ever you pursue.
Porn To Rock
NEW YORK, March 21 /PRNewswire/ -- At the dawn of the new millennium, rock & roll is a huge mainstream industry characterized by big stars, bigger bucks, worldwide audiences and the promise of living out your fantasies. So is the porn industry. And now, they're coming together.
Correspondent Rebecca Rankin examines the growing connection between these two billion-dollar industries in the VH1 News special "Rankin File: Rock & Porn," premiering Monday, March 27 at 10:00 p.m. (ET/PT).
In this second installment of "Rankin File," Rebecca Rankin reports on how and why the two worlds of rock and porn are increasingly intersecting, from rock stars hanging out with porn stars, to porn stars crossing over to music careers, ex-porn directors at the helm of teen pop videos, and rock stars talking about backstage sex on best-selling videos.
Rankin explores relevant issues like the roles of money, censorship, marketing and exploitation in this marriage of mainstream entertainments, and goes one-on-one in exclusive interviews with music stars Kid Rock, Vince Neil and Everclear's Art Alexakis, adult film stars Danni Ashe, Janine, Dyanna Lauren and Juli Ashton, and director Matt Zane, as well as adult video industry executives and rock music critics.
Among the interview highlights:
-- Kid Rock, on porn: "Everybody watches it, but nobody will say they do."
-- Steven Hirsch, president of Vivid Video, on the basic dynamics of the current trend: "The rock industry and the adult industry work together because the people -- the actors and the rock stars -- are rebellious people. Therefore, they're driven to each other."
-- Kevin Powell, music critic, on rock's embrace of the porn industry: "Sex sells. Sex sells albums. For rock, porn is giving it a little bit of the edge it had lost over the past couple years."
-- Art Alexakis of Everclear, on playing at an adult video company party: "This is rock and roll -- it's just a show. There are people who have sex for money. Who cares?"
-- Ann Powers, New York Times critic, on why the rock-porn marriage is now being consummated: "We're living in fat times. People want to party. We want our cash, we want our babes, we want to go to the strip club and have a good time. And sex is fun. And money is just as important to these rock stars as sex is."
-- Danni Ashe, adult film and internet superstar, on her innovative marketing cross-promotions with top rock acts: "The rock world definitely is looking for that edgy, bad-boy reputation ... It's acceptable enough to where it's not career-threatening."
-- Vince Neil of Motley Crue, on rock's enduring outlaw image: "I think that, for the regular fans out there, it just is kind of an expected thing -- 'All the rock stars get all the hot porn chicks.'"
-- Dyanna Lauren, porn actress and singer, on her dual careers: "I've been in music my entire life. I have a B.A. in music. But I hate record companies, so I took a break from it. And I decided that if I was going to get screwed, I was going to get paid for it."
Luke Gets Mail
Alan Watts writes: That's right, young Luke, fame is your desperate doomed-to-fail attempt to legitimize your (unconsciously) illegitimate, fatherless, and therefore bastard existence, by exhibitionistically displaying yourself to the world in order to demonstrate to everyone that you are indeed worthy of everyone's attention and entitled to an adult social existence. Without this sort of attention YOU DO NOT FEEL THAT YOU EXIST. (True, Luke?) Thus, you believe you need nothing less than fame to feel that you are even a man at all, but what you really need, Luke, is a father.
Now that we thankfully know what is NOT clinically wrong with you, Luke, we can all relax and have a good time now, and continue looking together for what IS wrong with you apart from an insignificant amount of frontal lobe damage and a touch of bi-polar manic-depressive disorder, and whatever the psychiatrists have to say.
My new, revised belief, Luke, is that you suffer from what I call FAME DISEASE. Let me explain, as I believe this condition is shared by many of the pornos in your (dwindling) audience.
Once again, we must begin with Freud and his Oedipus complex, because mommy/daddy is always the starting point for us humans. There's simply no getting away from that initial relationship which, after all, is what really makes us human, or at least humans in society.
As always, young man, I assert that, in psychosexual terms, the MEN of the sex industry are forever doomed to LOOKING FOR AND TRYING TO POSSESS MOMMY and the WOMEN are likewise forever doomed to LOOKING FOR AND TRYING TO SEDUCE DADDY, in permanent vicious circles with no resolution in sight. Their Oedipus (mommy/daddy) failure in every case was that these men and women failed to "FEEL GOOD" ABOUT THEIR SAME-SEX PARENT AND SO FAILED TO IDENTIFY WITH THEM AS ROLE MODELS as a successful way of being men and women in society and in this world.
Yes, Luke, that's right, feeling good about identifying with one's same sex parent(or a same-sex role model, such as a therapist) is the only successful way to ultimately resolve one's Oedipus/Electra complex and feel that one has a rightful place and really belongs in this world as a man or woman.
So what does all this have to do with Luke F-rd and his fame disease? I have bad news for you, Luke. The man who invented the concept of HELL was a second-born son (like you) who LOST his mother in a Freudian sense NOT ONLY TO HIS FATHER (the Oedipus complex) but ALSO SECONDLY TO HIS OLDER BROTHER.
YOU LOST YOUR MOMMY TWICE, LITTLE LUKE, TO BOTH FATHER AND OLDER BROTHER AND YOU ARE THEREBY DOOMED TO ROAM THE WORLD (as Cain did, even though he was the older brother, the Bible got it wrong, not me) RAILING AT HEAVEN AND FOREVER FUMING AT YOUR DUAL DEFEAT AT THE HANDS OF BOTH YOUR FATHER AND YOUR OLDER BROTHER.
At an unconscious level, your mother--as all mothers-- really did love your older brother more (not her fault, since, being older, he was in reality more the ideal son than weak, pitiful little Luke), and you also know this to be true with a railing certainty deep inside your psyche, Luke, and you are equally certain that this damning psychic wound of losing mommy twice will never heal.
Thus, your permanent unconscious hatred at bottom for both your father and older brother, once you realized at an emotional level that your mother's choice of your more powerful father and superior brother was permanent and unchangeable, as in fact it was.
Therefore, the best that little loser boy Luke can ever hope to do is to find an unduly exalted male role model he admires (like Dennis Prager) and identify with him, or perhaps a psychotherapist Luke can see as his male role model. Only by successfully identifying with such an exalted (exaggerated) or better, a legitimate father figure (one who is seen as legitimately and successfully male in society) can you overcome the permanent defeat by your father/brother and resulting loss of your mother, and feel that you finally do really belong in this world, stop rebelling, and begin to feel that you are entitled to a happy, completely fulfilling life as a man.
Now why do I call Luke's condition fame disease? Because Luke sees fame, not identifying with father, as the solution to his Oedipus complex. Because Luke was displaced by father/brother, he can never feel good about being a man in this world. (That's why he is a rebel and why I said he rails against heaven and everything else for that matter.)
As a psychically illegitimate son, the world is a true emotional hell to him, he is absolutely damningly furious inside because he realizes at core that he is "no man" and doomed to wander the world in an asocial way, since he can never "fit in", never being acceptable to others, but rather being an outcast and a pariah to the rest of the world (hence, his association with the porn world, or "hell").
Luke feels absolutely dead and barren inside as an adult, he lacks the warm love inside he would get by instead identifying with father and finding he does rightly belong in this world after all. And the reason I call this FAME DISEASE is that EXHIBITIONISM IS INHERENTLY ASOCIAL. The Mayans even had a statue of a nude young man, and called it the exhibitionist because his nudity was, even then, recognized as asocial and antithetical to society. (Even primate males hide their erections from the dominant male, or their society would be destroyed from the inside.)
After all, what do all the youngsters in the sex industry(and for that matter on the Jerry Springer show) have in common? THEY ARE ALL EXHIBITIONISTIC AND HENCE ASOCIAL. It may mean standing on a street corner as a prostitute half-naked flagging down cars, dancing nude on a stage, having sex on camera, wearing skirts over one's ass, piercing one's body parts, or RUNNING YOUR OWN XXX-RATED WEBSITE LUKE, but ASOCIAL EXHIBITIONISTIC DISPLAY IS THE UNIVERSAL CHARACTERISTIC AND BOTTOM-LINE COMMONALITY for you and all your porno associates.
DO WE CONNECT YOUNG MAN? ARE WE CLEAR ABOUT THAT? YOU HAVE FAME DISEASE. YOU ARE ASOCIALLY EXHIBITIONISTIC! DO NOT PASS GO! DO NOT COLLECT $200. SEEK HELP IMMEDIATELY! DO NOT GO ANYWHERE ALONE (WITHOUT YOUR PSYCHIC CLOTHES ON)!
THERE! WAS THE TRUTH SO BAD, LUKE? THERE'S REALLY NOTHING EVIL ABOUT YOU, YOU JUST LIKE RUNNING AROUND WITHOUT YOUR PSYCHIC CLOTHES ON. YOU HAVE IT FROM WATTS. NOW RUN AND GO PLAY IN THE WATER AND TRY TO ENJOY WHAT'S LEFT OF YOUR HOLIDAY, YOUNG MAN.
Ogman writes: obviously, this guy galifrey and this guy alan watts are either the same person or have another very close connection (luke, is this another amalgamic creation?).
i am simply astounded. first of all, msr. watts, your letters have become increasingly hostile and terribly insulting and i would think that below a man whom so obviously thinks himself superior to this webmaster and the rest of us poor and misguided souls. having been lately subjected to your detritus and the emotional baggage from which it stems, i can safely and comfortably judge you a f---ing stupid man but in the very remote chance that you may be, as i first suspected, simply undereducated and emotionally-handicapped, we will go through this step by step. now, please hold my hand tightly, look both ways, and watch for dangling dipthongs and literarisms (they have a tendency to crop up):
>>My new, revised belief, Luke, is that you suffer from what I call FAME DISEASE. first and foremost, there is a name for this "fame disease" you describe: it is most often referred to as LOW SELF-ESTEEM or BAD SELF-IMAGE (your caps). a good vocabulary is key to good communications and, luckily, many have contributed to an agreed - though ever-growing - list when dealing with psychology; please learn at least some of the terms so that we might all benefit from your great knowledge.
>>Let me explain, as I believe this condition is shared by many of the pornos in your (dwindling) audience.
i f---ed your mother in the back of a chevy. twice. once in the ass.
>>Once again, we must begin with Freud and his Oedipus complex, because mommy/daddy is always the starting point for us humans.
apparently, not all of us can get away from this relationship. nevertheless, do you know anything about freud, msr. watts?: freud was a very genuinely disturbed man of great intellect and insecurity and most certainly something of a sexual pervert. he was also a drug-abuser and by most all accounts and common mores - and most certainly yours - quite the sexual deviant. most of freud's theories were complete trash, applicable almost solely to himself and no others, and nearly all have been forsaken in the pursuit of truer and better science. freudian psychology was little more than a springboard for modern psychology, founding and promoting the idea that sexual identity (its detection, observance, and acceptance) and basic interpersonal relationships were instrumental in treating social and mental illnesses more commonly treated with medicines and far more horrible methods. his charge, jung, was a far more capable psych-/soci-ologist whose ideas and theories are still largely prevalent today. you would also be interested in skinner (who advanced the accepted and logical idea of positive and negative reinforcement for behavior) and others, particularly the theory of the tabula rasa; you ARE aware that you are dealing in behaviorial psychology and that freudian psychology is an almost total wash, are you not, msr. watts? - i assumed you did. you are ALSO aware that all of this above is common to a highschool-level psychology course, mr. watts? - i thought as much.
>>these men and women failed to "FEEL GOOD" ABOUT THEIR SAME-SEX PARENT AND SO FAILED TO IDENTIFY WITH THEM AS ROLE MODELS as a successful way of being men and women in society and in this world.
sir, that is not even the whole of the freudian complex to which you are referring. wallowing in cleties is the earmark of a common intellect but since you are so comfortable, allow me to forward one for your later regurgitation: "a little knowledge is a far worse thing". [here your diatribe becomes confused and rambling and awful - dominated by insults, fractured thoeries and run-on sentences, and some half-formed biblical references (the latter of which being yet another indication of a severe lack of education and natural inability to process information correctly) and then we come to:]
>>Now why do I call Luke's condition fame disease?
because you are stupid. because you are ignorant as to that of which you speak and because you find yourself highly amusing - no doubt something of a rogue with a rapier wit, evidenced by your sharp tongue and predilection for invention and interpretation.
>>he lacks the warm love inside he would get by instead identifying with father... The Mayans even had a statue of a nude young man...
Even primate males hide their erections from the dominant male you're gay.
>>YOU HAVE FAME DISEASE. YOU ARE ASOCIALLY EXHIBITIONISTIC!
i want to moon you. now allow me to challenge you with the profile of someone that i have been observing just over the course of a very few days and i would be most excited to hear your opinion of this case: most certainly psychotic and more than likely neurotic as well, the subject's total dysfunction arises almost solely from the sexual - most likely homosexual, but very possibly dealing with polygamous dissociation (he cannot accept the current mores of social sexual behavior and so opposes them stringently in order to keep himself chaste). note the paranoia and viciousness obvious in his tirades. his method of defense is a common but individualized patchworked rhetoric based upon misconstrued ideas and quotes that vie to attack his assumed aggressor's intellect and reasoning, hoping to disarm them with his superior intuition and thereby render their argument unfounded. note a predilection for the spiritual, especially Judaeo-Christian and historic.
note the condescension in labelling: "son", "young man"; subject may be older than God, thus explaining this infatuation. assessment: a perfectly common individual who poses no real threat to anyone but himself. however, his need to create and disseminate enemies is most disturbing - symptomatic of mild megalomania and definite sadism. ego?; ergo, the newly-developed "fame disease". megalomaniacal tendencies further evidenced by continued attacks using accusations of same - dissociative reasoning; attempts to distance himself from his problems by pointing them out in others. an overall healthy beginning. subject should soon graduate to denial.
i have decided to term this the "pot calling the kettle black" disease. alan? - you can take off your floaties now, alan, and hopefully the rest of us can return our seats to the upright positions. you're safe now, alan. it's okay. we all love you and we hope that someday you will read a book. maybe two.
Lynne writes: Dear Luke:
By now they've probably got you in a strait jacket and are hauling you off to the SDA version of the funny farm, only there's no fun allowed.
It isn't THAT you write about porn; it's WHAT you write about porn. Anthony Comstock and Charles Keating wrote about porn and maintained their sanctity. You write that, despite all the moral problems associated with pornography, it's fun stuff to view. I hate it when they get mad at you for telling the truth and pointing out the contradictions.
I'm headed out to the VCA, which is only slightly more fun, with my master this morning. I am very close to having the car packed and being on my way. I break the computer down after I post this.
Sorry about getting so indignant with the well-meaning "Lord C." I am so used to having to defend you on a day-to-day basis. Hating Luke F-rd has become a knee-jerk reaction in this town. When you ask for elucidation, the usual answer is, "He prints real names of girls." I say something to the effect of I don't think he's been doing that recently and they mumble....because most of these people, the ones that issue the death threats and the lawsuit threats, never go near the computer and only know "what you do" by hearsay. It is not worth my time and energy arguing with these people. I just rattle my jewelry. (John Lennon, The Beatles)
Such a worthy adversary is welcome considering that what is at stake is your soul. I'm sure we're boring your audience to death. But if you had taken a month off, your sponsor would have spontaneously combusted, and this is pretty serious and it leaks out into your work bigtime.
Purim was always one of my favorite holidays. Beautiful women. Good cookies.
Although you are far from being my "pimp," my love for you is not altogether altruistic. I realized that, at 44, I had reached a hormonal turning point in my life. My estrogen levels were dependent upon my interest in remaining involved in the reproductive cycles and the sex that goes with 'em; to remove myself altogether from the corporeal world would make me old very quickly, and that I would never recover from the stress of last summer.
Yet, because I no longer had the safe framework of marriage in which to nurture my hormones (actually with Bruce's cancer I hadn't had it for years...), and it isn't safe to explore those feelings in the world... If I can maintain my hormonal health simply by loving you, I think I should do it. It seems to work. Safer than Premarin and far more effective than homeopathy. The spiritual corollary, "If I can maintain my spiritual health by loving God, I think I should do it," is a topic for another time.
Leslie is so intrigued with your spiritual quest and the potential it holds open for both of us that she had me read out loud the exchange of letters. We then read some of your bio, starting at the beginning. I hadn't read it for a year. Thank you for sharing, Leslie says. She enjoyed it very much for your expressiveness and your honesty. It was touching and strong.
Helpful writes: Since bowel habits seems to be the current topic of hot interest ( isn't this a porn discussion site? ) I have my own solution to irregularity. Whenever I have the desire to "drop one" I simply look up the nude photo of Lynne L-patin in Luke's archives. I s--- every time.
Curious writes: Luke, When are you going to post some photos of your beautiful homeland? Don't tell me you forgot your camera. While you're at it how about some photos of your family as well? They'll probably insist on those black stripes over their eyes to protect their identities, but so what?
Goddess writes: Hey, Lukey-Pooh! Unlike Lynne, Jesus DID call me once. Unfortunately, my answering machine tape was screwy, so all I got was: "this is Jesus. Call me back immediately. My number is. . ." and then the machine went kerpluey. Damn. Oddly enough, Satan gets through every time with no problem.
Luke, will you please tell yourself, I mean, "Chaim" that i prefer the word "Gentile" to "goyim." It sounds so much classier, don't cha think? Oh, and tell him thanks for the "busy work." I'll get my tablet and #2 pencil on that right away. Yeah, uh-huh, whatever. Oh, and don't knock paganism. You have to wait for that Haunkkah thingy to get gifts, but every day's a holiday when you're pagan:)
Meni's Mein Kampf
Meni writes after being banned from PornStarTrading.com:
You annoyed people
You talk too damn much
You brag too much.
You drink too much
You do E too much
You boast too much
You piss everyone off
You annoy pornstars
You have no class.
Any of the above will do.
Vlad wrote to me hee hee, Meni
Please Help My Brother
My sister Elenne sent me to the doctors (neurosurgeon, psychiatrist, neuro-psychologist) this week along with the following notes:
Dear Dr C--,
Thank you for agreeing to examine my brother, Luke F-rd.
I suspect that Luke's problem is of a psychiatric nature - a narcissistic personality disorder. However, the family is concerned that he might have suffered some damage in a motor vehicle accident in September 1985 when he was 19 years of age. His behaviour seemed to gradually become more unusual after that event. Luke however, says he was merely conforming to family values for the sake of harmony prior to then and has gradually revealed to us his true self as he has grown older. I enclose a series of photographs - the approximate dates of which are recorded on the back of each photo. To us, Luke's face seems to have changed - a more square jaw line which we thought might be indicative of a problem with the pituatary. Luke however says that he has merely put on weight in his face.
Please do not hesitate to call me should you wish to discuss any matter further. My work number is XXX. Please have your secretary render accounts to me at XXX...
Luke: My sister Elenne prepared this chronology of my life:
May 1966 - Luke was born the youngest of 3 children. I was 10 and my other brother 8.
April 1967 - our mother became ill with secondary bone cancer after having had a breast removed in 1963
May 1967 - November 1970 - Luke is cared for by a series of housekeepers, relatives and friends - sometimes hundreds of miles away from our mother and the rest of the family. During this period he also spent limited periods with our mother when she was home from hospital or receiving treatment in places where Luke could be cared for nearby. During this time my mother convinced my father that he would need to remarry and presented him with a short list of candidates one of whom was Gill, our stepmother. During the last 2 years of our mother's life Gill spent time with our mother and father and to a lesser extent the rest of us.
April 1970 - our mother died November 1970 - our father married Gill November 1970 the family moved to England where my father undertook a second Phd. I went to boarding school. Luke lived at home with my other brother.
Late 1972 - the family returned to live in Australia.
June 1977 - Gill, our father and Luke moved to live in California and have lived there ever since
1978 - 1979 - Luke completed 6 marathons - including the very hilly San Francisco marathon out of 8 attempted
June 1984 - Luke graduated from High School and came to Australia for a year to live with his brother Paul. Paul and myself didnt detect anything unusual about his behaviour - nor did our Aunt.
September 1985 - Luke had a car accident - hit the back of a stationary bus - seatbelt broke and he hit his head on the steering wheel - received 30 stitches but was not hospitalised.
March - May 1986 - Luke suffered from glandular fever
September 1987 - Luke stated a frantic schedule which included 21 hours per week of college classes, 20 -30 hours per week of paid gardening work plus body building workouts.
February 1988 - Luke awoke one morning with what felt like a bad flu. He felt ill for a year before he was diagnosed with CFS.
September 1988 - Luke went off to UCLA but was only able to finish one subject per quarter between then and June 1989
September 1989 - came to Brisbane and had various medical tests. Saw Dr Joan Lawrence who said he was normal. None of the other tests revealed any abnormality.
May 1990 - returned to California. An invalid until October 1993 when he started taking Nardil - which greatly helped - felt better overnight but still not back to himself. By March 1994 he felt 70% of normal health - stayed that way until July 1999 when he started improving further under a homeopath - taking snakes venom [vipera].
August 1993 - moved to Florida to live with a girlfriend. Moved to LA in April 1994 and has lived there ever since.
Luke: My stepmom wrote this for the docs:
Luke was born 1966 in NSW, Australia. His mother, Gwen, had had a breast removed 3 years prior to Luke's birth. When Luke was two months old, she began having pain in the ribs, which unbeknownst to her was caused by cancer which had metastasized to bone from the breast. She continued to breastfeed Luke and he had a great first ten months. She was given two weeks to live when Luke was ten months old and was taken out of the home for treatment to another state.
Luke was with his mother for some of the time (the rest of his family know those details better than me because I came on the scene later) but he was cared for by a number of mothers, maybe 7 or 8, in the next couple of years. He stayed for a while with his mother`s half-sister. She was going through a difficult menopause and in an unhappy marriage with a lot of shouting. Luke was used to a peaceful existence, and his brother Paul found him face down on the bed one day hiding his face (he was 18 months to 2 years old at the time). Photos at the time show him looking like a child from a prisoner of war camp (emotionally deprived). About age 3, he was particularly tied to one of the women who looked after him called XXX. She left because she felt Luke was too attached to her, but it was like losing another mother. Ivy was very strict with toilet training. When we married, I noticed Luke`s rectum would loop out of the anus. Elenne says it was from straining on the pot. That fixed itself as he grew older (we just pushed it back and finally it stayed).
Luke had bouts of frustration, for instance dumping his sister`s makeup and belongings on the floor one time (note by Elenne - I found him rubbing toothpastse, bootpolish and perfume etc into his hair/face etc so may just have been a normal baby thing) and food stuffs he found in the fridge on the floor another time, when he was about 3. He was away from home staying with a family in Victoria, Australia, for the year prior to his mother`s death (he was nearly 4 years old when she died). The lady where he stayed in the year before Gwen died (YYY) was very strict and when he sat for meals she had a ruler on the table and used to smack him on the hands to make him eat his vegetables. They also tried to get him out of diapers by restricting his drinking water from 4 p.m. and making him take a cold shower in the morning if he wet himself. But the husband in that home played with him a lot and was very kind.
He was nearly four when his father and I married. He came back home from Melbourne, was upset at the change and "wanted his sick mummy." Was very depressed, said he hated birds and flowers. At the time he remembered his real mother dimly; all he remembered on the surface was that she said she was kind and gave him scrambled egg. The family left immediately to fly to England. Luke was in diapers, but somewhere in that trip I told him one night it was hard for little boys to wake up in the night and get up and go to the toilet. He was dry the next morning and never wore another diaper. Great mind over matter!
I gave him lots of attention, read to him for hours because he loved it. He was very jealous of his father and repeatedly said he wouldn`t mind if daddy died! Stuck to me like lint. I was working helping his father with his Ph.D, and Luke would come between us and try to part us. He came up to me one day and said, I`m a lucky boy. Most children only have one mother, but I`ve had lots. But I don`t want any more.
Luke and I had a close relationship and in some ways I was pretty easy going with him in that I put no demands on him re: food. I gave him things he liked that were good for him, and I didn`t force him to eat what he didn`t like. My downfall was that I had bad PMS after going off the birth control pill and half the month I was normal and the other half I was out to lunch. Very irritable and unreasonable. The changeability was hard on all, including Luke. He used to sense when I was going downhill and would bait me, and usually got a hiding once a month. He was always a very smart, intuitive child with understanding beyond his years, and great company because he loved to chat and could understand abstract reasoning while very young.
When we had been married for about six months and I had to go into hospital, I told him about it but in a very lighthearted way. He became extremely upset on finding out I was going into hospital. He cried for hours and said he hated those doctors for putting me in hospital, and it was punctuated by sobs. I put him to bed to cry himself out. I found him three hours later still sobbing. When I came out of hospital alive, it was very therapeutic. I had to go into hospital a couple of more times in the next couple of years and he was bothered less and less. Didn`t notice the last time.
There was an episode when we were living in Manchester when he was out playing with kids and throwing dog manure at other kids. They threw some at him and he went berserk, red in the face. My husband thought that was terrible, but I don`t think that was a big deal. Who wouldn`t be angry after what had happened to him?
When the children`s mother died, she had been dearly beloved and it was a terrible loss. She knew Des and I were going to marry; he asked her about it before he talked to me (it was clear she was terminally ill a long time before she died). We had a lot of time together before she died, and she encouraged me to take care of Luke (he was then about 2.5 to 3) while she was alive, so he was familiar with me (that`s when he went away for about a year before Gwen died). The older children were not in on this marriage plan, and Elenne heard via gossip that I was after her father (it wasn`t true). She built up a great hostility towards me at that time that was understandable, but it never really went away.
Luke`s mother`s illness with cancer was horrible (she had constant exquisite pain, nausea and vomiting, and emaciation for 4 years after Luke born (was 60 lbs most of that time). She was ready to die, but her sister, the children`s aunt, felt she didn`t prepare the children for the loss (I don`t know whether that`s possible). When she died, it was sudden even though anticipated for a long time. I was away with the two older kids and handled telling them about their mother`s death very badly. Needless to say we got off to a bad start. All the adults were na‹ve. I had no life skills or experience to jump into a family suffering like this. I always felt the kids weren`t allowed to grieve. Their dad is big on acting right however you feel and tends to put a wall up to cover his feelings; is pretty mechanistic. Luke was affected by all this anger.
Though at times, he looked depressed as a child, most of the time he was the opposite. He seemed fine, perennially cheerful. He wasn`t a discipline problem. He wasn`t moody. In his teens, he came in and out like a door on a hinge. The expectations of behavior in the family were always understood even if not expressed. The ideals were impossibly high. Feelings were swallowed as unimportant. But he was a treated with great kindness.
When Luke got sick, as with the chickenpox which he had twice (once about age 7, once in his 20s with CFIDs, he would be REALLY sick. When he got the measles, he vomited and became dehydrated. He had more colds than the other kids who were never sick. He wasn`t used to eating sugar. On birthday parties, if I gave him treats with sugar in them, he would end up bringing them up. So a weak stomach.
The two boys found their father (a high achiever who was well known in their little world) a hard act to follow. Luke had the same interests as his dad but had trouble finding his own identity as an adult, especially after he became sick and could not fulflil his ambitions.
As a young teenager, he did not appear to see this as a problem. He said dad is one person, I am another. He knew exactly what he wanted to do and had his life planned out from the onset of high school. He planned every class of every year and knew he wanted to do journalism and economics and knew where he would do his college work and postgraduate work. He planned to go to London School of Economics. He was well liked though often considered a pain in the neck by his peers. As a journalist on the High School paper, he loved to stir and the football team threw him in a garbage can. You get the idea.
At age 12, Luke was small and thin. He seemed to go through puberty at age 15 and then grew to over 6 feet. He was gauche with girls, needled and teased them and annoyed them. He first showed signs of having extreme behavior at 12 when he began running 14 miles a day and then running marathons. I think from age 12 to 14, he finished 6 marathons, including the San Francisco marathon which is all hills! We never encouraged this running, but there was no stopping him. Luke always ran his own ship. He stopped, I think, because he got growing pains in his legs.
Luke will tell you when he had his car accident, I think it was in his early 20s, but it may have been as early as age 18 (Luke says he was 19 years old). He had been to Australia before that and his brother Paul said he was a perfectly normal adolescent then. The second time he went over to Australia (after the car accident), the family thought he was mentally ill). There was an incident when he was staying with his brother when he got sick of his brother`s dog barking at night. He took it and dropped it off a bridge, went down to the water and couldn`t find it. Then he went to a park, and next thing the dog trotted up to him with a pork chop in his mouth! My husband Des he knows this happened because the dog used to walk everywhere with him (Des) when he was there, but it wouldn`t approach that bridge! This event was shocking to me. Luke was extremely competitive and a sore loser at times. The family thought this was extreme.
The car accident happened when he was driving his VW bug near our house. He was blinded by the sun and hit a school bus from behind (they are yellow). The seat belt broke and he hit his head on the dash board. He was taken by ambulance to the emergency room and had 30 stitches to close the scar, which was right between the eyebrows.
I may have the timing wrong, but can only go by memory. The compulsive behavior that began with the marathon running seemed to worsen with the bang on the head. Luke did 21 hours p.w. at college (over a full load), worked up to 100 hours a week doing heavy laboring work (in the summer here it gets up to about 106ø F, over 40 Celsius). And came home and would do 100 pull ups and 1,000 push ups. He developed a magnificent physique. But he seemed unable to stop. Later made me feel he was like an out of control tank. Sort of manic. There was no giving him advice. He was impervious. I never had a chance to be a controlling mother. I felt he had the high energy (physical, nervous) of his father, but not the balance wheel.
I believe maybe about six months later, Luke got mononucleosis. His father and I were in Australia at the time on vacation, and he kept going to school, but went to bed early and slept a lot. Chernobyl was somewhere in there too. After that, he started getting the flu frequently (3 times a year, maybe more). It gradually descended into having CFIDs. He went to UCLA but was only able to do one subject a semester. He stayed there for one or two years. During those years, he went from being an atheist, to a Marxist, to a Jew. He became fascinated with Dennis Prager who is a Jew and who has the biggest radio show in Southern California. Dennis became his hero and he used to spend a lot of time at UCLA debating with Dennis over the phone on the radio. Dennis won the arguments and Luke converted. He became fascinated with Judaism and over the years became more knowledgeable than most Jews. Jewish friends urged him to become a rabbi.
During the CFIDS years, he spent about 8 years altogether doing very little but lying on the deck. Three of those years, after UCLA, he was at home. He was brave through the sickness but to me, it ruined his ambitions. He was so disciplined and had his life planned out, and it was ruined.
The fevered dreams he had during the CFS years said it all. He had violent dreams about snakes. As an example of one he told me, he was standing in line at admission at UCLA and he was given a snake sandwich to eat (he was a vegetarian all his life at that point). The snake was dead meat in the sandwich but came to life as he ate it. The dreams all ended the same. He fought the snakes, but always ended up overwhelming him and killing him however hard he fought. At night his eyes were unnaturally bright, he seem consumed with fever, though he had not temperature (low as in a virus). He said he felt fine while lying down. It was when he got up.
In Australia, (his second trip), he had an endocrinology work up and they were looking for hypothalamic failure; similar to a girl with anorexia, though he ate like a horse. An endocrinologist over here felt the same thing (CCC). He advised us to have him committed, and Luke fired him as a physician. The endocrinologist I work with felt Luke could have had a stalk resection from the car accident.
While Luke was at home, he became what seemed to us eccentric. He wore tefillin and had his hair uncut as a Hasidim (strict Jewish sect). He seemed to lose his sense of boundaries, his ideas of what was appropriate and what wasn`t. At one point, he did a Jewish conversion and wanted to do the strict Hasid one. He wouldn`t cut his hair. He would only hug me or his sister if she came to visit. Wouldn`t shake hands with my friends, couldn`t touch other women. You would see him hug trees. The next door neighbor thought Luke was mentally ill because of the way he talked and behaved around him. It seemed to me that when Luke went on Zoloft (my suggestion to a doctor neighbor), he suddenly became sexually manic. He put adverts in the Jewish single papers and a host (60 almost immediately) of professional Jewish women began to call and visit him. My neighbor and I were amazed that they couldn`t see that Luke had a problem.
As an example of the sort of bizarre thing he did (there are many, but I don`t have time to tell them), he had one girlfriend in the Bay Area who visited him a couple of times. He had another in Florida. He used to get on the phone and talk to her about sex. He, we found out later, was having sex with girl #` and then the following weekend #2 came up and he had sex with her and put her on the phone with #`. Also tried to get in me on his cunning plots to toy with these women. This was after being unable to touch women at all!
He left home with #2 and lived with her in Florida for a while. He sent transcripts of his sexual exploits and intimate conversations with her to a number of our friends. He looked mentally sick at the time. In Florida, he went on Nardil and said it was the only thing that ever helped him, but it didn`t stop this type of strange behavior.
Another time when he was home, he had written a letter to a church publication. He talked about his father and presented his father`s views in a way that agreed with his father`s enemies (politics in the church). It was a very subtle letter in which Luke seemed to deliberately use words that meant a certain thing to his audience and he skewed the meaning to make his father look bad. When I faced him with this, he gave the most insane laugh. That was the first time I had heard it.
Now Luke uses that voice all the time and giggles this same type of insane laugh when on the phone with me. He says he has more than one personality. His counselor calls this character Hee hee. I know this sounds bizarre, but I`m just reporting what I see.
The thing I am trying to say, is I have seen Luke in consult with physicians, and he sounds so mature, intelligent, so honest about his defects. But there is a part of him that is really off the wall. And it is like an evil two year old trying to cause mischief. Intelligent friends of Luke`s and ours have noted similar things. Many people have noted that Luke is attacking his father. He went into Judaism, a religion that is very stringent to outdo his dad in doing. But people also believe he doesn`t have an real belief in Judaism. He has been excommunicated from one synagogue in Los Angeles for abusing their women and taking advantage of their hospitality.
Luke seems obsessive, compulsive, manic, to have a double identity at times. But the best "label" is narcissism. He fits it very well. His hero Dennis is an extension of his personality. Dennis has threatened to sue Luke for stalking him and for putting stuff about his son on his website. Dennis has written to Luke and told him he is either sick or evil. Luke has his biography on the website and also sections on what Luke`s friends think of Luke.
Luke has his own website which we think is sick. It is supposed to be fighting pornography but has photos of porn stars, some at events where they are clothed, but others are very crude, naked, legs wide open, etc. Any child can get into his site and see this stuff. Also a photo where he had what looks like a penis in his mouth (I think it`s fake). Claims to be homosexual. I don`t THINK he is, he tells his brother it`s a joke. Pictures of him with a gun which he has bought because people get so mad at him they hit him. Wherever he goes he is under threat. He is in litigation for slander by several people and cannot win because he lied on the website.
I am sending you an opinion by someone who calls himself Luken. I have corresponded with him. He uses the name l-keford because he wants to be anonymous. Sorry, I have to go because I haven`t packed and it`s nearly 11p.m. and I have to leave at 6:00 a.m. for Australia. This is disjointed, but it may give you an idea. Regards, Gill Ford
Luke: Back in April, 1999, my stepmom Gill wrote this for my site:
This week, our son Luke came to visit us. He has been somewhat distanced from the family, and this was a better meeting than some in the past. I took the opportunity to talk to him about his life, and we talked for about 3 hours. I think we had better communication than we had experienced in the previous decade. Though I don`t expect Luke to change direction as a result.
Luke is about to get his 5 minutes of fame. He has been longing for this attention and working towards it. He is about to publish his first book. A recent Barnes and Noble catolog gave his book quite a push. He has apparently made quite an impact by criticizing the porn industry. Articles have been written about him and he has been on TV. And there will be more to come. So here`s some input from Luke`s family who have been anticipating and somewhat dreading this notoriety.
Luke comes from a Christian family, and his father is a minister. Luke converted to Judaism some years ago. We are not happy about his involvement in pornography. It bothers us that there is such a merciless streak in him that he hurts people because he thinks they deserve it. Mercy is a valued trait in our family, and Luke is often merciless. In the past, he would tell me off if I gossiped, yet his whole business is based on gossip, and it`s clear he does not wait to check his information before publishing. It seems this is the trait that most annoys people about him--enough to get him frequent death threats.
We feel very sorry for the Jewish community whom we know would not approve of what he is doing either. While being a commentator on the industry, he is also fascinated by it, somewhat involved in it, and supported by it. He receives money from porn sites that are advertised on his site. This is because he receives 50,000 hits per day and they want the traffic. Luke has also acted in a pornographic movie, though he has not participated in sex on film, so he tells me. I told Luke that I read his website every so often to follow what he was doing. He was horrified that I would do this and said that his therapist and girlfriend hadn`t looked at his website. He thinks his girlfriend would give him up if she did.
There are some mitigating circumstances for those willing to be more merciful than Luke is. I would like to explain to those who are interested some things about Luke`s background. Gene Ross has it quite wrong.
Luke was born in Australia to a mother who was already sick with breast cancer. By the time he was 10 months old, the cancer had metastasized to the bones and, she was given two weeks to live. Gwen lived for another 3 years and those were cruel years. She vomited regularly and weighed only 60 lbs those last years. She died a month before Luke turned 4 years old.
During those 2-3 years, Luke lived in several different homes and had a number of "mothers." Gwen was too sick to look after him, and she was with him only part of the time. Those other "mothers" also had to leave him, and this was very hard on him. Luke was a very smart child and had unusual intuition and he shown signs of disturbance and depression when very young. I married his father seven months after Gwen died with her blessing. She gave Luke to me as an inheritance, and I took that charge very seriously. Luke was four when he came home. I am the only mother Luke remembers, he is the only child I ever had. I love him dearly. And his actions of the past eight to ten years have been very painful to me and the rest of his family.
I think we made a real mistake when Luke was small by telling him that his mother felt when she was carrying him that he was going to do a special work for God. A small child can`t handle such a grand responsibility and maybe it sowed the seeds of grandeur in him and gave him an unrealistic viewpoint of himself. Yet maybe he will bring glory to God in a negative way like Samson. There is nothing any of us can do ultimately against God. He uses everything to his glory, good or bad. Yet every mother would like a Daniel rather than a Samson.
Luke`s biography on this website is very slanted. It reflects the subconcious feelings of an angry hurt child, yet it lacks all the positives. He was and is deeply loved. And in some ways he had a privileged childhood (time devoted, not money). When Luke was going into high school, he worked out all four years of classes ahead of time. He knew what he was going to do (journalism, communications), he knew where he was going to do his postgraduate studies (at Berkley) and his Ph.D. (at the London School of Economics). He was the most self-directed adolescent you could ever meet. Luke was always a bit eccentric, but he was cheerful and well liked (though he always like to bait people and irritate them).
It seems to us that Luke`s life drastically changed after a car accident. He thinks he was about age 19. He was driving his VW to college one morning and was blinded by the sun. Seeing yellow against yellow, he hit the back of a parked school bus, and his seat belt broke. He was taken to hospital and had 30 stitches between his eyebrows. We believe that Luke had some type of brain injury. It was after that, that he started to gradually change. He became compulsive and obsessive, drove himself in every area of his life into the ground, and ended up with mono and chronic fatigue syndrome. He spent about 8 years sick with extreme fatigue. He attended UCLA for two years during his 20s but was only able to complete one class a semester. It was during that time that he began to listen to Dennis Prager on the radio and began his journey towards Judaism.
Luke has a father who has two earned Ph.Ds (MSU and Manchester University), which he finished in `8 months each; and he has written over 20 books. A very hard act to follow for Luke who had similar gifts and extreme ambition. Luke had the same potential and it all went down the drain or so it seems when he got sick. There are still many days when he can hardly drag himself to the computer, and he is often visibly sick.
In Luke`s 20s, when the CFS was at its height, Luke would have terrific sweats, his eyes would be unnaturally bright, and he had lurid, horrible nightmares where he was pursued by giant snakes which always attacked, overwhelmed, and swallowed him. He was conscious of a struggle with these snakes; he always tried to overcome them, but they always won and swallowed him. It was the fear of death. He thought he was dying. In later years we came to understand that these were possibly prepsychotic dreams. When he was put on antidepressants, particularly Zoloft, he became hypersexual and more bizarre. Later he went on Nardil, which has helped him more than any one thing to get back on his feet. Luke, as far as I can tell, is more normal than he was back then. But there has been a residual effect.
Luke`s intellectual ability did not seem affected except as lack of energy limited his output. The effect seemed an emotional one that came on gradually making him driven, compulsive, extremely self-focussed, with a loss of boundaries, feelings, and sense of appropriateness. And he is extremely narcissistic. You can only hold his attention if you talk about Luke.
We think (and we may be quite wrong) that Luke is like someone with multiple personalities; that there are two distinct Lukes. There is one that is an evil two-year-old child, very angry with his original mother for leaving. That child can be cunning and cruel. That part of Luke is the one that has little respect for women and seems to have no ability to love. That side of Luke has done some bizarre stuff. It reflects a subconscious that is bared to the world and holds nothing back. It has lost its boundaries, its sense of what is appropriate, ethical, and kind.
The other part of Luke is the wise, mature, considerate 70-year-old that he presents on TV, to his therapist, to his parents, to the public, at the synagogue. That side is more like the Luke we used to know.
Multiple personalities as a theory has been receiving bad press lately; but it seems to fit Luke. I am not sure if Luke is really aware of these two sides to his personality. Or if he is really conscious of the ambivalence of his personality and actions.
Yet when I talked to Luke this week, he said he knew he had two sides of his personality and his therapist has recognised this too. I felt that was progress. He can bring that other side out at will now. I saw it years ago, but it surfaced only rarely and fleetingly. Luke believes this is his carnal side (the other, more mature side is his spiritual side). I think Luke`s carnal side is too exposed, too controlling, too close to the surface. But that`s the Christian perspective where effort is expected to fight to keep the evil under.
At the moment Luke likes both these natures, and he thinks they can coexist. I told him that in the classic view of multiple personalities, when they both come out, one lives and the other dies. He`s not ready for that yet. He seems like someone split down the middle and the two parts are going in opposite directions. How can you be for the industry and part of it and supported by it and yet against it and merciless to "the scum in the industry." You are either on one side or another. It doesn`t make sense, and one wonders how long a personality that torn can keep going. It`s like tearing a page in half.
As a family, we have alternated between feeling desperately sorry for him and being very angry with him. For instance, when Luke left home for Florida some years ago, I cried for three days. At other times I feel so mad because I think the porn industry is so demeaning to women, and I don`t think he should be part of it.
But the anger doesn`t last. We don`t like what he`s doing, but we love him. We know that something happened to him. He is not the same person he used to be. And we feel he has shown great courage in just surviving under very difficult circumstances. He says what he`s doing is just a job, that he couldn`t manage anything else. He can work at home and crawl to the computer if necessary. But to quote Luke, involvement in the porn industry is so flattening to the soul.
In his biography, Luke says he wasted his teens with sport. Now we thinks he`s wasting his 30s with sex (though Luke thinks it provides income so it`s not a waste). Everyone who talks about him or writes about him can`t work him out. He`s a mystery man. All see this same ambivalence that we also see. These are just a few thoughts about this enigma Luke F-rd.
Luke: Here is the note from Luken I took to my docs:
Luken writes: I think it might help you and your site to clarify your personal and professional identity for your reading public. I first saw you on Foxfiles and assumed you were a legit journalist and anti-porn.
Reality check: Are you a porn historian? Yes, since you wrote History of X.
Are you a journalist? No, since you make up your stories, do not verify sources,and do not profess any journalistic standards(do you?)
Are you a porn journalist? No, you are not a journalist of any variety. See the above.
Are you a business news reporter? No, you are completely unreliable and have no standing as a journalist, period.
Are you a tabloid journalist? Yes.
Are you a gossip columnist? Yes.
Are you a porn trivia expert? Yes, and always glad to field a porn trivia question.
Are you a pornographer? Yes, by any definition you like. You distribute pornography via your website and mailing list. Any thinking adult clicking on your site immediately realizes you are a pornographer, especially now thanks to your newly prominent banner advertising. [Luke: I do not have a mailing list.]
Are you a credible source? In no way and in no industry, porn or otherwise.
Are you a pathological liar? Yes.
Do you have any feelings? None that are discernible in your writing. Your pat reply (see Rolling Stones interview) is "I do not care," when asked about issues that would curdle anyone else's blood.
Anyone posting on your site should recognize the real reason you post their material is that you do not care. Controversy is your only standard.
How can anyone be a writer without feelings? They can fool people, and write insignificant verbage, or make it up as they go along to make it interesting.
What is your specialty, what is it that you are best at? The people of the porn industry, and specifically your specialty is gossip, again, not news of any variety.
Did it ever cross your mind, Luke, that someone set you up on XXX, realizing full well you would publish it without verification, unable to resist a chance at a story? It's obvious to anyone reading your site that you are a sitting duck for this sort of setup. Just send it to Luke, and he'll publish it regardless of any damage done to any individual's reputation...he truly does not care.
You might check with a specialist at the University of California to see if you genuinely suffered frontal lobe damage. The book Descarte's Error, by Antonio Damasio, a neurologist, is all about a man who suffered frontal lobe damage. Check it out!
I'd also like to comment on the 2 phrases you use that drive me craziest: I do not care.......means I have no feelings. I do it for the money....means there is no other feeling reason to do or justify anything in your empty life, brother. Do me a favor and whenever you catch yourself saying "I do not care" say "I have no feelings" instead. Same thing for "I do it for the money"...."I have no life." Try it till you understand what you're trying to tell yourself.
And when was the last time you contacted your mom and dad? How about doing so while they're still around. Make a script of questions prior to each call asking about THEM , so you don't forget to. [Luke: I call home about once a week.]
I strongly suggest you get that frontal lobe checked out at a neurology clinic. Again, you can be referred by Univ of CA. If nothing else, it may put you on to the reality that you may be suffering from an emotions deficit, a hallmark of frontal lobes damage. The people who write to you might also examine their consciences and egos.... Good luck in life, Luke!
Alan Watts aka Luken aka Andy Griffith writes Luke Wednesday: I'd like to tell Luke's family what he did. Your son had the joking audacity to write me and say "Thanks for all this"! As if to say "Thanks for the fine mess I'm in"!
As your family well knows, Luke, this may be their one and only chance to ever confront you and impress on you what soulful agony and human suffering you are inflicting on them by your totally thoughtless, pretentious, absolutely unnecessary, selfishly willful choice to remain in porn despite the real-life everyday consequences and pain for each of them which you can now so plainly see right before your eyes!
Luke, look at your family and, in these remaining days, face the sheer amount of human pain you are inflicting on each of your parents and family members. Can you see it?
CAN YOU TRY TO SEE IT FOR WHAT IT IS AND ACCEPT PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR INFLICTING SO MUCH PAIN? THEIR PAIN, THEIR SUFFERING, IS REAL, LUKE.
Ask yourself: IS YOUR LIFESTYLE IN PORNOGRAPHY WORTH THIS MUCH PAIN?
You must accept FULL RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR CHOICES, INCLUDING THE HUMAN PAIN YOU ARE INFLICTING ON YOUR PARENTS AND FAMILY MEMBERS. THEIR PAIN MUST BE FACTORED INTO YOUR DECISIONS ABOUT YOUR CAREER IN PORN.
THIS IS REAL PAIN, LUKE, NOT A CARTOON, NOT A CARICATURE, NOT A SATIRE: REAL HUMAN SUFFERING RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOUR FACE! ARE YOU BLIND, OR CAN YOU SEE THEIR PAIN AND ACCEPT THAT THIS PAIN GOES ALONG WITH YOUR CHOICE TO REMAIN IN PORN? IS PORN WITH INFLICTING THIS MUCH PAIN ON YOUR FAMILY, LUKE?!!!
Get over yourself, man, and see the very real cost which is being exacted in human suffering each of your remaining days with your family. You say you are interested in humanity, Judaism, etc, and you overlook the UNBELIEVABLE COST YOU ARE PERSONALLY INFLICTING IN HUMAN SUFFERING ON YOUR OWN LOVED ONES.
When you get back to homebase, are you going to write off your family's deep agony as nothing more than a sick joke? I hope not.
If there's a moral or ethical bone in your body you should take their agony into account in deciding whether you even continue in porn. You started as a writer, and now you're just a porn attention addict. Everyone can see it, you can see it, but what you don't see is the huge, unacceptable amount of DAILY HUMAN SUFFERING your family endures because of your silly "career" choice to be in porn.
YOU'RE RIPPING THEIR HEARTS OUT, YOU BASTARD! TRY TO FEEL SOMETHING FOR THEIR AGONY IF YOU CAN!
No, Luke, you cannot be in porn if it causes them so much pain. You must leave porn, and make a choice that doesn't make VICTIMS of your mom, dad, and the rest of your family members, who love you, and so desperately just want to get through to you in whatever way they possibly can. You are destroying their lives!
Come on, Luke, you know I'm right, leave porn and find another way
to make a buck that doesn't hurt your family so terribly. They are
the ONLY people in this world who truly care about you and what happens
to you, the rest of the world doesn't give a damn, and why should
they?