Sunday,
April 18, 1999
Plea For Help From Porner's Girlfriend
Luke's received numerous email from the girlfriend of a man who recently entered the industry as a performer. I leave out identifying details.
I HAVE READ YOUR SITES
AND THERE IS SO MUCH I WANT TO TALK TO YOU ABOUT. YOU SEE, MY BOYFRIEND
WANTS TO DO PORN, BE AN ACTOR, I BELEIVE HE HAS DONE SOME ALREADY. HE
DOESN'T BELIEVE WHAT YOU HAVE WRITTEN
ABOUT AND I JUST WANT TO KNOW FROM YOU THAT IT IS ALL FACTUAL. I'M REALLY
NOT DOWN FOR THIS BUT HE BELEIVES IT WILL NOT CHANGE OUR RELATIONSHIP.
SO..... I JUST REALLY NEED TO TALK TO SOMEONE CUZ I DO LOVE HIM ALOT
AND I NEED TO KNOW ABOUT SOME OF THE ARTICLES THAT HAVE BEEN WRITTEN.
IT DOESNT SOUND LIKE THE BEST WORK TO DO. AND HE IS NOT THE BEST CANDIDATE
FOR THIS. HE HAS ALREADY BEEN SEEN BY PEOPLE AT XXX. HE DOESN'T KNOW
THAT I KNOW THAT BUT I CHECK UP ON HIM, CUZ OBVIOUSLY IT DOES DIRECTLY
AFFECT ME.
***
Thanx for the response, but tell me where do i locate some more discredits about this so called wonderful trade that my boyfriend wants to do. He says that all the big comanies use condoms and that VCA told him that they only use condoms, but what about oral? I've heard that you can contact it form that too, Ive heard that u r supposed to use condoms for oral too. So i cant believe that they do. I've also read that a lot of the girls are durg users, and he said he will not touch any girl that uses drugs, like he could know, but he is a former IV user himself only been clean about X months now. What can i tell him to sell him that he can get hurt from this, i believe he has already done it but now he wants to get legit. so.......please tell me sone facts that might help persuade him. cuz i dont want to be with him if he does it. and he doesnt believe any word you write. he looked at Randy West's little speech and he said that if he thought for one sec that this epedemic was real that he would not work anymore, and that there is no truth to it. he just reads about how good all the stars say it is and that you and the media are just hype and it is not true. so tell me more cuz im sure a lot of those girls do use drugs, and he is violent with me so if he knows i write to you he will really hurt me. he said that the mafia would hurt me if I say anytheng to anyone about him, His rap sheet, he has xxx. Hes' a third strike felon, so luke i would love to meet you someday so i could hear more about this, i really believe that alot of people have been exposed and its just a cover up right now but that a lot more people will be exposed by name soon and it will all be factual. please write back i need to know if hes worth it or if i ought to just give it up, cuz no one knows what someone else did the night before and if oral can expose u then obviously everybody has been exposed.
Luke replied that she should leave the guy and get some help. She wrote back:
I called VCA yesterday,
one of the people he tells me he will work for at the end of this month
and i posed as a college student with a report to do and i chose to
do it on porn, the pulblic relations girl Debbie was only to happy to
respond to me and she said that they use condoms for all scenes, but
when i said what about oral she said they did not and i said i heard
that u must also use condoms for oral too and she said that they dont
let the guys cum on any
faces, like around they eyes or mouths, thats for the of the girls,
and so then if it wasnt a concern why wouldnt they let people cum all
over, hmmmm then i said i heard that some people have tested positive
and is that a concern for you guys and she was very quiet she didnt
really want to talk about it and she said is this a negative piece on
us, and i said no it cannot have a bias it just has to be a factual
report. so she said they do of course take it seriously, and they require
2 tests, the Elisa and PCR test, then she told me to hold on
and when she returned she said they just do PCR now. and that no one
can work without it. that they have to present paperwork a few days
before their scene and i said but how do u know what they just did a
hours before that, and she said we dont. i said oh.and i said so do
u do a background check to see if the people u hire are clean or what,
and she said Jim South did that, so i said so u would know if say some
guy had an history of IV drug use = which my bf does, or it they had
a "sexual battery " charge - which he does, and she said "no way would
we ever hire someone like that." If he tells it they just did, he said
they want him to do some scenes at the end of this month. but u r probably
right, if he really wants to do this he wont listen to
anyone, he only wants to believe how wonderful it is, says he is an
exhibitonists and this is his dream. his dream, my nightmare!
the sad part, i do love him, i know that makes me sick too. i just believe he has other potential as legit model, very beautiful physically could make it legit, maybe not now cuz the slime hes surrounded himself with.
***
Yeah, looks like im the one with the problem, not him, but like i sadi i have love for him, i know he has a past and seriously he wants to change, but theres this part of him that just wants to f--k society cuz he believes society f---ed him, all those years he did time. He doesnt use anymore, but luke, i dont understand why he would want to do this, he needs to prove to himself that he is a man, he said that the girl at XXX told him the girls are gonna love you! and that totally made his day. Luke this guy... goes to college now and got off drugs, but then he still wants to do this. He says noone else will hire him cuz hes a convict, that this is the only work he can do. cuz no one wants a felon to work for them. I just feel sorry for him. I said to him last night, that hle doesnt belong there, that most of those people..dont have his IQ, and go to college too, i just pray that his education will change his views a little...
***
He saw Stephanie Ross at VCA yesterday and she told him that he had to sign up with the Free Speech Coalition and gave him a bunch of literature about how great it is, maybe u can tell me the truth about them luke... if u really believe that Stephanie Ross would give a damn then I will give you his name and u can verify his rap sheet, but just dont want him to get hurt with the legit model world cuz he does have a future there. you see luke its just that he doesnt know better he's lived this lifestyle for so long cuz his drug addiction and lived on the streets..., but now hes sober and he really believes he can live the same lifestyle and not get caught up with it cuz he doesnt use. and he doesnt believe any one uses drugs, that i just made it up so that he wont do it. but ive heard a lot of stories about the drug use and people that have fake negative tests so they can work. Tell me if there is any truth to that, anyways i will check out rame and please talk to Stephanie Ross, jim south and others and let me know if they care or not, alsotell me more about this Free Speech Coalition.
***
i dont even know if
i will stay around he has work tomorrow and i told him that if he was
gonna have sex out of this relationship that he has to tell me cuz i
dont want that and he said that its gonna happent so it doesnt matter
when but as soon as XX and XX, which called him for their XXX series,
call him, hes gonna jump. sys hes gonna just model tomorrow, he always
says that. so we had a big fight last night cuz i said i would just
stay at a womans shelter cuz he takes all my paychecks and doesnt give
me a penny, so he said no cuz he knows that if they see the bruises
on me he will get violated and like i said he is a three strike felon
and it would be his life, already beat the third strike once. anyways
i havent done it cuz i want him to reform and do his college and educate
himself so he has a future. but, i dont want to make my decisions from
revenge or the like, i want so bad for him to open his eyes luke, but
its not up to me. so he said he checked out all the hype on the web
and its just bs, no validity so i said oh then marc wallace is negative
and he just shut up. luke, no idea what to do but he pretty much flat
out told me hes gonna do it so he said if i can accept it we can be
together otherwise ..... you know. you have to promise to tell stephanie
not to tell him, cuz im serious he will drop out of school, hurt me
and then disappear, so luke if u can assure me that she will not tell
him cuz i would do it myself but i dont know if she will listen to me,
cuz im nobody to them, except maybe a jealous girlfriend. anyways luke,
ill be back at lunch hour, if u get this please respond but please luke,
i have to decide also, cuz i might be pregnant, so........ dont want
him to get life for this but do want him to open his eyes and see what
he is about to do or has already done.
i know i must sound
as sick as him, cuz i care about this man, maybe i am, but i really
believe that he has a future cuz hes smart and he can be pretty kewl
when hes not around scum, when hes just himself and hes even said its
a filthy life, but he has to make money somehow, hes not proud of it
but he just doesnt know if any one else would ever hire him. anyways,
i know i sound like another excuse for a lousy guy, maybe it is, but
i still care alot about him, see he has taken care of me, supported
me for the last X months and now i dont want to hurt him, but i had
no idea what he did and now i know and i still feel for him but must
care about myself first.
***
you are soooooo right,
theres nothng i can do to stop this, i told him this morn that if he
was gonna shoot porn today, he beter just tell ne the truth and he swears
to me its just a model job, maybe nude , i dont know. but i dont believe
him, i told him i wanted to see what he does we had a fight we both
got hurt, and i tried to follow him but he was to fast, he got away
and hes probably done it by the time i write this, i slept all day,
didnt want to work today, too sad. i called his mom she know it all,
she is sad too, but he doesnt know she knows, he would die, but she
said she'll write to him and tell him, maybe... he'll listen he got
a call back for for a video today they called to say it would be postponed
a week, i already know cuz i called the
company and they wanted to see me said they needed a woman for the scene.
im very sad today, just scanned his photos for legit work, i try to
do what i can. Luke i know you probabley are tired of these emails from
some ridiculous woman who takes all this , and i dont blame you. but
seriously, I thank you for your ear, ive read a lot about it and its
a pretty sick crowd. i personally dont care what they do and if they
want to show their bodies to everyone thats up to them, its just cuz
its my boyfriend that wants to do it.
too bad he cant just watch like all the other guys, thats the curse
of his good looks. ive seen the guys around and i dont know
how they got the parts cuz they dont have half of his looks. He looks
better than most of the women around too, too bad hes such an asshole.
its such a waste, not that it takes talent to have looks, but he could
do a lot more with his looks, as long as he has them.
Mike South says: "Honey, it is high time that you woke up! I have compassion for you and what you are going through but there are some basic facts here that you need to know.
You are largely believing
what you want to believe, your wonderful guy is a
first class slimebag. He obviously abuses you physically and you write
it off to whatever excuse you can think of. Don't walk away from this
animal, RUN! Do me and other Producer/Directors a favor and tell us
who he is so
that we will not hire him without a very thorough background check.
I
would never hire someone convicted of a violent sex crime to appear
in one
of my videos or even to crew for me. So do some other girl a favor and
tell the truth, provided it is the truth.
You also need to get
help, there is some reason why you would stay in an
abusive relationship you need to understand it so that you can empower
yourself to get out.
Not everyone in this business is bad, fact is the mix is probably no different than it is in any profession, but I suspect that you already know that.
If your sleazebag (
note that I refuse to refer to him in human terms )
wants to do porn bad enough there is nothing you can do to stop him,
so
don't try.
Get your own life together, before it is too late.
Regan Senter: "I agree with Mike South. Forget dating people in the business It is 95% hopeless and your relationship will probably soon end. I too would like to know WHO he is so that I may stay far away from him and hopefully have most of my talent stay away from him."
In issue number eight of Panik magazine, Sam Gaines, manaing editor of Eye Magazine www.eyemag.com, profiles Lasse Braun, "the ultimate hedonist, an erotic filmmaker who best work - while well behind him - ranks among the finest porno movies ever made."
Here are excerpts:
"Europeans have a comfort and ease with sex and nudity that Americans do not have," he [Luke F-rd] points out. "Europe is a much more decadent culture because it is a much more secular culture. But Europeans also seem to prefer quality over quantity."
Years of fighting pitched legal battles and entrenched moral codes took its toll on Braun; he has often held that pornography is, for him, a political act, one that ultimately liberates people. Ford, for one, doesn't buy it. "Pornography as politics has never developed and never will develop becuase it is based on principles of vice, principles that run counter to civilization," he says. "So thoughtful pornographers like Braun have though up philosophies which are little more than hedonism, and are highly unsatisfactory for the long haul of real life."
"He's [Braun] the leading European film pornographer, but his best work came before 1976," says Ford. "He's never adjusted to shooting on video."
Exactly what Lasse Braun's legacy is depends entirely upon who you talk to. To Naylor of Alpha Blue Archies, his loops comprise his best work, offering a level of surprise and innovation unlike anything else he did. To Ford, he "showed that seeming gentlemen can make porn, and do it with some quality."
Porn star Bianca Trump
writes: "There is a very long history of people posting real names of
porn stars all over the net. I was a victim to that . I am taking part
responsibility due to the arrest article published in my local paper.
Then by AVN. BUT that does not justify actions taken by stalkers to
take it many steps further. In the last month I have had at least six
email threats about my personal well being. No big deal you say? Some
are probably just pranksters. Some are not. A couple of these people
included my name, address, phone #, licence plate #, etc... All of this
info is NOT readily available to the public. Since my arrest and exposure
of my real name four years ago, I took extra measures to protect my
identity and whereabouts. This is or shall I say was still in tact as
far as any PI or lawyer sees. So how did this info get out? Who followed
me? Or who had me
followed? I don't know for sure.
"The fact is that someone
treatning my life is no joking matter! I am
taking full action against these people. I want people to know that
Porn Stars are human too. Althought it seems neat to find out ones real
name. By posting it you are making it easier for the freaks to track
us down. If you are fans. And if you do love porn. Keep us safe and
let us have some privacy."
Luke, who has posted many real names (most of which have been previously published), responds: "The industry should consult with a competent lawyer and draw up recommendations for porn stars who want to hide their real name. It does not seem necessary for porn production companies to send ID info with all their shipments to stores and critics. I believe that there are legal ways that porn stars can hide their real identities and certainly their home addresses. Porners should not rely on the good will of people to not spread real names."
AVN - Cruel, Vicious or just Stupid?
Porner: "Based on our dealings with AVN, I would say that it is company policy to be one of the three (cruel, vicious, or just stupid). Tod Hunter being one of the few exceptions. I really love that you have the power to f--- with them. With the exception of their secret financiers, I don't believe that anyone has ever had more influence over AVN than you. They just treat us like s---. We have bent over backwards to cover their events favorably (even when we have to over-exaggerate a little) and give them what they ask of us. When we have done events that they wanted to cover, they came in, took their pictures, and generally ignored us in the magazine.
"The one thing I have noticed that is different about them since the rise of l-keford.com is the fact that Paul Fishbein responds to email questions immediately if not sooner, these days. In the past, whenever we wanted to talk to him or ask him questions, we were ignored for weeks at a time."
Torris writes on RAME about www.geneross.com: "Such an incestuous site supposedly dishing the dirt on the adult industry has about as much juicyness to it as a Papal white paper on priests molesting altar boys."
Porn Degrades Men?
Niklas Zypher posted on RAME that the following article appeared the other day in ERGO#6, 1999, the bi-weekly paper published by the students’ union of the University of Uppsala in Sweden. The article was written by Carl-Johan Markstedt.
Translated from the Swedish:
Porn is Good - For Women. On the Other Hand, Pornography Gives a Skewed Image of the Male Sexuality. The Men in the Porn Industry are Portrayed as Machines - Dildos - and Their Own Lust and Pleasure is Denied.
This somewhat unconventional conclusion is drawn in an essay in clinical sexology by Elizabeth Traung, Johan Waara and Roger Olsson, students attending the psychology programme.
The essay which is titled _Om männen i porrindustrin [On the Men in the Porn Industry]_, is in large part based on renowned feminist Susan Faludi's article _The Money Shot_ which was published in Swedish last year in _Ordfront Magasin_.
"We became interested in it for the reason that it spotlights an aspect of the porn industry which is, in practice, never otherwise discussed," states Johan Waara.
The Men are the Losers
The essay - as is also the case with Faludi's article, which was written against the background of porn actor Cal Jammer's suicide - observes that the big losers in the porn trade are the men. As opposed to the women the male actors aren't paid by the film or by the scene but by each visible ejaculation. "Working in this environment is very trying for these men and performance anxiety is part of the daily routine," the essay states among other things.
"The porn industry is in fact one of the few trades where women earn in between 50 and 100 percent more than the men," Roger Olsson notes. For their own paper the three authors went through a large selection of porn movies. The concentration was on so-called softly designed high-budget productions aimed at 'the newly awakened and swiftly growing couples market'.
"Before this essay I hadn't watched a great deal of porn and I must say I was positively surprised. It wasn't half as bad as I thought. On the contrary, all three of us discovered there is a great deal of humour in many of the films," says Elizabeth Traung. Inspiring Porn
"Naturally there is great deal of porn that is bad, but at the same time I think that porn can be inspiring for many women. Regrettably they never come to voice in the often black and white debate."
In common for most of the films on which the essay is built, is, according to the authors, that the male actors in the sex scenes are practically never filmed above the waist whereas the women's faces - and pleasure - are always focused upon.
"Even so, porn is perpetually depicted as oppressing the women.
"If a woman is with two men she is being used by the men, if a man has two women he's having a small harem," says Roger Olsson. "Our contrary contention is that it is the men who are often portrayed as objects," he continues. "The man's sole purpose is to satisfy the woman, he is to be able to continue for any length of time, and be able to produce one ejaculation after another."
Not Degrading to Women
In other words, none of them agree with the perhaps more commonly accepted view of porn as degrading to women.
"Where, if so, is the degradation?" Johan Waara asks himself. "Does the degradation occur in the studio where the women earn almost twice that of the male actors? Or is it in the finished product which entirely focuses on the woman's pleasure? Or is the degradation in how porn affects people?"
"In other words, in that case it would be degrading for a woman to go after and enjoy sex," Elizabeth Traung interrupts. And the conclusion of the paper is therefore a call for a more nuanced and less prejudiced debate, a debate which also includes a discourse about how porn movies affect and nurture the men in their view on sex. In the essay it is, among other things, written: " The male viewer is affected by what he sees. Sex becomes a demanding performance rather than a natural pleasure."
"Through cable TV porn
has become more available than before. That is why the need for a better
debate is also increasing," Johan Waara points
out.
Footnote: The essay _Om männen i porrindustrin_ can be ordered at the following e-mail address: Johan_Waara@hotmail.com. [In Swedish presumably.]
[Translators note: the phrase "so-called softly designed high-budget productions" didn't make any more sense in Swedish. They probably mean videos from VCA, Joe D’Amato, and Private - which is the glossy stuff most readily available on video here - as well as Vivid videos (on cable TV).]