Tuesday, March 1, 2005
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Girlie Vs. Slutty
I plan to make this a sidebar to "manly or faggy" just so I can ask girls lots of questions. They are much more fun to talk with than guys, and potentially much better stuff can come from the interviews. (Jackie Kennedy met JFK because she interviewed him; many other stories like that.)
Any suggestions? The obvious is red boots: girlie or f--- me boots? Red lipstick: girlie or slutty. The other issue I want to pursue and it has obvious scholarly appeal is that exactly constitutes a "f----me" skirt. The pre-requisite is that it is fluffy and looks like it can be pulled up easily. But is there a maximum or minimum length required.
I've actually had fun (no sarcasm intended) talking about the above debate to girls I've been friends with--the word friend had very different meanings for each girl. Maybe that's another one to pursue: Can you be just friends. Time honored question.
'It's All About The O'
Seth Stevenson writes for Slate.com:
It's a world of white-white floors, white walls, white furnishings . and a stunning, middle-aged babe dressed all in white. She's smiling at us. "It's all about the O," she purrs. Whoa! That's hot! After six or seven costume changes, she explains what the O really stands for: Overstock.com, a Web site that sells liquidated merchandise. (Click here to see the ad.)
5) It's all about the mesmerizing babe. The moment you've been waiting for-the lowdown on the Overstock hottie. I talked to her by phone last week. (Jealous much, gentlemen? Ad Report Card talks to all the fine ladies.)
The lovely Sabine Ehrenfeld (pronounced "Sa-BEAN-uh") was driving back from a snowboarding trip with her children, on her way to casting calls the following day. Still, she found time to chat in a delightful and disarming manner. I learned the following:
In addition to German and English, Sabine speaks French and Italian. She is proficient in basic tactical pistol skills, because she thought it would be a fun thing to learn. She also has a private pilot's license and 350 hours in the air. After reading the Richard Bach book Biplane, she was inspired to fly solo-in an old-style, aerobatic tailwheel plane-from California to Montana. With camping gear in the back so she could land along the route to sleep and refuel.
I'm Outsourcing To India
Dave writes:
Dear Lukeisback.com readers:
We at Lukeisback.com ("The Caring People") strive to give you the best in porn blogging. However, recent increases in our cost structure have complicated this mission. Due to rising fuel prices, the ever expanding cost of vegetarian burritos, and increasingly outrageous bills for dubious hair restoration and virility treatments, we have made the difficult decision to create a new paradigm with Lukeisback. While Luke will still be a contributor to Lukeisback.com, we will gradually begin outsourcing much of our writing to Bombay-based writer Lakish Farrad. We are confident that this new paradigm will be better for everyone involved, and we are confident that you, the reader, will benefit most of all.
Your Guru Speaks
Today I met my friend, Indira Pandarwal, for lunch. As we take our seats, discussing the latest Indian political developments, she chides me for continuing to use "Bombay" in my writings. I blithely inform her that when people start referring to the "Mollywood" film industry, I'll gladly follow suit, and that consistency is my only master.
As our dark-skinned waiter brings our water, I instinctively flinch from the hand of one who is clearly untouchable. Indira raises her eyebrow.
"My father, the Brahman," I inform her, "Would have immediately stormed from the restaurant at such a clear violation of caste rules, and only come back at the head of an enforcement party."
"But Lakish, I thought that when you adopted the Jain dharma, you were supposed to reject the caste system."
"I am your guru," I remind her. "And the only dharma I need to follow is my own."
Who's Sari Now?
My father, the Brahman, used to preach in the temple about the evils that came with immodesty. Of course, in the "modern" India of the Nehru cartel, such deference to tradition was seen as hopelessly passé. A new study shows, however, that while the number of women wearing modest clothing has gone down, incidents of rape and sexual assault has gone up. Perhaps the BJP is right about our need for some old time religion.
Carrots Disgust Me
It's funny, but even as a boy, the sight of someone eating a carrot nauseated me. I always thought that it was just the dirt. But in my high-caste family, ahimsa, the practice of doing no harm to any living thing, did not extend to insects. But as a man, while I studied the Jain dharma in preparation for its adoption, I became aware of how many souls are harmed by the uprooting of a single carrot. Funny how the same Hindu who wouldn't think of harming a monkey feels no compunction about destroying thousands of ants.
Papillon Update
The ex-porn star writes in her journal February 27:
Lost it all... My computer crashed for the fourth time. I know what you are going to say... "you better of had made back up disks", well, I did but, those disks are ruined...lol. I did not realize that my kids felt the need to make arts and crafts with them until I found my box of disks glued together and colored on with permanent marker... They are too cute to punish...lol... they said to me "sorry mommy, we made you a surprise present."
I'm doing as good as to be expected under the circumstances regarding my health [cancer] and until I get real good news I just prefer not to talk about it for the time being. Everything is still pretty much the same with me... all I do is take my kids back and forth to school and pack up my house little by little every day trying to prepare for the sale of my house and the move across country.
Porn plummets as spammers clean up
Pornographic spam email dropped by a huge 92.5 per cent during February, while unsolicited emails offering dating services surged by 171 per cent, newly published research has claimed.
Greg Lasrado Update
Yug writes about the former Aussie Net porn baron: "[Greg] still owns some great top level domains ... but of the 30 employee strong business he had running 4 years ago, it's now down to one employee. And consider this, I don't think he actually 'fired' any of them (except for Guy McKenzie and Yohan of course), everyone just left cause they realised it was a s--- place to work."
NEWARK, N.J. -- Two leaders of a Belarus company admitted Monday that it processed $2.5 million to $7 million in membership fees that gave subscribers around the world access to child pornography Web sites.
The guilty pleas from Regpay Co. Ltd. president Yahor Zalatarou and technical administrator Aliaksandr Boika are the latest developments in a global investigation that has led to more than 1,200 arrests.
Nearly all of those arrested, including about 200 people in the United States, are charged with purchasing child pornography subscriptions from the Regpay sites, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
We Live In Public
Jenna Jameson has sad, old and unsmiling eyes, which for all of her sex film glory, stare back from the bookjacket of her best-seller with an ironic dearth of spark and flame and the heat of life. The surgeon's knife has not been kind, "fixing" a weak chin and over-amplifying the already well-endowed assets on which she bases her fame. In interviews, the 30-something porn star talks about the quiet life, her now-limited on-screen appearances, her business plans, and her ideas about love and retirement.
Jenna may not be 100% real but she's 100% mainstream, a business story from the Wall Street Journal, the living embodiment of the acceptance of porn in middle America, and of the hypocrisy of the so-called cultural backlash against liberalism. As Frank Rich points out in his Oscar telecast preview in today's Times, the same media companies that shill for Bush and the social right also make hefty margins on pornography; this reminds me of the British Admiralty's attitude toward English pirates during the rise of the Empire: when the sea-borne brigands brought profits for the crown, swash-buckling letters of marque were just fine. When it wasn't convenient, the Tower and the block also worked. (You know, invade a pushover Iraq regime while giving North Korea a pass, no matter the warheads trained on Oakland. Same deal). Whatever is expedient and profitable.
Funny that Rich's column today deals with the hypocrisy of our public media mores, because it's a roiling undercurrent on my favorite blogs of late (I'm sure Frank follows my blogroll when trolling for weekly ideas - he'd be stupid not to). To Rich's mind, the moralist view is winning elections, but losing mainstream America, led by big business:
The power of the free market, for better or worse, will prevail, and the market tells us that it is still the American way to lament indecency even while gobbling it up. This is the year that Sports Illustrated for the first time published the number for its subscribers to phone if they wanted to skip the swimsuit issue - and almost no one called.
The Federal Communications Commission campaign for decency is flaming out, leaving pathetic, smoking embers and the tatters of Michael Powell's reputation. Funnyman shock jock Howard Stern sold the rights to his programming - which features porn stars and little else these days as his originality fades into mere immitation of himself - for half a billion dollars to Sirius Satellite Radio. Said Sirius boss Mel Karmazin in today's NYT: "Our brand awareness is at an all-time high and much higher than before the announcement." Of course it is.
Jeff Jarvis is a big Stern fan and his diatribes against what he calls the "prudes" of the Bush Administration, coupled with a couple of hilarious FOIA requests that showed most FCC complaints were dirty little chain letters, are justly praised. Funny then that my compadre Jason Chervokas (he and I ran @NY back in Silicon Alley days) slams Jarvis in his fascinating post on the nature of pornography and our growing willingness to undergo public media exposure...
Lance Mannion picks up on this semi-pro media movement by contrasting his brief experiment making films with nudity back in college to today's more free and easy amateurism - when "live college girls" may actually be the real thing. After all, real college from Boston University girls (and boys) are behind a new, explicit sex magazine called Boink (knowing that makes its mildly shocking cover much more appealing than anything in Jenna Jameson's long career; its editors and publishers are its models). Lance's memoir shows how much things can change in 20 years - and got guys like Lance, and Jason, and me that 20 years is really the entire history of the self-created media movement, that is we witnessed the whole thing as semi-professionals:
Outrage and a convenient memory are useful in helping one not mind so much not being young anymore, not to mention in helping to disguise a voyeuristic tittilation. And of course jealousy, voyeurism, and prurience disguised as moral indignation are useful politically. Students nowadays may be wilder and less inhibited than we were. They may be a whole lot more strait-laced in their way. I wouldn't know.
Reflections On My Nick Gillespie Interview
Jack writes:
I like your interview with the guy from Reason magazine. He's just another politically correct liberal, in a more fashionable outfit. Whenever you asked him to confront truly uncomfortable ideas he retreated to the oldest liberal playbook defence: "I don't think that's an interesting way to frame a question." I first heard that in Bard college when my professors would refuse to engage my questions. The word "interesting" is code for: I am too sophisticated for a peasant like you." They dredge it up when they are desperate and out of ideas. This guy would not last ten minutes in a Beis Midrash. You really nailed him; he comes across not much better than the incredibly stupid porno stars you love to torture. But at least they know what they are. This guy thinks he's smart.
Robert Bayonne from Nick Manning Productions writes: "The humor of it was above us. Two college educated men."
Nick Gillespie writes: "Are all porn stars so thoroughly lacking in a sense of humor?"
Reason Online editor Tim Cavanaugh slaps me around for racism. I reply:
I understand Tim how shocking it must've been for you to read some honest questions about race. Very different stuff from the Panglossian "race doesn't exist" approach of your boss. Good for you for being a good soldier, falling into line behind Nick, and refusing to consider difficult questions by dismissing them as motivated by racism. I'm sure your approach is going to work wonders for Reason and for America. While violent crime and illegitimacy destroy much of the black community, Americans should feel reassured by you that to even ask about these matters is verboten. You're a gutsy man. Way to tackle the tough issues. I'm sure they'll get better just by ignoring them.
Tim, I take it that you are arguing that a 70% black illegitimacy rate only exists in my mind? That more young black men are in prison than college is purely a figment of my imagination? That statistics quoted from National Review must inherently be false?
I greatly look forward, Tim, to your disproving these widely known statistics. We will all sleep better at night after we review your evidence. You do have evidence, right Tim? You weren't just taking some cheap shots? You weren't just crying "racism" to avoid facing parts of reality that you don't like?
Ron Jeremy Does Oxford
LONDON (Reuters) - In its 183-year history, the august Oxford Union debating society has heard the wisdom of Winston Churchill, Ronald Reagan and Mother Teresa.
But until now, its members have yet to hear from anyone with quite the same resume as Ron Jeremy, star of 1,700 adult films, including "Bang Along With Ron".
Jeremy, who claims to have slept with more than 4,000 women, will address the union on Wednesday, joining many British prime ministers, three U.S. presidents and political figures from the Dalai Lama to Malcolm X in its archival guest list.
"Ron is the biggest and apparently the best in the business, so I'm sure he'll have some fascinating stories to tell," said Oxford Union librarian Vladimir Bermant, who organised the event.
In November 2001, Jenna Jameson debated antiporn activists at the Oxford Union. The audience voted her the winner, 204-27.
Flashman Interview
Meatholes And The Destruction Of The Human Soul
I've seen the newest Meatholes episode and yes it is pretty harsh. Not so much physically, but mentally Khan Tusion really does a number on her making her breakdown a few times. I found it a bit disturbing (yet I could not stoping watching it)and there's no way I could jerk off to this (yet I did anyway), but the more I thought about it the more I realized how dumb and degenerate that broad must be to willingly participate in such a scene without knowing what it involves and/or not walking off the set when it became too much for her.
Gen Padova writes:
I don't have much to say about Taryn's scene because if it were really that bad for her she could have said STOP, got up and walked away and asked to not continue. Simple as that. Whether the unfinished business would be posted on the site or not is meat cashs concern but it's a choice she can make if she realized it wasn't her cup of tea.
Why writes: "It is strange and rather perverse, but the thought of these girls' fathers, brothers, etc. enraged, disturbed, and somewhat heartbroken over what their daughter, sister, etc has submitted herself to in these scenes adds to the erotic appeal for me. I wonder why this is."
Melissa Lauren writes: "I love when they pass that point where they break down... so touching. Little tears in the eyes, and bad feelings about themselves. They can't stop thinking about it. It's something they ll remember forever."
David Aaron Clark writes on ADT:
Heroin fills a desire, too -- as does rape, murder, etc. etc. .... certainly if it were legal to sell child pornography and snuff movies in the United States, there would be eager entrepreneurs -- some of them the same benevolant capitalists whose product is lauded on this board and others on a regular basis -- who would jump right into the fray with the same excuse that they're just filling a need.
I agree that talent should be made absolutely aware of what they're getting into --- however that's not what happens ... I'm thinking of an agent currently being lauded by one of this board's loudest directors, who tried to send one of his clients to both Meatholes and an extremely rough oral shoot by that director, claiming, "Oh, they're just regular boy/girl scenes," and the industry's oldest, most respected agency, who recently put a new girl who said she only wanted to do softer, non-abusive scenes on the phone with "a nice gentleman we've done business with for a long time, Paul Little" -- i.e., Max Hardcore.
We've seen what ignoring health and safety concerns in the industry has brought on -- what do people think embracing this kind of material will lead to? Now THERE'S a slippery slope ...
There's not a thing new about what Khan does. Cruel little children have been pulling the wings off flies & watching them squirm since forever. Most of them grow up when they get older, though. & of course if one is damaged enough in childhood, that peculiar sociopathy never really goes away, does it?
Just because you personally happen to have become so jaded by "standard" anal, dp, a2m porn that you now need to see Christians thrown to the lions to "feel like it's real" is hardly a justification on any level -- what's most lame about such an argument is that you are only admitting to one of the most cherished claims of the rabid anti-porners that would ban everything from Playboy on down -- that porn users get desensitized & start looking for bigger kicks. This utterly specious argument of "you like what you like, & I like what I like" suddenly doesn't hold water if one of the parties happens to be a Ted Bundy fan.
Porn Insider says: "I bet the majority of porn is consumed by addicts. Rather than porn comsumption being widespread in society, I bet it is group of jaded addicts who spend much of their spare time and spare money on porn."
Quasarman writes:
It's wonderful and liberating to explore the darkest parts of the human pysche. Serial killers have been doing it for centuries. If Ted Bundy were still alive, he'd have a meatholes membership. Shouldn't you?
Then again, if girls are willing to be treated in this manner, I suppose they deserve to be.
I wouldn't want to be seated in front of 12 jurors trying to explain the artistic merit of of a girl being throat f---ed until she pukes, but maybe I'm just being a prude.
I believe that if you require seeing the brick by brick deconstruction of the female soul just to drop a load into a tissue perhaps it's time to take a break from porn for awhile and spend some time with the Disney channel. Either that or submit your name to the local sex offender regsitry just in case meatholes stops doing it for you and you need to get off through even more nefarious means.
Renee writes: "If Khan Tusion is all about bringing out the 'honesty' in the actresses who appear on his site, why doesn't he show his face? Is he ashamed of what he does?"
Kahn has a wife and kids as well as rich and important relatives who don't want to be shamed by his porn.
Steph writes:
Person A pays Person B to get kicked in the head by Person C. Person D pays money to watch.
I can't imagine choosing to be any of those people.
Writing Feature Scripts
1. Do NOT submit spec scripts unless you have a personal relationship with a director at that company or are a known quantity in this business. Otherwise, it is not entirely unlikely that you will eventually see some version of your script, or ideas, on screen credited to someone else. Be prepared if you do make a sale to have to share screenwriting credit with the director.
2. Expect it to be a losing proposition, financially. At anywhere from $200 to $1000 (and you can' count the writers who make $1000 or more per script on one hand, even after that unfortunate industrial accident) even if you end up in the loop and writing one or two scripts a month, it's a losing proposition. That fee, btw, INCLUDES rewrites, unless you're dealng with a particularly decent and sympathetic director.
3. Don't expect any respect or props from the company. While that rare decent director may treat you well, to the company you don't exist. When I wrote a major production house's huge hit of a couple years ago, not only did the director, who went up on the AVN Awards stage several times to accept its many awards, thank everybody BUT me all the way down to the caterer, I was invisible to the company itself in all regards after they had the script in their hand -- until they called looking for another one.
4. Don't expect the director to "get it" or for the finished product to resemble your work. The only dependable exception to this rule in my experience has been Michael Raven.
5. DO familarize yourself with Playboy TV's standards & practices regarding themes and content, as this is most likely the market where the company will be selling their video. Though the standards swing back and forth somewhat according to the general temperature of the culture at the moment, many themes and dramatic situations that you wouldn't think twice about including in an R-rated or even PG-13 feature are verboten. For instance, when the Cambria List came out back around the turn of the century, one of its suggestions that the top companies took very seriously for awhile was that any themes involving prostitution were unacceptable. Sounds nutty, I know, but I had to entirely toss out the script I was about to direct for Vivid, and substitute it with another. With A.G. Gonzalez announcing a new frontal act on smut, I expect Cambria will be racking up quite a few more of those very expensive hours coming up with new advice for the industry in how to absolutely avoid prosecution.
6. If all this doesn't daunt you, here's a couple of hints: DON'T make the script dialog-heavy; in particular stay away from words over three syllables (two, if you wanna stay on the safe side) and individual lines of more than 25 words or so. There are less performers than ever who are able or even interested in handling much in the way of dialog, and the time alloted in the production schedule to even the most popular director is not enough to coax the performers through it. Also, make everything REALLY OBVIOUS in terms of character development and subtext. Sophistication and subtlety will not make it to the screen. Unless you love to cringe, do not create characters who enjoy the benefits of a college education, as hardly any of the cast will have one. Remember this and think twice before including that forensic pathologist, schoolteacher, corporate CEO, molecular biologist or, for that matter, professional writer. Constantly think of the kind of budgets we're talking about; keep the number of different sets to a minimum, don't write scenes that occur outdoors in urban areas (expensive to film), try not to use more than one character that doesn't have sex (though having one non-sex role that's pivotal can be helpful, as directors are free to cast actual actors for those roles), and think twice before including action sequences or special make-ups or effects that can't be done in post, because of time and money issues.
Finally, keep it within 20 to 30 pages. Otherwise it won't be read, or even if it is and is bought, that's about how much of it will make it to the screen. Also, make sure to include a sex-scene breakdown (five to seven is the average requirement) with the script for easy reference, as well as cast of characters and locations.
For many, college is a time for discovery and broadening horizons. And for some, sexual freedom and experimentation is included during this period of personal growth.
That's why Michael Leahy, a recovering sex addict, is sharing his journey with college audiences across the nation - to raise awareness about the causes, symptoms and consequences of sexual addiction.
"Porn Nation: The Naked Truth" ... 90-minute multimedia presentation is aimed at raising awareness about sexual obsessions and revealing the ways in which our culture and media have been influenced by the porn industry.
The presentation begins with video sound bites of students answering the question "What do you think about porn?" to provide a humorous and shocking glimpse of today's college culture.
"Porn is now the norm in our culture," said Leahy, in a press release, "and no one understands that better than today's college students. "From the rapid rise of cyber-porn addiction among male and female college students, to its role in influencing the high incidence of rapes and prevalence of eating disorders among college co-eds, the growing influence of porn in the midst of an already sexually charged campus culture is taking a very real toll on students' lives."
Leahy is the founder and executive director of BraveHearts, an Atlanta-based non-profit organization founded in 2001 to help students build lives of sexual integrity and to encourage healthy relationships with others free from sexual compulsion and addiction.
David Aaron Clark clueless about Gregory Dark?
DAC quote taken from l-keford.com: "Gregory Dark hit his stride with New Wave Hookers 2... one of my favorite adult movies along with John Leslie's Raw Meat and Radley Metzger's Misty Beethoven. Gregory is not influential. Few people understand his stuff because it's so dark and intellectual."
So, unbenownst to him I once met David Aaron Clark in 93 at an Annie Sprinkle performance in NYC. He seemed cool for a fat raincoat creep journalist, but there was an air of arrogance that emanated from him like creepy b.o. Of course, he was covering the "event" for Screw at that time, but to me reading Screw was like staring at the scrawl on bathroom stalls. Meaning, I never really bothered to buy it b/c who would stoopidly drop good 'ol dirty dough scratched together for glossy pink cooze glints in all color porn magazines for Al Slobstein's over-priced perverted N.Y. Post w/ some insights to sleaze and personal ads for city call girls which meant zilch in the suburbs. Basically, it was an overpriced Village Voice about sex. BORING!
Eventually, as his bio sez Clark moved out to Frisco and started directing. One of his "works" I glanced at was Poison Candy mainly b/c I liked Eden Rae, so all you really need to know about that "movie" was it has awful camera work and banal sex plus that idiot Kid Vegas. It made me hit eject in a New York second. The only other abomination I saw of his was Salome De Luxxx, I don't know why, but the pretentiously moronic name alone should have stopped me...
Anyway, onto the task at hand and not sully this Gregory Dark defence w/ Clark's hapless antics, but much of today's extreme porn and over the top gonzo owes more to Dark (unconsciously maybe) in subject matter and towards pushing the envelope of taboo to extensions of boundries that reflect the current frustrations of a culture constantly hurtling on the highways towards decline which is great for depravity. Dark had already hit his high water mark w/ the original New Wave Hookers and it IS the BEST porn movie of all time shot on film and meant to be watched on a big screen in murky Deuce-like theaters through cig smoke haze and foul lube in the air.
Sure, I only saw it on early VHS, but it still brought that sleazy vibe described above to my sunroom at night shades pulled tight. Sadly, years later I'd think New Wave Hookers 2 was a disaster actually though his perverse fascination w/ the psychological facets of his performers through brilliantly scripted likewise visually skewed scenarios he got the most even out of the least motivated whores around. The bare bones thing perverts probably grasped on a primal level about Dark was his evil eye for detail and ability to capture his subjects in action through the growing artistic contempt of his final years in porn aptly revealed in The Shocking Truth 2 w/ gal pal dominatrix Star Chandler. Ironically, one his last works yet his BEST gonzo movie right before he ditched porn towards greener pasture$ in made for MTV videos. Yeah, I thought Rob Black's early movies aped Dark's style, but that irreverant maniac Black has lost his touch since then. Don't worry, he'll find it again hopefully through Salome aka Kami.
Is Robert Bayonne Dumb Or Stupid?
I can't believe how many people took my "Nick Manning equals Nick Gillespie" piece literally. I guess there's one every minute.
My favorite response comes from Robert Bayonne at Nick Manning Films, Inc. who writes:
Are You Blind Or Stupid?
Take a look at the pics. Follow the links. Do you really think Manning is Gillespie?
Good job journalist. Way to get the facts straight.
Nick Manning writes Robert: "Dude...how could he have thought that that clown was me? F--kin' ridiculous."
Mike South writes:
Thats funny, if Manning's brains were gas he wouldn't have enough to power a piss ants' motorcycle halfway around a BB and people thought he was editor of Reason magazine? The funny part is that Manning somehow thinks he is intellectually superior to Gillespie. Only in porn....
Hitting On Women At Work
In the course of my job, I meet a lot of young attractive women I'd like to get to know better, but I never make the first move because it would be unprofessional.
If a woman is interested in you, be she a lawyer or a porn star, she will make it obvious. If this happens at work, you need to keep your interest in her at or below her interest in you.
How can you tell if a woman is interested in you? She will ask you questions about yourself... Not all women who ask you questions about yourself are interested in sleeping with you, but no woman who does not ask you extensively about yourself is interested in you.
This same principle holds true for conversations with the same sex. I am often at social gatherings where there are accomplished writers that I want to talk to. If I try to start up a conversation, and they ask me nothing in return, I realize quickly that I am only wearying them and I withdraw.
London Gets Its First Sex Museum
From ThisIsLondon.com:
New York has one, as does Berlin, Madrid and Paris. And Amsterdam has a whole string of them Now London is to get its first sex museum - appropriately enough in the heart of Soho.
If the London sex museum follows the pattern first established in Amsterdam, it will contain an international collection of historical erotic and pornographic art, literature and artefacts.
The Dutch museum boasts mannequins arranged in titillating positions, Greek temple devotional items, Japanese carved erotic ivories and antique and modern fetish wear. There is also a comprehensive selection of manuscripts and drawings and a vast film and photographic library catering for all tastes. Meanwhile, an interactive section has small padded booths playing a continuous selection of erotic films. A highlight is the walkthrough-miniature red light district featuring mechanical exhibits leaving little to the imagination and a collection of literature on prostitution.
In Los Angeles the Erotic Museum claims to "chronicle sex through the ages". It features nude abstracts by Pablo Picasso, erotic jade figurines from ancient China, vintage sex toys and computer-animated dancers.
Nick Gillespie Equals Nick Manning
By day, Nick Manning is porn's hottest male star. By night, he works under his real name, Nick Gillespie, as editor of Reason magazine and the the new book Choice: The Best of Reason.
I call Nick Friday, February 25, 2004. He is in the Reason office in Washington D.C.
Nick: "I'm terrified. I suspect that if your printed questions are any indication, I'm going to have a lot of no comments."
At this point I've been awake fewer than two minutes. I'm appalled that I was 45-minutes late for our scheduled interview. I feel thoroughly chastened and unable to pose the truly nasty questions I love so much.
Luke: "Where do you want to go with Reason magazine? Where do you feel you haven't yet been able to achieve your vision?"
Nick: "Part of what we've accomplished is changing the look and feel of the magazine into something that is more interesting and textured. More importantly, we've established a wider range of topics and ways of thinking about things from a libertarian perspective. We're able to comment on more things that are more important to more people.
"We're creating more of a culture of debate within the pages of the magazine. There's a range of positions on any given topic. It shows that we're trying to grapple with a complicated world, which most political magazines don't. Most political magazines are dogmatic rags that exist to push a party line.
"We've tried to show that if you are intellectually honest, that leads to more interesting journalism.
"I want to push further into places where the libertarian philosophy isn't clear or where there are events in the world that are difficult to make sense of. One issue we might look at in the future, which I realize must be absolutely fascinating to you in the morning on the West Coast, there's a longstanding tradition that the only proper role of a corporation is to deliver profits for shareholders. There are a number of libertarian-minded entrepreneurs, such as John Mackey (CEO of Whole Foods markets), who argue that that's wrong. That's too narrow a vision of what profits are for and what shareholders would value.
"It would be interesting to kick those ideas around among people who are into profits and free markets and capitalism and find out which of those positions are socially responsible, economically viable and interesting. What kinds of businesses come out of those different types of mindsets."
Luke: "Which magazine editors are your heroes?"
Nick: "One of my heroes is Felix Dennis, the British publishing magnate. He was at the cutting edge of free expression in the 1960s in swinging London and ended up becoming a multi-millionaire by publishing a bunch of kungfu magazines of the '70s."
Nick while writing as Mr. Mxyzptlk for Suck.com.
The Nick Gillespie penis pump -- the most efficacious masturbation aid next to the latest issue of Reason magazine. (Gillespie uses the stage name of Nick Manning.) Nick says it's the best way for your money-losing publication to get the biggest endowment. You too can stroke it like a pro when you read Choice.
Nick: "I worked for Felix Dennis for a while in the late '80s during the only obvious period of failure in his career for a bunch of new teen magazines. He's the publisher of Maxim, Blender and the news digest The Week, the most interesting magazine to came along in a long time.
"His politics are bulls--- as far as I'm concerned. He's a big Labor party supporter but his example is that of somebody who has always tried a lot of different things in his career and has always tried to push the envelope of free expression. He's always shown a keen understanding of where audiences want magazines to go. Maxim and Blender are two of the most interesting industry-leader magazines of the past decade.
"I admire Warren Hinckle who was the editor of the old idiotic left-wing magazine Ramparts. He showcased a lot of what became known as New Journalism. Participatory journalism. He's more responsible for giving Hunter S. Thompson a start than anybody else. Again, I don't necessarily agree with any of his political views. But the vision, the inventiveness and the risk-taking... When you read old issues of Ramparts, they're interesting. It's a rare magazine that can have any claim on your interest 35 years later.
[Chaim says: "Ramparts was a great mag. It showed breasts."]
"Finally, Louis Rossetto and Jane Metcalfe, who founded Wired magazine. Louis has been a good friend to Reason magazine. He knew the original editor and he's been reading it since the magazine started in 1968. He is politically simpatico with most of our positions. With Wired, he helped to create what became known as the Digital Revolution.
"Louis has keyed in to the idea of the big boom versus the long boom. That we've reached a point in social history where most of the issues about wealth creation have been sold and we're shifting from an economics of scarcity, at least in the Western world, to a world where that is not the main issue anymore. We're living in a world where everything is more symbolic and everything is about creating your life on your own terms. Wired mapped how it happened and why it happened. That tracks closely with what Reason has been doing. If you believe in these plain ideas of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, what are the institutions that give rise to creating more of that. And what do people do with this freedom to pursue happiness."
Luke: "What about Michael Kinsley?"
Nick: "What about him?"
Luke: "Is he a model for you? Would you agree that The New Republic was at its best under him?"
Nick: "The New Republic was at a height under him. I'm 41. I started reading The New Republic [around 1980] when he was in charge. I always found it interesting and exciting, mostly because it had a wide range of voices within a discernible viewpoint. It was one of the few magazines where you wouldn't know from the first sentence what the story was going to tell you.
"Most political magazines don't exist to challenge their readers or to inform their readers but to confirm the readers in their previously held assumptions."
Luke: "Did you ever meet Francis Fukuyama?"
Nick: "Yes, I was on a panel discussion with him shortly after 9/11. Reason and the Institute of Ideas cosponsored a conference about post-humanity. We were on the same panel.
"We might agree on the end of history, that liberal democracy has generally won. That's a profound shift in global politics. I think that holds up even in the wake of 9/11. We have different views on self-directed human evolution. On giving people more options to change their bodies as well as their minds. Fukuyama engaged in a debate in our pages with UCLA's Greg Stock, who wrote the book Redesigning Humans. Fukuyama is wedded to a dangerous and outmoded understanding of a supposed human essence. He is wary of intervention into human life that would allow us to lead longer, better, smarter, more interesting lives."
We discuss the birth control pill.
Nick: "It's part of a radical shift in Western society from few people having control to more people having control over their own lives. One of the fundamental problems with human society is how do you deal with female sexuality. This is one of the great successes of Western society. We have made peace with female sexuality."
Luke: "Do you think it is ok for society to stigmatize female promiscuity more than male promiscuity? Do you think it is rational for society to do that?"
Nick: "I don't know. It's hard to know what any of that means."
Luke: "Society has an instinctive need to know who the fathers of our children are."
Nick: "If it comes down to a question of fatherhood, we are on the threshhold of an age where that won't be an issue. Due to genetic tests, we will have an absolute read of paternity. One of the central problems of human organization is not promiscuity."
Luke: "Do you think there's a cosmic significance to sexual intercourse?"
Nick: "There can be, and under the best of circumstances, there probably should be."
Luke: "Do you understand why many men reject their woman if she's been raped?"
Nick: "I don't know what that means..."
Nick says "Western civilization doesn't have any problem related to birth rate."
Luke: "Even though Europe can't sustain itself without bringing in Third World Islamic labor."
Nick: "Europe can't support itself is a meaningless concept. Europe can't support itself if it insists on having a welfare state that is predicated upon having a lot of workers for every beneficiary. They could change things that would probably alter the birth rate or they could change an economic system so that none of this would be an issue.
"I'm not convinced that Europe stigmatizes non-conventional sexuality less than America does. In many ways, gays in America have a much better position than they do in Europe. Women have more sexual freedom and less stigmatization in America than Europe."
We discuss race.
Nick: "My mother was Italian and my father was Irish. A hundred years ago, neither of them was part of the white race. I suspect in the future that might change again."
Luke: "So you don't regard yourself as a white man?"
Nick: "I don't think of myself in those terms.
"I grew up in suburban New Jersey in a working class immigrant [neighborhood]. There were a lot of Irish, Italian and Polish-Americans. We had a similar background. In Europe, we wouldn't have considered ourselves that similar."
Luke: "Would most of your friend be conventionally considered white?"
Nick: "Most of my friends would be conventionally considered interesting.
"What is your fixation with race?"
Luke: "I don't think we discuss it honestly and I think it plays a much larger role..."
Nick: "In what way? Do you have some kind of visceral reaction to people who look more or less like you?"
Luke: "I think people tend to overwhelmingly live among people of their own race but they don't want to admit it."
Nick: "OK. Then you don't need my opinion on it, do you?"
Luke: "Yes, I do. What do you think [of the Charles Murray book] The Bell Curve? Particularly its chapter on IQ and race?"
Nick: "I'm not sure what to say about the chapter on race. Reason ran a long and powerful critique of The Bell Curve by James Heckman, who won a Nobel prize in Economics.
"Ronald Bailey, our science correspondent, and I interviewed Murray for Reason. The overwhelming question for me when people make these kind of arguments that there is a hereditary aristocracy that is growing in America... That is one of the fears articulated by the authors of The Bell Curve. That people at the top intermarry and pull further and further away from the average person who is poorer and poorer.
"I see little evidence of that in America. We have tremendous turnover [in social class] and class mobility is more important than anything else as far as what society looks like."
Luke: "How come all the people who write in your book are white?"
Nick: "They're not all white. In our next issue, we have something written by a Taiwanese-American."
Luke: "No, in the book Choice."
Nick: "I don't know. I guess because they were all born that way.
"What is that? What's the point of a question like that?"
Luke: "On the one hand, you say that race is an artificial construct, but then you see certain actions...that seem contrary to [Nick's] stated race-means-nothing [attitude]."
Nick: "OK."
Luke: "Do you support ending all of America's anti-discrimination laws?"
Nick: "Yes. I don't think that they tend to have the affect that the people who pass them think they will.
"I think it is important for the government not to discriminate. In the most odious chapters of American life, it is government discrimination that causes the most harm.
"I think it is important for society, both in its government and its citizens, to stand up against racial and other forms of discrimination.
"Libertarians believe in individuals not groups, or groups that are made up of individuals freely choosing. The whole idea of group-based discrimination is problematic."
Luke: "You believe that people should be able to hire whom they want, live with whom they want?"
Nick: "Yes. I think miscegenation laws are an abomination."
Luke: "There's nothing in you that tingles when you see a black man with a white woman?"
Nick: "No. Tingles? I'm not sure what that means. You'll have to explain your own feelings."
Luke: "If it is an NBA basketball player and a beautiful white model, you could care less?"
Nick: "As long as people are freely consenting, I have no problem with that."
I'm thinking about this essay in the National Review 7/14/97: "While interracial marriage is increasingly accepted by whites, a surprising number of Asian men and black women are bitterly opposed."
Nick: "Do you seriously have a problem with that?"
Luke: "No."
Nick: "Is that just a pose?"
Luke: "No. I don't have a problem with it, but I think a lot more people do than will admit it."
Nick: "I don't think so. It might be a generational thing. I know few people who have any kind of problems with that sort of thing."
Luke: "Yeah, but they won't admit it. It's a visceral reaction. It's not an intellectual one."
Nick: "Even if it is a visceral reaction, it is historically contingent. As the world becomes more global, as America becomes more internationalist... It is more coming to have Australians in America now then it was 30 years ago. Being Australian means less than it did then. As people become more cosmopolitan, because there's more travel, there's more trade, there's more interaction, a lot of these things will fade. We see people more as individuals and less as representative of some ambiguously defined group."
Luke: "If everything is so hunky dory..."
Nick: "I didn't say anything was hunky dory. I think things are getting hunkier and dorier. Things are getting better when compared to 30 years ago and 300 years ago."
Luke: "Why do you think there are so many white women with black men and so few black women with white men?"
Nick: "I don't know that any of that is the case. I would suspect that in every possible category, you are seeing [more interracial relationships], not less. The premise of your question is probably flawed."
Steve Sailer writes in the National Review 7/14/97:
The heart of the problem for Asian men and black women is that intermarriage does not treat every sex/race combination equally: on average, it has offered black men and Asian women new opportunities for finding mates among whites, while exposing Asian men and black women to new competition from whites.
In the 1990 Census, 72 per cent of black - white couples consisted of a black husband and a white wife. In contrast, white - Asian pairs showed the reverse: 72 per cent consisted of a white husband and an Asian wife.
Sexual relations outside of marriage are less fettered by issues of family approval and long-term practicality, and they appear to be even more skewed. The 1992 Sex in America study of 3,432 people, as authoritative a work as any in a field where reliable data are scarce, found that ten times more single white women than single white men reported that their most recent sex partner was black.
Few whites comprehend the growing impact on minorities of these interracial husband - wife disparities.
Luke: "We see few asian men with white women as opposed to asian women with white men."
Nick: "Is this the kind of discussion that you had with Virginia [Postrel]?"
Luke: "I never spoke to Virginia. I just made that up."
Nick: "Really. There you go. OK."
Luke: "I guess that wasn't ethical."
Nick: "What are your ethics? To say that wasn't ethical presumes you have ethics."
Luke: "I subscribe to the morals of Orthodox Judaism."
Nick: "What are those?"
Luke: "There are 613 commandments ascribed to the Torah and thousands of rabbinic elaborations. One, you shouldn't put a stumbling block before the blind. So that would seem to rule out lying about talking to Virginia. Maybe it was such a powerful fantasy for me that it overcame my otherwise strong moral repugnance about lying?"
Nick: "OK. There you go. At least you have an explanation for things."
Luke: "Did you suffer moments of crippling doubt that you wouldn't be up to succeeding Virginia [as editor of Reason]?"
Nick: "Virginia set a high standard and was incredibly generous to me."
Luke: "Did you suffer moments of crippling doubt that you wouldn't be up to succeeding Virginia?"
Nick: "My life is a succession of doubts, but they are rarely crippling.
"I have probably had more doubts about sitting for this interview than I have had about anything else in the past five years."
Luke: "People say such unkind things."
Nick: "That was a huge compliment."
Luke: "Thank you."
Nick: "Last weekend I was on John McLaughlin's One-On-One, and I approached that show [transcript] with less trepidation than this interview."
Luke: "I love that new photo of you on your Reason page. What were you thinking about when that photo was taken?"
Nick: "I was probably hung over."
Luke: "If you were offered $100,000 to pose nude, would you do it?"
Nick: "No."
Luke: "Why not?"
Nick: "I don't know."
Luke: "Morals?"
Nick: "I haven't thought about that."
Luke: "Do you think it would detract from the seriousness with which people would take your thought?"
Nick: "I think it would detract from the seriousness with which they took my body. I am fundamentally not interested in posing nude."
Long pause.
Nick: "I'm sorry if that brought the conversation to a screeching halt."
Luke: "When was the last time reality mugged your political philosophy?"
Nick: "One of the things that has been of interest to me over the past two years has been the Iraq invasion and occupation and election in that I was opposed to invading Iraq because I felt that whatever threat it represented to the United States was being contained... I haven't changed my mind, but I think that the occupation has gone better than people predicted. I don't think a government should undertake nation-building much less region-building as we are doing but it is worth thinking about the times when that has worked. Foreign intervention poses a lot of problems both to non-interventionists and hyper-interventionists."
Luke: "Do you think good looks are an obstacle for male intellectuals in being taken seriously?"
Nick: "I wouldn't know, being neither good looking or intellectual. I will have to rely on you. I notice you have a lot of pictures up on your website."
Luke: "My gay fan base demands it.
"How has marriage and fatherhood changed your political philosophy?"
Nick: "Not terribly."
Luke: "Do you think non-Anglo-Saxons are as capable of democracy?"
Nick: "Yes. The last time I checked, it was non-Anglo-Saxons [the Greeks] who invented democracy. It was only the Nazis who thought the Greeks were Anglo-Saxon. I don't think there's a genetic component, much less a racial component to democracy."
Luke: "Do you think the Japanese and the Germans are really fascists at heart [to quote a content by National Review columnist John Derbyshire]?"
Nick: "No. What about the Australians?"
Luke: "We spring from sturdy Anglo-Saxon stock."
Nick: "No, you spring as much from Irish stock. If you go back to 1900, nobody was claiming the Irish as Anglo-Saxon."
Luke: "Why do you think there are such huge rates of black crime as compared to other groups such as asians and whites?"
Nick: "I think that is a fundamentally wrong way to phrase any kind of question."
Luke: "Why? There are more [young] black men in prison than in college."
Nick: "That statistic may not be accurate. That mostly reflects the war on drugs, which is one of the most baleful, stupid and counter-productive government policies."
From an essay: "A study conducted by the Sentencing Project in 1989 found that more than one-fourth of all Blacks between the age of 20 and 29 are under the control of the USCJS [United States Criminal Justice System]. This alarming figure becomes more so when you consider their are more Blacks in prison in this age group than their are all Blacks in college."
I ask Nick about this: "Everyone is certainly familiar with Jesse Jackson's famous comment about being scared when a black man was following him down the street late at night, and later being embarrassed about the fact."
Nick: "If I was walking with Jesse Jackson, I'd feel pretty comfortable. What's the point of that? A lot of crime is related to economic development and social policy such as the war on drugs, which concentrates drug dealing and various kinds of black market activity in certain neighborhoods."
Luke: "How do you account for the huge black illegitimacy rate? How do you account for that?"
Nick: "I don't know. The one thing I know is that illegitimacy rates have levelled off and teenage pregnancy rates have gone down and they are converging among most demographic groups."
From National Review 4/4/94: "By 1991 illegitimacy rates had reached 68 per cent of all births to black women; the inner-city figure typically exceeds 80 per cent. White illegitimacy is rising too. In 1991, 22 per cent of all white births were to unmarried mothers."
Roger Clegg writes for National Review 5/1/00:
The National Center for Health Statistics has just released its report, "Births: Final Data for 1998," which contained this unhappy finding: "The number of births to unmarried women rose 3 percent to 1,293,567, the highest number ever reported." That means that one birth in three is now out of wedlock.
'The report also found that illegitimate-birth rates "vary considerably by race and Hispanic origin." The percentage of out-of-wedlock births for non-Hispanic whites is 21.9 percent, but for non-Hispanic blacks it's 69.3 percent. For Hispanics it's 41.6 percent, and for American Indians 59.3 percent. For Asians and Pacific Islanders overall the number is 15.6 percent, but this varies from 51.1 percent for Hawaiians to 6.4 percent and 9.7 percent for Chinese and Japanese Americans, respectively.
Tristine Rainer writes in her 1998 book Your Life As Story:
Commonly in white women's true confessions memoirs, maternity out of wedlock is a source of shame, whereas in the African-American autobiographic tradition it is seen as a passage to self-worth and maturity, even for young, unmarried mothers.
Nick: "Sweden has higher illegitimacy rates than most parts of the US. It's not necessarily seen as an indicator of criminality."
Luke: "Do you think we should promote the handjob among teenagers as a step back from the precipice of vaginal intercourse?"
Nick: "I'll defer on that until my older son reaches puberty."
Luke: "How would you tailor America's immigration policies?"
Nick: "I would make immigration easier. I think this is one area where George Bush is on the right track in allowing people who come here [illegally] to work to document their status. It makes it easier for them to be protected from exploitation. It makes it easier for employers to deal with them.
"The problems with immigration are not problems with immigrants but with the welfare state. Any system that makes it difficult for people to come here to work is a bad system.
"Immigration is a difficult issue because there are social costs to things.
"Immigration is fundamentally a good thing because it is a reflection of the human desire to move elsewhere and to do better for yourself and your children, as you should understand better than anyone."
Luke: "Yeah, but I'm here legally."
Nick: "Legal and illegal is often an arbitrary distinction. In the mid-1980s, Ronald Reagen with the stroke of a pen legalized hundreds of thousands of supposedly illegal immigrants. Before the 1920s, there was open immigration.
"Every restaurant in Los Angeles is a Mexican restaurant at some level because the people who bring the food to the table and the people who prepare the food in the back are Mexicans. That's a social good."
Luke: "We have great scientists, computer programmers etc who can't get legal entry to America..."
Nick: "That's a mistake. Tell me how militarizing the border between California and Mexico is going to allow computer scientists from India to get an H1B visa?"
Luke: "Do you think there are immoral books and immoral films?"
Nick: "No."
Luke: "So Mein Kampf and Triumph of the Will are not immoral?"
Nick: "I think that's the wrong to do it. Certainly there are immoral artists and artists who create works that portray immorality but it is much more important how audiences receive things. That's where the act of meaning takes place.
"You could argue that certain books of the Bible that detail various horrible things... Is it moral or immoral? Morality is in the mind of the reader."
Luke: "Who determines what's moral?"
Nick: "Individuals do."
[I should've followed up: So if an individual thinks murder is moral, then it is moral? If Nick argues that society determines right and wrong, then what about societies that have sanctioned genocide?]
Luke: "How do you determine what is right and wrong?"
Nick: "I haven't really thought about that. Part of it is reflexive. As a core principle, there is the Golden Rule. Is this something that you would want done to you? Another thing is a basic understanding of individual rights. People should be free to live life on their own terms as long as they are not hurting others. At the rock bottom of the libertarian point of view, is a belief in non-aggression, a belief in voluntary action as opposed to coercion, and a commitment to honesty and forthrightness."
Luke: "Why would you follow the Golden Rule in those instances where it is not to your advantage to do so?"
Nick: "Because it feels good."
Luke: "Do you believe that you have an eternal soul?"
Nick: "I don't know. I haven't thought about those questions for a long time."
Luke: "If you don't think there are moral and immoral books and films, why do you think corporations spent hundreds of millions of dollars inserting their products in movies and television to sway people to act in a certain way?"
Nick: "There's a fundamental difference between buying Skittles and committing murder or having sex. It's unclear that any media thing causes behavior. Did reading Catcher in the Rye cause Mark David Chapman to shoot John Lennon?
"In the past 30 years, it is clear that depictions of drugs, sex and violence in media have increased but it is not clear that that has increased the behavior."
Luke: "You don't think the murder rate, illegitimacy rate and drug-taking rate has dramatically climbed in the last 40 years?"
Nick: "It certainly hasn't. Virtually all government statistics show a peak of drug use in 1979. Drug use now is half of what it was then. There's been no correlation between spending on drug education and the rates of drug use."
Luke: "What do you think about allowing hookers to solicit on the street?"
Nick: "Prostitution should be legalized."
Luke: "Do you think they should be allowed to do on the street outside of where you live?"
Nick: "I don't know. I don't know that I want any businesses outside on the street soliciting things."
Luke: "Do you think Times Square is a better place now than it was 20 years ago?"
Nick: "Yes."
Luke: "What are your solutions to diminishing the amount of violent crime in America?"
Nick: "We've been doing it. Violent crime is way down since the early '70s. The way you diminish violent crime is by having an economy that is active and having a decent police force..."
Luke: "Do you think people should be allowed to have sex with dogs?"
Nick: "Ask the dogs."
Luke: "But you can't. So do you think bestiality should be legal?"
Nick: "This is a completely ridiculous question. Do you know anybody?"
Luke: "Yes, I know people who've had sex with dogs."
Nick: "How do you stamp it out?"
Luke: "You criminalize it."
Nick: "So they're criminals now? Is it criminal now?"
Luke: "Yes."
Nick: "So what's your point?"
Luke: "As a libertarian, you want to remove criminality from prostitution. What about bestiality?"
Nick: "I don't think a lot about bestiality other than when I get an occasional spam email. It seems to me that it is not a pressing social issue that cries out for comment."
Luke: "So you don't want to face up..."
Nick: "No. I'm more than willing to face up to anything. It's just not important to me."
Luke: "Age of consent for sex? Should it be lower?"
Nick: "I don't even know what the age of consent is."
Luke: "It is 18 in most states."
Nick: "I think it varies from state to state. This is an area that whatever the laws are, they have little affect on social practice."
Luke: "That's all immaterial to my question. What do you favor doing with the age of consent?"
Nick: "I don't even think about revisiting it."
Luke: "Do you think rock music promote promiscuity?"
Nick: "No."
Luke: "Why do you stick so much drugs, sex and rock n' roll in your magazine. Doesn't that lower the intellectual discourse?"
Nick: "I don't think so. Sex, drugs and rock n' roll are all interesting and they can be treated seriously, comically, humorously. We do all of that."
Luke: "Which novels best explain who you are as a human being?"
Nick: "I continue to enjoy The Great Gatsby speaks to questions of the American experience, to love, to relationships, to the past and the future, to reinvention. I like the novels of Philip K. Dick, particularly A Scanner Darkly, which is not only a great drug war novel but a fascinating meditation on identity and alienation. I'm a big fan of Herman Hesse's Steppenwolf, which talks about warring senses of the self."
Luke: "When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?"
Nick: "A writer."
Luke: "What were you expected to become?"
Nick: "Nothing."
Luke: "What would you tell a friend who had a drug or alcohol addiction?"
Nick: "That they should get treatment. I don't know that I would call it an addiction."
Luke: "Isn't AA the most successful at treating these things?"
Nick: "No. They don't submit their treatment statistics to objective analysis."
Luke: "Have you ever participated in an intervention?"
Nick: "No. The opportunity has never arisen."
Luke: "Do you think AA is compatible with a robust libertarianism?"
Nick: "If AA is truly voluntary, yes. There are issues where courts will remand people to AA, which is a violation of not only AA precepts..."
Luke: "When have you stuffed something down the reader's throat because you think it is good for them?"
Nick: "I'm not sure what you mean."
Luke: "You've got an important story but it is a slog to read."
Nick: "I haven't faced that choice. If Reason stands for anything it is that if something is good for you it doesn't have to taste like spinach."
Luke: "Greatest philosopher of the 20th Century?"
Nick: "Fredriech Hayek."
Luke: "What was David Aaron Clark like at Rutgers [student newspaper]?"
Nick: "He was a wonderful presence. He was a party master and an inspirational leader of the Rutgers Daily Targun."
Luke: "How do you think we can better morally educate people?"
Nick: "The more people understand that they are responsible for the results of their actions, the more moral they can be."
Luke: "Do you think human nature is basically good or evil?"
Nick: "I think that's a bad way of framing the question."
Luke: "Well, suggest a better frame and provide an answer, please."
Nick: "Humans are neither good nor evil. People looking for ways of creating meaning in their lives and innovating...can be more or less interesting and constructive."
Luke: "Do you think that unless people are in something that morally educates them they tend to moral entropy?"
Nick: "Say that again."
I do.
Nick: "I don't know what moral entropy means."
Luke: "To morally spiral downwards..."
Nick: "People leading productive lives tend to be moral. I'm not trying to be difficult. I don't understand some of the terms you're talking about."
Luke: "Did you read George Gilder's book Men and Marriage?"
Nick: "I did. I think it was mostly hysterical. I thought Sexual Suicide was more interesting. It has to be read in the context of early '70s rapidly changing gender roles."
[Dr. Judith writes: "Sociologist George Gilder, in his book, "Men and Marriage," points out that men who respond to short term sexual desires are apt to have significantly higher rates of suicide, drug and alcohol addiction, mental disease, accidental death, and arrest."]
Luke: "Thank you Nick for your forebearance."
Nick: "Thank you, Luke. I hope, if nothing else, this will be an accurate representation of my half-baked thoughts on things unlike the previous secretly-taped conversation you ran."
Chaim Amalek writes: "Re that lengthy interview you did with that Reason fellow, you erred with that handjob question. In fact, it is questions like that one which do more to hurt your reputation than anything you may have done in the adult business. You need to remember your audience and think of the goyim."
David Clark writes:
I am severely touched that Nick offers props, even if he's just being kind -- and quite proud of him for excelling so spectacularly, indeed "living up to his potential' (as the guidance counselors like to put it). Which is certainly more than I can say for myself. Though I suppose I probably have, in a way -- just decided to follow the wrong damn potential...
But what I really wanna know is if he has submitted yet to what I remember as Cathy Young's indomitable will, driven by, one might speculate, an embarassment of frothily boiling hormonal riches? A good editor must always stand ready to do whatever is needed for his publication! I would add an emoticon here, but since Nick and perhaps even Cathy just may read this, I would rather hide from them the sad fact that my literacy has indeed devolved that far...