- 7/2/2025
A look at the business of the pornography industry and the emerging political battle against it.
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00:00Once, it was called smut.
00:18The rules were clear.
00:20If it went too far, it was obscene.
00:24It offended the community standard of decency.
00:27The digital age and a political moment changed all of that.
00:34Now, pornography is a multi-billion dollar business
00:36that has doubled in size in the last five years.
00:41As technology swept pornography into our living rooms,
00:44questions began to be raised about the old rules.
00:48In a wired world, who can say what offends the community standard of decency?
00:53Who can even define a community?
00:55Now, a new political moment, and those questions are being raised.
01:02On the answers, delivered by juries over the next few years,
01:06ride billions of dollars and the fate of American porn.
01:25This is how it starts.
01:37Okay, I'm just going to do a test on the two girls at Roybalt.
01:40It should be five minutes.
01:44I don't know what this guy does.
01:45He does nothing.
01:46He's always there.
01:47I can't get a fucking coffee when I want one.
01:50Clive McLean's at the top of his game.
01:52Nobody else seems to have coffees in their hands.
01:55His game is pornography.
01:57So this is a couple of new ladies who've never been shot before.
02:01They're here for the first time.
02:02I'm going to do a half a roll of film on these kids here.
02:05They're in their late teens, brought to Los Angeles, discovered by one of Clive's talent scouts.
02:12He's a talent scout, exactly.
02:13I never thought of you as a talent scout, Roy.
02:15Don't mind the cameras.
02:16Sweet chick.
02:17You nervous?
02:18Who can make me believe it's a beauty.
02:21Clive says there's no shortage of fresh young talent eager to break into this business.
02:26Now's as good a time as any.
02:28Whoops!
02:29Now's as good a time as any.
02:32If you put yourself in their position, I mean, I'd be pretty nervous, wouldn't you?
02:38Would you take off your clothes, sir, right away?
02:40Well, I have.
02:44However, she doesn't look too nervous.
02:46So based on that.
02:48Okay, look at me, Marianne.
02:50You know why we do that.
02:51That's great.
02:52Swing your ass all the way out toward me.
02:5418-year-old Marianne dreams of stardom in Clive's signature video series, Barely Legal.
03:01Here's the Barely Legal series.
03:03Okay, this is the one I direct.
03:05It's the biggest selling series in America.
03:06See, it's five separate stories within the two-hour video.
03:11And each of the stories is obviously a girl.
03:13It's about a girl's usually first experience.
03:16Dear Barely Legal, I was a naughty 18-year-old, and I knew that well.
03:20I went to see an artist who wanted nude models for his paintings.
03:23The arithmetic of American porn is staggering.
03:27It costs $55,000 to make Barely Legal.
03:30Unbelievable numbers.
03:31You know, like, 35,000, 40,000 videos is a top seller, because about 50% go to rent.
03:36They sell for $39.95, a copy.
03:39Now we're on Barely Legal 15.
03:40So far, Barely Legal has turned a profit of close to $10 million.
03:46Woman?
03:46She's a girl.
03:47The most beautiful star.
03:49Great.
03:51Autumn, the other newcomer, might be right for a role in Barely Legal, number 16.
03:57A sticky bottom out toward me.
04:00Got it.
04:01Perfecto.
04:01Beautiful world.
04:03We ought to do a Barely Legal video, you know, together.
04:06Is that how it works?
04:07They're just, they're thinking about it.
04:11Autumn came to L.A. with her husband, Randy.
04:15They seem ready, able, and more or less willing.
04:19I'm not real comfortable with girl-boy, but I'll do girl-girl, I'll do single-girl.
04:24It's just, I don't know what I'm comfortable with.
04:26It's all new to me.
04:26I've got to see as I go along.
04:28Feels good.
04:28You know, I like watching her, like seeing her naked, you know, so.
04:32One with the most shapely hips, the second one, I think is absolutely a yes.
04:37She's not really sure about video yet, but she's great for the magazine.
04:40I can see that.
04:41In the end, Autumn agreed to make a video.
04:45A month later, she and Randy returned to L.A.
04:48Clive rented this house to shoot what's known as a girl-girl, for barely legal, number 16.
04:55We have a girl-girl this morning in the jacuzzi.
04:58Love for sale.
05:04This morning, Autumn will earn $1,000 to have oral sex with this woman.
05:10A session like this can create a stunning array of pornographic products.
05:14Okay, lean into each other a little bit.
05:16Pictures for the Internet.
05:17Well, that was innocent.
05:18And more pictures for magazine.
05:20A virgin-like look, then.
05:21Clive will shoot the video with what's known as a hot camera and a cold camera.
05:25There's one camera there.
05:26There's one camera here.
05:27So, obviously, something like that will allow me to do some nice soft stuff from over there.
05:32The hot camera scenes are explicit for the triple-X version.
05:36I need light in there, guys.
05:38I'm suffering here.
05:41The cold camera scenes are less explicit.
05:44They'll end up on soft core cable channels and in some hotel chains.
05:49Keep moving.
05:50Don't hold still for this thing.
05:51In the adult entertainment industry, it might be called vertical integration.
05:56Cut.
05:57It's a fucking masterpiece.
05:58Clive will shoot four more scenes before Barely Legal No. 16 is a wrap.
06:11Barely Legal No. 16 is one of the many revenue streams flowing into an enterprise headquartered in the heart of Hollywood.
06:20Larry Flint Publications.
06:23Larry Flint, once a small-time smut merchant, now presides over a porn conglomerate.
06:30We're into plain old vanilla sex, you know.
06:35Vanilla sex.
06:36Vanilla sex.
06:39He puts its worth at nearly $400 million, and there are at least a half dozen other porn producers in this league.
06:47These people employ major accounting firms, major law firms.
06:52Every single day, contracts are drawn, or litigation is engaged in to protect copyright, trademark, merchandising, sale of shirts and sweatshirts and whatever, memorabilia.
07:08And then there's Flint's latest enterprise, a Main Street emporium called Hustler Hollywood.
07:15It made millions of dollars last year.
07:17Because it's too darn hot, too darn hot, too darn hot, too darn hot.
07:23Flint's daughter, Teresa, runs the store.
07:26This used to be a blockbuster in a Boston chicken market, and it was like, you know, well, do we keep the glass windows so people from the outside can see in?
07:33And we were like, yeah, we want people to see in, and we want people to break the stereotype that sex is dirty.
07:40I'd like to cool with my baby tonight.
07:44We're getting a lot of women, which is what we wanted.
07:46We sell things that women want to buy, whether it's a massage oil or an adult movie or a vibrator or whatever it is.
07:54It's so that they, I think that the couples use the products together.
07:58Nights are funner here because that's where on sunset and it's where all the clubs are.
08:02So when a concert lets out, everybody seems to flood into here for their coffee and their dessert and their toy or whatever.
08:08Teresa says they sell at least 10,000 videos every month.
08:12Cause it's too darn, too darn, too darn, too darn, too darn, too darn hot.
08:21This store is really successful.
08:22We have three, we're building another.
08:24So, I mean, it's that the people want these things.
08:27Porn used to be run by a handful of kingpins, operating in the shadows of the legitimate picture business in Hollywood.
08:47Now, it's not so easy to tell them apart.
08:51Over the years, it's become a multi-billion, with a B, dollar business.
08:57And the people who are running the companies now, they're educated, they are real business individuals.
09:04It's all business.
09:05The adult business has its moguls, who run studios with names like Wicked Pictures and Vivid Video.
09:13Who do we appeal to?
09:15Well, a large portion is couples.
09:16There's women, there's men.
09:18I mean, that is our niche.
09:20That is our area.
09:21And it's really more, like I said, the mainstream.
09:23Bill Asher is a graduate of Dartmouth, with an MBA from USC.
09:27And his company, Vivid, is the high end of porn.
09:34I love the looks of you.
09:38A lot of sensual playing, caressing to it, and play to the camera with your eyes.
09:41They'll spend up to $100,000 on a feature.
09:45Sell me the ass.
09:46They produced 80 new films last year, keeping these state-of-the-art editing rooms busy 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
09:55Pornography is the high-tech boom that didn't go bust.
10:01What do you want?
10:03Before the digital age, there were only so many ways to sell a dirty picture.
10:09Technology transformed the business.
10:12Action.
10:13We distribute those movies on video, VHS, DVD.
10:18We have internet sites, television channels.
10:22Our international business is growing.
10:24We're in 30-some countries, with all of the different products.
10:28I'm Gary Miller, inviting you to join us.
10:31The new technology allowed pornography to break through into the mainstream,
10:38and into association with some of the biggest brand names in American business.
10:43This is the main control room at DirecTV, the satellite distribution service.
10:49This is how pornography is channeled into millions of American homes.
10:55So we know it's called a buy rate, which is that for every million homes you're in,
11:00in any given month, we'll know how many times someone bought a movie.
11:04Generally, our buy rates are between 10 to 20 percent.
11:07And how many million homes were you in?
11:08We're in about 40 million cumulative.
11:11That's four million homes every month, paying to view a vivid video.
11:17That's good for vivid video.
11:19And it's good for General Motors, which owns DirecTV.
11:23About every six months, we've been able to get another large, well-known distributor
11:28to offer our content to their consumers.
11:32And with each one, I think that there is a little more credibility within the industry.
11:37The other distributors are able to stop and take a look and say,
11:40all right, that company did it.
11:42They were able to make money at it.
11:44Obviously, it turned out to be a good deal for them.
11:46There was no huge protesting in the streets, you know, no fire and brimstone.
11:51So the next person feels a little more comfortable, and then the next.
11:56AT&T is the biggest American company that has accommodated itself to the pornography boom.
12:04The hot network, explicit porn, shows on the cable network AT&T broadband.
12:11Cable companies and satellite companies take approximately 80 percent, 80 percent plus,
12:17of the adult dollar that gets spent by the consumer.
12:20For AT&T, porn distribution is great business,
12:24but you might not know it from reading the company's annual report.
12:28There's no mention of adult material, nor how much it contributes to the company's bottom line.
12:34But it's no secret to Wall Street.
12:37If you look at how much money is coming in from adult,
12:42remember there's virtually no cost to AT&T for carrying it.
12:46And if he's generating $10 million, $20 million a month,
12:49that's virtually all found money going into the bottom line.
12:53So it can be a significant amount.
12:5520 million times 12 months, that's a lot of bread.
12:59Okay, you want to pay $52 for $4,300?
13:01I got you, baby.
13:03Pornography's new acceptability in corporate America has made it an amenity in many of the nation's hotel chains.
13:10The hotel needs to provide television as an amenity to the consumer.
13:15If it's a businessman, he probably wants to see adult.
13:18So this is a way of keeping that consumer happy.
13:21It's an offering, much like in a hotel, there will be bars that serve alcohol.
13:28And that's not to say that we condone drinking or that we should judge people whether or not they want to drink alcohol.
13:36But it is there as a convenience, it is there as an offering to guests who wish to do it,
13:43for guests who wish to watch this material.
13:45The major chains, Hilton, Weston, and Marriott, all offer porn in their rooms,
13:52delivered to the hotel by one of two major distribution companies, LodgeNet, or On Command Video.
13:59If you're LodgeNet or On Command, you go to the hotel operator and you make a deal
14:04where you agree to put in the equipment, including in many cases the TV set.
14:11The consumer orders a movie.
14:13They will get billed on their hotel bill to $8.95 for an adult movie.
14:20Some analysts say these movies make more money for the hotel chains
14:23than all the alcohol and snacks in the minibar.
14:27So the 5% or the 10% of revenue that the hotel chain gets, that's pure profit to him
14:33because they have no cost.
14:34They didn't put in the wiring system.
14:37They didn't supply the programming.
14:38It's a happy alliance for both sides of the business equation.
14:42For the mainstream companies, easy money.
14:46For the porn industry, a protective layer of legitimacy.
14:50The mainstream companies help legitimize what we're doing.
14:54They tell America that by definition if this company, this large company that you respect
14:58is distributing this, obviously there's demand for it.
15:00I think that is what has helped us, is that in the past it was always, you know,
15:05people talk about how big is the adult industry, and people would say, oh, it's huge.
15:08But I think that the average person said, well, that's a lot of hype.
15:11There really isn't that much interest in this product,
15:13or it's a very small segment of people who really buy this product.
15:17I think once they start hearing large companies are distributing it,
15:20they start to realize that there must be demand for this.
15:22This must be normal.
15:23I shouldn't feel odd because I enjoy it.
15:26The desire to have men touch me, love me.
15:29If pornography is compatible with the hotel, cable, and satellite businesses,
15:35it might have been made for the Internet.
15:38Take the relationship of porn and the giant search engine Yahoo.
15:43I think what Yahoo did was go one step beyond and say, okay, my customers want to see sex.
15:51I'll make it easier for them, and I'll categorize it.
15:54You know, here's bestiality, here's whips and chains, here's whatever.
15:57Yahoo made money, lots of it, selling ads and links to porno websites.
16:04When Yahoo first launched, getting a site listed, even a commercial business site, was free.
16:10Nowadays, it costs $200 to get a website listed, unless you're an adult website,
16:15in which case they charge $600.
16:18One of the earliest advertisers was Danny's hard drive.
16:23Danny Ash is the CEO.
16:25I was obsessed with the computer.
16:27I thought, I want to become a computer programmer.
16:30It was like the proverbial light bulb going off.
16:32I knew what I had to do, and I said, I've got to have one of these now.
16:39She got one, and last year she made $8 million.
16:43Oh, this is Danny.
16:43But Danny is more than a CEO.
16:47Once she takes off her clothes, she's the main attraction.
16:50I'm a bit of a geek, yeah, I'm a geek with big breasts, yes.
16:56Danny, a former stripper, holds the Guinness World Record as the most downloaded woman on the web.
17:03Yeah, I'm afraid of that.
17:04Danny's niche is what is known as softcore.
17:08No male-female sex is shown.
17:10Instead, model Shawna O'Brien will earn $750 for a little wiggle, a little jiggle, and a little giggle.
17:19Say, hi, I'm Shawna O'Brien, and then hop out again.
17:22Shawna will tell the joke of the week.
17:23And this is your naked joke of the week.
17:25Perform a virtual lap dance.
17:27And then my heart stood still.
17:30And she'll do a guest shot on Danny's weekly talk show, In Bed with Danny.
17:37There will be photo shoots with Danny for the site.
17:40And then, while viewers type in messages online, Shawna will spend the next two hours stripping for the camera.
17:49You're doing great.
17:50Gabby Hayes says, have a good night, Shawna.
17:52Stay happy.
17:55Warrior says you can just look at those eyes all night long.
17:57Danny's hard drive is one of the most popular websites on the internet.
18:05He wants to know if you always look this beautiful.
18:07But it's only one.
18:09Across the world wide web, there are at least 200,000 commercial pornography sites.
18:21This is the golden age of porn.
18:24But the porn king, Larry Flint, knows that in the recent past, people like him were hunted down by the law.
18:32Larry Flint is in the Hamilton County Jail tonight.
18:35I was a 25-year-old prosecutor, done 400-some obscenity cases, and lifted 200 cases a year.
18:40Got everybody.
18:41I feel very much threatened.
18:42But maybe one of the more famous cases I did was Larry Flint.
18:46I say to them, in the language that I know best, two words.
18:52Shove.
18:54I'll stay here till hell freezes over.
18:59In the 70s, pornography was the hardcore stuff.
19:02Everybody knew it was sleazy because it looked sleazy.
19:05It was in downtown back alley, dirty bookstores.
19:08Cops had to wear plastic bags on their shoes to go into there.
19:11And the peep shows were full of diseases.
19:13And it was just awful.
19:14The question was, what was criminal?
19:18And there was a fairly straightforward test for that.
19:21A Supreme Court case called Miller v. the State of California.
19:26The Miller test, and we still use it today in every state court, every federal court trial in the United States, is a three-part test.
19:32The first two prongs use community standards.
19:35And you're supposed to decide whether you think an average person in the community of adults where you live
19:40would find that the material appeals to the prurient interest, meaning does it appeal to that shameful, morbid, lustful, lascivious, erotic interest in sex.
19:49Second prong, would that average person applying community standards find that it depicts the sexual activity in a patently offensive way?
19:56And then the third prong is, would a reasonable person find that it lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value?
20:04The heart of Miller was that second prong, letting community standards decide what material was offensive.
20:11And juries in hundreds of communities knew obscenity when they saw it.
20:17It was pretty easy to get obscenity convictions through a jury in the 70s.
20:22I mean, I never going to understand why anybody could lose an obscenity case.
20:26I think part of that was that people on the juries hadn't seen hardcore pornography before.
20:31Ladies and gentlemen, you are about to witness the ravishment of a woman.
20:35Local prosecutors were getting their convictions by showing juries films like Behind the Green Door.
20:45But even so, the porn business thrived.
20:50With the first of the big technological breakthroughs, the VCR, allowing porn to come right into the home.
20:58Well, there it is, you little bugger. There it is.
21:01What?
21:02Your glitter is, it's deep down in the bottom of your throat.
21:07The industry was becoming so big, it was omnipresent.
21:10You found it in 7-Eleven.
21:12You found it in advertisements in your phone book for dial-up horn.
21:17It was on cable television.
21:21It was in your local video store.
21:25By the 1980s, the Reagan administration decided that the federal government needed to do something about it.
21:31So, the Attorney General's Commission met, looked at the laws, and said, you know, the laws are there.
21:38It is the responsibility of the Justice Department, and we encourage you to prosecute.
21:43And they did.
21:45For the federal and local anti-porn squads, convictions were routine.
21:49They just show the porn and ask almost any jury if it offended its community standards.
21:55They won nearly every case, as the porn kingpins pled guilty.
22:00They were indicting the big shots, and so everybody else in the industry said, if they can get to the boss, they can get to us.
22:06So, the first thing that goes away from the shelves is the more extreme, you know, animals, you know, blood goats and kids.
22:14Judge William Morrissey sentenced Flint to 7 to 25 years in prison and refused bond.
22:20Law enforcement officials believed they had actually put the pornography genie back in the bottle.
22:25Then, in the early 1990s, federal porn prosecutions essentially stopped when a new administration with different priorities took over the Justice Department.
22:39What we tried to do is to take the resources that we had and establish priorities.
22:46I suppose somebody could decide to use all their resources for obscenity prosecutions and not for other matters.
22:51It seems to me, clearly, that national security and human life, free of violence, are two very important priorities.
22:59Under Attorney General Reno, federal prosecutions slowed dramatically, and the obscenity task force effectively went out of business.
23:09As a result, the industry burgeoned, and numbers and numbers of companies sprouted up everywhere to meet the demand,
23:19because there's a huge demand from millions to billions, and to also take advantage of the fact that there really weren't any prosecutions going on.
23:28And when Clinton comes in, it's definitely blue skies and green lights, and fat bank accounts.
23:35Is that me?
23:36Mark Cromer is one of the beneficiaries of porn's newfound freedom and riches.
23:42This is a guy who eats Viagra for breakfast and is working four times a day.
23:47I'm somewhat, I think, of an anomaly in the industry.
23:49I am a writer, a journalist by trade, a college-educated journalist who came to porn just a few years ago by selling Larry Flint a concept.
23:59Cromer and Flint produce a series called Jail Babes.
24:03Jail Babes tapped into America's dual fascinations with sex and crime.
24:08We blended that rather seamlessly by using women who had committed, you know, real criminals,
24:14and interviewed them about their crimes, what they did in jail, how it worked,
24:19and then their sexual fantasies, and then filmed them having sex.
24:23Everything happened, all the sex happened in...
24:25Herself?
24:26Yeah, in the cells.
24:38As the adult business flourished in the 90s,
24:41many of the new pornographers arose from the Hollywood culture itself.
24:45I'd have a rule that's right.
24:48Peach Bunny's six.
24:50One of the industry's new millionaires is Adam Glasser.
24:54I went to high school with Rob Lowe, Robert Downey Jr., Sean Penn, Chris Penn, Holly Robinson,
25:00Charlie Sheen, Amelia West, they all went to my high school.
25:03So I'd visit sets, and, I mean, you know, cameras this big and lights that you had to have cranes operate
25:11and crews in the hundreds to make a movie, forget about it.
25:15It was Mission Tyrannus and Asgassens 2.
25:18Then, one day, Adam went to the set of a porno film.
25:23This guy walks in, and he has this little handheld camera,
25:25and this old man that barely could see two feet in front of him taking still shots,
25:30and they made the whole movie in one day.
25:32So for me, it completely changed my view on, you know, it was possible.
25:36It seemed possible to me.
25:38And so I, from that day forward, I really, I said, I'm in the wrong business,
25:42and this is the business that I want to get into,
25:46and I slowly but surely gravitated and made my way into the adult industry.
25:51Adam's company is a family business.
25:53Hi, Mom.
25:54Hi.
25:54The treasurer is his 70-year-old mother, Lila.
25:58I just want to talk to you about receivables and what's going on.
26:00To me, it's not, it's a business.
26:02I think that basically this industry has very nice people,
26:09even though people expect differently for whatever reason.
26:18This family business grossed $2 million last year.
26:22Oh, my God.
26:24All over the San Fernando Valley, on the outskirts of L.A.,
26:28young Larry Flint wannabes made millions by taking sex to the outer limits.
26:33It's understood that Hollywood sells Californication.
26:39I was the one who dropped to L.A. and said I was going to be a pornographer.
26:44Rob Black is making big money and big plans.
26:48I don't see us just as an adult company.
26:53I say the trajectory we'd like to be is more of like a Ted Turner
26:57or a, you know, a Disney or something like that.
27:01Dream of Californication
27:04Where are you, babe?
27:06What are you doing?
27:09Rob and his wife own Extreme Associates.
27:12His wife, she calls herself Lizzie Borden,
27:17is a former actress who has made the transition to directing.
27:21I just look at what's happening in society, like real stuff,
27:24and I just bring it to porno.
27:30Action!
27:30Lizzie and Rob are low-budget filmmakers.
27:34This film, about the rape of a woman whose car breaks down,
27:38cost about $20,000 to make.
27:40I don't know what's wrong with that.
27:41He should be on his way to...
27:43They'll earn tens of thousands of dollars in profit.
27:47Yeah, grab her by the...
27:48Rob and Lizzie try to make two films a week.
27:52I don't shoot the lovey-dovey porno that you watch all the time.
27:56This is for people who watch porno all the time
28:00and they're sick of the husband and the wife making love with candles.
28:03This is for if you want to jerk off to fucking porno with your old lady
28:06and you're watching it and you're getting into it and it's hot, steamy sex
28:09that you're like, after you get done, you feel like you just like the drugs.
28:12Like, yeah!
28:15Lizzie and Rob have their own website.
28:17They sell videos and memberships for $29.95.
28:22It's pretty rough stuff,
28:24but in the sexual cornucopia of the Internet, it's just another website.
28:29Internet sex shoppers can browse sites featuring sex with pregnant women,
28:36Asian bondage,
28:38foot worship,
28:40bestiality.
28:42Fetishism is the growth market.
28:46In adult industry, it's not odd to have, you know, quite a few Internet sites
28:50with everything from different, you know, fetishes aimed at different markets, if you will.
28:55How important it is to us, it's approximately 25 to 30 percent of our business right now.
29:00The key to it is that it's the growth area.
29:02You know, it's the thing that's taking off.
29:05The Internet, more than any other technology,
29:09inhibits obscenity prosecutions
29:11because it fractures the very idea of what a community is.
29:16Has a world that offers home-delivered fetishes
29:19lost its capacity to be offended?
29:22Or is it that obscenity in the digital age
29:25has just not been put to the test?
29:28I think that the porn industry today,
29:30the hardcore porn syndicate,
29:31has been blessed by history in two ways.
29:35One is that they just happened to hit the Internet when it was exploding.
29:39And if there had been continued federal prosecutions,
29:41you wouldn't see the Internet presence of the porn syndicate as big as it is today.
29:45But the combination of the industry's willingness to go on the web in a big way
29:50and the prosecutors not, you know, indicting them for that
29:54allowed it to explode beyond anybody's imagination, I think.
29:59It was just that fluke.
30:00This is the Los Angeles Convention Center,
30:07the city's favorite place to see the newest boats and cars.
30:11This year, it's home to the city's premier porn event,
30:15Erotica L.A.
30:17Here, the adult industry is letting it all hang out.
30:29Consumers willing to pay $15 can see the latest sex toys,
30:35meet a porn star,
30:36or buy a video.
30:38Five years ago, this event didn't exist.
30:41This year, it is three times as big as it was last year.
30:54I recommend running a low-speed lot of lube.
30:57You cannot harm yourself with these.
30:59This is live right now from Newport Beach.
31:02Ruby shuds?
31:03It's proof, the leaders of the adult business say,
31:06that their business is demand-driven.
31:09I'm trying the big bondage table over here.
31:14Millions and millions of Americans want pornography
31:16and spend billions for it.
31:19Well, I interest you in a transsexual magazine.
31:21No, okay.
31:22Why? Because we want it.
31:24We want porn.
31:25We want lots of it.
31:26We want it on demand.
31:28The Internet is fueling our ability to have it on demand.
31:31And nobody can stop that now.
31:34Well, I think we're at this really kind of interesting time
31:38where we still have this real undercurrent of conservatism
31:43and the fact that, ooh, sex is taboo,
31:45and, ooh, it's forbidden, yet it's available.
31:49So we're feeling like, ooh, we can't have it,
31:52but it's available.
31:53And what you've got is a billion-dollar industry.
31:56To the world is still in the crowd!
31:58The world is still in the crowd!
32:00But Larry Flint is worried that porn's new prosperity won't last.
32:04Within the last year, he cast his experienced eye toward the horizon,
32:10and what he beheld wasn't a blue sky.
32:13Take a good look at number nine there.
32:15It was the Republican administration of George W. Bush
32:19and a new Justice Department.
32:21This is something we've never done before.
32:23What's going on there?
32:25Flint knows that zealous prosecutors are bad for business.
32:29It's just, yeah, it's a little peeker.
32:30I think they sort of know that this President Bush,
32:35George W. Bush, and Attorney General Ashcroft,
32:38I mean, they're about as serious as a heart attack.
32:42After Attorney General Ashcroft was confirmed,
32:45one of his first meetings was with former prosecutors
32:48and other anti-porn advocates.
32:51I was present at a meeting with the Attorney General,
32:54and they did ask for our input,
32:56and so we did write up, you know,
32:58examples of the kinds of cases we did in the past,
33:01some of the trial tactics and investigative methods
33:04that have been used, you know,
33:05by prosecutors around the country.
33:07I'm crazy about number three.
33:09I think it'll be a big surprise next year.
33:12In early September,
33:13the Attorney General was preparing a major assault on porn.
33:18Then the events of September 11th changed all that.
33:21The feds are off Larry Flint's case,
33:25at least for now.
33:26But the U.S. Supreme Court has heard
33:29two porn-related cases this session,
33:31and there's a new anti-porn case
33:34in the industry's backyard, Los Angeles,
33:38that has captured the attention of the kingpins.
33:41We try to see what the community will accept as a yardstick
33:45because that's really where the law kicks in.
33:47And so I think the common-sense part is I'm a regular gal.
33:51I look at a video, I see, whoa, that's very extreme,
33:56and I don't think the community will accept it.
33:59But Larry Flint and the other porn producers
34:01are betting billions that the community standards have shifted.
34:06You can now see on television
34:10material just as explicit
34:13as we were publishing in Hustle in 1974.
34:17With the cable network, Sex and the City,
34:22the last two episodes I've seen
34:23dealt with female ejaculation,
34:25and rim jobs.
34:26If you know what a rim job is,
34:27that's called analingus.
34:31Are we talking tuchus lingus?
34:35I'm afraid so.
34:36How did this happen?
34:36How did they get the message
34:37that the ass is now on the menu?
34:39I bet there's one loudmouth guy
34:42who found some woman who loved it
34:43and told everybody,
34:44women love this!
34:46Who is this guy?
34:47You can't get any more extreme, in a sense,
34:52in talking about the sexual acts
34:55and making them part of everyday women's daily lives.
34:59The sting that I get after he canes me last...
35:03But it is the very mainstreaming
35:05of sexual content on cable
35:07that is forcing some pornographers
35:09to try to go even further.
35:11Over at Xtreme Associates,
35:14Rob Black and Lizzie Borden
35:16are determined to test the limits.
35:18We're known for all the taboo stuff
35:20that everyone said you can't do,
35:22and we do it, and we sell it,
35:23and people are entertained
35:24because people are bored with the other stuff.
35:26Are you supposed to do the scared thing?
35:28Today, they're shooting the box cover
35:29for Lizzie's new feature.
35:31A girl being kidnapped,
35:34being forced to have sex
35:36against her will.
35:39Lizzie's newest film
35:41breaks many of even porn's taboos.
35:45Being butchered at the end
35:47and spit on.
35:49She's being degraded.
35:50The actress, Veronica Cain,
35:53apparently doesn't know
35:54exactly what she's in for.
35:56Let's go with the flow, all right?
35:58Let happen what's gonna happen.
36:00Check out my best friends.
36:02And you're about to put her through...
36:04Hell.
36:05Why?
36:06Are we ready to do this?
36:08Yeah.
36:08Lizzie, I'm gonna shoot her twice, okay?
36:10Yeah, that's fine.
36:11She knows me.
36:11She's my best friend.
36:13I know she can take it.
36:15And at the end, I give her a hug.
36:16I take her out to dinner.
36:17We go shopping.
36:18Is she gonna take a beating?
36:19A real beating?
36:20Yeah.
36:20She's really gonna get hit.
36:22She likes it.
36:23It's good.
36:24Sometimes it makes you more horny
36:25when you're getting hit.
36:27Makes you more, like, wet.
36:28It makes you, you know,
36:29more tingly down in your genital area.
36:33Rolling.
36:33Action!
36:34Get this fucking...
36:35Get this guy out of here!
36:37Get this guy out of here!
36:39What's the matter with you?
36:40What's the matter with you?
36:41What's the matter with you?
36:42What's the matter with you?
36:43You fucking understand, huh?
36:45Before the scene is finished,
36:47Lizzie's friend, Veronica,
36:49will be kicked and beaten.
36:51She will have oral, vaginal,
36:53and anal sex with each of these actors.
36:57Then they will pretend to cut her throat
36:59and leave her for dead in a pool of blood.
37:04Because I'm a female director,
37:05and it's easy for me to be like,
37:06oh, come on, do it, you know?
37:08And not just a man.
37:09If a guy asks, they're like,
37:10oh, he's a pervert.
37:12But if a woman asks, they do it.
37:17We were here because this is one of the places
37:19where porn is now regularly pushing the limits.
37:23But this was more than we bargained for.
37:26And while it appeared that what was happening
37:29was legally consensual, we left.
37:33The incident, though, caused us to wonder
37:35not just about the content,
37:37but about the human cost.
37:40A cost that even porn producers see every day.
37:45And it never ceases to amaze me
37:47what these women are willing to do for money.
37:49I mean, why do you have a 19-year-old girl
37:51having sex with multiple partners
37:54three, four, five days a week?
37:55So how does that work with braces?
37:57What?
37:59Well, you know.
38:00Well, she works three days a week,
38:01and she's making $1,000 a shoot,
38:03which some of these girls get $1,000
38:05for a straight boy-girl scene.
38:08$1,500 for if they do anal.
38:11So you're 18 years old,
38:12and you just made $4,500 in a week.
38:15That's what I made, I think, all year
38:17when I was 18, right?
38:18This is the set of another extreme association.
38:21And then you'll see its production,
38:22Porno Boot Camp,
38:24where young actresses are being taught
38:26the ropes about hardcore.
38:29How old are you?
38:30I'm 21, sir.
38:31Maybe they just do girl-girl to start.
38:34But what happens is a demand builds for them
38:36to see them do a boy-girl.
38:37So then their price goes up
38:39because they haven't done boy-girl.
38:41So then they do boy-girl.
38:42So they start parceling out what they'll do.
38:44They go slow at first.
38:46You know, everything's just been, like,
38:47mild, like, routine, guy-girl type of thing.
38:51Or girl-girl.
38:53They don't do anal.
38:53But, uh...
38:54So then the demand builds for that
38:56because that producer wants that first box cover
38:58that says her first on-screen anal.
39:00No.
39:01Right?
39:01So the price for that goes up.
39:03I'm scared.
39:04I'm slightly nervous
39:06because I haven't ever done anal before.
39:10So, um...
39:11Well, I've actually tried it,
39:12but it was, like, horrible.
39:13So...
39:14So...
39:15So why...
39:16Why now?
39:18Uh...
39:19Okay.
39:20I gotta get tense.
39:21I gotta get tense.
39:22Honestly?
39:23Pour the money.
39:24But after a while,
39:25then she starts doing anal a lot
39:26and the price goes down.
39:28Have you ever been fucked in your ass?
39:29No!
39:30And you plan to get fucked in your ass?
39:31Yes!
39:32By six guys?
39:35Yes!
39:37Sir.
39:38Do you tell the guy of your dreams,
39:40or the girl of your dreams, for that matter,
39:42that you've had sex with about 685 people,
39:47maybe 800 people?
39:48You're not...
39:48Actually, you're not sure.
39:49No way.
39:50You can only figure you do two scenes of tape
39:51and you did 300 tapes, right?
39:53You know?
39:53Some sort of arithmetic like that.
39:56That's a killer.
39:58Let's see you bend over and touch your toes.
39:59Veronica Kane was the actress
40:01beaten in that film made by Lizzie Borden.
40:05She has lasted three years in the porn business.
40:08She says she'll know Mr. Wright when she sees him.
40:11The individual has to be open and intelligent
40:14and understanding enough to realize
40:19that this is a business
40:19and that it was something fun for me to do
40:22and it was a part of my life
40:24and, you know, I'm not ashamed of it.
40:28You guys are going to do everything
40:29your drill instructors asked you to do today, right?
40:32Sir!
40:32You want to know what I think
40:33the dirty little secret of the industry is.
40:36There are poor and old bitches in the whole industry.
40:38They're mannequins.
40:40If you're not going to do it, she will.
40:42And if she won't do it, he will.
40:43And, you know, I mean, it's just...
40:45They come and go.
40:47The recruits are vying for a $10,000 prize from Rob Black.
40:52The winner will be judged as the one
40:54who was most enthusiastic about two days
40:57of various sex acts performed in front of the camera.
41:00The tape will sell for $29.95.
41:04When I was a child, my stepfather was an alcoholic.
41:07So I think I had, like, deep issues
41:09and this is kind of therapeutic for me
41:11is taking my aggression out on other people.
41:13So in a way, I'm exploiting people.
41:15I'm taking all my inner demons and aggression out on them,
41:18but it's good for me.
41:21So I guess that's all that matters.
41:22Over at Porn Incorporated, Larry Flint,
41:28the past master of the outrageous,
41:30won't go as far as Lizzie Borden and Rob Black.
41:34From his point of view,
41:36they can only cause problems for the industry.
41:38Look, if you've got a video
41:43that's indefensible
41:48to try and take a hardline position for yourself,
41:57you're not going to do anything
42:01but harm yourself and harm the industry.
42:04The porn kingpins don't want any attention
42:09that will hurt their industry's
42:10carefully crafted association with the mainstream.
42:15But in the last year,
42:17pornography's biggest mainstream ally, AT&T,
42:21has been the subject of an anti-porn crusade.
42:24We've been asking AT&T
42:26to get out of the hardcore porn business.
42:30Mob Bell shouldn't be selling smut.
42:34Last spring,
42:35an interfaith coalition of religious leaders
42:38brought their concerns directly to the top at AT&T.
42:42They met with its chairman, C. Michael Armstrong.
42:45I raised the issue
42:48that when a company like AT&T,
42:51which has won the hearts and allegiance
42:53of so many people,
42:57gets into this business,
42:59it's a way of legitimating it,
43:01saying it's okay, it's all right.
43:03But that's the good housekeeping seal of approval
43:06we don't want to see put on this kind of business.
43:10While AT&T refused to grant Frontline
43:12an interview about the hot network,
43:14the company has publicly stated its position
43:16in letters like this,
43:19where it says that competitive pressures
43:20from companies like General Motors
43:22are keeping AT&T in the business.
43:25We didn't think that the arguments we heard
43:28were persuasive.
43:29One point that was alleged to us
43:32is that GM was in the same business
43:36and they had to keep up with GM.
43:39Also, AT&T's representatives at this meeting
43:43indicated that there are some worse things out there,
43:47but I think there was a concession made
43:50that what they have is pretty, pretty raw.
43:53AT&T Broadband has only gotten bigger
43:56with its pending $72 billion merger
43:59with cable competitor Comcast.
44:02The new AT&T Comcast Corporation
44:05would be the nation's biggest cable outfit,
44:09and with C. Michael Armstrong in charge for now,
44:12it will be porn's biggest pipeline.
44:15They can give all the excuses in the world.
44:18The chairman of AT&T knows
44:19if he's selling hardcore pornography,
44:21he's a pornographer.
44:23If that's his pornography,
44:24if he's made a deal for it,
44:26if he's not just the carrier,
44:27if he's in the business,
44:28then he's in the business.
44:30I desire to have men touch me.
44:32Besides this attack on AT&T Broadband,
44:35other crusaders have joined the assault
44:37on the corporate collaborators.
44:39Some turned their attention to Yahoo
44:46after the giant search engine announced
44:48that it was opening a virtual sex shop
44:51where millions of users could buy
44:53hardcore videos and DVDs.
44:56The assault began.
44:58One more mainstream company
45:01was now going to violate federal obscenity laws.
45:06And that was a news story,
45:07and it was quite widely distributed.
45:10Overnight, Yahoo was bombarded
45:12by hundreds of thousands of e-mail complaints.
45:15The very next day,
45:16Yahoo made some statement
45:18that they were getting out of this business.
45:20They would no longer sell hardcore videos
45:23and were going to clean up their site.
45:25And ever since, Yahoo has been in full retreat.
45:29The company closed its sex shop
45:31and began to hinder access to other porn sites.
45:35Yahoo also refused Frontline's request for an interview.
45:39You'd like to run it.
45:40Suddenly, the porn industry is off balance.
45:44No better indication of that
45:45is that Larry Flint has discovered caution.
45:49Tell Jim we'd like to run this video.
45:52You want to run it by him
45:53so he can talk to Paul.
45:55Paul is Paul Cambria,
45:57the porn industry's lawyer.
45:59He created a list of sex acts
46:02that he advised his clients to treat as taboo
46:05if they wanted to avoid trouble
46:07with the Justice Department.
46:09What are those things?
46:10Ejaculation on the face,
46:12urination,
46:14things that, you know,
46:15maybe the Midwestern soccer mom might say,
46:18whoa, you know, hello.
46:20Don't make adults appear to be underage.
46:25That's number one.
46:27These so-called Bukkake films,
46:30an Asian variety of film
46:32where 25 men ejaculate on a woman.
46:38Stay away from subjects involving the dead.
46:43Stay away from subjects involving religion.
46:45It's called the Cambria List,
46:48and all the major porn producers
46:51have agreed to follow it.
46:53It's a bunch of rich guys running scared.
46:56It's a bunch of guys who were maybe rebels
46:58in the 70s and 80s
46:59that don't want to fight anymore.
47:00They want to take their chips out of the bank
47:02and cash them in and go home and play golf.
47:05But prosecutions are happening.
47:08In L.A., city attorneys are about to bring
47:10the first obscenity case since 1993 before a jury.
47:16Attorneys for the city will find out
47:18whether community standards
47:19meet the prosecution's test for obscenity.
47:23I have an acronym for it,
47:24and I memorize it through that.
47:26It's called CURB-FHP.
47:28And what the C stands for is children involved.
47:31The U is for urination or defecation
47:33in conjunction with sex acts.
47:35The R is for rape scenes.
47:37The B is for bestiality.
47:39The F is for fisting or foot insertion.
47:42The H is for homicide or dismemberment
47:44in conjunction with the sex act.
47:46And the P is for pain,
47:48for severe infliction of pain.
47:50So those are the seven general categories
47:52that we prosecute.
47:54The newest case,
47:55scheduled for trial in Los Angeles
47:57in February 2002,
48:00starts with an F for fisting.
48:03The defendants are Adam Glasser.
48:05Okay, and what about Golden Goose?
48:08And his mom, Lila.
48:09About 49,000.
48:11It happened December 22nd.
48:13I got a phone call about 8.15 from my mom,
48:16basically telling me that police were there
48:18where the search weren't.
48:19Okay.
48:19Bye, Mom.
48:20Bye-bye.
48:21Oh, yeah.
48:23Lila's son produces in a very lucrative niche
48:26of the adult market,
48:27anal films.
48:30Early in his career,
48:31he decided to change his name
48:32from Adam Glasser to Seymour Butts.
48:36At the heart of his case
48:38is the argument about whether at this moment,
48:41this content is now acceptable to the community.
48:44Why you?
48:46Why me?
48:46I released a movie with a scene
48:54that depicts women inserting their hands
49:02inside of one another.
49:03It's when you punch through.
49:05It'll be in effect.
49:06Yeah, that's girl power.
49:08For the last 10 years,
49:10movies have been shot
49:11where multiple digits
49:13have been inserted
49:15into women and or men
49:16in gay movies.
49:19But for some reason,
49:20when you put a thumb in,
49:23it is called fisting,
49:25and that seems to be a problem
49:29with the L.A. city attorney.
49:32Los Angeles Deputy City Attorney Sanchez
49:35will show Adam Glasser's fisting tape,
49:38Tampa Tushy Fest,
49:39to the jury.
49:41Somebody has to stand up for the community.
49:45I have to at least allow them to see,
49:47this is what's going on.
49:49Oh, my God.
49:49Oh!
49:50Oh, wow, she's fucking coming.
49:52Man, thanks.
49:53Do you think that this is acceptable
49:56to your community?
49:59Wow.
50:00I'm just a representative of the city.
50:04I might come, take one out,
50:06and then the other one, okay?
50:07I think my job is a presenter.
50:09A community look at what's out there.
50:12Community, is this acceptable to you?
50:15And if a jury tells me yes,
50:18then so be it.
50:19If they tell me no,
50:21then let's see where that really goes.
50:23Ashcroft says, well, that's...
50:24There is a gathering sense
50:25even within the industry
50:27that, one way or another,
50:29pornography is bound for a reckoning.
50:31They hate it all.
50:32They're looking for their easiest targets.
50:34They're edgier, more provocative filmmakers,
50:37and they're going to hold those up
50:39as the examples of pornography.
50:42Pornographers insist that they're engaged
50:44in protected adult expression.
50:46That's endorsed by the public every day
50:48at the cash register.
50:49That ultimately, the people who've spoken,
50:52that they like adult content,
50:53that they're comfortable with it,
50:55and that, you know,
50:55they don't want the government coming in
50:57and dictating what they do and don't want.
50:59But prosecutors are betting
51:00that if the new hardcore pornography
51:02is actually put before the community,
51:05the old standards will apply.
51:07Hardcore pornography,
51:08penetration clearly visible,
51:10was the standard 30 years ago.
51:11It's still the standard today.
51:13Prosecutors insist that even in the digital age,
51:16there is such a thing as obscenity,
51:18and that a community will know it
51:20when it sees it.
51:25When I feel you come,
51:28you'll totally feel me.
51:40Next time on Frontline,
51:43fat.
51:44We love it.
51:45We hate it.
51:46We live in a food-toxic environment.
51:48Now the same industry that's making us fatter
51:50is cashing in trying to make us slim.
51:53People are bombarded with messages,
51:55eat this, eat this, eat this.
51:57And then on the other hand,
51:57they're told, don't eat.
51:59Why is it so hard to get rid of fat?
52:01And should we?
52:01I like being a big woman.
52:03And who the hell is out there
52:05to tell me that anything is wrong with it?
52:07Watch fat next time on Frontline.
52:09For a VHS copy of Frontline's American Porn,
52:16call PBS Home Video at 1-800-PLAY-PBS.
52:21And we do it.
52:22Okay.
52:22All right.
52:23Let's do it.
52:23Now, let's.
52:46Let's do it.
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