Mike: I just read your post on the Max Hardcore trial in Tampa, and I completely agree with you. I also just reread the link to my December 2005 post on Rob Black on your site, and you know what – you and I were both right then in terms of timing and what happens next.
And, I stand by what I wrote then that someone will get one of these cases to the Supreme Court. I don’t know Sirkin, the attorney who is doing a lot of the defense work in these cases, but he seems to be a really smart trial strategist. I’m sure he’s itching to get one of these cases in front of the Supremes, as any lawyer would.
That could end up being one of those “be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.” Forget election year. It doesn’t matter whether it’s Bush, McCain, Hillary or Obama in office because the Supremes aren’t running for re-election. They’ve got tenure.
And you now have a majority on the Supremes that is more conservative than ever. I think they will say there are limits. And, I don’t think it’ll be five to four.
I’ve been reading Mark Kernes’ trial coverage on AVN, and Sirkin and his team are a lot smarter than I am when it comes to these things, but I think they’re making a mistake when they want to force the jury to watch hour after hour of Max Hardcore on the theory that his work has to be taken as a whole. He’s cited the jury in the JM Productions trial as saying they weren’t disgusted by all that stuff. In the end they were bored. I think he’s banking on the notion that he can desensitize the jury.
I don’t think that’s the case with extreme porn. I’ve seen my share of porn over the years, since I saw my first loop at about age 14 more than 30 years ago. And I still remember the first time I put one of Rob Black’s Cocktail videos in the VCR because I was a Jewel D’Nyle fan. No idea what was coming. So, there I am, happily watching Jewel, and suddenly I literally gagged and shut off the TV when she drank from a glass of cum and spit. Frankly, I almost gagged now writing that line. The memory still disgusts me. I don’t think you’re going to desensitize a jury at all. I think you’re going to disgust them. If you don’t, the streets of Tampa aren’t safe for old ladies, children and small animals!
Beyond that, the notion Max’s lawyer is pushing that you have to view a Max Hardcore tape in its entirety as a work of art is nonsense. He’s never heard the term fast-forward? Does he know that porn fans skip through all the stuff with the girls saying, hey, it was all make-believe? Does he know that they fast-forward to their favorite girls and could care less about the others? Or that they fast-forward to the part of the scene that includes the fetish that gets them going?
Porn ain’t about the whole. It’s about the parts. It’s the reason Max and every other pornographer films vignettes. It’s the reason there are chapters , cum-shot reviews and easy ways to jump right to the anal and DP even on Vivid and Digital Playground features. Who really cared about the storyline in Pirates? I wanted to see Janine take a facial.
But, as I wrote in 2005, at the end of the day, these cases aren’t about the trial court in Tampa. They’re going to be about the case that goes to the Supreme Court. And one of them will go because the standard is so confusing.
One Response
Max Hardcore is a misogynist. He doesn’t do what he does for freedom of speech or “art”. He does it because he hates women. And anyone else who watches his shit also hates women. And there will always be a girl who needs the money that will eventually give in and appear on one of his videos. Or like the case in Britain, Max just rapes the girls that come on set when they try to leave.
Your industry should have policed themselves a long time ago. You knew what was coming and what are the laws. If you don’t want the government stepping in, then police your own industry.
Porn should have stayed dirty and hidden in a brown paper bag. Legal of course but not “mainstream”. It’s bastards like Steven Hirsch who wanted to put a pretty face on porn that even he now has gone more extreme. Because to pornographers, it’s like what’s next, what do they do now to push the envelope.
What was taboo before is tame now. I’m all for hardcore porn like anyone else. But there is nothing sexy or arousing watching a woman or a young girl being abused, beaten, punched, choked, urinated, and shit on.