Posted on 11/19/2001 12:03:40 AM PST by StoneColdGOP
No Hard Times For Adult Film Biz
Terrorist attacks, war in Afghanistan and a faltering economy are not having an effect on one of the San Fernando Valley's most robust industries: adult videos. Some of the area's top manufacturers of explicit films and DVDs said this week that their orders are up by as much as 20 percent since September 11, while smaller companies and video stores said business has remained steady.
"Our industry is, for the most part, recession-proof," said Jim Monroe, vice president of Van Nuys-based Vivid Video, one of the world's largest producers of explicit adult entertainment. "When times are good people still want to stay home and watch the movies and when times aren't so good, people tend to cuddle up at home even a little bit more."
The Valley has long been home to the booming adult film industry, which generated more than $4 billion in sales and rentals last year nationwide, according to Adult Video News, the industry's main trade paper. Although 2001 sales figures will not be available until December, Adult Video News Editor in Chief Mike Ramone said he doesn't expect any kind of drop in business with more than 11,000 new hard-core titles being released annually.
"I have heard from retailers that immediately after the attack, business went down with everyone staying home glued to the tube," Ramone said. "But then shortly thereafter, it went through the ceiling. I suppose people still need their distractions even in wartime."
Jack Kyser, chief economist of the Economic Development Corp. of Los Angeles County, said the adult film industry has historically weathered hard economic times. "If they had reported as being down, it would be a big surprise," Kyser said. "It's sort of the industry that dare not speak its name but it's one of the strong growth areas. People may not approve but, obviously, there is a demand. It seems to be a very, very solid industry."
According to the Entertainment Industry Development Corp., adult films account for approximately 5 percent to 10 percent of filming permits filed in Los Angeles County. The industry is able to weather tough economic times on the production side because they have small budgets, use small crews and minimal sets. And the financial commitment from the consumer is also minimal. "In a slowing economy, people might not take vacations or buy cars but they still want to go to movies, watch television or rent videos," said Morrie Goldman, vice president of the EIDC.
Monroe said the astonishing rise in popularity of DVDs has added handsomely to Vivid Video's bottom line and to the adult film industry's health overall. "We have seen a continual increase on DVDs the last 12-15 months and we are taking advantage of the technology," Monroe said. "We don't have a [Martin] Scorsese or [Francis Ford] Coppola to add director's comments but the more interactive we make our titles, the better."
Confident of continued strong demand, Canoga Park-based Wicked Pictures has no plans to scale back on the 48 new DVDs and VHS films it produces each year and sells to distributors. "Obviously, September 11 affected everyone to some degree and all anyone was concerned about was watching the news every night to see what was going on," said Wicked Pictures President Steve Orenstein. "Then it started changing when people were looking for anything but the news. Right now, business is good again and going as usual."
The president of a Van Nuys-based printing company that makes boxes for DVDs and videos for more than 200 porn companies said the only concession he has had to make to national events is to design machine-sealed mailing envelopes because of anxiety over the anthrax scare. "With Christmas season coming up, we have seen orders for DVD boxes go way up and we are expecting a very busy Christmas season," he said. "There had already been an increase in home entertainment but now people are really seeking the security of being entertained at home."
Missed that thread on the Roman bathhouses?
Porn isn't modern, it just goes mainstream from time to time. It is pretty much a constant, and it is just culture that changes, either openly embracing it or openly rejecting it (while privately embracing it.)
But really, porn is a substitute for sex (or good sex,) and as such it is a symptom of a problem more than the problem itself.
You would sound better if you could find a decent psychological or psychiatric study that supports your position. I've looked for them; none exist to my knowledge. Good luck.
Porno has been around in some form since folks learned how to draw. It's tittilating for the first 15 minutes or so then a male (like me) finds himself fast forwarding to the scene with the prettiest girl.
On the other hand..the industry is pretty sordid by any objective observations. I doubt many FReepers would wish their daughters to be porn actresses as a goal in life.
Most of the "work" is made for men...lonley men obviously and tends towards an often unseemly "handling" of the women in a fashion that no women I've ever known (and I've known a few the world over) would tolerate or consider "affectionate".
Porn is sort of a mixed bag...most of it is downright sleazy...all of it is for the voyeurs eyes...and it's easy to condemn morally yet it is a mainstay fo many cultures and will continue to be so. It's sort of like prostitution. Best to keep it minimized to a degree in my view but thinking it will go away is folly.
Some of it though is downright very very indefensible period.
What an odd topic for FR.....
"HILL:
Well either you are closing your eyes to a situation you do not wish to acknowledge...
Or you are not aware of the calibre of disaster
Indicated by the presence of a pool table in your community
Weeellll, ya got trouble my friend
Right here, I say, trouble right here in River City
Why sure I'm a billiard player, certainly mighty proud to say
I'm always mighty proud to say it
I consider that the hours I spend with a cue in my hand are golden
Help you cultivate horse sense, and a cool head and a keen eye
'Jever take and try and give an iron clad leave to yourself from a 3 rail billiard shot?
Well, just as I say it takes judgement, brains and maturity
To score in a balkline game
I say that any boob can take and shove a ball in a pocket
And I call that sloth! The first big step on the road to the depths of degreda[tion].
I say first, medicinal wine from a teaspoon
Then beer from a bottle!
And the next thing you know, your son is playin'
Fer money in a pinchback suit
And list'nin to some big out-a-town Jasper
Hearin' him about horse race gambling
Not a wholesome trottin' race, no, but a race where they se' down right on the horse!
Like to see some stuck up jockey boy sittin' on Dan Patch?
Make your blood boil? Well I should say!
Now friends, let me tell ya what I mean:
Ya got 1 2 3 4 5 6 pockets in a table
Pockets that mark the diff'rence between a gentlemen and a bum
With a capital B and that rhymes with P and that stands for Pool!
And all week long, your River City youth'll be fritterin' away!
I say your young men'll be frittern'!
Frittern' away their noontime, suppertime, chore time too!
Get the ball in pocket, never mind gettin' dandelions pulled
Or the screen door patched, or the beefstake pounded
Never mind pumping any water till your parents are caught with the cistern empty on a Saturday night-and that's trouble!
Yes, you got lots and lotsa trouble!
I'm thinkin' of the kids in the knickerbockers, shirt-tailed young ones, peekin' in the pool hall winda after school.
Ya got trouble folks! Right here in River City!
Trouble with a capital T and that rhymes with P and that stands for pool!
Now, I know all you folks are the right kind of parents
I'm going to be perfectly frank.
Would ya like to know what kind of conversation goes on while they're loafing around that hall?
They'll be tryin' out Bevo
Tryin' out Cubebs
Tryin' out tailor mades like cigarette fiends!
And braggin' all about how they're gonna cover up a tell-tale breath with Sen Sen.
And one fine night
They leave the pool hall, headed for the dance at the armory
Libertine men and scarlet women-and ragtime!
Shameless music that'll grab your son, your daughter
In the arms of a jungle animal instinct-massteria!
Friend, the idle brain's the devil's playground! Trouble!
REFRAIN:
CHORUS SINGS: Oh, we got trouble
HILL: Right here in River City! (Chorus echoes him) With a capital T and that rhymes with P and that stands for pool!
CHORUS: That stands for pool!
HILL: We've surely got trouble! (Chorus echoes)
HILL: Right here in River City!
CHORUS: Right here!
HILL: Gotta figger out a way to keep the young ones moral after school!
CHORUS: Our children's children gonna have... (chanted afterward: trouble, trouble, trouble in the background of Hill's speech)
HILL: Mothers of river city: heed that warning before it's too late.
Watch for the tell-tale signs of corruption:
The minute your son leaves the house, does he rebutton his knickerbockers BELOW THE KNEE?
Is there a nicotine stain on his index finger? A dime novel hidden in the corn crib?
Is he starting to memorize jokes from Cap'n Billy's Whiz Bang?
Are certain words...creeping into his conversation?
Words like...like swell?
And so's your old man!
(Trouble crescendoes on every 6th beat as swell and old man are mentioned).
Well, if so my friends-ya got trouble!
REFRAIN IS REPEATED, but replace "Gotta find a way to keep the young ones moral after school" with "Remember the main Plymouth Rock and the Golden Rule!"
CHORUS THEN CHANTS TROUBLE IN THE BACKGROUND AS HILL CONTINUES
Oh, ho we got trouble
We're in terrible, terrible trouble
That game with the 15 numbered balls is the devil's tool!
CHORUS: Devil's tool!
Oh yes we got trouble-trouble-trouble
CHORUS: Oh yes, we got trouble here, we got big big trouble!
HILL: With a capital T! CHORUS ECHOES HILL: And that rhymes with P! CHORUS ECHOES HILL: And that stands for pool! CHORUS ECHOES, HOLDING THE NOTE. WOMEN SOAR TO A HIGH NOTE.:)
- Prof. Harold Hill, "The Music Man"
Yup, we can always nail ol' Ted Bundy on the catch-22, can't we? Bundy claims that pornography was a factor (not the only factor, but a factor) in making him into the swell guy he turned out to be, but since that swell guy turned out to be a serial murderer, we can claim that he has no credibility on the subject. How can we possibly believe anything that the glib-tongued Bundy had to say about anything (especially when the topic at hand was himself and his thought process and the effect that pornography had on that process)?
As if there could be a better expert on Bundy's thought process than Bundy, himself.
"Our industry is, for the most part, recession-proof," said Jim Monroe, vice president of Van Nuys-based Vivid Video, one of the world's largest producers of explicit adult entertainment.
So are most industries that depend on an addicted population to keep business rolling smoothly. Of course, if the industry was unable to endlessly recruit new "adult" film "stars" to satisfy the jaded and bored clientele (how many more times can someone get their jollies from the same old video they've already seen hundreds of times?), and was forced to rely instead on an increasingly aging set of "actors" ("Debbie, Age 62, Attempts To Do Dallas One More Time"), I wonder how recession-proof the industry would be...
I know that the USSC will probably never override the previous decisions, but crap like this should be made illegal in this country.
I am not pro-porn, meaning that I do not think porn should be a part of everyday life, but I am not against porn either. I find porn for the most part is a niether good nor bad, but neutral. Obviously, there are people who do have REAL problem with porn, does this mean it should be illegal. There are people who have a REAL problem with alcohol, does this mean it should be illegal? There are many people who occasionally view porn and still live normal productive lives, have a happy marrige, and do not rape/molest women and children.
Deal with problems when they occur, because to "prevent" every possible situation where something bad may happen, we'd have to restrict almost all freedoms, including those of movement and thought. I mean, we'd all live in a safer society if everyone was in a coma, right?
dude, this sucks.
Clearly no one knew the inside of Bundy's brain better than Bundy himself, the question becomes: would Bundy tell the truth. One of the things you see in serial killers (if you read enough true crime) is that they really like to play their audience. They get off on being smarter than the people around them and have a real tendency to snowball them. John Douglas (author of Mindhunter and a nubmer of other books, also one of the FBI's top profilers) interviewed a lot of serial killers (unfortunately Bundy was already dead by the time he started this) to get a grasp of their inner workings. He says the most useful phrase he found when interviewing these guys was "cut the crap, I'm not buying the BS you feed your shrink, tell me the truth"; after that he'd get a very different line of reasoning than the standard line (like Son of Sam admitting the whole messages from the dog thing was BS, he thought it sounded cool and figured they'd buy it). So you really have to take their "self analysis" with quite a few grains of salt, the truthfulness will largely depend on how much they respect the interviewer.
(how many more times can someone get their jollies from the same old video they've already seen hundreds of times?)
I don't know, how many times can people get their hollies from having sex with the same old spouse they've already had sex with hundreds of times? Strikes me that those numbers will be pretty similar.
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