Love the Porn, Hate the Pornographer

One of the great things about being a pornographer---particularly if you're serious and immersed in it---is the sense that you're working in a shadow world. Pornography, though not only legal but also socially beneficial, will never be accepted by America. So the profession carries a forbidden feel, whether your porn is edgy or tame.

But public reaction to porn goes well beyond setting it apart as a shadow world. By many, the world of porn production is seen as a hellish domain inhabited by monstrous sub-human creatures. And this crazy notion is expressed and elaborated ad nauseum in television shows and movies.

You think I exaggerate?

I recently started working with a graduate student to compile a list of references to pornographers in mainstream media. What we've found isn't surprising for the general bias against pornographers; it's surprising for the over-the-top vehemence of it.

Beginning in the fifties, television has represented pornographers as creatures somewhere on the social scale between drug pushers and rats, unfit to live around respectable citizens. Here are a few typical storylines:

The F.B.I., “To Free My Enemy." First Aired: October 24, 1965, (ABC).
Inspector Erskine has the distasteful job of finding a kidnap victim--a pornographer that he is trying build a case against. In the end, he captures the kidnappers and obtains a warrant for the arrest of the pornographer.

Police Woman, "The Beautiful Die Young." First Aired: Friday September 20, 1974, (NBC) A corrupt modeling agency leads young girls into prositution, porno and white slavery. Pepper (Angie Dickenson) goes undercover as a white slave trader/pornographer.



Baretta, “The Reunion.” First Aired: Wednesday February 2, 1977 (ABC).
A philanthropist is blown up in front of a restaurant. An old friend of Baretta's returns to help solve the case. The man responsible for the murder is a blackmailer dealing in pornography and prostitution.



Charlie’s Angles, “Dirty Business.” First Aired: Wednesday February 2, 1977 (ABC).
While investigating an arson at a legitimate business, the Angels discover it is actually a front for a pornographic film studio that blackmails wealthy people.



T.J. Hooker, “The Cheerleader Murder.” First Aired: Saturday October 22, 1983 (ABC).
Hooker and Romano catch the thief of a freshly stolen car, but in the car's trunk, they find the body of a teenage girl. With the coroner's report revealing that the girl was a heavy cocaine user and had had a recent, crudely-performed abortion, they find themselves uncovering a racket that is getting young girls hooked on drugs and then leading them into making underage porn to pay for their addiction.



The Equalizer, “A Place to Stay.” First Aired: Wednesday February 25, 1987 (CBS).
A young girl runs away from her quarreling parents and into the hands of a child pornographer.

Jake and the Fatman, “You’ll Never Know.” First Aired: Wednesday February 26, 1992 (CBS).
A doctor is murdered, and is discovered to have been making child pornography. The prime suspect is Elliot Edwards, a city council member with a spotless record.



Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, “Sacrifice.” First Aired: Friday November 9, 2001 (NBC).
A shooting outside of a gay bar leads the detectives to the victim's family and uncovers his wife's involvement with an amoral and homicidal pornographer.



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In television, pornography is inevitably connected with murder, child porn, drug trafficking, kidnapping, prostitution, blackmail. Pornographers are evil and live to exploit and torture the young and the innocent.

In American movies it's even more extreme. Examples of pornographers range from the sordid to the hideous: Jackie Treehorn in "The Big Lebowski" (a corrupt man who hires goons to intimidate, kidnap, drug and victimize people) is actually one of the more tempered representations.

In "Donnie Darko" the character played by Patrick Swayze is not only an overbearing inspirational speaker...he's also a child pornographer.



In the movie "8mm"...well... here's the synopsis:

"Tom Welles, private eye, is hired by a wealthy widow, whose well-known husband passed away recently. She has found a reel of S8-film in a safe. On the film is a cruel slaughtering of a young girl, who obviously does not pretend or act: A snuff-movie. Welles takes up investigation, which leads him to the girl's mother and from there to Hollywood, into the office of a porn flick producer. Welles' rising obsession to solve the case also carries him away from his wife and new-born daughter."



Most recently, I watched "Running Scared" an intelligent, exciting and stylish thriller that stars Paul Walker. Now, I happen to be a fan of Paul Walker.




But in "Running Scared", there it was, as predictable as a loaded gun: the evil pornographers. And these were spectacular: child-murdering porn-monsters who were visually compared to the vampire Nosferatu.



Now, I hate destroying illusions, but all the pornographers I know are hard working, creative and dedicated people who strive to make the best and the most satisfying work possible. Believe me: it's very, very difficult to make good porn. And to survive---much less flourish---in the competitive world of adult commerce takes discipline, intelligence and endurance. The profession requires that you devote your life to it. And this life is taken seriously by the practitioners---as seriously as any professionals dealing with their respective material.

The porn industry is under fire these days from the Federal Government. I don't know if people outside the porn world realize the extent to which this is true. In his list of social evils, our current Attorney General has placed pornography above the human slave trade (This from the guy responsible for executing retarded people when he was AG in Texas under George W).

To my way of thinking, the ludicrous, exaggerated and overwhelmingly negative representations we flesh-traders get from the mainstream media can't be helping.

I'm not expecting a miracle. I know that porn is colorful, extravagant, controversial, an easy target at all times. And I relish that. I love the world I work in, the people I work with. I'm just hoping that one of these days I'll watch a movie or a television show and see a pornographer who isn't Satan's frontline rep on the planet, but rather a hard-working person who happens to understand the profound and enduring importance of sex qua sex. And who lives and works to keep that insane and difficult flame alive.

Now...here's a pic of Dawson taking a big load.



---Paul Morris