While it raged across the nation in the 1970s, the women's liberation movement hadn't yet caught on in the world of adult films. The era's quintessential porn flick, "Debbie Does Dallas," features a wide-eyed, blonde, ambitious young coed who has a marvelous solution for the cash flow problems of her cheerleading squad. Sex. To her equally attractive friends, the idea seems so simple, so right. Hence, the group makes a twisted pact to bed as many greasy guys as they can to raise some dough.
Now, to say that women in porn have come a long way since then may be a bit far-fetched. They are still demeaned on screen and vilified by skeptics.
Yet, without question, women remain the true stars of the porn industry. They command the large paychecks. They gain legions of devoted fans. They top the credits of thousands of flicks spun-out of secluded Southern California warehouses each year. Yet, for every rising-star Debbie there is a Savannah or a Shauna Grant, a celebrated, young porn queen who succumbs to the fast life of drugs, rock stars, big money and no-frills sex.
Since its boom beginning in the '70s, pornographic media has seen numerous starlets and he-men rise and fall in an endless cycle of lust, libido and lucre.
Once a phenomenon restricted to Times Square hothouses and only whispered about behind closed doors, porn slowly gained attention with the release of movies like "Behind the Green Door" with Marilyn Chambers, "The Devil in Miss Jones" and, of course, "Deep Throat," which oddly nudged its way into the annals of political Americana.
Recently dubbed the Bill Gates of porn by U.S. News & World Report magazine, Reuben Sturman, now serving time in jail for income-tax evasion, helped make sex on film even more widely seen with his invention of the peep show - for just 25 cents per short interval, any old Joe could privately view his own porn flick.
At a time when the action was recorded on traditional celluloid film stock and the movies included story lines and actual actors (who even aspired to someday work on a real motion picture), the taboo of porn became a thing of the past.
The industry took off.
Celebrities were made of women like Chambers and Nina Hartley, while the sets' less prevalent stallions became sweaty icons, envied and celebrated for their commendable prowess. (Historically, the men of porn are a limited number of faceless, nameless Johns who are hired for their abilities to sustain repeated erections and ejaculate on command. Women get almost all the fame.) A few fellas, however, have broken out of the pack: John Holmes is perhaps the most storied.
Long before he became a punchline in a "Reservoir Dogs" monologue, Holmes and his oft-flaccid 14-inch member starred in more than 2,200 films - a number he claimed was accurate because he "put a peanut into a big jar for every shoot he went to, and at last count there were 2,200." Moving into the 1980s (when assaults from the conservative Reagan Administration pounded the industry), porn underwent a series of changes, and Holmes became its typical, requisite victim. He beat a murder rap in 1982 only to succumb to a drug habit and finally AIDS in 1988.
While undoubtedly tragic, Holmes's death signaled the adult industry's reaction to the sweep of the notorious sexually transmitted disease. Since most sex acts on film can be risky and are performed without protection, strict testing has severely limited the number of infected industry members; while thousands regularly participate in on-screen sex, only about five porn stars' deaths have been reported as AIDS-related.
The '80s also saw the flight of adult films into mass market home video, which has turned up a gold mine for producers and retailers who make millions off of cheap videos that are packaged and distributed at very low costs. In any given year, the American public spends billions of dollars on adult entertainment (more than we pay to see conventional Hollywood flicks), and the average mom-and-pop video store pays its rent with the money earned from sales and rentals of its porn stock alone.
Stars like the ubiquitous "Hedgehog" - sex machine Ron Jeremy - now rise regardless of their bad looks and unseemly pot bellies to hawk sick and twisted video selections in which grandmothers, obese women, pregnant women, hermaphrodites and virgins engage in various acts of coitus. And the often rabid consumption of these products allows the marketing of further smutty raves like "The World's Biggest Gang Bang," in which a woman is mounted by 251 men in one sitting, "John Wayne Bobbitt: Uncut," which offers much more than a fleeting glimpse of the pseudo-circumcised cult hero, or "amateur" series like the "Dirty Debutantes" collection of more than 50 films where ordinary people are seen having sex at home.
Lest we forget that there is a more kosher side to pornography, a Madonna or Shannen Doherty steps in every now and then to pose nude in Playboy or Penthouse, bringing the seamy world more into the mainstream. And in print, where there is an absence of actual physical movement, their behavior is somehow considered more acceptable.
The result: a modern America that is more closely linked to the taboo than many might want to believe. Appearing in pornographic media has helped launch the careers of stars like Vanessa Williams, who lost her Miss America crown but gained a much greater celebrity after posing for a nudie mag. Likewise, porn has destroyed careers (read: Pee Wee Herman). It has been used as an attack on one's family, as when Ronald Reagan's daughter Patti Davis posed nude; it has invaded politics (fictional sexman Long Dong Silver was the true beneficiary of Clarence Thomas' confirmation hearings). Porn is condemned by evangelists nationwide, and it is heralded as America-at-its-First-Amendment-finest in acclaimed films like "The People vs. Larry Flynt."
Americans of all sexes, ages, shapes and sizes are gobbling up pornography like never before. And when not catching the latest masterpiece by the likes of recent adult film creation "Foreskin Gump," we participate in more traditional recreational activities like, say, watching MTV. Seeking wholesome television fare, we might tune in to a video show hosted by one-time gay-porn boy-toy Simon Rex. Or we can seek romantic guidance from former Playboy centerfolds Jenny McCarthy and Carmen Electra as if they were wise matchmakers - latter-day Hello Dollys.
Perhaps porn is finally back where it belongs.
JEANNIE SERVAAS/Daily
A man views boxes of recent porn releases at a Ypsilanti adult video store.
Vivid video cast and crew prepare to shoot a pool scene in one of the company's hardcore films.