It was once the province of seedy men sneaking in to even seedier cinemas in the worst parts of cities around America. Then the VCR was invented and porn went suburban -- videos hidden in the back of TV cabinets.
But now porn is coming out of the closet. With Playboy about to celebrate its 50th anniversary, porn has established itself firmly in the center of the American mainstream.
This week porn actress Traci Lord is blitzing the news talk show. CNN was so excited about her interview Tuesday with Larry King that the self-proclaimed "trusted news leader" hyped it throughout the day.
Traci's big news? The blonde sexpot has written an autobiography detailing how she was drugged on cocaine when she made 19 films before aged 18 -- films that are now banned as child pornography.
Elsewhere on TV, porn superstar Jenna Jameson has appeared on NBC sitcom Mr. Sterling and hosted shows on the cable channel E!.
The Fox network is planning a prime time soap opera called Skin about characters in the porn industry and starring former porn actor Ron Jeremy as a producer.
Cable channel Showtime is pulling in viewers with a reality show called Family Business about the porn star and film producer who goes by the name of Seymore Butts.
Meanwhile, Vanity Fair features porn stars as models, Val Kilmer will star in the movie Wonderland as porn legend John Holmes this September and, of course, your average teenage pop star wears clothes that would put pioneering porn star Linda Lovelace to shame.
The pervasiveness of porn is not just a cultural phenomenon. With an estimated US$10 billion to US$14 billion in annual sales, over 700 million video rentals a year, the adult industry is big business meeting a surging demand from ordinary Americans, not just cliques of sexual perverts.
Companies have realized that they cannot afford to ignore this booming sector. Reputable, squeaky-clean firms like Marriott International Inc, Hilton Hotels Corp and satellite and cable operators Comcast Corp and AOL Time Warner Inc send hard core movies to hotel rooms and homes all over the US, while Web portals from AOL to Yahoo host Web sites run by communities that feature a cornucopia of sexual imagery.
"Porn doesn't have a demographic -- it goes across all demographics," said Paul Fishbein, 42, the man who founded Adult Video News, a journal that employs some 70 people to rate adult films and track news developments in the industry.
Asian perspectives of the US have shifted from a country once perceived as a force of “moral legitimacy” to something akin to “a landlord seeking rent,” Singaporean Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen (黃永宏) said on the sidelines of an international security meeting. Ng said in a round-table discussion at the Munich Security Conference in Germany that assumptions undertaken in the years after the end of World War II have fundamentally changed. One example is that from the time of former US president John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address more than 60 years ago, the image of the US was of a country
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
BLIND COST CUTTING: A DOGE push to lay off 2,000 energy department workers resulted in hundreds of staff at a nuclear security agency being fired — then ‘unfired’ US President Donald Trump’s administration has halted the firings of hundreds of federal employees who were tasked with working on the nation’s nuclear weapons programs, in an about-face that has left workers confused and experts cautioning that the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE’s) blind cost cutting would put communities at risk. Three US officials who spoke to The Associated Press said up to 350 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) were abruptly laid off late on Thursday, with some losing access to e-mail before they’d learned they were fired, only to try to enter their offices on Friday morning
CONFIDENT ON DEAL: ‘Ukraine wants a seat at the table, but wouldn’t the people of Ukraine have a say? It’s been a long time since an election, the US president said US President Donald Trump on Tuesday criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and added that he was more confident of a deal to end the war after US-Russia talks. Trump increased pressure on Zelenskiy to hold elections and chided him for complaining about being frozen out of talks in Saudi Arabia. The US president also suggested that he could meet Russian President Vladimir Putin before the end of the month as Washington overhauls its stance toward Russia. “I’m very disappointed, I hear that they’re upset about not having a seat,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida when asked about the Ukrainian
RSS