The Jeff Booth Show

Internet Radio with Pictures

Show Transcripts

June 1st , 2008

You can contact us at:

Jeff@eroticuniversity.com

(818) 613-9248

This is the Jeff Booth Show for June 1st, 2008, brought to you by the Center for Sexual Expression and Education and Erotic University. I’m Jeff Booth. This week we talk with abstinence advocate and fictional character Melvin Clear, and we debate with him about the recent California Supreme Court decision. Our Sexvestigation looks at the continuing absurdity of porn trials. In our sex news round up, we look at simpletons in Schenectedy, why Al Franken is in hot water, why Obama’s possible VP pick is under attack, and stupid porn trial tricks. And in entertainment, we tell you all about the latest mainstream releases with sex and nudity, the latest porn films,  and all the erotic events going on in Los Angeles this upcoming weekend. Just click on the topic to the left that you want to listen to, and thanks for clicking in.

Politics

Schenectady, New York decided to improve their sex education by bringing in a sex educator from Planned Parenthood. Many parents are furious. Parent Deborah Young was shocked, shocked I tell you, when she discovered that Planned Parenthood guidelines suggested that masturbation could be a source of pleasure. As we all know, people don’t masturbate for pleasure but to grow hair on their palms. It isn’t even comprehensive education, since the instructor is forbidden from even mentioning the word abortion, but that does not placate Dr. Michael Rochet, a physician who said the school district should search for alternatives for Planned Parenthood programming because he believes the instruction will facilitate curiosity among students. And the last thing we want in students is any curiosity. The irony lost on morons like Dr. Rochet who claims that education will lead to more sexual activity is that Schenectady has been using abstinence only education and now has the highest teen pregnancy rates in the state.

I like Al Franken. His books on politics have been both hilarious and well-researched. And now the former comedian is running for the Senate in Minnesota. And he is getting flack from- fellow Democrats. Because when it comes to sex-phobia, Democrats can be just as insane and just as humorless as Republicans. The controversy stems from a humor piece Franken wrote for Playboy in 2000. Keep tow things in mind. The piece was satire, and it was in Playboy. Which means the intended audience was adults. But that doesn’t keep Democratic Rep. Betty McCollum from losing her mind.  She complained that that she and other Minnesota Democrats will be on the same November ballot as a candidate "who has pornographic writings that are indefensible." House Democrat Keith Ellison was also shocked. In the piece, Franken writes that the Internet is a terrific learning tool, and that his 12 year old son was able to use it to write a sixth-grade report on bestiality. Ellison said “I have to ask myself, can I explain it to my 11 year old daughter. I’d have considerable difficulty. Keith, your daughter probably knows more about sex than you do, thanks to the Internet, a point perhaps that Franken was making in his piece.  See, Keith, its satire. He’s not serious. It’s a joke, and makes a point about the availability of stuff on the Internet that is not appropriate to children. See, some times comedians say one thing when making a point that is actually the opposite. When you see it like that its funny. If you try and take everything literally, the world can be a very confusing and scary place. And maybe you shouldn’t be trying to explain anything that appears in Playboy to your 12 year daughter. Its written for an adult audience. Sure, maybe not written for you, it assumes a little maturity and sophistication, but still, it is for adults only.  Oh, and if you want to be really shocked, did you know that in a bit for the Comedy Central election coverage Franken claimed he made a bet with Arianna Huffington that if Clinton won he’d get to go down on her. It was a bit that made me like Arianna, and shortly after that she moved away from the dark side. She claimed she did not fully understand what the term meant after Clinton won, and when he whispered in her ear what it meant, she shrugged and said “Well, a bet’s a bet.” That’s going to be fun to explain to your 12 year old daughter as well. Or, as I think is more likely, that is something she’ll have to explain to you.

The second term governor of Kansas is personally opposed to abortion. Her pro-adoption policies and improvements in public health services for women have been credited with the state’s decline in abortions. And she is the latest whipping boy, or in this case, whipping girl, of the far right. She did the unthinkable- she vetoed an anti-abortion bill that every legal scholar who looked at it called unconstitutional. And she’s a democrat. And she doesn’t believe that her personal opinion about abortion should be forced on everyone else, which makes her both pro-choice and anti-abortion. As a Catholic, Archbishop Joseph F. Nauman of Kansas City has called on her to no longer receive communion until she falls in line with violating her oath of office and voting the way the church wants her to. And unindicted co-conspirator in the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame, right wing pseudo-journalist Robert Novack, just denounced her in his column. The reason for this piling on? It seems that many believe she may have the fast track as the leading candidate for the vice-presidential spot on an Obama ticket. Novack wrote in his column, “There is substantial evidence she has been involved in what pro-life advocates term laundering abortion industry money for distribution to Kansas Democrats.” Of course, Novack gets his information from only the most reliable sources, in this case, from the rabid anti-abortion group Operation Rescue. It has been a right-wing talking point of late that there is this mythical anti-abortion industry behemoth, inferring that Planned Parenthood is some giant corporation using women to fuel their corporate greed. Strange that they spout this nonsense but never actually criticize any real companies that exploit people for their own corporate greed. The charge by Novack is as nonsensical as it is a part of his typical political hackery. But, it did bring Sebelius to my attention, and in fact, she is intriguing. And I sure would like to see a woman on the ticket this year. And it is something McCain could not counter. Obama would be running with a woman 13 years older than he is. Women that much older than McCain are pretty much already dead.

Here is a cute trick they are using in the Virginia obscenity case against  Staunton video store owner Rick Krial and his employees. Of course, a Justice Department lawyer is assisting the prosecutors in going after video store clerks. See, here is the trick. In the raid, they took 12 videos that they believed to be obscene, but they are only prosecuting them for two misdemeanor counts. Why? Because under Virginia law, if the prosecution can get a conviction on those two counts, they can then have a second trial and what would normally be misdemeanor charges are automatically bumped up to felony counts. And by then, of course, you hope that the first trial has pretty much bankrupted them. Being a prosecutor of an obscenity case is like being the biggest bad-ass bully in the neighborhood. Except you also have the possibility of putting people in jail and bankrupting them for a crime they could not possibly know they were committing.

In a recent poll in California a majority of Californian’s oppose overturning the court’s gay marriage decision through a state constitutional amendment.  Sure, it’s a slim majority, just 51 percent, but that is a huge change from polls past. And those opposing gay marriage are mostly old folks- over 65. Among the 18-29 years olds, support for gay marriage rises to 68 percent. The constitutional amendment, which will probably be on the November ballot, will really come down to a battle between the gayer and the grayer.

Entertainment

If you live in the Los Angeles area, there is a lot going on in adult entertainment this next week. We have Erotica L.A. at the Convention Center next weekend, the first annual Urban Spice awards on June 8th that we also talked about last week, and then there is Sexopolis, the big after expo party being held at Crash Mansion downtown June 7th.  Joanna Angel and Sunny Lane will be hosting, and it should be a great party. You can get more information on the sexopolishollywood.com site. We’ll be there, and at the other events, so if you see us please say hi. There is also the FOxe Follies on June 8th at the Whisky a-go-go. This is the awards show for the Fans of X Rated Entertainment. The evening will be hosted by Summer Cummings, and besides current stars, a lot of stars from year’s past will be there, including Ginger Lynn, Amber Lynn, Debi Diamond, Christy Canyon, Taylor Wane, Bionca, Ona Zee, and Kim Chambers. Its going to be a wild week.  You can get tickets for most of these events at Erotica-La.

And the big news, after a long wait- Swingtown is finally coming to CBS. It premieres Thursday June 5th, and it is a new series with the backdrop being swinging in the 1970’s. I talked to a fellow swinger at a party who happened to work at CBS and he told me that he really liked the show. I can’t help but have some trepidation as swingers are not generally portrayed kindly in the media, but I will withhold judgment until I actually see it. I’d love for it to be good. I’d just be surprised. Its from the director of Big Love, who managed to treat the subject of polygamy fairly.

The Seattle Mariners apparently did not get the memo. There is nothing more American than watching baseball and watching lesbians kissing. They are both fan faves. But two women at a Mariners games were told to stop kissing or leave the park. It was not as hot as you might hope for- they weren’t going at it, just an occasional kiss, more peck than tongue slather. That was still too much, though. It was explained to them that the stadium has an official policy stating that public displays of affection are inappropriate to a family setting. Now, affection seems to me to be an important part of how you get to having a family in the first place. The only thing stadium officials can’t explain, then, is why, like so many stadiums, they also have a kissing cam that projects images of couples kissing on the Jumbotron.

Last week’s annual Masturbate-a-thon in San Francisco as part of national Masturbation month set some records. Held at the Center for Sex and Culture, a young woman dubbed Kitty Kat set the record for masturbating for seven hours. Another man set the record for male orgasms – and unbelievable 31 times in a row. And the male endurance record was broken at 8 hours and 40 minutes by Sato.

In our roundup of sex and nudity on DVD in mainstream movies, Forgiving the Franklins has an intriguing premise. It is about a family of holy rollers who have a sexual transformation after a car accident, shocking their small town. Teresa Willis plays mom, who gets naked a lot- in bed with her husband in new found passion, roaming around the living room, going outdoors to get the paper. It has fairly well targeted jabs at religious conservatives and organized religions, and for that alone I think it has merit.

Sapho is a Ukranian film subtitled Love Without Limits. A newly-wed American couple, Sappho and Phil, travel to the Greek island of Lesbos in 1926 and get involved in a relationship with the daughter of a Russian archaeologist called Helene. Besides the over obviousness of the names and the setting, this sounds like a premise I could enjoy, reminiscent of the film Summer Lovers starring Daryl Hannah which also involved a love triangle in an exotic setting.

Mathew Perry stars in Numb, about a man with Depersonalization Disorder who meets his dream girl. Mary Steenbergen plays the lusty psychiatrist. Its more a dramedy that deals with a very real disorder. And I’m not quite sure how they wind up in a strip club with a dancer played by Holly Elington.

And in the world of porn, Digital Playground released Katsuni- Video Nasty 4, which, as you might guess from the title, is the fourth installment of what has been a popular series. It also features Stoya, who is building her own mystique and popularity. And she seems like a very nice girl, who gets paired off with Katsuni in the first scene. And in a surprising twist, a guy joins them for a threesome. Okay, I saw that coming. And there is also Evie Delatosso, Jandi Lin, Keeani Lei, Abbey Brooks and Brianna Love.

Woodman Entertainment brigs us Sex Carnage 4, and boy, so far, four times seems to be the charm. It’s the extreme sex that director Pierre Woodman is known for, with lots of different locations and lots of different women, all pretty much people I’ve never heard of before, but then again I don’t track Euro porn that closely. They all look very attractive though.  

The real star of Insatiable for me will always be Marilyn Chambers, but Ninn Worx has come out with a new video of the same title starring Brea Bennett. And I love the PR for the film, which explains how it was a rainy day which turned her on even more- making  a rainy day in L.A. sound almost exotic. Well, it sort of is. It also stars Aubrey Addams, Brooke Belle, Veronica Jett, Jayme Langford, Angie Savage, Marco Banderas, Tony De’ Sergio, Alan Stafford and Jerry Manning. Which just made me wonder why no porn star has ever used the name Jeri Mathers, so she could be billed in the credits as Jerri Mathers as the beaver. And then I realized few 20 years olds would even have any idea what I’m talking about. Which is really sad for me.

Fans of Jesse Jane will get to see her on Blu-Ray, courtesy of Digital Playground in her new Jesse in Pink. It also stars Jana Cova and Shay Jordan, who I notice now has a trademark symbol after her name. If adult stars also start trade marking sexual positions, its going to create real problems for the adult industry.

And finally, Third World Media released Bi Pole Her 2, with the mandated by federal law bi pun in the title. The bisexual titles pretty much are all required to have a bi pun in the title somewhere, it part of a truth in labeling law or something, I think. It stars a cast of the most difficult to pronounce porn names I’ve seen yet in a single video – but I’ll give it a try: Melissa Pitanga, Arconjo, Bella, Rudolfo, Lana Paes, Luiggi, Kaiko, Anita Cordeiro, Sandro and of course, Roger. There had to be a Roger. Its al about sex with no boundaries, and for viewers, its all about sex if you have no homophobia.

Sexvestigation

I am opposed to people watching porn. I know that may seem surprising, but I am very opposed to people watching porn- when they are forced to. But our government does not see it that way. It is the incredible irony of obscenity prosecutions. The government claims that watching porn is so harmful that they have to force 12 citizens to watch it to determine if it really is harmful. Its like having a heroin case where you force the jurors to shoot up to determine if heroin is harmful. Except that we actually have a pretty solid definition of what heroin is, and we can medically chronicle its harmful effects. That is not the case with porn.

And forcing jurors to watch porn is at the heart if the case against Max Hardcore, a case now going on in Florida. One of the jurors asked the judge if they could watch shorter portions of the movies under consideration. Which makes sense. Who watches a porn film all the way through? But the law in determining whether something is obscene includes judging the film as a whole. In question, though, is some 81/2 hours of video, so the judge ruled that the prosecution and the defense could play as much or as little as they wanted to. Still, any of it is probably more than the audience wants to see.

And admittedly, Max Hardcore films are pretty hard to watch. I’m a reviewer of sex films and I won’t watch them. Frankly, they turn my stomach. And I like porn films. I still think he has a right to make them, and that people have a right to watch them, but no one should be forced to watch them. But, if any adult film maker stands a chance of being convicted on obscenity counts, it would be Max Hardcore. I won’t even go into it, but trust me, most people would not want to watch it. It is truly disgusting even by my jaded standards.

I’ve met Max Hardcore, or Paul Little as the court refers to him. He is slightly less creepy in person than when doing his on-screen molester shtick. I’ve even been in his house – we were shooting an adult film there, and porn has been pretty good to him. It was a very nice house. The government wants to take it away from him, along with his freedom.

I just don’t get the whole scorched earth policy that prosecutors use against adult film makers. If you don’t like something, if you think it might be harmful, and you can prove it, you should have it removed from the market. But that is not the real goal of the prosecutors. They want to completely destroy those they prosecute as a means of terrorizing others from exercising their free speech rights. In the case of Max Hardcore, they want to put him in prison for 50 years, essentially a life sentence, and forfeiture of everything he owns.

It s a form of legal terrorism. And it makes a mockery of our calling ourselves a free nation. Of course, making a mockery of everything we are supposed to stand for has been job number one of the current administration.

The case is also notable because Max hardcore is being charged in Florida for a crime he did not commit in Florida. He lives in Los Angeles. None of the material was made in Florida. And Max Hardcore did not mail DVDs to Florida. Prosecutors bought them from a third party- Jaded Video. But, Florida is more conservative than California where obscenity cases are almost impossible to win, and making someone travel clear across the country also helps drain their assets. 

The defense has wanted to show the jurors the videos under the theory that they will become desensitized. The prosecution wants to show them because they think the jury will be outraged. I don’t know that I would ever get desensitized to the kind of crap Max Hardcore puts out, and I certainly would resent being forced to watch it, just as I would resent being forced to watch America’s Next Top Model. My stomach can only take so much. I suppose it is better than the way things used to be done- juries were required to rule on obscenity without ever seeing it, having to rely solely on prosecutors descriptions.

And does the jury really get the full impact of any adult video if they are not allowed to masturbate during it? I mean, that is how most people view them. How can you judge something without really getting the full experience? It’s like trying to judge hot buttered corn on the cob when all you get to taste is the butter.

As they are doing in the John Stagliano Evil Angel case, they also want to prosecute Max for trailers promoting movies- a particularly disingenuous tactic- especially considering that these trailers were only available to paid members of the site.

But the bottom line is that the government wants to charge as much material as possible, but the Miller test requires that material be judged as a whole. In all fairness, that simply can’t be done just by showing excerpts. But if they show the entirety of video after video, juries become bored and irritated. And they don’t like it.

The only solution is a simple one. Stop forcing juries to watch material they don’t want to see by not trying to tell people what they should get to see in the first place. Obscenity trials are an insult to common sense and fair play, an insult to the idea of free speech, and an insult to our justice system. They are almost always done for political purposes to win political points with the far right and to suppress free speech. And they abuse juries who should not be forced to watch porn. So, just stop it.

 Interview

Melvin Clear, who has been on the show before, runs the Virgin Pride web site. He is an abstinence advocate and he really wanted to come on the show today to talk about the recent California Supreme Court legalizing gay marriage. So, Melvin, what has you so upset about this. Shouldn’t people in love be allowed to get married? 

Melvin: Its not about love, Mr Booth, its about the tradition of marriage and destroying what many of us think of as a great tradition. A tradition the Supreme Court of California apparently wants to smash up and drop in a dumpster.

Jeff: I’m sorry Melvin, I don’t buy the tradition argument. If you look historically at marriage it traditionally was arranged and had nothing to do with love. And the traditions of many countries have involved having multiple wives. I don’t think most people would be promoting actual traditional marriage. You are defending a very modern version of marriage. And I am a big fan of marriage. I’m very happily married myself. I just think that it should be available to all adult couples in love.

Melvin: Well, I’m happy to see at least that you are not promoting the marrying of children, even if that is a logical conclusion of your argument.

Jeff: No, marrying children is more of a Mormon cult religious thing. But no, gay marriage has nothing to do with marrying children, or wanting to marry a horse, or marrying your father, or any of the ridiculous arguments on the right. It is about adult couples who want to form a family unit. It wasn’t that long ago that a mixed race couple was not allowed to get married. Do you also support miscegenation laws, since traditionally that has been banned as well?

Melvin: Uh, that’s ridiculous. The two have nothing whatsoever to do with each other. God ordained the marriage between man and woman- Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve, or Adrian and Eve.

Jeff: Actually, Melvin, the woman at the center of the case that went to the Supreme Court and struck down the miscegenation laws came out passionately in support of gay marriage- and she was a black woman who might understand a thing or two about the importance of civil rights.

Melvin: I don’t think that gay marriage is a civil right. Civil abomination, maybe. This decision is going to do great damage to the state of California.

Jeff: Our governor stated recently he believes that the decision will actually provide the state with an economic boost, bringing lots of people here to get married.

Melvin: I’m talking about a moral crises. I’m talking about temptation. When gay sex is legitimized through gay marriage, it makes it all that more appealing. We will be tempting lots of otherwise normal folks down that dark passage. Let’s face it, male homosexual sex is free and easy without the complications of having to deal with women.

Jeff: Melvin, I don’t think its all that tempting unless you are gay. Or at least bisexual. I don’t think this is going to make straight men suddenly turn gay.

Melvin: They might not have any choice. Look at my situation and you’ll understand why I am so upset about this. I very much want to find a woman to settle down with and get married. But there are only so many women available. Eliminate the unchaste and the unattractive, and there are not a lot of options left. And then, along comes a lesbian seductress who sweeps off some of the few remaining women, because obviously they are going to go for the pretty ones, and then what do you have left. Either a lot of single lonely men or men, who, in desperation, have no choice but to turn to other men, a choice which gay marriage legitimizes.  

Jeff: I don’t even know how to start with refuting that, but Melvin, here are the facts…

Melvin: Let me give you an important fact. This comes from no other than former Senator Rick Santorum, and he writes in the Philadelphia Inquirer that when Norway began allowing same-sex marriage in the 1990s, heterosexual marriage took a nose-dive and the out of wedlock birth rate skyrocketed to 80 percent for first born children. Those are facts, Mr. Booth.

Jeff: But Melvin, they are not true facts. I happen to know about the Norway situation. It is true that Norway began allowing same sex civil unions in 1993, but according to M.V. Lee Badgett, an economics professor at the University of Massachusetts, Norway’s “big surge” in the nonmarital birth rate occurred in the 1980s, 13 years earlier, where it jumped from 16 percent to 39 percent. After legalizing civil unions, the non-marital birth rate actually leveled off to a rate more comparable with other countries without civil union laws. And Yale professor William Eskridge Jr. found that after legalizing civil unions, heterosexual marriage rates rose 12.7 percent and the divorce rate of heterosexual couples actually fell 6 percent.  The last person you should get your facts from on gay issues is Rick Santorum.

Melvin: Despite your so-called statistics from liberal leftist professors, I have some more statistics that just might open your eyes. They come from Dr. Paul Cameron, who created the Family Research Institute. Did you know that only 1% of the homosexual population in America will die of old age, and that the average life expectancy for a homosexual in the United States of America is 43 years of age.  Its only a little better for lesbians- they  live to be 45 on average. Homosexuals are less economically productive, seldom produce children or raise them well, and are more likely to commit criminal acts. Gays are disproportionately responsible for serial killings, child molestation and other heinous crimes.

Jeff: Again, Melvin, you are using false statistics. In this case, completely made up ones, from Paul Cameron, the quote factory of anti-gay propaganda. The Southern Poverty Law Center considers his organization a hate group. We have a piece on him on our Sex Science Skeptic site at SexScienceSkeptic.com. Anti-gay groups quote his supposed research extensively, although he hasn’t done any actual research. He literally just makes it up. He’s a total quack.

Melvin: So your liberal professors are right and my conservative doctors are wrong.

Jeff: When they make stuff up, yes. Look, Melvin, I would never want to force gay marriage on you, and by that, I mean force you to marry another man, but I know lots of gay couples who really love each other and for whom marriage is very symbolically important. Besides the fact that civil union laws tend to be separate but not equal. Since there are a lot of gay couples raising children, I think a pro-family stance ahs to include gay marriage. We were out at the Long Beach Gay Pride parade two weeks ago- you really should come out to one of the parades and meet people in the gay community and see how important this is to them.

Melvin: So now you are recruiting too. No, Mr Booth. I don’t need your temptations. I am a straight man. Very, very straight. All I want is to find the right woman. And when I marry her, I want that marriage to mean something. And gay marriage takes that away from me. And its not right.

Jeff: I think I understand a little how you feel, Melvin, but I think it is cruel to keep gay people from having the love and deep commitment that you yourself so desperately want. I appreciate your explaining your views, and I think on this topic, like others we have discussed, we are not going to agree. But thanks for coming on the show.

Melvin: Thanks for having me. And I don’t mean that in a gay way.

Jeff: I think that’s the first time I’ve heard you have a sense of humor, Melvin. We’ve been talking with Melvin Clear, owner of the Virginpride.com web site.