The Jeff Booth Show

Internet Radio with Pictures

Show Transcripts

November 1st, 2009

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Jeff@eroticuniversity.com

(818) 613-9248

I hope you had a wonderful Halloween. This year was great for us. We had our legendary Halloween sex party a week ago, decorated out front and gave candy to the kids on Halloween, and then headed out to an empty large home on a hill for another wild Halloween party. Halloween is my favorite holiday.  Lots of celebrating, and you don’t have to deal with relatives.

In sex and politics this week, John McCain wants to control the Internet, the horrendous treatment women have received of late at the hands of Congressional Republicans, Randall Terry holding Americans as hostages to save fetuses, The crazy Family Research Council announces that older gay people don’t exist, and the Pat Robertson empire attacks the Hate Crimes bill and demonically possessed Halloween candy.

In our Sexvestigation, we look at the Max Hardcore obscenity conviction appeal, and love him or hate him, why the appeal is so important to the future of freedom of expression in this country.

In sex and entertainment, Craig Ferguson writes about a bizarre sexual encounter with the Cheney’s, Lynn and Dick,  the authors of Superfreakonomics really know their whores, sexing up Alice in Wonderland, a new toy that will give you a good tongue lashing, The American Family Association protests sex with cartoon characters and their threat to young boys,  Britney Spears latest sex song, who is getting naked now, and the worst sex tourism destination of all time.

All this and more, on the Jeff Booth Show.

Our Sexvestigation this week looks at the Max Hardcore obscenity conviction appeal, and the defense got a ray of sunshine in last week’s Ninth Circuit Court opinion. The court ruled that internet obscenity cases should be judged by a national community standard, not local community standards. Its not a binding decision on other courts, nor does anyone really have a clue what a national community standard would be and how you determine such a thing. I think they are correct in that applying community standards makes absolutely no sense. However, there is plenty of room for appeal of this decision as I don’t think you can directly derive that from Supreme Court opinions. What probably will happen is that this issue will arrive before the Supreme Court. Whether it will be decided rationally or not, and the history of obscenity in the courts is to throw rationality out the window, remains to be seen.

John McCain wants to write rules governing the Internet. This is the man who can’t even check his own email without his wife’s help. It’s like Grampy McCain deciding he wanted to write hip-hop music. McCain doesn’t have a clue about the Internet, and he frequently just doesn’t have a clue. He is known as one of the most technologically illiterate and technophobic men in the Senate. He doesn’t understand this email thing and prefers the ease and simplicity of just sending a telegraph message. All this newfangled stuff confuses him. His bill is called the "Internet Freedom Act of 2009." Its purpose is to give large corporations who provide Internet service the freedom to decide what you as a customer get to use the Internet for. Think of the package bundling you now see with your cable company. A Reditt user created a great graphic showing how companies might bundle Web sites. Want streaming video sites like Hulu? That’s an extra $10 bucks a month. Want to see all the news sites? An extra $5 a month. Want to surf porn? Well, some of them might block porn sites entirely, or charge you a per site fee. Is this scenario unlikely? I don’t think so, and I am especially concerned if ISPs get the right to block sites they find offensive. ISPs should not be the Internet censorship gatekeepers. But that is exactly what John McCain thinks they should be. At least, that would be the result of his bill, assuming he even begins to understand it, which I doubt, as it was probably written by a lobbyist. Who knows if he has even read it. But what about the free market and competition? Consumers don’t always have a choice. My parents can’t get DSL where they are so they have two choices. Dialup, which is not very useful, or AT&T. They are left with a huge company with the most incentive to take advantage of the leverage McCain’s bill would give them.

The FCC has voted to develop rules for Internet neutrality, meaning that ISPs will have no control over the content that their customers can access on the Internet. Big companies strongly oppose Internet neutrality, as they see it as a future source of revenue. And they would not want to kill Internet neutrality so badly if they did not have plans to leverage their abilities to select Internet content for you. And remember how conservatives hated the bundling concept used by most cable and satellite providers because it included channels they found offensive? They wanted to force cable companies to give you the freedom to let you choose – an option that would have dramatically increased the cost of cable and killed a number of smaller channels no longer sharing in the revenue. How about that option for the Internet? You pay the ISP for each site you want to visit. Its all ridiculous, McCain is going to lose, and we will get Net neutrality. But the only reason we are going to get it is because McCain also lost the presidency. And as we head towards Thanksgiving, that is just one of the millions of things we can be thankful for because of McCain’s losing the presidency.

The House health bill will specifically preclude domestic violence as a pre-existing condition for women. Maybe having a woman running the House does make a difference.

In 2006, Senate Democrats on the Health Education Labor & Pensions Committee tried to end domestic violence as a pre-existing condition, but they lost in a 10-10 vote. Every single no vote was from a Republican. I just find that baffling. It was the same with the Franken amendment, which would keep military contractors from being able to cover up rape by keeping it all secret and keeping the victims out of the courtroom. All 30 no votes came from white male Republicans. Come on guys. Rap music treats women with more respect than you do. Women pay up to 50 percent more for health insurance than a man for the same coverage, and most individual health insurance markets don’t cover maternity care. Yet Republicans oppose health care reform that would remedy this, and have said not a word about the disparity against women, especially in areas of pregnancy. And you call yourself the pro-family party why?

Operation rescue founder Randall Terry has launched a video contest for the best videos of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid being burned to death. Its his delightful Burn in Hell competition. And on Thursday they dress up in costumes such as demons and ghouls and haunt the Capital buildings, harassing staffers as they come to work and calling Pelosi and Reid murderers. Their ultimate goal is to defeat health care reform because it does not end abortion. And better that 45,000 Americans die each year from lack of adequate healthcare. If fetuses have to die, so should the born- certainly an attitude they have expressed towards women’s health care providers. It’s a Halloween isn’t it scary that they are this fucking hateful, violent, and stupid celebration. 

Compassion is something almost completely missing from far-right extremist anti-sex anti-women organizations. Case in point is the Family Research Council. They oppose an Obama program to aid the elderly gay because they don’t believe elderly gay people exist. They used research from the completely discredited pseudo-researcher and all around crackpot Paul Cameron, research that the Southern Poverty Law Center says has echos of Nazi Germany. They call Cameron’s group a hate group, which really means something since the unbelievably hate filled Family Research Council is not officially considered by them to be a hate group. The research claims, without any real evidence of course, that all gays die young because of their dangerous and immoral lifestyle. So, the Family Research Council argues, why help people who are obviously already dead.

There are a number of Christians who completely misunderstand what it means to be Christ-like. They think it means you behave like a martyr and like you personally are being hung up on a cross. Case in point is failed presidential candidate and Christian pastor for profit Pat Robertson. His latest pronouncement is that “The noose has tightened around the necks of Christians to keep them from speaking out on certain moral issues.” He is talking about the hate crimes bill that Obama just signed into law, and he clearly confuses free speech with beating a man nearly to death and leaving him on a fence to die just because he is gay. Only Robertson and his ilk could think that is free speech. He also said recently that gay marriage would lead to a “legalization of polygamy, bestiality, child molestation and pedophilia.” The fundamentalist Mormon groups support polygamy, and some Catholic priests have been very supportive of pedophilia, but what religious leaders speak for bestiality? Sure, Robertson himself is a horse’s ass- but that is as close as we get. And on Robertson’s CBN, a blogger wrote “"During this period demons are assigned against those who participate in the rituals and festivities. These demons are automatically drawn to the fetishes that open doors for them to come into the lives of human beings. For example, most of the candy sold during this season has been dedicated and prayed over by witches. Curses are sent through the tricks and treats of the innocent whether they get it by going door to door or by purchasing it from the local grocery store. The demons cannot tell the difference.” And in the world of Pat Robertson, you can’t tell the difference between reality and just plain bat shit crazy.

Entertainment

Comedian and talk show host Craig Ferguson wrote about his experience meeting Dick and Lynn Cheney. While Dick stared at his wife’s breasts, Lynn went on to explain proudly that they own some Picassos, but that they don’t hang them because they are nudes. This, she claimed, was to protect the grandchildren. I am assuming they also don’t leave out a copy of her softcore novel, Sisters. But how bizarre. We have nude art all over the house, and on the rare occasions when there will be kids in the house, we just take anything we think might be inappropriate down. I don’t know how many Picassos she is talking about, but it is not that difficult to take down some art. But to not hang it at all? So what exactly are they doing with this art? Dick goes into the closet and enjoys it privately? This is one really strange family.

The authors of the book Superfreakonomics may be full of shit when it comes to climate change- but their info on sex work is on the money. They make the claim that sex workers who smile a lot and enjoy their work make more money than sex workers who hate their jobs and their clients. This makes sense, and from my research, second hand, of course, I have found this to be true. With the exception of sex workers who are dominatrixes. They can hate their job, as long as they take it on their clients. Actually, I have never met a dominatrix who hater her job.

One of my favorite porn movies is Bud Townsend’s 1976 musical porn Alice in Wonderland. Dancing, singing, fucking, and a twisted sense of humor. It was recut for an R and redistributed, amazingly, by 20th Century Fox. I prefer the uncut version. This movie was a huge hit, winding up making over $90 million dollars worldwide. So the whole sex and Alice thing works for me, assuming we are talking about a more grownup Alice and not the one of Charles Dodgson’s fantasies. Artist Frank Brunner has released a series of nude images featuring an age appropriate Alice. Check it out at FrankBrunner (two n’s) .net.

You may have seen the popular sex toy called the Tongue, which is essentially a very large vibrating tongue. There is a new tongue based sex toy, but this one ramps up the experience times 10. That is because it is basically ten tongues. They are arrayed on a wheel that spins around, continuously lavishing you with their tonguey love. Its from Love Honey and is called the Sqweel (with a w instead of a u, but no h, for those of you who will get completely confused trying to Google it).

The American Family Association is protesting this months Playboy issue with Marge Simpson on the cover. They are calling on 7-11 and other stores that sell it to pull the magazine from its shelves. In a release from randy Sharp: “Most American dads know the dangers that porn represents to young males. It’s irresponsible of 7-Eleven to display porn in front of boys who pop into 7-11s for a hot dog or a Slurpee. The cover will create the kind of curiosity that can easily lead [children] into an addictive porn habit. This is not what American families want to see in their neighborhood convenience store.” Yeah, one look at a naked Marge Simpson, the ultimate cartoon MILF, and boys will lose all will power and become addicted. Next thing you know they’ll be jerking off over Princess Jasmine. And oh my god, they’ll be no stopping them once they discover Cartman’s mom. Next thing you know, boys will only be able to get aroused by cartoon characters, and they will have no hope ever for a normal relationship. Cartoon porn is the most addictive form of porn ever, as those cartoon cuties simply having no limits- not even anatomical or physical ones. How can a normal flesh and blood woman compete with that?

Britney Spears got a lot of attention with her If You Seek Amy song, and she is back at it with her new 3, an ode to threesomes. Me personally, I really enjoy threesomes. But I suspect this song is going to horrify a lot of people- mostly people who have never enjoyed a threesome. In the video she dances with two guys who look like they might mostly be into each other, and then with two girls who rub her up and down and might actually be into her. I think for Britney, threesomes are the way a lot of less enlightened guys think of them- they are all about her. In the song, she is clearly intended to be the creamy filling. No pairings with a guy and two girls in the video. But threesomes really are a lot of fun, so I appreciate the sentiment of the song, even while I am unimpressed with the artistry of the lyrics and the singing.

And in who is getting naked now, It’s Levi Johnstone. Yes, he’ll be shedding his Levis to appear fully nude in the November issue of Playgirl. This might confuse some of you who remember that the last print edition of Playgirl was last January when it ceased publishing. Levi will be appearing in the online edition, which still exists. This means no staple for his belly button. And in the media we will hear an endless confusion between his name Johnstone, and what he is showing, his Johnson, in countless attempts at lame humor.

Also getting naked is talk show host and comedian Chelsea handler. She appears in the December Playboy, on the cover, and nude on the inside. We get to find out she’s not just all talk.

And finally, I am a big fan of sex vacations and sex tourism. We love traveling, having wild sex at Hedonism, visiting swing clubs in other places. There is the dark side- sex tourism for things that are illegal, which I obviously oppose, but I am certainly fine with people going to other countries to enjoy a little legal prostitution, as well as having folks travel to Nevada brothels and keep that money in the American economy. But this has to be the absolute worst sex tourism destination ever. For the people who like this sort of thing, I guess they would think it was swell, but I have to believe that there is a very limited potential clientele. Its an Australian farm that they turned into a sex farm, where visitors could come and enjoy the bestial hospitality. It was just shut down by authorities. But even more amazing is that people, apparently paid for this experience with a choice of 13 horses, Shetland ponies, goats and dogs. Come on. Paying for it? Horses will do it for oats. And dogs. All they need is a belly scratch.

Sexvestigation

This Sexvestigation looks at the appeal over the Max Hardcore obscenity conviction, which is now taking place. And it is important. Actually, extremely important. And I will be the first to say that Max Hardcore films are so disgusting I can’t even watch them. Then again, watching Bill O’Reilly equally turns my stomach, but I believe in the concept of freedom of speech where there will be things available that I don’t like. Censors believe just the opposite.

Defense attorney H. Louis Sirkin started with the argument that the Supreme Court decision on the Texas sodomy laws and the right to privacy applied. He probably knew that was not a winning argument since the same argument lost in the Alabama case where the final verdict came in allowing the state to ban sex toys- a verdict that the Supreme Court has already refused to even consider. When it was clear that the judges were not even going to seriously consider what should have been a powerful argument, he turned to what is the real meat in this case and the ultimate failure of our antiquated obscenity laws. The essential question is how in the world do you apply obscenity community standards to an Internet community that is essentially global?

To any rational mind, you can’t. But that is the question that will come center stage in the appeal by Paul Little, also known as Max Hardcore, over his Florida obscenity conviction. In the appeal, the Judges will not be considering the content of the videos. And, in fact, if anything is obscene- max hardcore films are. And disgusting. And demeaning to women. But many of the themes that I find revolting in his movies are readily available in mainstream movies and would not be subject to prosecution. It is only because of the sex that it becomes prosecutable.

I believe that obscenity should not be the one major exception to free speech. The judgment about what is obscene is random, unpredictable, and ultimately nonsensical. But in this case, what the judges will be looking at is whether the government should criminalize adult films purchased over the Internet and viewed in the privacy of the home, and whether a Tampa jury should apply its own standards to materials available all over the country.

That is a huge question, since obscenity prosecutions are based almost entirely upon applying community standards. That sort of makes a little sense if we are talking about something sold in a local store, but it is completely irrational when we are talking about the Internet.

There were several reasons Max Hardcore was prosecuted in Tampa, Florida. First and foremeost was because it was a conservative community. This is known as venue shopping- Federal Prosecutors prosecuting people for obscenity in the places they are most likely to get a conviction. He was also prosecuted there because that is where they had some of his DVDs shipped. That argument made sense to the judge, but not to anyone with a rational mind- since a third party distributor actually shipped the DVDs there. That is correct. He was convicted of distributing pornography that he created but did not actually personally distribute. It may be harder to rationalize that to a higher court, but they also had a third reason. Max Hardcore was also prosecuted in Florida because a server that helped distribute his website across the Internet was located there. But a server could be anywhere- it does not matter and you often have no idea where the server used by your third party service provider is located.

So this case is more about the Internet than it is about physically distributing DVDs- another issue the courts should also consider. Some of the charges were for promotional video clips promoting DVDs, clips that were available on the Member’s Only section, something clearly restricted to adults and available to members anywhere in the world. How can you possibly apply community standards to that without censoring the Internet for the entire world? And that is exactly what they did in this case, since the successful prosecution not only put Max Hardcore in jail, but they took possession of his Website, depriving everyone else not living in the community of Tampa the right to access that material. Tampa then becomes the censor not just for Tampa, but for the entire world. That is a fairly scary notion- especially if you have actually been to places like Tampa.

The issue of being prosecuted for mailing something you actually did not mail is based on a legal argument that may hurt your head. The original judge in the case used this legal reasoning: a defendant "causes" the mails to be used if such use was reasonably foreseeable. Since anything that is intended to be mailed could be mailed anywhere. Of course that is foreseeable. Under that argument, selling your product to a distributor always has the foreseeable consequence that the distributor might mail that product to some small conservative town that may object to the contents. It may be foreseeable, but you don’t have any control over that. And this only applies if the item is sent through the U.S. mails and not via UPS or FedEx, so you have to be able to foresee how the individual item is going to be shipped. And since you are being charged with mailing obscene materials through the mails, they are not legally obscene until a jury has found them obscene, so technically when you mailed them they were not obscene. But courtesy of our obscenity laws, you had to foresee that someday a jury would apply random standards to find them obscene, a decision that goes back in time to render something obscene in the past that was not obscene at the actual time. Following along?

But here is where the argument becomes even more nonsensical. The item was not ordered in Tampa by a resident, but by a U.S. Postal Inspector at the behest of Federal Prosecutors who wanted to go after Max Hardcore. No local citizen complaint. The DVDs were not in Tampa until a Postal Inspector ordered it. How can you apply community standards to something that was never in the hands of anyone in the community except a federal employee strictly for the purposes of prosecution? It makes absolutely no sense. Yes, something sold in a local store is technically in the community, but something shipped through the Internet is not. In Alabama, someone can go to jail for selling a sex toy locally, but prosecutors can not drag someone clear across the country to prosecute them for selling a sex toy through the Internet to an Alabama resident. Yet this is exactly the standard that is currently applied in obscenity cases.

The argument that seemed to resonate with the judges the most was that one holdout juror felt pressured to convict because they believed that they had been fired from their job over the case- something the court knew but did not pursue. That alone might be enough to overturn the conviction. What we really need, though, is a more public airing of the insanity of our obscenity laws- laws that make no sense in the Internet age and that really need to be revisited. Of course, I think they really need to be revisited by rational judges, something we can’t always count on from the current Supreme Court.