The Jeff Booth Show

Internet Radio with Pictures

Show Transcripts

December 7th , 2008

You can contact us at:

Jeff@eroticuniversity.com

(818) 613-9248

This is the Jeff Booth Show for December 7th, 2008, brought to you by the Center for Sexual Expression and Education, and Erotic University. I’m Jeff Booth. This week we have another of our interviews with a fictitious subject- in this case, the oldest man still working in porn. Through him we get a bit of insight into the history of porn. We also have our usual roundup of sex and entertainment news. Just click on the topic you want to listen to, and thanks for clicking in.

News

Hurray for nudity. In Seattle, one of the most progressive cities on this topic, the parks department voted not to ban inoffensive nudity at parks and beaches. The city will continue to issue permits for a variety of nude events. The ban was promoted by the new head of the Parks Department, who apparently was unclear on just how

I said the day that the Spitzer revelations came out that he was targeted. His career was destroyed, which is what they really wanted, and ultimately he faced no legal penalty. A congressional investigation will be launched in January to look more closely at exactly how all of this happened, because I am not the only one who thought this smelled of a political hit job and an abuse of power. And when Roger Stone claims to be involved- the man behind countless political hit jobs for the Republicans, you know the thing is dirtier than any of Stone’s sex fantasies.

December 10th is Day Without a Gay Day, a nationwide strike and boycott where they are asking gays to not buy anything and skip work. I guess bisexuals could do a half day. This could severely impact the entertainment industry, hair salons...

It seems like the courts are the only places gays are seeing any victories these days. A Florida judge ruled that the state law banning gay adoption was unconstitutional. Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Cindy Lederman rejected the state’s arguments that there is “a supposed dark cloud hovering over homes of homosexuals and their children.” And I did not realize that gays in Florida were allowed to be foster parents. SO you could be denied adopting a child into a permanent caring but gay home so that they could wind up in a gay foster home? SO they are fine as temporary parents but not permanent ones? I guess that is part of the logic the judge rejected. Utah bans any unmarried straight or gay couples from adopting or fostering children. But that’s Utah. And Mississippi bans gay couples, but not single gays, from adopting. And I guess Mississippi being even dumber than Utah should not be a surprise. Arkanasas approved a ban on adoption by unmarried couples in the last election, but heck, as soon as gays get the right to marry in that state- they can adopt too. See, its not really discriminatory. Except that it was promoted as a way to stop the gay agenda- you know, the one where they get to live lives like you and me. If you really want to protect kids, how about allowing only gay adoptions. We know the long history of kids of heterosexual parents being sexually abused by them. Put boys with lesbians and girls with gay men and you would completely eliminate the problem.

Don’t you just love a story that makes you feel good all over? Focus on the Family spent more than $500,000 to help Proposition 8 win. Turns out it was a tad too much. A cash shortage is forcing them to layoff 20 percent of their workface. Normally, I am against layoffs, but I make an exception in this case. And I am also not a big fan of Wal-Mart, and their tactics which hurt so many businesses and force many of their own employees onto State assistance. With this lone exception- Two months ago, Focus on the Family had to layoff 46 employees from their Jesus merchandise department because they claimed that Wal-Mart was cutting into their product market. I suppose I should be sad for the employees who lost their jobs, but having to downsize couldn’t happen to a nicer hate mongering rabidly anti-sex nutball organization.

The whole upskirt phenomena is nothing new. Why do you think they invented the shiny patent leather shoes? But never before has it been easier to sneak a tiny camera under a woman’s skirt and snap a photo of her underwear or less. Sure, there are some women who make it a point of making their coochies available for the cameras as they step out of cars with their celebrity friends, but that’s different. We call that PR. But a 16 year old shopping at a SuperTarget in Tulsa Oklahoma shouldn’t have some asshole snapping a picture between her legs. And yet, the charges against this sleazeball were dropped, because the court ruled that she was in a public place so she did not have a reasonable expectation to privacy. Are you kidding? SO if he got under her with out any physical touching and shoved his face inches from her pantied crotch, would that be okay because she is in a public place and wearing a dress? Oklahoma enacted a law this month to prevent this sort of thing from happening in the future, but less than half the states have similar laws. Sure, it seems like the number one use of cell phone cameras is snapping naughty pictures, as evidenced by the site phonebin.com and the hacking into of celebrity phones, but no one should be able to take pictures like this without your permission. And if a shot of something that is normally covered up appears on a web site, the person who put it there better have a model release for that person. The victim should not have to prove that it is them.

Hey, isn’t it great. According to the President, we won in Iraq and gave them democracy. And now they have freedom- the freedom to go back to the good old pre-Sadam days of honor killings. And now they even have capitalism. Instead of having the family do the honor killing themselves, the country is full of experienced assassins you can hire. When they are not shooting at U.S. troops, they can now engage in the new economy and help families settle scores against daughters who shamed the family. By doing things like falling in love with a man they don’t approve of. Or not being a virgin, even if it was because she was raped. Or speaking to a man in public who was not a husband or relaitive. Abdel-Qader Ali’s daughter shamed him by having a non-sexual friendship with an infantryman. SO he suffocated her and hacked her up. He was arrested then released without charge. Terrified, his wife fled and divorced him and went into hiding, but he was able to use the new free enterprise system to hire man to track her down and assassinate her. Instead of arresting people, the police often congratulate the family on upholding their honor. Can you smell the freedom? Kinda smells like dried blood.   

Entertainment

The Bad Sex in Fiction Award has been presented, and the winner is- Rachel Johnson, for her Shire Hell. Allow me to read a short passge: "I find myself gripping his ears and tugging at the locks curling over them, beside myself, and a strange animal noise escapes from me as the mounting, Wagnerian crescendo overtakes me. I really do hope at this point that all the Spodders are, as requested, attending the meeting about slug clearance..." Huuugh?  That was bout sex? The runner-up was John Updike, for his latest, "The Widows of Eastwick", but he still came out on top by winning a Lifetime Achievement Award for Bad Sex writing. The editors of Literary Review have been awarding the prizes for 16 years.

Written by Tony award winning composer Marc Shaiman, this musical stars John C. Reilly, Neil Patrick Harris, Maya Rudolph, Margaret Cho, and Jack Black as Jesus- it’s a huge hit, oh, and its about three minutes long. It is called Proposition 8: The Musical, and it is a hilarious sendup and reaction to California’s bash in the head to the gay community and the entertainment community, which is comprised of a lot of the gay community and many more people who are friends of people in the gay community. Dozens donated their time, and you can find it on FunnyorDie.com. Its one of the best viral videos we’ve seen in a long time.

And in Who is Getting Naked Now, it is Kim Catrall, who still looks pretty fabulous at 52. She posed as Diana in the name of art with Gemma Rolls-Bentley, Kimberly Williams and Yulia Pykhtina to recreate Titian painting Diana and Actaeon, a painting that is also in our upcoming Erotic University master class, Art, Sex, and Censorship. It is part of a fundraiser by photographer Tom Hunter to raise money to keep the painting on public display and out of private hands.

There is a porn convention held in both Los Angeles and Las Vegas called AdultCon. I have always thought it was rather strangely run and I tended to avoid it, so I had no idea about their policies barring certain types of women from the show booths. Namely, BBWs and transsexuals. Desiree Devine, who bills herself as a big beautiful woman, announced that she was going to sue them over their discriminatory policies after they dumped her from the show after she had already paid for a booth. When the industry found out about their discriminatory policies there was a backlash, so the Adultcon folks decided to back down. A little. Now they will allow transsexuals. But they still have the No Fat Chicks bumper sticker on the show. As much as some may bitch about the AVN shows, at least they don’t discriminate like this and they embrace the entire adult industry, not just the segments they happen to like personally.  

This just never happens. A porn star little known outside of the industry is given a leading role in a major film production by a major film maker. She’s Sasha Grey, and she will play the protagonist in the Girlfriend Experience, a new film from no less than Stephen Soderbergh. Hell, she couldn’t even win an Oscar, although I suspect the Academy would really be acknowledging her work in Anal Acrobats 3 and Blow Me Sandwich 11.

Interview

JB: We’re talking with someone who claims to be the oldest man still working in porn, Edgar Arseman. Welcome to the show.

EA: Thank you, Jeff. And yes, I have the distinction of being the oldest man in porn.  Dave Cummings is a youngster compared to me. I think the next oldest to me is Shigeo Tokuda from Japan. He claims to be the oldest, but he’s only 73.

JB: You go back a long ways.

EA: I was around for the early days of porn. Course, in those days they didn’t show the films in theaters, but at smokers at men’s clubs. Those early films, even going back to the 20’s, were as explicit as many of the films today.

And long before the movies they had still pictures. Showed pretty much everything they show today. I did a lot of those- an amazing amount of photographic pornography was produced in the 20’s and 30s. You have to remember that the 20’s was the first time that there was an emphasis on youth culture, and those flapper girls were pretty wild. Lost my virginity to a flapper. I was 10.

JB: We have a gallery for EU students of a lot of early pornographic stills. And in the Erotic University Virtual Campus theatre, we show A Free Ride, one of the oldest existing porn films. It is pretty graphic.

EA: I remember it well. That was my first appearance as a porn actor.

JB: You were in A Free Ride? But some film historians date that to the early 30’s, while others have dated it to the 20s.

EA: Thirties, actually. Just look at the clothes. Yeah, the car was older, but the producer couldn’t afford to get us a new car. I’ll admit. I was a tad underage when I made that. But I was a big strapping lad, and they slapped on a fake mustache and put me in a hat and I looked like a respectable gentlemen- except for the things we did in that movie.

JB: Just how old are you?

EA: Old enough o know better than to say. There is a lot of age discrimination out there. But I will say that my health is good, I’m fit as a fiddle and ready for love.

JB: How did you get started so early?

EA: I went to Tijuana with some older friends, and I looked about the same age they did, so people thought I was much older than I was. TJ was pretty wild in those days. There was this show with a girl, and a donkey. The girl would…

JB: Yeah, I’m familiar with those shows.

EA: Anyway, I met a guy there who told me that he was going to make sexy movies. Being in movies sounded quite glamorous to me, I begged him to let me be involved, and the rest was history.

JB: And you’re still working today?

EA: Yes. Started my own series, Edgar’s Senior Moments, where I have the honor of having sex with young women nearly half my age, in their 50’s. I also starred recently in Golden Geezer of Porn. It was originally titled Golden Geezers of Porn, which was supposed to star 4 of the oldest guys in porn. Sadly, by the time the shooting day started, I was the only one left.

JB: It does seem like we lost a lot of legends this year. Legendary adult director Henri Pachard just passed away.

EA: I knew Ronnie quite well back in my New York days. He started out in the 60’s  making grindhouse stuff for 42nd Street, which was the porn capital for a long time until we all moved out to the San Fernando Valley, which is so much better for my bursitis. He kept working as a director right up until he got sick with the Cancer.

JB: We also lost Gerard Damiano this year, the man who brought us Deep Throat, The Devil in Miss Jones, and other classics, and brought porn into mainstream consciousness.

EA: Gerry was another person I knew quite well back in New York. I was doing loops, short little porn films, doing a couple of hundred a year. He’d come up with this great idea for a porn film, and knew this woman who could star in it. The title had hit him out of the blue- Deep Throat. But despite that movie making millions, Gerry only made about 15 grand off of it. I think the mob made the rest.

JB: Did you ever work with Linda Lovelace?

EA: I stayed away from her and her thug of an abusive husband. She gave me the heebeegeebees. A very sick relationship between them, and she was not a mentally well woman. Both of them were bad news and I stayed as far way from them as possible. She was not a class act like the far more talented Georgina Spelvin, whom I did work with, and who starred in the movie that Gerry actually made some real money off of- The Devil in Miss Jones. Unlike Linda- Georgie could actually act. And I think Gerry was trying to create a better quality and even artistic form of porn. And even though Gerry made money off of it- he didn’t get to keep any of it.

JB: Why is that?

EA: I think he was paid about 200 grand, a lot of money in those days, but it was all gone from having to defend himself from porn prosecutions all over the country.  The only good thing that came out of that was that at the Memphis trial he met this shy but delightful young woman named Ellen. She moved to New York and lived with him for a time and really blossomed. Changed her name to Annie Sprinkle. Very smart and ambitious.  She was one of the early women in porn to really take control of her career. She produced, directed, published magazines, was a photographer- very talented lady. Now she’s a sex educator and performance artist and has respectability. Couldn’t imagine that happening when I knew her- she was pretty wild.

JB: SO you were primarily involved in the New York porn scene at that time.

EA: Yes, I missed out on the whole free love San Francisco porn scene. I preferred to get paid for it. And I am actually pretty happy that I never had to work for the Mitchell Brothers Jim and Artie. They made a splash with Behind the Green Door starring Marilyn Chambers, but it was her talent and not theirs that made her a star. I met Marilyn and had dinner with her- she told me how Jim used to say that his brother Artie was the only Art in any of their porn films. Which I think is true. They later made the sequel, Behind the Green Door 2, which is considered to be one of the worst porn films ever made- certainly for the budget- they spent about $250,000 on it. Jim shot and killed Artie a few years later- it was all pretty tragic. We thought of ourselves as much more sophisticated in porn than those on the West Coast. Until the whole industry essentially moved to the San Fernando Valley, of course. A few years of sunshine and warm winters, and New York’s sophistication doesn’t seem to matter as much.

JB: It does seem that men have much longer careers in porn than women do. But there are exceptions. Annie Sprinkle is still working, although technically she is not doing porn anymore. Nina Hartley is almost 50 and still working.

EA. Let me say this, and for all time, Nina has one of the finest bottoms I have ever seen. We never worked together, but I was at a private party and we were in the Jacuzzi and she plopped herself right onto my lap. From that point on I have been behind her 100 percent. I adore Nina. A genuinely nice person. 

Tommy Byron is a director now, doing very well for himself, and doing a series featuring older actresses from the 80s and 90s- His Seasoned Players MILF Superstars. In case you don’t know, that stands for Moms I’d like to… you know. They star the greats- Ginger Lynn – love Ginger, Kylie Ireland, Amber Lynn, and of course Nina and many others. I am very happy that older women are able to do porn these days- frankly, I prefer them. I like women who know what they are doing.

I remember when Tommy first got started- early 80’s, and he looked like a teenager even though he was older. And I happened to be on the set of Tracy Lords’ first movie- It was uh What Gets Me Hot, and none of us had any idea she was underage. Tommy looked a lot younger than she did. And I think Tommy and she dated for awhile. Little tramp fooled everyone- and cost a lot of honest people a lot of money when they had to pull all of her movies off the shelves and destroy them. She also hurt the industry by giving anti-porn people the opportunity to claim that we used underage girls in porn films- which was untrue- it happened almost never and was always because the woman had fake ID and looked much older. I’m no fan of hers, I can tell you that.

JB: One big change to porn was the introduction of Viagra. I suspect it has helped a lot of male porn stars extend their careers.

EA: Some people think that using Viagra is somehow cheating. As if everything we do is somehow real. Please. Personally, I never needed it. But that is only because it went up one night and just never came down again.

JB: Isn’t that dangerous?

EA: Not at all, I’m not that big.

JB: No, I mean priapism- that is supposed to be dangerous and unhealthy.

EA: At my age, what isn’t dangerous? Hasn’t seemed to be a problem. Although I don’t go out as much as I used to.

JB: What are some of the changes you’ve seen in porn over the years?

EA: Well, color and sound were pretty big. And aesthetics have changed a lot. Personal grooming is a much bigger deal than when I got started. Seems like everyone in porn shaves now. Women got pretty bushy back then, and I was famous for my handle bar moustache, and when the two got tangled, that could be a real problem. 

JB: When you started, the birth control pill hadn’t been invented yet. How did you deal with that?

EA: Well, I got a little something called a pessarary from my friend Margie Sanger, and I gave those out to the girls. Worked pretty well- basically like a diaphragm.

JB: You knew birth control pioneer Margaret Sanger?

EA: She was a lot older than me, but I think she liked hanging around younger guys. Had a lot of moxie and a very bright gal. By the way, a lot of people don’t know this, but it was Margie who got the investors together for the folks who developed the birth control pill. She was quite a woman.

JB: The birth control pill was a major change. Any other major changes like that you saw?

EA: Well, of course, AIDS certainly hit us all hard and created a lot of fear. But outside of gay porn, surprisingly few porn performers have contracted AIDS. Many of us feared that we would lose a lot more of our friends, and it was a very scary time when it first hit. We knew so little about it then.

For me personally, one of the great changes was the availability of lube. Before that, we used to use something called Albolene Cream. We’d get it from the makeup person, because it was used to remove makeup, but it was greasy and tasted terrible. Good lube has been a godsend for everyone, and an essential item on every porn set.

One thing hasn’t changed nearly enough. When I started out, about the only way you’d see a naked picture of a colored girl was in National Geographic. Me personally, I have always liked all types of women. Never afflicted with the scourge of prejudice, especially when it might limit the number and variety of sex partners you might have. Never made any sense to me. Having a black man with a white woman was also a pretty big deal. The guy who shot Larry Flynt was a White Supremacist upset over an interracial pictorial he had in Hustler.

And while a lot of things have changed, you walk onto most porn sets and its all white girls. That certainly does not reflect the diversity in the San Fernando Valley where most of this stuff is made. Sure, they have interracial titles, and urban titles, but that is still segregation, isn’t it? There is a lot more in this world than just blondes.

JB: Speaking of blondes, you claim to be at the center of a controversy in what has been said to be a porn film featuring Marilyn Monroe. We have what is supposed t be a 1949 stag film of Marilyn Monroe, and we’ll be screening it online next month for EU students. But a lot of people are not convinced. But you claim to have been in the real deal.

EA: Yes, but sadly, no one will see it. The New York Post reported in April that the 1950 loop had been sold to a collector for $1.5 million, but it will never be shown because he does not want to make a Paris Hilton out of her. 

JB: So despite skepticism by many about that sale, you claim to be the mystery man on the receiving end of a Marilyn Monroe blow job.

EA: Well, I only knew her as Norma, and that was a long time ago, and all of the scenes I’ve done over the years do tend to blur together, and I did not see the 15 minutes of film they say was sold, so I can’t be absolutely sure. But I can tell you this. She gave a blow job that made you feel like you could write the great American novel and hit one out of the park all at the same time.

JB: I assume you are typically paired with much younger women.

EA: It couldn’t be with older women, because they are pretty much all dead. My preference is for young women in their 40s and 50s. I’ve done scenes with young girls. But frankly, I don’t have much in common with the girls in their teens and 20s. When I go off on the Hoover administration they look at me like they have no idea what I’m talking about.

JB: So what’s next for you?

EA: I think I’m going to be forced into retirement, because no one, and I mean no one, needs to see me in high definition. I’ve actually been thinking of setting up a retirement home for porn stars. The Screen Actors Guild has a retirement home here for actors, so why not something similar for former porn stars? And I think we’d have better parties.

JB: You’ve had a fascinating career, and I appreciate your spending time with us. Edgar Arsemen, the grand old man of porn. Thank you, Edgar.