AVN (Adult Video News) January 2003

ON THE COVER
44 THE STATE OF PORN;
A Directors' Discussion
Is today's adult fare better than ever? Or has it gotten too hard and misogynistic, pushing the edge of the envelope to the breaking point simply for shock value? In an attempt to find some answers, AVN invited eight esteemed directors — four Old Schoolers and four New Schoolers — to sit down and hash things out. As you'll read, the resulting verbal intercourse at times got as hot and heavy as any of the directors' best works.
DEPARTMENTS
20 Editorial by Mark Kernes
30 ReaderSpeak
32 Charts
Four pages of the hottest-selling & renting titles in adult
70 Boneyard
ECVS Wrap-up
116 AVN Insider
122 Media Circus
126 Fresh Off the Bus
Sneak Peeks
132 Fast Times at Deep Crack High 10 — Celestial Productions
Nurses Behind Bars — Erotic Angel
134 Swallow My Pride 2 — Red Light District
XXX Superheroes —Temptation Entertainment/ RKE Entertainment
On the Set
135 The Devinn Lane Show 5 —Wicked Pictures
140 lce-T's Pimpin' 101 —Fan Entertainment/ Antigua Pictures
144 Hall of Fame
Samantha Fox
146 Innerview
Nicole Sheridan
260 Gay & Bi Section
292 Legal News & Commentary
304 Religious Right Watch
306 Retailing
309 Future Shock
310 Business Side
318 Classified Marketplace
320 Advertiser Index
REVIEWS
EDITOR'S CHOICES
154 Fantasy, Ltd.
Metro, Inc.
158 The Fashionistas
Evil Angel
160 Heaven's Revenge
Vivid Entertainment Group
164 Raincoater's Point of View 2
Red Light District
166 Sex: The Annabel Chong Story
Greycat Releasing/Coffeehouse Films
170 Sunset Stripped
VCA Pictures
172 Trespass into Torture
B&D Pleasures
174 The Villa
Studio A Entertainment
275 2nd Gear
Rascal Video/Channel 1 Releasing
276 Cowboy
Big Blue Productions/Arena
277 Man Academy 2: Rites of Passage
Centaur Films/Marina Pacific
152 Ratings Explanation & Box Cover/Clever Title/ Comp of the Month
176 Film
178 Video
184 Wall to Wall
213 Gonzo
214 Specialty
226 Pro-Am
234 DVD
278 Gay & Bi
283 Gay & Bi Specialty
284 Gay & Bi DVD
287 Alternative
289 In Print
316 Review Index

EDITORIAL NOTE
All right; I'm going to take it as a given that everyone reading this voted either Democrat or Libertarian on November 5. If you didn't, or if you failed to vote at all, you can just mark yourselves down right now for some portion of the blame for what's going to happen to your employment or favorite pastime over the next two (or possibly six) years.
Because the Republicans are dancing in the streets, figuratively if not literally, and the nastiest Republicans of all, the religious fundamentalists, are nothing less than ecstatic over the last election.
It was a good night for President Bush," declared one of James "Focus on the Family" Dobson's flunkies of that fateful Tuesday. "It was a rebuff of the Democrats, of former President Clinton and liberals."
"Liberals." That's you, Sparky, and everything you stand for, even if you have a non-socialist take on economics. No more stuffing "illicit or pornographic materials" into Duncan Hines Brownie Mix boxes for you!
Oh, you didn't hear? Some nutbar from Pennsylvania — Rep. Melissa Hart, specifically, and guess which party she belongs to? — is apparently worried that some kid is going to crack open the corn flakes and a DVD of Hot Homy Honeys is going to fall out, as apparently some racist pamphlet recently did when a 10year-old boy opened a cake mix box.
So Hart wrote up a law, covering not only invitations to the next cross burning but "pornographic materials" as well, and Congress passed it. If convicted, the perp could get three years in the slammer and a quarter-million fine. Hart says Kraft Foods says that sort of thing has happened 100 times over the past five years. We left a message with Kraft asking the percentage of porn vs. illicit in the packages, but they didn't respond... but what the heck; the numbers wouldn't have meant anything to a 'Pub on a crusade anyway.
Sure, it's another "But... But... But... The Children Are In Danger!" ploy, but it's nothing a reasonably sane parent counseling a non-brain-damaged kid couldn't successfully deal with, after all!
Of course, making sure your products don't displace the Quisp is the least of your upcoming worries. Women, for instance, can sweat that at least two radical-right judges, Dennis Shedd and Michael McConnell, have been confirmed for appeals court positions after all of the chickenshit Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee voice-voted for them, then ordered the official record to reflect all "nays." (They can do that; it's a congressional thing.)
McConnell, a law professor, is on record as saying that Roe v. Wade is "an embarrassment," of "questionable legitimacy" and a "grave legal error," and in an article for the Federalist Society conference in 2000, he actually came out against the concept of "one person, one vote," calling it "wrong in principle and mischievous in its consequences." Shedd, on the other hand, is a protégé of century-old Sen. Strom Thurmond, who threw a hissy fit before Judiciary Committee chair Patrick Leahy when his boy wasn't automatically green-lighted. Of course, the fact that Shedd, as a district court judge, struck down a law making it illegal for, say, religious protest groups to record adult retail customers' license plate numbers and track them through the DMV to harass them, probably didn't enter into it at all.
Yep, them good ol' boys is on the appeals court now, y'hear? So let's hope no adult industry cases come up before the Fourth and Tenth Circuits for the next half-century or so.
And Shedd and McConnell are just the beginning! Remember, there are four U.S. Supreme Court justices ready for retirement, and it's a good bet that at least Stevens and Ginsburg won't make it till 2008.
On the privacy front, the new Homeland Security Bill establishes an agency, headed by former Admiral (and near-jailbird) John Poindexter, that will have the power to record and file everything you say, write and charge, anytime, anywhere — but it's a good bet that will wind up before the Supreme Court... hopefully before Bush's new justices get appointed to it!
As for the future, the conservatives are all set to reintroduce a bunch of bills that failed in past Congresses: A ban on late-term abortions, a ban on real sex ed as if "abstinence" were sex ed!), a ban on any sort of cloning, a ban on gay marriage, a ban on flag "desecration" and many, many more!
"We will move the partial-birth abortion bill through," said Mississippi's Trent Lott, the new Senate majority leader. "The House did it this year, and once again, Tom Daschle would not call it up [in the Senate]. !will call it up, we will pass it, and the President will sign it. I'm making that commitment. You can write it down!"
You can also write down that in the opinions of at least two First Amendment attorneys, the adult Internet industry is only weeks, if not days, away from getting fucked by the fells.
"It is my hunch that only one thing is necessary for the triumph of evil after [election day]," said J.D. Obenberger of Chicago, a man who seems to have his finger on the Justice Department's pulse, "and that is that we await the initiation of hostilities in Iraq. Because what I think is going to happen is, they don't want an excuse that can be used as political capital, that 'You diverted important resources from the national defense and our safety to go prosecute pornographers.' So they're going to start military hostilities against Iraq and then sometime after January 1, 2003, we can see indictments. I have received reports from certain U.S. districts in which white collar crime units are being directed to bring prosecutions."
It's all 2257, baby, so if your records and IDs aren't in order — Webmasters and video producers — get out your handkerchief... and your passport.
And while you're on that plane (or even if you're not), try reading Robert A. Heinlein's novella, "If This Goes On..." for a peep into a future that's looking ever more likely.
But if you love your country and want to stay in it, now is the time for you to batten down the hatches: Put every spare dollar you can under the mattress (or some safer place) as your own personal "defense fund," put a good lawyer on retainer, and throw a few bucks at the Free Speech Coalition so they can continue leading the fight, in court and through the mass media, to stop these bastards. Think of it as an investment in your future... and, frankly, mine.