Pornography Prods Into Mainstream America
TV, Film, Radio Use Porn As Backdrop
POSTED: 12:13 p.m. PDT September 29, 2003
SAN DIEGO -- If sex sells, possibly no one has sold it longer and more of it than Larry Flynt.
"We just deal with primarily plain old vanilla sex, you know. The old one- two," Flynt said.
But Flynt -- and pornographers like him -- aren't the only ones making money on porn and subjects related to porn.
"Skin," a new series on Fox, is a sort of Romeo and Juliet with the porn industry as a backdrop. In film, there was "Boogie Nights" and now "Wonderland," which chronicles four real-life murders and their connection to Los Angeles's pornographic underbelly.
The music industry also has its porn flirtation. Jenna Jamison -- a self-made porn and publicity machine -- shares a bed with Eminem. Even male stars like Ron Jeremy find their way into mainstream pop culture.
"It's been facilitating to observe everything unfold," said Miguel Marquez.
What's unfolded in Flynt's 30 years in the industry is porn going from the backroom to the front office. Even companies like Time Warner -- the parent of CNN -- derives a fraction of its revenue from adult material.
"Today it's an $11 billion a year business," said Flynt.
However, most industry analysts said they don't know how big the porn industry is they just know it is big.
"Today, society seems to have just gone to hell in a hand basket basically and who would have thought that pornography would have gone so mainstream as it has today," said Benjamin Lopez, a spokesman from Traditional Values Coalition.
Who could have imagined a world where a porn magnate and a porn actress could even run for governor of California.
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