XXX: A Woman's Right to Pornography Read Online Free PDF Page A

At the latter you could leave a donation in a gold fish bowl sporting a sticker declaring "Stop Censorship!"
    I picked up literature and took notes on posters advertising XXX movies. Over and over again, I was struck by how attractive the women were: young, aerobically lean, and overwhelmingly blond. From over their shoulders, bent over peering through the V of their legs, sprawled on beds, looking up from on their knees-they all stared back at me with attitudes that ranged from submission to brazen bitchiness.
    On my second tour of the floor, I approached the few people who were available and introduced myself as a feminist doing research on pornography. (After three such introductions, I dropped the word "feminist" because it seemed to alienate people.) Since no women were evident, I tried to get a sense of the "business of porn" from the men.
    They were all in a mood to complain. Apparently CES had circulated a memo that morning to the Adult exhibitors, laying down strict rules of conduct. The rules included no full frontal nudity and no display of private parts. A burly red-bearded man, who was demonstrating interactive computer pornography, took particular exception to the abrasive security guards who ensured that photos of women's nipples and vaginas were duly covered by black dots. The hotel management had provided sheets and sheets of these dots.
    When I asked security for a copy of the memo, they were strangely unable to find one. Two days later, I got a copy of the memo from Bill Margold, a veteran of the porn industry, who goes by 16
    the moniker "Bear." In the meantime, I had received three competing theories from exhibitors about sheets of nipple concealing dots:
    · They resulted from an incident of the year before. A buxom actress had gotten carried away with enthusiasm at meeting fans and impulsively bared what have been called "the best two things about her videos."
    · They were a backlash against another incident from the year before. An after-hours fund-raising tent had been pitched in one of the hotel parking lots. Entertainment had been provided by several women, who engaged in a public sex act. The City of Las Vegas had laid charges, which included "felony sodomy" and "felony lesbianism."
    · Nothing had changed. The rules were exactly as they had always been.
    As exhibitors rushed to contradict each other, I began to realize that the porn industry was not a monolith.
    As many of them shrugged off the incident, I realized something else: Pornographers were inured to being treated with contempt. What other industry would so blithely accept not being able to display its wares at its own conference? How many other exhibitors at CES would tolerate the intrusive surveillance of security guards, who constantly toured the floor?
    MY FIRST INTERVIEW WITH A WOMAN IN PORN
    A session of the Free Speech Coalition-an organization that protected porn producers and distributors from prosecution was scheduled at noon. I arrived early to find three people present: Bill Margold; a man engaged in vigorous conversation with Bill; and, Cookie-a thin blond who looked like a little girl. I overhead the man asking Bill whether things had been arranged with Cookie. Apparently, he wanted her to appear in a video he was producing. Bill shrugged and replied, "She's over there. Ask her yourself."
    I'd heard Bill was an agent, so I opened a conversation by asking how people usually got into "the business." He referred vaguely to casting calls; then he said something surprising.
    "I discourage people from getting into porn," he explained, "because you have to have a death wish to succeed at it." He expanded on this theme. "Pornography gets into your blood and you can never get away from it. No matter how many hard knocks you take, you'll always be part of the industry."
    Since I'd met people who had left the business, I doubted the truth of this. But Stagliano had made a similar point, when he had enthused about the people in porn