US Sex Sells News

AVN has been following up the appearance of a new DVD label specialising in release classic XXX films.

The label is released through the long established classics distributor Distribpix. Steve Morowitz of Distribpix explained more about Sweetheart Theatres:

Distribpix is pretty much synonymous with classic New York erotica, preserving it as well as being filmmakers and such. But besides producing films and distributing, they also owned theaters, which was a big part of it all. They had theaters all over the place, including Times Square, but also upstate New York and other states as well, and they called it the Sweetheart Theatre chain.

Morowitz, whose company archives contain about 160 negatives for classic XXX films along with, he said, tons of exploitation stuff, has been mulling over new ways to release the classics in a market that's quickly shifting away from physical DVDs and diving deep into video-on-demand--and he thinks he's hit on a new marketing idea.

The Sweetheart Theatre thing is really kind of unique, Morowitz explained, because you might ask, what is the criterion for a Sweetheart Theater release? Really, just anything that's X-rated. Sweetheart Theatre releases will be the same exact movies that would have played at these Sweetheart theaters.

For example, in 1977, Bill Lustig, who went on to do Maniac and all these wonderful films, and who I'm somewhat close with--we have a very good relationship and I've licensed some mainstream stuff to him that I've owned--so I own these two films that he made under the director name 'Billy Bagg' before he ever made his horror films. They were his directorial debut, and from a historical point of view, these really helped him to make films and become who he is. So we thought, since Violation of Claudia was really Sharon Mitchell's first movie, and it premiered at the World in 1977, and the following year, the other film played at the Royal, though it didn't premiere there, we thought it'd be a great double featur

Porn veteran Larry Flynt is celebrating the 40th birthday of his X-rated magazine Hustler. He told AFP:

I'm the largest content provider in the world for adult material, (operating in) 60-70 countries and still growing.

While celebrating his magazine's four decades in print, he admits it is struggling, with circulation down from a peak of around three million during its heyday to a couple of hundred thousand today , according to a Hustler spokesman. Flynt added:

Publishing is not good .. for anybody in America because Internet is replacing print. We'll continue the magazine as long as it is profitable. Then we'll go online.

Hustler's website doesn't make much money either, competing with a tsunami of hardcore porn online which is often free, and made by amateurs. His business' future lies above all in TV porn channels and on-demand videos, but also in Hustler-themed sex accessory and clothing stores and casinos, which he is opening everywhere. In fact so much so that Flynt claimed;

We're having our best year this year.

Philadelphia officials have decided not to keep appealing in court to revive the lap dance tax.

The 30-day window to file an appeal has officially passed since Judge Ellen Ceisler ruled Philadelphia cannot impose its entertainment tax on what goes on inside strip clubs. The tax already applies to cover charges at the clubs.

Attorney George Bochetto represents two of the strip clubs the city unsuccessfully targeted for collection of the lap dance tax . He explained:

The fact of the matter is they had no authority to impose this kind of new tax in the manner they attempted to do so. It doesn't mean they aren't entitled to seek the additional taxes, but they just can't do it by unilaterally imposing it.

If the city wants to tax this activity, it would have to craft a new law. They are going to have to do in a manner that treats all types of interior entertainment equally. So it's potentially an issue that doesn't affect just gentlemen's clubs, but every place of entertainment in the city of Philadelphia.

kink is a 2013 USA biography by Christina Voros.
Starring Peter Acworth, Van Darkholme and Princess Donna.

The Promotional material reads:

Director Christina Voros and producer James Franco pull back the curtain on the fetish empire of Kink.com, the Internet's largest producer of BDSM content. In a particularly obscure corner of an industry that operates largely out of public view, Kink.com's directors and models strive for authenticity. In an enterprise often known for exploitative practices, Kink.com upholds an ironclad set of values to foster an environment that is safe, sane, and consensual. They aim to demystify the BDSM lifestyle, and to serve as an example and an educational resource for the BDSM community. In kink, we discover not only a fascinating and often misunderstood subculture, but also, in a career far from the mainstream, a group of intelligent, charismatic, and driven people who really, truly love what they do.

At kink.com, each performer's limits and boundaries are discussed and agreed on beforehand. The ideology, then, becomes that the actors are in control, that they dictate the limits of their sexual exploration. This film leads us to believe that this is what kink.com, and BDSM in general, is about; being brave and courageous and sexually curious enough to go places within a rulebook of pre-determined confines involving dominance and submissiveness (Choking is fine, but not the word bitch , someone gives as an example). Yes, she is being hammered with a device throttling at the speed of a machine gun, but, as all members of kink.com would point out, this is all consensual and, of course, stoppable.

There is no way to escape explicit images in a documentary on Internet pornography, and if private parts being threatened by electrical toys and pounding machines makes you squeamish, perhaps you should steer clear of this documentary (or just look away when something unpleasant ends up onscreen).

This level of authenticity is the hallmark of kink.com, a fetish empire where almost very conceivable sexual fantasy can exist. The actors and directors, all surprisingly normal, charismatic, and intelligent, pride themselves on the truthfulness of their twisted pornographic endeavors, and speak about their experiences in an almost artistic way.

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