Not long ago, I read an interesting interview on AVN.com--Adult Video News is the trade magazine of the adult video industry--by Mark Kernes--the Walter Winchell of Porn Valley. The subject of the interview was Ira Isaacs, an adult video director, producer, and distributor who was named in an eight-count federal obscenity indictment handed down last July. While the Department of Justice has made a habit out of targeting extreme adult videos--take for example, John Stagliano's indictment of last week, featuring "Milk Nymphos," "Storm Squirters 2," and "Fetish Fanatic 5"--the ouevre of Isaacs is without a doubt the most hardcore of all the DoJ's recent targets. To wit, Isaacs trades in shock videos, including fecal-themed features like "Laurie's Toilet Show" and "Hollywood Scat Amateurs No. 7" and bestiality videos like "Gang Bang Horse (Pony Sex Game)." A spokesman for the US Attorney's office in Los Angeles described the content of these videos as "unsavory." And I'm not going to dispute that. When the indictment was first handed down, I googled several of the titles. They aren't very pretty. I'd suggest you not follow suit. Years ago, I got Dan Kapelovtiz at Hustler to loan me a compilation coprophagy video. Why? I do not know. I sat on the edge of my bed and watched it. It was hard to describe. I've seen a lot of very, very hardcore adult videos, but this one beat all. There was a scene in a dungeon with a shouty German dominatrix and a submissive woman who looked to be out of her mind made to lie on the floor, and a line of men there, and there was this way the body of the woman on the floor seized up in horror when it happened... If only I could unsee what I've seen. Last month, Kernes interviewed Isaacs, and the interview is interesting. According to Isaacs, he's an artist, a "shock artist," who compares his work to that of Robert Mapplethorpe, Andres Serrano, and Chris Ofili. "[P]eople don't buy my videos because they want to watch people having sex," Isaacs opines. "Regular porn does that. I need to convince people that mine is serious art." And perhaps most interestingly, Isaacs and his lawyer, he says, intend to pursue an unprecedented legal defense. The 2 Girls 1 Cup defense, that is. Isaacs explains: "'What it is, is, there's videos all over the internet of millions of people watching this [Two Girls, One Cup] video, and it's a shock video, and people record their reactions...' '[T]he idea is, millions of people are watching this video about girls shitting in each other's mouths, vomiting in each other's mouths, and they are not, I think, obviously looking for prurient interest to masturbate. People are trying to shock themselves, because in today's world, everything is shock on TV... People need a lot to be shocked these days... What I've done is, I think, really shocked people, and I think that's why the federal government is on this case.'" While it remains to be seen how the 2 Girls 1 Cup defense will play out in court, Isaacs is right about one thing. In the 21st century, adult videos may be more hardcore than ever before, but so is the American public's taste for it. "It's making people ask a lot of questions," he says. "If you look at this Two Girls, One Cup stuff, you're going to see people like you've never imagined watching it, and they don't look away; that's the funny thing about it."
Update: On Boing Boing, UNDERGROUNDBASTARD writes:
In United States v. Gugliemi (819 F.2d 451), the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals considered the legality of bestial pornography, sided with Alan Dershowitz' contention that the grossness of the events depicted in the defendant's film, "The Snake F**kers" was so extreme as to not appeal to the prurient interests demanded of the pornography standard. In short, it was so gross it was beyond pornography, which is what the defendant here is arguing.
