It Was Extreme

Without a doubt, the new Porn Valley was the Wild, Wild West, where anything—anything—went, sexually speaking. A new breed of directors was arriving in the Valley, rechristening with names indicative of their darker tendencies. This was a group of men operating outside the rules of society proper, having found the ideal venue for their uncensored personal expression in the clandestine and cloistered pornography business. These men were playing hardcore games of pornographic one-upmanship, starring stunt sex acts in which they used porn stars like game pieces, hell-bent, it seemed, on uncovering how far human beings would go if pushed to their limit, curious to discover what the culture could stand if taken to its outer reaches. And it was extreme.

The Most Dangerous Game

In “The Most Dangerous Game,” a 1924 short story written by Richard Connell, Sanger Rainsford, a world-renowned big game hunter from New York, falls overboard on a moonless Caribbean night and washes up on the shore of a mysterious island. There, he meets General Zaroff, a fellow big game hunter who retreated to the island when he found he had grown tired of the hunt. “Hunting,” Zaroff confides over dinner in his chateau, “had ceased to be what you call a ‘sporting proposition.’ It had become too easy. I always got my quarry. Always.” On the island, Zaroff has created a new game—and found new quarry. “I had to invent a new animal to hunt,” Zaroff reveals. “And that was?” a rapt Rainsford inquires. The ideal quarry, Zaroff offers, would be able to reason. Yet no animal, as Rainsford points out, can reason. “There is one that can,” counters Zaroff. “But you can’t mean—“ gasps Rainsford in horror. “I think I may say, in all modesty, that I have done a rare thing,” Zaroff confesses to his guest—and his next day’s quarry. “I have invented a new sensation.” In Porn Valley, pornographers are hunting humans.

Welcome to Porn Valley, USA

If you drive to the top of the Hollywood Hills, and stop at the summit somewhere along Mulholland Drive, you will find the San Fernando Valley below you, stretching as far as the eye can see. It is a 260 square mile expanse of valley floor, situated between the San Gabriel, Verdugo, Simi Hills, Santa Susana, and Santa Monica mountain ranges, home to nearly two million and composed of some 40 cities and communities, sprawling from the Narrows to Hidden Hills. Where conquistadores Californianos once waged skirmishes across fertile ranches dotted with Oak trees and populated by grazing cattle, now lies America’s suburbs: tract homes, swimming pools, mini-malls. 100 years ago, California State Senator Charles Mclay overlooked the landscape and proclaimed: “This is the Garden of Eden!” Here, at the tail end of the 20th century, a multi-billion dollar industry was born. Today, this is Porn Valley, USA.