Adult film director Max Hardcore sentenced to 4 years in prison on obscenity charges (UPDATE)
(Video: an intro that precedes the movies of Max Hardcore; no nudity or sexual acts in this embedded video above).
A US District Court in Florida has sentenced "extreme shock porn" gonzo director and distributor Max Hardcore, aka Paul F. Little, to four years in prison over obscenity charges. Writing for Salon, Glenn Greenwald wrote that he believes the verdict is a blow to first amendment rights:
âSo, to recap, in the Land of the Free: if youâre an adult who produces a film using other consenting adults, for the entertainment of still other consenting adults, which merely depicts fictional acts of humiliation and degradation, the DOJ will prosecute you and send you to prison for years. The claim that no real pain was inflicted will be rejected; mere humiliation is enough to make you a criminal. But if government officials actually subject helpless detainees in their custody to extreme mental abuse, degradation, humiliation and even mock executions long considered âtortureâ in the entire civilized world, the DOJ will argue that they have acted with perfect legality and, just to be sure, Congress will hand them retroactive immunity for their conduct. Thatâs how we prioritize criminality and arrange our value system.âThe hometown Tampa, FL paper where Little was convicted wrote about the case in a condemning tone:
His pornographic persona, Max Hardcore, is all swagger and sadism â forcing women in his movies to do things that can't be described in a family newspaper. But in federal court today, as he faced a federal prison sentence, Paul F. Little trembled and begged a woman for mercy. "It just seems a very high price to pay, I think," Little told U.S. District Judge Susan Bucklew, "and I ask you to understand how much I've suffered."Judge Sentences Porn Producer To 46 Months In Prison (Tampa Bay Online). Similar accounts published in Max Hardcore's home town paper, The Pasadena (CA) Star-News, and in this Tampa Bay paper.
Why was Little, aka Hardcore, convicted in Florida, when the offending material was produced elsewhere and distributed in many places, even overseas? IANAL, but as I understand it: producers are subject to obscenity charges in any state the material can be downloaded when local standards deem the material to be obscene. The landmark Supreme Court case of Hustler Magazine v. Falwell is informative background reading.
But the most authoritative voice I have read on the Max Hardcore case is that of Susannah Breslin, whose work I've blogged here many times. If you read one piece on this story, read hers.
Unlike most (perhaps all) of the voices you'll read on this topic, she's actually spent time on the kind of porn sets where "shock producers" like Hardcore preside, and she's watched more of his work than I could ever stomach. I can't speak for her, but I think the point of this powerful essay she's just published is this: the story is complicated. If we're going to talk about the big, abstract, meta issues -- and we should -- we owe it to the human beings involved to observe the human story, up close, with all the ugly details. Stories like this aren't easy or binary, and deserve complex, respectful treatment. We send reporters to Baghdad for in-depth reporting about the war; reporters covering this story would do well to understand this reality up close and personal, unromanticized. From Breslin's piece:
To The Max (contains explicit language; reversecowgirl blog)
In Max Hardcore movies--"Anal Agony," "Hardcore Schoolgirls," "Max! Don't F**k Up My Mommy!"--women are verbally and physically degraded in an unprecedented myriad of ways. They are choked, slapped, throat-****ed, penetrated with fists, given enemas, pile-driven, urinated upon, vomited upon, and in some instances instructed to drink from glasses the money shots that have been delivered into their rectums. Most of the time, Little as Hardcore is the perpetrator of these acts.
Not infrequently, his scenes are fraught with pedophilia themes, beginning when he stumbles upon his subjects in playgrounds, where they sit alone, in pigtails, talking baby-talk, and sucking on lollipops. Mostly, the sex scenes end with his latest costar a mess and Hardcore triumphant. Even for the most jaded porn watcher, Little's ouevre is over the top.
Watching Little's work is less like watching a porn movie than it is akin to witnessing a vivisection. On the screen, Hardcore bends over the female bodies before him, sometimes with speculum in hand, as if attempting to get at something within her at which he can never quite get, and so to which he is doomed to return, his methods more and more hardcore.
In Porn Valley, Little is something of a pariah. The larger, more mainstream-oriented and consumer-friendly adult production companies like Vivid Video and Wicked Pictures pride themselves on turning out adult content that plays by the rules, thereby, they hope, protecting the industry from legal persecution. In contrast, Little and company, other producers believe, put the entire industry at risk by creating content more likely to be targeted in obscenity indictments. (See: The Cambria List.)
In 2005, the Bush administration launched its so-called "War on Porn," forming the Obscenity Prosecution Task Force, a Department of Justice outfit dedicated to pursuing obscenity prosecutions, and the FBI began recruiting for a "porn squad," otherwise known as the Adult Obscenity Squad, focused on "manufacturers and purveyors" of pornography. In late 2005, federal agents raided Little's offices in Altadena, California, but it wasn't until early 2007 that his indictment was unsealed. As it turned out, OPTF Director Brent Ward had found getting US Attorneys to pursue obscenity prosecutions wasn't easy. Consequently, US Attorneys who preferred dedicating their resources to crimes other than obscenity in districts more likely to win the administration obscenity convictions were eliminated.
Late last year, the OPTF's first trial began in Phoenix, Arizona, pitting the US government against a producer of bukkake videos, but the result was an embarrassment, the pornographer slipping out of the government's hands in the courtroom. When it came to Little, prosecutors were gunning for a win. Finally, three years after the OPTF was formed, the Feds got their man.
UPDATE: Susannah Breslin has added a new update post with critical responses to her essay, and first-person testimonies related to this story from folks who grew up in or spent time in the "world" at issue. Really interesting read. Go have a look. Excerpt from one reader response:
Greenwald's entire point in discussing the farcical proceedings that convicted Little is that they specifically selected a venue for prosecution best suited to clearing that first hurdle:
'Even though he lived and worked in California, the Bush DOJ dragged him to Tampa, Florida in order to try him under Tampa's "community standards," on the theory that his website used servers physically based in Central Florida and some of the films were sent to Tampa customers who purchased them.'
And that's no legal standard at all - that's the whim of men, and most specifically men with a very particular kind of agenda regarding any and all public expressions or discussions of sex and sexuality - repulsive or otherwise. I think that the way to address this is not by a rigged judicial process but by passing better obscenity laws that have in mind as their first principles not moral scolding but the protection of porn performers, and that clearly lay down what is accepted and what is not rather than leaving those judgments to the whim of a given prosecutor.
"Not infrequently, [Max Hardcore] scenes are fraught with pedophilia themes, beginning when he stumbles upon his subjects in playgrounds, where they sit alone, in pigtails, talking baby-talk, and sucking on lollipops. "
I appreciate your mention of Susannah Breslin's post in here, Xeni, because it tempers the rallying "First Amendment" call -- and rightly so, imho. I believe quite strongly in freedom of speech and expression, but I also believe in protection of minors. Yes, there's lots of "teen sex" pr0n out there, using young-looking 18-20-year-olds, but I really have issues with stuff that's explicitly engaging and titillating to those with sexual proclivities for relationships with children, as it sounds like Little's materials attempt to do.
In my book, it's not a moral law -- it's protection for those who don't wield the emotional development to engage in a hugely unequal power balance relationship. This falls under the statute of protecting children from those individuals, by unequivocally restricting access to materials that encourage that behaviour. Little's filmwork sounds to be as much about power imbalance and control as it is about sexuality.
As much as I struggle with agreeing to anything "anti-obscenity," I tend to think this is the right call. A difficult one, to be sure, but I think unfortunately necessary.
So, according to this government, acting in porn is out, but torture is ok?
I guess the G-men don't want anyone muscling in on their abuse and humiliation racket.
How are these movies different from something like the "Saw" movies? As long as they take place between consenting adults, I don't really see the harm.
Oh yes, the government is hypocritical.
They should enforce *all* the laws, those against obscenity (see the Frontline special on how the Clinton justice department decided never to prosecute it, even though it wins in court 99% of the time) and those against torture
I'm not a huge fan of Max Hardcore, but I LOVE watching him ramble on. He's hilarious - his voice, his wording, everything! I hope this blows over.
Censorship is wrong. If you want to prosecute this scum for what he's done to the women, that's one thing. Then you can subpoena the unedited footage and look it up and down to find a crime. But don't start closing in on an industry and locking up these guys for putting out videos. After too long you'll be coming after more mainstream stuff, and by then it'll be too late.
I ask everyone who values our freedom to join in the outrage.
I am not sure Breslin's piece is authoritative at all. Sure, she gets the description down but where is the prescription? I just see her attempting to dismiss the opinion of Greenwald without offering any thoughts of her own. Of course her own feelings are easily implied by the rest of the piece, but where is the solution or anything?
I have viewed many clips of Little's work to understand the full impact of this sickness. I also am familiar with the Dworkins and MacKinnons of the world, and I agree with much of their analysis.
What I disagree with is the legal ramifications. I fully believe the work that Little produces is an abomination and something that must be addressed and fought. But certainly NOT legally. Obscenity laws have no place in a free and open society. Greenwald is 100% right in his legal analysis of the situation.
We need education, open discussion, an examination of the realities of porn and its repercussions, etc. We do not need to bring draconian laws and courts to settle this in a backwards manner.
"You're a hypocrite! Therefore I can do anything I want."
Films do not give us what we desire, they teach us how to desire. As such, filth like this truly is obscene and I have no problem making it illegal.
Hardcore's actors are obviously not children, they mostly wouldn't qualify for the faux teen / barely legal market. This has as much to do with kiddie porn as full grown men wearing diapers and being tended to in cribs by fetish nannies - which would be absolutely nothing. Ruling and sentence are a travesty. Hardcore is offensive and no one should hesitate to call him and his work unpalatable if that is their opinion but he is not a criminal and putting him in jail protects no one and serves no good interest.
This is a highly concerning excursion of the government into the affairs of consenting adults. While the material in question seems rather disgusting and something I'd find difficult to watch, my revulsion is completely immaterial to the fact that the actors within signed release forms and were fully cognizant of what they were making. Barring actual illegality such as pedophilia (not the simulated version of dressing a 18+ year old in pigtails), there is no reason for the government to be wasting valuable resources going after the producers of this supposedly obscene material.
Obscenity is a word that has no true definition in the rule of law. What is obscene to one is fine to another, it is a subjective analysis of the material. What qualifies this judge to remove a human's freedom for 4 years over their personal thoughts on what is obscene?
With all the problems pressing our society, such as high dropout rates, a dismal economy, a drug war that seems to have neither and end nor any impact, jailing Max Hardcore will not have a single effect upon any of this except to intimidate those who would produce more such material.
#1, i share your basic sentiment, but just a devils advocate type question (watered down from the actual subject at hand)
should furry porn be banned because the animals the people are representing lack the ability to consent?
Personally i hate max hardcores stuff, and i wonder how just how consensual some of it is. I care far more about the possibility that girls are really being bullied than i care about what is being simulated.
I'd rather it be a consenting adult with pigtails and a lollypop than a hesitant adult bullied into the industry or supporting a drug addiction and doing plain tame non-fetish porn.
Once you take the fight away from "is it consenting?" to "what is being simulated?", then you open the door to banning all sorts of other media for similar obscenities. There are a lot of books you could try to ban on similar grounds under the argument that reading something could give someone ideas or spur them to do something similar.
#11 its not thought crime, just media crime, so lets stoke the bonfires, i'll donate my copy of american psycho, because we all know that after reading it, practically everyone went out and nailed a hooker to the floor and cut off her lips with a razor blade.
oh.. wait.
I agree with most of the posters here. The material is repugnant, but unless the actors themselves are being exploited, it shouldn't be banned.
@#1: The human brain is fully capable of distinguishing fantasy from reality. Just like people that engage in bondage are not more likely to forcibly tie up and rape people, and people that play violent games and watch violent movies are not more likely to commit serial murders, people that watch women dressed up to look like they're under 18 having sex are not more likely to go out and rape real children. I know that "think of the children" is a convenient excuse for destroying civil liberties, but it's a really bad one, and the sooner it dies the sooner we can (hopefully) have a little more sanity in the world.
I suspect sales and viewership of Hardcore's "work" will increase dramatically given his arrest and media exposure. By attempting to censor his expression (foul though it may be), the court has promoted it better than Max ever could have.
It's the sense of taboo and wrongdoing that allow people like Hardcore to flourish. If the court really wanted to suppress them, they might consider removing all barriers to their free expression. That which is readily available and commonplace becomes far less interesting...
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@noen
Making something illegal just because you don't like it is the first step to let someone else make something illegal because he or she doesn't like it. Freedom of speech HAS to protect the bad in order to protect the good, otherwise what worth does the good have?
People are going to have a wide range of opinions on this but my feelings are pretty-much the same as that Glenn Greenwald quotation. How can you have the balls to prosecute consensually filmed acts when you're in another country torturing people against their will, without any humane oversight or human rights? I'm probably already on a list for questioning the absolute power and authority of the US government. Who am I to question its divine and God-driven actions?
all you have to do is watch a few small slices of Hardcore's movies and you can quickly see that many time the "actresses" appear under the influence of something, in a daze, and lots of times crying. Who knows, maybe they really can just simulate things that well, but i think #10 hit in on the head in saying that while they may have signed away their "consent", the true motives could be drug related or desperation etc..
This isn't enough in my book to jail Hardcore, but perhaps he could be more closely watched and regulated to ensure the subjects of his twisted movies truly are of proper mind when they are giving consent.
Anything that is legal to do, should be legal to film and distribute. And whether you like it or not, it's perfectly legal to perform a consensual pretend-rape with an adult woman who is pretending to be a little girl. Disturbing as hell to me and most other people... but legal.
Honestly, I don't really see this as being that much differant thant the Saw series - which I will also never watch, for much the same reasons.
#7 - If you need movies to teach you how to desire, something has gone seriously wrong...
I think obscenity laws are bullshit, and generally I am the kind of person who thinks misogynistic porn should be criticized rather than censored, but I am having a hard time drumming up any sympathy for a man who actively spreads blatant misogyny. I have spent a lot of time arguing against the Dworkin/MacKinnon school of thought, but cases like these really make me reconsider my stance.
I have a hard time believing the actresses are really and truly consenting. I have a hard time believing people would do this if they didn't have dire economic concerns.
I know it is hard to draw a line between what is objectionable but ultimately acceptable and what is not at all acceptable, but I know which side of the line this kind of porn falls on.
The photo of that woman with the smeared lipstick is literally making me sick to my stomach. I can't finish my breakfast.
How hypocrite can get the US gob without looking just plain stupid?
If it´s a movie with consenting adult and marketed to adults WHY it should be banned? Because some feel that they dont like THAT kind of porn?
There is a great line in Goethe´s Faust that resumes it all:
"We to chaste ears it seems must not pronounce
What, nathless, the chaste heart cannot renounce."
I've got mixed feelings about the conviction for the ridiculous filth. But four years? That's more than the average time served for all violent crimes, where someone is actually hurt. Four months would have had the deterrent effect that the neocons were going for here.
"Films do not give us what we desire, they teach us how to desire. As such, filth like this truly is obscene and I have no problem making it illegal. "
Wow, talk about a fragile mind.
I don't watch this stuff but it doesn't harm me. It doesn't harm you either. What I find filthy and obscene is people like you who want to go around dictating what and how others' should think.
To begin with, I can't believe Greenwald wrote his opinion without even viewing any of Hardcore's material. Perhaps it's a lawyer's desire to avoid an emotional reaction, but one should at least be familiar with the content one writes about.
That being said, this is a phony controversy.
The so-called "degradation" and "humiliation" that takes place in Hardcore's films is consensual, compensated, and probably even desired by the recipient as a peak experience. Hardcore's practices are well-known in the industry, and it is highly unlikely that the participants were unaware of what they were about to engage in, performers are paid by what they are willing to do.
Can the same be said for the humiliation and degradation experienced by people in their day to day lives, which is mostly experienced as involuntary, undesired, and certainly not compensated?
What about depictions of violence, real and imagined?
From the history of the species, one can easily tell that these acts preceded the images of them. Yet, Breslin would have us believe that the images train us how to act. Hardcore is supposed to be indoctrinating us to degrade people.
Yet, one would be hard-pressed to engage in the acts Hardcore depicts without express consent all around. Imagine trying to piss or vomit on someone you picked up at a bar without their consent. You would proably wind up in jail, or get the crap kicked out of you by them or their friends at a later date. Imagine trying to force someone you picked up at the bar to vomit or piss on you. In all probability, they would probably not oblige you.
This whole controversy stems from a phony, romanticized version of sexuality that eschews the more primal or experimental outliers.
Maybe the "sensitive" "story-line" pornos will be next.
None of these issues were touched upon by the so-called authorities.
Are we outlawing convincing acting in porn?
Seriously, what is the problem here? Why does this guy have to go to jail if it was between consenting adults? If there was an issue of consent, then sure, but just because the porn is too filthy for your taste doesn't mean someone needs jail time. Are we still puritans? WTF? It wasn't even a snuff film.
If you don't like it, don't watch it. It's not hard to avoid. I find mayonnaise revolting so I avoid it. No one's making you watch it.
#19. LAUREN O
I think your aversion to Max's work is pushing you into a dangerous black/white camp. The problem with Dworkin/MacKinnon (in many cases) is not their analysis and description, but their PRESCRIPTION. You can agree with parts of things while finding a lot of it objectionable, ya know? :P
I definitely find Max Hardcores' work to be sick, degrading, and an abomination. It should be fought against. Where I disagree with Dworkin/MacKinnon is HOW and WHERE you fight against it. Obscenity laws, courts, criminal sentencing, etc. is NOT where you go. Just like it is not where you go for drugs or many other crimes.
What drives this work? What drives people to consent? To take part? What in their background? What economic reasons? Etc. This is where the Dworkin school of thought, among others, provides plenty of insight.
But all of that insight must be pulled together in a rational and reasonable manner to provide a genuine argument and strategy to fight this scourge.
Relying on so-called BS obscenity laws, judges, trials, prison is a shammockery!
#17/#20, Wareagle: I think you're mistaking bad acting for "under the influence of something/in a daze".
You don't have evidence of anything. At best, you have something that might be enough to encourage an investigation of the productions - but really, do you think this administration wouldn't be ALL OVER the chance that some of the actresses were really raped?
They could tar the entire porn industry with the same "rapist" brush if they could do that.
I think the fact that they HAVEN'T indicates it's been investigated, and discarded because the actresses really did consent.
I know that a lot of people have a hard time believing that actresses would do this of their own free will. But what you and I find objectionable (and I do find his work disgusting) other people might view as just funny. I know that might be shocking, but hey...lots of various opinions out there other than yours. Is yours the "right" one?
I don't get the impression that porn actors and actresses spend a whole lot of time agonizing over what is misogynistic. I imagine the thought process is probably something along the lines of, "You'll pay me $1000 to be barfed on? Pffftt...no problem!" As for the talent required to act dazed and out of it...that's not exactly the most challenging emotion to realistically portray. It sounds to me as if some of you are looking for reasons to be okay with this verdict.
I would be interested if the prosecution asked any of his actresses if they felt abused or degraded. I'm guessing that they didn't. This was a trial about obscenity, after all. Who is the victim here?
what's the male/female split on opinions here?
Iâve watched several clips from Littleâs work and it makes me physically ill every time. His work is hateful and exploitive and I donât understand how any person could watch it and feel aroused. I think itâs disgusting and repugnant and would be happier if Iâd never seen it. It makes me sad that my little girl is growing up in a world where this type of film can make money.
That being said, I have to agree with Kobo (#6). Just because I, and others, are horrified by this manâs work does not mean it should be illegal. I kind of wish it did, but it doesnât.
Taking advantage of the mentally ill, and this guy's crap does that on many levels, should be a crime. You don't even need to get into the obscenity argument.
I am also split between amusement and horror that some people here seem to think there's some magical switch that gets flipped 18 years after you leave your mother's body that suddenly turns something that should be a crime into something that shouldn't. Consumers of Little's "work" are most certainly in the realm of pedophilia. Saying it is something different just because these are "consenting adults" is like saying that many/most fans of Ultimate Fighting aren't watching it for the violence, just because the participants are "consenting adults."
If anything is obscene, this dude's work is.
Of course, I'm sure some will argue that nothing is obscene or that obscenity shouldn't be a crime, but I think they made the right call on this one.
Making something illegal just because you don't like it
Not because I don't like it, because it is harmful. I'm also in favor of limiting TV violence for the same reasons, it causes real harm.
Re: the hypocrisy of prosecuting consensual acts when engaged in torture.
As I thought I made clear, the hypocrisy of those in authority is no excuse for material that causes harm. That the police abuse their authority is no excuse to throw bricks at them. That is a childish, adolescent response. Your criticism is based on a false view of human nature. People are not rational monads. We are social, so much so that our beliefs and our very identities are easily shifted and mutated. Propaganda works, advertisements work, they create demand where none existed before. The Self is not located in your head, it is spread around in your social net. That is why we were able to take detainees and virtually wipe their minds clean and install in them new beliefs, a new identity.
People need limits, societies need limits. That's what culture is. Otherwise you're just a troop of monkeys shitting on each other.
Thanks for bringing up Breslin's reporting, Xeni, Max Hardcore's stuff is truly disturbing. I don't think it would pass the "California" definition of obscenity in even the most liberal region of the country. (Actually, given Hardcore's utter hatred of women, it's probably more offensive in, say, San Francisco or Cambridge, than anywhere else.) I'm a First Amendment absolutist, but it was still nice to see Hardcore weeping like a pathetic little bitch in front of a female judge.
"I have a hard time believing the actresses are really and truly consenting. "
Me too, there is a distinct difference between his porn and other "rough" porn. Ashley blue does a lot of rough porn but i rarely feel like she's anything but into it.
I think rather than looking into what was being shown, they should have looked into what actually happened. Interviewed the actresses extensively. If they ever said no and things went bad and they were offered more money or coerced at all.
buying someone out doesn't equal consent.
I think the sticking point here is the apparent consensuality of the acts being performed. Little's work shows him as a predator, going out and finding little girls to humiliate. The performers do not appear to be engaging in something consensual. He's creating elaborate rape fantasies. The acts themselves are shocking, but not too far removed from what Ashley Blue or Audrey Hollander might do in one of their videos. The difference is that Ashley Blue and Audrey Hollander come across as actively enjoying the acts, while Little's actresses do not.
Little has been accused of getting his actresses drunk or stoned before shoots, and before getting them to sign the consent forms. I think there should be more investigation into how sober these young women were when they agreed to work with him. Nothing wrong with BDSM, rape fantasy, etc., but it's gotta be consensual. Provably so, if necessary.
" What is obscene to one is fine to another, it is a subjective analysis of the material."
I doubt that.
Obscene is that which appeals to a prurient interest. Some people may be fine with their prurient interest, but that doesn't make it not prurient.
People who like to see this stuff are horrible people. full stop.
@36: Just to clarify your logic, what if Little's videos were sold as "instructional" videos? Would those be ok? If not, then what makes that substantively different enough than what he is doing now to make that a crime and these not?
What I'm getting at is that "consent" (which is a much more nebulous topic than you give it credit for) isn't really at issue here.
@NOEN - For the past 12 to 14 months, I've seen most of your comments here on BoingBoing, so I'll consider myself something of an expert on your doublespeak:
Please think before you post some of things you do. You have some of the most ill-informed opinions on human nature, sociology, politics, etc.
"...our beliefs and our very identities are easily shifted and mutated."
"Films do not give us what we desire, they teach us how to desire."
I mean, read that stuff out loud to yourself. Do you realize how nonsensical this stuff is? I'm not trying to flame you, but I grow weary of your self-aggrandizing, self-righteous drivel that you seem to post on a consistent basis.
In regards to this BB article, the very ability for you to spout fabrications and non sequiturs in the comments is employed by Max Hardcore. He makes a statement with his films (no matter how repugnant he may be to you) just as you make statements like "The Self is not located in your head, it is spread around in your social net."
Sheesh.
I agree there's no magic switch at 18, also including for drinking alcohol, or smoking, or driving, or flying an airplane, or gun ownership, or voting. Citing "pedophilia" (or more accurately "ephebophilia" perhaps conflates the real issue: consent. How can the degree of ability of consent be detected? I think by focusing on the problem of determining consent can both legitimate sex work and youth rights be reconciled.
"I suspect sales and viewership of Hardcore's "work" will increase dramatically given his arrest and media exposure. By attempting to censor his expression (foul though it may be), the court has promoted it better than Max ever could have."
No! No! It will have a chilling effect! Thing of all the other Hardcores of the world who will not make their disgusting films. That's the true loss.
Despicable pieces of shit like Little, bring out the fascist in me. Despicable hypocrits like those populating the DoJ, leave me disgusted and embarrassed. Please, please bring on the sleepy-headed kittens.
It's always OK to do to women what you would never agree to do to any other class of person. If you think it's right, just insert "black person" into every sentence instead of "woman" or "girl."
Suddenly, it's a hate crime, which is what this man's work is, plain and simple. I hope he's raped in prison, repeatedly.
I should start a farm. As a condition of working on the farm, you agree that I have the right to beat you, on film, if I find your work unsatisfactory. I'll pay you a lot, but I get to beat you. Then I go to Mexico and hire people to work on my farm.
When I beat them and sell the films, first amendment voluptuaries will come rushing to my defense!
My concern with obscenity laws, on top of the ones already mentioned, is that I actually don't want to see this sort of filth (I am trying to find another, more objective term, but I am failing) further driven underground.
There is no doubt that such material is absolutely revolting and nauseating, but it IS out there and throwing some blanket obscenity law upon it doesn't actually make it disappear. If anything, it creates a false 'out of sight, out of mind' sense of control that accomplishes nothing (aside from having the impression that our world is a whole lot cleaner than it really is).
I agree that we need to ensure that the people involved are indeed adults and consenting beyond all reasonable doubts. However, dismissing the entire thing as illegal just shoves it in the dark further from proper inspection, regulation and public vigilance. I understand that it is difficult for most (including myself) to conceive that anyone would participate in such acts without coercion. But we must be willing to keep the dialogue opened and two-sided so that everybody involved is protected by and from the law no matter what they choose for themselves.
"films(...)teach us how to desire"
I'd be more willing to bet that out upbringing, education and interpersonal relationships (and no genetic sociopathic tendencies, if they do exist) teach us how to desire. If films were the foremost influence on North Americans' drives, we'd have become a smoking wasteland long ago.
The point being: culture is not top down (with "limits"), it's bottom-up with emergent consent.
Films do not give us what we desire, they teach us how to desire.
No Noen. Prohibition teaches us how to desire.
I haven't watched any clips of this guy's stuff, but I'd like to weigh in as someone into BDSM as a bottom.
Yes. There are people in the world that get off on being degraded and violated. The key to all of it is that it's consensual. That dazed/drugged out appearance could be what's called sub-space. It's a state of mind you enter that's quite similar to many types of drugs when you're into such things. I've been flogged to the point of an out-of-body experience.
I was expecting more from you boingboing commenters. Restrictions on speech? And what about the Maker/Creative Commons bent? This porn gets made because someone is watching it. Go ahead and ban it. It'll just be passed around on torrent networks. Then the homemade stuff will get passed around. You can't legislate human nature.
Now that the feds have claimed this scalp, maybe they will go after Genki next.
Because if you think it's disturbing to watch Max peeing on a skinny 25-year old with smeary makeup, you'll probably want to gouge your eyes out when you see what that woman does with all those goldfish.
The moral of this story is: people everywhere are f**ked in the head about sexuality, and applying laws to pretend that it ain't so isn't going to make anyone have healthier attitudes about it.
"The Self is not located in your head, it is spread around in your social net."
Yes, I think part of our identity is defined by our culture but to state that it's totally a construct of it is stupid. The word means the exact opposite of what you're saying.
"People need limits, societies need limits. That's what culture is. Otherwise you're just a troop of monkeys shitting on each other."
Seems like you're projecting to me. I've followed the idea that what you do when no one is watching is what defines you, that your worse deed, not your best is how you should be judged.
So what should we limit about you?
This makes me sick, but that's not the point.
Who decides what is obscene? Who decides? If nobody liked what this guy does he wouldn't be in business.
And prosecuting using the "well they didn't really consent to THAT" brings the rest of tamer porn into question as well. If the actors are being blackmailed or otherwise railroaded into doing this stuff then prosecute that.
The problem with prosecuting "obscenity" is that it opens the door to anything being considered obscene.
I'll be surprised if the ACLU doesn't jump on this one.
@40 - Zuzu, you cannot consent to harm. Otherwise you'd never have a malpractice suit because the doctor's waiver would cover his/her entire ass. Unconscionability trumps whatever supposed "consent" has taken place. Maybe we've "consented" to what Bush has done to our country and shouldn't complain?
"Then how did culture emerge before the very concept of authority was invented? "
Huh? Pack animals have Alpha males. That's WAY before culture.
Now, as far as beating your farmhands... if they consensually agree, then sure. That's their choice. The flip-side of that is, that they have the right to quit at any time regardless of contract (thus precluding indentured servitude as a euphemism for slavery). And the flip-side of that is that you have the right to fire them at any time.
@49: Who decides what *any* crime is? It's all necessarily arbitrary. Saying that you can't classify everything infallibly as "wrong" in everybody's eyes doesn't mean that everybody has free reign on whatever they feel like doing. When something is demonstrably harmful without any reasonable amount of redeeming value, it's not that extreme to say there should be at least some sort of limit on it.
I don't want to ban anything, but I sure wish this kind of thing didn't exist.
Defending the 1st amendment sometimes means defending a creep, and Max Hardcore is undeniably a creep, and yet I can't bring myself to defend him.
Max Hardcore reminds me of Deniro's "Max Cady" from the remake of "Cape Fear"-- maybe he hasn't broken any laws, but everything he did is still wrong, there's an underlying sinister-ness about it all; he hasn't committed pedophila or rape, but that is pretty much his intent. I hate to infer intent, but in this case it's pretty obvious. But then there are plenty of films that portray murder. . . and I have no problem defending them.
Which brings me to what a friend said about "The Blair Witch Project"-- it didn't scare him because he knew it wasn't real, despite their attempts to make it seem real. There's something "too real" about Max Hardcore movies, I mean, they are obviously real, and not just the vomit or sex, but the degradation too. Like others here I can't believe the actresses were 100% consenting-- they are portraying being abused too well, if it was an act then they should be doing serious drama with that talent. Maybe Mr. Little will claim it's a form of "method acting", but I'm not buying it.
Is this verdict part of the slippery slope or not? Time will tell. Maybe it won't hurt the rest of the porn industry-- what Max Hardcore does is not the same as what Vivid (et al) do; he has more in common with "snuff" films than erotica.
And there are plenty of people in this world who prefer to be choked, spanked, cut, and beaten, in the same personal situations as most everyone has sex or masturbates.
@57 - No, I never receive compensation. Perhaps I am the most efficient charity operation in existence. :-)
You're getting *way* too hung up on "consent." Having the "right" to do something isn't the same as having the ability to do something. You don't think a lot of those girls in those movies probably want to stop but are so afraid from being so thoroughly abused at point that they "consent" by staying silent out of fear? Is that real consent? Are battered women in abusive relationships consenting to that abuse? Do you really want to go down that road?
I'd have been for an investigation over whether his contracts with the models were legitimate. I.e., the attorney general could have contacted as many of the models as he could find, learn whether any felt they'd been misled, and he could have created a civil suit to win additional compensation for the models.
But a criminal case with no actual victim named, either real or even theoretical? Jail time rather than damages that could have gone to a good cause?
@62: If you actually want something, it's not harm. If it's doing something beneficial for you, it's not harm. You didn't answer my point about malpractice -- if you're correct in your analysis, there would be no such thing.
this is sad, there's so much worse.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bumfights for instance.
Have any of you ever actually met someone that does this kind of work? Are you so certain that this stuff is non-consensual? Because my own experience working in this field points to the contrary.
I'm in favor of torts and arbitrated dispute resolution over unilateral laws and judicial rulings.
A lot of these comments are thoughtful (and mostly correct) in decrying it. The only part I disagree with is that it is repugnant. It might be repugnant to most, but someone (even if just "Max Hardcore" it yet remains legitimate) or multiple people out there enjoy viewing these forms of pornography. I am not even worried about where the line becomes drawn, as I highly doubt there is going to be an excursion against other forms of "unusual" pornography or, say, a news stories about autoerotic asphyxiation deaths being struck down. What I am concerned about is that this is a violation of thought and our enjoyment of thought and their legitimate, consensual expression. No matter how anathema it may be to most, or even the consenting actor, 'strapped for cash' or whatever may cause her to do something repugnant to her, it is legitimate. Even if they are simulating pedophilia, it is not actual pedophilia. If it were, then by our legal system, he would rightfully be indicted. I do not care about the first amendment or not - I care about common sense protection of rights.
Now, if one does want to make it an issue of this opening the door for offending rights more often in the future, then it does set a terrible precedent for allowing that to happen, with the obvious first loss being any pornography with any harmful acts at all. I am sure some actors love being in these types of films; mayhap ones not as brutalizing as Max Hardcore, as the man seems intent on producing porn to satisfy his own childish misogynistic desires, and not to encourage any legitimate BDSM type of relationship. There are many much more well structured types that no one would particularly think are wrong, but this would open up the door for any of them to be marginalized. It would even technically allow for any forms with this type of speech in a misogynistic vein to be banned, I would think. I believe, however, that this is simply not a line that will be abused because first amendment outcries almost always gain sympathy in the nation. The only reason that might not hold true here is your typical conformist mental tykes in this nation's aversion to admitting they have any fetishes at all and that any fetishes are shocking and terrible.
Also, no, I do not need to watch any of this stuff by "Max Hardcore", as it would be hard to fathom this being that vastly different from swap.avi, which is perfectly humorous.
But I poop from there!
Has anyone seen this?
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/features/her-first-orgy-i-couldnt-face-it-680502.html
It was documentary on the UK's Channel 4 several years back. In that (and it's a pretty even handed film), Max Hardcore comes out of it looking like a psychopathic rapist.
If what happened in that documentary is representative of Little's behaviour to his other "stars", why is the US DoJ going after him with a freedom of speech case? The guy is scum, why not leave the First Amendment out of this? It looks like they could just as easily be nailing him on rape charges?
The bigger picture here is that the Republicans are trying to drive a wedge in. The next prosecution will be against something slightly less shocking and then a lesser one after that. It's the standard model for rolling back your freedoms.
Um ... actually, if you want something it's still harm. I used to like having my girlfriend cut strips into my arms. Illegal over here, but we both enjoyed it so we both did it. The scars are pretty damning evidence of harm though.
I don't think anyone's going to argue that this bloke's a nice guy, but what it boils down to is a fight between consent and censorship. And, since this clearly hasn't been made clearly enough for some people, forced consent is not consent. It doesn't count. And there is noone here, I'd be willing to bet, who would not support his being sent to gaol if such coercion could be proven. If you're going to imprison someone, it should be for a real crime and proven to be such, not some bollocks created by disapproving concerned citizens so they don't have to look at the weird people next door.
I have no use for Max Hardcore or this genre of porn. Free speech or not, what he does is violent, despicable, and in extreme poor taste to all but the most deviant of sub-humans shamefully crawling the planet. I hope he will now have the opportunity to be a recipient of his vile acts in his new home. Bye bye scum bag.
What many people have said is true. Max Hardcore's stuff would be evil and illegal if he was forcing the actors to participate--but so would other, less extreme porn.
The extremeness doesn't make it more wrong, except that it makes it more likely/plausible that he is forcing them. It does, however, make it more disgusting and revolting.
For the record, I've seen some. It was so over-the-top that I couldn't believe they weren't formally consenting, although I would be very surprised if they weren't drugged or otherwise abused beforehand. It fell into the uncanny valley, where only people playing out a scripted role could do something like that. Not arousing, somewhat revolting, very unsettling.