This was supposed to be a Valentine’s Day column. It was going tobe about how we alternately love and hate the holiday depending onour relationship status during February. I sat down to write,however, and I couldn’tbring myself to do it. I was too disturbed.
Instead, this column is about rape.
The PBS investigative journalism program Frontline recently did aprogram called “American Porn.” Mostly, it was about the growinglegitimacy of a once-hidden industry. For example, General Motors(through its DirectTV subsidiary) and ATandT (through ATandTBroadband, which sells to hotels) are now two of the largest porndistributors in the United States.
Also profiled, however, was Extreme Associates. This LosAngeles-based porn company is described by founder Rob Black as,”…extreme, gritty. A representation of life.” In the Frontlineinterview, Black’s wife, who goes by the name Lizzie Borden, explainsthe firm’s philosophy.
“I don’t shoot the lovey-dovey porno that you watch all the time.This is for people who (are) sick of ‘husband and the wife make lovewith candles.’ This is for if you want to jerk off with your pornoand your old lady, and you’re watching it, and you’re into hot,steamy sex where after it you feel like you just did drugs.”
This spring, Extreme Associates will release a movie called ForcedEntry. As is evident from the title, it chronicles a rape. The plotis typically negligible: a young woman’s car breaks down, she iskidnapped by three men who force her to have sex with them and thenkill her. Over the course of the film, the actress, Veronica Caine,is restrained, kicked, slapped and forced to have vaginal, oral andanal sex with each of three men.
Borden, who directed Forced Entry, said to Frontline in an on-setinterview, “She’s going to take a beating. Yeah, she’s really goingto get hit. She likes it.”
According to Michael Kirk, producer and director of the Frontlineprogram, Caine got much more than she bargained for.
“They wanted to surprise her, force some realism. And she knew shewas going to get slapped, and I mean really slapped. But she didn’tknow the extent to which she was going to get hit, didn’t know theextent to which she was going to be beaten.”
Kirk and the rest of the Frontline crew left the set of ForcedEntry when they saw what was happening.
Extreme Associates’ Web page -which includes picturesof confederate flags, and the slogan, “We’re Republican and we’reproud!” – gives the following promotional blurb about thefilm.
“During the course of this scene, Taylor (the main character) isutterly and brutally manhandled to the point of oblivion. She is spiton, her mouth is fish-hooked; she is slapped, her hair is pulled; sheis throat-f**ked, her ass is annihilated; and she takes a sloppy pairof loads to the face, which is smothered onto her like jelly.”
It is not simply the depiction of rape that bothers me -although that would certainly be enough – but that ExtremeAssociates will profit from it. Forced Entry cost about $20,000 tomake, and will sell for $45.95. Tens of thousands of dollars inprofit will be made.
I am one of the most stringent free speech advocates you can find.Also, I have never thought it reasonable to judge others when itcomes to sexual practices.
But this is wrong.
Morally, legally and by the simple standards of human dignity,what is being done by Extreme Associates is wrong. The one event Ican personally envision as being worse than death is protractedtorture. I think rape certainly qualifies.
This is in no way a “moral outrage” column on my part. I usepornography on what can only be called a regular basis – asdo, I think it’s fair to say, most men with internet connections. I’dlike to emphasize that: I masturbate. I use porn when I do it. I donot believe that it is against God’s will to do so, or that the mereexistence of pornography somehow pollutes or damages society.
This is no case of one man’s smut being another’s erotica. ForcedEntry is beyond any line of decency one would care to set. Peoplelike Rob Black and Lizzie Borden make me simultaneously believe thereis no God, and wish fervently for His existence, in order that therebe a hell for them to burn in.
-Charles Crawford is an information and decision systemssenior and assistant opinion editor for The Daily Aztec.
-This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion ofThe Daily Aztec. Send e-mail to letters@thedailyaztec.com.Anonymous letters will not be printed – include your fullname, major and year in school.
