by Rodger Jacobs
(10/18/00)
"It is hard to laugh at the need for beauty and romance,
no matter how tasteless, even horrible, the results of that
need are. But it is easy to sigh. Few things are sadder than
the truly monstrous."
--Nathanael West, The Day of the Locust
The command center for Luke Ford's suicide mission against the adult entertainment industry is a dank bungalow in Beverly Hills, a stone's throw away from the headquarters of Larry Flynt Publications. It is from this small and cramped bunker that Ford, the heretic son of a Christian evangelist, lobs his poisonous grenades filled with scurrilous gossip against the stars, producers, directors, and distributors of skin flicks, via his website at www.lukeford.com.
Someday Luke Ford -- described by The Weekly Standard as "a kind of shaggy-haired, acid-washed Brad Pitt (who) serves as the industry's Matt Drudge" -- will be silenced, either by voluntary exclusion, banishment from the business he so despises, or worse. But until that fateful day the Australian-born hellion remains the most-visible sniper in a lone shooting spree against easy targets. For two years now, Luke Ford has shaken the insulated establishment of the XXX trade by daring to expose their dark underside -- as if it wasn't already understood on a pandemic level that porn attracts "scum bags, dishonest types, showmen, scam artists, prisoners, and career criminals."
Ford's "report now, verify later" style of gossip-mongering has caused him to inherit a multitude of harsh critics, including porn journalist Gene Ross of Adult Video News, who, in a 1998 editorial, dubbed Ford "a pen-wielding Rosemary's Baby... a keyboard vigilante with a penchant for a hanging. Ford, in my opinion, chooses to essay the role of some bow-wielding William Tell figure whose quest for truth and justice is achieved by methods best understood by the Ku Klux Klan."
A devout convert to the Jewish faith who feels "a strong attraction to pornography and sin, and to the flight from moral responsibility," Luke Ford is a human Rubik's cube, a complex maze of dazzling colors and contradictory schemes that rarely match up. At times he dutifully plays the role of a self-appointed messiah, a weeping martyr wandering through the burning desert of sin and damnation with bleeding blisters on his bare feet. In contrasting moments he seems hedonistically immersed in the world of bare flesh and writhing orgasms, a fallen angel enjoying the lusty delights of human existence.
And like every writer seeking validation, particularly Internet scribes, Luke Ford sat down and wrote a book. Prometheus Books accepted Ford's challenge to the limits of his own audacity by agreeing to release his self-indulgent polemic, A History of X, upon the world. The book flap hails A History of X as "an in-depth comprehensive history of cinematic pornography," and hilariously salutes Ford as "the best known source on the contemporary world of pornography."
The critics don't share the lavish praise of Luke's own publishers. The January 1999 issue of Publisher's Weekly hacked into Luke's book, asserting that it achieves "neither coherence nor climax . . . most disturbing of all, Ford doesn't appear to be especially well-informed on his topic." One magazine editor preferring to remain anonymous confided to me that he was "a little aghast that Prometheus let this book slip through . . . it has no logical structure whatsoever." Stylistic criticism aside, A History of X is striking a chord with readers, ranking number 35 on Ingram Books list of the Top 50 requested pop culture titles for the week of June 14, 1999, right behind Gary Warner's General Hospital Scrapbook at the fourth ranking, and Rat Pack Confidential by Shawn Levy in the number thirteen slot.
It is with an odd mixture of pride and revulsion that I call Luke Ford my friend. He can be kind, affable, and keenly intelligent, while possessing all the nasty traits of a venomous snake who bites simply for the sake of striking out at something -- in other words, I have been the victim of his poison pen. What follows is an interview with a confused messianic prophet who I sincerely hope does not end up crucified on a cross of his own invention.
R.J.: How do you react to some of the hostile critical reaction A History of X has received?
FORD: I think the bad reviews the book has received are largely deserved. It is poorly written. Most of the original information in it was cut out by my editor for being defamatory, libelous, gossipy, etcetera. This is my first published book. It is an interesting process. I signed a contract with Prometheus in May of 1998. In November I first heard from my editor. I received my first two chapters from my original manuscript, which I knew needed lots of direction, in December, with a note asking for a three day turnaround. I was expected to write my answers to her dozens of questions, and pointers, on to the original manuscript. Then in January, I received the final nine chapters of my book with the same instructions. Needless to say, I could not pull together everything in three days and write it on to the original manuscript. I basically gave up, did what I could do, and thanked God that I have a website where I can write and publish what I want. As a book, A History of X is mediocre at best. But what other books are out there on the history of hardcore? None.
R.J.: Why do you think there has been so little literary output about the adult business?
FORD: Because it is such a low down scummy impolite subject to write about, so nice people stay far away. Having anything to do with porno, quite properly, carries social contagion. You are tarred, forever, with the muck of a sinful industry.
Why read about porn? To learn about yourself and the world. The industry provides a superb testing ground for finding out what men want. Female demand for porn expressed in dollars spent is insignificant. Unless pornographers satisfy the needs of millions, they go bankrupt. While Ph.D.s theorize about sexuality, pornographers deal with its reality. By studying porn therefore, we are far less likely to study nothing than if we undertook graduate work in Sociology or English. The sex industry grosses billions of dollars each year by appealing to the male daydream, to what motivates many of us to get out of bed in the morning to go to work. Revolving around lust and money, porn springs from the most primal desires. Pornographers live out the fantasies that haunt millions. By delving deep inside porn stars, we discover the results of getting what you want. Does fame, fortune, and fucking lead to happiness? The lives of such actresses as Marilyn Chambers, Ginger Lynn and Savannah provide differing answers. To ignore porn is to ignore life, to avoid facing dreams made flesh. Males learn quickly that few females and the religious will explore such visions. A lad who wants to win friends and influence people does not discuss his fantasies in mixed company. While women complain that men refuse to open up, men know that to voice what we truly think about invites shock, derision and anger. Women who seek to understand men should rent a few X-rated videos like Anal Analysis. That's what your loving father, husband, brother and friend ponder, Anal Analysis, Women Who Suck Cock and Eat Cum, Black Fuckers. I'm sorry I had to be the one to give the bad news. Porn acts out our dirty desires. It does the things we can't or shouldn't, such as screw the neighbor's wife.That virtually all men in all cultures in all history desired an infinite variety of sex partners, and raped en masse when they could get away with it, debunks the notion that Hugh Hefner created promiscuity.
Most of my friends and religious community passionately oppose my decision to research porn. At best, they think it odd; at worst, evil. So why did I do it? To stroke my two greatest interests -- myself and the world. By exploring porn I explore myself. I explore the fantasies I rarely utter. And by understanding my dreams, I feel more at peace. Through understanding the sex industry I better understand humanity. It's wonderful to desire a better world, but first you must face reality. If you don't get your premises right, your crusade may do more harm than good. Understanding that porn springs from male desire more than male desire springs from porn, would save thousands of activists from wasting their time. Their focus is wrong. To adjust a quote from Shakespeare, our problems are not in our stars, or in our porn, but in ourselves. Inanimate objects like videos or guns or nuclear weapons do not cause evil, notes Jewish theologian Dennis Prager. People do. If a man remains single all his life because he will only settle down with a Playboy Playmate, that is his fault, not porn's.
R.J.: What compelled you to make the sex business the focus of your journalism?
FORD: The primary reason was professional -- it had not been done, at least not since Sinema in 1974. I wanted to write about something that people would buy to read, and thus thought a history of X would be popular. I was right. The other reason was personal. I personally am interested in sex, and the sex industry. I feel a strong attraction to pornography, to sin, and to the flight from moral responsibility, and ultimately, God.
R.J.: Your Internet rival, Gene Ross, accused you of having "a weird obsession with Vito Corleone-types and lurking Mafia conspiracies." Do you still believe that organized crime exerts a strong influence in the porn community?
FORD: I think it still exerts an influence, yes. I think one valid perspective on the porn industry is to view organized porn as organized crime. Porn attracts the same people as organized crime -- drug addicts, drug smugglers, psychopaths, scum bags, dishonest types, showmen, scam artists, prisoners, career criminals. The legality of porn depends upon community standards, and these are always shifting.
R.J.: You cover the infamous Traci Lords scandal in your book. Don't you believe that it was Traci who victimized the industry -- considering she willfully faked her I.D. in order to appear in porn -- rather than the other way around?
FORD: In Judaism, a child becomes a man at age 13. I hold Traci Lords responsible for her shenanigans, for the negative consequences she inflicted on people's lives and on porn. So yes, I believe Traci victimized porn, rather than the other way around. I feel funny using that language however. I feel that porn attracts unethical types like Traci. So saying Traci victimized porno is like saying Henry Hill victimized the Mafia. Porn deserves Traci Lords and Linda Lovelace and their ilk.
R.J.: How do you feel about Linda Lovelace's cries of victimization in her book Ordeal? Shouldn't these stories be taken on a case-by-case basis, rather than handed down as blanket indictments against the business?
FORD: The public's perception of porn as a form of contagion, moral, spiritual and physical, is basically correct. While on the surface there's nothing unethical or immoral about consenting adults filming consenting adults in consensual legal behavior, the consequences of porn, like those of homosexuality and other sins, are profoundly destructive and hence immoral. Porn is another form of rebellion against God. Porn is anti-God, and in the final analysis, God is the Creator, the source of life and of right and wrong. He is the repository of meaning. So while Traci Lords and Linda Lovelace are very big liars, I have no problem with the public's kneejerk blanket indictment of porn as an immoral business. I agree with that. By the way, I view Hollywood, TV, teacher and lawyer unions, much of the Democratic Party, etcetera, as even more destructive. I believe that there are forces for good in this society -- churches, charity groups -- and forces for evil. Porn is a force for ill, for both the individual user and producer, and for his society.
R.J.: By your own admission you are not a regular consumer of porn. How do you feel qualified to write about a business that you apparently have such little affection toward?
FORD: I despise the particularly American preoccupation with credentials. That I've made a living for two years off my writing makes me a writer. That enough people visit my website and patronize its advertisers is all the "qualification" I need to write about porn. Or any subject. I see no need for a writer to like his subject, be it baseball or movies or porno. Empathy with one's subject is not necessarily better than lack of empathy for one's subject.
R.J.: Has porn permanently settled into the popular culture, or is it just a passing phase?
FORD: The pornographic male imagination, which produces pornography, has been with us always. The amount of physical pornography in a society depends on its laws and mores and these will vary. If America undergoes a religious revival, porn will play a much smaller role in pop culture.
R.J.: Because of incendiary material you have posted on your website you have received death threats and numerous threats of litigation for slander. Would it be fair to say that Luke Ford is a man who lives his life in constant fear?
FORD: I live my life in frequent fear -- of myself. Of my own moral weakness. My biggest struggles are with my evil inclinations. Dealing with the porno world and the outer world is much easier than dealing with my inner world. My problems are not in porn but in myself.
