Episode 225: Live: The Birth of Porn
Dave: …and then they would all have an orgy.
Gareth: Why the honey? They just like honey?
Wil: You know, like at a restaurant…it’s an amuse-bush.
Guest host: Wil Anderson
Okay, y’all. These are the gold nuggets that I mine that you live for. BEHOLD:
Martin Luther King, Jr. and Jefferson Fuck Poland wrote letters to each other.
Digest that. Take it into your brainpan and let it marinate. I am clutching my pearls with joy. Say it with me, Rubes: Everything is connected.
Poland’s letter is undated; Dr. King’s response is dated November 16, 1962. Screenshots are below. Poland’s is not the easiest to read, so I have also typed it for you, because I think how he wrote is important–you can see the very beginning of digging it and feeling it, man.
Dear Rev. King,
This is something I think you will want to know.
A few weeks ago a man in Panama City, Florida, one Ross Mullin, sent you a poem which criticized prejudice. (Since you were out of town, your secretary sent him a form reply.)
This man was my grandfather. He had been against Jews and Negroes almost all his life. When I had gotten thrown in jail for sit-ins, he had been shocked and angered. Finally, after some 60-odd years of hate, he grew to the point where he wrote you that poem. I had not had time to write him of my pride ad joy before I got a telegram telling me he is dead.
As you Christians would put it, he died in a state of grace, newly found. I’m not religious myself, but I think there must be something divine in Man, that he continues to grow until the hour of death.
Yours,
Jefferson Poland
This is why I love history, y’all! I am chair-dancing.
Okay, okay, on to the porn and boobs and stuff.
- Sex Marchers by Jefferson F. Poland and Sam Sloan
- The Records of the San Francisco Sexual Freedom League by Jefferson F. Poland and Valerie Alison
The Sexual Freedom League: founded by Poland and Leo Koch in New York, 1963;
…unleashed with a national splash in San Francisco in 1965–the”Nude Wade-in” was led by Poland, 23, Ina Saslow, 21, and Shirley Einseidel, 21 at Aquatic Park, a public beach;
…brought to Berkeley by Poland in 1966 with a loose organization, and spread from campus to campus with its message of free love and political reform, especially concerning the repeal of laws against censorship and abortion
If a political group wants my attention, a nude wade-in to the surf would definitely get it. I’d at least show up to take pictures (so many pictures) so you’d get your fliers in my hands, that’s for sure.
Poor zoning decisions were made:
Berkeley Daily Gazette
Tuesday April 25, 1967
Samuel Howard Sloan, Party host for Sexual Freedom Forum parties at 2714 Telegraph Avenue, was given 12 hours to vacate the premises by Berkeley-Albany Judge George Braun yesterday.
Sloan, 22, was arrested by Berkeley police over the weekend for contributing to the delinquency of a minor and for possession of marijuana. Judge Braun ordered the bail reduced on the contributing charge to $550 from $2,200 and to $1,000 on the marijuana charge on the condition Sloan will vacate the “orgy house” across the street from Willard Junior High School and if he will avoid associating with minors at any party involving alcoholic beverages.
(quote thanks to Wikipedia; scrapbook image thanks to anusha.com)
Yeah, maybe don’t orgy across the street from the jv cheerleaders’ and football players’ practice fields, and where the 11- to 14-year-olds get on and off their school buses. Just a small lifehack, from me to you. You’re welcome. I’m always here to help.
- Make Love, Not War: The Sexual Revolution, An Unfettered History * David Allyn
- Sexual Revolutions * Linda Grant
- Naked: A Cultural History of American Nudism * Brian Hoffman
- American Hippies * W. J. Rorabaugh
- Sex Scene: Media and the Sexual Revolution * Eric Schaefer
- Erotic City: Sexual Revolutions and the Making of Modern San Francisco * Josh Sides
And yes, Poland is now listed as a sex offender, and yes, he did change his name to Clitlick. Woman’s perspective here, from experience: the more a man randomly, and publicly, brags about his prowess at oral sex, the longer the distance you, as a self-respective sex-positive woman who loves her vagina, should stay away from him. It’s a pretty accurate sign of a Creepy Dude, in my consistent experience. Pro tip: men who are truly skilled at it discuss it in private, at appropriate times.
Want to see the list of aliases? It’s a doozy–here we go!
- CLITLICK, JEFFERSON
- CLITLICK, JOHN
- FUCK, JEFFERSON
- POLAND, JEFF
- POLAND, JEFFERSON
- POLAND, JEFFERSON F
- POLAND, JEFFERSON FUCK
- POLAND, JEFFERSON JOHN
- POLAND, JOHN JEFFERSON
- POLLAND, JOHN JEFFERSON
I’m mentally adding “Freedom” as the middle name to each where applicable, so that lengthens the list…
Sex, Drugs, and Hindu Gods: The Story of the Psychedelic Venus Church (thanks to archive.org)
Glorious source material from Rube Jay Mac: movie about the Mitchell brothers and their sexwork legacy, Rated X. starring as Arthur and James Mitchell…be still my heart…real-life brother Emilio Estevez and Charlie Sheen.
Charlie.
Sheen.
#winning.
The Naked and The Dead: A Porn Killing: The Washington Post
Pornhub: Marilyn Chambers, Linda Lovelace
Redtube: Marilyn Chambers, Linda Lovelace
Youporn: Marilyn Chambers, Linda Lovelace
The main critique of the movie was that it made no sense. –Dave
Amazon search, books and movies: Marilyn Chambers (including Chambers’ autobiography), Linda Lovelace
Don’t say I never gave you nothin’.
Marilyn Chambers’ obituary, Washington Post, 2009
By the by, Chambers ran for Vice President of the US. Twice.
In the 2004 United States presidential election, Chambers ran for Vice President on the Personal Choice Party ticket, a libertarian political party. She received a total of 946 votes. In the 2008 United States presidential election, she was again Charles Jay‘s running mate, this time as an alternate write-in candidate to his primary national Boston Tea Party running mate Thomas L. Knapp in the states of Arkansas, Hawaii, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Utah. (Wikipedia)
Lyndon Johnson’s Commission (1969) to investigate porn’s effect on rape/murder–18 people, 2 years, 2 million dollars. Your tax dollars at work.
the Meese Report, aka the Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography, ordered by President Reagan and published by AG Ed Meese in 1988: full text at porn-report.com
more fun:
- biopic of Linda Lovelace starring Amanda Seyfried: Lovelace
- Boogie Nights — loose biopic of the early days of porn
- David Cronenberg horror movie starring Marilyn Chambers: Rabid
and, if you’re not done yet (I’m done, y’all): Episode 4: Ghosts (and Ghost Sex) and that time I read that leisure suit ad in Full Sex Voice for your listening pleasure (or amusement)
Band names from this episode:
- Fast Nude Party Math
- Nutella Nuts
- Bob and the Horn Dick Daddies — first album, released on vinyl only: “The Long Con”
- Carpet Burns and Drains
- Masturbating Factory–first hit was cover of the Stones‘ “Paint It Black“
- The Artie Party Hearty Fund
- Johnson’s Cummission
- Catnip for Young Couples–ironic hipster ukulele covers of folk hits, like the Mamas and the Papas
- Ghost Porno
Cultural references from this episode:
- Joey Lawrence (whoa)
- Waka Flocka
- Silicon Valley
- Brian Setzer
- Blair Witch
- Clint Eastwood and the chair
- Law and Order (for donk donk see Episode 139 or Episode 63)
- Cannes
- Babe
- Gordon Ramsey
- Yahoo Serious
- American Ninja Warrior
- Busby Berkeley
Okay, I have enough for a second entry, so a sequel will have to do. I am tapped out for now, and I need a wet wipe.
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