Pornography Conference Explores Eroticism, Freedom of Speech

Think of it as academia meets “Boogie Nights.”

Porn stars and professors convened in Universal City on Friday morning for a three-day World Pornography Conference, a serious, occasionally X-rated exploration of eroticism and the 1st Amendment.

“We’re not endorsing pornography any more than if we held a conference on the news media or serial killers,” said James Elias, conference chair and director of Cal State Northridge’s Center for Sex Research, which co-hosted the event with the Free Speech Coalition, the adult entertainment industry’s trade association.

Over the course of the weekend, the convention will consider everything from gay porn to how Australia attempts to balance the protection of children with upholding adults’ rights to free speech. In addition to 600 participants, the event attracted 180 media representatives.

Participants ranged from Laurie Holmes, widow of the legendary porn star John Holmes, to Nadine Strossen, first woman president of the American Civil Liberties Union, who gave an impassioned keynote address on recent threats to free speech, including sexual harassment rules.

“It’s a major issue,” said Elias, explaining why Northridge had chosen to co-host a conference on such a controversial subject. “We have never avoided dealing with the difficult questions.”

Tonya Flynt-Vega, daughter of Larry Flynt, held a news conference at the nearby Universal Hilton to denounce the event.

Elias said the center had decided to hold the conference at the Sheraton Universal because it was the scene Friday night of the adult entertainment industry’s answer to the Oscars, the Night of the Stars. The Valley is also the center of the adult-entertainment business.

Elias said he had tried but failed to get some distinguished opponents of pornography to participate in the conference.

“That’s the one disappointment I have,” he said.

Several local ministers called and offered to argue against pornography, Elias said, but he chose not to include them because he thought they would have been at a disadvantage in a debate with such high-powered defenders as Strossen and free-speech attorney Stanley Fleishman, both honored at Friday’s lunch.

Elias said he was unfazed by the occasional angry confrontation with those who object to programs such as this and last year’s conference on prostitution, which he also chaired.

“I get unpleasant phone calls all the time,” he said. “If I wasn’t displeasing people sometimes, I’d feel that I wasn’t doing my job.”

While professors read sometimes dry treatises on explicit magazines and Victorian porn, X-rated films rolled nonstop in a nearby room.

Among the enthusiastic participants from the industry was Annie Sprinkle, performer and performance artist.

“I’m orgasmic to be here,” she said. “It’s a wonderful experience to be taken seriously. I love the combination of low-brow and high-brow.”

Sprinkle, who grew up in Granada Hills, said she prepared for the conference by sending away for a $295 mail-order doctorate. “I definitely deserve a PhD, having devoted 25 years to this.”

At a session titled “Outlaws on Movie Posters: The Real ‘Boogie Nights’ from Those Who Were There,” veterans of the industry discussed what many regard as its Golden Age.

Gloria Leonard, president of the Free Speech Coalition and a former star, said she thinks today’s performers have less personality than those of the past.

“We were all very distinctive,” she said, noting that breast implants and other cosmetic improvements give today’s female performers a characterless cookie-cutter perfection.

“I refer to them as the Stepford sluts,” she said.

As they swapped “John Holmes war stories” and other collective memories, they spoke nostalgically of the era, before porn on video, when their images appeared on big screens in real theaters.

Paul Thomas Anderson’s recent film “Boogie Nights” failed to capture the renegade spirit of that era, most said. They criticized the scenes in which porn movies are being shot in rooms with wide-open windows--something that was never done because the filmmakers were always at risk of arrest.

Laurie Holmes called the movie, whose main character was inspired by her famous husband, “Bogus Nights.”

Quantity over quality is ruining the business, said writer, producer and former actor William Margold. In the old days, he said, the filmmakers were “a family of happy children.”

Today, he said of his generation, “We are dinosaurs in our own time. The San Fernando Valley is the La Brea Tar Pits of porn, where the business has gone to die.”