Skinflicks

This non-fiction, insider account of the adult video industry details the following: its history; the movies and shooting them; porn stars; pornographers; porn kings; the Mafia and organized crime; AIDS crises; drug use; scandals; murders; suicides; obscenity laws; vice raids; court cases; porn politics; myths; sociological studies; and anti-porn crusades.

Author David Jennings spent over a dozen years in the business as a writer, researcher, director, producer and manufacturer. He began as a filmmaker for “the biggest Mafia porn outfit on the West Coast (FBI quote).” Later, his own company pioneered the first adult features shot DIRECTLY on videotape, leading a revolution that made stars rich, porn kings poor, drove mobsters ou t, created a new audience of couples and women, and ignited a massive “War on Porn”–led by U.S Attorney General Ed Meese.

This book goes behind the scenes, describing under-aged stars (Jennings shot three Traci Lords videos), “porno stage mothers,” porn-addicted vice cops, AIDS victims, and cocaine casualties. The author’s true-life adventures include police raids, on-set AIDS panics, death threats, and more than one hundred shoots, qualifying him to answer the question, “What are these sex stars really like?” (His favorites: Nina Hartley, Shanna McCullough. Worst directing experience: Barbara Dare.).

The “War on Porn” chapters introduce an alliance of Feds, radical feminists ( led by Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon) and the Religious Right (most notable: Reverend Donald Wildmon), out to destroy the industry. America’s conflicting attitudes about porn emerge with contrasting opinion polls, contradictory government reports, comical courtroom battles and the soaring sales that follow industry scandals.

Though part of its content is necessarily graphic, Skinflicks is a book about pornography, and porn history, not a pornographic book.

432 pages with 31 photographs. Order Now: Kindle | Print | Buy Local