It’s one thing to study movements that brought about social
change, it’s quite the other to live them.
That’s the crux of Kristin Battista-Frazee’s new book, The Pornographer’s Daughter: A
Memoir of Childhood, My Dad and Deep Throat. She spares few details about the struggles and challenges
her family faced while her father, Anthony, was tried and convicted of violating
a number of obscenity laws, in the 1970s and early 1980s, as a distributor of
the movie Deep Throat.
It caused arguments between family members and sent her
mother to the hospital for depression.
Her father, a good, Catholic boy with a degree from
Villanova, was a Philadelphia stockbroker and was approached to distribute Deep Throat. He accepted for reasons many might understand – to earn
extra money.
Of course, there’s a mob connection, with Anthony making sure
a local crime family received its share of the earnings from his
territory.
Before anyone, however, says this proves the criminal depths of the
porn industry, Battista-Frazee also points out there were other beneficiaries: Her dad and his partner bribed
Philadelphia police $200 a week so they would respond to emergency calls from a stripper bar they jointly owned, the Golden 33.
They also bribed other city officials – with “hefty
envelopes of cash,” she writes – so the club received the licenses it needed to
remain open.
So how does someone like Anthony become the poster child of
pornography? Easy.
After being arrested by the FBI for distributing Deep Throat in his stockbroker's office, he did the only thing he
thought possible, joining a former client from his brokerage days at the
Golden 33 and becoming a partner in the business.
Why? Because he
needed to earn a living, take care of his family, and pay his legal bills.
In time, Anthony oversaw everything from liquor purchases to
the girls who entertained the Golden 33’s patrons. Battista-Frazee details the lives of some
of these entertainers, including Betty Jane Allsup, aka “Honeysuckle Divine.”
Betty demonstrated some – how to say this? – unique physical
skills when entertaining Golden 33’s patrons but most readers will be stunned
to learn another part of her past.
For those looking for a history of how U.S. obscenity laws
changed, look elsewhere.
Battista-Frazee writes about the legal rulings and decisions
impacting her dad’s case but the most comprehensive book on how obscenity laws
changed remains Gay Talese’s Thy
Neighbor’s Wife with Chicago Federal Judge Richard Posner’s Sex and Reason as a nice complement.
With the exception of child pornography laws, it’s difficult
to imagine how the others could be enforced. Pornographic movies are available directly to the home,
either through an internet connection or a cable television provider, often
one in the same.
Today, Battista-Frazee’s parents are divorced. Her dad owns stores in Florida that
sell pornographic movies and products designed to enhance sexual stimulation,
with the best seller being the “Pocket Rocket.” Use your imagination, ladies.
At times, this excellent book reads like a therapy session. I highly recommend it. Battista-Frazee writes in an engaging style and tells a story few ever lived.
And what to make of pornography?
A recent University of Nevada-Las Vegas study reports it generated
$96 billion in worldwide revenues in 2006, with $12 billion from the United
States.[i] About 400,000 strippers work in the
country’s 3,000 to 4,000 strip clubs, the report says, with Battista-Frazee
writing the best ones earn $1,000 a night.
That means a stripper working five nights a week for, say,
50 weeks – and is good at it and attractive, too – possibly makes as much as
$250,000 a year, much of it in cash.
For those convinced the industry’s female movie stars always
come out on the short end, consider this:
According to CelebrityNetWorth.com, Jenna Jameson's net worth is estimated at $30
million.[ii] That’s a far cry from Bill Gates’ money,
but it’s an amount many would want.
Details on the book:
The Pornographer’s
Daughter: A Memoir of Childhood,
My Dad, and Deep Throat, written by Kristin Battista-Frazee, was
published in August 2014 by Skyhorse Publishing, New York, New York.
Many thanks to the author for providing the jpeg of the book’s
cover for ItsFourthAndLong.blogspot.com.
1 comment:
Interesting review of an interesting book.
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