In Praise of Indecency

by Paul Krassner

  The misleading subject line is a popular method of tricking you. “Tickets arrived” led to this message: “there is no other way to enlarge your penis.” This vague subject line—“Hey, shit happens”—and this non sequitur subject line—“Do you like oranges?”—both led to the same message: “Use this patch and it will grow i SWEAR....”

  All right, so now the good news is that every man has a larger penis. However, the bad news is that none of them can get it up.

  “I remember a spam,” writes a friend, “about free Viagra after a penis enlargement operation that would take place someplace in Nigeria just before the search for my share of several hundred million dollars that my new friend is cutting me in on. Seems his dad stashed bullion in foreign accounts to which they’d have no access until I brought several thousand dollars first. Could have gotten way rich while erect for days while I fucked myself.”

  Another friend quotes a spam—“Massive rock-solid Erections, new natural product bmrgwhmsmnmb”—and adds, “I like how it turns into nonsense at the end. I kind of picture like it’s a mild mannered guy at the beginning who takes the ‘natural’ Viagra somewhere in the middle and then by the end he’s like the incredible Hulk with a hard-on so powerful he can’t even make coherent sounds. Also: ‘From Keith Moon: Re: Generic Viagra’—At least they have a sense of humor. Maybe they’ll start coming from ‘Rush Limbaugh’ next.”

  And now for your reading pleasure, here’s an erection selection:

  “Stick it on you then stick it to her” (Viagra-like patch)...“Beef up the size of your willy”... “Bob Dole loves Viagra, so should you!”... “terrifying terpsichorean”... “The Assay Test”... “Men let the pillz do the talking”... “Is it time to upgrade your system?”... “You will be a sex machine”—(erectile dysfunction)... “condolence maverick expedition”... “Goodbye to Soft Equipment”... “Are you hard at work?”

  “You blocked my ICQ”... “ur di.cky is so smalllll”... “Enh.. anc,e_yo*ur RO...D”... “G*et a ,*B-UL^;K,Y ‘PO*'L;E”... “Incr*eas^e :D”IC^-K :LENGTH’ easil’y”... “B^oost y-our c’onf’ide;nc,e”... “,T:h_e na_tio*na:l i;nfrast*ru:ctu re i:s fal: li^ng”

  “Stay hard for 72 hours”—Editor’s note: Viagra ads in magazines state: “You should call a doctor immediately if you ever have an erection that lasts more than 4 hours. If not treated right away, permanent damage to your penis could occur.”

  This vague subject line—“Hi”—led to this message: “Sometimes people call it ‘Magic Lubricant.’ Sometimes ‘Power Bottle.’ Why? An amazing erection WITHIN SEVERAL SECONDS is guaranteed to you! Double-strengthed orgasm and full satisfaction).”

  Both “Can I Make It Up to You?” and “One Last Question” are spam subject lines for this message: “Did you know you could discreetly order Viagra over the Internet? You don’t have to go through all the problems of getting it in a local pharmacy store or explaining your problems to the doctor.” And then there was this charming misleader: “Enlarge your Bank Account 2-3 inches in days.”

  Okay, so now all these horny men have gigantic penises and also the medical means to help them defy gravity and become oh so erect, but there’s simply nobody around with whom to share these huge hard-ons. That’s where the Internet porn industry will eagerly come to your rescue.

  “Amateur Girls Never Before Seen”... “Fresh hot assets”... “Drunk party babes”... “Wow—Screwing Machines”... “Bondage at Mistress Shaved’s Nasty Fetish Club”... “Pussies Getting Slammed”... “Pregnant Girls Getting Laid!”... “Look inside a pussy with our dildo-cam”... “watch this girl get her poousy lips get parted with a tongue”... “Big Clits—Monster Clits”___“enter this place and you willl see hard nipples and pink beavers”... “I have a multi-colored bush for you to see”... “The Executive’s Dream”—(your secretary is a dirty little thing, and wants your Man Meat!)

  Hey, psst, you wanna see some nice breasts? Try these for size: “All we have are Breasts!”... “Do You Like Tits”—(100,000+ pics of big titty girls)... “Big Huge Breasts”... “Melon size boobies"... "Jumbo Juggy Jugs"... "Big juicy titties"... "Petite Little Boobs..."

  How about interracial? “Choked white whores used as black cum recepticals”... “White Ladies and Dark Meat Look of Pain!” Or what about international? “Nasty Asian sex”... “Viet Yummy”... “Latin girls getting fucked”... “Re: travel plans”—(We’ve got girls from countries all over Asia spreading their pink pussies)... “I put the stalian back in Italian....”

  Do you prefer four-legged friends? “Watch me fuck a poodle”... “Oh my God, I had S-E-X With My Dog!”... “Meet Harvey the pussy eating wonder dog!”... “Teen takes a horse dong deep inside her flower”... “She takes the 20 inch horse pole”... “The real farm movie they tried to ban”—(guess Ramo’s [the horse’s] cock size and win a free ticket to the show)... “Dacy Does Donkeys”... “S*X WITH PETS”—(Taken to the Xtreme)... “This is sicker than Michael Jackson’s daycare”— (girls with farm animals)... “Hot women do everything in my car”—(You ever wanted to see a live donkey show?) Editor’s note: Gosh, that must be a very large car.

  You dig first-timers? “Angel’s First Facial”... “Erika’s First five finger Experience”... “First Time Lesbians!”

  Know how to make (or take) a fist? “Miss Fist-a-Lot!”... “Porn Queens Fistfucked for Real”... “Get Your Fisting Party Started!”

  Got oral sex? “Cum Squad Squat!”... “Free pics of teen Sluts Sucking Almighty Cocks!”... “Teens covered in cum!”... “Young Pussy Lickers”... “Girls love to tasty cum”... “Shooting Incident”—(Max Cumshot)... “See them spurt!”—(Cumshakes, Thousands of Hot Cum Covered Girls)... “I blew my load all over her”—(Facial Fiasco)... “She swallowed it all, Cum splattered all over her face”... “Jizz drizzled all over my face help me!”... “Sarah sucking balls”... “Bite that cock!”

  Or maybe anal? “Doing Her Ass”... “My Girl Likes Anal Sex”... “Nasty Girls Doing Backdoor”... “I’ve applied to 4 Universities, but this one has the best programs”—(We’re going to send you to Anal University).

  Golden shower, anyone? “She’s a Pee Fanatic!”... “She peed on me!”

  Age is no barrier: “Virgin Schoolgirls”... “Cranky debutantes”... “Teen sluts gone wild”... “Tight Teen Cunts”... “watch me spread this teens Pucey lips”... “Ordinary Girls with Spread Legs—naughty girls fresh out of high school”... “Cute girls in college spreading their legs”... “Aged woman spreads legs”... “Loving for grannies”... “Hot Nude Granny”—(The Premier Mature Lady Site).

  Neither is gender a barrier. “Crazy Gay Action only the BIGGEST Gay Cocks Inside”... “New reality site with young boys”... “Gay closet movies”... “sex crazed lesbians”...

  Nor marriage vows. “I’m ready to cheat on my husand”... “With the kids asleep, mom gets wild and kinky”... “Sit back, relax and get a blow job from a woman at EZ Cheatng tonight”... “watch these ladies get nailed while the kids are in bed”... “in here is over 5 hundred thousand pictures of hot moms naked”... “Look at a hot mom taking a shower and shaving her vagina”... “The State Survey”—(How many children do you claim? Real yummy mummys)... “Don’t Be Shy” and “Please don’t tell anyone”—(both lead to “a revolutionary new service connecting cheating wives with single men.”) Celebrities in homemade sex videos are of course a special treat on the World Wide Web, from Pamela Anderson to Paris Hilton. From “Paris Hilton just drinks love juice” and “Paris Hilton is on a see men diet” to “J. Lo’s Nipples” and “J. Lo caught eating a booger”—whatever turns you on.

  Here, have a subject-line montage: “Bob said you’d want this”... “Naked Girls Next Door”—(Enter here to fuck these hot girls)... “(no subject)”—(Do you ever find yourself thinking about what it would be like to see naked girls all day?)... “lusty transvestites take picture for you”... “Upskirt panty peaks”... “Her cherrry gets popped!”... “Watch the
se young teens get exploited—severely!”... “100% hot bitches”... “As vulg@r as it getz”... “The sickest place on earth”—(midgets, animals, trannies, fisting, pregnant, enemas)... “Unreal Penetrations”... “Security Guards F_ucking Hot Girls”... “Take care”—(Insane orgies)... “3 Girls gang-banged”... “These Guys Don’t have a Chance!”—(Hot Young locals Seduce Unknowing Tourist!)... “Stop wasting money on women!”

  These are spam subject lines that have a certain sexual aura, but lead you to non-sexual messages: “Do you know I love you”—(money lender)... “See my newest movie”—(Wholesale prescription medicines)... “As good as it gets”—(online poker)... “It is hard”—(Banned CD, Government don’t want me to sell it. Your own FBI file, driving record, criminal databases)... “We Got the Spread”—(Nude, but click here to bet now! NFT odds)... “Beach Girls”—(Forget Aging and Dieting forever)... “First Time”—(for both “Wholesale prescription medications at bargain prices” and “Term-life coverage at reduced rates is now available”)... “I can come” and “Corrupted existentially” both lead to weight-loss messages.

  Or, a subject line can appear to be political, such as “How Saddam Survived,” which turned out to be a pitch for a growth hormone releaser from the American Society For the Treatment of Aging.

  And finally, here’s my own personal favorite spam, which came from DarkProfits.com. The subject line reads: “Your credit card has been charged for $234.65”—which leads to the following message, headlined Important Notice:

  “We have just charged your credit card for money laundry service in amount of $234.65 (because you are either child pornography webmaster or deal with dirty money, which require us to laundry them and then send to your checking account). If you feel this transaction was made by our mistake, please press ‘No.’ If you confirm this transaction, please press ‘Yes’ and fill in the form below. Enter your credit card number here. Enter your credit card expiration date.”

  In the immortal words of Bart Simpson, “I didn’t think it was physically possible, but this both sucks and blows.”

  Postscript: Had to share this one: Spam subject line: “Ethan is the paper ready yet?” The message: “Make her scream with joy! Become the 9 incher today!” Also, 40 days before the 2004 presidential election, I spotted a new—though temporary— trend. Here are a few subject lines, courtesy of Viagra: “Kerry Isn’t Feeling Well”; “George Bush Is A Tiar”; and “Breaking News: Osama Bin Taden Captured.”

  MEET AN FBI PORN SQUAD AGENT

  MEET AN FBI PORN SQUAD AGENT

  In October 2006, a historic event occurred in the world of porn. Seven FBI agents sat down to engage in a dialogue with a group of “adult businesspersons,” as Mark Kernes wrote in AVN. The purpose of this meeting at FBI headquarters was to discuss plans to implement federal regulation 2257, which requires producers to obtain two forms of government-issued identification from performers, keep them on file indefinitely, and refer to those records on the labels of all videos and DVDs. How mundane.

  One of the attorneys who was present—Jeffrey Douglas, chairman of the Free Speech Coalition—says that complying with the rules has buried porn producers in paperwork. One of his clients employs a staff of eight who work full-time to maintain and organize the required records. “If you were so incredibly crazy to film a minor,” he observes, “you surely would not get a copy of their junior high school ID.” He points out that although the FBI said its “primary concern” is underage performers, it inspects all the records for the video features on its list, creating a report that it forwards to the Department of Justice (DOJ).

  Another attorney, Paul Cambria, recalls, “They said they created a database of producers, they fed it into a computer, and the computer spit out, randomly, companies to be inspected. The FBI agents then review that company’s product. They then select certain individual actors and actresses, then go to a [place of business] with the list, and look for the required records as to those people.” Cambria asked the assistant director of the criminal investigation division, James “Chip” Burrus, “whether it was based on any particular content, and he said no. So I said, ‘There are certain movies, for example, that are of a sort of geriatric genre; why would you waste your time?’ And he said, ‘No, we include those because we want to keep it all random at this point.’”

  In AVN, Kernes wrote that “Any violation of the 2257 regulations may result in federal charges being brought, with penalties including fines and years in jail for each violation.... So while the FBI’s function is merely to inspect the 2257 records to ascertain whether they are complete and accurate, the report the bureau files with the Justice Department could easily form the basis for decisions as to which companies the DOJ may choose to prosecute for obscenity, knowing that a bona fide 2257 violation by a company would be an incentive for that company to cop a plea.”

  Three months later, the Los Angeles Times reported that the FBI has stepped up raids on porn studios, “saying it wants to ensure that children are not being sexually exploited. About a dozen pom production facilities... have been taken by surprise in the last three months by a barrage of federal agents at their doors.... The Justice Department has prosecuted only one company to date under the new law... the founder of the Girls Gone Wild video empire, Joe Francis.”

  One of the raided companies, K-Beech, Inc.—comprised of fifteen studio lines that feature titles in a variety of niches, including straight, gay, amateur, transexual and gonzo—takes the storyline out of adult movies and heads right for the sex scenes. Early one morning, the agents demanded to see the offical IDs certifying that performers in ten sexually explicit films dating back to 1995 were not minors. They weren’t.

  Owner Kevin Beechum asks, “Why would I jeopardize $10-million a year to shoot an underage girl? We’re not stupid.” Historian Athan Theoharis states that “The FBI has limited what they investigate since 9/11, so moving into this area does raise the question of resources. Is this at the expense of investigating the Enrons or the WorldComs that have far more effect on the lives of American citizens?” In that same vein, a letter to the Times asks, “If the FBI can send agents out to porn studios to check employee records, then it’s now clear that all terrorists, bank robbers, kidnappers and miscellaneous fugitives have all been caught and locked up. Haven’t they?” In another letter, Georgina Spelvin, who starred in the 1973 classic porn flick, The Devil in Miss Jones, writes, “My heart goes out to the poor FBI agents required to spend hours viewing porn, ‘culling material in search of performers with a suspiciously youthful glow.’ What a bum assignment.”

  And so the FBI has become part of the Bush administration’s War on Porn. When the Bureau’s Washington Field Office began recruiting for their fledgling obscenity squad, ten agents were selected. What follows is my apocryphal interview with one of them, who of course prefers to remain anonymous.

  Q. Why do you think that this undertaking was described in a memo to all 56 FBI field offices as “one of the top priorities” of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and FBI Director Robert Mueller?

  A. I think they figure that pornography is an easy target. It’s what Congress asked for, and funded. Nobody wants to come out for porn. They’re all sucking up to the religious right. Plus they’re control freaks themselves. And this operation misdirects attention away from the results of their own insidiousness and incompetence. To tell you the truth, the guys I had worked with, they all thought it was just a big joke.

  This was in an FBI field office where there are really important projects—involving national security, high-technology crimes and public corruption—but I was feeling burnt out. I needed something less stressful. So I applied for the “Hard-On Hunters,” which is how my old buddies refer to it. They still razz the hell out of me. One guy says, “Hey, I thought there was supposed to be a war on terror going on.” Then another guy says, “Yeah, and I thought it was supposed to be urgent that we develop better resources for espionage.” And the first guy
says, “I guess we must have been wrong.”

  Q. So what exactly is it that you do in your new mission?

  A. Well, we have to gather evidence against the manufacturers and purveyors of pornography. And it’s not even the kind that exploits children—I mean, I’m totally against kiddie porn—but this is about the kind of material that’s marketed to consenting adults. I never liked pornography myself—they used to show it at my college fraternity—but when I first joined the FBI, I swore to uphold the Constitution, not to trample on the Bill of Rights.

  In fact, the communiqué we got from the Justice Department even admitted that federal obscenity prosecutions encounter many legal issues, including claims of 1st Amendment rights, so we applicants had to be prepared for the kind of material that tends to be most effective with local juries, because it’s been shown that the best odds of conviction are in pornography cases that involve bestiality, urination, defecation, sadism and masochism. But it’s a living.

  Q. How have you gone about doing your job?

  A. I started out with bestiality fetishes as my specialty. In the course of my research, I checked out websites with beautiful women actually having sex with all kinds of animals.

  Q. So tell me, did you get aroused?

  A. Actually, yes, I did, but I was aroused only by the women, not by any of the animals. Later on, though, I was investigating a whole variety of kinky sites—from female ejaculators who are squirtaholics to tobacco addicts who smoke before, during and after sex—and then I found one that was devoted entirely to women who wear eyeglasses and the men who love to come on them, that is, on the glasses, while they’re being worn, and somehow that really turns me on.