As A Card-carrying Member Of The Aclu And A Writer For Magazines Like Penthouse And Maxim, Gil Reavill Has Always Believed That Americans Have A Right To Look At Whatever They Want In Private. In The 1980s He Worked For Some Hardcore Publications Like Screw, And Didn't See A Problem With It. But Now He's A Dad Who Realizes That Something Has Gone Seriously Wrong In American Culture. Both Adults And Kids Are Being Exposed To Smut Without Their Consent, And Just Change The Channel Doesn't Work Anymore. In This Eye-opening Book, Reavill Looks Back At His Experiences In Sex Magazines, And How The Evolving Standards Of The Last Two Decades Led To Today's All-smut All The Time Culture. He Offers Parents Tips On How To Combat The Industries That Pollute The Public Square With Smut, Without Trampling On The True Meaning And Purpose Of The First Amendment.--book Jacket. Pt. 1. Freedom From Expression -- 1. The Oldest Story In The Book -- 2. What I'm Doing Here -- 3. The Unchangeable Channel -- 4. Culture-whipped -- 5. The Clown Prince -- 6. Wasting Away In Pottersville -- Pt. 2. Pottersville, U.s.a. -- 7. The Boob Tube : Prime-time Tv -- 8. The Id On The Grid : Basic Cable -- 9. True Lies : Reality Tv -- 10. I Don't Want My Mtv : Music Videos -- 11. Tangled In The Web : Internet Sex -- 12. Virtual Worlds : Child Pornography On The Internet -- 13. Ad Nauseam : Public Signage -- 14. The Jean Pool : Fashion -- 15. The Savage Breast : Pop Music -- 16. Silent Thrill : Video Games -- 17. Dropping Dime : Phone Sex -- 18. The Return Of Porn Chic : Books -- 19. Maximization : Magazines -- 20. A Case Of The Creeps : Movies -- Pt. 3. Why We Are Where We Are -- 21. The Curse Of The Chattering Class -- 22. The Male Animal -- 23. Chilling Slopes And Slippery Effects -- 24. Censor Sensibility -- 25. Why Obscenity Prosecution Doesn't Work -- Pt. 4. What We Can Do -- 26. Television -- 27. The Internet -- 28. The Public Commons. Gil Reavill. Includes Index. Footnotes And A Select Bibliography May Be Found At Www.smutthebook.com --p. 201.

Gil Reavill

New York: Sentinel

United States, United States of America

First Edition, PS, 2005

April 25, 2005

"Footnotes and a select bibliography may be found at www.smutthebook.com"--P. 201.
Includes index.

Smut has become the new secondhand smoke: It confronts you against your will where you least want to encounter it, and its impossible to protect your children from it. Nothing made this clearer than the Janet Jackson episode during the Super Bowl when millions of kids were exposed to an image that used to be restricted to consenting adults. But thats nothing compared with the sexuality that now saturates morning radio shows, prime-time sitcoms, pop music lyrics, billboards, and store windows. Just change the channel doesnt work anymore. Enough, says Penthouse and Maxim writer Gil Reavill, the concerned father of a middle school daughter. As a liberal, Reavill always believed that Americans have a First Amendment right to read and view sexually explicit material, and he saw nothing wrong with contributing to publications like Screw . But he now argues that unlike magazines and videosviewed in private and by consentsmut in the public square has simply gone too far.
Reavill takes the reader inside the sex entertainment industry, recalling his own experiences as a young man from the Midwest seduced by a job at an X-rated magazine in New York City. With witty and fascinating stories, he shows how his colleagues rebelled against a stifling culture by pushing the envelope. Little did they realize that words and images considered porn in the 1980s are now on the public airwaves around the clock.
Many Americans instinctively defend smut because censorship strikes them as unacceptable. But Reavill argues that we have to balance the rights of those who want to buy smut with the rights of those who want to avoid it. His book will spark a long- overdue debate about where we draw the lines in pop culture.

208 p. ; 24 cm
"Footnotes and a select bibliography may be found at www.smutthebook.com"--P. 201
Includes index

2023-06-28