 |
||||||||
 |
||||||||
|
||||||||
Back
|
Tampa's name back in lights
By CHRISTOPHER GOFFARD, Times Staff Writer
Famous in the industry under the name Seymore Butts, Glasser's niche is "gonzo" porn, which involves filming -- and performing in -- unscripted sexual encounters. This one took place between two women in a Dale Mabry motel room, in a town renowned -- some would say infamous -- for welcoming the sex industry. The encounter's result was featured in Tampa Tushy-Fest, Part I, a film that Glasser says ranks among the most industry-lauded of the 100 he has made. It might also send the 37-year-old filmmaker to jail, along with the bookkeeper for his San Fernando Valley office, his mother, Lila. Next week, in a Los Angeles courtroom, the Glassers face trial on obscenity charges -- the first such case to go to a jury there since 1993. Such defendants usually enter a plea and accept a fine, but Glasser decided to fight it. The city claims that specific acts Glasser filmed in the Tampa motel room were so extreme, so far beyond other porn films, that the movie flouts the community standards of Los Angeles. The case will be closely watched as it could help define obscenity standards for the multibillion-dollar West Coast porn industry. The case also will reinforce Tampa's long-standing reputation as a stronghold of the sex industry. Voyeur Web cams, a swingers group, sex shops, nude clubs: all have seized headlines in recent memory, largely through the city's efforts to shut them down. Bob Buckhorn, the council member who pushed a 1999 city ordinance banning lap dancing, has described Tampa as "the holy land for the porn industry." "Inevitably, what you hear from visitors and new residents is, "Why are there strip clubs on every corner?' " Buckhorn said. "We are world famous for this stuff." And getting more attention all the time. A recent episode of the PBS documentary series Frontline dealt at length with the Tampa Tushy-Fest case. Tampa Tushy-Fest, Part II has been released. What accounts for Tampa's allure to the sex industry? Those who work in it point to heavy tourist traffic, designated zones for strip clubs and loopholes that make it possible to open adult businesses near churches and schools. And every September, the area plays host to an adult film awards gala hosted by Nightmoves, an Oldsmar-based adult magazine given out free in local sex shops. "It isn't quite the holy land, but it's a very adult friendly atmosphere," Nightmoves publisher Paul Allen said. "We've got beautiful girls, beautiful weather. We've got the best attorneys we'll ever need. And guys like (nude club kingpin) Joe Redner have laid the groundwork." Tampa's reputation as an adult-business haven has even permeated the world of sports. In the wake of the arrests of two National Hockey League players in a lap dancing raid, the NFL provided written warnings to all 31 teams about Tampa's sex entertainment just before Super Bowl XXXV in 2001. Many of the nation's sportswriters could have written the warning themselves. During a national conference call of football writers in 1999, a moment of silence was observed to mourn a fire that had recently damaged a nude club on Courtney Campbell Parkway, the Tanga Lounge. No one has sailed the winds of opportunity in Tampa better than Joe Redner. In the 1970s, Redner invested $1,600 in a dilapidated beer joint on Hillsborough Avenue, built a stage, and opened a nude club called Night Gallery. Despite years of police raids, and what he estimates are 150 trips to jail, Redner owns three clubs, including the famous Mons Venus, and places his net worth at more than $10-million. If his clubs are known for pushing boundaries, Redner says it's partly the government's doing. For years, the threat of a yanked liquor license forced clubs to limit their raunchiness. Dancers stayed on stage away from customers. When the government banned the sale of liquor at nude clubs in the late 1970s, the lap dance was born. Luke Lirot, a First Amendment lawyer who represents Redner, said cities like Houston have far more strip clubs per capita than Tampa. Tampa's reputation as a place overrun by sex businesses is a misconception fostered by the city's well-publicized efforts to police them, Lirot said. When the city tried to shut down Voyeur Dorm -- a Web site that peeks on a household of young women -- the case reached a federal appeals court and brought nationwide attention. "Now, when people think of Web cam stuff, they think of Tampa," Lirot said. Lirot estimates thousands of adult-industry workers are in the Tampa Bay area, several hundred involved in making porn videos. For the annual Nightmoves awards, 30 or 40 porn stars fly in from around the country for a weekend of party-going, radio gigs and appearances at adult clubs. It culminates in a black-tie gala. Glasser recorded portions of Tampa Tushy-Fest at the 1998 gala. But the segment that brought the obscenity charge took place at the motel on Dale Mabry. "I was really only taking advantage of the fact that there were other people from the industry from California who happened to be in town at the same time," said Glasser, who ate at a Dale Mabry Bennigan's every night of his Tampa trip because he lacked a car. He and his mother could face 720 days in county jail if convicted on misdemeanor obscenity charges. The effect could be great on the porn industry, for the case could draw a new line that porn filmmakers would cross at their own peril. The porn industry keeps getting more lucrative. The New York Times reported that Americans "pay more money for pornography in a year than they do on movie tickets, more than they do on all the performing arts combined . . . The porn business is estimated to total between $10-billion and $14-billion annually in the United States when you toss in porn networks and pay-per-view movies on cable and satellite, Internet Web sites, in-room hotel movies, phone sex, sex toys and magazines." George Cardona, chief of the criminal division in the Los Angeles City Attorney's office, said his office occasionally prosecutes cases like Glasser's in part to determine community standards of obscenity. Glasser is defiant. The actors in his films were consenting adults, he says, and he defends some of his work as how-to films that are educational, providing "an oasis in the desert of the adult marketplace." Glasser describes Tampa as a market burgeoning with potential porn-star talent. Some strippers who have suffered because of the city's lap dancing ban, he said, have turned to adult movies. "The girls are probably more willing and interested now than ever," Glasser said. -- Times staff writer Ernest Hooper contributed to this report. Christopher Goffard can be reached at (813) 226-3337 or goffard@sptimes.com.
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111 
|
Headlines From the Times local news desks |
