Kenneth Starr, porn legend!

How Kenneth Starr's hot new porno film is revolutionizing the flesh-flick biz.

Published August 25, 1998 7:00PM (EDT)

Forget the Dark Brothers, Annie Sprinkle and Candida Royale. The man making the hottest loops in the country is Kenneth Starr. "Kenny Hard," as he is affectionately known in the flesh biz, doesn't exactly fit the stereotype of a pornographer. Chubby and nondescript, a devout Christian whose job as a special prosecutor led him into the porn trade, Starr's only known eccentricity is his refusal to promote his upcoming films except when taking out the garbage. But he is wrapping up a hard-core feature that insiders say will revolutionize the biz -- a he-she flick so nasty that Screw mag editor Al Goldstein has awarded it an unprecedented five hard-ons. The sex-drenched epic, featuring amateur actors filmed without their consent and called "The Special Prosecutor's Official Report on Presidential Misconduct," is expected to be a box-office bonanza of big-bang proportions.

"This will make 'Pamela and Tommy Lee's Honeymoon Video' look like 'Bambi,'" exulted one adult video store owner as he unloaded stacks of videos in preparation for what he estimated would be a "stampede" of customers. "Kenny Hard is the best thing to ever happen to this business."

"This Starr guy has single-handedly saved my ass!" crowed another porno vendor, who identified himself only as "Jake." "Business has been real bad for a long time, 'cause people have seen it all now. There's more video humping out there than a herd of camels, you know what I'm sayin'? Look, when the folks in Iowa and Utah -- those heartland rubes are my best customers -- have rented 'Back Door Man' like 17 fuckin' times, you know you've gotten to the point where you need to come up with something new. And now, my man comes up with a secret amateur video about the president of the fuckin' USA -- is he a genius or what?"

Praise for Starr's work comes from all quarters. Nockon Wood, professor of Sexual Transgression Studies at Duke, said, "What distinguishes Starr's work from previous pornography, what gives it its ineffable frisson of the forbidden, is that the actors had no idea they were being filmed. In effect, Starr has made a sexual snuff movie with celebrities. Like Nixon going to China, he has used his position as a God-fearing Republican who is only after 'the truth' to achieve a sexual breakthrough no one else could have. This is the kinkiest, most truly amoral fuck film ever made!"

Newsweek, the flesh-industry trade rag that has made a name for itself by previewing torrid scenes from Kenny Hard's flicks before the public can get its hands on them, announced today that Starr's porno epic, to be released in several weeks, will be his raunchiest yet. According to a "knowledgeable source," the movie's depictions of sexual encounters between its stars, President Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, will make people "want to throw up."

Asked why a movie whose principal effect is to induce vomiting is expected to reap box office millions, a knowledgeable industry source said, "Oh, that's just Kenny's PR machinery. Everybody knows nobody's gonna throw up -- they're talkin' about blow jobs and the old disappearing cigar trick, Good Housekeeping stuff -- but you gotta create a stir somehow."

Although Republicans and the Christian right generally oppose pornography as immoral, conservatives have been among the porno king's strongest supporters. "Kenny Hard's films transcend the sordid genre of pornography and offer a penetrating portrait of a nation and president whose values are in crisis," said author William Bennett as he hurriedly exited Frenchy's Parlor on Washington's 13th Street with Starr's latest epic clutched in a plain brown wrapper.

Family values crusader Gary Bauer declared, "Precisely because these deeds of our president are so demonic, we regard it as the duty of good Christians to gaze upon them with an unflinching eye and a clenched fist." He added that "in any case, since Kenneth Starr is a devout soul, by definition he cannot be a pornographer."

An editor at the New York Times, citing his paper's long-standing anti-porn policy, said the Times "would not stoop so low" as to review Starr's film, but praised Starr's lengthy and fruitless investigation of Clinton that led to the making of the film. "If the president hadn't been guilty of a pattern of criminal conduct in Whitewater, a scandal that we at the Times created and are very proud of even though it is utterly groundless, he wouldn't be involuntarily starring in this sleazy movie today!" thundered the editor. "His twisted, unknowable psyche and it alone is responsible for this hideous degradation of the American presidency!"

A lone dissent was offered by a tourist waiting in line for the White House tour. "Hey, I like porn as much as the next guy, but why should taxpayers have to subsidize it? Kenny Hard should get off the federal teat and plunge into the private sector where he belongs."


By Gary Kamiya

Gary Kamiya is a Salon contributing writer.

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