Mainstreaming Porn

This is one video you can safely bet will never appear on either MTV or VH: "Backstage Sluts," directed by veteran pornography director Matt Zane, features rock stars such as Fred Durst of Limp Bizkit, Jonathan Davis of Korn, Sugar Ray, and Insane Clown Posse. In the video, Durst and company tell stories that emphasize the "sex" in "sex, drugs and rock and roll"--which Zane then re-enacts, in graphic detail, for the audience.

Zane's film is but one example of the shift in our attitudes toward pornography. Technology, our changing attitudes toward sex, and the esteem in which we hold anything labeled "entertainment" is enabling the pornography industry to leave the Combat Zone and pre-Disney Times Square for Middle America's living rooms.

Nowhere is this shift more evident than in the world of rock and roll. The 2000 Grammy Awards featured Kid Rock, complete with his trademark fur coat, motorcycle, and midget named Joe C, performing while surrounded by porno stars dancing in cages. If anyone objected to objectification of women in front of a nationally television audience, I missed it. (Where were the folks from Lilith Fair when you need them? Has the era of the female star come and gone already?)

Kid Rock isn't unique in his close identification with the porn industry. Blink 182's hit album, "Enema of the State," features a porn star on the cover. And Limp Bizkit, Godsmack, and others helped launch Playboy's newest web venture, Sex & Rock-n-Roll.

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