How NOT To Sell Your Own Book: Ministress Lubben Offers Free Copies Of Her "Truth Behind The Fantasy Of Porn"...Yet Her First Story Turns Out To BE A Fantasy

[Crossposted from my Red Garter Club blog]

Well...it seems that either sales are not going so well for Shelley Lubben, or she's that willing to expose herself to even more criticism about her tactics..because she just announced that she's giving out free PDF copies of her book "The Truth About The Fantasy Of Porn" to anyone who visits her site (of course, if you want an autographed hard copy of the book, you will still have to pay).

Shelley's even gone as far as to break off an announcement to none other than LukeIsBack.com. expressing the hope that porn performers surfing there would be willing to read her book and go through all the changes and epiphanies that she went through on the road to peace and glory through the "salvation of Jesus Christ".

That's all fine and good, and her perfect right to do so.

Problem is, that if you are going to open yourself like that by offering your book to anyone passing by, Ministeress, you might want to prepare yourself that it will face scrutiny and constructive critique for its shortcomings and fallacies.

I just so happened to get my own PDF copy of the book, and have given it the once-over. I'll possibly provide a much more detailed fisking of the tome later on when I have more time to really digest what Shelley printed.

However, if the first chapter -- if not the first footnoted factoid  -- is of any measure, Lubben's still up to her old tricks of playing fast and loose with the facts.

Let's try this nice tibit from Page 2:

But the multi-billion dollar porn industry wants you to believe
the fantasy that we porn actresses love sex. They want you
to buy into the lie that we enjoy being degraded by all kinds of
repulsive acts. Creatively edited films and prettified packaging
are designed to brainwash consumers into believing that the
lust we portray on hot and bothered faces are part of the act.
But the reality is women are in unspeakable pain from being
slapped, bit, spit upon, kicked and called names like “filthy little
whore” and “toilet cunt.”

While filming the movie “Rough Sex 2,” porn star Regan
Starr described in horrific terms in an interview with Talk Magazine
in February, 2001, “that while sex acts were performed on
her, she was hit and choked until she couldn't breathe. Other
“actresses,” she said, “wept because they were hurting so badly.”
(1)

Now, I will defer for another time and a more detailed analysis Lubben's meme about how women are so degraded and abused in the making of porn, or the gall of a woman who hasn't made an active video in 20 years deciding to make herself the voice of ALL porn performers.

It's this reference to Regan Starr, though, that bears attention.

Here's the related footnote attached to the end of the book:

1. Regan Starr Interview. Talk Magazine, http://www.cwfa.org/articles/
3838/LEGAL/pornography/index.htm, February 2001.

It would be a very helpful link...if it worked. Problem is, it doesn't.

The actual domain is NOT to TALK Magazine, but to the site of the very antifeminist, and aggressively antiporn Concerned Women of America website...and not even their section on "Pornography" lists any such interview. (In fact, their articles only go back as far as 2009.)

Not even a Google search could find any reference to an Regan Starr interview with Talk Magazine...other than one reference to another infoblab found at another antiporn website called Against Pornography (www.againstpornography.org), which cites what is alleged to be testimony from Ms. Starr quoted from yet ANOTHER antiporn site (victimsofpornography.org):

"Porn performer Regan Starr, in an interview with Talk magazine in February 2001, described her experience while filming "Rough Sex 2" in horrific terms. She said that, while sex acts were performed on her, she was hit and choked until she couldn't breathe. Other “actresses,” she said, wept because they were hurting so badly. In the same article, a sex-film star notes how threatening the work is to performers’ health. “Nearly everyone has STDs [sexually transmitted diseases],” said Chloe. “If you’re a porno performer,” she continued, “your latest HIV test is your work permit. ... The tests we take test only for AIDS. We’ve contained AIDS in the industry, but what about all the others? You know we’re now up to hepatitis G?"
-- Source: victimsofpornography.org/

Well, now...you can't defend that, can you?? I mean, that's her iron clad story, so it must be as Shelley wrote it...right??

Not quite, Clones.

Long time serious TV journalist Linda Ellerbee had a consistent saying to warn people to dig inside the stories and not just take them at face value: "People say that the camera doesn't lie, but people can lie with a camera."

In this case, Shelley's big lie assumes that no one would ever actually seek to find the actual interview that Regan Starr made in which she made those remarks...and the proper context in which she made them.

Turns out that it wasn't Talk Magazine where the "choked" and "abused" comments originated; rather, it was an interview (warning: link NSFW) that Regan did do with the website of Excalibur Films, which interviews a lot of porn performers. They don't give out the exact date of the interview, but from the text of Starr's comments, that had to be right about that time of January 2001.

The interviewer was long time porn critic/commentator/director Roger T. Pipe, and from the looks of that interview, Regan sure didn't sound like someone who was so abused and victimized from her time in porn.

Roger T. Pipe Well, this is an interesting interview. We've just finished shooting Regan Star for the final scene of a pro-am movie and she's sitting here with me in the bathtub, naked.  I guess we don't have to bother with the whole topless requirement this time around. Regan, thank you for taking time out to talk with me and your fans on the internet, and thank you for letting me sit here and enjoy a bath with you.

Regan Starr But you're not in the bath with me.

Roger T. Pipe I know, but believe me, I'm enjoying it all the same.

Regan Starr Yes, and I'm enjoying some champagne and would love the company.

Roger T. Pipe Maybe later. You just shot a scene with…(To the man about to leave the room.) Hey you, what's your name?

Jay Jay Hitchcock.

Roger T. Pipe Oh yeah, Jay Hitchcock. You just shot a scene with Jay, how was it?

Regan Starr Very good. His dick was very, very hard and quite big. It grew a great deal from where it was when we started so I was quite surprised.

Roger T. Pipe There were lots of hard dicks on the set, you just couldn't see them all.

Regan Starr Well, I was concentrating on the scene and they were all concealed in pants so I missed them. Think you could show me one?

Yup..naked in the bathtub, right after finishing up a particularly satisfying scene. Yeah, a definite Pink Cross recruit right there.

"But, hold on, 'Dog," I hear you thinking, "She did say all those things about being choked and slapped during those porn scenes, right? Is Shelley lying, or what?"

Well...yes, she does..but it's not about porn as a whole, but about ONE particular scene in ONE particular video for ONE particular company...namely, the notorious Anabolic Productions, who has built themselves a reputation for being more than a bit aggressive with their female performers. THIS is in fact what Regan actually said (emphasis added by me):

Roger T. Pipe We'll get back to the sex life later, but we were heading towards a topic. We established that with Max it was all play acting, but you're in the middle of another situation that is a little closer to home, a little more real.

Regan Starr Right. I know where you're going with that, so I'll just take over. Anabolic has put out a second tape in their Rough Sex line. In the video the women are the victims and the men are the perpetrators. The men get direction to literally perpetrate and abuse women in the videos. Anabolic thinks that it's validated because they say that they talk to the women about the video before hand. They say that the women are told that they are going to be smacked and yelled at then asked if it's still OK. The difference between this sort of film and one by Max Hardcore is that Max is the type of person who will go with what you are feeling. He may ask kinky things of you, but he will not intentionally beat you or hurt you emotionally without a very strong indication that he is acting. With Rough Sex 2, where my scene appeared, they called me a week before the shoot to ask me if I would be interested in this sort of film. Having done Max's films, I figured I wouldn't mind being pinched, spanked or talked dirty to. That's pretty common in porn. Every video you see is rougher than at home sex. It's for effect and for the audience. I really don't think Anabolic is putting out a positive vibe to the audience because they are filling their movies with women crying and being hit full force by men twice their size. Even though they talk to women before the scene, the women don't expect to get the shit kicked out of them. No one wants that, so why would they have a video that is completely real and in your face. It's absolutely wrong and I stand by my statement that even though they told me what the video was going to be like, they didn't tell me it was going to be physical abuse and that I shouldn't do it if I was sensitive or faint at heart. They should have said, hey Regan, this is absolutely real. Mickey G is going to strangle you. Mickey G is going to pick you up by your hair. He is going to throw you to the floor and make you cry. He is going to do all these things and we are going to keep filming. If they had said this to me, do you honestly think that I would have agreed to film with that company? I would have walked my ass out. I had no idea that the video was real. I had no idea that I was going to walk out of there traumatized and crying. They have a disgusting line and I think that it should be banned. I think it's completely wrong.

In other words, Regan Starr's major beef is directed SPECIFICALLY towards Anabolic and their Neanderthalish violent attitudes towards their female performers...and she even goes on to praise none other than MAX freakin' HARDCORE for his remarkable restraint!!

What....you say that I'm lying about Regan's love for Max Hardcore?? Here's a money quote from earlier in the interview:

Roger T. Pipe Before we get into the whole Rough Sex thing, I have to ask you, what's the deal with you and Max?

Regan Starr Max Hardcore is a good friend of mine and I don't think I will ever talk badly about him because he always gave me the respect I deserved. His scenes are always rough and the scenes he did with me are probably among the roughest of anything he has done. However, we had an understanding that it was fake and we were acting. There is a big difference between acting and realism. Max was rough, he was kinky and he pushed the limits, but he was also able to stop the cameras and be Max off camera while I was taking a breather and preparing for whatever vulgarity might come next. I will never bad mouth Max because of the respect. He talks to me like a human being and like I have brains. He would never do anything to me that I didn't want him to do. There was nothing in those films that I wouldn't do for someone else.

Of course, not every female porn performer would agree with that sentiment regarding Max Hardcore....but it does tell how different performers may have different reactions to different things, and how you just can't reduce individual tastes to groupthink conclusions.

Naturally, it's a mystery why Lubben wouldn't actually link the original interview and show the world that Regan Starr had an real genuine issue with one particularly bad porn company which could have been legitimately accused of mishandling and abusing their talent.

Actually, it's not so much a mystery, because Shelley's only interest is in merely rehabitating the usual antiporn talking points, distorting Regan Starr's testimony about Anabolic to indict the entire porn diaspora and find herself more prime recruits to use for her own ministry.

And to think that this is only her first footnote. I hesitate to see what other distortions and errors are in store. And, I'm sure that with Shelley Lubben, I'm betting the over every time.

Update (11/20/11):

Well…turns out that my Google search skills might need some fine tuning.

Reader Matt Scott just commented that there was indeed a Talk Magazine column that featured Regan Starr’s original comments about her not-so-excellent experiences with Anabolic Productions. I’ll simply reprint his comment verbatum:

Taking your advice to not take things at face value, I decided to look for the actual article referred to in both cases as the ‘Talk Magazine article.’ There is in fact such an article; it was written by journalist and novelist Martin Amis, appearing in the February 2001 issue of Talk Magazine under the title “Sex in America” (February 2001, pp. 98-103, 133-35). The same article was republished under the title “A Rough Trade” in The Guardian newspaper on Sat. 17 March 2001 and also on their website: http://tinyurl.com/yeewyo4 The article has since been republished by the Vintage imprint of Random House under the title “Porno’s Last Summer” in a collection of Martin Amis’s work called Vintage Amis (2004, pp. 174ff.) The quotes used by both Shelley and the Against Porn website are verbatim excerpts from the Amis article and do not originate from the interview by Roger T. Pipe. I’m sure you’ll be interested in having this information at your disposal.

My sincere thanks and appreciation to Mark for making that correction to the record.

Now, it should be noted that the original citing used by Shelley in her book does NOT cite Amis or the Guardian article, but an excerpt posted to the Concerned Women of America website…which, unfortunately, can’t be found. Why the Ministeress decided to use that source for her citation, and not use the original Amis citing or the Guardian article (or even, the citing from the antiporn website VictimsofPornography.org that I cited from my own Google search), is a mystery only she or her ghostwriters can answer. Perhaps she didn’t want to cite a putative left-of-center source for fear of alienating her target audience of right-wing fundamentalist Christian men (many of whom might also have been the biggest viewers of her porn movies when she was still playing “Roxy”). Or..perhaps it’s simply just another case of slipshod analysis and sourcing. I guess we’ll never really know, shall we??