Pornology

A timeline on pornography in the United States (continued)

1969 - The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Stanley v. Georgia that people can read and look at whatever they wish in the privacy of their own homes. The case is a result of law enforcement officers, under the authority of a warrant, searching a man's home pursuant to an investigation of his alleged bookmaking activities. During the search, the officers find three reels of 8mm film. The officers view the films, conclude they are obscene, and seize them. Stanley is then tried and convicted under a Georgia law prohibiting the possession of obscene materials

1969 - The first documentary containing hard-core pornography shows in a San Francisco public cinema. The documentary, Censorship in Denmark, explores Scandinavian pornography

1969 - Gerard Damiano's We All Go Down and All Women Are Bad are released. A film by Paul Mazursky about the curiosity of couple-swapping, Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, is released

1969 - Jim Morrison is arrested for obscene behavior at a concert after je pulls on the front of his weather-worn leather pants and threatens to produce his penis for the crowd

March 1969 - I Am Curious (Yellow) opens in New York

March 25, 1969 - NYU Students for Democratic Society lead a rally calling for open admission to blacks

April 2, 1969 - Members of the Black Panther Party are indicted on charges of conspiring to blow up five department stores and a police station

April 30, 1969 - "All They Talk About is Sex, Sex, Sex" by Tom Buckley published in the New York Times magazine. Buckley visits the Kinsey Institute and the research center in St. Louis where Virginia Johnson and William Masters are working

May 31, 1969 - Denmark becomes the first nation in the world to rescind its obscenity laws, an act taken after much deliberation and study. As a result, the demand for pornography eventually undergoes a long and steady decline in that country. A few years after the decline begins, a survey of Copenhagen residents finds that most Danes came to regard pornography as "uninteresting" or "repulsive"

July 14, 1969 - Easy Rider premieres

August 1969 - Woodstock is held in upstate New York

Oct. 9, 1969 - Jackie Onassis kick-flips Max Finkelstein of the NY Daily News while he is taking photos of her as she leaves a NYC showing of the film I Am Curious (Yellow) - a film that goes on to be the subject of obscenity cases in 23 cities and 13 states (including Maryland and Massachusetts)

Oct. 13, 1969 - Students for a Democratic Society initiate a National Action in Chicago. Two days later, Vietnam Moratorium Day is observed nationwide

1970 - Top five TV shows: Marcus Welby MD, The Flip Wilson Show, The Lucy Show, Ironside, and Gunsmoke. Other popular shows are Green Acres, The Carol Burnett Show, The Mod Squad, Love, American Style, The Odd Couple, Bewitched, The Ed Sullivan Show, and Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In

1970 - Linda seriously injured in a car accident on the Taconic State Parkway in New York. Shortly after the accident, she moves in with her parents at their home in Florida

Jan. 14, 1970 - The Supreme Court rules that six southern states must integrate by Feb. 1

1970 - Hollywood Blue, another history-of-porn movie, directed by Bill Osco, includes the usual vintage film footage and ends with modern, full-closeup hardcore

Pornography in Denmark, directed by Alex De Renzy, is banned in New Jersey in 1971.  The documentary illustrates the sort of pornography that became available in Denmark following its legalization

Sexual Freedom in Denmark, directed by Alex De Renzy and described as a semi-documentary of sexual practices, is banned in New York in 1971

Black is Beautiful is narrated and is a study of sexual customs in Africa. The LA Free Press reports the film takes in $48,000 in one week at an LA Theater and that while it is exploitative, the majority of the audience is black

American Sexual Revolution, directed by John William Abbott, is an amusingly dated documentary which wraps a number of hardcore sex scenes within the protection of a pompous but fairly serious look at changing attitudes of sexuality

Wide United States release of Censorship In Denmark and History of the Blue Movie.  Censorship is made for $15,000 and grosses $2 million.

Teenie Tulip, is Gerard Damiano's highest budgeted film until Deep Throat

Mona, directed by Bill Osco, is the first full-length adult feature

Sex USA, directed by Gerard Damiano, features some of porn's earliest stars, from shapely Tina Russell to leggy Darby Lloyd Rains and incorporates "doctors" offering instruction as to what fucking is all about.  Hard-core action is often inset with overall frame, playing on screen within the film, or in background.  This was done so producers can escape prosecution for obscenity

1970 - "The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm," written by Anne Koedt, is published

1970 - Jerry Bruckheimer helps coordinate the first Erotic Film Festival in San Francisco

1970 - Electro Sex 75, is the first porn feature to be advertised in a New York newspaper

1970 - First peep-show machines arrive from Copenhagen and are installed in Times Square. The machines were invented by Lasse Braun, who was known as the "King of the Euroloops."

Feb. 18, 1970 - The Chicago Seven are acquitted on charges of plotting to incite riots

April, 1970 - Paul McCartney confirms that the Beatles have broken up

April 1, 1970 - Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act signed by Nixon after approval from House and Senate

April 11, 1970 - Apollo 13 launched. Returns to Earth on April 17, 1970

(to be continued)

- Ashley York