CONFIDENTIAL FILE

Smut Purveyor Reaps Harvest

In the smut business, the biggest losers are the customers.

They shell out something (more than 1 million dollars a year) for nothing.

But they’re not the only ones who come out on the short end.

A couple of years ago, I printed a letter received by an 11-year-old boy here in town.

It was the typical pitch to peddle nude photos, written as a "personal" note.

It said, in part:

"Maybe it isn’t proper for a girl to write to a strange man this way, but I hope you don’t mind . . .

". . . I was talking to a girl friend the other day — and she
mentioned HER little business and how enjoyable it was just writing
letters and sending photographs and films of herself to a few nice
fellows . . .

"The photographs . . . are a lot different from what you’ve seen in the magazines. For my PERSONAL FRIENDS, you know.

"The films — well, I’ve never modeled for movies before. On the first
one I was so nervous the photographer said, ‘Okay, just act like you
were nervous’ — and it was real easy. He had me strip down from street
clothes — all the way . . ."

The kid’s name possibly got on the trash peddler’s mailing list by
accident. Sucker lists — or mailing lists — are swapped freely among
the quick artists, no matter what their product.

Timely Interception

In that particular case, the boy’s mother intercepted the letter before he had the chance to break open his piggy bank.

She forwarded it to me, with some steaming comments about what the postman can bring to her children.

Yesterday I talked with another woman — a mother of  two — who found
herself much more personally involved in the borderline pornography
business.

Her name: Mrs. Therese Loomis. The wife of an actor, she’s worked in summer stock, little theater, and legit modeling.

Last October, she took an assignment which called for modeling and recording.

The "recording" consisted of cutting a record in which she coos and
bemoans the "lonely" life of a little girl in Hollywood, and invites
the listener on a moonlight ride up Pacific Coast Highway.

(Typical
dialogue: "I might even bite you on the ear if you’re not careful" . .
. "If you don’t behave yourself I might have to jump in the back
seat.")

Just Five-Buck Package

The photos, Mrs. Loomis
told me, were straight pin-up stuff — in nightgowns, bathing suits,
shorts — and the package went for five bucks to any mailing list
chumps who answered a come-on letter similar to the one the boy
received.

When I talked with Mrs. Loomis yesterday, she was a very upset young woman. A jury in Van Nuys court had branded her recording and the pitch letter to sell it as obscene."

Whatever
it was, her modeling agency has dropped her, her neighborhood newspaper
— in reporting the story — has labeled her as a member of a
nationwide smut ring, and her own neighbors won’t talk to her anymore.

The jury’s verdict of guilty is being appealed, but no matter what the eventual outcome, Mrs. Loomis is a loser.

The $50 fee she earned for the job was used up the day she had to pay a bail bondsman to get out of jail.

The
only ones who come out ahead in the business of titillating the flippy
adult or the curious adolescent who gets on these lists are the smooth
operators who rake in so many bucks that the few they put out in
infrequent fines look like pennies to them.