When 'Interview' met Larry: a conversation with the man himself

Interview, Dec, 1996 by Lynda Obst

LARRY FLYNT: I was only interested in making money and having fun, and that's what I did. I had no idea I would end up in the middle of a First Amendment battle. But once I got caught up in the struggle, I felt the laws were unconstitutional, so I was obliged to continue.

LO: Tell me about the day in 1988 when the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in your favor in Jerry Falwell's case against you. [In 1983, Hustler had published a mock Campari advertisement depicting Falwell losing his virginity to his mother in an outhouse.]

LF: It was probably the one thing in my life that left me stunned. I had been to the Supreme Court in 1983 and yelled obscenities at the justices - the first time that had ever happened. I was convinced we were going to lose the case despite being aware of how that would make the mainstream press subject to prosecution if they published a cartoon or article inflicting emotional harm on someone. Cartoonists and journalists often want to inflict emotional distress so it would have been a disaster for the press as a whole if we'd lost. It was therefore a very big day in my life and a very happy one when we won.

LO: Do you believe there are no limits to freedom of speech?

LF: I believe First Amendment rights are absolute. When the founding fathers crafted the Constitution, they said, "Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of the press." And they didn't, to the dismay of the Falwellians of the world, make any qualifications. A lot of things are published that I don't agree with, but I defend the right to publish them.

LO: You founded a media empire on the strength of a girlie magazine and ended up being supported by the establishment in the most important media trial of our time. I can't think of anyone else who has made such a leap.

LF: But I don't think I'll be respectable in my lifetime. History will probably treat me better. A hundred years from now people are going to look at me and ask, "What was he fighting about?" That's because I believe we're going to move beyond censorship and deal with more pervasive problems in society.

LO: It seems that abortion has become the focus of the religious right's anger about sex in the same way that they targeted pornography in the '70s.

LF: The church has had its hand on our crotch for the last two thousand years. The government is moving in that direction, too, thinking that if they can control our pleasure center, they can control us. The connection between pornography and abortion is abstract, but it's about the right to choose. Let's not talk about my right to publish Hustler - let's talk about the rights of people out there who want to buy it; that's whose rights are important. And when it comes to a woman's right to choose, I don't know why every woman in America isn't infuriated by the prospect of the government telling them what they can or cannot do with their reproductive organs.

LO: As far as you're concerned, is Hustler still exploring the boundaries of sexual taboo?

LF: I think like most people, I'm just into plain old vanilla sex - suckin' and fuckin'.

LO: Have you ever felt conflicted about publishing pornography?

LF: No. I've always felt that women are at their most glorious when they're in their birthday suits. And if there's anything in my life that I ever felt like worshipping, it was a woman. I was once asked by a feminist why I didn't publish a magazine that held women in a more positive light. And I said, "How could I possibly do that?" To me, the exploitation factor is a figment of the feminist imagination.

LO: Are you now at the philosopher-king stage of your life?

LF: I've mellowed, but my views are the same. There's one more conflict I see on the horizon. We have a web site [Hustler Online], which is doing very well. But the Supreme Court could be hearing this case [Janet Reno vs. the ACLU] that'll test the new Communications Decency Act, and it's anyone's guess what they will do with it. Most of the legal scholars think they'll come down on the side of free speech. If they don't, you're going to see a lot of turmoil and I'm probably one of the first people they'll come after.

LO: What was it like watching Courtney Love play Althea in The People vs. Larry Flynt?

LF: Of all the casting in the movie, Courtney surprised me the most. She was phenomenal and seemed to capture the essence of Althea.

LO: Did that make you miss Althea even more? [Althea Leasure Flynt died in 1987.]

LF: I don't think you ever stop missing someone you truly loved.

LO: Being the sexual connoisseur you were in your youth, do you feel that when you were shot [in 1978, by a white racist who objected to an interracial photo spread in Hustler] and paralyzed from the waist down that there was something punitive about that?

LF: No, it was a coincidence.

LO: Do you ever get bitter about it?

LF: I learned a long time ago that there's no upside to being bitter about anything. Everybody gets dealt certain cards in life and they have to live with them.

LO: Was pursuing what you believed in worth making the sacrifices you did?