Don Carpenter - Taboo Acts X - Farm Lust

The host grins stupidly and says, “Well, I guess we'd better get started.” He and another guest begin opening four or five cans of film and loading the 16 mm projector, which the host has borrowed from either his church or a local high school. The lights are tumid down and the “movie” begins. There isn't any danger of the films winning an Oscar. They are usually spotty and have a tendency to lapse into flickers of white nothingness.

As to the “actors” and the story plot, a typical film might be called A Date With My Doctor. In this classic epic we see a young girl going into a doctor's office. There is no nurse, and the “doctor” crudely disguised in glasses and false beard shows the young lady into his private office. She acts shy and afraid. He turns and leers at the camera and we can see his lips moving, telling the girl to undress. She does, slowly, until she is stark naked. The doctor advances and has the girl lay down on what passes for an examining table. He then indulges in various sex acts with her, climaxing the scene with sexual intercourse.

It is the Blue Show that is often raided by police. The guests are held for disorderly conduct and are fined anywhere from five to one hundred dollars each, depending upon how loudly the local bluenoses have been beating their moral drums. Naturally the wise thing to do is to plead guilty, pay up and get the hell out before the publicity gets out of hand.

Newspapers in reporting such raids have to rely on tired euphemisms as “obscene performance” and “pornographic” material. One Chicago raid in the summer of 1967 netted almost the entire membership of a labor union, plus five women. The press, plus the fact that ten reels of film, in color and with sound, were confiscated duly noted this. In a California raid, the police net also included a photographer, who was at the party to develop and print pictures for guests who might have trouble having them processed at the local drug store.

Girls are occasionally used in the Blue Show. However, I use the word “girls” in the broadest sense, for unless the ladies are enthusiastic amateurs or unless it is a very swank affair they are likely to be very sad indeed. This is easy to understand, since a gal with a good private practice is not prone to make house calls, and the talented free-lances are seldom interested in the large, economy-size project, all of which leaves “Smoker” work to ladies who are either too unattractive for steady work or almost too old to walk! Be that as it may, it is Grandma's job to circulate among the guests, say witty sayings and disappear from time to time with individual males. All sorts of elaborate plans are made in advance for spiriting her away in case of trouble, and trouble is always close by, for this type of dame usually manages to get very drunk, which seems to be a sort of occupational hazard of the profession. Often Grandma will do a sloppy strip-tease and end up passed out on the floor. There is the genuine “anything-goes” Smoker-rather rare, mainly because of the expense and the difficulty of finding a place to hold it. This type of deal is usually held in various parts of the country by say, National Guard units, fireman's groups and the like. There may or may not be movies at a rip-roaring smoker, but there are always girls. And unless this is really a swank affair, the girls will be mature. This is the only compliment we can give them. The good-looking younger talent simply isn't interested, not unless the price is right, and the price is seldom right because the boys can't afford it, or else don't want to.

The program? After the boys are a little boozed up, the entertainment begins with an “act” performed by the star. For some remote reason many of these performers insist on displaying some kind of sick-sick talent. They either sing, dance, juggle or otherwise make fools of themselves.

Often the show depends on audience participation. The lady shouts: “Is there a gentleman down there who will assist me?” t this point the crowd will invariably push forward a pal who is known to be (l) a show-off; (2) a prude; (3) classically plastered. The lady, or ladies, loudly assists in getting him on the stage. Often the poor boob will try to run, but of course he doesn't get far. Then again, the boob will throw himself whole-heartedly into the business, with such vim and vigor that he has to be pulled off by the “entertainment committee.” But usually he will yield to popular demand and make a grotesque attempt to do what the girls ask him to do, grinning stupidly and often falling off the stage in the confusion. As a rule he does succeed in making a complete ass of himself.

This breaks the moral ice and the party turns into something of a free-for-all: The girls run around naked all over the place and every now and then go into a back room with one of the boys. There is laughter and shouting and clouds of cigar and cigarette smoke. The party breaks up when the guests start passing out or somebody tosses a punch.

The Goodwill Setup (or VIP Party) is not a stag party in the strict sense of the term. It is for men, and the entertainment is strictly physical, but in his case the host is a public relations man with an enormous budget, in search of a sure-fire way to persuade a small group of VIPs to think gratefully of his client and to do business with him.

The whole business of high-powered sex usually begins with cocktails at a good hotel. The VIPs are introduced to lovely young ladies, who are usually in their early twenties, with clothes, accents and manners that are flawless. These girls are top professionals in the business and show uncanny skill in pleasing their escorts. Looking and acting like movie starlets, no one would ever dream that they are $200 and $300 and $500 a night call girls. These girls are also available for longer tours of duty, such as weekend cruises, visits to private lodges, etc. Of course their rates are higher for this type of work and can run as high as a grand or more. But as we have said, these girls are the best money can buy.

The Sex Circus, with or without animals, is undoubtedly the most depraved and vulgar exhibition known to the human mind, and no city or large size in the world is free of such an extravaganza. In Havana, the competition for the tourist trade produced, finally, four types of circus performances. One type emphasized the surroundings like the walls, floor and ceiling being all mirrored, so that the spectators could watch the acts from any and every angle. In another type, the focus was on youth, the performers all teenagers, the attraction centering around the depravity of boys and girls so young.

Dr. Robert van Dextrineholtz, a medical doctor from River Forest, Illinois (a suburb of Chicago), an orthopedist to be precise, was a spectator at a human/animal sex circus, in which the “actors” were teen-agers, not one over sixteen. As an added attraction, elderly men and women performed with the teen-agers. Finally, Youth and Age indulged in acts of perversion with beasts. Dr. van Dextrineholtz has given us permission to use his name and to record his history.

I now give it in the first person:

Doctor Robert van Dextrineholtz: It was our good fortune mine and my wife's to be spectators at what is known as a sex circus. The one I attended and my wife was held in a large private home on the Rio Del Prado in Havana, my knowledge of the affair having been conveyed to me by a tout who, openly, solicited business all over the city. He did this quite openly and I assume that he and other shills were not the least bit concerned about interference from the police. I discussed it with my wife, not wanting to go without her.

“It will be unusual,” Tania said. “And we might never get another chance to see such depravity just so we don't have to participate!” So we went in the middle of a hot July afternoon, and the cost was one hundred American dollars per person. I was further convinced that the police were getting a share of the profits when we arrived by cab at the huge house and were ushered inside by a very pretty Negro maid. She was about twenty and very pretty. She took us to a very large room on the first floor and told us we could sit where we wanted and smoke. She indicated a bar on one side of the room. “Anything you want to drink,” she said. “And the prices are the same as at the better hotels. Enjoy yourselves, Americanos.”