by CHRIS BARRY, MICHAEL CITROME, PATRICK LEJTENYI and SASHA

The recent unfortunate events currently sweeping the porn world have highlighted a serious, if isolated, problem in the adult entertainment world. But there is more to porn, especially in Montreal, than naïve actresses and deadly diseases. The glories of technology, combined with our high-octane lasciviousness and natural good looks, have made our town the purportedly third-biggest pornography producing centre in the world, after Los Angeles and Amsterdam. But the world of porn is a murky one, and so to shed some light on this oft-misunderstood industry, the Mirror presents this handy A-Z guide to pornography in Montreal.

Although hardly exhaustive, allow it to serve as a primer to the city's thriving adult entertainment sector.

Allô Police If not exactly porn in content, Allô Police was, until a makeover last fall turned it into vedette gossip rag Allô, certainly pornographic in spirit - and hence, worthy of mention here. Founded 50 years ago in an effort by police to alert the public to the crime-infested sewer that is/was Quebec - with help from its sister publication Photo Police - and hopefully inspire larger law enforcement budgets, Allô Police has consistently provided primo stroke material for those who get off reading about grisly rape/murders and/or any local crime that affords one the opportunity to gaze at the inevitably nude photos of those involved. (CB)

Bleu Nuit Where else in North America can you enjoy "big budget" softcore porn on television without having to fork over to cable or satellite providers? A staple on TQS since its inception in 1986, it's been argued that the existence and continued popularity of Bleu Nuit, originally known as Ciné Bleu, is a postcard-perfect example of Montreal's "distinct" character.

Since then, TQS - to say nothing of the pay channels - have made a huge leap into the world of erotic programming, from gag shows like SexyCam and Sex-Shop to its Séries érotiques. Documentary channel CanalD has made strides into the adult world as well, with racy shows like SeXstar and Sexe réalité sizzling up the non-hardcore airwaves. (CB)

Carol Cox is a true porn pioneer. Her Web site, www.carolcox.com, proudly announces she's been online since 1994 and, in those nine years, she's built a Net porn empire called Wild Rose Productions, one of the biggest in the world.

Carol's proud of the number of guys she's bagged. "If I add it all together, I've been with well over 500 different men," she says on her site, adding, "Remember, you too can fuck me if you like."

Oddly, Carol looks like, and is, a suburban mom - albeit with an enhanced rack. She lives an idyllic life on the West Island, where presumably her neighbours don't know what she's up to, or are at least too polite to say anything. (MC)

Dugmor With his ass-length dreadlocks, New Jersey native Dugmor is one of the most identifiable figures in Internet porn. In addition to his career as a porno producer and performer on sites like multiple penetration festival www.herfirstgangbang.com, Dugmor gained extra fame as the most notorious Mirror Best of Montreal spammer. But he still feels like the underdog.

"I don't think anyone in Montreal really knows how much economy I bring to this city," says Dugmor. "If I do not promote myself, who will?" (MC)

ExpressVu Our oft-maligned satellite TV provider Bell ExpressVu is actually the envy of many American porn consumers. BEV offers an impressive line-up of 10 (six English, four French) pay-per-view all-adult channels, as well as SexTV, BluVu and the Playboy channels. The majority is XXX (hardcore - showing cum shots and anal), with 11 new English and four French titles per month. There are also two softcore erotic features and one or two new gay titles a month, but no all-gay channel.

BEV is therefore happily, if quietly, providing lots and lots of porn programming to Canadians - and some Americans. Because hardcore and gay porn isn't carried by some state cable companies and local blackout regulations apply to U.S. satellite providers, Americans have been known to pirate BEV signals. Yannic Boutin, a BEV spokesman, says that for the record he is unaware of this kind of piracy and notes that BEV adheres to internal and national standards and does not carry any programs that involve degradation or humiliation.

Vidéotron also dabbles in the skin trade. Delivering via Viewer's Choice and Canal Indigo, Vidéotron has fewer dedicated all-porn channels but offers a wide selection nonetheless, including at least one all-gay channel, after 11 p.m. Although not available yet, Rogers is planning to come to Quebec, and currently has Viewer's Choice, Playboy, 10X and the Hustler channel in its digital cable package. (PL)

Fetish Junkies This 1998 adult film legend was brought to you by Montreal's own Marc Hendrix, who's also responsible for such subtle classics as Sex Bazaar 1, 2 and 3 and 2002's Sexy Dolls. Hendrix is considered by many to be the granddaddy of local adult film production. His 1993 debut, L'initiation de Mélanie, was the first locally produced porn flick to be approved by the Régie du cinéma and spawned a short-lived adult mini-production boom here in Quebec. Celebrated the world over for the skill and honesty he brings to his cumshots, the enigmatic Hendrix remains a mysterious figure, truly passionate about his art, but preferring to keep a low profile rather than bask in the glory of his many cinematic accomplishments. (CB)

Gay porn While not a lot of it is being produced here, ain't nobody doubting that enough of it is being consumed in these parts - with Wega Video and Priape in the Village being two of the premier locations to pick up video/DVD titles sporting man/man bumlove action. Wega stocks over 2,000 rental films and hosts 25 peep show booths in the back should you not be able to wait to get home to start tugging on Willy, while Priape is also stocked to the brim with gay titles. They are the people behind www.priape.com, a phenomenally popular Web site registering half-a-million hits a month, largely as a result of their community chat section which is rumoured to be hot, hot, hot!

Priape, however, isn't content to sit on its laurels. It's gone into the porn-making biz as well, having produced such classics as Alex & Bruno (1999), directed by local legend André Tardif, and Fuck Friends (2000). A third film is reportedly in the works.

Meanwhile, Breck Stewart, who starred in Fuck Friends, is putting together a project of his own. He is currently casting and looking for talent. Those interested should contact www.breckstewart.com. (CB)

Hosting No matter how ample the supply of booty to be shook on-camera, without the backroom boys (and girls), no Web site would ever get out of the onanistic idea stage. Stew Stronski is the 35-year-old former truck driver turned self-taught Webmaster of Eromodel Group (www.eromodelcasting.com). (For more on the Eromodel Group and their involvement in the recent porn HIV controversy, see accompanying story).

According to Stronski, his job is "really exactly the same as hosting any other kind of Web site. It's just a question of getting a server on the Web." Except, unlike the rest of the tech industry, there's no economic dark side.

"I wouldn't say porn is recession-proof, but it seems like people are still willing to spend money on it. The growth has slowed down, but the bad economy didn't make a huge impact." (MC)

Industry associations "Unfortunately, there isn't one," says Daniel White, head of film production company Érobec Productions. "It would be nice to have everyone in the industry put their energy together and work in one direction." The adult entertainment industry is fairly anarchic, with each autonomous company working more or less independently of each other. While the companies share actors, there is no one single lobby group looking out for everyone's interest. White says he has proposed joint ventures and other forms of cooperation, but the possibility of forming a professional association never gets beyond the talking stage. "I think it has something to do with the Québécois mentality," he says. The people in the industry "are very proud of what they've accomplished - as they should be - and I think that they're afraid of what might happen if someone else is in the position of telling them what they should do." (PL)

Jail, access to porn in Prisoners in both federal and provincial institutions are allowed some forms of pornography, but not all. Softcore magazines (the names that come up most often are Playboy and Penthouse) are generally allowed, but anything that depicts degradation, humiliation or violence is prohibited. In federal prisons, inmates must supply the library with a request for titles wanted from the outside world. The mags are screened by prison staff for content, and if deemed unsuitable, are confiscated. Prisoners pay for the mags themselves. Individual prisons often have deals with cable providers - paid for out of a prisoners' fund - that gives them access to some of the racier channels available, like Playboy. Hardcore channels are no-nos, and, as they have to go to bed at designated times, prisoners can't stay up late to watch cable porn. No videos are allowed and no prisoners have Internet access. (PL)

Kiddie porn Montreal is not known as a centre for the production of child pornography. However, according to Commander Michel Doucet of the Montreal police's Centre opérationnel ouest, 20 people were arrested for possession of child pornography between September 2002 and September 2003, and 86 new files were opened. That's up from previous years (around 60 files in 2001 and 36 in 2000), in large part, according to him, because of the federal government's toughened laws and high-profile publicity campaign.

Bill C-15A, a July 2002 amendment to the original 1993 law, prohibits cyber-luring - the use of the Internet to communicate with children for sex - with a five-year maximum sentence. Possession of child porn with intent to distribute can result in up to 10 years in prison; and simply accessing it can theoretically result in five years. Still, sentences for possession tend to be low: Doucet says that punishments usually include a fine of $500 to $1,500 and/or a six-month suspended sentence.

In September, 2003, however, the SQ took over from the Montreal police to investigate Internet child porn. (PL)

L'Amour, Cinéma Boasting the largest triple-X screen in North America, this revered palace of pud-pulling on St-Laurent and Duluth has been packing porn-loving customers into seats since the late 1960s (named at the time the Pussy Cat). Renamed L'Amour in 1977, it has since undergone extensive renovations, most recently the addition of the balcony couples' lounge. Despite the carpet being stained from spilled drinks and cigarette burns and littered with bunches of Kleenex (available at the concessions stand in the lobby), the actual architecture remains a beautiful, if run-down, neo-classical mixture of ornate mouldings and Ionic columns. Appropriately, L'Amour has a rich history: it opened in 1880 as the Globe, a vaudeville theatre, and is rumoured to be the site where Harry Houdini received his fatal blow from a McGill student in 1926. (PL)

Muscle girl A specialized online phenomenon is the erotic bodybuilder, impressively-muscled women who shed their clothes for paying customers. One of the few women to enter the field is Montreal's Lana Lee Smith, hostess of www.muscularcamgirl.com. Offering a variety of services, including fantasy wrestling (and the biggest clit - at three inches - on the Net), she bills her business as a "live muscular hardcore erotic site." "There's nothing else like this in Canada," she says. The only other comparable one is www.landofvenus.com, out of Las Vegas. Smith travels often, meeting out-of-town customers eager to see her 14-inch biceps and ability to bench-press 180. (PL)

Numbers, phone sex This industry is a shadow of its former self. Due to a combination of factors beyond the rise of chat rooms, the 1-976 industry is in a state of near-total collapse. There are three main reasons why: First, customers were getting fed up with the dodgy billing. Phone sex companies would over-bill, charging fees that were above those advertised. Second, when irate or embarrassed customers would call Bell to complain about the charge on their bill - provided they didn't pay by credit card - Bell would charge the fee back to providers, and the financial hits began to take their toll. And third, when phone sex companies tried various means to disguise their real nature, usually by having a 1-900 or 1-800 non-sex line number, the CRTC cracked down and threatened carriers with repercussions if strict adherence to guidelines wasn't followed. (PL)

Pornstar Academy/ie A few hot-looking ladies, a couple of buff guys and a scandal. Sounds like a recipe for any prime-time reality show, except this one has a twist. Instead of contestants eating bugs and jumping across ravines, they're gettin' it on in front of millions of heavy-breathing self-gratifiers.

So here's the scandal - there were, in fact, two Pornstar Académies, both based in Montreal. One is www.pornstaracademie.com and the other www.pornstaracademy.ca (note the subtle domain suffix and spelling difference). The latter was the creation of Yanik Chicoine, creator of popular chat site www.montrealamateur.com, who claims his idea was stolen by his same-name rivals. It has since shut down.

The first Pornstar Académie series (the .com one) wrapped up last December, to much hype. Auditions for a second series were planned for last week but, due to the HIV scare, have since been shelved for at least the next two months. (MC)

Obscenity laws Canadian obscenity laws are written up in the federal Criminal Code (Sect. 163) and are therefore the same from coast to coast. Prohibited obscene material, as described by Canada Customs on their Web site, includes depictions of sex with minors, incest, bestiality and necrophilia. It also covers, however, depictions of humiliation, coercion, pain, multi-hued showers and bondage. So fetish and BDSM in particular have had a hard time, and many gay and lesbian activists complain that their community in particular is targetted by Customs officers and police.

All Canadians, however, are lucky to have any access to porn at all. During the dark Mulroney days, an unholy alliance between the conservative right and the radical feminist left - in particular Catherine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin - resulted in 1987's proposed Bill C-54, which was so all-encompassing that critics argued it would have declared obscene even depictions of vanilla sex between consenting adults. After much debate and protest, the bill died.

But the Supreme Court's landmark 1992 Butler decision stated that freedom to equality for women trumped freedom of expression - meaning that depicting the degradation of women as portrayed in BDSM publications was forbidden. Tom Waugh, the director of the program for interdisciplinary studies in sexuality at Concordia, says Butler is a "law taken from right-wing anti-porno feminist theory, and is often interpreted by the courts to apply to SM. It's completely subjective."

This spawned a series of lawsuits, most notably involving the Little Sister's Bookshop in Vancouver. Most of the material seized by Customs are titles aimed at the gay and lesbian community. But Little Sister's argues that the ever-changing list of prohibited depictions is confusing, subjective and arbitrary - fisting was considered obscene but Customs later reversed their position without telling anyone why. Furthermore, the law isn't enforced equally across the country. Quebec customs agents tend to be more lenient than Alberta's, for example, and thus the amount of porn available here is much greater.

Little Sister's is in court again, protesting the 2003 seizure of issues of Meatmen comics and calling for a "complete overhaul of the Canada Customs regime," says Mark Macdonald, the Little Sister's book buyer. The case goes to trial in September and is expected to set the book shop back an estimated $1-million. (PL)

Québec Érotique and Erosphere Arguably the two most visible glossy porn mags serving the distinct Quebec market, both publications are produced here and feature primarily local models. Erosphere also champions a "Contact" section in their magazine, where horny locals post photos of themselves - or at least the most relevant parts of themselves - along with contact information should readers like what they see and want to get a little more familiar with the genitals spread out on the page before them. (CB)

Rentals While purely anecdotal evidence suggests that some video stores have seen a decline of as much as 70 per cent of adult rentals in some stores, there is no real way to measure it with concrete numbers. There simply aren't any, says Dennis McAlpine, a Scarsdale, New York-based entertainment analyst, who concurs that video rental is all but dead. "The big guys like Blockbuster control about 60 per cent of the home video rental market, and they don't hold any porn, and they're driving the mom 'n' pop stores out of business," he says. He says customers are turning more to pay-per-view, which he estimates as being worth somewhere in the neighbourhood of $1.5-billion (U.S.). "If you have a good pay-per-view service, like in Manhattan, you'll see more of a transfer rather than a decline" of viewership. But, he warns, "Any number you see you should use with great suspicion. They're being used to make a point, so they're probably worthless." (PL)

Strippers Blue-eyed, blonde and buxom, 28-year-old stripper Daisy Foxxx has a second career as an Internet porn star. It's a common enough sideline for practitioners of the exotic arts.

"It's four years I've been doing Web sites," says francophone Foxxx, who got started when her agent got a call from local talent bookers Les Girls. She shot her first video soon thereafter.

So what does Foxxx like better - dancing in a club or getting down on camera? "It's completely different. When I'm dancing in front of people I do a show. In front of a camera it's not a show, it's real. A show is fiction," says Foxxx. "When I do a show, I like to give the audience a fantasy. On camera, I like it when they see me in action."

You can see her in action at www.daisyfoxxx.com. (MC)

Toons Not all animated Internet porn is Japanese hentai (although the ground-breaking influence on the industry in general is undeniable). One site that specializes in providing animated adult entertainment for various sites is Cozyflash.com; an affiliated site, Cozytoons.com, is member-driven. While much of the actual animation is done by artists in the States, the Cozy network headquarters is based in Montreal and headed by C-Pimp and his fiancée Girly. Launched three years ago, Cozy offers a wide range of different toons, featuring big-eyed, big-breasted, thin-waisted animated babes doing all the things that flesh-and-blood porn babes do. Their empire, however, extends beyond simply providing dirty pictures to whoever wants them: Cozy also has a free school for adult Webmasters (www.cozyacademy.com), an adult Webmaster board (www.cozycampus.com) and an industry news site (www.cozyfrog.com). This last won the Best Webmaster Resource Award for 2003 at the Xbiz Adult Web Awards in January last year. "That's when I realized it was all for real," says C-Pimp. This month it launched its 4.0 version. (PL)

Underwear It tends to disappear quickly, but underwear and lingerie do have starring roles in porn. Supplying much of it is Louise Miller, who runs Les Fantaisies de Lou-An (www.fantaisie.com), a locally based Web shop, is stacked with sexy lingerie, as well as PVC suits, fringe teddies, dildoes, gadgets and more. Miller began her career in 1995 selling clothes to dancers at strip clubs, but a chance meeting with pornographer Daniel White led her into the adult film business. Now White's principal supplier for toys and outfits in his films, Miller also makes a good living through home and fashion shows. Most of her business is done online, but she will make appointments and is looking to open a storefront as soon as she finds a spot she likes. (PL)

Video companies Just about anyone with a handicam and a libido can make a porn movie, but few companies in Quebec make high-quality films that compare with big production companies like California's Vivid. One who claims to be trying is Érobec Productions, which has been making movies since 2000 and have recently released their 10th film, Sex Therapy, this year, starring Daisy Foxxx, Sabrina Joy and Tangerine Dream. Producer Daniel White is determined to do what he can to help the adult industry foster in Montreal. "I have an international vision," he says. He claims the States make up 80 per cent of his market, and therefore all his films are made in English, but starring local talent. (PL)

Webcams If you're a girl (or boy) and you want to make money with your body without being groped in a strip club, you need a Webcam. Get on the Net in your underwear and horny voyeurs will fork over their Amex numbers just to see you wiggle out of it.

This is how it works on most sites: you can chat for free with a scantily clad girl, but she'll only shed her skivvies in VIP. VIP is the place you go when you pay your $2 to $5 (U.S.) per minute. Although it's expensive for the viewer, performers are paid little (unless, of course, they run their own site). According to one girl who works out of a local studio, the pay is only $12 an hour plus a 25 cent-per-minute bonus during VIPs. "I never said my job was fair," she quips.

But if you don't get VIPs, you're out the door. Competition is so fierce that many girls "give out samples" to woo clients. (MC)

XXX Pop-Ups No matter where you surf, porno pop-up ads are as expected as rain. Nadia, producer and host of raunchy local guerrilla-video prankster Web site Parasite TV (www.parasite.tv) weighs in with her own view as someone who both uses and loathes them.

"Pop-ups! Bloody pop-ups! Can't one simply surf a BDSM site without being bombarded by a thousand ads for bestiality and anal gangbangs?! Of course not, dumbass! The adult industry is all about affiliate programs and traffic sharing, so stop bitching and if it bothers you so much make your own fucking porn!" says Nadia.

"Pop-ups do have a lighter side though. Nothing beats closing your gyno fetish window because your mom just walked into the room, only to be exposed by a million other catheter Web sites!" (MC)

Yvon Greying, bearded and paunchy, Yvon is a major player on the crowded Montreal porn site scene. On his Web site, Yvon's Training (www.yvonstraining.com), he pays then desecrates young women with a maniacal glee that suggests he just walked in off the pages of the municipal sex offenders' registry. For all his sleazy visibility - in magazines and especially on the Web - Yvon is a remarkably elusive fellow. His parent company, Ville Saint-Laurent-based Gamma Entertainment, refuses to talk to the news media because of what they call "previous bad experiences." Presumably whatever happened to them was worse than having a 55-year-old man's balls dangling in your face on camera for $150 or so. (MC)

Zealots, anti-porn Says Mirror sex columnist Sasha: When I started writing my column a decade ago, Catharine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin were the names on everyone's lips when it came to women and porn. The women who actually did this work and enjoyed it or were realistic about its hazards were treated like deluded zombies of the patriarchy. I am the first to admit that, like any major industry, there are abhorrent aspects to porn: bullshit wages, crappy working conditions and some genuinely fucked-up players. But out of all of this a community of conscientious and dedicated insiders grew. One example is Sharon Mitchell, a former porn star herself, who began an organization called Adult Industry Medical, which provides health care and disseminates practical information to adult film stars. The zealots now, the visible ones anyway, seem to be our own government (see impending Bill C-12, the proposed law that would seriously alter the definition of depiction of underage sex for the worse).

Sarah Forbes-Roberts, owner-worker at Venez Tels Quels, says the discussion has shifted from whether watching porn can be "feminist" to issues of quality. "People are frustrated with the porn selection out there and the new thing seems to be making your own porn," she says. "The zealots seem to be the government review boards which are out of touch with actual community standards. Instead of stopping the extreme porn, like kiddie and bestiality, that most people don't support anyway, their fees and bureaucracy are stopping the little people from financially benefiting from small distribution and ‘real' people making porn." (S)

On the Roxx

How a local aspiring porn starlet met disaster

by KRISTIAN GRAVENOR

Montrealer Lara Roxx wasn't a household name unless your house was extremely conversant with porn stars from such lesser-known Web sites as Hand Job Auditions. And, until a few weeks ago, few outside her circle of friends knew the dark-haired porn actress, whose tragic journey would lead some to predict the end of pornography as we know it.

Prior to her brief career having sex in front of cameras, Roxx danced in local strip clubs where she met a porn photographer, whom she dated for a year and a half. After working as an escort, Roxx, with help from manager Daniel Perreault, devoted herself to the full-time pursuit of becoming a porn actress in early January 2004. Dugmor, a well-known local porn-site promoter immediately recognizable for his combination of Asian ancestry and wild dreadlocks, shot her for his sites Throat Jobs (www.throatjobs.com) and Hand Job Auditions (www.handjobauditions.com).

Lara Roxx shot her first unprotected anal sex scene with Darren James, the man who later allegedly gave her HIV, here in Montreal on February 10. "I thought he was old and ugly," she told Mark Kernes, senior editor of www.avn.com, who interviewed her immediately after she learned of her test results. James and Roxx subsequently tested negative for HIV.

New to anal

Anal sex wasn't supposed to be part of her act. Just weeks before, Roxx apparently told Perreault she wouldn't shoot such scenes. "I told him I wasn't interested in anal at all and I was a little freaky about the no-condom thing too. I've been educated about STDs since Grade 3. I told him what I was ready to do and he told me he wasn't ready to represent me under those conditions," Kernes quotes her as saying.

Perreault, however, portrays himself as Roxx's protector and claims that he discouraged her from taking the fateful trip to Los Angeles where she would apparently become infected with HIV. "I told her not to go because she wasn't ready, it was all still relatively new for her," Perreault tells the Mirror.

Roxx, citing a need for cash, opted to go to Los Angeles where she hooked up for round two with Darren James and Marc Anthony, who had been shooting sex films in Brazil. At a press conference, Marc Anthony estimated that James had sex with at least 10 to 15 women while in Brazil, and he had no idea that James had returned to L.A. with HIV. He, Roxx and Anthony filmed a double-penetration scene March 24.

"When I got there, me and Marc had a little conversation," Roxx told Kernes. "Marc Anthony tells me it's a d.a., which stands for double anal. And I'm like, ‘What? I've never done a double anal.' And he's like, ‘Well, that's what we need. It's either that or nothing.'"

Adverse to condoms

Judy Star and Patricia Petite, two other Montreal-based performers managed by Perreault, were also exposed to the bug by the duo. The Journal de Montréal reported that Star remains HIV-negative. Petite's status is unconfirmed and, at presstime, no official announcement has been made.

"Nobody in the industry could predict such a thing. That's why as agents and producers, we'll try to put rules into place to avoid another crisis like this," says Perreault, who dislikes the idea of enforced condom use. "It could be an option but [so could] more rigorous testing and quarantine for persons who travel to places like Brazil, where the HIV rates are very, very high and health standards are lower and people buy fake test results for $10."

In an e-mail to the Mirror, Kernes doubts that Roxx fully recognizes the tragedy of her plight. "I don't think the full import of her status has sunk in yet. I think many young folks, especially in the porn business, tend to think of themselves as immortal when faced with life-threatening situations like HIV."

A fund for Roxx and others stricken with HIV has been set up by Jenna Jameson. For more info, see www.adultfund.com.