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Seymour Butts / Adam Glasser

Tristan Taormino profiles fellow anal guru Adam Glasser, aka Seymore Butts, in her biweekly column. (Mar 2003)

FAMILY BUSINESS ON SHOWTIME

Showtime is developing an Osbournes-like reality TV series about adult filmmaker Adam Glasser, aka Seymore Butts. "The currently untitled 10-episode project will focus on various aspects of Glasser's personal and professional lives as well as the people around him. In addition to Glasser, his mother, who keeps his books, and his cousin Stevie will be featured. 'This is not an expose on the industry,' executive producer Arnold Shapiro told Daily Variety. 'It's about the ironies and the humor that are associated with a man who chooses to have an alter ego and do this work.'" (Dec 2002)

Family Business, Showtime's new reality series about porno filmmaker Adam Glasser, aka Seymore Butts, debuts tonight. Glasser's mom handles the company's bookkeeping, while his cousin Stevie handles distribution — thus the "family" in the title. Showtime's official series site has a "Meet the Butts" page and more. And Nerve runs an interview with Glasser yesterday. (Feb 2003)

Phil Gallo at Variety reviews Family Business, the Seymore Butts reality TV show on Showtime, and finds it "barely riveting." "The downfall of 'Family Business' is an issue that plagues so much of television: the lack of a compelling character." But Tim Goodman at the San Francisco Chronicle likes the show. "The reason 'Family Business' is riveting isn't because of the full-frontal nudity of both sexes or the glimpses of porn movie moments. It's because Glasser is an interesting and funny guy."

OBSCENITY CASE

In 2001, Los Angeles county prosecutors filed obscenity charges against Glasser over a lesbian anal fisting scene in his video Tampa Tushy Fest. Prosecutors eventually backed down before the case could go to trial, and Glasser pled to greatly reduced charges.

Los Angeles prosecutors have settled their obscenity case against porn video producer Adam Glasser, aka Seymore Butts. The settlement came last Wednesday, the day Glasser's trial was set to begin. The case dealt with a fisting scene between pornstars Chloe and Alisha Klass in the Butts video Tampa Tushy Fest, Part I. Under the terms of the settlement, Glasser pled guilty to a public nuisance charge and paid a nominal $1000 fine, and prosecutors returned all the videos seized from Glasser's warehouse by LA police. Debra from Pursed Lips tracked down and reprinted this LA legal journal article about the settlement. Debra has been following this story more closely than I have, and even designed these great pro-fisting protest buttons. For more background on the Glasser case and other pending obscenity prosecutions, check out Susannah Breslin's feature story on the LA police's extreme porn crackdown from last summer.

This passage from the legal journal article caught my attention:

Officials from the LAPD raided Glasser's offices in December 2000, after the city attorney's office received an anonymous complaint about the European version of the video "Tampa Tushy Fest Part I." The scene depicted a sexual act known as "fisting." Under the terms of his plea, Glasser agreed to warn customers that there were two versions of film.

Does this mean that the fisting scene in question didn't even appear in the US release version of Tampa Tushy Fest Part I? Did the LA prosecutors, frustrated by the weak obscenity case, become consumer advocates for cheated domestic fisting fans?

Adult Video News reported on Glasser's preparations for the trial: "He had amassed a great quantity of evidence in his defense, including videotapes, magazines and sex toys that dealt directly with the subject of 'fisting,' which was depicted in the Glasser-directed tape, Tampa Tushy Fest, for which Glasser was prosecuted. Glasser also had several expert witnesses lined up to testify in his behalf before the settlement was reached." AVN printed responses to the settlement from other porno producers here, here and here, including responses from other producers currently facing obscenity charges. (That last link includes a bizarre statement by Max Hardcore evoking September 11, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay.)
Pursed Lips | Alternet | Adult Video News (Mar 2002)

In the Good Vibrations online magazine, Violet Blue provides an overview of the Tampa Tushy Fest obscenity case and talks to Adam Glasser (aka, Seymore Butts) about the settlement. The case revolved around a fisting scene between pornstars Alisha Klass and Chloe. Fisting was one of several sex acts cited in the Los Angeles City Attorney's obscenity guidelines written in 1981. Prosecutors eventually backed off on the obscenity charges, and Glasser pled no contest to a minor charge and paid a $1000 fine. Glasser says:

I have been told that the list, that 1981 memorandum, is being reviewed very seriously by [L.A. City Attorney] Mr. Delgadillo and his staff. I believe that they want to put their regime's own stamp on how the city handles these obscenity cases. They want to re-create the guidelines, so to speak, and from what I hear, fisting is one of the acts that is going to be reviewed because of its touch on every group of sexually active people: heterosexuals, lesbian women and gay men. That act is pervasive among all three, and I think with all the information we provided to them, I think they became suddenly aware -- I don't think they knew there were books written on fisting, and that so many web sites had information available on fisting. I don't think they were aware of what's happened in this world, sexually, since 1981.

Good news for fisting fans. Guess Debra won't have to make these buttons after all.

A while back, Daze linked to an LA legal journal article about the settlement reprinted at Pursed Lips. I noted this ambiguous passage in the article: "Officials from the LAPD raided Glasser's offices in December 2000, after the city attorney's office received an anonymous complaint about the European version of the video Tampa Tushy Fest Part I. The scene depicted a sexual act known as 'fisting.' Under the terms of his plea, Glasser agreed to warn customers that there were two versions of film." Susannah Breslin informs me that the fisting scene did indeed appear in the US release version. Blue's article clears this up somewhat: "Glasser agreed to make all customers of Tampa Tushy Fest aware that a 'non-fisting' version of the tape exists if they wish to purchase it, or exchange a currently owned 'fisting' version for it. Otherwise, Glasser is free to sell the fisting version of Tushy Fest in California, safe from any charge of obscenity." OK, that explains the "two versions," but I still don't get the reference to "the European version."
Good Vibrations | Pursed Lips (Apr 2002)