Joanne Guest FAQ > Appendix 4 |
Please bear in mind that I AM NOT A LAWYER.
There is no universally accepted meaning of the word hardcore - a lot of authorities confuse it with obscene - but I'll start with (what I have been led to believe is) the American definition:
"A work that contains scenes explicitly depicting one or more of the following: [A] Penetration, either oral or genital; [B] Cumshots; or [C] 'getting off' (sometimes referred to as 'heavy petting')."
Some US states (particularly those that permit hardcore to be sold, albeit with severe restrictions) do have a legal definition of what constitutes "hardcore" but I do not know whether their definitions agree totally with the above definition, or even with each other.
In the UK, there is no actual definition of "hardcore" as such, although people will usually have strong views about what the term means (this often gets voiced as "if it's illegal, it must be hardcore"). UK obscenity laws are fairly harsh: one of the restrictions is on explicit depiction of the erect male member, which would catch a few of Jo's "more racy" photosets (see below) that would be allowed in other countries such as Australia or the USA. I understand the regulations in Japan are even stricter.
In the USA, the definition is based on a US Supreme Court decision [Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15 (1973)], which augmented an earlier Supreme Court ruling [Roth v. United_States, 354 U.S. 476 (1957)]. The appropriate passage reads:
If you've got a lot of time to spare you might want to read the full text of the Supreme Court decision, which can be found here.
The UK definition appears in the Obscene Publications Act of 1959:
For the purposes of this Act an article shall be deemed to be obscene if its effect or (where the article comprises two or more distinct items) the effect of any one of its items is, if taken as a whole, such as to tend to deprave and corrupt persons who are likely, having regard to all relevant circumstances, to read, see or hear the matter contained or embodied in it.
As with all matters legal, things are never simple. UK case law has resulted in certain extra rules-of-thumb being applied (e.g. "the erect male member is not allowed"), while in the USA the effect of state laws have to be taken into account. In other words, something that's legal in New York might be illegal in Minnesota (to take two states more or less at random). However, many states do permit "not-quite-hardcore" shots.
So, the situation is that pretty much anything (I am not kidding) could be regarded as "obscene": the issue hinges on whether a prosecutor might feel they have sufficient chance of securing a conviction. Given the uncertainties, many magazines choose the path of least resistance and avoid publishing any controversial stuff.
If you are in a country where hardcore is legal (e.g. Sweden), then there's obviously no problem.
If hardcore is illegal in your country (or state), then Jo's m/f sets might be legal, they might not. For example:
Australia: | Legal. They are classed as "Category 1 Restricted", i.e. for sale to adults aged 18 and over. |
---|---|
Japan: | Illegal, but some heavily-censored versions have been published. |
UK: | Legal. You won't find them in ordinary shops, but licensed sex shops will be allowed to carry them. |
USA: | Legal under Federal law, but check your local state law. |
I must stress again that I AM NOT A LAWYER. If you require legal advice on this (or any other) matter, you should seek out a licensed legal professional familiar with the laws of your locality.
During the early part of her career (i.e. up to 1993/1994) Jo appeared in a number of photoshoots in which she was in extremely close proximity (ahem!) to the male model. However, no new photoshoots of this sort have appeared in print since 1996.
Some people, on seeing those pictures, respond in one of two ways:
There are several problems with that assumption. For a start, no-one seems to have a halfway reasonable explanation of why the "missing" pictures are still missing: if a photographer did have any such shots you would have expected him to cash-in on Jo's subsequent fame by now. It's been ten years, guys!
Also, the question displays a certain amount of naivety as regards how photoshoots are actually carried out. Some magazines (e.g. Penthouse, at least before 1997) specialised in "not-quite-hardcore" pictures: the photographer commissioned to do the shoot would be well aware of the magazine's preferences and wouldn't want to waste his time taking hardcore pictures only to have them rejected by the magazine. From the models' point of view, they weren't being paid to do hardcore so the photographer wouldn't be getting any hardcore.
Given these contraints, the photographer would of course be using his skill and judgement to suggest that more was going on "just out of view", but do bear in mind that the most likely reason you don't see something happening is because it didn't actually happen at all.
Ah... <cough>... THAT picture. No more than a "handling error" in my opinion. Compare picture 11 in the series (the one that people are presumably referring to) with picture 31 (which I think was the pose being aimed for).
Yes, the picture is clearly borderline and I can well understand why people might consider it to be hardcore. However, the fact remains that it was originally excluded when pictures from the shoot were published (by Club magazine) back in 1993, and in all these years it's the only such picture to have surfaced. Seems to be an out-take rather than a hardcore shoot to me.
The extra pictures were published on the (now-defunct) "Pretty In Pink" paysite. Jo's name was given as "Daria" and the picture filenames all began with "pip0572" (e.g. pip0572_0031.jpg).
I've heard of two distinct series of adverts:
There are of course some softcore videos featuring Jo. See the Merchandise section for details.
[1] Another correspondent has suggested the video may have been trying to exploit a presumed loophole in the regulations: videos that did not feature movement (i.e. consisting solely of still pictures) were thought to be exempt from BBFC classification. The historians among you will appreciate the parallel with the Windmill Theatre in the 1940s and 1950s.
Talk is cheap, and some rumours crop up again and again. I'll mention three of them:
In an infinite universe, anything is possible. Here are a few scenarios:
[2] In the specific case of Jo the waters have been further muddied by a succession of UK magazines claiming to have "hardcore" pics which turned out to be the same old pictures we've seen dozens of times before. Any new "hardcore" set would be more difficult to sell, so reducing the value of any such pictures.
[3] I know of only three other cases in the past 12 years: Tonya Harding (the ice skater) in 1994, Mimi MacPherson (sister of Elle MacPherson) in 1998, and Katie Price (UK glamour model "Jordan") in 2003. Yes, it's that rare an occurrence.
Actually, the money's a whole lot poorer than you might suppose.
According to the rec.arts.movies.erotica FAQ, many hardcore performers make more money as "exotic dancers" than they get from hardcore movies. In the early 1990s (i.e. the point at which "hardcore" offers would first have been made to Jo), freelance performers in hardcore movies made between $300 and $1000 per movie. Top stars earned up to $10,000 per movie, but there were (and still are) very few people in that category.
Also, bear in mind the stigma associated with hardcore work: once a model has done hardcore she'll have extreme difficulty getting any mainstream work thereafter. So, in order to make $100,000 per year, a hardcore performer would have to appear in at least 10 movies and might have to appear in over 100 movies. It's theoretically possible, but it's not particularly likely, is it?
To sum up: Yes, it's a living. But it's not that well-paid, and it's a decidedly career-limiting decision to do hardcore. Is it any wonder that Jo decided not to?
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