In 1996 I was hired as Features Editor for Id Magazine, a bi-weekly alternative magazine in Guelph, Ontario, Canada.
About
In 1996 Id Magazine, an Ontario, Canada alternative biweekly, was expanding and needed to improve the quality of its journalism, while also making the difficult shift to being a more consistently professional offering. I was hired as Features Editor and set about swiftly assembling a team of investigative journalists. My strategy involved targeting stories overlooked by Canadian newspapers and TV news. In the 1990s, it was often the case the best journalism and the best investigative journalism in Canada could be found in the countryâs alternative media. This led to a number of firsts, including an extensive investigation into Canadaâs flourishing sex industry, the governmentâs addiction to casinos to boost revenues, unearthing a plot by neo-nazis to infiltrate Ontario high schools with hate rock, university studentsâ catastrophic debt culture, reporting from the streets of Port-au-Prince, Haiti on Canadaâs UN mission, and probing the governmentâs public services privatisation plans (including being invited to debate this topic on CBC TVâs programme, Face Off). With a keen eye for new media trends, the magazine covered the fast-rising Internet economy, early experiments with digital currencies and smart cards (Mondex) (Canadian Town Tries Out Cash Cards) being carried out in Guelph, Ontario, and concerns about data privacy.
There clearly was a gap in the news marketplace Id could better fill with solid investigative journalism and features writing aimed at a younger demographic.
How large a market gap can be confirmed by various analyses on the state of the Canadian media at the time and since. According to the book The Missing News: Filters and Blind Spots in Canadaâs Press (Robert A. Hackett and Richard S. Garneau, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, University of Toronto Press 2000), Canadaâs media was in a mess in the 1990s resulting from declining resources, staff layoffs and media closures reducing the breadth and depth of news coverage.
My challenge: Could I bring together a talented, young team and improve the quality and consistency of journalism for a start-up magazine seeking to grow? The proof came in the form of improved audited pick-up of the magazine by readers, the magazineâs confident push to expand on the Internet, and the fact many from that original team have gone on to not only have successful careers in the media and film, but also to be influential in their own right â proof the original belief in their talent was correct.
Pressure on journalists to toe the line and not upset advertisers was also increasing in the context of ongoing high unemployment, a stagnant economy in a recession, and government austerity. Canadian media as whole also has a âgreat dependence on advertising, which accounts for more than 70% of daily newspaper revenues, about 64% of magazine revenues,â which means there is enormous pressure to only publish stories that do not upset advertisers. And monopolies exert great control over news content in Canada: âIn the United States, ten companies control 43.7% of total daily newspaper circulation. By contrast, in Canada since 1996, one single company controls a comparable share of the media pie.â
Quoting Jeffrey Simpson in the book, newspapers are âshrinking in size, personnel, ambition and, as a consequence, in their curiosity,â âŠ. âI believe the result has been a diminution in quality.â (p64)
Fast forward to âToday, we have a crisis in the journalism industry unprecedented in scope. A media implosion. Newspapers being reduced to digital editions, large numbers losing their jobs, circulation falling, ad revenues plunging, near monopoly ownership of big-city dailies, the old business model in a state of collapse.â (Canadaâs media: A crisis that cries out for a public inquiry by Lawrence Martin, The Globe and Mail, Feb. 02, 2016).
Brief descriptions of sample issues are below:
Can Harris be Stopped? Cover
My first Id Magazine cover. It was thrown together in a few days after being hired. While a work of resourcefulness under pressure, it did capture the spirit of the times as multiple demonstrations and strikes tried to bring down the much-hated Conservative government in Ontario.
âCan the UN Help Remake a Country?â Cover
This cover photo by Phillip Smith was taken in the market area of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. I had never seen such squalor and desperation in my life. It got worse as we visited the cityâs morgue, packed to the rafters with the dead and mutilated bodies of children and adults. It was a tough assignment and one that was captured with professionalism by Phillipâs camera.
Christmas Issue Cover
Back in 1996, the Thatcher thirst for privatisation came to Ontario with a vengeance. In this issue, we asked if it showed a lack of imagination to just sell publicly paid for assets to wealthy investors. We offered other ownership models and I debated this topic on CBC TVâs Face Off.
âPulling the Plug on Hate Rockâ Cover
This excellent cover by Gareth Lind was, as far as I know, the first use of pop art on a biweekly magazine cover in Ontario at that time (I certainly hadnât seen anyone else do it). It sold the excellent investigation into skinhead rock bands infiltrating Ontario high schools very well. It was timed for release during the North-by-Northeast music festival in Toronto, and had zero returns (as in all issues were picked up).
Sarah Polley Cover
A regular contributor to Id, Canadian actor and director Sarah Polley challenged the stale Canadian left with her spiky views. In this issue we tackled the decline in the quality of TV programmes and asked if it was a moral vacuum being hoovered up by consumerism.
Student Issue Cover
This cover is by great Canadian political cartoonist and illustrator Jack Lefcourt. Always funny, Jack captures well the corporate take-over of the countryâs universities and the introduction of the catastrophic debt culture that leaves so many students in a financial pickle. It was also Idâs first student issue.
“The Great Education Swindle: Are Reforms Destroying Your Future?”
âTodayâs Sex Toys are Credit Cards and Cashâ Cover
As Ontarioâs economy experienced year-after-year of high unemployment and stagnant salaries, its sex economy flourished. In another first, the Id team tackled all aspects of the growth of the sex economy and changing attitudes to sexual behaviour. Beating the big papers to this story, they wrote with honesty and verve and made a refreshing break from the limp journalism of most Canadian newspapers.
Timeline
1996: Hired as Features Editor and assembled editorial and creative team.
1997: Id Magazine begins to simultaneously publish its content online, a pioneering move at the time.
Impact
Micro
reducing returns and boosting audited pick-ups of the free magazine â a key metric for a publication reliant on local advertising
assembled talented investigative team and graphic design and photo team
introduced pop art front covers
increased news coverage, especially impact of austerity in Canada
increased foreign coverage, including on Canadaâs United Nations mission in Haiti
introduced high-profile contributors, including actor and director Sarah Polley
debated stories on other media, including CBC TVâs Face Off
Macro
most of the team have gone on to very successful careers in the media
magazine still receives good comments on Facebook many years after its closure
one of the first Canadian magazines to embrace the Internet and publish simultaneously online
UK regulations on what can be shown on sex channels are tougher than in most countries of the European Union. Channels such as the hard-core Swedish TV Erotica and the recently-launched French Rendezvous are licensed in their respective countries and transmit explicit scenes of sexual intercourse, straight and gay, featuring close-up shots of copulating genitals.
Graff Pay-Per-View, the experienced US sex channel operator, consciously decided to exclude the UK as a market for its hard-core Eurotica channel which is licensed in Denmark and, like the other hard-core channels, transmits via a Eutelsat satellite. But pirate smart cards for the channel, as for the other channels, are available in the UK in specialist satellite shops.
Graffâs seeming respect for the UK regulations may not be unconnected with the fact that it owns the Adult Channel and would be wary of upsetting the ITC. Broadcasting unacceptable material into the UK could provoke the ITC into seeing Graff as a body unfit to hold a licence, thereby threatening the Adult Channel.
The ITCâs guidelines on sexually explicit material state that representations of sexual intercourse can be shown only after 9pm and that âthe portrayal of sexual behaviour, and of nudity, needs to be defensible in context and presented with tact and discretion.â
There has been some relaxation of the rule. The ITC will, on an experimental basis, allow the watershed to be broken by a ppv or video-on-demand service. It is not, however, prepared to give this freedom to a porn channel, at least not in the early days, because it does not want to be seen to be licensing pornography. The relaxation will affect only general services.
The ITC will also monitor any ppv service to ensure that there are no cases of children accessing the programming before deciding if the programme code should be revised.
The transmission of 18-rated films on terrestrial or new-media channels is not permitted before 10pm. Films with a 15-rating are not allowed before 9pm on terrestrial channels such as BSkyBâs Sky Movies or the Movie Channel. These are minimum requirements. Some 15-rated films, for instance those which show scenes of sexual intercourse or drug-taking, would not be deemed suitable for transmission even on an encrypted channel at 8pm.
In practice, the ITC does not permit depictions of erect penises, anal intercourse, close-ups of genitalia or ejaculation.
Where channels have overstepped the mark and gone abroad to get licences from less strict authorities â the late Red Hot Dutch and TV Erotica â the ITC has recommended that the channels be proscribed, action which has subsequently been taken by the Department of National Heritage. The ITC is now monitoring the Rendezvous channel, which shows a mix of gay and heterosexual hard-core pornography with graphic scenes of sexual intercourse.
The DNH issues proscription orders under Sections 177 and 178 of the Broadcasting Act. The orders make it a criminal offence to supply equipment to receive the channels or to market and advertise them.
The European Union directive on transfrontier broadcasting lays down that one country cannot prevent the reception of channels licensed by other European Union countries. However, it allows individual governments to take action against any broadcast which could damage the physical, mental or moral development of minors.
Update: It is over 20 years since this Special Report was published. The Internet now plays a significant role in the growth of sex content and the sex industry and vice versa. Here is an interesting overview of the situation in 2020. The Internet is for Porn â It always was, it always will be.
âOne of the biggest and most interesting things happening in the consumer web right now is running almost completely under the radar. It has virtually zero Silicon Valley involvement. There are no boastful VCs getting rich. It is utterly absent from techâs plethora of twitters, fora and media (at least, as they say, âon mainâ). Indeed, the true extent of its incredible success has gone almost completely unnoticed, even by its many, many, many customers.
“Wang thinks the internet is the way forward for porn distribution.”
Meet Steven Wang. The young Toronto distributor of porn magazines and videos is jerking his arm up and down as he describes what sells adult videos.
âExplicit boxes â dick in the mouth, cum in the face makes it sell,â says Wang as he tells me about packaging the videos he distributes.
Wang doesnât fit the stereotype of a smut dealer. He is wiry, well-groomed and fits in easily amid Torontoâs army of yuppies. Despite the topic of our conversation, he isnât shy about being graphic in a public place.
Wang admits his parents arenât too keen about his success as a smut dealer, but he proudly tells me about his latest project, Cybercafe (located on Torontoâs main goodtime drag, Yonge Street). Banks of computers line the walls of the cafe, and a few customers bang away on keyboards and swivel mouses. Blinders on video terminals are quickly jerked forward by shy internet users as each new customer walks by.
Wang thinks the internet is the way forward for porn distribution.
âItâs heading more to bondage, violence â anything that is weird. Havenât seen it, want to see it. You can only find penetration on VHS (video), though fisting is allowed.â continues Wang, who prides himself on foreseeing trends. âNow that people have seen these things, they want to go to the next step. Because you can only get these things on the internet, 80 per cent of the people are there for the adult material. Internet is the future, period.â
“Because you can only get these things on the internet, 80 per cent of the people are there for the adult material. Internet is the future, period.â
Wang got into distributing porn videos in 1990, just as the Ontario government began to relax the restrictions on hardcore porn movies, as long as they didnât contain sex involving violence, coercion, bondage, sado-masochism, degradation, incest, animals, or minors under the age of 18.
Wang says he has made some good money, but itâs time to start looking to the next trend. He says those who consume his products have an insatiable appetite for sex in all its forms.
Money-for-sex revolution
The 90s have seen a quiet revolution in the sale of sex. While paying for sex is nothing new, never before has such a plethora of choices been so openly peddled in Ontarioâs newspapers and magazines, mostly at a male audience. There are escort services, so-called massage parlours, phone sex, adult videos, sadism and masochism shops and clubs, strip clubs and swingersâ clubs. On the internet, 127 sex news groups compete with over 200 sex services on the World Wide Web, many charging for the privilege to peek at sex photos. And the sex trade comes at a price, with evidence showing lack of regulation means youths continue to be drawn into the business, while users search for bigger and better thrills.
Toronto weekly Now Magazine has been a pioneer in sex advertising. In September, 1989 the magazineâs back pages of classified ads contained around 130 âbusiness personals,â ads placed by the cityâs working prostitutes.
In the September 26, 1996 issue of Now, in seven pages of telephone personals and phone sex ads, there were 514 âAdult Classifiedâ ads, a cornucopia of âmassageâ parlours, prostitutes, and escort agencies offering shemales, âhot Asianâ and âSwedishâ beauties.
While there isnât any one source for accurate information on the size of Ontarioâs sex industry, it is obvious it has not only grown in visibility, but in size.
âThere definitely seems to be more of everything,â says Detective-Constable Austin Ferguson of the Metro Toronto Policeâs vice section. âLook at how pornography video stores have blossomed â the spas, whatever you want to call them. Look through the yellow pages for strip bars, escort agencies.
âYou got Now, Eye, pink pages, green pages, you can pick up the Toronto Star, The Sun. The phone lines are everywhere you look. I love it, itâs a great business,â says Ferguson sarcastically.
âEven five years ago, there were only a few massage parlours. Now there are 400 to 500 massage parlours in Toronto alone. It has quadrupled since 1990.â
âItâs an underground revolution,â says Sue McGarvie, a sex therapist and Ottawa talk-radio personality. âYou go out on the street and see how many prostitutes there are, and how much more open it is, how many more night clubs there are that are gender neutral, that are fetish.â
McGarvie doesnât think it necessarily means more people are turning to commercial sex.
âWe are having as much sex as we ever had, we have as much sexual desire as we ever had,â says McGarvie. âI think the outlets are changing, so that we are going to have to be flexible about that.â
Steven Wang estimates 3,000 out of 5,000 Metro Toronto video stores carry adult videos. Another 1,250 exclusively carry adult videos. A manager at Torontoâs Adult Video Superstore says, âSales and rentals have gone up in the last three years.â The Adults Only Video chain, founded by Kitchener-Waterloo resident Randy Jorgensen, now spans Canada with 51 stores, 12 in Toronto. And what internet user hasenât taken a few minutes (or hours) to play voyeur on the many adult web sites or chat lines?
An Adults Only Video survey found, out of 2,000 customers, 56 per cent watch adult videos with a partner. It also claims 20 per cent of renters are women. Many are skeptical about these claims.
Barking through what sounds like a speaker phone, Larry Gayne, president of sex toy mail-order company Lady Calston, says âItâs all men who look at the back of Now. Some claim as much as 50 per cent of adult video watchers are women. I donât know if I believe that figure.
âSex is a US $40-billion business in North America alone. In 1992, more sex aids were sold than breakfast cereal.â
The businesses manufacturing sex try to distance themselves from the more visibly seedy porn stores.
âThe explosion in triple X video stores is the only seedy end,â continues Gayne. âThe sad part is you take away those triple X stores, there is no seedy part to this industry. Not behind the scenes, not in front. It doesnât exist. There is nobody seedy at our level. Those people donât exist, they are just normal businesses. There is in fact a downside to the triple X stores.â
Sue McGarvie is an enthusiastic supporter of greater sexual liberation, even if its expression is through the sex industry.
Speaking between clients from her Ottawa office, she says 36 new adult video stores have opened in Ottawa in the past five years.
âSome are small sections of regular video stores,â says McGarvie. âIâm a big believer, Iâm still under 30, my generation is one of the first generations that is no longer attending church as a regular part of what we do. Sex is no longer a moral issue. But people are saying âwait a minute, because of STDs Iâm going to be stuck with my partner for the rest of my life? I better make it the best damn sex we possibly can have.â Vibrators are outselling any other appliance.
âIâm poised on the industry of the next decade, the next millennium. Sexuality as an expression is the second most powerful drive after food.â
McGarvie doesnât think that what is in the adult video stores is unhealthy. âPorn as a term is not right, either. Porn is illegal, but the stuff in the video stores is not illegal.â
McGarvie also doubts adult videos are contributing to an atomised world, similar to Aldous Huxleyâs Brave New World, where the government controls a population anaesthetized by the buzz of orgasms and drugs.
âI donât necessarily think it is causing people to be less intimate. The industry needs to stop being in the shadows. Our lives are busy. People are having a hard time connecting with others, but I think that is a separate issue. I think there is a new sexual revolution going on, and if our reality checks catch up with our sex drive, weâll be okay. We donât have socially acceptable ways of meeting people that isnât in a bar when people are drinking.â
Toronto swinger and strip club DJ Ron Michaels thinks the tables are turning on the money-for-sex industry.
âA lot of adult video stores are closing. A lot of strip clubs are on the verge of going under,â says Michaels. âIt is like a ghost town in there. I donât see it is a growing trend. Perhaps it is more front page, more visible. I donât think itâs any larger than is has been before. I think our society in general is far more sexually liberated than we were 50 years ago. Certainly more than 100 years ago.
âA lot of people thought they could make a fast buck off of it. The market canât support that number,â according to Michaels.
Child porn
But is this really just good fun? Unfortunately, there is too much evidence showing a direct connection between a robust sex industry, and the sexual exploitation of minors and demand for degrading sex. A booming sex industry just canât be disconnected from the exploitation of youths and an absorption in degrading, freaky sex, like defecation or bestiality. The industry may not be directly connected to the much-publicized paedophile rings in the news, but the mainstream sex industry is not adverse to exploiting youths and an appetite for sex with minors to sell videos and magazines.
âWe have laid charges on people who were initially operating a reputable business,â says Ferguson, âuntil they found there was a demand for the seedier stuff.â
Sue Miner, the head of Torontoâs Street Outreach Services, says high unemployment rates amongst youth feeds the sex industry with a steady supply of desperate teens.
âItâs indicative of people needing to survive and not having jobs. Iâve heard enough young people saying they needed some money to pay the rent. A lot of young people do it to survive â survival sex.â
âI have yet to come across an escort agency that uses minors,â claims Ferguson, admitting that because he hasnât, doesnât mean it isnât happening. âItâs usually a bit more classier than that. You donât get your Parkdale hooker types. Pimps donât run escort agencies.â
A 1984 government study on prostitution, the Badgley Committee on Sexual Offences Against Children and Youth, found one-half of prostitutes had entered the sex trade under the age of 16, 96 per cent had become prostitutes before the age of 18.
The overwhelming majority of prostitutes have run away from home at least once. Street prostitutes leave home at an earlier age than other children, at an average age of 13.7 years, compared to 17.3 years.
The most difficult porn to regulate, as most governments know, is on the internet.
Detective-Constable Ferguson says having photos of bestiality and paedophilia, for a few seconds on a harddrive, is considered by the law to be possession. He also admits because of the ethereal nature of computers, the law is totally unenforceable.
âYou would have to get online with that person. Get to know them, chat with them.â
He does warn any internet cafes to stay clear of the stuff. âThey are totally nuts to have obscene or child pornography available because somebody would spill the beans pretty quick.â
Escorts
As for prostitution, the police have a harder time controlling escort agencies because they are careful to never make a deal on the phone, says Ferguson.
âThey are only going out for dinner and dance, eh?,â chuckles Ferguson. âSomebody sees a business opportunity to run prostitutes. They are harder to crack. Itâs a long, long process to take one of these places down because of all the undercover work involved. What you can, canât do. Itâs no easy task.
âThey wonât make a deal over the phone. They might say âyou can have my service for $150/$200 an hour,â as soon as you say âwhat do you get for that?ââŠclick.â
McGarvie says she wouldnât be too happy if her husband went to a prostitute to cope with sexual stress if they were too busy to have sex. On the other hand, she thinks the escort industry would decline if there were more healthy outlets for sexual release.
âBusiness goes up when we get pickets, negative reviews are always positive for the business â automatically sales go up that day,â says Wang smiling.
Toronto feminist and author Susan G. Cole, in her book Power Surge: Sex, Violence and Pornography, and ironically a Now Magazine editor, has called for greater regulation of pornography, arguing the industry really has no claim on freedom of expression. The public, Cole says, can accept a regulatory role for government when it comes to other industries, so why the exception for the smut trade?
This should be extended to the rest of the sex trade, she argues. Body-rub parlours, escort services, street prostitutes, strip clubs and phone sex, should not be allowed to remain in regulatory limbo, only subject to police attention when community groups kick up a storm.
Back at the Cybercafe, Steven Wang is trying to be heard over the Pet Shop Boysâ pounding dance beats.
If anybody wants to protest outside one of Wangâs two Toronto stores, or any other adult stores his videos are distributed in, he would probably make the placards. âBusiness goes up when we get pickets, negative reviews are always positive for the business â automatically sales go up that day,â says Wang smiling.
Source: statista
Swing Shift: Sexual liberation is back in style
By David South
Id Magazine (Canada), October 3-16, 1996
Deep in the bedrooms (and livingrooms) of the home-owning classes, the sexual liberation movement marches on: swingersâ parties are back. Those libidinous libertines many thought were lost in a 70s disco haze, according to a Toronto swinger, are back in greater numbers than in those polyester days.
In contrast to the many people (mostly men) looking for the anonymous and on-demand buzz of escort agencies, porn videos and sex toys, it seems to me swinging is the most idealistic camp in the army of sexual liberation. There isnât any sneaking around behind your spouseâs back â in fact, you bring them along for the good times.
Swingers were usually the subject of the porn movies I watched at the base cinema during my army days. They werenât real people, but some sort of myth from more electric times.
Ron Michaels, 41, is an unabashed proselytizer for swinging. A strip-club DJ and erotic and commerical photographer, heâs also co-owner, along with his wife, of swingersâ club Eros. A confident and articulate spokesperson, he has been swinging since he was 17.
âWe believe honesty is the cornerstone of our lifestyle â that makes it work,â he says. âThe people engaging in back-alley sex are being dishonest. Itâs the same with having an affair â wanting your cake but not being able to share it with the rest of us.
âSwinging is a moral alternative to having affairs.â
The divorce rate among swingers, Michaels maintains, is only five per cent, compared to 51 per cent for the general population. The one wrinkle in this impressive âfactâ is Michaelsâ other admission that many swingers are on their second âmarried relationshipâ.
Interviewing Michaels, I feel like Iâm talking to a Rotary Club member or a boy scout leader, not a swinger. The talk is about clubs, memberships ($69 a year per couple), trips. Itâs a hobby, sport and lifestyle to many swingers, claims Michaels.
âWe have regular weekly functions throughout the year. Some of them are organized by the members. We organize trips and holidays. Weekends in the Caribbean. Like any other social club.â
That canât be wife/husband swapping heâs talking about, can it?
Michaelsâ Toronto Beaches home leaves no doubt as to its occupantâs lifestyle choices: âIf you donât swing, donât ring,â says a brass plaque nailed to the door.
Michaels is very proud of swingingâs growth in the 90s. His group has grown from 300 member-couples 14 years ago to 1,800 today. Michaels ambitiously estimates that between 100,000 and 200,000 Southern Ontarians are into swinging, between 20 and 25 million across North America.
So, how does swinging in the 90s work?
Michaels says most clubs operate more as matchmaking parties than full-out orgies. Couples get to know each other and make the arrangements to meet away from the clubâs party. Michaels is quick to disassociate his club from drop-in style swingers parties.
âCanadians are much more conservative than Americans. In New York they are more hardcore, less selective of their partners. When they get there they are more like, âletâs find the first available body and get to it,â whereas people at social clubs want to get to know you. We are talking about four-way compatability here.â
According to Michaels, the big victory for Canadian swingers took place in 1992. âOur Mississauga club was raided back in â92 and we took it through the courts for a year. We were acquitted and set a legal precedent, making swingersâ clubs legal.â
To many men, the whole swinging thing seems like the best of both worlds: you keep your wife and get to taste the fruits of other trees at the same time. But Michaels says this male teenage fantasy doesnât pan out in reality.
âThat wears off pretty quickly. Letâs face it, men have a much lower capacity for sex than women do. Men need a longer recovery period and donât have as many orgasms in a night. Women can just go and go. Guys canât compete with that. After a while the fantasy wears thin, and itâs the guy that wants to drop out of the lifestyle.â
And what about that oher most-asked-question: whatâs it like to see your spouse having the time of their life with your neighbour?
âThey donât get into those kinds of comparisons. How can I describe this? Itâs not a competitive thing where you try to outperform each other. Most swingers appreciate each other as being unique and different, rather than this is bigger, this is harder, this is faster, this is better. Each new experience is taken at face value, âHey, itâs a good timeâ. You move on to the next one or you go back to your regular partner.â
âCock Talesâ too much for Hamilton
By David South
Id Magazine (Canada), October 3-16, 1996
Steeltown is a little less hot now that View, Hamiltonâs alternative weekly, has dropped a controversial sex columnist in the face of complaints from distributors. The fracas has raised a thorny issue: to what extent should a newspaper stand behind a controversial writer?
My Messy Bedroom, a weekly column by Montreal journalist Josey Vogels, mixes graphic language and humour in its look at sexuality. The dispute erupted over a column in the August 22 issue entitled Cock Tales 1 (Cock Tales 2 will not run in View).
A surprised and angry Vogels says she only found out her column had been dropped when id called her in September. Vogels believes the problem was with the frank discussion by men of their sexual tastes. âMaybe it was the opening line. âMouth on my cock, finger in my butt, looking me in the eyes,â then a joke: âWould you like fries with that?ââ
Vogels maintains View knew what it was getting into when it picked up the syndicated column in June, 1995. âYou canât say you want a column because of its nature, then say you donât like it.â
Vogels says she co-operated in the past when the magazine asked her to tone down a column. âBut there is a line where my integrity is at stake.â
Tucked away among five pages of classified ads, My Messy Bedroom was the only piece of journalism with a sexual theme in View.
Editor Veronica Magee says View received complaints that children were reading the column, and some distributors refused to carry the paper. In a rambling editorial in the September 5 issue, Magee defends the decision to drop the column, saying it was time the paper made some changes.
Magee writes that Vogelsâ column taught âsexuality is something clean, not dirty,â but admits some urban weeklies arenât so urban, and must cater to a more conservative, suburban readership. âHamilton is a conservative city,â she claims.
In an interview with id, Magee admitted Viewâs attitude towards the column was âwhat can we get away with â letâs push the limit.
âSome people argue she should have known better. Although Iâm sure people will believe we are making the writer suffer for a decision we made, that is not the intent.â
But the publisher and editor of View offer conflicting explanations of who actually pulled the column. âIt was a collective decision,â says Magee.
Sean Rosen, one of Viewâs two publishers, told id the magazine had been considering dropping the column for some time. But Rosen says the decision was solely Mageeâs. âThe editor decided it had run its course, trying to be sensational for the sake of being sensational.â
Other stories from the special feature:
âBarely Legalâ: Scummy New Generation of Mags Evades Anti-paedophilia Laws by Nate Hendley
Randy for the People: Conservative Ontario City Home to Porn Empire by Nate Hendley
Is Stripping Worth It? by Cynthia Tetley
Those Old Crusaders: Pornography and the Right by Eric Volmers
Feminists for Porn by Nate Hendley
The Sex Trade Down the Ages by Fiona Heath
Update: It is over 20 years since this Special Report was published. It forecast the significant role the Internet was to play in the growth of sex content and the sex industry and vice versa. Here is an interesting overview of the situation in 2020. The Internet is for Porn â It always was, it always will be.
âOne of the biggest and most interesting things happening in the consumer web right now is running almost completely under the radar. It has virtually zero Silicon Valley involvement. There are no boastful VCs getting rich. It is utterly absent from techâs plethora of twitters, fora and media (at least, as they say, âon mainâ). Indeed, the true extent of its incredible success has gone almost completely unnoticed, even by its many, many, many customers.
David South Consulting 
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