It’s not exactly an elegant business, but Larry Flynt’s Hustler empire, which grew from a magazine that had a circulation approaching 3 million per month and now down to around 500,000, is a business that is hard ignore. And Flynt is proud of his business.
In an appearance on Don Imus’ Fox Business Network show on Tuesday promoting his book, “One Nation Under Sex,” Flynt explained how he began his magazine.
“You know, I really don’t know,” Flynt said. “I didn’t have any formal education. You know, when I got out of the Navy I got an idea to start a men’s magazine and I felt the competitors weren’t doing what they should be doing.”
Those competitors were the ones people would expect – Playboy and Penthouse and Flynt explained he had low expectations, but had instant success.
“At that time Playboy and Penthouse [were the competitors] at that time and I was looking to get 5-10 percent of the market and I wound up getting a third of it overnight,” he said.
The difference he said was that he pushed the limits because he felt that he knew his customers wanted something more risqué than what Playboy and Penthouse offered at the time.
“Oh, well we were a little bit more explicit,” Flynt said. “I think we understood our market better. And a lot of people don’t realize men are more turned on by what they see and women are more turned on what they read. So once you identify the viewership, you can really respond to them in a good way and most erotic part of a woman’s body is her vagina and we show that and want to see it.”
Flynt at the time said he didn’t think of himself as pornographer, but as a liberator to some degree.
“No, I thought that Moses freed the Jews, Lincoln freed the slaves and I just want to free a lot of neurotics,” he said. “And in the process I was able to help a lot of people through puberty and I have people come up to me at book signings and they say, ‘Mr. Flynt I want to shake your hand and helping me make it through puberty.’ My God, what better accolade could you have than that?”
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Flynt is known for his defenses of pornography over the years, claiming the prime component of his business model is protected under the Constitution as free speech. But he insists pornography has been with society throughout history.
“Well, pornography is the most purist form of art and even the great masters – Picasso, Rembrandt – they have a penchant for pornography and painting it, you know,” Flynt said. “So, it’s been with us since the beginning and people that really crusade against it I think it’s largely because they’re uptight by their own sexuality, their own repressed feelings brought on by either the church or being brought up the way they were.”