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Hustler hons vs Playboy buns
06/03/2002 11:32 - (SA)
Michael Kahn
San Francisco - Porn king Larry Flynt wants to bring Hustler's naked "girl-next-door" to a city near you.
With an eye to opening a string of "Larry Flynt's Hustler Club" strip parlours across the United States, Flynt hopes to extend his X-rated empire beyond print, video and the internet to stiffen limp revenues from a stable of publications led by Flynt's raunchy flagship, Hustler magazine.
Love him or hate him, Flynt (59) knows sex sells - and few are better at minting money from it than the controversial publisher whose eye-popping publications have tested America's legal and moral limits. Hugh Hefner may have his Playboy bunnies but Flynt is betting his Hustler honeys will be just as desirable - and have more staying power.
"It is not about how much you can take off," Flynt said in San Francisco, where he recently opened his second Hustler Club. "It's how much you can bring to the entertainment."
The clubs also mark an attempt to cash in on Flynt's famous name - burnished by Milos Forman's award-winning 1996 film chronicling the flamboyant pornographer's First Amendment court battles.
In the steamy world of girls, sex and the American dream, Larry Flynt believes that he is as hot a commodity as any of the chesty models who shed their clothes and inhibitions for his company.
"The value in the brand name was instrumental in deciding to open up the clubs," Flynt said. "The name is the big draw and the Hustler Club is part of using the name to branch out and diversify."
A merchandising bonanza
Flynt, who has used a wheelchair since a would-be assassin's bullet partially paralysed him more than 20 years ago, said the idea to begin licensing his - and Hustler's - name clicked a few years ago with the popularity of the Hustler website.
Since then, he's opened a handful of Hustler boutiques offering lingerie and sex products, the first-ever Hustler Club on Bourbon Street in New Orleans and a profitable Hustler Casino in a Los Angeles suburb.
But Flynt, who got his start running strip clubs in Ohio before turning his hand to publishing, doesn't plan to stop there. As far as he is concerned, the sky is the limit for Hustler-adorned merchandise.
"Postcards, cologne, key chains, there are a zillion things you could do with the name," Flynt said. "We can continue to diversify as far as products go. That would be pretty much unlimited."
For now, though, fans will have to settle for items such as T-shirts emblazoned with Flynt's face on sale at the clubs and boutiques - profitable additions to the porn conglomerate Flynt said saw revenues of around $200 million last year.
Sitting in his gold-plated wheelchair in his San Francisco hotel room, Flynt noted his club in New Orleans raked in $3 million in its first year.
This was enough to convince him the Hustler Clubs are the future, and he now hopes to see as many as 50 such night spots scattered across major US cities and Europe. Possibilities include Chicago, Miami, London and Paris.
"What people don't understand is lonely guys like to have someone they can sit down and talk to," said Flynt, casually dressed in a pair of slacks and open-collar shirt.
He explained the clubs offer an upscale setting where businessmen will sip pricey champagne in the company of Hustler Honeys. In a word, Flynt says, it's all about "class".
Some gyrate, others irate
With dim lighting, separate bars and plush carpeting, the San Francisco club could pass for a late-night jazz lounge if not for the mirrors and stage in the centre of the room where dancers take turns gyrating around the requisite pole.
But because Flynt covets a more genteel audience than the those who favour his videos and magazines, the clubs lack the in-your-face raunchiness often associated with Hustler.
Don't get Flynt wrong - he's not mellowing - he's just picking his market.
"We are not necessarily catering to a local working guy," Flynt said. "We are primarily catering to travellers on a business account - people with money to spend. We want to get this business out of the gutter so to speak."
That may require some heavy lifting.
Flynt's name has proved a double-edged sword in San Francisco, where the new club in the city's North Beach tourist district has drawn opposition from city officials as well as anti-pornography advocates.
While the club sits on a street already known for its female entertainment, massage parlours and adult video stores, critics say Flynt's arrival heralds a new low. Nobody, they charge, has done more than Flynt to bring hardcore pornography into the American mainstream.
"Larry Flynt is one of the most despicable people as far as woman are concerned," said Diana Russell, a former professor and expert on violence against women. "We are really distressed to see him here in San Francisco."
Can honeys outlast bunnies?
Flynt also has to prove he can succeed where Hugh Hefner's high-profile Playboy clubs - once a staple of 1970s bachelor glamour - failed.
Flynt believes Playboy, which shuttered its clubs in the 1980s to focus on cable television and home video, lost its way by focusing too heavily on big-name entertainers and food. Instead, the Hustler Clubs will stick to Flynt's tried and true formula: showcasing the "girl-next-door" rather than what he called the airbrushed, surgically-enhanced Playboy image of beauty.
"There is a big difference here," Flynt said. "Hefner booked named entertainers and was focusing heavily on food," Flynt said. "And as far as the bunnies go, it was a look but don't touch situation."
Don't show up at the Hustler club looking to get physical, though. In fact, the action in the San Francisco club is fairly tame by Hustler standards, in part because the club's permit forbids the performers from showcasing too much, and allows topless dancing only during a portion of the club's hours.
Instead, dancers prowl the club in lingerie and gowns with strategically placed pasties - enough to titillate, but not incriminate.
"I'm positive the club will be a success," said one performer who dances under the name Raven. "Sex sells and there is always been controversy surrounding Larry Flynt."
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