From HUFFINGTON POST

Hustler Magazine Turns 40, Parties In L.A.: A Peak Behind the Scenes as Larry Flynt Celebrates in Style

The black-and-gold JPEG invitation arrived in my inbox back in June, miraculously dodging the spam filter. “You and a guest are invited to join us as we celebrate our 40th anniversary.”

It was from Hustler magazine.

Not the kind of invite most academics receive, coming from a publication that dubs itself “Hardcore Since ’74” and “For the Rest of the World.” There will be no panel discussions or no plenary sessions at this affair.

But there was, as it turned out, a bevy of stars from another, slightly more carnal world — talent with names like Karla Kush, Cassidy Klein, Marley Blaze, Jazy Berlin and Summer Carter.

Already slated to conduct an interview about First Amendment and U.S. Supreme Court issues with the man who’s the driving force behind this entire event, I rsvped yes.

Roaring 20s outfits were encouraged for the July 26 bash — fitting for a fete at the neo-Gothic Park Plaza Hotel just off Wilshire Boulevard near MacArthur Park in Los Angeles’s Westlake area. Initially an Elks Lodge and now trumpeting itself as “legendary,” the hotel boasts of being designed in the 1920s by a “renowned art deco architect” named Claud Beelman.

It’s doubtful, however, that either the Elks or Beelman could have imagined that, some nine decades later, the hotel would be the scene of celebration for Larry Claxton Flynt, a figure truly legendary for simultaneously pushing the buttons and boundaries of sexual expression in the United States while fighting key First Amendment battles against the likes of Jerry Falwell, the late Moral Majority leader.

The 1988 case of Hustler Magazine v. Falwell, in which Flynt scored a unanimous victory before the U.S. Supreme Court protecting an ad parody that suggested Falwell lost his virginity with his mother in a fly-infested outhouse, is what makes programs ranging from The Daily Show to South Park possible. He’s also fought important, but far lesser known, federal court fights for press access to U.S. military operations in both Afghanistan and Grenada.

Flynt, as it turns out, didn’t end up exercising his First Amendment rights and giving any speeches during the soiree. But he does offer up a few choice words in the publisher’s opening statement of the just-streeted 40th anniversary collector’s edition of Hustler:

I am proud that I’ve been able to bring you Hustler Magazine every month for 40 years. It hasn’t been easy and it never will be. To all the people who tried and failed to stop me, I got a middle finger for you. To everyone else, let’s keep this party going!

For the more image-inclined Hustler devotees who skipped past that textual content of the 40th anniversary edition, there’s a photo spread featuring Belle Knox, the Duke University undergraduate who made headlines in early 2014 because she’s paying her way through that elite institution by working in porn. Just as Knox challenges stereotypes about women who earn their livings on the backs and knees, so too does Flynt test our beliefs about what is and is not sexually normal.

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