SEXIS WRONG

The Man Who
Screwed Things Up
Stephen J. Gertz
Given the ubiquitous nature of pornography in contemporary
American culture, one could easily assume that obscenity is
legal in this country. It is not. Legally, the notion of what is
obscene in the US has been muddy from the get-go, but by
1966 the Supreme Court had loosened censorship with an
awkward yet liberal heuristic. In 1973, one man threw a monkey
wrench into that formula, with dire results predicted. He
was THE MAN WHO SCREWED THINGS UP.
But the long-term result of his actions and the Court’s ruling
would allow technology to make a mockery of the Supremes
and usher in the modern universe of porn. Who was this forgotten,
unlikely hero?
“He [was] a paranoid schizophrenic.”
“[He had] very little sense of right and wrong.”
“He [had] a violent temper.”
“He [was] tricky in business.”
“I held him in great contempt.”
“He didn’t care about anything except making money.”
“A thief and a gonif!”
“He’s a creep.”
“I think he worked out of a phone booth.”
These are some of the nicer things that have been said about
1960s pornographer Marvin Miller, one of the more colorful
individuals in a business bursting with them, a man who, if
he’d been known to nineteenth-century British philosopher
Herbert Spencer, would have been Exhibit One in his case for
social Darwinism. For Miller—the first of the porn fast-buck
artists of the era, impresario of Collector’s Publications, for a
few years a leading porn house—was a fierce survivor who,
no matter what degree of material comfort he would gain in
his adult life, would forever be haunted by a Dickensian youth.
He was the Oliver Twist of the porn business, albeit Oliver
Twisted, an Artful Dodger who grew into a porn-Fagin with a
fondness for silk underwear.
He was born in the slums of Chicago to a widowed mother
who was mentally ill and on relief. He and his older brother often
went hungry. Stability was a foreign concept. Marvin was
an erratic, wild kid, raising himself, but five-year-olds make
lousy parents. His violent temper was already manifesting
itself. He hated to be crossed. His first experience with law
enforcement occurred when he was six: He robbed a bakery
shop for something to eat. Busted, he became the responsibility
of Jewish Welfare, which arranged for his placement in a
foster home. His first. He was sent to school. Nightmare time
for the faculty. He was, to be charitable, a difficult child.
“It was like this,” he remembered to journalist and novelist
Carolyn See. “If a teacher would ever hit me, I’d hit her back.
I’d scream and holler, I’d kick the wall and I’d kick her.” 1
His behavior in the first foster home set a pattern for the rest
of his life. “I was an angel as long as I got what I wanted.” 2
The couple that took in Marvin subsequently grew attached
to him, and for a few years he experienced some degree of
stability and affection, a modicum of family life. He got what
he wanted. He was an angel. But the woman grew sick, and
the couple had to give him up. He was ten.
Next stop, the University of Chicago’s showcase boarding
school for underprivileged kids, where it was discovered
that Marvin possessed an almost idiot-savant-like ability in
math. He was intellectually precocious, a boy-genius, and
the recognition he gained focused him. He became a learning
sponge, absorbing everything the faculty threw at him,
spending nights and weekends at the school, often all by himself,
reading, listening to the radio. He was a loner, his only
regular interactions with the other kids being fistfights.
THE MAN WHO SCREWED THINGS UP 237