Screw (magazine)

''Screw'' is a pornographic online magazine published in the United States aimed at heterosexual men; it was originally published as a weekly tabloid newspaper.

The publication, which was described as "raunchy, obnoxious, usually disgusting, and sometimes political", was a pioneer in bringing hardcore pornography into the American mainstream during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Founder Al Goldstein won a series of nationally significant court cases addressing obscenity. At its peak, ''Screw'' sold 140,000 copies a week.

Publication history

In November 1968 in New York, Al Goldstein and his partner Jim Buckley, investing $175 each, founded ''Screw'' as a weekly underground newspaper. At an initial price of 25¢, a statement on the cover offered " Jerk-Off Entertainment for Men".

Beginning in 1969, ''Screw'' co-founder Jim Buckley founded ''Screw'''s "sister" tabloid '' Gay'', edited by ''Screw'' columnists Jack Nichols and Lige Clarke. Contributors to ''Gay'' included Dick Leitsch, Randy Wicker, Lilli Vincenz, Peter Fisher, John Paul Hudson, Arthur Bell, Vito Russo, and George Weinberg. ''Gay'' reached "a broad audience and went on to become the most profitable LGBT newspaper in the U.S.;" it continued until early 1974.

In 1973, Screw published nude photos of former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, which led to scandal — and issue sales of more than a half-million copies. (Nude photos of Onassis had previously appeared in the Italian softcore magazine '' Playmen'' and later were published by the American hardcore magazine '' Hustler''.)

Goldstein tried, unsuccessfully, to expand ''Screw'''s reach beyond New York City. In 1976–1977 ''National Screw'' was published, only lasting nine issues. The June 1977 issue of the magazine contained, according to its cover, a new story by William Burroughs and an interview with Allen Ginsberg. Other issues contained original adult comic strip work from cartooning legends Wally Wood, Guido Crepax, and Will Eisner.

In 1979–1980, Goldstein's company, Milky Way Productions, published ''Screw West'' out of an office in Hollywood, California. According to an advertisement, it was intended to answer such questions as, "Where can I get laid in San Francisco? What's the best swinger's club in Los Angeles? How do I find all those out-of-the-way Pacific Coast nude beaches? And what are those bawdy brothels outside Las Vegas really like?" ''Screw West'' is known to have published 54 issues.

One of Goldstein's best friends was Larry Flynt, publisher of '' Hustler'' magazine, founded seven years after ''Screw''. Goldstein claimed that ''Hustler'' stole its format from ''Screw'', but that he was not angry. According to Goldstein, Flynt succeeded in creating a national publication, at which he had failed.

''Screw'' folded in 2003, unable to make payroll; only 600 copies were sold of the last issue. Goldstein's Milky Way Productions, which published ''Screw'' and ''Midnight Blue'', entered bankruptcy in 2004, having lost sales and subscribers as a result of the proliferation of internet pornography, abetted by Goldstein's financial mismanagement.

2004 relaunch

In 2004 the ''Screw'' periodical was restarted by former employees led by Kevin Hein, with writer Mike Edison coming onboard as the new editor. (Edison had started writing as a freelancer for ''Screw'' almost two decades earlier.) In late 2006 Edison announced that he was leaving the editor-in-chief position. Soon after, in 2007, ''Screw'' ceased physical publication as the title neared, but did not reach, its 2,000th issue.

Original founder Al Goldstein died in 2013.

2019–2020 relaunch

In 2019, ''Screw'' returned as an adult, subscription-based television channel ("SCREW TV") on Roku, developed and produced by longtime Goldstein friend and associate Phil Autelitano.

On November 4, 2020, the 52nd anniversary of its initial launch, ''Screw'' resumed publishing in digital-only format, published by Autelitano (as "Phil Italiano") and Autelitano Media Group of Miami, Florida.

Contents

''Screw'' features reviews of porn movies, peep shows, erotic massage parlors, brothels, escorts, and other offerings of the adult entertainment industry. Such items are interspersed with sexual news, book reviews of sexual books, and hardcore "gynecological" pictorials. The original paper regularly ran, without permission, photos and drawings of celebrities.

According to author Will Sloan:

Jack Nichols and Lige Clarke's column "The Homosexual Citizen", which launched in 1968, was the first LGBT-interest column in a non-LGBT publication. As a result of this column, Nichols and Clarke became known as "The most famous gay couple in America."

On May 2, 1969, ''Screw'' published the first reference in print to J. Edgar Hoover's sexuality, entitled "Is J. Edgar Hoover a Fag?" A few issues later, ''Screw'' became the first publication to print the word " homophobia" (a term coined by George Weinberg). The word appeared in an article written for the May 23, 1969, issue, in which the word was used to refer to heterosexual men's fear that others might think they are gay.

In December 1970, New York City music teacher Pat Bond placed an ad in ''Screw'' that led Bond to connect with Fran Nowve, and for the two of them to form The Eulenspiegel Society, the first BDSM organization founded in the United States.

''Screw''s most successful issue, published in 1973, contained unauthorized photos of Jacqueline Kennedy nude.

Stripper and erotic performance artist Honeysuckle Divine wrote a column, "Diary of a Dirty Broad", for ''Screw'' for several years in the mid-1970s. Divine's specialty was inserting objects such as pickles in her vagina, shooting out many of them. She put the pickles in baggies and sold them to patrons. Goldstein said that her act "was unbelievably disgusting, so naturally, we made her our symbol." Divine was the only female associated with ''Screw'' over any period of time; she also appeared in the 1975 feature production ''SOS: Screw on the Screen''.

Legal battles

In 1974, publishers Goldstein and Buckley were charged with 12 counts of obscenity in a federal court in Kansas. (Goldstein believed that the case began as a result of ''Screw'' May 1969 article, "Is J. Edgar Hoover a Fag?") The case dragged on for three years through two trials and was finally settled when Goldstein agreed to pay a $30,000 fine.

In 1977, Alabama governor George Wallace sued ''Screw'' for $5 million for publishing the claim that he had learned to perform sexual acts from reading the magazine. The two parties settled for $12,500, and ''Screw'' agreed to print an apology.

In 1978, ''Screw'' set in motion a precedent-setting case that established fair-use protections for publication of registered trademarks in sexually explicit parodies in the United States. Known as ''Pillsbury Co. v. Milky Way Productions'', the case stemmed from an illustration in ''Screw'' depicting a figure resembling the Pillsbury Dough Boy in various lewd sexual acts, including fellatio and sexual intercourse. The parody also featured Pillsbury's barrelhead trademark and two lines from the refrain of a two-stanza song entitled "The Pillsbury Baking Song". The illustration was published in the February 20, 1978, issue of ''Screw''. The Pillsbury Company filed an initial complaint several weeks after the original publication of the cartoon, contending that the manner in which the magazine presented the picture implied that Pillsbury placed it in the magazine as an advertisement. Pillsbury alleged several counts of copyright infringement, federal statutory, common law trademark infringement, violations of the Georgia Uniform Deceptive Trade Practices Act and of the Georgia "anti-dilution" statute, and several counts of tortious tarnishment of its marks, trade characters, and jingle. The judge presiding in the case issued a temporary injunction against ''Screw'' on April 21, 1978, which the defendant disobeyed. Ultimately, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia held that the pictures were editorial or social commentary and, thus, protected under fair use.

Contributors

Larry Brill and Les Waldstein were the original designers for '' Screw'', having earlier designed '' Famous Monsters of Filmland'' and other Jim Warren publications in the late 1960s. Brill and Waldstein later went on to become the publishers of '' The Monster Times''. Steven Heller later served as the paper's art director, before moving on to ''The New York Times''.

Artist René Moncada became a major contributor to ''Screw'' beginning in the late 1960s, which provided an outlet for the artist's early erotic illustrations, and a forum for his later anti-censorship diatribes.

A number of underground and alternative cartoonists got their start doing illustrations and comics for ''Screw'', including Bill Griffith, Milton Knight, Leslie Cabarga, Drew Friedman, Tony Millionaire, Eric Drooker, Kaz, Danny Hellman, Glenn Head, Bob Fingerman, Michael Kupperman, and Molly Crabapple. Spain Rodriguez contributed cover art to more than a dozen issues of ''Screw'' from 1976 to 1998. In the 1970s and early 1980s, Paul Kirchner did several dozen covers for the publication. " Good girl" artist Bill Ward also did a number of covers for ''Screw''.

Writer Josh Alan Friedman's first published work was for ''Screw'' in the late 1970s. He continued to write for the magazine for several years, eventually holding the position of Senior Editor through 1982. He covered the Times Square beat for ''Screw'' during a perilous time when few, if any writers, ventured there. He also worked as a producer on ''Screw'''s cable television show, '' Midnight Blue''.

David Aaron Clark edited ''Screw'' for five years in the early 1990s.

''Screw'' in other media

Movies and television

In 1973, "''Screw Magazine'' present /nowiki>ed/nowiki>" '' It Happened in Hollywood'', a pornographic movie produced by Jim Buckley. At the Second Annual New York Erotic Film Festival it won awards for Best Picture, Best Female Performance, and Best Supporting Actor.

In 1974 Goldstein began ''Screw Magazine of the Air'', soon renamed '' Midnight Blue'', a thrice-weekly hour-long adult-oriented public-access television program that ran for nearly 30 years on Manhattan Cable's Channel J.

''SOS: Screw on the Screen'' appearing in 1975, was a stridently unsexy attempt at a cinematic newsmagazine that included a lot of goofy comedy, a gay scene, and several minutes of Goldstein ranting about America's sexual hypocrisy. Also appearing was Honeysuckle Divine (who often appeared in ''Screw'').

The Screw Store

The May 17, 1976, issue ran an ad for the "Screw Store", which offered dildos, including a "Bicentennial Dildo", vibrating Ben wa eggs, and a vibrating cock ring. Selling dildos brought one of Goldstein's many arrests.

References

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Pornographic men's magazines
Defunct magazines published in the United States
Magazines established in 1968
Magazines disestablished in 2003
Magazines published in New York City
Obscenity controversies in literature
Pornographic magazines published in the United States
Weekly magazines published in the United States