Hey everybody!

For this context clues episode, we are revisiting the contentious world of American pornography

in preparation for next week's episode called Snuff Films.

For anyone unaware of what a Snuff film is, our working definition is basically a murder

filmed for the entertainment of others, usually paying customers.

Now it goes without saying that on rare occasions, real murders are indeed caught on film, or even

purposefully recorded.

But there is no evidence to show that even one murder movie has been made for the express

purpose of selling to the sexually sadistic fringe.

Early on in the 1970s, in the golden age of porn, people quickly drew connections between

rumors of Snuff Films and the burgeoning porn industry.

And the resulting urban legend became a symbol of the insatiable sexual revolution.

Movies created by sick Hollywood directors for elite sickos and counter-culture degenerates

who had grown bored even with the hardest of core.

The myth caught fire just as the movie Deep Throat went mainstream with porn being shown in public

theaters, a shocking and salacious sign of the times.

Those who were working in porn and in the entertainment industry at large made prolific

use of the argument of freedom of speech to prevent the government from censoring their

art.

And when the courts ruled in their favor, it was very much against the wishes of prominent

religious voices and feminist voices alike.

This urban legend was used again and again by both of these groups, who concluded that

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