Biography

Larry Claxton Flynt is a media mogul that specializes in the proliferation of pornographic material, most notably Hustler magazine. Flynt manages the publication of Hustler through his eponymous company, Larry Flynt Publications, of which he serves as president. Often derided as a dealer of debased material, Flynt is actually a champion of freedom of expression whose legal battles gave the justices of the Supreme Court the opportunity of incorporating a liberal interpretation of the First Amendment in their holding in Hustler Magazine, Inc. v. Falwell.

Furthermore, Flynt's legal cases served as the impetus for certain states, like California, to allow for the production of pornographic media, which opened the door for exhibitionists and the promiscuous to pursue careers of their choice. However, these reforms came with the price of Flynt's locomotion; in 1978, white supremacist Joseph Paul Franklin shot Flynt as he was leaving a court in Georgia, which resulted in the latter being paralyzed from the waist down.

Origin

Larry Flynt was born on the first of November in 1942 to poverity-stricken parents in Lakeville Kentucky. Tragedy governed Flynt's childhood: his sister, Judy, perished at the ripe age of four due to leukemia, his father, Claxton, was an abusive alcholic, and his only remaining sibling, Jimmy, was separated from him at the age of ten as their mother whisked Larry the older brother to Hamlet, Indiana.

Nevertheless, neither the move nor the subsequent attempt by his mother, Edith, to remarry mollified Flynt's emotional state; to escape the matriarch, Flynt enlisted in the Army under a false identity at the age of 15. However, the escape was short-lived since the Army discharged him a year later for low test scores; Flynt reacted by switching over to the Navy, an organization which not only provided Flynt a home for the remainder of his teenage years, but also allowed him to earn the equivalent of a highschool diploma.

Flynt would also begin dating around this time; he developed a penchant of quickly marrying and subsquently divorcing the girls that he became infatuated with. His second marriage was particularly memorable—Flynt's wife Peggy had committed infidelity, an act that Flynt had pinned on his mother-in-law, Ernestine. Apparently, Flynt had retaliated by shooting at Ernestine, which had resulted in her tumbling down a set of stairs, but he escaped prosecution by committing himself to a Dayton psychiatric center under the pretense of temporary insanity. But before Flynt divorced Peggy, she ended up giving birth to the first of Flynt's daughters, Tonya, who would grow up to protest her father's future line of business.

Hustler

This line of business had begun with the purchase of a bar from Edith that Flynt had converted into a strip club. By marketing his venue for a section of the community that can be called white trash, Flynt's Hustler club as it came to be known became a financial success. The venture had been so lucrative that Flynt was able to open more locations in other towns throughout Ohio; Flynt had been able to deal with the increased responsibility by working with his brother, Jimmy, and taking amphetamines to fight fatigue like many college students do today.

Eventually in the 1970s, Flynt began to print two-page newsletters that contained information about the dancers featured at his clubs. The newsletters were so well-received that Flynt decided to develop them even further into a full-length magazine. Not only did Flynt emulate the already established publications of Playboy and Penthouse, Flynt also chose to market his magazine towards the same audience that attended his clubs—poor working-class white males.

However, unlike his clubs, Hustler magazine was not instantly lucrative; because the first few issues had been mostly panned as vapid, Flynt had to hire one of the magazine's detractors, Bruce David, to touch-up its layout. It was only after David's intervention that Hustler would start generating about $500,000 for each issue. The changes included the incorporation of graphic photos that would feature women of all types, especially those that are not typically considered to be attractive like the obese, and equally provacative reading material, like the cartoon series "Chester the Molester," which encouraged and provided methods of committing pedophila in a tongue-in-cheek manner. Hustler reached its zenith in the August of 1975 when the magazine featured nude photos of former first-lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis that had been taken by paparazzi while she had vacationed in Greece.

A
shot of a middle-aged Flynt in a white blazer and black t-shirt that reads,
Fuck the Court, being wheeled into court.

Legal Battles

Despite the fact that the images of the former first lady propelled Flynt into affluence, much of his hard-earned money would end up going towards legal bills for several cases. The first of which occurred in 1976; the authorities had arrested and charged Flynt for several crimes, the most noteworthy being obscenity. The local court had ruled that localities could determine what could be defined as obscene material, like pornographic magazines, for the purpose of prohibiting the dissemination of such material, all of which contravenes the First Amendment.

Flynt appealed, declaring that America was "the strongest country in the world today only because we are the freest country in the world today, and I don't want any American, anywhere, to ever forget that that strength lies in our principle to be free. And I'll continue this fight. And people will accuse me of continuing it in the name of pornography. I continue it in the name of freedom." To buttress his point and at the same time challenge preconceptions concerning obscenity, Flynt sent out several thousand copies of a pamphlet containing images of moments of macabre from the Vietnam War, which of course, could be spread successfully without incurring any of the same deterrents that would have halted the spread of an issue of Hustler magazine.

After winning the case on appeal, Flynt's name became fixed within the political zeitgeist, which compelled other entities to go after him with the impetus of eroding the First Amendment. Although these entities would utilize a civil means of combatting Flynt and his ideology, there was one whose actions escalated into violence, leaving Flynt as a paraplegic. Flynt lost the use of his lower body after he was shot by the white supremacist serial killer Joseph Paul Franklin, who, apparently, became incensed at Flynt for publishing a photo of a mixed-race couple within Hustler.

However, despite this traumatic experience and the subsequent period of convalescence that involved becoming addicted to and repeatedly overdosing on painkillers, Flynt would continue to defend himself and the principle of freedom of expression within court, showcasing the same impetuous ardor that he had when he had mailed out pamphlets during his first trial. But Flynt's actions escalated as well; his most memorable moments include yelling profanities, throwing orange peels at a magistrate, and showing up to trial in an American flag themed adult diaper.

All of these minute instances of élan would culimate in a battle with televangelist Jerry Falwell in the legal apogee of the Supreme Court in 1983. Falwell had charged Flynt with libel and an intent to inflict emotional distress after the latter had satirized the former in a parody of a then popular advertisement featuring Campari, an Italian apéritif. Flynt's battle with Falwell followed the same trajectory as his past cases—Flynt would lose in local court, but utimately go on to win in a higher court once he appealed his case.

The Supreme Court justices unanimously overturned the original decision of finding Flynt guilty of intentionally inflicting emotional distress on Falwell. Within the majority opinion, Chief Justice William Rehnquist held that "at the heart of the first amendment is the recognition of the fundamental importance of the free flow of ideas and opinions on matters of public interest and concern." Basically, the First Amendment is predicated on the idea of facilatating unhampered discourse, which implies an acceptance of dissenting or even plainly odious opinions. Indeed, it is as Larry Flynt stated, "We have to tolerate things that we don't necessarily like, so we can be free. Free press is not just freedom for the thought you love, but freedom for the thought you hate."