Flynt Claims People Misunderstand Him

"Women are often misunderstood as I am." Hustler magazine Publisher Larry Flynt said Sunday night at the Ford Hall Forum in Boston.

Flynt said he started out in the business as nothing more than a pornographer "interested in making money. He defended his right to publish, however, saying "freedom is only meaningful if it's offensive." He added he started Hustler as a magazine responsive to readers' desires and "to deal with sex the way I knew about it growing up on the farm."

Out on bail pending appeal from a 25-year term on an obscenity conviction in Ohio, Flynt said, "that judge in Cincinnati did not give me a prison sentence, he gave me a podium."

He estimated the case has cost him $1 million for this year alone.

Flynt said that even though he supports equal rights for women, the more radical members of the women's movement may be causing an increase in bisexuality on college campuses by intimidating young men, who are sexually inferior to women. Flynt said the problem with the feminist movement is that women think they "can get into themselves through masturbation or lesbianism."

Although he said he believes in "the basic Freudian principles that everything is basically connected to sex," Flynt later admitted he had "never read Freud."

Flynt said he views himself as an unlikely crusader for constitutional rights. "It started out with me to make money, now it's a cause," he said.

Flynt often invoked patriotic values and praise for the United States in his speech. Though he said he spends 20 hours a week reading every letter sent to Hustler, he added "I still get chills when somebody recites the Gettysburg Address."

Judicial Politics

After being indicated on obscenity charges, Flynt accused the judge and the district attorney of using his case as a means to further their respective political campaigns. The judge has been removed from the case during the appeals process.