Al Goldstein
Al Goldstein, the scabrous publisher whose Screw magazine pushed hard-core pornography into the cultural mainstream, died on Thursday at a nursing home in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn. He was 77. Mr. Goldstein did not invent the dirty magazine, but he was the first to present it to a wide audience without the slightest pretense of classiness or subtlety. Sex as depicted in Screw was seldom pretty, romantic or even particularly sexy. It was, primarily, a business, with consumers and suppliers like any other.
The manifesto in Screw?s debut issue in 1968 was succinct. ?We promise never to ink out a pubic hair or chalk out an organ,? it read. ?We will apologize for nothing. We will uncover the entire world of sex. We will be the Consumer Reports of sex.?
?He clearly coarsened American sensibilities,? Alan M. Dershowitz, the civil liberties advocate and Mr. Goldstein?s sometime lawyer, said in 2004. ?Hefner did it with taste,? Mr. Dershowitz added, referring to Hugh Hefner, the founder and publisher of Playboy, which predated Screw by 15 years. ?Goldstein?s contribution is to be utterly tasteless.?
