Send this story Print this story

Adjust text size

Behind the Sun: Porn under a bad sign
Purveyors of sexual deviance discover 'there's something wrong with Novato'...

by Jason Walsh

25 years ago

From the Sun vaults, July 13 - 19, 1984

Novato residents couldn't define pornography, but they knew they didn't want anyone else seeing it 25 years ago this week.

Despite the popularity of such recent cinematic releases as Outlaw Ladies, Devil in Miss Jones 2 and Aunt Peg, ticket sales at the Cinema II erotic theater in Ignacio had grown noticeably flaccid by July of 1984, as anti-pornography picketers caused nearly as much excitement outside the theater as in.

The trouble all started a few months prior when the theater's new managers, Denny and Lorrie Lightner, realized that Novato moviegoers weren't interested in such high-brow releases as Ingmar Bergman's Fanny and Alexander, Godfrey Reggio's visual tone poem Koyaanisqatsi or John Cassavetes' swan song, Love Streams.

John Holmes' Love Streams, however, was a different story.

"We had every intention of keeping this a regular theater if it would make money," Denny explained to Pacific Sun managing editor Linda Xiques. "We tried lowering the prices and it still didn't make it; so we went to the next best thing—which is porno movies."

Suddenly, said Lorrie with pun seemingly not intended, business "really pricked up."

But, alas, Novato wasn't going to let dateless loners privately satisfy their basic human need for eroticism without a fight.

As Xiques described in her story, "The Last Blue Movie," Novatoans were "envisioning a steady stream of aroused males heading down Ignacio Boulevard toward the theater—the whole parade visible to popsicle-sucking kids on the sidewalks." And thus community members were "stirred to action" (if not "hot XXX action") to protect their loved ones from society's less-loved ones.

Soon a community group calling itself Citizens for Decency formed with the goal of bringing even more shame to the forlorn existences of local sexual outcasts. Their plan: wait outside the theater and harass cinema patrons via name calling and picture taking—with the veiled and unspoken threat to post the photos publicly.

One Citizens for Decency spokesman suggested to Xiques that the fact that the porno patrons got upset when their pictures were taken "proves they knew they were doing something wrong." When the editor brought up the possibility that it might also prove that the decency group is partaking in blackmail, the Open Door Christian Church member said he had no plans to develop the pictures and was merely "holding onto the film."

"I don't consider it a wholesome form of entertainment," he went on. "In my opinion, sex is not a spectator sport." The X-rated aisle at video stores was next on the group's list, he said.

Meanwhile, the Lightners—who also managed the adult drive-in between Petaluma and Novato—had had enough of the controversy and were selling the theater; their Novato porn experience had left them visibly chafed. "There's something wrong with Novato," lamented Denny. "They have a right to protest, but they have no right to stop people or embarrass people or intimidate them by taking their pictures. They've hurt a lot of people—normal people who attend these films are old enough to decide themselves whether it is right or wrong."

Added Denny: "A lot of them don't even stay for the whole show..."

Discuss memories of Marin family values with Jason at jwalsh@pacificsun.com.