Porn Valley: How One Court Case Made the San Fernando Valley the Capital of Adult Film

In this guide

• A suburb with a secret
• The problem before 1988: porn or prostitution?
• Harold Freeman and the arrest
• The ruling: 25 August 1988
• The US Supreme Court steps aside
• What Freeman changed, and what it did not
• The Valley at its peak
• Why the Valley emptied out
• Where the industry lives now
• My take

People imagine the porn industry with Hollywood glamour. For decades, the reality was quiet suburban streets in the San Fernando Valley: rented houses with pools, anonymous warehouses and office parks. Nothing on the outside told you what happened inside. That was the point.

For decades, this suburb north of Hollywood was the capital of the world’s adult film industry. Most people assume it was just sunshine and proximity to Hollywood talent. That was part of it. But the real reason is legal, and it comes down to one director and one ruling.

I am not a lawyer, and this is a history article, not legal advice.

A suburb with a secret

The San Fernando Valley became the main region for producing adult films in the 1970s and grew into the home of a multibillion-dollar industry. It earned nicknames like “Porn Valley,” “Silicone Valley” (a joke on Silicon Valley) and “San Pornando Valley” (Wikipedia: San Fernando Valley; Business Insider).

The logic was practical. Los Angeles had camera operators, lighting crews, editors, makeup artists and equipment rental houses, all built for Hollywood. Many of them were happy to take extra work. Houses in the Valley were big, sunny and relatively cheap to rent by the day. And it was close to the agents and performers who lived in the city.

But you can have all of that and still not be able to film legally. That was the problem.

The problem before 1988: porn or prostitution?

Here is the strange legal puzzle at the heart of porn. Prostitution, paying someone for sex, is illegal in California and most of the US. A porn producer pays performers, and the performers have sex. So is a porn shoot just prostitution with a camera?

For years, the answer was unclear. Obscene material could be prosecuted under the test set by the US Supreme Court in Miller v. California in 1973. But even if a film was not legally obscene, prosecutors could try another route: charge the producer with pandering, meaning procuring people for prostitution. Before 1988, adult films in California were of uncertain legality and were often shot at secret locations (Wikipedia: People v. Freeman).

The question was simple: is paying actors to have sex on camera a film shoot or a crime? The answer built an industry.

Harold Freeman and the arrest

Harold Freeman was a producer and director of adult films. Los Angeles prosecutors charged him with pandering under section 266i of the California Penal Code for hiring adult actors for a film, characterising it as pimping. The prosecution was part of a wider attempt to shut down porn production in the state.

Freeman was convicted, and the Court of Appeal upheld the conviction. Interestingly, the trial judge thought prison would be unreasonably harsh and gave him probation, which the state also challenged (Wikipedia: People v. Freeman). Freeman then took the case to the California Supreme Court.

The ruling: 25 August 1988

On 25 August 1988, the California Supreme Court reversed Freeman’s conviction in People v. Freeman, 46 Cal.3d 419. The court found that the pandering law was not intended to cover hiring actors to perform in sexually explicit but non-obscene films. A conviction could only stand if the payment was for the purpose of sexually gratifying the person paying, or the actors.

In other words: paying actors to perform in a film is paying them to act, not paying them for sex. The court also said the prosecution looked like “a somewhat transparent attempt at an ‘end run’ around the First Amendment and the state obscenity laws” (Justia).

The US Supreme Court steps aside

California did not give up. The state asked the US Supreme Court to intervene. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor denied a stay of the ruling. She was critical of the First Amendment reasoning, writing that “it must certainly be true that otherwise illegal conduct is not made legal by being filmed,” but she noted the decision was based on state law, which made a successful appeal unlikely. In 1989, the full Court denied certiorari (Wikipedia: People v. Freeman).

That was the end. Producing hardcore pornography was effectively legal in California.

What Freeman changed, and what it did not

The Freeman ruling did not make everything legal. It did not change obscenity law: material judged obscene under Miller could still be prosecuted. It did not cover anyone under 18, ever. And it was a California decision. In most other US states, the legal position stayed uncertain for years. In 2008, the New Hampshire Supreme Court made a similar distinction between porn production and prostitution in State v. Theriault, but many states never had a clear ruling.

So if you were a producer in 1989 deciding where to set up, the choice was obvious: California, where the highest state court had said you were not a pimp.

That same year, 1988, Congress had also passed the record-keeping law now known as 2257, requiring producers to keep proof of age for every performer. Together, these two changes shaped the modern industry: legal to film in California, but with strict paperwork. I explain the paperwork side in consent on a porn set.

The Valley at its peak

From the late 1980s through the 2000s, the Valley boomed. The VHS and then DVD market made adult video a mass product, and Los Angeles became home to many of the biggest studios, agencies, distributors and testing clinics. A 2012 academic handbook on globalisation and world cities described the San Fernando Valley as accounting for around two thirds of listed adult entertainment production studios.

If you were a performer, you moved to Los Angeles. Agencies were there, castings were there, and the testing clinic was there. For years, the advice in the industry was always the same: if you want a real career, you go to the Valley. The industry’s history before this period, the Golden Age of theatrical porn, I cover in the golden age of porn.

Why the Valley emptied out

Three forces hit the Valley one after another:

1. Piracy and free tube sites. From around 2007, free streaming crushed DVD sales and studio budgets. I explained that in tube sites and piracy.
2. Measure B. In 2012, Los Angeles County voters approved a condom requirement on adult shoots, and permits in the county fell about 95% by 2015. The full story is in condoms in porn: Measure B and Prop 60.
3. Creator platforms. With OnlyFans and similar sites, performers no longer needed a studio in Los Angeles. They could shoot at home, anywhere in the world, and own their content.

The Los Angeles Daily News reported in 2015 that the industry was still at home in the Valley despite condom laws, the web and piracy (Daily News, 2015). But “still at home” is not the same as “booming.”

Where the industry lives now

Today the Valley is still important. Many agencies, some big studios and many performers remain in the Los Angeles area. But production is spread out: Las Vegas, Miami, Europe, and thousands of bedrooms and rented apartments where creators shoot their own content. The industry did not die. It decentralised.

My take

I find this story fascinating because it shows how fragile the legal foundations of my profession are. My whole career exists, in part, because the California Supreme Court decided in 1988 that a film shoot is a film shoot. Change one word in that ruling and the industry I grew up in would look completely different, or would not exist in the US at all.

It also shows something people forget: regulation follows geography, but the internet does not care about geography. The Valley became Porn Valley because of a legal decision. It stopped being the only Porn Valley because of technology. The next fights, about age verification, payment processors and AI, will be fought online, not in suburbs.

For the human stories of the women in this industry, read my columns on House of Maximo. Follow my work at maximogarciaworld.com, and for the 18+ side, fuckingpornstars.net.

Sources

1. Wikipedia. People v. Freeman.
2. Justia. People v. Freeman (1988), 46 Cal.3d 419.
3. Wikipedia. San Fernando Valley: adult entertainment.
4. Business Insider. How LA’s ‘Porn Valley’ became the adult entertainment capital of the world. September 2017.
5. Los Angeles Daily News. Porn industry still at home in San Fernando Valley despite condom laws, Web, piracy. January 2015.