The leader of a heterosexual porn empire might seem like an unlikely lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights advocate, but then again, Larry Flynt has never been one to live by society's expectations.
San Diego CityBeat recently caught up with the 69-year-old Flynt for an interview, in which the notorious Hustler mogul revealed why he's all for gay rights despite identifying himself as primarily conservative. "I've always been pro-gay rights," he said. "I'm a civil libertarian to the core...I'm especially conservative on fiscal issues, in terms of how I handle my money and how the government handles my money, but on social issues I'm totally liberal. I don't think the government has any business in your bedroom whatsoever, and it's none of their business who you're in there with or what you're doing."
Flynt also spoke candidly on a number of other issues, from pornography-as-art ("If you look at all of the great masters, whether it be Picasso or Renoir or even Van Gogh, they all had a penchant for pornography") to his own sex life ("Plain ol' vanilla sex, you know? Nothing kinky for me"). As for the 2012 U.S. presidential elections, Flynt noted: "It's true, and history will be the judge of it: George Bush handed [President Obama] this bad economy on a platter. There was a hole dug so big for Obama that there’s no humanly possible way to get out of it. Where I think that Obama failed is he did not understand the American people."
True to form, however, Flynt -- who has been described as one of the most powerful people in porn -- ended the interview on a particularly salacious note, saying of his legacy, "Well, my grandfather used to say: 'When you get old, all you're gonna have left are your memories, so make them good. Eat all the best food, drink all the best wine and fuck all the most beautiful women.'"