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The Biography


The Legendary King of Modern Pornography
His involvement with sexual revolution began on September 20, 1961. At that time, pornography--the representation of human sexual behavior--was still totally forbidden in every nation, including Sweden, Denmark, Holland, Germany, France, Italy, Canada, United States, etc. Most people didn't even know what it was, and no one challenged its repression.

Since childhood, this citizen of Italy and France developed a great interest for girls and women, and studded his young years with love adventures all over Europe. Enrolled in the Law School of the Milan State University in 1955, and having passed all the exams, Lasse was fighting for his doctorate dissertation titled: "The Judiciary Censorship in the Western World". A theme which allowed Lasse to underline the "social damage" provoked by censorship, but angered the Academic establishment who ruled to... censor his thesis on censorship.

That day of September 1961, as Lasse was reading an Italian news paper, he learns that a young men, with the same surname as one of his Milanese girlfriends, had been arrested in Genoa by the Italian police. The guy was caught with three suitcases filled with so-called pornographic material bought in Montecarlo. Lasse calls his girlfriend. Weeping, she confirms that the arrested is indeed her older brother, a man who Lasse had never personally met (hereafter named Dino).

Lasse gets from the girl the name of their family attorney, and pays a visit to his office. As the lawyer had no experience with this kind of unusual felony, Lasse suggests a line of defense based on the fact that the representation of licit sexual behavior couldn't be considered illicit by law. Especially because Dino's suitcases were mainly filled with French magazines portraying girls in... bikini! But in addition to some French explicit novels, the police had also found 30 unsharp 8mm copies of old b/w porn flicks, and a few packages of Swedish magazines for nudists.

When Dino comes out of jail around the end of October 1961, Lasse becomes his friend although the guy hadn't realized the significance of his act: This wasn't to be considered either a felony or an easy way to recoup his casino losses, but a revolutionary act. Nevertheless, as Dino's passport was confiscated, Lasse drives to Montecarlo and discovers that the local "porno" dealer was getting the illegal merchandise from a... tobacco shop in Brussels, Belgium.

In those days, Lasse spoke already the five major European languages pretty well. As the son of a diplomat, he was himself a member of the Diplomatic Corps credited in Austria. He was fairly rich, drove a Mercedes with CD license plates, and could pass through customs with total immunity. No customs officer would even dare to check his luggage. These fortuitous circumstances turned Lasse Braun into the most obstinate fighter for sexual freedom in Europe and in America, well-deserving the title of Father of Modern Pornography by New York magazine Escapade in 1981. Back to the fall of 1961, Lasse locates the Brussels tobacco shop, and befriends its two owners. In a clandestine facility, they were printing the French libertine books, which they smuggled to Paris with high risk of police arrest, customsconfiscation and armed robberies by underworld figures. No wonder that the joyous representation of sex had fallen into such filth as found in Dino's suitcases.

From the very beginning, embarrassed by the humiliating level of production and organization of the few fearful pornographers of that time, Lasse devises a strategy for the legalization of pornography. This wasn't easy at all, but was the conditio sine qua non for the sexual revolution to reach the large public and win its battle for freedom. His plan was simple: Don't talk, produce it, and offer it to the people. Demand will grow.

From 1962 to 1967, Lasse engages in clandestine activities both in Europe and America. Untiringly travelling everywhere, he distributes new porno novels written by himself with a number of pseudonyms, and translated in various languages. With the two Belgians, he prints new magazines using explicit pictures which he was shooting with girlfriends. Movie production was arduous as only a couple of labs agreed to make a few b/w 8mm copies of explicit sex under the counter. But in order to promote the legalization of something which was so much forbidden all over the world, it was necessary to create an appealing merchandise; to motivate new retailers; and to multiply the judiciary cases against pornography. Without a merchandise which could generate high profits, no merchant would carry the risks of prohibition; and without judiciary cases the legislators wouldn't take the phenomenon into consideration.

In the first three years, concentrating his activity in Western Europe, Lasse convinces more than 500 retailers (bookstores and newsstands) to undertake the illegal business. Elegantly dressed, Lasse was entering prospected selling points and asked if they carried some sex books or magazines. At their confused denial, he offered them a small package with free samples, suggesting a high retail price with significant margins of benefits. For payments and future orders he gave them the address of a mailbox rented for him by a Dutch girlfriend in Amsterdam. Month after month, with the nickname of Santa Claus--because of the well-packaged free samples--Lasse enormously increases the turn-over of pornography. And the judiciary cases, sometimes provoked by himself against selected dealers (the necessary victims of the revolution), began to cumulate on the desks of various District Attorneys.

The new phenomenon grows. Sustained by his extensive knowledge of laws and habits of every European state, Lasse realizes that legalization could only be possible by starting in a small nation of advanced culture, where repressive religions had little or no weight. Luck strikes again in Copenhagen, Denmark. A local attorney, supporting Lasse's revolutionary endeavor, puts him in touch with a young Danish MP of the Social-Democratic Party (hereafter called Rasmussen).

The MP manages to get a reliable Danish translation of Lasse's dissertation on censorship, and discusses with him the "social damage" provoked by the criminalization of explicit sexual material. Namely, the increase of violence, neurosis, somatic diseases, family quarrels and generalized unhappiness. Among people of open mind such as the Danes, it appeared quite clear that censorship on sex was the unpleasant heritage of the repression perpetrated by the totalitarian regimes which seized power in Europe, with the support of the clergy, after the defeat of Napoleon in 1815.

The results showed up. In 1966, the Danish Parliament legalizes explicit sex writings but delays legalization of pornographic images because--as everyone knows--a picture is worth a thousand words. In order to offer new ground for Rasmussen to finalize his fight for full legalization, Lasse founds in Stockholm a movie company called AB Beta Film, and begins to produce the first hard-core films in color ever appeared on the world market. These were the short subjects (loops), of about 10 minutes each, sold in Super 8mm, which made Lasse Braun's fame as a filmmaker specialized with the explicit representation of sex.

He had made the first of his loops, Golden Butterfly, as a self portrait with a girlfriend from Montecarlo in 1966. She was dressed up as a Japanese (Madame Butterfly) and Lasse as a naval officer (Pinkerton). Placing the small 8mm camera in many positions and activating the long cord of the remote control from behind his back, he succeeded in shooting a brief story of the two famous lovers. But in his movie, instead of singing, they simply made love without hiding their intimate moments. Confident that his new genre of uncensored films would promote sexual revolution, Lasse shots more loops by picking up girls in the discos of the Swedish capital city. Young, gorgeous women who, in those days, didn't even know the meaning of the word pornography, and had sex in front of a camera mostly for the sake of cheerful exhibitionism.

Among his first titles are: Blow-up '70, Chains of Eroticism, Sex on the Motorway, Susie la Blonde, Dream of a Nymphomaniac, etc. distributed with his logos Eros Film and Ciro's Film. In 1968, Lasse buys the necessary equipment, and starts the first color hard-core movielab of mankind in the suburbs of Stockholm. Meanwhile, he organizes the first adult mail-order, and succeeds in advertising his AB Beta on various European magazines. In 1968-69, Lasse Braun invades the international market with a number of pornographic products, and with his colorful, well-shot loops. They are based on a brief, often ironic story, packaged for the first time in elegant boxes designed by Lasse, and printed in four colors. Finally, the first victory of full legalization arrives on June 4th, 1969! The Danish Parliament, pushed by Rasmussen, terminates censorship also for the pictorial expression of sex... And shocks the world!

The AB Beta private mail-order clients of pornography grew to a record number of 50.000 (35.000 from Italy) between 1968 and 1969. Strengthen by the considerable profits of his companies, Lasse spreads very quickly the sexual revolution out of Scandinavia. He contacts entrepreneurs, artists, journalists, magistrates and politicians of various nations, offering financial support to anyone who would promote freedom of expression. At the end of 1969, despite the risk of police arrest, he travels to the Caribbean and shoots with native cast his first series of 3 short movies, titled Tropical. This unprecedented exotic product enjoys a sweeping success. From his offices in Copenhagen and Holland he supplies hundreds of dealers. With feverish enthusiasm, he shoots a number of 3-title series such as Top Secret (Spain), Oh! Paris (France), The Vikings and Casanova (both in period costumes,) Discovering Orgasm, and several more.


In 1971, a major American distributor of books and magazines, an extraordinary man who we call Rudy, visits Lasse in Copenhagen. Rudy had watched in America an LB loop of 1970 (Delphia the Greek) which showed for the first time on screen the double penetration. Thrilled by Lasse's ideas, Rudy adopts the same strategy now blossoming in Europe: Popularization of pornography on a mass level in order to force legalization. For the US and Canada, Rudy proposes peep-show machines--Super 8mm projectors closed in solid boxes, which allowed the public to watch, for a quarter dollar, two minutes of an adult movie. As there were no good adult loops in the US, Lasse imported 45 of his 16mm masters, complete with 4-color artwork, for Rudy to print LB's Super 8mm copies and their attractive boxes.

Between 1971 and 1974, Rudy manufactures 60.000 machines, placing them in almost every State of the Union. LB loops were thus projected 24 hours a day in the Land of Freedom! And they were also distributed by Rudy's men in the first adult stores with an impressive success. They became an inspiration for American filmmakers, and a pain in the ass for the system. Legalization in the US was still far ahead, but definitively unstoppable.

In 1973, Lasse shoots his first feature film, titled French Blue. In addition to the first cartoon by great French satirist Siné, produced by Lasse's Dutch production company, the film also shows five of LB's most amusing loops shot between 1970 and 1972, and the scintillating Brigitte Maier, his star and protegee. As French president Pompidou died in the end of April 1974, Lasse succeeds in showing for the first time a hard-core movie--French Blue--at the Cannes Film Festival in May 1974, despite the heavy censorship of that land.

In 1974-75, Lasse shots his masterpiece Sensations with the financial support of his friend Rudy, who gets all the rights for North America. They screen the movie at the Cannes Festival of 1975. The outcome surpasses the wildest imagination. The crowd pack every night the 800-seat theater booked by Lasse for the projection of his movie. An overwhelming audience of men and women, jammed all over the house, express their excitement with screams and applause throughout the screenings, loosing all kinds of inhibition, and even enjoying sex on the spot. Distributors from all over the world, realizing that sooner or later legalization would conquer their nations, bid high money for the rights of the film. In America, Rudy organizes a lavish campaign, and opens Sensations in New York on November 2nd, 1975, with an unprecedented full-page ad on the New York Times. All over the US, the wave of success is amazing. The German Parliament concedes legalization that same year 1975, and Sensations outclasses the combined box-office of "Deep Throat" and "Emanuelle". In France, 220 exhibitors book the movie with great profit expectations, but on October 30, 1975, the government bans foreign X-rated movies from France, just to stop Lasse and Rudy from changing the world.

In June 1976, French Blue opens at the modern 400-seat City cinema in the central Leidseplein of Amsterdam. It was the first time that a hard-core movie was shown in a regular theater. But the film, despite its triumph among the Dutch public, is anarchic and offensive for any regime. After 26 weeks of full-house, as Christmas approaches and the City owner is ready to sign a 5-year contract with Lasse to get the exclusivity of his movie for Holland, the Dutch secretary of Justice (!) Van Acht--a Christian Democrat--disregards the great liberal tradition of his people: He discovers a law of 1880 which forbids public shows if there is a risk of fire (!), and forces the movie out of the City, pushing French Blue and Sensations in the ghettos of small houses with less than 50 seats, mostly owned by figures of the Dutch underworld.

Meanwhile, as the Dutch judiciary scandal of the City cinema wasn't yet exploded, Lasse shoots in Holland the third movie of his first feature film trilogy, titled Body Love. For the music, Lasse shows the edited work-copy to the famous German musician Klaus Schulze. Ecstatic with the mystical-hard-erotic atmosphere of this movie, Klaus composes the score which was to become known among music fans through his albums, Body Love e Body Love 2.

In 1976-77, Lasse shoots another full-length feature, Love Inferno, and a series of 12 longer loops in London, (Locked Out, Lotus Flower, English Schoolgirls, Satin Party, etc.). He also shoots various 3-title series for his Dutch enterprise such as Shocking, Young Exhibitionists, Midnite Sodomite, Ice Cream, Parisiana, Alice's Baby, Hooked on Sex, VIP, etc.

In June 1977, after a 15-year unyielding fight against sexual repression, despite his prodigious results, Lasse Braun retires from the adult business, leaving his heritage to the new generations. This decision was made for various reasons: the deception with the Amsterdam City scandal; the heavy reaction of the most important governments; his involvement with the Dutch Foundation "Documents of Evolution", which required scientific research in different countries; and the number of judiciary cases which had piled up against him all over the world during the years, due to his determination to challenge the medieval ideologies dominating the planet.

Sometimes, just for passion, Lasse comes back and shoots hard- or soft-erotic feature films and video-programs. In hard-erotic style, he directs: Lust (Hong Kong 1980); American Desire (New York 1980); Crazy Love (Rome 1981); Secret Mistress, Flasher, Young Nympho (New York 1985); Temptations of the Flesh, Deep & Wet, Hidden Fantasies (New Jersey 1986); and produces Fantasy Nights, directed by Henry Pachard (San Francisco 1990). In the soft-erotic field, he produces-directs two miniseries for German television: Hot Bet (Rome 1991) and Diamonds... (London-Amsterdam 1992); two more movies: First Love, Tender Blue Eyes (Utah, 1992); and produces Michelle, French Bath, Blame it on the Vodka, directed by Alec Edwards (San Francisco 1993). Lasse Braun's last hard-erotic video is titled MasterSex (Budapest 1995) distributed in Italy by Blue Movie, in Germany by AMP, in the States by Raw Silk.


Lasse Braun -- TODAY & TOMORROW

Nowadays, Lasse lives between Rome, Amsterdam and Los Angeles. He works on scientific research for the Dutch Foundation "DOCUMENTS OF EVOLUTION", but would still offer his considerable executive experience and his filmmaking skill to financial backers or producers from any country of the world. He has written in English several interesting screenplays and a number of outlines for erotic-thrillers, love-stories and comedies.

Lasse is still unable to conceive a story with men and women lacking reciprocal sexual attraction. He regards the distinction between hard- and soft-core as a temporary device--an instrumental artifice concocted by censorial powers in order to regulate sexuality with stick and carrot. But while hard-core pornography is allowed to survive in marginal sub-cultural ghettos, soft-core products reach sometimes a larger audience through cable, satellites or pay-per-view television. Despite his congenital reluctance, Lasse surrendered to self-censorship as he produced-directed some soft-erotic movies and miniseries for television in order to spread his liberating views among the usual sexploitation programs of regular TVs. Nevertheless, the desire to create new hard-erotic products lingers in his uncensorable soul.

An inspired yet practical man, Lasse is now organizing his NEW HARD-EROTIC PROGRAMS 1997-98. As a first step, he's going to produce-direct 24 videos of about '80-to-'90 minutes each. With an innovative style, he'll shoot eight 3-tiles series in eight different areas of the world. For the moment, Lasse doesn't want to unveil the theme, the motivations, the characters and the locations of the eight series. But anyone can see in his eyes the determination to begin a new earthquaking adventure. The first 3-title series is now in pre-production. Principal videography is planned for March-April 1997; completion within May-June same year.

But right now (October-November 1996) Lasse is putting all his energy in the organization of his new LASSE BRAUN CLUB (LBC) reserved to a selected number of his TELEMATIC FANS with an E-MAIL BOX. As the Club will grow, Lasse is going to devote himself to new forms of personalized contacts with the LBC Members. He'll share with them his enormous knowledge on experimental sexuality, his all-comprehensive understanding of the human psyche, and his broad culture on the evolution of mankind. His goal is to offer a positive telematic support to the daily desires of men and women.


Click on Lasse Braun--Club for more info.

But also click on Lasse Braun--Documents of Evolution and Lasse Braun--G Spot if you want to know more about his life and discoveries.


#3


Lasse Braun
THE G-SPOT


In 1990, Lasse begins a series of sexological tests on women between 18 and 68 years of age. With the collaboration of two (handsome) assistants--an American and an Italian--he focused on the so-called G-Spot and on female orgasm. He soon discovers that all women have a G-Spot and, quite the contrary to other mammals, every woman can reach orgasmic ejaculation provided that proper stimulation can be applied on their G-Spot. Reporting women feelings during ejaculatory orgasm provoked by Lasse and/or his assistants, it became clear that this kind of orgasm is much stronger than the non-ejaculatory one. Comparing G-Spot orgasm to the usual one, a woman described it as a tropical storm compared to a springtime sprinkle.

Within a few months, while experimenting various methods of G-Spot stimulation, Lasse learns everything about the G-Spot issue. In order to provoke ejaculation on all women, he develops a step-by-step method, which he calls LB-G-2000. Exclusively adopting this method since 1993, Lasse and his assistants report an amazing 100-percent success on all of the 346 female volunteers (of 21 countries) who they tested in 1994 and 1995. Full success was obtained even with the 68 self-described anorgasmic women as they all reached G-Spot orgasmic ejaculation while submitting to the LB-G-2000.

As the common knowledge about the G-Spot, and the consequences of its stimulation, is scarce and erroneous, both in women and men, LBC Members (See Lasse Braun--Club) can obtain verifiable and scientifically experimented notions through E-mail. Lasse is positive that a comprehensive understanding on all the various forms of female orgasm, isn't only beneficial to women but also to men who love women. Wouldn't it be wonderful for a man to provide various forms of pleasure to his girlfriend, fiancee, lover or wife? Wouldn't they love him forever?

For some important historical and cultural reasons, Lasse Braun has written in Italian language a 400-page book on this subject. Its translation in English is underway. But as the Anglo-American culture (and the worldwide culture based on the English language) is quite different from the Euro-Italian one, most of its text must be rewritten and made it understandable to people of different cultures.

In Italian the book is titled "L'Impeto di Venere", which could be translated as "The Impetus of Venus". It's written in form of dialogue between Lasse and Sharon, his part-time secretary, a 23-year old American-Italian woman and a student of UCLA, as they were living in Los Angeles in 1995. With an easy conversational style, without vulgarity, but with the necessary details, it offers a number of technical information on the genetics, physiology and psychology of female orgasm. The book also investigates the causes of the widespread ignorance on women sexuality, and proposes practical solutions to prevent various forms of health or relationship disorders caused by the repression of natural desires. It offers as well a far-reaching picture on sexual evolution, and on the actual culture of sex on this planet.

Lasse believes that the book peculiar style (and the love-life-adventure of Lasse and Sharon while taping their dialogues) should fascinate the public from all over the world and open many eyes, from the common person, to literate (or illiterate) scientists. As soon as its English version is ready, LBC will inform any individual (or media company) who has contacted LBC on this matter.

All English-speaking LBC Members in the PLUS categories, will receive it by mail, before anyone else, as soon as its English translation is ready.

Click on Lasse Braun--Club for more information.

#4
Write to Lasse Braun
Answers to anyone on Sundays
Extensive answers to the Members of his CLUB every night
;-)
He finds it particularly stimulating to internet-(ting) with people



More Pictures by Lasse Braun:
Lasse Learning to suck...
Lasse at Milan State University (1955)"The Beginnings"(Thesis on Censorship)
Lasse the Clandestine Promoter of Sex (1963)
Lasse (1968) his movie-lab di Stoccolma
Lasse "Directing Sensations"
Lasse Today


Some of Lasse's Stars
The Vikings crew(1970)
The cover of "Casanova"(1971)
with Silvia Bourdon 1(1973)
with Silvia Bourdon 2(1973)
Brigitte Maier French Blue (1973)
French Blue Sine' Cartoon (1973)
The Star of Sensations Brigitte Maier(1975)
Veronika Hart in "American Desire" (1980)
Teaching Sex in NY (1985)
Kristara Barrington in Deep & Wet (1987)
with Anja in Budapest (1995)
Opss..




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