Brian Buck (his real name) was a hardworking, hard-partying member of Arizona State University's naughtiest fraternity, who appeared destined for greater things in ASU's student government.
Calli Cox (her stage name) was the hardworking, hard-partying member of the porn industry who appeared destined for the A-list of up-and-coming starlets.
Buck was known for his devilish smile, quick wit and incredible luck.
Cox was known for her innocent smile, quick hands and incredible breasts.
Last September, the two met in what has quickly become the Valley's most notorious incident of group heavy petting.
At issue: As cameras rolled, Buck and Cox, along with a few other frat boys, showered together in an ASU fraternity shower.
Now, ASU administrators want Brian Buck, who has since become a leader in ASU's student government, and dozens of other hopelessly human ASU frat boys punished for their on-campus involvement with Calli and three of her comely friends in what is now, thanks to ASU's administration, one of America's most popular porn videos.
The media, of course, have had a self-righteous field day.
ASU administrators don't appreciate that Brian and Calli just want to make ASU one of America's great party schools again. (ASU placed 13th in the famous 1987 Playboy magazine list of top party schools. In the last five years, ASU has failed to appear in the top 20 in the Top Party Schools list by the Princeton Review, which compiles the most comprehensive yearly survey of such things.)
Instead, ASU's administrators can't stop blithering sanctimoniously that rowdy partying will no longer be tolerated because ASU is now "a Research 1 university" -- not a party school.
Which is geek-speak for the fact that ASU is now considered by some to be slightly above average. Whoopee.
You know how to party, ASU. Write what you know.
Two weeks ago, ASU's new wallflower spaz of a president, Michael Crow, said he would do everything in his power to expedite the punishment of Brian Buck. Crow said he's talked to Janet Napolitano's office about what recourse he has, and said he felt confident he could quickly and legally rid the campus of Buck.
Mike, word to the wise: Relax and shut your hysterical piehole. And don't be so proud of your ability to destroy the lives of faculty and students with the help of the Attorney General's Office. Your predecessors at both ASU and the UofA have already abused that illegitimate power, ridding the state's universities of whistle-blowers and any other dissenters.
Even more pathetic was the reaction last week of Buck's fellow student senators. Most wanted him tossed from their club, er, senate, because of his involvement with Calli.
One senator was deeply offended that Buck, commenting on ASU's proud party history and not-so-proud admission standards, stated that ASU was not Harvard or Stanford.
At Harvard or Stanford, they'd call the senator's dismay prima facie evidence of why this senator was too dumb to get admitted to Harvard or Stanford.
But enough sophomoric politics. Let's get back to the sex.
The real story of Calli Cox and Brian Buck begins several years earlier, with the genesis of Shane's World, a series of videos that revolutionized porn by rolling the cameras as adult film stars took their craft into the real world.
Indeed, some credit Shane's World with paving the way for the onslaught of prime-time network reality TV.
"But nobody at the networks would admit that," Calli told me after I recently tracked her down at a Valley strip joint.
Last September, Shane's World producers decided to film their 29th film on the campus of Arizona State University. In a stroke of pure porn genius, the producers devised this theme:
They would set two teams of two porn starlets loose on a sexual scavenger hunt on the campus of what used to be one of America's great party schools. The winners would take home $500.
The film's energy and sexual tension would come from four hot babes running around campus and asking college boys to rub them in various ways.
One critical point for litigious prudes: There would be absolutely no intercourse.
Calli received a call last August at her home in California. The Shane's World folks wanted Calli to star in the film.
"It sounded really different, really exciting," she told me as she prepared for a show in her dressing room at Stevi Secret's Nude Cabaret on South Central. "It was refreshing, because doing these movies can get sort of redundant after a while."
Also, as a former schoolteacher, Calli enjoyed the irony of being asked to corrupt students and irritate administrators.
Calli received her teaching degree from Eastern Illinois University. She began teaching in 1999.
Within months, her principal was beginning to hear whispers about her night job.
"I was brought in one day, and the principal said, You know, there are rumors that you are working as a stripper at night.' I couldn't lie, so I just said, Yeah, I've heard those rumors, too.'"
The principal dropped the issue. But Calli decided to quit teaching the next spring to dedicate herself full-time to porn.
It has paid off, she said. And one big reason it has paid off has been her involvement with the Shane's World series.
Calli arrived in Tempe on a blistering hot day last September. Shane's World producers picked her up in a Hummer limousine and drove her and the other porn stars to the campus of ASU.
Producers then gave Calli and her competitors the sexual scavenger-hunt list. Calli quickly prioritized the items on the list from easiest to hardest to get. And she quickly realized the best place to go was the fraternities.
"You know," she said with a sly grin, "they usually like to party."
By a stroke of great luck, Calli's first stop was arguably ASU's most notoriously rowdy frat house, Sigma Nu. (The ASU chapter of Sigma Nu was later kicked off campus for two years for hazing violations.)
Brian Buck was wearing only his boxers when he heard the knock at the door. It was 11 a.m. He was hauling a load of laundry to the washing machine.
"All of a sudden, there were these two girls and a camera guy saying they needed help with a scavenger hunt," Brian said demurely when I interviewed him two weeks ago. "What the heck was I supposed to do -- run away?"
Instead, Brian helped. And helped. And helped.
"It was clearly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity," he said.
But, to his credit hours, he did make it to class.
"I don't remember if I was late. Probably."
The initial tasks were simple. A few guys had to run around in diapers.
"That was strangely easy to get," Calli said.
Calli wrote "Shane's World" on some guys' butts. There was other easy horseplay.
Then Calli got to the sexual stuff. She had to make out with one of the guys. That also was easy.
Soon, she was naked. She says it was interesting to see which guys bailed at which point. Some said they had girlfriends and left. Others just left. Others stayed. Others said they had girlfriends and stayed.
Brian stayed. Brian, 23, did not have a girlfriend at the time.
"It seemed okay just to sort of go along with the flow of things," he said.
After about two hours, Calli and her companion left for another frat house. The other house, Calli said, "was pretty slow." So they returned to Sigma Nu.
Brian said Calli stayed for another two hours. Calli doesn't remember how long she was there. Things sort of ran together. Guys, sex toys, guys, sex toys, etc. . . .
The climax of the hunt was the shower scene. There was much sexual tension, Calli said, because "the boys seemed to have a little problem getting naked with me."
"I guess guys don't like to shower together," she said.
Brian was okay with it. He is the star of the shower scene. His stardom seems to radiate from his confidence and lack of inhibition.
In fact, Brian was okay with all of it. That said, though, in the last week or so, he has become much more quiet and contrite, under pressure from college officials.
Calli said she's proud of Brian for standing up for himself under all the pressure, even though she doesn't remember which guy he is.
"It's good to hear that he's standing his ground," Calli said as she applied her makeup. "He sounds like a cool guy."
Calli said the scavenger hunt at ASU was not what elevated the film to XXX. The scenes at ASU were fun, frolicking, real frat-party-like, soft-core porn.
Afterward, Calli and her friends spent three days in a Scottsdale apartment filming the stuff that made the movie hard-core.
"We did all the real f--king in an apartment with other guys," she said. "Then it all comes together in the film. That's the trick."
In February, six months after the filming of the video, Brian Buck was elected executive vice president of the Associated Students of ASU. As such, he is this year's president of the ASU Student Senate.
In late February, Shane's World Volume 29: Frat Row Scavenger Hunt 3 hit the video stores. Brian quickly bought a copy.
ASU's administrators, apparently slow to their porn, found out about the movie several months later.
Over the summer, Brian said, he showed the movie several times to friends back in his hometown of Portland, Oregon. His buddies were envious of his luck, but not surprised by his luck.
"I'm kind of known for being weirdly lucky that way," he said. "I've had a lot of good things happen to me."
Calli also has had many good things happen to her since last September. Porn viewers recently voted her the industry's top "Starlet." Accordingly, her rates have gone up for the pornos and stripping she does. That means she can afford to take some time off from movies to "get back to where I really, really enjoy the sex again."
And the producers of Shane's World recently asked her to start doing publicity and marketing for their movies. In the next few years, she says she hopes that her marketing work will evolve from a lucrative bed job to a lucrative desk job.
"A woman's career in adult films is usually pretty short," she said. "You've really got to think about what comes next."
As for Brian, his life is currently wrapped up in trying to start school and stop administrators and fellow senators from hunting for his head.
Last week, Brian, as senate president, used a technicality to thwart an attempt by other student senators to vote for his dismissal. The trick delayed the vote until next week.
Since our interview two weeks ago, he has become much less willing to talk about the incident. He now directs most questions to his attorney. He's now describing his involvement in the film as "a mistake."
It's sad to watch Brian being forced to cower. It was much more inspiring to watch a young man stand tall for living the dream of every college guy in the history of American academia.
In my mind, Brian Buck did nothing more than get caught up in a cultural phenomenon sweeping American media -- the mainstreaming of porn.
Rock stars date porn stars to be real rock stars. Porn stars are the latest accessory for celebrities at gala events. Howard Stern spends half his show talking to porn stars. Characters on shows such as Friends and Will and Grace regularly talk about their porn collections.
British sociologist Brian McNair calls the new porno-chic phenomenon "the democratization of desire."
So Brian Buck was just fighting for democracy.
But all Buck wants now is to be allowed to quietly go on with his business.
Folks at ASU need to quickly honor his wishes.
Otherwise, considering all the porn sales the administration's hysterics already have inspired, every porn producer in the world will be showing up in Tempe to get a piece of the ASU porn pie.
If that happens, administrators will dream of the day ASU was known only as a party school.
