LOS ANGELES, CA — Did two well-known male porn veterans walk off of the set of Extreme Associates’ newest and perhaps most controversial video to date? Did their religious sensibilities render them unable to perform their blasphemously erotic duties — or is it a clever case of demonically inspired PR hype?According to a press release circulated by Extreme Associates, the company’s newest acquisition, Church of Satan priest cum porn director Shane Bugbee’s magnum opus, Club Satan, saw both Kyle Stone and Rick Masters refuse to participate in the video’s climactic scene. Additionally, the release states that Joel Jet, the on-set photographer, vigorously declined the opportunity to shoot the scene’s “aftermath,” supposedly stating that he was “not comfortable crossing the line between porn and religion.”

As the press release explains it, during the final scene of Club Satan, “Shane Bugbee instructed the actors to ejaculate on a ceramic Jesus head statue. At this point the actors refused saying that Bugbee ‘just went too far’ and walked off the set. One actor of the Jewish faith remained and executed the final blasphemous act before Paris Gables smashed the Jesus head statue on the floor.”

Neither Stone nor Masters remembers it quite that way. In fact, during a telephone conversation today, Stone needed to be reminded about the supposedly disputed and morally objectionable scene, although he recalled having been involved with the video itself. “I did do a scene with Paris, where they basically covered her in blood or whatever looked like blood, and there were some things like that. I also did a blowjob scene with her that was separate from that sequence, but no, I was never asked to do that. I wouldn’t have if I had been asked, but I wasn’t one of the guys that they asked to do that.”

In time Stone’s memory concerning the scene returned, although he disputed the way the press release explained events. “That’s an exaggeration,” he insisted. “I do remember the group scene and there was a Jesus head there and they said ‘If you want to use these things you can,’ but we all went ‘Yeah, yeah, right. Now you’re pushin’ it, dude,’ but none of us walked off the set. We finished the scene! In fact, not only did we finish the scene, a couple of us got sick because it happened to be that really, really, really cold night about a month and a half back.”

When reached by telephone at home, Masters was similarly baffled by the buzz. “Somebody wrote me an email saying they were glad that I took my stand on the subject, but I didn’t understand what they were talking about. It hadn’t been an issue at all. Wow.”

Instead, Masters had thought that the company might be unhappy with him for having gotten so drunk during a shoot with director Thomas Zupko that he’d been unable to perform the next day on short notice. Unlike Stone, Masters remembers and empathizes with Jet’s discomfort about the shoot. “I don’t like bible thumpers coming to my door and pushing the bible at me, but I’m not going to shoot them with a shotgun, which I kinda think is what he (Bugbee) is doin’.”

Both performers believe that the tale of their supposed exit stage left is designed to generate interest in the video. “It sounds to me like they’re hyping the movie really hard,” Stone suggested, after explaining about his Catholic youth and adult embracement of a more personal code of ethics.

“I think they did it just to get everybody’s goat,” Masters proposed, adding that “We finished the scene. If you watch the movie, we finished the scene and the pop shot and everything — just not on Jesus. What did Jesus ever do to me?”

Video producer and “satanic liaison,” Matt Zane was quoted in the release as explaining that Bugbee’s goal “is not trying to disgust you with physically repulsive acts. Club Satan is about destroying the psychological and emotional taboos that society has set forth and engrained with endless social programming. This is not porn for mere entertainment, this has a philosophy within it. The liberation that comes with freeing yourself of these forcefully instilled compulsions and the experience that follows is unlike anything an average adult video can produce.”

“I don’t know if they’re trying to make a statement or what the deal is,” Stone responded. “But as a performer, if they want to make that statement, let them get in front of the camera and make that statement. I’m not going to be a tool for them to lash out at organized religion. I’m not a big fan of organized religion, but I’m not going to step on anybody else’s beliefs, either.”

Both pro and anti-industry pundits will likely echo Master’s rhetorical question, “Where has this business gone?”

If Shane Bugbee and his collaborators have any say in the matter, the answer is likely: straight to hell.

For more information about Club Satan and the genre of porn that it hopes to spawn, please visit www.ClubSatan.com.