The X-man's last stand.

A "punk rock dropout" who edited a department store's newspaper ads before moving to Hustler in 1983, Allan MacDonell spent 20 years climbing the greasy pole at Larry Flynt Publications. He was sent packing after insulting his boss-at a roast. His new memoir, Prisoner of X (Feral House), offers a firsthand look at some of the key First Amendment battles of the 1980s and '90s, not to mention the scandal that nearly brought Bill Clinton down. Assistant Editor David Weigel spoke with MacDonell in July.

Q: What's the connection between Hustler's sexual content and the oddball political content, like Larry Flynt's JFK conspiracy theories?

A: At Hustler we valued sensationalism, and a winning conspiracy theory must be sensationalistic. There were very few restrictions on reality at Hustler. We created an alternate world with our manufactured biographies of the models and our fake letters of sexual confessions. So a straight-faced expose of extraterrestrials committing date rape seemed right at home.

Q: How much credit should Hustler get for saving Bill Clinton?

A: Bob Livingston [the Republican speaker-elect of the House, whose extramarital affair was exposed by Flynt] resigned the same day the House voted to impeach. Look at the front page of The New York Times for that day; the split of the coverage is not precisely 50/50 between Clinton and Livingston, but it's close.

Livingston folding sapped the momentum of the impeachment right at the start, at a crucial moment. Maybe the credit should go to Livingston for his impeccable timing.

Q: Is Larry Flynt a First Amendment hero?

A: A First Amendment activist is best judged by the use to which he puts free speech. Larry Flynt can be summed up as the man who championed journalistic rights by appearing on CNN in November 2003 to announce that he had purchased naked photos of a rescued Iraqi-war POW. Larry spoke of himself as a hero because he had decided not to publish these private pictures of an inadvertent celebrity. I guess the Founding Fathers can rest easy knowing that America is safe for Larry Flynt to puff himself up while trampling a gravely injured soldier's privacy, with the complicity of the most trusted name in news.

Q: There are parts of your biography that could be read as a warning: "Here's why not to work in pornography." Did working day in and out on the content of Hustler make your life worse?

A: The content of Hustler, I believe, was largely benign. When I was fired, after practically 20 years' immersion in so-called addictive sexual imagery, I experienced no withdrawal symptoms, and I have had no subsequent cravings for smut. The worst damage done by working for Hustler was to my job prospects at mainstream publications.