YNOT – Texas always has been known for its independent spirit, and the city of Austin always has brought that spirit to the next level. The capital of Texas is known for its quirkiness, its inclusivity and its devil-may-care attitude.It should come as no surprise that an activist and community-based organizer who has worked to protect our constitutional rights to free speech and expression within the context of (apparent) disapproval from wider society for the majority of his adult life lives in Austin.

And to think — before Sept. 17, I knew Sidney Grief only as the president of AAA News.

AAA News Inc. is the last independent chain of local newsstands in central Texas retailing DVDs, magazines, books and more. The “and more” retailed by AAA News is — drum roll — adult stuff: adult DVDs, magazines and books and a bevy of adult novelties. But Grief is far more than just the proprietor of an independent, Austin-area chain. He took some time out to talk about his life committed to defending freedom of expression (among many other things).

After garnering almost two decades of adult retail business experience in central Texas, Grief co-founded AAA News in 1991. He bought out his original partner one year later. The corporation currently owns three retail outlets in the greater-Austin area: AAA News, an amazing newsstand packed with everything from mainstream magazines to alternative press and hard-to-find specialty items coupled with an extensive selection of adult DVDs for rent and sale; XXXcite!, an all-adult retail outlet; and DiscountMAXXX, which offers a wide variety of mainstream newsstand merchandise in addition to adult DVDs, toys and lingerie at discounted prices.

When I asked Grief how he became the proprietor of an adult business, he laughed and said he “came by it naturally.” He then told me this fantastic story:

Grief grew up in rural Texas. His mother had a PhD and worked with special-needs children; his father was a farmer-rancher. Consequently, Grief, too, planned to farm and ranch. His parents had a unique marriage — and divorce — three times over, as though they couldn’t quite be together or apart for very long.

During one of their “apart” periods, Sid Grief’s father Harry Grief moved to California. Harry spent his time working out, performing bit parts in various films and living a very bohemian, Venice-beach-in-the-early-1960s lifestyle. Adolescent Sid basked in the antithesis of small-town farm life during a summer visit to California, and he came to realize there were a lot more “types” of people and lifestyles than just those he had seen so far in Texas. Eventually the summer ended, and he had to return home.

When Sid was in high school, he lived with his father in Washington DC. They shared a house that was far too large for the two of them, so Harry opened his doors to local women working as exotic dancers. That’s right: Sid was in 11th and 12th grades while living in a house full of strippers. But rather than buying into to all the dismissive hype often associated with women sex workers, Sid got to know the ladies as regular folks negotiating the same trials and tribulations faced by everyone else. Just like his summer on the beach in California, the experience profoundly affected his point of view.

Then, in 1969, Sid Grief enlisted in the U.S. Army. He worked as an intelligence analyst and stayed up many nights “analyzing” news broadcasts from all over the world. He soon discovered the same series of events could be reported as a victory or a defeat, as inevitable heroic rebellion or as unruly foolishness. There are multiple truths.

He also became fascinated by Japanese culture and religion during these years, specifically the part about no original sin (you know, because Japanese culture is not related to Christianity). In coming to understand the guilt U.S. persons often associate with sex was culturally constructed, Grief began to realize the taboo nature of sex was not a given. There are multiple truths to sex as well.

So when his father asked him to partner in opening an adult bookstore in the mid-1970s, he did — and he’s been working in retail adult and mainstream film and print media ever since. Over the years, customers have been able to find all types of material in his stores, from mainstream fiction to Christian bibles, from independently and/or internationally produced magazines to the hardest hardcore and a wide variety of “masturbators.” (FYI: that’s genteelness for pocket pussies and the like.) Grief doesn’t discriminate when he stocks his shelves. In his mind, the best tactic is to “put it all out there and let the customer decide.”

Contrary to what readers may be thinking, though, it hasn’t all been smooth sailing in the world of central Texas adult retail.

Grief told me, relative to just a few years ago, business is currently down approximately 30 perceent. He attributed the decrease to three unique factors: piracy and the online accessibility of free content (adult and otherwise), the economic recession, and the mainstreaming of adult. In his assessment, porn has lost a measure of its “forbidden fruit appeal” in recent years. This works synergistically with easy access and (real and perceived) diminished means, augmenting people’s propensity not to buy. The titillation that comes from indulgence in adult content just isn’t what it once was.

But like a true entrepreneur and survivor, AAA News Inc. has taken steps to adapt. For example, whereas stock once was purchased outright, Grief now has negotiated deals with suppliers for returnable product. Rather than sitting on the shelves indefinitely, content that doesn’t move goes back to the warehouses from whence it came. This helps keep the stores’ shelves fresh … and hot.

AAA news also has a loyal team of committed employees who are invested in the survival of the business. In an occupational marketplace filled with poorly paying part-time jobs and disenchanted workers, Grief offers careers, full benefits and workplace autonomy. They are a team that, in his words, will “rise together and fall together” … only hopefully they won’t fall.

An ardent workforce and an efficient workplace filled with a vast array of current and in-demand content doesn’t mean everyone has always been happy with AAA News.

Grief told me about being picketed by Reverend Mark Weaver and his group, which in the early 1980s was affiliated with the American Family Association. Back when anti-porn activism was at an all-time rabid high (think the Meese Commission) and any retailer with any sense would have hidden behind their VHS racks, wielding the biggest dildo in stock for protection (at least that’s what I would have been doing!), Grief joined the AFA protesters and picketed his own store. Yes, he marched around in front of his own business in an attempt to gain some understanding of the other side.

His experiences talking with protesters back then led him to the conclusion that most people who are vehemently anti-porn are also survivors of some sort of sexual trauma or abuse. While being extremely sympathetic, Grief is of the mind that people who have survived such circumstances are “transferring the guilt of the individual [who victimized them] to porn…. They [can’t] accept the fact that their brother, for example, was a creep … so they blame porn.”

In other words, individuals tend to transform their personal struggles with abuse into motivation for attempting to limit the rights of others — the very same rights Grief had spent six years defending in the Army, and the very same rights for which so many others had fought and died.

Experiences and realizations such as these led to Grief’s involvement with the activist side of adult.

He has been involved with the adult industry’s trade and lobbying organization, Free Speech Coalition, for years; recently, he was elected the organization’s president. Like any good incumbent, President Grief has some plans he hopes will further the organization’s mission, broaden its scope and better serve the people who need it the most.

Following the National Rifle Association’s model, Grief hopes to strengthen the FSC at the national level and build up a series of regional chapters. This will enable the national organization to focus on bigger issues that may impact the entire adult entertainment community, such as the recent 2257 challenge and the dot-xxx sponsored Top-Level Domain proposal, while leaving the regional organizations to focus on local-level issues affecting members of the community, such as assistance dealing with time limitations and zoning restrictions.

All I can say about that plan is, “How can I help, and where do I sign up?”

There is more to Grief than I could ever begin to describe here. He’s a scuba diver, a Longhorn alum (class of 1984), a world traveler, an activist and a damn nice guy. He summed up his overall mission in life nicely when he said, “I’d like to leave this country as free as I found it … maybe even freer.” I think he is doing an excellent job of meeting that goal.

Since you’re all off the tubes now (right?), if you’re ever in the area, why not stop by one of Grief’s stores? You will be contributing to the local economy and indie spirit of Austin and supporting a man who has lived his life in support of yours.