His aggressive business tactics have ticked off competitors, among them Joseph Kahwaty of iBroadcast, a Seattle (and First Avenue) pornographic video-feed supplier to Internet customers. In 1997, Warshavsky obtained a restraining order against Kahwaty after he allegedly spit in Warshavsky's face and challenged him to fight outside a Pioneer Square bar (Kahwaty posted details of the near-fisticuffs battle on the Internet, writing: "I spit in the little pussy's face . . . "). Warshavsky later sued Kahwaty for $1 million, claiming assault and defamation, but dropped the suit last April.
UNMARRIED AND WITHOUT a steady girl (his best friend appears to be a cell phone), does Warshavsky partake of his own services? "No," he says with a shrug. "There are enough women around here," he adds, pointing out his office door. Asked about her boss, a young woman running copies at Warshavsky's office photocopy machine says, "Seth has his moods. But he's a good person."
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His former girlfriend may have another view. Last fall, a year after they began dating, she obtained a one-year restraining order against Warshavsky. Sunawin Andrews, 25, an attractive, shapely, auburn-haired woman known by the name Leasi and employed by Warshavsky, claims he choked her during a limousine ride in Las Vegas last fall and has physically attacked her in front of her 6-year-old child. In court papers, Andrews claims Warshavsky has been "stalking her home"—an apartment on First Avenue—has threatened to kill himself, and "to have my baby's father killed." (A male friend of Andrews, Patrick McKenna, says he has repeatedly been threatened by Warshavsky and has moved to another residence "because I have a real fear of what Mr. Warshavsky or his agents might do.")
Warshavsky tells me Andrews' civil action was "just a frivolous restraining order in an attempt to extort money, and is in the process of being dropped." (The order in fact was renewed last month for another year, according to King County court records that Warshavsky unsuccessfully attempted to have sealed, and is based on physical threats, not extortion.) Warshavsky claims that since the protective order was first issued last September, he and Andrews have been "intimate" and have traveled together—to attend the MTV Music Video Awards in Hollywood, for one. But he also took back the car he gave her, Warshavsky says, and ended a business deal they'd been planning. Andrews' attorney, Allen Ressler, claims Warshavsky has repeatedly violated the restraining order and says his client still fears for her safety.
Though Warshavsky's sex sites refer to women as "nasty bitches," "pussy," and "sluts"—the native tongue of the porn industry—and feature a Pee Cam peeping on women in an employee restroom stall—no one's complaining, Warshavsky claims. "No negative feedback," he says, from either his customers or the general public. Perhaps, in the paralyzing muck of today's American morality play, where currently Ken Starr and Larry Flynt are playing each other, the world may be temporarily immune to shock over sex. (Unquestioningly, it's an atmosphere conducive to Seth Warshavsky assuming the role of the cosmos' Roger Forbes.)
Not that he's wasting much time thinking about it. "Like to talk more," says Warshavsky from behind his big desk, impatiently cradling his phone, "but I've got to take this call." Another investor? Attorney? Pope? The Chinese kid wanting his money back? The beat goes on.
