Porn Valley- Even though she came in 10th place during California’s gubernatorial recall election, porn star Mary Carey hasn’t given up on politics….She led the “Bullets Not Boobs” protest rally [August 18] on the corner of Sunset and La Brea, in front of the mini-mall where the Armed Forces Recruiting Center is located firmly between Family Dentistry and Hollywood Hair, Nails and Beauty Supply.

The rally was the brainchild of Mark Kulkis, president of Kick Ass Pictures, an adult-film company that boasts Carey as its contract girl. After learning that the U.S. military offers free breast augmentations and other elective cosmetic surgeries to soldiers and their dependents, Kulkis – the marketing genius behind Carey’s run for governor – came up with this latest publicity stunt.

“Every one of our movies has a guarantee on the front cover: ‘No fake boobs.’ That’s why we feel so strongly that we needed to take up the banner.” Kulkis says he is against all breast implants done in the name of vanity, even those not paid for by taxpayers.

Protesters, most of whom were Kick Ass Pictures employees, held signs: “Keep Our Army All-Natural,” “Plastic Explosives Not Plastic Surgery” and “Honk If You Love Natural Breasts.” (Whether the men honking would have just as eagerly blared their horns for fake breasts is unclear.) One driver did scream, “I want fake tits!” Another gentlemen leaned out the passenger-side window to flash his non-augmented chest.

An extremely thin blond woman with huge fake breasts yelled, “This is a waste of time!”

“Don’t spend tax dollars on boob jobs!” a protester responded.

“I paid for these myself,” the woman replied, pointing to her inflated mammaries.

Just then, the activists began a call-and-response chant:

“What do we want?”

“Natural breasts!”

“When do we want them?”

“Right now!”

For the event, Mary Carey wore camouflage hot pants with a matching bikini top, over which she sported a black spaghetti-strapped tank top prominently displaying the Kick Ass logo. The smut superstar walked up to vehicles stuck in traffic and handed out flyers explaining her cause.

“Do you like boobs?” Carey asked a couple of passersby.

A little person walked up to Mary, and the odd-looking duo posed for photos. “Doesn’t he remind you of Gary Coleman?” Carey kept asking. (Other than being African-American and short, the man looked nothing like Carey’s fellow gubernatorial candidate.)

Reuters, the Associated Press and all of the major stations, except Olympic-saturated NBC – Fox, ABC, CBS, KTLA and even TV Azteca – sent reporters to cover the event.

Signaling the start of the press conference, Kulkis stood on a wooden box and spoke into a megaphone. “I understand that the Army needs to recruit new soldiers, but this isn’t the right way to do it.”

Kulkis introduced Carey, to much applause. The blue-movie thespian took to her wooden crate and flashed her large, God-given breasts. A few cameramen missed the shot and pleaded with her to expose her bosom again.

“If I go to jail, will you all pitch in and bail me out?” Carey asked before obliging the horny shutterbugs.

Then the porn star got serious: “Plastic surgery is a good thing if it’s reconstructive. If there was a girl who had natural boobs, and her boobs got blown off in Iraq by one of those car bombers, then I think we should give her surgery – but not unless it’s necessary.”

A reporter asked if she had tried to speak directly to Donald Rumsfeld about her concerns. “That’s a good idea,” she answered. “I think he’s all tied up right now with the 9/11 thing, but who doesn’t have time to talk about boobs? I love to talk about boobs.”

Joining Kulkis and Carey was Jennifer Zandstra, who achieved the rank of specialist after serving five years in the military. Zandstra flew in from Texas to appear at this rally.

“To protest this and to offer incentives for female soldiers to keep their real breasts,” Kulkis explained, “we said that any female soldier honorably discharged with her real breasts intact would receive a natural-beauty-enhancement package to counter the army’s offer of boob jobs. The package consists of a day at the spa of her choice and $500 worth of lingerie.”

If even a small percentage of the qualifying women take Kulkis up on his offer, he could be forking out hundreds of thousands of dollars. “We’re willing to put our money where our mouth is,” said Kulkis.

Carey handed Zandstra a giant check for 500 bucks. “It’s really great that someone’s picked up on this,” said Zandstra, “because it’s not really right that the army should be spending this money on plastic surgery and not on body armor or better equipment for our soldiers.”

After the rally, I contacted recruiting spokesman Gail Anderson. He had no opinion of the protest but emphasized that the military does not promote plastic surgery in their recruiting pitches. He then referred me to the public affairs office at headquarters, where

I eventually reached Jaime Cavazos, the media-relations officer who deals with medical issues.

Cavazos, too, insisted that boob jobs are not used to lure women into the Armed Forces. He said that after the free military breast augmentations first became public, his office called the recruiting command and told them, “Hey, you need to talk to your recruiters. If it’s happening, it needs to cease.”

He also said, “We don’t run a make-over medical facility.”

Cavazos hadn’t heard about the protest and didn’t know who Mary Carey was, but he explained that the military offers a limited number of boob jobs, liposuctions and other cosmetic procedures, not to gain new recruits, but rather to train military surgeons. “There are very few plastic surgeons throughout the entire Army. Very few cosmetic surgeries are conducted annually, and the reason that a lot of them are done is to ensure that the soldiers maintain their skills, because we’re getting a lot of wounded soldiers that need reconstructive surgery.”

I asked Kulkis if his company and we in the media might actually be helping the Pentagon recruit women who want boob jobs by giving it all of this free publicity.

“I never thought of that,” he said, then added, “We’ll try to make it such negative publicity that they can’t possibly get any benefit from it.”

Did Carey feel as though she reached anyone with her message?

“I think I definitely reached a lot of . . . men.”