BNI appears magically at your door, in the hands of a federal official,(who would doubtless be shocked if she knew what she was delivering in this first class manner) when you subscribe ($3/issue for as many issues as you like—though furreners need to send $4, because the fridge died and my tooth chipped—on New Year's Day...wah!).
Back issues are always available.
Kate Doyle loves Alison Tyler;
Lisa B. Falour revers Krafft-Ebing;
Richard Pacheco bows to Mistress Petra;
T.R.T. Cardarelli would be a gigolo;
Dann Lennard advises celebrities on their home movie making;
Tammy Cole is conquered by Conquest;
Al Vol watches Russian TV;
Spence is advised by Good Vibrations;
Arthur Winfield Knight reports back on Boogie Nights,
Jim Lee watches Scotty Fox,
Larry Oberc is off on a spree;
and I take the month off (which is totally perverse of me).
also: Talk Dirty to me
Up 'n' Coming
All rights revert to these authors.
Now that I'm reviewing for both Adult Cinema Review and Video Xcitement, I have a gazillion review copies of top of the line porn movies for sale—pro, pro-am, amateur, girl/girl, fetish, and films that only Dave Hardman would dare to make!
Please help us pay for our new fridge and my fixed front tooth by ordering some at the ridiculously low price of $5/tape + $5 s&h/order. We have a few CD Roms at $10 a throw. Don't just sit there, sit there an do something.
Checks should be made out to Richard Freeman and all correspondence can be sent to me at 130 W Limestone St, Yellow Springs, OH 45387
or email at bni@aol.com
A Woman In Season by Richard Pacheco
"There wouldn't be so much counterfeit, if there wasn't such a thing as real gold."
- ancient Sufi proverb
As we settled down to become an audience at Elizabeth's House of Differences in San Francisco several weeks ago, one of her minions whispered to me, "Have you ever seen Lady Petra do a scene before."
"No," I readily admitted. As a casual observer and sometime participant in the local SM culture, I hadn't yet had that pleasure.
"Well, you're in for a real treat tonight," he said. "You just watch!"
You know, a lot of women do what Lady Petra (pronounced Pay' tra) does. You have only to glance through the back pages of the Bay Area's Spectator Magazine to discover a whole universe of veteran mistresses and youthful wannabes seemingly jockeying for position to try and capture our attention in an effort to earn their way as professional dominants.
While I'm sure that many of these women are skillful, knowledgeable, beautiful, and satisfying in their own ways, the word around town is that Lady Petra is something special. Indeed, in advertising this event, the second in a series of professional dominants performing at the House of Differences, Elizabeth wrote, "...presenting Lady Petra...need we say more?"
Well, given hype like this, you don't have to be from Missouri to say, "Show me!" I brought along playwright and actor friend John O'Keefe to see her perform. O'Keefe soon will be producing his new play The Deatherians in the Bay Area. Set in the red light district of Amsterdam, the piece contains some SM elements for which John is continuing his research. We took our place in the crowd gathered in Elizabeth's dungeon...
And at last came the showtime, the moment of truth...from behind a see-through black veil held high by two male slaves, the Lady Petra appeared and began by saying, "I am either the dominatrix of your dreams or your worst nightmare..."
In my case, neither proved to be true, but frankly, sports fans, I hardly know where to begin to describe this experience...
You can't help but notice that she's pretty...very pretty. She's tall, blond, lean, and slender, but the physical description can only say so much...
I could report the acts she began doing with her slaves, but somehow that would also be missing the point. In terms of my own secret fantasies, I found the fetishes involved not the ones I would have chosen, but I clearly saw that what was going on was of high pleasure to the parties involved...
What happened to me was that after awhile, my analytical and critical faculties just kind of dissolved and I found myself transported and simply floating around casually and safely in her extraordinary pillow world...
We sat there for almost four hours watching her "work" the three slaves and listening to her musings on life and love, pain and ecstasy, and her personal and professional growth. I remained spellbound and transfixed throughout. The woman had me completely mesmerized. When the event was finally pronounced over, I did not want her to leave. It was hard not to follow her. She had allowed me to take pictures of her in action and I shot two rolls of film. I wish I had shot ten more.
"I was very surprised by the gentleness and compassion that she had," my friend John offered. "I thought there'd be this raging bad mommy, but she was so gentle in taking these slaves to where they obviously wanted to go..."
Given the severe acts performed upon the slaves, words like gentleness and compassion would at first seem like a contradiction in terms, but, as John said, they were not. And while I had no desire to trade places with her slaves for even one moment, I had to admit that I was nonetheless captivated by the considerable charms of Lady Petra. It is hard to imagine the man who wouldn't be. You'd have to take his pulse to be sure that he was still on this earth.
Petra is a woman in glorious bloom. She is a woman in prime. She possesses a stunning physical beauty that is enough to enslave all by itself. It invokes memories of the exquisite Julie Christie in Dr. Zhivago. And there is a beauty in the darkness of the soul as well...rich swirling blues contained in waves of black warmth. She is vibrantly alive and seemingly so aware that she has this special gift. One enjoys her lust for life and her appreciation for what the world has allowed her to put upon her own plate. Her eyes speak in sparks and flashes. When they lock on you, you feel seen. Petra holds a stage like Vanessa Redgrave going into forbidden worlds with an unabashedness that perhaps even Ms. Redgrave would dream about. There is no shame. There is no apology. There even appears to be virtually no doubt...
This is a creature in full powers at the peak of her flight. This is not lite beer from Miller. She seems a woman out of the pages of Kazantzakis. This is a woman Odysseus would slay for...Zorba would fall on his knees to kiss her hand...
"You're infatuated with her!" my wife said when I got home and tried to describe the evening's activities to her.
"No shit, Sherlock," I told her, "and my guess is that I'm standing in a very long line." Age, however, does have its compensations. A good night's sleep, and the spell was broken. Twenty-five years of marriage and three kids help arm a man to ward off the call of the sirens. "Penelope, I'm home! What's for dinner?"
Still, I'm glad I lashed myself to the mast and got to see this spectacular animal work her magic. One doesn't have to own the Mona Lisa to appreciate her beauty.
If you are so inclined toward these SM phenomena and you have the opportunity to taste somehow of the Lady Petra, you'd be a fool not to dine at her table.
Venus On Line
And Other Reasons Why Alison Tyler Fills Me With The Desire To Go Out And Do Wrong.
By Kate Doyle
It never fails. I'll be halfway through a small essay about a writer and bam, they have a new book out.
So then I get to stop, read it, and start all over again.
It's torture, lemme tell you.
I've been an Alison Tyler fan ever since I read the first chapter of the Blue Rose sitting on the steps outside the Radio Shack on a drizzly Spring day, while James was inside doing the guy's equivalent of window shopping.
It was a terrific book that dealt with Dominance and submission with out having to drag out the stand by slave plot. It was a Victorian style in a modern setting that knew it was a modern setting. I loved it.
So when I got back to work the next day I found Alison Tyler's listing in the Bookpeople catalog and ordered the rest of her titles.
I didn't like the Virgin as much as I did Blue Rose. I think it's more of a personal thing to me rather than a flaw in the book itself. Though I didn't find Nica as well rounded of a character as Cassandra in Blue Rose, she was portrayed as a rather shallow person. There's nothing wrong with this, I just don't like people like that in real life, so I'm not fond of that in my fiction. Cara, the Mistress, was a bit uptight for me, but cooler Mistresses seem to be the norm. I just take a dislike to Mistresses who stick their noses in the air at the very idea that they sub for a change. So I really didn't like either of them very much. But I do consider it a mark of excellence to Ms. Tyler's prose that she kept me reading to the end, even thought I didn't like them. There is a character, Adam, who I hope we'll see again.
Her short story collection Blue Sky Sideways, was absolutely magnificent. It's one of my all time favorite erotic collections. Her touch with words is breathtaking. The beauty of her images and the way she paints a scene gets under the skin. I found the collection a wonderful inspiration for my own stories and promptly loaned it far and wide to all my friends.
I'm now charmingly referred to as "the Smut Leading Library" by my friends. It first started when I sent Laura Antonio's short story collections By Her Subdued and No Other Tribute to a friend in Tennessee 'cause I thought they'd be just up her street. She wrote to tell that they looked brand new and then she became very worried that her parrot would chew the covers. I told her I didn't mind if the bird did, but she felt she couldn't risk it and bought them from me. This started at trend. I have had books go to Tennessee, Mississippi, Georgia, California and Illinois. So now I'm in that fun position between buying the new books, and wrestling with my desire to replace the old ones.
It's reaching the point that my copy of the Catalyst ought to get it's own frequent flyer miles by now.
I tried to explain to Masquerade books that if they would create a web page, perhaps my copies of the books wouldn't need to travel so much. The suggestion didn't go over. I guess in New York where you can find just about anything, the idea that folks in Poteau, Oklahoma would have to resort to hitting up friends to borrow erotic fiction because Geraldine down at the Barnes and Noodle who is 74 and orders the paperbacks is a salt of the Earth woman and isn't gonna have that kinda trash in her store, is a bit mind-boggling.
But hey, it's not my company.
The Dark Room was next. It's a tragedy, which is unusual for erotic fiction. Or, I should say, Smut with a capital S. It boggles my brain a bit. Whenever an erotic novel hits the mainstream, about 80% of the time it has a relationship which ends badly. Nine And A Half Weeks, Topping From Below, Damage all end tragically. I wonder if it isn't the guilt complex at work again. We are allowed to be titillated without giving up the moral high ground. No matter how hot it is, we just know it's going to end in tears.
However, that's not the tragedy card that the Dark Room is trying to play. It's looking at the difference between self-stimulation and self-destruction. It uses guilt and confusion to marvelous advantage and is far more emotive than Nine And A Half Weeks could ever try to be.
I consider the best thing I could say about the noir detective story, Dial L For Loveless is to tell you what happened with my friend Lori in Tennessee. She heard me mention in a Internet post about Alison Tyler and went straight to Amazon books online and bought three titles. Dial L was the first one to arrive. She threw it in her purse and took it to read with her on her next trip. She became so absorbed that she almost missed her connecting flight. At the airport when she was going to meet Nan's flight and shuttle to the airport she became so involved with the scene with Katrina and the twins she just about missed her.
One book can completely block out not one, but two airports?
Now that's an endorsement!
Venus On Line, Tyler's newest, is wonderful. It's another San Francisco D/s Romance. This time, the partners meet on line. The cat play flirtation turns serious when one discovers the identity of the other. It's terrific, full of self-doubts, infatuation and trying to figure one's deepest desires out. It just might be her best story, yet. It's infinitely believable, with the computer world and night-time San Francisco an excellent backdrop. The focus of the two characters is very concentrated, so it's very revealing and intimate. The only drawback is that secondary characters aren't as well developed, but that isn't enough of an issue to quibble with. Go out and buy it. It will make you happy.
Now if only Kym Wilde would make a film adaptation of one of these books, life would be truly wondrous indeed!!
Good Things Coming by Spence
I hate superstitions—they're always right! Like that pesky one about good things coming in threes. After several dry weeks, three wet and wild reads crossed my desk all at once, leaving me agog and atwitter. There's bound to be something in here that will stimulate your appetites as well.
The new second edition of The Good Vibrations Guide To Sex is fine proof that you can in fact improve on perfection. Authors Cathy Winks and Anne Semans have expanded and revised the Guide, making it more informative and easier to read. New sections on phone sex and how to find porno on the world wide web can help turn technophobes into future sexperts, while the updates on new toy technology will get you buzzing in ways you never thought of (by remote control, for instance).
There's a whole chapter devoted to the impact censorship has had on our sex lives, which includes tips for anti-censorship activism. For my money, people can't be reminded often enough that censorship is deadly, and I applaud the authors for including this chapter in a sex manual. Another bonus in the new edition is the use of sidebars, little boxes containing extra information on a topic of "GV Tales," which are anecdotes from the store staff. Those touches, combined with M. B. Condon's polished line drawings, make each page a pleasure to look at.
The Guide is the only sex manual I've ever needed or wanted—I thought the first edition was spectacular, and this one is even better. The writing is engaging and often funny, and the authors never back down from their sex-positive stance. Your sex life could only improve by reading this. (Cleis Press, 1997, $21.95)
While this next book is not pornography per se, I sure felt warm and tingly all over while reading it, and you will, too. Dancing Queen: A Lusty Look At The American Dream is Lisa Carver's second book (her first was a collection from the first 16 issues of her 'zine, Rollerderby, much praised in these pages). Some of these essays were sparked by articles in RD, but if they were good the first time around, they're delightful now, longer and funnier and fiercer, too.
If you've never read her stuff, well, Lisa writes about underwear and Russian leaders and how sexy it might be to get mauled by a bear. I can imagine her at a slumber party, scaring her friends to death with that combination of morbid imagination and fired-up libido. But she handles the mix so artfully, and her writing is so clean and earnest and unsarcastic that her obsessions become your own, her battles your battles. It can get a little hot and sweaty at times!
Lisa is unique among the women in her age group that are publishing—she actually likes fun. "Dancing Queen is about liking stuff," she writes in the introduction. The week before I got my copy, I read a half dozen 'zines that claimed to be pro-woman in some way or another, but not one said a positive thing about women. They were anti-man, anti-government, anti-women who didn't think like them. I was so relieved to read Dancing Queen! It's relentlessly pro-woman! Also pro-man, pro-underwear, pro-Olivia Newton-John! I had to do the wave in my chair, I was so happy.
We didn't have any copies at the bookstore I work at, so I ordered three and set them on the "Staff Recommends" shelf. When I came back the following week, they had sold out! Lisa Carver is making the world a safer place for pleasure, one reader at a time. I can only thank her for that. (Henry Holt, 1996, $12)
The last thing to land in my "in" basket was the premiere issue of a new magazine called Kutie. Subtitled "Fiction. Fact. Fotos." this is really a modern take on the soft-core stroke mags of yesteryear. The articles are all about manly things like smoking, drinking, and driving screws (seriously), and as such are fine if a little dull. The treat here is the "Fotos."
If you enjoy that '50's pin-up style, here is its '90's counterpart—girls in backless aprons, girls in sexy slips, girls in just high heels and a come-hither grin. And come you will, hither or otherwise.
Oooh, I was delighted with Kutie!I think it might inadvertently be the best lesbian magazine I've ever seen! All the ladies have pretty hair, but look kind of tough and brassy, and have on lacy things you want to rip off of them! Whew! They're all doing silly things, too, like pretending to garden, or barbecue hot dogs, or lying across the hood of a big old Ford holding a socket wrench—classic!
Men might find something to enjoy in the articles. I didn't. They reminded me of conversations I've had with men my age about music or politics or anything, really, where the man just talks louder and louder until finally I put my fingers in my ears and sing really loud to drown him out. Too much opinion without much behind it.
However, I would still plunk down an hour's wages just for another peek at all that creamy cleavage, those delectable thighs, that soft, silky hair. Kutie is divine. ($7 from PO Box 1736, Seattle, WA 98111-1736, or ask for it at your favorite newsstand)
American Gigolo Part 4 by T.R.T. Cardarelli
My first session with this Mistress was not a severe beating. She is a pro and knows that you do not just take an unsuspecting man and whip him senseless. She would never have seen me again if she had done that.
Instead she brought it on slowly, gradually reaching deep within and bringing a deep, subconscious desire to the surface. I had bound a few to bed posts, spread eagle, and beaten them as they wished, anally violated them as they wished, spanked pussies, and fucked myself silly.
Now I was bound. I learned about positioning. Instead of feet flat on the bed, knees drawn up and parted, she drew my knees to my chest. With a thick nylon strap she bound the backs of my thighs to the backs of my calves. Then she used a thin nylon rope to bind my ankles and knees to the sides of the bed, tugging firmly to make my legs part even more. It was uncomfortable. And the vulnerability excited the hell out of me.
She did not spank me hard (with an instrument of discipline). She used her hand. With my haunches pulled as taut as they were and my cheeks in full view, she had easy access to them. She even started lightly.
I could not see everything she was doing. I could see movement, like her hand raising, but beyond that I was working with the sense of touch. And that tore open a whole new world of pleasure for me. I would see her hand raise to slap my ass and I would feel a twinge of fear of pain. The anticipation of the sting and the fear set me on fire. The first slap was light. It did not hurt at all. The second was to the opposite cheek and no harder than the first.
Gradually she intensified the force. Gradually she increased the sting. Gradually she allowed me to grow accustomed to it. In doing so, she let me associate this delicious, growing stinging sensation with intense emotional torment. At the same time, her concentration drew the heat of the emotions into the sting of my haunches and brought about delirium.
After several minutes of a good spanking she started to verbally abuse me. This added to the humiliation of my extreme vulnerability. She grabbed my aching essence and taunted me, pointing out how aroused I was and how much I liked it. Slave boy she called me. Amongst a few other choice terms. She knew what she was doing and thoroughly enjoyed stripping a man's masculinity.
And I liked it. The feeling of complete and utter vulnerability thrilled me. It sent a wave of fiery delight through me that I had never known existed. It was the complete opposite of being in total control.
She permitted me to come twice. Both times I had to demean myself further and grovel at her feet, begging permission to jerk off. She would not use her flesh to get me off. Her reason was that I was her inferior and unworthy of the pleasures of her superior beauty. If I wanted a nut I had to jack off. And again she verbally taunted me, pointing out how much I must love my new position in life. I was so eager to please her that I would perform any act she wanted.
My introduction to submission left me wanting more. I did not forget my business though. Giving pain is easy. Now getting it was a desired commodity I could bargain with. If someone wanted to humiliate me it would cost even more.
I learned as I became more and more submissive. I learned a number of things. First was how to improve my skills with rope, instruments of pain, verbal abuse and toys. As skills were applied to me, I was able to incorporate them into my business. This created a well rounded whore.
Second, I learned that I could turn on greatly when I gave in to the pleasures women seek. Whatever a woman wants, save children and men, I am game. I will not do animals, but if she is into doing an animal and turns on to my watching, I will. And I will enjoy it because she is. If it turns a woman on, I am game. If it pleasures her, then I want to do it.
This led me into a basic submission to women. That does carry over into specifics, like groveling, and feet and buttock kissing. I was also introduced to the filthy act of being a urinal.
Before things went too far (though one has to wonder how far is too far in this life) I did learn that even I have limits. Tie me up, eat me beat me suck me fuck me write me bad checks, make me feel cheaper...er. But don't cut me open, don't bind me and let a man have his way with me, don't bore my ass open with some ungodly sized dildo, keep your fists to yourself, and if you have to crap—use the porcelain pony.
I learned these things from various activities. I allowed myself to be chained to a collar and led on a leash to a B & D party. The hostess was a Mistress, her husband her slave. She had him shackled, on his knees, servicing everyone at the party unless that person said otherwise. Because I was a slave I had no say. I declined the blow job and the Mistress struck me across the side with a bull whip. This was the last time she ever invited me to any of her little soirees. The woman who took me as her slave had to take my place when I walked out.
I saw scat in numerous forms. Doesn't do anything for me to watch. I do know that I won't shit on, or in, anyone; and no one better do it to me.
I did give a blow job and I believe today that was planned. A woman was having at me when her husband was at work. Once he came home early. Instead of flying off the handle he wanted to join. She begged me to do him. She was on her back. And in the heat of the passion, I did so. She went nuts and I followed. Later, walking home (she lived five blocks away) what I had done hit me and I heaved my guts in some bushes on the Virginia Commonwealth University campus.
So I do have limits. If you have me helpless, don't violate them. If you do, kill me because I will kill you later. That is my contract.
Life Resembles Porn:
I've been watching, with considerable interest, the 40 minute slice of life that Pam and Tommy have given (willingly or unwillingly) to the world. Here is the good life indeed, the life that Seymore and Shane used to live before that dynamic duo broke up: the posing for the video camera, the blow jobs on the highway, the high life, the sex, and yes, even the pop shot. Our roads and streams aren't going to be any safer as this tape is viewed by nerds on line, trying to imitate Pam rolling a joint (as well as Tommy's joint), but what the hey, it's the price that must be paid for enjoying celebrity sex. I'm hoping that Pam has a friend like Yvonne, and Tommy has a friend like T.T. Boy, and that there are other tapes in the can, just waiting to be released.
There's big money to be made here, kids!
Tammy Cole informs us:
You can get just about anything on the Internet as most already know. From sex magazines to swingers resorts, adult businesses who advertise on line are uniting.
Fed up with unethical rivals who have swindled consumers and sullied the industry's reputation, a Boca Raton, FL man has created the Chamber of Commerce for erotic businesses on the Internet.
Membership includes Rubber Times, a magazine devoted to rubber fetishes and Especially For Me, a boutique for cross-dressers. Like many other businesses, these want the industry to grow enough to set industry policy. There are tens of thousands of adult companies on the net and there's going to be hundreds of thousands by the year 2000. What this does is providing a place on the net for people to come to, where they can feel these are responsible people. If they rip you off let us know.
The availability of erotic material online—particularly to children—has raised a firestorm of protest from many quarters. This unique Internet site will probably do little to quiet those protests since it's reason for being is to promote its members, but it will curb illegal Web page content such as child pornography, it is believed.
To become a member a business agrees to resolve customer complaints, like a Better Business Bureau. After three unresolved complaints within 90 days a business loses membership and is removed from the web site. Since its inception last year, many members say it's already helped to boost sales of adult entertainment or products.
Robert Atkins, marketing director for Alternative Travel, says his company's incoming calls have jumped 12 to 15 percent. His travel business caters to swingers, or as adult businesses prefer "those into alternative lifestyles."
"People look to be reassured when they are dealing in this marketplace because of the number of scam artists that are out there," Atkins says. "Besides, people may go into the Adult Chamber looking for one product and end up finding your product, and that alone is the value."
Michael Thompson, president of Express Publishers of Sarasota, FL says, "The legislature is trying to cut back on free speech. I'm here for free speech." Thompson runs newsletters Expressions and Kinky Delights. "There is strength in unity," he says.
Check it out yourself at www.lifestyle.com.
Tammy also informs us:
Forget Disneyland after this year's Super Bowl. Everybody who is anybody is going to Bangkok, Thailand, and they're gonna stay at the Bangkok Hilton, for there is where the sacred shrine of the goddess Tuptim may be found in all its consecrated glory: The only complete bona fide garden of sculpted phalluses found on earth.
Many of these cocks, dicks, dongs, prongs and peckers are draped in silk scarves, left there by those blessed, and you may see the imprint of female lips around the shafts and heads.
This is no insignificant attraction. It's a sacred fertility shrine, so it's no surprise that many women go there to pray. A sort of "Our Lady Of Fatima" shrine for those who have not been blessed with children. If they conceive, they return and add a wooden cock of their own to the garden.
No, Lorena Bobbitt is not allowed on this sacred ground.
Thai people see the phallus as a good luck symbol, and if you look carefully, you may see replicas of a cock in a necklace or bracelet worn by a female. They may even be strung in beaded strands so that the female may work them as others do "worry" beads, or objects of pious application.
As soon as I complete my interviews with passengers returning from Bangkok, I'll let you know what the tourists think of the locals' taste in garden ornaments and tastefully worn objects de art.
Planes leave hourly from LA, NYC, and Dallas. This should not be missed by any big swinging dick.
Hal Maroon has been doing Homemade Hot Shots for three years now, and has just started his forth, and he just refuses to learn that you can't make money in this business (though the stuff you get on the side in the way of photos and tapes and such from some very nice amateurs almost makes up for the starvation). Hal shares these photos, and reviews the tapes for us in each issue, and poor as he is from all of this, you just can't help but feel that he's a lucky guy!
You can get a year's sub for $24.95 if you send to Networx, PO Box 3323, Springfield, MA 01101.
Pam Winter puts out Hair To Stay, "the world's only magazine for lovers of natural, hairy women" as not only a labor of love, but as a philosophical and sexual statement. She hopes to encourage other women to investigate not having to shave off their body hair to meet the demands of society. Each issue has many photos of hirsute women, as well as articles, reviews, letters, and, if you are truly the right man, the chance to date Pam.
Since this is a one of a kind magazine, the cost is apparently high, but if these are your interests, your $12 ($40 for a sub) will be very well spent. You'll need to enclose an age statement. Send to Winter Publishing Inc., PO Box 80667, Dartmouth, MA 02748.
Although I'm way too old for Rock 'n' Roll these days, the people at POPsmear continue to send me copies of their magazine. The front cover of the new issue has a piece on the Pam and Tommy video, which I immediately turned to, hoping to find out if they were going to ask me to do the camera work on their next video. The writer didn't know, unfortunately. You can get a copy of this tape if you subscribe for three years to POPsmear (hell, if you want to sub for two years to BNI, I'll make you a copy of the tape myself!) for $45. Send an age statement to POPsmear, attn: subscriptions, 648 Broadway #200, NYC, NY 10012.
The new EIDOS contains Dorothy Feola's wonderful interview with Tiffany Mynx, tons of reviews of every new book and magazine about sex under the sun (as well as indoors), amazing letters, and a photo of a scrotum with more rings than Saturn. Brenda will be changing format soon, from newspaper to magazine, so you might be wise to subscribe now at 4 issues for $25 to PO Box 96, Boston, MA 02137.
Certainly the most astonishing magazine sent our way in the past month is WHAP! Women Who Administer Punishment (I get quite enough yelling at when I leave a dish slightly unwashed, as if it's my fault that others in this house are messy eaters and don't lick their plates) has more than most women need to know about being one-up in the family, advocating, as it does, the use of politically incorrect home disciplinary methods of yesteryear on the incorrigible men of today. It isn't something I'd want our layout/design editor to read, in other words, though I found it all quite amusing. But then it wasn't my ox being gored, or whatever.
With lessons you can learn from Joan Crawford and other chilling information, you'll know if this is for you! Send $29 for a sub to Retro Systems, P. O. Box 69491, L.A., CA 90069.
Dear BNI,
As of 11/97, we now have 303 definite ways to improve hand-eye coordination. So what if Donkey Kong never gets to touch the princess? The fun is in playing the game. Other cartridges worth wearing out your joystick with would include:
Autobiography Of A Flea—A Mitchell Brothers movie with minimal fraternal input, thus making it their most watchable. A lush period piece shot mostly in soft focus, it still gets a machismo beating from John Leslie, Paul Thomas and John Holmes (who almost turns in a performance). Annette Haven's goofy performance is more shticky than sticky.
Perverse 2—A newlywed husband is disappointed to learn his virgin bride doesn't like anal sex or giving blowjobs. He takes her to some kind of free-sex villa where she's exposed to a series of increasingly kinky behavior. By the end of this typically European fantasy, she's bent over in the middle of a bisexual four-way while getting whipped by a black dwarf. No plot to get in harm's way, it's more of a theme thing. Never saw the first one.
Smash'd—This should be endorsed by the '70s Preservation Society. Its time-piece curiosity value heavily outweighs any artistic merit, but! It features a pair of haggard and sleazy Andrea True connections, along with a pleasantly plump Annie Sprinkle who's not afraid to drip filth-sweat and look more like a sex-crazed amateur than any modern dirty debutante.
Crash—Forget about come shots. David Lynch doesn't even have to show penetration to make this one of the steamiest and most explicit movies ever released by a mainstream studio. Unlike most fetish flicks that simply show the actions and let viewers take it or leave it, Crash attempts to make a case for its characters' morbid mixing of gash and gasoline, Biner with bone, and Jaguars with jism. To echo Roger Ebert's feelings, I only wish someone would make a film this good about my fetishes. (Me, I like to keep my blood engorged, not disengorged.)
And that's just the tip of the, uh, iceberg. Uneven yet highly watchable films like Night Life, Society Affairs, Candy Goes To Hollywood, Heatwave, The British Are Cumming, Debbie Does Dallas 2, and yes, Inside Jennifer Welles (probed deeply by Larry Tritten in the same BNI) could easily form the basis of a qualified 404.
Mmmmm...Jennifer Welles. After reading Tritten's review, I had to go back and watch the film again. Of all things, it made me think about your recent debate concerning come shots. Must have been that last scene.
First of all, judging from the vintage stag films I've had a chance to see, compulsive onscreen ejaculation isn't an "ancient custom." Oh sure, there's plenty of sperm-soaked vaginas to be found, but internal orgasms seem more prevalent. And though I'm sure they exist, I've never seen a full-blown facial dating before 1950. (Before then, the highest rate of visible stag sperm came from France, no pun intended.)
I find that that the trend in showing male orgasm corresponds with the gradual erosion of censorship. Most of the early movies produced for public consumption ignored men (as performers) altogether. All you ever saw were strippers doing the same old bump and grind. Men didn't enter the picture until nudist "documentaries" popped up, usually with their pop-ups hidden behind bushes and beach balls. Erections were not allowed and if you ever have a chance, check out the then-expanding market of printed porn. You'll always see the male member in a limp position, even during a passionate embrace. This was an obvious attempt to avoid prosecution for raising "prurient interest." Eventually, legal standards grew limp and raised dicks everywhere clinked heads in celebration. The come shot was initially equivalent to popping the cork of a champagne bottle, but soon something funny happened.
As you noted, the sight of ejaculation causes a curious effect in men. Remember the opening sequence of Mel Brooks' History Of The World where our prehistoric "forefathers" gained initial reason by having the first circle jerk? That's what I thought of at the end of Inside Jennifer Welles when all those guys were frosting at the same time. We, as men, haven't progressed any farther in terms of sexual stimulation. Totally engrossed in dick-feeling, we share an excitement in watching each other get off. Of course, heterosexually speaking, there has to be a woman involved, whether physically or in fantasy. I had a friend who told me how his uncle taught him to jerk-off. There was no incest involved, the uncle simply wanted to show his adolescent nephew the joy of bopping his baloney, just as the hillbilly kid did for his cousin in National Lampoon's Vacation. An ongoing example of circle-jerk mentality. Nothing wrong with it, but the reason come shots have maintained a prominent place in porn is simple.
Porno remains a genre primarily pointed towards men. Therefore, it's made to provide visual release for a male audience. Since men like to see other men come, the ejac-on-the-back will always be there. It's like the laugh track you hear on a situation comedy. It doesn't actually say a joke is funny, but implies that you should be laughing. While I can get off on the simple heat of a given situation, I won't deny the extra input that a "climax" provides. Just as phone sex relies on exaggerated verbal orgasms, video sex relies on the visual, speaking from a strictly male point of view.
Women who enjoy porno tend to have an appreciation for the sight of ejaculation. They almost have to. I once had a girlfriend who loved to have me pull out at the moment of climax so she could jerk me off and watch and feel my sperm spread all over her belly. We never did facials, but that's only because she also liked to swallow. (Talk about a dream date.) We enjoyed watching porn together, although there was an awkward moment the time we rented In Love. After bringing the tape home, I found a receipt listing the last person's name who watched it. Turned out to be her father. I felt like the Titanic in the midst of a sea of icebergs.
Anyway, to sum up my feelings about the male come shot, one only needs to look at the popularity of woman squirt-films. The concept of female ejaculation is a huge turn-on for many men, providing a non-homosexual fixation for their tribal ritual. Grunts and squeals aren't enough, we need to see some fluid. Fluid is all we need.
I know I'm providing a phallocentric viewpoint, but I'm a guy, very straight but not too narrow. I'm giving my opinion as to what's already out there, in terms of "What Men Want." I could also write a letter concerning gay and feminist porn, lending my support and insight, but that's not what I'm trying to address. I'm just saying that I like the spurt, I hope to see it again, and have a few corks ready to pop.
Though I'm also willing to compromise with women who don't.
Maintaining the power without batteries,
Vincent Basilicato
*
Dear BNI,
Hail! Hail Jenna Jameson and Elizabeth Berkley! It is they who have delighted me most in the past year. It is they who I have been able to ogle as they moved and jiggled on the big screen.
Yeah, I know, Showgirls and Private Parts are tame stuff. But in prison in Ohio, it is the best I will see. I saw Striptease, too. But no one there revealed as much as Elizabeth did in Showgirls and Jenna in Private Parts.
This is not to say that I do not lust for you first and foremost, Debbie. I most certainly do.
And as it happens, I been sprung! Yep. I made me a parole. Uh-huh. They saw fit to loose me on society once again. As my good friend Butthead might say, "Huh. Huh huh. Huh huh huh!!"
Tom Cardarelli
*
Dear BNI,
I must have been about 12 years old when I saw my first sexplicit film. Those were the days of the Super and Regular 8mm loops. Just images, no moans and groans, of course.
The very first film I ever saw starred a bleach-blond, big-busted woman dressed up as a nurse, and a fatherly looking guy who must have been going on 55 or even 60. He kind of looked like Ronald Reagan, when Ronnie was that age (do you think Ronnie might have??). The "action" opens up with the guy sitting naked on a well-worn couch solo sexing his very long cock (or so it seemed to me then).
He then acts as if there is somebody at his off-screen door. In walks a Marilyn-like woman in a nurse's uniform. She immediately, without preamble, wiggles and jiggles out of her outfit. She's careful not to knock off her cap, though. She's naked underneath, no bra or panties, only a red garter belt and red stockings. She has huge breasts, wide hips, thick thighs, a lunar butt, a very hirsute mound and milk-white skin. Reminds me of one of those fertility goddess statuettes that are found in archeological excavations. She kneels before the guy and proceeds to blow him. It appears Ronnie has a problem getting tumescent.
The camera repeats shots, several times, of: the nurse's filled mouth, her ass-cheeks, tits and cunt. After a while Ronnie goes off-screen and returns with a thick and lengthy carrot, which he uses, in place of his cock, to screw the nurse. In and out, in and out. It goes on like this for several minutes and? itís over.
Rather boring, if not outright banal, you may say. But at the time my friends and I thought it was fantastic! We all got raging begging-for-immediate-attention hard-ons. Anyway, this was the first film that we saw at Papa's Porno Palace, which we had named my best friend's house. We'd all gather there whenever his parents would be out for the night or, during the day, before they'd get back from work. Sometimes, there'd be nearly 20 of us. And we had no shortage of stuff to see, because some of the young perverts would sneak films from their fathers, older brothers or sisters or whomever. The porno parties went on for a few months before we had to end them because they were getting too big and out of hand.
In freedom,
Spiros
(Spiros publishes Open Forum, a sexual liberation and free expression zine that can be had for $10 or $16 for two issues. Cash only to: Lianos, PO Box 8343, Athens (Omonia), Gr-10010, Greece.)
Boogie Nights
by Arthur Winfield Knight
Boogie Nights was written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, who's 26, and it's his second feature film. (Hard Eight was his first.) Anderson says, "The story takes place from 1977 to 1984, and I have very specific memories of the way Los Angeles looked and felt." Anderson would have been playing with his mechanical Pluto when the film begins, and he would have been 13 when the film ends, so it's Hollywood double talk.
You might wonder why the producers didn't hire someone older, someone who was an adult during the late '70s and early '80s, perhaps someone familiar with the porn industry, but there's an easy answer to that. More and more first and second time directors are being hired because they'll work cheaply and because studio executives can keep them under their thumbs. In a very real sense, the films are made by the producers, which tells you why so many films are so bad. (One almost years for the good-old-days when people like William Wellman, John Ford, and Billy Wilder were turning out films on a regular basis.)
The main character in Boogie Nights is a young man named Eddie Adams (Mark Wahlberg) who has a thirteen inch penis. (I assume he's modeled after John Holmes.) Eddie is discovered working in a bar-restaurant in Southern California by Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds), who directs pornographic movies, although Horner thinks of himself as an artist and says, "My dream is to make a film that is true."
I wondered if the name of Reynolds' character was inspired by the nursery rhyme: "Little Jack Horner sat in a corner, eating his Christmas pie. He put in his thumb and pulled out a plum and said, 'What a good boy am I.'" This might seem far-fetched, but Horner, as a director, does sit in a corner (at least metaphorically) and he considers himself a "good boy." He not only thinks he's an artist, he believes he's helping his "stars" make something of themselves.
Two of Horner's actresses, Amber Waves (Julianne Moore) and Rollergirl (Heather Graham), actually live with him, although they don't seem to be sexually involved. He's a kind of father figure.
Horner is disdainful of videotape, and I think we're supposed to feel it's tragic when he ends up videotaping sex scenes between Rollergirl and someone they pick up while they're cruising the streets of Los Angeles in a limo, rather than shooting a picture with some kind of plot on film. If you think this scene is improbable, Jamie Gillis actually did this in San Francisco (see On The Prowl).
Amber's also a tragic character. She's been married and divorced and her ex-husband has custody of their child, whom Amber isn't even allowed to visit because she's a porn star. Amber's also aware of the fact that she's aging, and she asks Rollergirl and Eddie, who now calls himself Dirk Dagger, to call her "mother." It's pop psychology at its worse, although Julianne Moore makes Amber seem poignant.
Perhaps Eddie/Dirk is the most tragic of all the characters. (It's easy to see Anderson's affection for them. He says they're "all searching for their dignity...trying to find themselves.") Eddie begins to think he's a writer as well as a porn star (he scripts several of his movies) and Amber makes a documentary film about him. But Eddie becomes a victim of his own success when he starts using cocaine, and he becomes increasingly difficult to work with. There's a poignant scene where he stands dazed in front of a mirror, holding his penis, saying, "I am a big bright shining star."
Even a minor character in this film, Little Bill (William H. Macy), is wounded. He repeatedly catches his porn star wife having sex while people watch disinterestedly. In one scene she has sex in the middle of a driveway at a party while the people around her gawk and get high.
Another character referred to as The Colonel (Robert Ridgely) is arrested for being involved with an underaged girl, and he seems genuinely bewildered by the experience when he tells Horner what happened.
Boogie Nights is about lost dreams, lost lives. It rambles too much, it goes on too long (two and a half hours), it has more characters than it needs, and I suspect it whitewashes the porn industry—but there are some poignant and original moments in it. Perhaps its greatest liability is its R rating. There's a quick full frontal nude shot of Rollergirl and another of Eddie's penis, but I don't think there's more than five minutes of nudity in the entire film. (We tend to get reaction shots, rather than action shots.) Given the subject matter, that seems absurd.
One wonders why the producers didn't do it right, since the picture is probably going to bomb at the box office anyway, and release a serious X-rated film about the porn industry. It might have made history.
Scotty Fox Sampler by Jim Lee
I watched no less than five Scotty Fox directed videos the last two weeks. This was no conscious plan. Except for the (mostly disappointing) sequel to one I'd enjoyed days earlier, I had no idea Scotty F had helmed any of these particular efforts—until his name came up on my VCR screen. Fox is no special favorite of mine, either.
What he is is a reasonably solid member (laugh, if you like) of the fuck flick fraternity. And making a virtue of necessity is a smart thing, I am assured. So a different approach this time. Rather than an in-depth write-up on a single outstanding project (of which, in this bunch, there ain't none), this article proposes a representative overview of one competent, upper-middle-level porn director's oeuvre.
The theory (or excuse?) is that such a fellow's work will provide an accurate gauge of The Industry as a whole. It also allows me to slobber (rhetorically, at least) over certain porn starlets who strike me as really hot, despite being placed in less than brilliant surroundings.
Let's take 'em in order of copyright/release date.
We begin in 1985, with one of those inevitable porn parodies of mainstream entertainment. Hill Street Blacks is a playfully absurd, unhesitatingly raunchy takeoff of the classic tv cop show. A power failure has most of the precinct out on calls, leaving four black cops (three guys and the regal Lady Stephanie) to deal with a racially mixed set of newly arrested hookers. You know where this is going, huh? Well, so does Scotty Fox and he takes us there with a delightful smorgasbord of interracial, tabletop "interrogations."
It's pure silliness throughout, but the sex is so good you don't care. Asian-American bombshell Kristara Barrington likes Robbie Dee's questioning so well, she gives him a mouth-first cleaning afterward. Then she tackles muscular FM Bradley, puts him on his back and rides to another creaming finish.
The two white hookers are okay, each in two scenes. But voluptuous and dusky Jeannie Pepper outshines both in her only action—teaming with the slutty blond to take plainclothes detective Bradley for a thumping good ride.
Dee enjoys the blond's charms solo, but what he's really hot to do is get his personal nightstick up his reluctant partner, the lithe Lady Stephanie.
She finally loosens up, after a how lesbian session with the other white pro. It ain't high drama, but the session where Dee finally gets the Lady, proving to her that she's not gay, is a fairly romantic and very enjoyable way to tie things up. Fox lets this, the only "meaningful" sex in the video, develop with relative patience. There's seduction, a hint of tenderness and even fond kissing, right in the middle of suitably intense, bent-over-the-table doggie-style loving.
Among Fox's releases in '86 were Chuck & Di In Heat and Black Valley Girls.
The first is fairly routine but amusing idiocy about two sex research volunteers who bear a close resemblance to the Royal Brits who have since given infidelity, marital highjinks and papparazi such a bad name. A tabloid photographer mistakes them for the real thing and sneaks into the lab, where they're field testing a new super-aphrodisiac chewing gum. Forget the slender plotline (Fox and company did) and sit back and enjoy the sex scenes.
The title couple (Kevin James and Sharon Mitchell) open things in high fashion with an expert, unforced, even somewhat sweet extended coupling. They toy with props calculated to evoke their characters' alter egos. They glide into assorted positions and build to a naturalistic spurt across Miss Sharon's buttocks, and some tender afterplay.
A little known supporting cast does adequately in three more scenes—two guys doubleteaming a spacey blond, the cute head scientist doing a pretty masturbation sequence, and the photographer getting his turn with the blond.
Then Rene Hunter, as the researcher, joins Mitchell and James for a lovely, varied, lengthy threeway. The ending is inconclusive mush and the strength of this fine scene is undercut with endlessly repeated, overstated shots of the photog and the blond in the other room.
If Chuck & Di is only average, the shamelessly raunchy Black Valley Girls scales the interracial sex heights and tops this set of Fox offerings. The magnificent Angel Kelly (she of the improbably tanlined brown tits and deeper black torso) heads a trio of "totally radical, bitchin' and gnarley" black babes dedicated to fucking rich men.
The other babes are played by Taffy and Cherie Lai-Me, though I must confess I don't know which is which. And at this point, I don't care. They're both hot and wonderful. One is busty, solid but not fat. The other is slim, supple, with a few of her cornrowed braids dyed gold for effect. Acting? Both seem okay. But where it really counts? Man, they are right up there with their superstar leader!
The threeway lesbian scene is exciting and luscious. So are the five straight scenes with Randy West, Peter North, Marc Wallice, and Robbie Dee doing the honors, and the ever-ready Kristara Barrington even jumping in to help the busty Valley Girl double-bang her husband (West).
If you care for stats, there are three more trios (besides the all-girl squirmer), a bathroom foursome, and a single one-on-one encounter on the kitchen counter. No anal sex, but the oral and vaginal stuff is gloriously forceful and for added kink, the last scene where Angel and her more slender pal spread barbecue sauce on Dee's cock and then lick it off is hard to ignore.
The superheated Kelly turns up again, in 1987's sequel, Hill Street Blacks 2, as a salty-talking hooker. While as dumb as the first takeoff, this one lacks the wit, and Kelly is the only outstanding femme (of any skintone) on display here. This time, a muddled foursome of scriptwriters have unleashed an unfocused mess about vandals, a health club, and the whores who are losing business to the club.
Kelly learns in mid-trick that black client Dymond Carter is a cop, and he has to bust her. But she goes ahead and fucks him, since she needs his $50 for bail! Interesting reasoning, but seeing this dark Angel in action is worth bearing almost any nonsense. She later has another standout coupling, with "Italian Stallion" Precinct Captain David Morris.
But do these two pulse-quickening encounters justify the pain of Stephanie Stone's acting (substandard even by porn norms)? Rebecca Rage as the black policewoman isn't bad, adequate in both acting and erotic terms. But the only reason to invest your time and/or money in this tepid sequel is the scorching Ms. Kelly.
And from there we jump all the way to 1993 and a pleasant, if familiar, 5-scene light comedy called Sticky Lips. This blends the oft-seen Artistic/Troubled Porn Director theme with the endlessly repeating time loop of the nonsex movie, Groundhog Day. Randy Spears is the doubting central character, Kitty Yung (luscious, roundfaced, perky Asian) is his wife and assistant, while his porn talent includes Sahara Sands and Roxanne Blaze.
Moneygrubbing Producer Buck Adams has a bouncy threeway in the dressing room with Sands and Nikki Sinn, plugging both assholes before a rather modest moneyshot. Sands and Yung have a nice lesbian scene with a double-ended dildo, in the bathtub. Tired of watching Blaze and Randy West go through the same inept sex scene, over and over, Spears tackles the sexy blond himself in a furious hump to a pleasing, ass-splashing finish.
But the single best scene is in the middle, as a bewildered and defiant Spears imagines the sex scene he'd like to tape—Kitty Yung lounging topless at poolside, those delightfully narrow almond eyes his behind round, granny-type sunglasses. Randy West approaches, sprays babu oil on her chest and rubs it in. Without a word, they couple in dreamlike fashion. Then Blaze joins in. Yung eats out Blaze as West deep-plows Yung from behind. Blaze licks Yung's ear, West frosts those pretty Asian buttocks and Yung spreads it in with her hands.
Yummy. The scene is a rare example of high erotic style from Fox. It doesn't put him in the category of directing like all-time greats Damiano or Vincent, or even up there with striking new talents like Mike Ninn or Cameron Grant; but Fox is solid, inoffensive more often than not, and presents a breezy adult entertainment for when you're in the mood, that's more than enough to satisfy the average porno craving.
Russian TV: An Alternative Lifestyle Breakthrough by Al Vol
Russia is a land of wonders, and nobody can tell for sure what or when or how would come next while democracy and freedom are unfolding in the former puritanical and hypocritical empire. As the Russians are enjoying the end of the long-time censorship, leather and S/M scene is developing and step by step it finds its place in the country's cultural life, with some striking examples appearing on the little screen.
One of the first who made his way on TV was Sergei Kuriokhin, a St. Petersburg composer/musician/actor/public figure. He is always eager to shock the audience and quick to grasp new cultural trends. A few months ago Channel 5 (St. Petersburg TV) aired recorded excerpts from his work claimed to be the first S/M opera in Russia. The show was performed in the biggest concert hall in St. Petersburg, and among those involved was Pop Mekhanika, Kuriokhin's own group, as well as many other actors, singers and musicians.
The opera featured many traditional S/M scenarios from B/D episodes to flogging to slave/master couples. The stage was filled with chained men, almost nude or in leather, some on their fours being whipped by a "master"; this was matched by a defile of semi-nude performers in grotesque outfit while at times harmonious, at times howling music and vocals served as a backdrop.
Surprisingly, female performers are more radical both in how they dress and what they do. One of the most eye-catching examples was a duo of singers/ dancers "Politsia nravov" (literally "Vice Squad"). The duo started its career about three years ago when two young women, Freda and Angel, decided to work together. The Russian pop/rock music scene had nobody to compare to them: the girls sported completely shaven heads, aggressive makeup, invariably had leather on (sometimes combined with black mesh lingerie) and offered quite racy dancing with lesbian undertones. One of their songs about adolescent love was accompanied by school kids dancingonstage. The public was shocked and amused, and the duo performed in many of the Moscow's now numerous night clubs.
Although Freda and Angel looked very much like leatherdykes, in a TV interview they claimed to be bisexual. They pointed out that they were quite comfortable with the way they looked and confessed they'd love anyone who loved leather as much as they did.
However, after two years of working together the duo broke: Angel started a solo career, grew some hair on her head and made an alliance with a famous male bodybuilder. Freda, the tougher one, found a new partner who looks much like more "vanilla" Angel, and a new duo was formed.
Recently, another example of a S/M breakthrough came when Grey Eyes aired, a music video by a new female pop singer Irina Saltykova. In it, a young blonde in a very revealing dress sings and dances to the tune of a rhythmical love song, and her performance is interrupted by flashes of, so far, the most impressive hot male S/M images: young and very handsome masculine guys are posing in leather collars, jocks, caps, bracelets, high boots and all kinds of harness.The guys chained to each other look at you in a challenging and disturbing way. The sexual undertones are throbbing enhanced by the fact the guys are almost nude, have gorgeous bodies—their muscular fuzzy legs can drive anyone crazy!—and rather bulging jockstraps... One can only wonder where they found such handsome and sexy Russian guys apparently at home with S/M paraphernalia.
The funniest part of the video involves a young male bartender who manipulates an open bottle and then stuffs it in the front of his trousers. Irina keeps singing while she lies down on her back on the counter and puts an empty glass between her legs, right in her crotch; the bartender hovers above her in a lovemaking position and fills Irina's glass, the dripping bottle sticking out of his open fly...
There is yet another female pop singer who in her own way is a pioneer of a radical lifestyle. Her stage name is Linda, she is young, cute, and looks a bit like Madonna. Although Linda is white, she has her hair in dreadlocks. In her recent music video More Fire! she sports not only stunning makeup and several earrings but also a nostril ring and a lower lip ring. To my knowledge, Linda is the first and only multipierced Russian performer to appear on Russian TV. In an interview she said such an image was a conscious choice on her side.
Yet another instance of a conscious choice was demonstrated by a late Saturday night weekly 20 minutes-long program AIDS-Info Video, the video version of a popular monthly magazine covering all aspects of sexuality. For the first time a Russian TV program (Moscow Channel 3) featured an open and enthusiastic discussion of the benefits of flogging.
Even though generally S/M is considered kinky, no derogatory terms were used and nobody was called a "pervert" or "depraved." The program included an intellectually provocative interview with a young woman living in Moscow who took to flogging and a group of her supporting friends who also were into flogging and whipping.
The group consists of both men and women and holds private flogging/whipping/ spanking parties involving bondage and light S/M play. The group's facilitator is a qualified psychologist, and this huge semi-nude man with a shaven head not only provides theoretical basis but is an active member of the group himself. These Moscow floggers seem to be well equipped: all sorts of whips, belts, ropes for bondage, benches for flogging, as well as some leather outfits were shown.
Pretty often the group's sessions are shot on video, and some of the amateur videotapes were used in the program. Even though the shooting wasn't perfect from a professional viewpoint, the camera sure was honest while the group members were discussing true experiences and doing it before the camera. In their commentaries, both the psychologist and the female protagonist stressed the importance of flogging and spanking: it wasn't just a way to make their fantasies and desires come true, nor was it a simple release ofinner impulses, but a highly beneficial healing procedure. It should be noted that the group members seem to be anxious to maintain their mental and physical health by practicing safe, consensual, sane S/M charged—as they claim—with great healing power.
Several years ago Russian TV was totally shut up about all alternative lifestyles and practices. Today, as TV networks in Russia get more and more sex-positive it's a thrill to watch these changes. Safe, sane, and consensual S/M can be fun, and Russian TV seems to support the idea. Of course this is just a beginning but it's a promising one.
Krafft-Ebing's Psychopathia Sexualis
This is the book everyone knows about, but no one I know has actually read. (Well, that's not entirely true. My father read it. He would sometimes gaze at me when I was a kid and say, [paraphrased] "You're a walking, talking chapter from Krafft-Ebing.")
I did try to read this book about 25 years ago, when I was of that high school/beginning college age of Great Curiosity. I just couldn't stick with it. After about five pages, I bogged down. I kept trying, but just couldn't read the book. If that was the case with you and you'd like to try again to read this classic, I do urge you to pick up this attractively priced paperback. It consists of one case history after another, no full names provided—each case history so weird, you know they've all got to be real. Who could make all that stuff up?
The introduction is by Terence Sellers, whose The Correct Sadist caused such waves when first published some 20 years ago. She's a dangerous character—a dominatrix with a formal education in head-shrinking. Yeow!!!! In an almost-too-show-off-y fashion, she concludes her superb foreword with a cutting self-analysis. She puts herself right under the spotlight and lets us have it in less than a thousand surgically sharp words! Better than that, (although she's mighty entertaining), her preface points out some aspects of the work not noted by previous publishers, such as Krafft-Ebing's willingness to shed the Victorian straightjacket of analytical terminology and relate, as he heard them, the very subjective descriptions of events and neuroses supplied by his patients. Such touchy-feely-ness just wasn't done in his time, apparently. The doctor remains impartial, but when subjects have relayed their emotional color to a particular episode, he does his best to give it to us as he heard it. Commendable! And highly readable stuff it is, too.
It's hard to believe this is such an old work. Except for the obvious fact that all the events clearly are taking place in the 19th century (many references date it immediately), you would be hard pressed to date this if the historical and social references of the Victorian era were removed. The work is both modern and ancient—it's truly timeless.
This is kind of a brainy stroke-book. If nothing else, it will make you feel less weird. (If you think you have problems, read a few of Krafft-Ebing's case histories—you'll automatically feel more "normal!")
Personally, I have done a lot of strange stuff I do feel odd about, but I consider myself normal when it comes to bestiality, animal torture, genital mutilation, etc.—things mentioned often and freely in Psychopathia Sexualis.
I feel slight guilt at being an "armchair pervert" when I indulge in this book, but try to comfort myself with the thought that at least I'm not out there, running wild in the streets. (Which I did do, a few years ago. Scary!) I am definitely less of a menace to society when I stay in my apartment and read, rather than act out. Whew!
But not just to bolster yourself or to feel self-righteous is this book of value, but for the accurate recordings of an epoch of sheet-staining. Even Jack the Ripper is included in the book. Thus, for me, the book carries that all-important feeling of true-crime magazine sleaziness that is indeed gratifying to armchair sleazoids like myself.
Warning: the book is really hard to put down. If you find you can dig the first twenty pages, you should probably cancel most of your appointments for the next couple of days. It's that readable.
To order:
Most bookstores will have this in their adult section. Look for the Velvet edition. If you can't find the book, you can fax 718-980-4262 in the United States, or try their e-mail address: MKPubServ@aol.com
A beautiful little catalogue is available upon request from the London address for Velvet Publications: 83 Clerkenwell Road, London EC1R 5AR England ($14.95 pb in U.S. funds, I don't know the s/h cost).
Last Gasp in San Francisco can mail-order you a copy of. You can fax them at 415-824-1836.
Enjoy!
"I'm Ready
For My Come Shot, Mr. DeMille!
By Dann Lennard
A friend showed me a celebrity porno flick the other day. The home-made video featured a well-known Australian who I shall refer to as Sister Of Superstar X.
As we sat and watched this bored looking woman masturbating and then being chonked by a bored-looking man, I found my mind wandering as I stifled a yawn and repeatedly hit the fast-forward button on the VCR. I thought to myself: "Why isn't this turning me on? Why am I not excited by the fact that I'm watching Sister Of Superstar X doing the horizontal rumba?"
My subconscious thought for a minute and then thwacked me on the side of the head with the answer:
"Because the video sucks, you fool!"
And of course he was right (my subconscious is very rarely wrong). Having seen my fair share of videos featuring famous fuckers, I can safely say that these guys don't know their video cameras from their arseholes. I don't know how many times I've held a sordid home video in my sweaty hands, popped the tape in the VCR and then spent the next 20 minutes bitching about the poor lighting, shoddy camera work, muffled sound and incoherent storyline.
But these glitches are minor compared to the big stuff-ups that ruin nearly all celebrity home pornos.
So if there are any celebs reading this article, who are thinking about filming their next bedroom rendezvous for posterity (and possible public humiliation at a later date), please take these following tips on board so your next fuck film won't be a complete embarrassment:
* No Missionary Position. It always seems that if a guy is about to shag a good-looking bird he has the camera set up on its tripod and zeroed in on the female's spread legs and crotch. Not a bad start. But then the idiot goes straight to the missionary position. Do we really want to see some bloke's pimply, hairy arse go up down up down? No. We want to see the girl, not you, pal. Put The Girl On Top, You Fuckwit!
* Don't Make A Video Under The Influence Of Drugs And/Or Alcohol. It's bad enough watching some geezer doing the mish, but watching him do it for 30 minutes, go soft hard soft hard soft and then come up with no money shot isn't just boring, it's Fucking Torture. See the Rob Lowe video for a graphic example of what I mean. To be brief, Just Say No.
* Use A Girl With Short Hair. Or, if that's unavoidable, invest in some hair clips so she can pin her tresses away from her face. The best scene in the Tonya Harding wedding night video should have been the blowjob. Except we couldn't see it because Tonya's hair kept falling over her hubby's widget. Aarrgh!
* Be Inventive In Your Dialogue. "Uhuhuhuh!" or "I'm off to do a line" just doesn't cut it any more in the world of celebrity home porno. Be original. Look at the video of my idol, Chuck Berry, for inspiration. "Smell my farts, baby" and "I'd kiss you, baby, but you smell like piss" may be grotesque but you can't deny their humour.
OK, celebs. You've been told. So go in those bedrooms, video camera in one hand, dick in the other and start making some decent flicks.I look forward to seeing the results. As do the rest of the world.
Is It Horny In Here Or Is It Just Me?
by Tammy Cole
I've ridden wild rides at Six Flags, been in earthquakes, belonged to an all lesbian brass band(and I was the only bisexual) and seen other thrilling things such as the halls of Power, those with too much Money, those with a limited Sex drive, and the Violence of War in the Persian Gulf and drive-by shootings in L.A. - and I even tried to sign up for a visit to the red planet - but I've never had my cookies crumbled by a video until Jim Enright (producer), Greg Steele and Brad Armstrong (directors) took a fresh, new and novel approach in a vid entitled Conquest. And for me, and many other members of the human rat race: A little too much ribald sex is just enough. Come my children and you shall hear, not of the midnight ride of Paul Revere, but of disgusting sex ever so dear.
Did you enjoy playing make believe when you were young? I bet you did. And you had the best time in your life, didn't you? I did and of all the ways I liked to dress up, to play, to pretend—the theme I liked best was the pirate one, sailing the seven seas on the lookout for enemy ships that we would do battle with, would loot and take the adversaries riches as the spoils of war. As in all fantasies, I was the heroine, the damsel in distress that had been taken kicking and screaming from the plantation that my grandfather's farm represented, and usually fell in love with my captor since he was so handsome and his cause was true and just.
There was a boy my age that really enjoyed playing make believe buccaneer, too. To really get into our make believe, there had to be the absolutely right clothing, something that inspired us to act out the role. I dressed him in shining black boots by wrapping black cloth over the blue jean clad calf of his legs, and fastening it there with some of the cloth. A rope was a beautiful sash in which he carried his gilt handled sword (usually a stick we broke off a tree) and a black eye patch completed the ensemble. A raft in the middle of the pond in the pasture was our ship with a "Jolly Roger" skull and crossbones flying high on the mast. The dog and chickens were our sometimes reluctant but loyal seamen. The cows and goats were "destroyers of the world as we knew it," that we did battle with.
I thought I gave all that up years ago, but I didn't, and you didn't either, did you? If you're like me you enjoy those make believe times and while I certainly don't call them that now as I'm a lot older, I still have those dreams. And it's a good thing the psychiatrists and psychologists say. We have to have somewhere we can go—inside our head, and from all the rushing about we do in our everyday lives.
There's an old saying that applies here I think: "The day is broken into twenty-four hours, or three equal parts. Eight hours for our usual work or occupation, eight hours for rest and relaxation, and eight hours to renew our spirit." What could be more relaxing and renewing than reading a good book, one in which the hero or heroine survive all kinds of adversity, righting a wrong done to them by some evil doer. Or going to see a movie or renting a video tape to watch during our time of relaxing and renewing our spirit. If you have cable they even have two channels we gals can watch: Love and Rom for romance. We females need a little romance in our lives. The guys need action, doing deeds that we admire in them, and a lot of the time we're fighting right alongside of them.
Books are written to satisfy these desires. I checked out the book and magazine section of the nearby Wal-Mart and in the section set aside for us gals I found the following titles: Tender Yearnings, Chase The Fire, Warrior Embrace, Passion's Thunder, Playing With Fire, Yankee Mistress, A Promise In The Wind, A Taste Of Wine, Confederate Caress, Rebel Mine.
I'm sure you aren't anymore surprised than I was to find that the authors were catering to our desire to live in their books our long ago "work-play." We worked really hard at our playing, didn't we?
Movies are no different. Remember Demi Moore in Striptease? She became a stripper to make enough money to keep her child. What could be more dutiful and loving than protecting our own flesh and blood. She had a guy that helped her out in her quest, and as we became older and more knowledgeable we added sex to our play repertoire. Fucking now became the "hard work" of play and we added it to our deepest desires and fantasies.
Now along comes one of the finest porn videos I've ever seen, that fully displays all of these. You just have to see this one. Not only is it all the fruits of our yesteryear, it has the action just like we had back when we "worked" so hard to make everything turn out just right. It has more sex packed into two hours than we could have dreamed of in two years, and some of the most beautiful ladies porn has to offer—and I've seen more than my share of them.
First we have the enchanting Jenna Jameson as "Rachel" in all her golden tressed 38-26-37 bodaciousness. Pamela Anderson-Lee ain't got a thing that Jenna ain't got—in spades. Supported obligingly by her close, very, very close handmaiden and girl Friday, Shayla LaVeaux never waits until Friday to tease and taste the succulent Jenna. Then we have Vince Vouyer as "Captain Blackheart," and "Prince Charles" played by Lee Garland.
This is a major effort by porn producers, and borders on the epics of Cecil B. DeMille. One particular detail we often overlook in porn is the aural. The musical background can make or break a movie. In Conquest, Greg Steele, D. C. Sharo and Dino Ninn left no stone unturned or ear uncovered. You have orchestration that any Hollywood movie company would die for. And I can't say enough about the camera work, especially the close-ups. "Man, you've got pussy in yo face," says I. Elaborate and expensive shipboard settings. Oh, yes. We've even got a real ship in this one. I could spend all day describing the details of this video, but then we'd miss all of them hunks screwing the beautiful ladies, wouldn't we?
Here's the skeeter on this vid. It's every dream you ever dreamed about the buccaneers of yesteryear. Seems Prince Charles intends to hang by the neck all of those who oppose his regime, and "Blackheart" takes that as a personal threat—so he and you and I set out to get this dude's head screwed on straight. So what if we do a little fucking and sucking on the side. That's life, baby! Don't knock it.
As our story unfolds, "Blackheart" and his merry men crash the necktie party of one of his mates, and spirit him away. Jenna and Shayla jump on ship, as opposed to "jumping ship." Disguised as "boys," they check out the captain's cabin and find it suitable for a lot of lesbian love, while Juli Ashton is putting on a demonstration of how to conduct an orgy on the beach, taking on a gaggle of goosing pirates in her mouth, cunt and ass. And a very fine ass, I must admit. She makes noises like a hungry tiger tearing into a steak, while gobbling cock, snapping her pussy and ass over man meat.
While this transpires, Jenna and Shayla are "shrimping," something the toe suckers and foot lovers of the world will enjoy. Butt ballers and cocksucking fans find a lot to be thankful for also. These gals never let us down or allow us to get soft as they are constantly trying out new faces and places. One such idyllic location is a fine example of the South Pacific, with all the native pussy we can handle—and just one Asia Carrera can handle a ship load of sailors with no problem whatsoever. What do we do with a dozen lovlies like her? Enjoy!
Prince Charles gets his come uppance as "Blackheart" and Jenna (the daughter, we discover, of the notorious "Black Thatch," privateer extraordinaire) take on his champion, "William James," and skewer his ass with matching rapiers.
As in all our magnificent encounters with ne'er do wells, in the hubbub of fighting, Prince Charles escapes, and takes refuge on our island paradise, taking the natives into bondage. Something we take strong exception to. We finally meet face to face, or in the case of Jenna, tit to tattered duds, and as always, good triumphs over evil.
This is one you don't want to miss, even if it's just to relive your childhood dreams that have finally come to life.
One Man Spree
by Larry Oberc
I decided to gamble on World Sex Tours Volume 9 (the other eight volumes were checked out of the video store) and I got, in theory, a run down on the girls of Prague. While you get the usual tourist view of the city, I quickly realized this video could have been filmed anywhere in the world, including a high rise in Chicago, using girls with accents and an apparent clear understanding of body language and English. There was a lot of anal, the girls were, for the most part, very pretty. I felt somewhat abandoned by the lack of shyness after watching Japanese porn tapes, but I put myself into the scenes, wondering why the same two guys continued to reappear in scene after scene.
The problem with thinking you're a stud is often time you aren't, and no matter how much you like to look at yourself fucking, it gets repetitive. Especially when it's Americans doing the fucking. If these girls had been left in charge, instead of being directed, I'm sure they would have come up with things most Americans would have loved to watch. But instead, we get the usual shit, the routines pornographers think their audience wants, instead of turning loose the girls to push things in directions that would have been much more entertaining.
Sex Tours Of The Philippines was a huge rip off. There were twenty minutes of ads for other videos preceding the tourist crap, and I was reminded of my walks along the shorelines of industrial cities when I saw the factories, and the pollution that drifted across Manila. There wasn't anything sexually suggestive in the tour guide sequence, and it felt like I was looking at military news footage of a city in siege, rather than a place I'd want to visit on vacation.
After watching a depressing poverty stricken city held at bay, I was led to what was obviously an upscale hotel, and informed about call girls and prices given in pounds. I then got to watch a prostitute, who arrived with a tacky heart shaped purse, go through what had to be a standard sexual interaction, which looked more like a routine than an exotic experience. Then, suddenly, the scene was over, and I was given the same twenty minutes of ads that started off the tape.
Thinking about the video later, I realized that there might be a reason for the lack of scenes in Manila: people might have been scared to make a porn film there, fearing the possible military repercussions.
Big Babies In Budapest was actually exciting. There were several attractive girls who weren't inhibited by anal, and I fell in love with a redhead who actually had acting skills. She later proved she was truly a professional, doing a brief anal climax, but she looked like the kind of girl you'd ask out on a date, who would politely turn you down, telling you she liked you as a a friend, but not in "that way." The only problem that emerged was that the same two guys who showed up in Prague had to make a reappearance here, trying to look suave and slick and experienced.
Lil' Latin Cutie Pies is what happens when a middle aged guy with a pot belly, and a macho fat stud get a little extra money for hookers, and live a little too close to Tiajuana. It was pure amateurish crap, and the girls looked bored and restless as these two guys talked shit in feeble attempts to create interesting scenarios. The girls had a seasoned professional attitude about the action, fucking these two ugly dudes for the money, rather than any inherent pleasure. But watching hookers screw a fat man and a middle aged pot bellied wannabe stud was not a lot of fun.
Exotica Erotica Volumes 1, 2, and 4 were really a treat. You got a lot of amateurs, and I stared at my TV set in awe at many of them, wondering why they were in porn flicks at all. They were often very pretty, and although I hated to watch the camera man (who looked a lot like me, with a beergut and a very ordinary penis) "warm" the girls up, the main actor bothered me even more.
Although he had a large penis, it had a strange curve in the middle of it making it look like it had been cracked in half by an ax, and while it was, for the most part, utilized, I was constantly wondering what had damaged that guy's dick, rather than watching it slide in and out of a girl's vagina. There were a lot of attractive girls, though, and if you overlooked the goofy amateurish elements, and that broken penis, you got to watch what I consider some of the better elements of porn at their best.
When I put Asian Whores Volume 2 in the VCR, I knew there was going to be a hell of a lot of difference between the shyness of the girls in Japanese porn and the blatant sexuality of the Bangkok girls. Not many Americans are aware that Asians categorize each other in ways we aren't familiar with. My wife explained the acronym ABC to me one afternoon, in between bitching about me opening up a beer in the middle of the day, and the usual mess I make of the apartment on my days off.
American Born Chinese are often more American than we would like to think, having shared a culture that is all too well communicated on TV. We think that because they look Asian, they act Asian, but there is a hell of a difference that is readily apparent to Asians, but not most Americans. Which is why I hesitated when I saw a six hour porn tape on Asian whores.
I knew that these had to be American born girls, and that they had more in common with strippers and street corner prostitutes than the shyness one often encounters in "real" Asian porn. I was correct in my assumption for several reasons. In Asian porn the girls are often young, shy, and passionate creatures. In American porn we get professionals, and I swear you'd only get lesbian scenes from American girls. Lesbianism is truly rare in Asian porn, where extremes are shitting and tampons, rather than two girls licking each other's cunts.
Anyway, that's it for this year's spree. In three days my wife returns from Taiwan with her mother, whom I've never met, and I've got to clean up the house. I thought about renting out some videos for my mother in law, but I know my wife would frown, as they'd either be blood filled horror flicks, or porn.
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Coming Next Month
to Your Local Newsletter
Vern Frazer's Tales
of a One Handed Stud,
Lisa B. Falour's Back Pages,
Tammy Cole on Bad Wives, Nina Hartley Interview, Richard Freeman on
Boogie Nights and
Kelly Nichols Filmography
And that's
Just For Starters!
See You In February!