Something has always bothered me about pornography and the
little voices in my head just won’t let it go.
I don’t hold value judgments on porn, nor on the people who
watch it. I don’t necessarily think it’s
good or bad; positions and actions in porn films fall into three categories: “I
do that,” “I don’t do that,” and “I have no earthly idea what that is.” Like any red-blooded American male, I spent a
majority of my teenage years and early adulthood fixated on porn as it related
to the human body. (How else are you
supposed to learn without a partner?)
There’s a quiet respect for porn actors. There are those of us who would never perform
in such a film, and there are those of who couldn’t
perform in such a film. (In the interest
of full disclosure, I am one of the latter.
The ability to handle pressure isn’t a dominant trait in my genetic
line.) But I get it. There are people who feel that acting in porn
is their one shot at a more lucrative career (right, Traci Lords?), and there
are those that are simply gifted enough to be drafted into the business (right,
Jeff Stryker?). The abilities necessary
to be a good porn actor are few, but they have to be free of psychosomatic
interference.
But as I said, there is something that has always gotten to
me about porn. Yes, I understand that
it’s not real. And yes, I know it’s
supposed to represent something akin to a fantasy. What you see in pornographic films doesn’t happen: the pool man doesn’t
decide to remove his jean shorts on a hot day.
The delivery man with the big package (groan) won’t come into the house
and get something down off a high shelf for you. And the cheer leading team holding a car wash
won’t get bored as a group and decide a gang-bang is in order with the captain
of the football team, who has just happened by in his truck.
What bothers me about porn, fantasy or not, is that it’s
supposed to mirror real-life situations in as similar a manner as possible
(without the power sex). Now I’ll admit
I’ve watched a lot more guy-on-guy porn than straight porn, but how come – here
it comes – the male leads never wear underwear?
I honestly can’t believe there are that many guys who go
commando in that many situations. And
from what I’ve seen from both well-acted and bad-acted porn alike, 99% of these
actors are completely buck in their pants.
Randy Blue actors seem to be exception.
They always have their undershorts on in order to increase the length of
the scene (unless it’s just one guy servicing himself, and even then, it’s a
toss-up). But you never see that in
older films – the actors are reading their lines from the dry-erase board
off-camera (and in some cases, off their hands), their pants come off, and next
thing you know, you’re 48 seconds into a scene and it looks like a laundry
hamper threw up.
I actually happened upon an old, forgotten porn tape the
other day, a rogue that had been tossed into a box for transport during a move
and promptly misplaced. When I found it,
I smiled … old memories die hard. For
old time’s sake, I popped it into the VCR and immediately found myself in Bad
Acting Heaven. The “plot” (a word that
rarely applies to porn) of The Coach's Boys deals with a coach and his various athletes in
different scenes – you have the ubiquitous shower scene, the guys getting
together to complain about what a d*** the coach is, etc. We get eight seconds of dialogue and then the
pants and the football uniforms come off, and we have a free-for-all with the
towel guy.
But there’s no underwear.
Like I said, it doesn’t follow that so many guys would go
commando, and I doubt that even the coach would. “Artistic license” notwithstanding, it seems
to me that this is a pretty important detail, especially since these are adult
males playing “younger” roles. (“Gee,
Coach … don’t take me out of the game ‘cause I’m flunking geometry.”) Please.
If porn is really the fantasy we’re expecting, there would at least be
boxers … and for the sake of porn and subject of underwear, that’s saying a lot
for me as boxers would always be my last choice.
This brings me back to the Randy Blue videos I’ve seen. There may be a subtle difference with how all
this material is marketed. We’re talking
VCR vs. Internet, after all. The acting is a bit better, but I think we
can all agree that porn stars aren’t hired for their ability to recite
Shakespeare or the fact that they’ve worked summer stock for the past three
years. Uh-uh. It’s because they can …
perform … on demand. (Chris Rockway,
bless him, even had a scene where his partner for the day didn’t show up, so
what did he do? “What about the new
camera guy? He’s hot.” I’m pretty sure it was actually scripted that
way, but every time I watch it, the look on the new camera guy’s face seems to
suggest it wasn’t.)
It’s a little thing, I know, and you’re probably wondering
why I’m so fixated on it. I’m not really
sure. The only thing I can equate it
with is that small list of pet peeves we all have – mindless stuff that drives
us mad only because it’s something we can’t really change. For example, I label individual pairs of
underwear with the name of the donor (drives Tom crazy, especially if I throw
out, “These were from that stripper I met in New Orleans,”); Tom has a habit of
leaving used toothpicks on flat surfaces where our cats can get at them. They always end up on the floor ready for
bare feet to step on them. Or, perhaps
more to topic: like those advertising boards where companies use an inverted “3” for an “E,” or the “S” is upside-down and it looks funky. You know it’s not right, it drives you crazy
… but you can’t change it.
Short of doing an underwear drive, I can’t clothe every male
porn star in Los Angeles. But then
again, just imagine how popular I would be if I did, and not necessarily in a
positive way – I can’t imagine that the police officer writing up the report
would be very sympathetic. But still, I
could fix that whole “Where’d your underwear go?” problem and address some of
my obsessive/compulsive disorder at the same time, which isn’t necessarily be a
bad thing, right?
Instead of working with hobos and passing out sandwiches, I
could rub elbows with some of the nation’s sexual elite (“Would you like a pair
of underwear? How about you? Underwear?
I’ve got Calvins, Unico and Joe Boxer.”) and then none of those nagging
voices would bother me again. (Then again, Benjamin Bradley, the tattooed actor pictured below with his scene partner Rom, doesn't seem to be troubled by his lack of underwear or tiny voices asking where his undershorts are, so if he can muddle through, why can't I?)
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