In about 15 minutes we’re all piling into the car – daughters, dogs, the whole gang – and taking Peggy into the city to catch a plane to the Good for Her Feminist Porn Awards in Toronto.

That will leave me to take care of the kids, the dogs, the house, which is fine with me. What’s not fine with me is not sleeping next to my wife for the next couple of nights, not getting to see and touch her bare body. When we’re apart, I miss her terribly.

But it’s for a good cause, right? I shall find a way to endure.

Okay, a bit of an over statement to make an eye-catching headline. The truth is right now DAMON AND HUNTER: DOING IT TOGETHER is ranked #2 in Amazon’s Gay & Lesbian Documentary DVD category, right behind THE CELULOID CLOSET.

Not quite the same as #2 on all of Amazon, but still pretty fuggin cool!

In contrast to the e-mail battle to get DAMON & HUNTER listed with the grown-up movies (as opposed to “adult” movies,) the rest of our filmography has appeared on IMDb sans drama.

It’s now possible for a casual IMDb visitor to look up both Xana & Dax and Matt & Khym, no having to log in, no having the secret “show me adult results” box checked. Whether or not this has something to do with the fact that Xana & Dax and Matt & Khym are straight couples, or it’s merely a matter of having worn the IMDb editors down with the Damon & Hunter episode, I don’t know.

I do know that sometimes fretting about this sort of thing seems like a lot of fuss over nothing, a distraction from the business of making my movies. Now that Ashley & Kisha is finished, I’ve got the backlog wittled down to four unfinished films. Maybe time would be better spend in the edit bay then worrying about IMDb listings and similar.

But in the last week I’ve had three different experiences that have reminded me why things like IMDb and Google, and how the hardware, software, and wetware resources at those, and other organization interpret sex, expecially sex words, matters.

* Yesterday I received e-mail from Good For Her announcing the awards event next month that Peggy is going to. In the subject line porn was spelled “P*rn”.

* A couple of days ago I got a note from Em & Lo, sex columnists at New York Magazine and elsewhere. In the subject line and throughout the body copy, sex was spelled “s*x”.

* Last week I sent a note to journalist Mark Glaser, with a link to a post on my blog. Mark wrote back to tell me that he couldn’t access my blog from his workplace.

No one has benefited more from the digitization of culture than I have. I have a comfortable life, living in a wonderful place, doing work I’m passionate about, all largely because of the opportunities this brave new digital world has provided me. But the same technology that makes it easy for information to fly around the globe also makes it easy to prevent people from receiving information, often without anyone even being aware that the information they have access to has been censored filtered.

For example, when I spoke to a representative at St. Bernard Software (conjures up an image of a benevolent protector, doen’t it?) the people who provide censoring filtering software to Mark’s workplace, he told me the default setting for their software is what they feel would be appropriate for a eight year old child.

A eight year old child? I was incredulous. What was internet filtering software like that doing on the corporate network of a journalism organization? The St. Bernard fellow explained that they sell to a lot of schools and libraries, so the defaults are set cautiously, and that network administrators can fine-tune the filtering to suit the needs of their workplace.

Well maybe that works in theory, but the fact everyone is busy, and St. Bernard’s sale force sells their software as a “turn-key” solution, “Just install it and our human-edited list of no-go sites will keep your kids safe, your employees hard at work, your workplace lawsuit free…” (I’m not speculating here. I spoke to the IT department at Mark’s workplace. “We’re not doing anything special here. Just running St. Bernard with the normal settings.”)

I’m both a parent and a businessman, I’m not unsympathetic to these concerns. But as parent and a businessman I have concerns of my own. The St. Bernard fellow told me they also sell their software to a lot of colleges and universities, and because their database classifies ComstockFilms.com as pornographic site, there’s a good chance that access to our website is blocked on campuses running St. Bernard software.

College students aren’t a very important part of our market (they don’t have any money), so I’m not particularly concerned about that (though that’s not the sort of university experience I want my daughters to have.) But I do sometime imagine an art or film studies professor going to look us up and not being able to access our site.

I also feel concerned about the prejudicial effect that being categorized and filtered in this way can have on our work, and our business. Amazon.com sells Shortbus, but they do not sell “pornography”. The BBFC gave Destricted an R rating, but “pornography” gets an R18. The catagorization of our films, at IMDb, and at St. Bernard, at the BBFC and elsewhere have a profound effect on who can see our work, where our films can be shown, and who can/will sell our DVDs. And in an increasingly wired world, the flick of a switch can send us or anyone else off into digital purgatory. (That’s how you get s*x and p*rn.)

So I’m relieved that Xana and Dax and Matt and Khym are listed with the grown-up movies on IMDb, out in the real world, with films like In the Realm of the Senses, Shortbus, and Pink Flamigos. If you’re registered at IMDb and wanted to go over and throw a few stars our way, that couldn’t hurt. They’re easy to find – just use the search function.

Andrea Dworkin

Morning coffee. Google alerts. Technoroti pings. Who’s saying what where about Comstock Films? I hope it’s good.

Well this morning Ms. Naughty is writing about the Feminist Porn Awards that Peggy will be going to next weekend. This catches my eye:

“…an x-rated celebration of the next generation of feminista porn.”

Sandinista, fashionista, feminista; there’s an evolution for you. Let’s put it into google, which a few clicks later gets you to Lucky Nickel’s essay “On Sex Positiveness”:

“Sex-Positive? A new buzz word to start off the millenium? Hardly. It’s nothing more than the same old, same old. Patriarchally constructed gender roles and sexual exploitation of women wrapped up in cleverly disguised new packaging (which isn’t even new), in order to maintain the status quo of male dominance which is designed to further enhance their sexual freedoms and obfuscate their violence towards women.”

I don’t have that much to say about Ms. Nickel’s essay. Whereever one might stand on women’s rights and gender equality, her arguments will be familiar, and whereever one might stand, she’s offered plenty to get your hackles up.

Which brings me back to the title of this post, “What do Pornography and Feminism Have in Common?” Sort of a post-modern zen kōan, isn’t it? Zen kōan. Let’s put “Zen kōan” in google:

“Zen teachers and practitioners insist that the meaning of a kōan can only be demonstrated in a live experience. Texts (including kōan collections and encyclopedia articles) cannot convey that meaning. Yet the Zen tradition has produced a great deal of literature, including thousands of kōans and at least dozens of volumes of commentary. Nevertheless, teachers have long alerted students to the danger of confusing the interpretation of a kōan with the realization of a kōan. When teachers say “do not confuse the pointing finger with the moon”, they indicate that awakening is the standard — not ability to interpret.”

“Do not confuse the pointing finger with the moon.” Hmmm. Sounds like kōan for pornographers and feminists both.

I endeavor to avoid writing about politics on this blog, except when politics intersect with sex. I avoid politics because I don’t want how I feel about deficit spending, or gun control, or NAFTA or other rancorous issues to become entangled in how people understand my films. So much at I might be tempted to vent, I don’t. Not usually.

Some background.

Peggy and I have two children, two daughters, one seven and a half, the other not yet two. Before I became a parent, the guiding star for my work was that I did not want to do anything I would be embarrassed or ashamed to show to my mother. After I became a parent I stopped looking back and started looking forward. My daughter became my new star, and my new guidance was that I did not want to do anything that I would be embarrassed or ashamed to explain, when the time came, to my daughter. What we tell our older daughter about our work is calibrated to what she knows about sex.

She knows about reproduction, and is fascinated by the workings of genetics (I am a recessive blue dark-eyed person, Peggy has fair eyes. There have been many discussions Mendelian principals.) She knows the proper names of her sex organs so far as she’s asked, which is to say that she knows her vagina is different from her vulva. She knows the name of my sex organs too. She knows that her mother’s body is different from hers, and that when she is older, she will get breasts and pubic hair, and her body will change from being a straight-sided child’s body to a more or less curvy woman’s body. She knows about menstruation.

I also know that she knows that people who love each other enjoy being close to each other, and I think she understands that although there are many similarities in the way that she snuggles with me or her mother, there is also something different in the way that Peggy and I snuggle, that it means something different when mommy and daddy snuggle. She knows about eggs and sperm, and how babies grow in their mother’s tummies. She knows that babies emerge from their mothers’ vaginas. She has yet to ask just how the sperm gets into mommy’s tummy. When that day comes, I’m not sure what I’m going to tell her, except that whatever it is, it is going to be the truth.

Against this understanding of her knowledge, we tell her that we make films about the good feeling that it gives people to be close to someone they love, and the good feeling it gives people to hear stories about that good feeling and see people who are in love.

Back to politics.

A couple of months ago, on the way to drop my daughter off at school, she asked me about the war in Iraq. I did my best to explain in simple, objective facts, without betraying my own bias. I thought I was doing pretty well until she asked me, “Who started it?”

I felt myself freeze for a moment, then I said, “We did, honey.”

“We did?” bewilderment running across her face. “Why?”

We had arrived at school and I was let off the hook. “If you want, we can talk about this some more after school,” and politics did not come up again, until last night. Last night our daughter asked me why people are saying we torture people.

“Why are people saying we torture people?” How do you answer that question? How do you calibrate your answer against what you think your child knows about stress positions and water-boarding and the Geneva Convention and the blast radius of a suitcase nuke? After a bit of hesitation, I told her, as simply and gently as I could, what I believe to be the truth.

There is a lot of worrying in our country about what happens if children are exposed to sexual ideas or sexual imagery before they are ready to understand it. I think these concerns have merit, but I also think part of my responsibility as a parent is to give my children the knowledge they need to, as best they can, understand and incorporate sexuality as a part of the human experience and as a part of their own experience. To my mind, this is the best prophylactic against their inappropriate exposure to sex, and to mitigate whatever ill effects it might have. It’s hard to know if you’re doing too much, or not doing enough, but Peggy and I bumble along as best we can.

But as ill prepared as I might feel about being my daughter’s guide on her journey from a child’s understanding and experience of sex to that of an adult, I am far far less prepared to be her guide in a world where her own government subjects prisoners to water-boarding and other “enhanced interrogation techniques.” When I was her age, I was indoctrinated in the idea that we simply didn’t do things like this in America, and that’s what made us different and better than our mortal adversary, the Soviet Union. I was taught this difference was something worth making sacrifices for, worth killing for, even worth dying for if need be. I was indoctrinated in these ideals and I still believe in them. I don’t know how to explain torture to my daughter without becoming confused and angry. Compared to explaining torture, explaining why mommy and daddy make dirty movies seems like a walk in the park.

Perhaps some of you think I’m naive, and perhaps you even disagree with me. If so, I hope you will chalk it up to the same idealism that has sustained our efforts to make our films, and excuse this outburst as the ranting of an overwrought parent who only wants the best for his children, and wants them to grow up in a country that is regarded throughtout the world as a place that is different and special.

Torture, as defined in the US Legal Code

Verschärfte Vernehmung (Enhanced Interrogation)

Violet told me about this a couple of weeks ago, and I hinted at it in our last newsletter. But I guess now that it’s posted on the TinyNibbles.com website it’s official – Comstock Films is getting the Oprah Winfrey seal of approval. Says Violet in her O Magazine article:

“Comstock Films’ Xana and Dax and Marie and Jack — insanely high quality production documentary style videos about couples deeply in love, who talk about how they met, and sex, and then show us all how they make love to each other. Shot on film, thigh-clenching chemistry between people who are sexy as hell and really love each other.”

Insaneley! Deeply! Thigh-clenching chemistry! I am insanely, deeply, thigh-clenchingly excited!

I am also wondering what the hell is happening. If we’re living in a world where Violet Blue is giving Oprah Winfrey advice on what to rent so she can heat things up a stay home date with Steadman, or enjoy a nice gushy afternoon wank with herself, can cold fusion be far behind?

I’m also thinking that porn (or erotica or adult films or whatever the fuck you want to call them) has officially run out of excuses for being lame, and that includes me. The bar has been raised on what’s possible, and crybaby excuses (including my own) aren’t going to cut it anymore. Thanks to Violet, the door is open (more like kicked clean off its hinges!) Who’s going to have the gumption to walk through it? Here are a few candidates:

Tina Tyler

Tristan Taormino

Audacia Ray

Maria Beatty

Now I can already hear the Chatsworth old-guard, “Well O is a chick magazine and those are all chick directors.” True enough. But riddle me this, Batman: when was the last time Esquire, or Maxim, or even Playboy called out four male porn directors in one issue?

Feel free to answer (if you can) in the comments below. I’m not going to hold my breath.

(BTW, watching movie The Color Purple is a major plot point in our newest film Ashley & Kisha. I love these sorts of coincidences!)

(Little Tony and his uncle, 1968)

I don’t remember what made me think of it last month, but the occasion of Jerry Falwell’s death seems like a good day to finish telling this story.

It was about this time of year, 15 years ago. I had purchased my first new car, a 1992 Honda Civic, which I proudly drove from Eugene, OR to Seattle WA to meet my uncle, who was there as a part of a Fortune magazine business event. There was a fancy-dress dinner, and I wore the same tuxedo that I later got married in, and just wore to the GayVN awards. I met General Schwartcoff and Steve Jobs and some other fancy people. It was nifty. But the niftiest thing about it was that I got to see my uncle, with whom I have had the closest and most wonderful relationship a nephew could ever have with an uncle.

Maybe it’s because my uncle is gay and has no children of his own. Maybe it’s because my uncle adores his younger sister, my mother, and I am the benefactor of that overflowing love. Maybe it’s simply because I am lovable and my uncle is loving, but whatever the reason, my uncle’s care and concern, his belief in me, his wanting only the best things for me has flowed through my life like a magic elixer. Being my uncle’s nephew opened doors for me, of opportunity and imagination, and I love him dearly.

Just returned from this trip, I found myself at the Valley River Center mall with my girlfriend and roommate. I needed a shirt for work or something silly that I can’t remember. What I do remember is that near the main entrance to the mall, the Oregon Citizen’s Alliance had a table set up where they were collecting signatures for Ballot Measure Nine. Still luxuriating in warmth of my recent visit with my uncle, I found myself especially annoyed to see them. I hatched a plan.

Most people do not like rancor. They just want to go about their business and be left alone. I theorized that if I went over to the OCA table and began to talk with the two fellows manning the table, our discussion, even if conducted in polite tones, couldn’t help but put off a rancorous vibe that would discourage others from approaching the table, and the fewer people who visited the table the fewer signatures the OCA would be able to collect. Right there and then, I resolved to spend the rest of the day at the OCA table.

You’ve met these guys before, I know you have. They say they’re disgusted by the idea of gay sex, but when they talk about they wrap their mouths around the words in the most salacious manner imaginable. It was hard to keep a straight face, and as one of them became more and more combative and insulting about “the vile things homosexual do” it was hard to keep a civil tone. But I did. For my plan to work, I had to stay in the mall, and to stay in the mall I had to make sure not to do anything disruptive.

Finally the less agitated of the two fellows says that if I don’t leave their table he’s going to call the mall cops, and I tell him that as long as he’s going to be here in the mall expressing his political point of view, I’m going to be here expressing my point view too, lively exchange of ideas, and all that. Well Mr. Nothing-turns-me-on-as-much-as-talking-about-how-disgusting-sodomy-is is ready to party, but his more level headed buddy is on to me. He disappears for a couple minutes, and when he comes back he’s got two mall cops with him. You’ve met them too. Cop mustaches, but 40 pounds to heavy to make the force.

“Will you leave?”

“No I will not. I will not leave until they leave,” I say, gesturing at the OCA guys.

“If you do not leave, we will trespass you.”

“I will not leave.”

Then I got trespassed.

I know, you’re not suppose to the verb “to trespass” that way, but these guys were mall cops, and they’ve their own lingo, and what they meant by trespassing me was more of an Our Father “trespass against me” sort of thing. They came at me. I made a snap decision that brawling was not likely to be effective as either personal defense or a political statement. They knocked me to the ground. There was a knee in my back and a boot on my neck (you really haven’t lived until you’ve had an actual boot on your actual neck.) One of them was trying to cuff me, and was bending my arm in a way that it doesn’t go, yelling “Give it up dude! Give it up!” Finally they got the ergonomics of getting my hands behind my back sorted out and got me cuffed. Then each of got an arm and they dragged me out of the mall. (The toes of the shoes I had bought a few months earlier, in the Nordstrom’s in that very same mall got scuffed.) Once outside they stood me up and walked me to some secret mall jail.

Now I’m not one to judge a book by its cover, or at least I’m not one to admit it out loud, but when they got me to mall jail, they sat me down in this chair directly across from the dykiest woman you can imagine. I don’t mean that in any sort of an insulting way. I’m just saying that everything about the way this women looked, the way her hair was cut, the way her mall cop uniform fit, everything fairly well screamed “I am a lesbian.” And I guess she knows why I’ve been hauled in, because there’s this eye contact between us that is something along the lines of, “Can you believe this shit?” mixed with “I’m just doing my job,” and “I know, you’re just doing your job.”

I’m not really how long I was there, but it was long enough to get tired and slump into that head between your knees, hands handcuffed behind your back pose that you see when they make movies about people getting arrested for no good reason. After a while the real cops came and a pow wow with the two mall cops who knocked me down and handcuffed me. I can’t hear them, but I see them and I can tell by the affect of the real cops that they’re in no mood to take me to real jail. The mall cops seem agitated, maybe they’re still pissed that I was “resisting arrest” (Are you questioning my authority!?!)

Anyway, the mall cops and the real cops hash it out for a while until one of the real cops comes over and asks whether or not I’ll agree to leave and not come back for six months. As it happens, I was just days away from leaving Eugene to find a place far enough away to not compete with my mentor and open my own studio (that must have been why I was clothes shopping,) so it’s an easy choice.

The real police walk me outside and sort of to my surprise, my girlfriend and roommate are waiting patiently, and even they’re even proud of me. Later that evening we go out to dinner. Someone in the restaurant, I still don’t know who, picks up the check. A few days later I called my uncle and told him the story, and he told me he was proud of me too.

I turns out that at the same time I was having my little adventure, there were some interesting court cases trying to figure out what can and can’t get you kicked out of a mall. Stealing will definitely get you kicked out. Wearing a “Dick Channey is a War Criminal” t-shirt might get you kicked out in some places (but probably not Eugene), but you’d probably have a case if you decided sue.

Politely disrupting someone’s mall-sanctioned policitical activities? Well I don’t know if that ever got settled. Mostly what happened is malls stopped giving anyone permission to do anything in the mail except spend money. There’s a lesson in that, or at least I think there is, even if I don’t know quite what it is.

Is there anything more embarrassing than writing about yourself in the third person? Yes there is. Writing a narrative of your accomplishments in the third person. Peggy’s away for a couple of days, which means I have no proof reader. Help!

DIRECTOR’S BIOGRAPHY

Tony Comstock began exploring his ideas for a new approach to erotic cinema in the mid-nineties. Working with his wife Peggy, the two began shooting unreleased studies with friends and acquaintances to work through both technical and creative questions about how love-making could be captured in a way that was realistic, arousing, and cinematic.

The resulting short films were promising enough that in the Summer of 2001, Comstock directed his first film intended for commercial release, “Marie and Jack: A Hardcore Love Story.” Finished in late 2001, “Marie & Jack” received an indifferent welcome on the film festival circuit, and was rejected from every festival it officially entered in 2002. But it was invited to two festivals devoted to erotic and sexuality themed films, where “Marie & Jack” received an enthusiastic response from both audiences and judges.

Convinced this enthusiasm was evidence there was an audience for his work, Comstock spend 2003 marketing the film directly to independent video stores and book stores. At first the reception was cautious. While store owners and buyers were personally enthusiastic about “Marie & Jack”, they were unsure there was a market for a documentary-style short erotic film, especially when majority of the 28 minute running time was taken up by a talking-head interview. But in the Fall of 2003, San Francisco sex writer and educator Violet Blue named “Marie and Jack” to her Top Five Erotic Films of 2003, and by the end of the year, the commercial response was strong enough that pre-production was begun on a second film.

“Xana and Dax: When Opposites Attract” was shot in January of 2004, but a seemingly small cinemotography decision delayed its release until Spring of the following year. In the hopes of achieving a more cinematic look, Tony chose to shoot “Xana & Dax” in a 30fps progressive format, rather than the 30fps interlaced format used on “Marie and Jack”. The full ramifications of this choice did not become apparent until editing, when he realized the cadence and motion signature of the progressive format was completely different from either the traditional video or film, and his natural instincts on how to cut the film were all wrong. But after more than year of on again/off again struggle, “Xana & Dax” was release in the Spring of 2005, and has gone on to become Comstock Films highest grossing film to date.

2005 also saw new production. Not completely satisfied with either 30p or 30i video, Comstock worked with his long-time cinematographer Kiko Martin on a hybrid approach for these next films; shooting Super16 for the lovemaking portions, where exposure latitude was crucial; and 24fps progressive video for the interviews, where lighting could be more precisely controlled. Working closely with New York’s Magna Sound, he also developed a pulldown-free telecine process for the transfer of these productions’ film footage into the digital editing environment. This allowed Comstock to integrate both the loving-making footage and interview footage in a native 24fps post-production environment, rather than the industry-standard witch’s brew of field interlace and interframes usually needed to accommodate mixed media production.

The first of these productions, “Damon and Hunter: Doing it Together” was released in the Spring of 2006. That Summer it was invited to screen in the Melbourne Underground Film Festival, where it was named Best Documentary. From there the film was scheduled for two showings at Sydney’s QueerDOC Gay & Lesbian documentary film festival. But the film festival was unable to secure a waiver from the Australian Office of Film and Literature Classification (the OFLC objected to the explicit depictions of oral and anal intercourse and mutual mastubation,) and the screenings were ultimately cancelled. “Damon and Hunter” returned to New York for its home town premiere at the 2006 CineKink Film Festival, and finished the year by being named to several Best of 2006 lists, and receiving a GayVN Award nomination in the Best Alternative Release category along side the documentaries “Gay Sex in the 70s” and “That Man Peter Berlin.”

January of 2007 saw the release of “Matt and Khym: Better than Ever”, featuring a couple together nearly 20 years. Post-production work on the upcoming “Ashley & Kisha” distracted Tony and Peggy from the festival submission process, but even with no festival exposure, in a few short month “Matt & Khym” became Comstock Films’ fastest selling title to date.

And “Marie & Jack” the too short, too talky, too tender film that everybody loved, but nobody thought would sell? It’s in it’s fifth pressing, and available everywhere from Good Vibrations to Blockbuster Video.

“Ashley and Kisha: Finding The Right Fit” is the fifth installment in this ongoing exploration into love and sex and cinema, another declaration that sexual pleasure is a wholesome, joyous, and necessary part of love; and that the camera has no magical power to transmogrify it into anything less. Asked why he continues to devote his energies to the marginalized and marginalizing subject of sexual pleasure, Comstock borrows from Kisha’s testimony in his latest film:

“It needs no explanation,” says Comstock. “You watch these films. You tell me why not.”

I just got e-mail from our replication broker that the master and artwork files were received in good order. If all goes well, Ashley & Kisha should be on the truck by the end of next week.

With A&K done, this is the first time since the Spring of 2002 that I have not had a production breathing down my neck, the last few days have been the first few days spent thinking about how to promote Ashley & Kisha that I haven’t had lurking in the back of my mind that I have a movie I need to be working on. It feels strange and it feels unsettling, but it also feels good!

What I’m going to do with my new found freedom is lay seige to the film festival ciruit on behalf of Ashley & Kisha. The last time I did that was in 2002 with Marie & Jack, and it wasn’t very successful. Either the world wasn’t ready, or the film wasn’t good enough, or both, and Marie & Jack wasn’t accepted into a single festival I entered. (It did get invited into some festivals that year, and even picked up a few awards. Considering Marie & Jack has gone on to become a critically acclaimed best-seller, maybe it was that “world isn’t ready” thing.)

What ever the case, things have a little changed in the last five years. Porn may or may not be more mainstream than ever, but Comstock Films sure is, and the cinematic landscape has changed a little too.

Since 2001 (when Marie & Jack was shot) we’ve seen THE DREAMERS, 9 SONGS, SHORTBUS and even DESTRICTED, and while none of these films has really broken out of the arthouse world, they have (re)introduced the idea that sex has a place in the cinema. That sex – cunts, cocks, assholes, and jism – have a reality that is worthy of being “closely observed”, that there is something human, perhaps even uplifting in an orgasm.

The pleasure gap remains. The “intent to arouse” is still cited as the dividing line between “art” and “porn”, and a film made with the intent to arouse, and featuring explicit depictions of sexuality can still find itself on the wrong side of what I believe are wrong-headed ideas about sex.

But that same sort of film can also play at film festivals and win awards. Now days a film like that can get certified by the Motion Picture Association of America. Now days you can even buy a film like that a Amazon, or Barnes & Noble, or even Blockbuster.

So I’m going to campaign the festival circuit and see if we can’t get a little of the right kind of attention for Ashley & Kisha, and part of what that means is a Director’s Statement. But as much as I like blabbering here, where I feel like I’m talking to my friends, that sort of “judge this film by my words, not by what you see on the screen” thing that director’s statements so often seem to be is just the sort of thing that gives me writer’s block.

But I got a little help from Kisha, and fought my way through, and I’ll be damned if it doesn’t sound half bad.

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT“Why am I this way? It needs no explanation. You saw the movie. You tell me why not.” – Kisha, from “Ashley and Kisha: Finding The Right Fit”

MATT AND KHYM: BETTER THAN EVER is listed on IMDb, and surprise surprise, it’s out in the “real world”, with films like LAST TANGO IN PARIS, PINK FLAMINGOS, and SCHOOL HOLIDAY 10: TEENAGE SPERM ORGIE. No frustrated blog posting, no angry letters to IMDb.

Does this have something to do with the fact that Matt and Khym are a nice married couple and Damon and Hunter are just a couple of dirty porn boys? Who knows. That’s the trouble with the “Is it art or is it porn?” question; the answers are opaque, subjective, and punitive.