Clues:
* Visitors from England up sharply this week.
* Visitors from Italy up very sharply this week, to the point of making Italy our #2 source of visitors yesterday.
* Visitors on the search [comstock films] up about 100% yesterday.
* Visitors on the search [tony comstock] up about 700% yesterday.
I bet (hope!) it’s that interview I did for Italian GQ!
The first review of ASHLEY AND KISHA is in, from AdultDVDTalk’s ever prolific Astroknight, and it is very positive! Says Astro:
Comstock films takes a different route at adult entertainment. Rather than focusing on just the sex, like traditional adult films, it focuses on the relationship so you can appreciate all there is behind the sex. This time the focus is on Ashley and Kisha, two black lesbians (with Kisha being the slightly darker of the two). Ashley and Kisha talk about how they met including Kisha turning Ashley down, as well as their first ‘date’ and the morning after. Although Ashley had been with many women before, Kisha was new to women and they talk about how their relationship developed as well as the sex. As the girls talk about their relationship, you get glimpses of sex between them.
Afterwards, you get to see a full session of their lovemaking.
Ashley and Kisha start out their lovemaking fully dressed and kissing on the bed. They stroke each other’s faces with Ashley tenderly making her way around Kisha’s body with plenty of soft kisses. She slowly strips Kisha down as she kisses her, and gives her tits some nice attention before losing her own shirt. She moves down to lick Kisha’s pussy before laying back and letting Kisha kiss her way around her tits and pussy with plenty more kissing and some fingering mixed in. They take turns eating each other’s pussy with Ashley working in a little spanking as well as some kisses for Kisha’s neck. Finally, they finish things with a passionate kiss after a few more words about their relationship and the movie.
This is a beautiful scene. The lighting is dark, but even low lighting can’t mask the love Ashley and Kisha share. It also adds to the eroticism of the scene, and if I really wanted to get all artsy fartsy I might say that there’s no way even with high lighting we’d be able to truly see how much Ashley and Kisha love each other. The action moves along at a very nice pace with a good mix of camera angles, and the girls nicely work back and forth pleasing each other. It never gets nasty or overly hard, but also never let the smile leave my face as I watched it. This is a scene about passion and emotion, and it’s impossible to miss it watching this scene.
Ashley & Kisha: Finding the Right Fit is my fourth Comstock experience, and even after three other wonderful experiences I still can’t help but be amazed at how satisfying a movie that doesn’t even last an hour can be. Once again the Comstocks deliver the full package, physical, mental, and emotional. Ashley and Kisha are both good looking, but not so much that they lose the natural feeling like somebody you might run into going down the street.
Their talking about how they got together is beautiful, and you can feel the love between them so much that it’s hard not to get turned on just with the anticipation of seeing them make love later in the movie. At the same time it’s hard not to be a little afraid that the sex won’t live up to the talking heads. You have plenty of glimpses of it as they talk, but much of it is a little dark. Of course there’s nothing to fear as the sex is just as satisfying. It feels completely real and natural for the ladies, and has a very nice flow with a touch of an artistic eye that helps it to be just as satisfying.
If you’re sick of watching adult films wondering if the people you’re watching are really into each other or not and like all girl action, Ashley and Kisha: Finding the Right Fit just might be the best movie you’ll watch for a very, very long time.
I’m always interest in what Astro has to say about our films because Astro is a dedicated porn enthusiast of the first order with over 2000 reviews to his credit, covering a wide variety of genres. Some of the things that I find off-putting about pornography, Astro accepts; and there’s this idea that someone like Astro won’t find anything to like in a film like ASHLEY AND KISHA or our other films. That’s simply not the case. As Sir Lawrence Olivier put it: Some people like mussels, some people like snails. Some people like mussels and snails.
I was also interested in Astro’s reaction to ASHLEY AND KISHA because like me, Astro is not young, black or lesbian. Just recently we’ve had a retailer, one who’s had success with our other films, tell us, “No thanks. We’ll pass on ASHLEY AND KISHA. There just not much of a market for that sort of thing.”
Of course by “that sort of thing,” he means black lesbians, and I know from a marketing niche point of view he’s wrong. There’s a dearth of quality erotic films featuring lesbian women of color, and ASHLEY AND KISHA already selling briskly. But it’s the narrowness of this retailer’s point of view that wrinkles my nose.
Throughout my (so-called) career, I’ve been interested in making films that cross (perceived) boundaries, and in reading Astro’s review, I’m delighted that Astro was so seduced by Ashley and Kisha’s testimony (”It’s hard not to be a little afraid that the sex won’t live up to the talking heads,”) and then be so utterly charmed by their lovemaking (”It never gets nasty or overly hard, but also never let the smile leave my face as I watched it.”)
I don’t know that I’ve ever heard of someone worrying that the sex might not live up to non-sex parts of an erotic film, and that makes me feel like there’s a real connection to be found in this movie, a connection that is there for anyone willing to open their heart to it. I know I felt that connection on the day I interviewed Ashley and Kisha, and that feeling only grew as I working on the film. It’s nice to think I won’t be the only person who feels this way.
Today is the 40th anniversary of Loving v. Virginia, the case that decided once and for all that the state had no compelling interest in preventing a man and a woman of differing races from marrying one another, and that to do so would be in violation of their constitutional rights. From Wikipedia:
The plaintiffs, Mildred Jeter (a black woman) and Richard Perry Loving (a white man), were residents of the Commonwealth of Virginia who had been married in June of 1958 in the District of Columbia, having left Virginia to evade a state law banning marriages between any white person and a non-white person.
Upon their return to Virginia, they were charged with violation of the ban, pleaded guilty, and were sentenced to one year in prison, with the sentence suspended for 25 years on condition that the couple leave the state of Virginia. The trial judge in the case, Leon Bazile, echoing Johann Friedrich Blumenbach’s 18th-century interpretation of race, proclaimed that:
Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, Malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.
The Lovings moved to the District of Columbia, and in 1963 began a series of lawsuits seeking to overcome their conviction on Fourteenth Amendment grounds, ultimately reaching the Supreme Court.
Even today, many regard the consentual sexual habits of adults as the ligitimate pervue of the state. There are laws affecting where erotic films can be sold, and laws that prohibit the sale of devices intended to provide sexual pleasure. Whether or not gay men and lesbian women will have access to the same legal concecration of their sexual unions remains an open and divisive question.
None the less, there is no doubt that we are sexually more free than we were 40 years ago.
So drink a toast to the Lovings. Say thanks for their courage and their steadfastness. Because of their willingness to fight, we are all a little more free to love!
I was going to leave this for Peggy to blog; she’s the one who went to Toronto, and she’s the one who brought back the big lucite buttplug trophy (much to the amusement of the Toronto baggage screeners!) But she’s going hammer and tongs with complete redesign of ComstockFilms.com, so I guess that leaves it to me.
Long story short, last Thursday we dropped Peggy off at the airport. A few hours later she was at a pre-event event, a chance to meet the other panelists, and the Good For Her crew. The next night she was up on the dias, giving her take on how our work fits into the feminist porn paradigm. Later that evening MATT AND KHYM: BETTER THAN EVER was named Hottest Love Scene. Many thanks to Good For Her for a great event, and congradulations to the rest of the evenings winners!
Hottest Group Sex Scene
Under the Covers | Candida Royalle; Femme Productions
Hottest Trans Sex Scene
In Search of the Wild Kingdom | Shine Louise Houston; Blowfish Video
Hottest Straight Sex Scene
The Bi Apple | Audacia Ray; Adam and Eve
Best New Star
Simone Valentino, Afrodite Superstar | Femme Chocolat
Hottest Gonzo Sex Scene and Hottest Diverse Cast
Chemistry 1 | Tristan Taormino; Adam and Eve
Hottest Couples Scene
Burning Lust | Skye Blue & Kelly Holland; Playgirl
Best Smutty Schoolteacher (educational)
Hearts Cracked Open | Betsy Kalin
Hottest Dyke Sex Scene
Superfreak | Shine Louise Houston; Blowfish Video
Best Feature
The Masseuse | Paul Thomas; Vivid Video
Indie Porn Pioneer
Anna Span; Easy On The Eye Productions
One surprising thing, to me at least. I figured they wouldn’t go to the expense of flying Peggy up if they weren’t going to haul her up on the stage to give her an award, but I thought it was going to be DAMON AND HUNTER; as a way of recognizing that a lot feminists love looking at men, especially if there’s more than one of them, naked, kissing and fucking. That’s my wife and most of her friends. But even though there were awards for straight sex scenes, lesbian sex scenes, and even an award for Hottest Trans Scene (Go Shine!), nothing for straight up man-on-man action. I guess women getting off to gay sex is still too avant garde, even for porn-positive feminists. There’s always next year! 
A few months back we suddenly started to see a bunch of .ru URLs in our referal logs, which it turns out traced back to write-up of MATT AND KHYM on a Russian news website. Well yesterday I started seeing a spike in traffic from the same domain, and this morning I’ve found the source. Articles on ASHLEY AND KISHA and on the Feminist Porn Awards, with a nice call out for MATT AND KHYM.
Новый фильм Тони Комстока: лесбийское порно с реальными парами (ФОТО, КАДРЫ) (That’s the A&K article)
В Торонто проходит кинофестиваль феминистского порно: участники, кадры (ФОТО) (That’s the FPA article)
Last Wednesday night, a technical glitch prevented the screening of The ‘International Male’ a collection of short films at New Zealand’s Outtakes Gay & Lesbian Film Festival. Scrambling to fill the gap, festival organizers offered the audience the choice of LIVING DAY TO DAY or DAMON AND HUNTER: DOING IT TOGETHER. I’ll let GayNZ.com take it from here:
Murmurings from the largely male audience appeared to agree on showing the ‘Damon and Hunter’ film – a “hard-core love story” which contained explicit sex scenes throughout.
“We told the audience the film was explicit, and to leave the cinema if this kind of thing bothers you,” says the festival volunteer.
“A few people left the cinema at that point, and then I noticed a few leave during the screening.”
Most stayed for the 46-minute documentary showing a male adult-star couple talking about their sex lives. The film ended with a ten-minute explicit sex scene. Many in the remaining audience applauded at the ‘climax’ to the showing.
I remember the audience at Cinekink applauding at the ‘climax’ too. At first I was afraid they were goofing on the film, but within moments I realized the audience was sincere, like an audience cheering when the couple in a romantic comedy finally kisses.
I’m also pleased to see the film written up as having a 10 minute love-scene. In fact, the scene is very nearly 15 minutes long. Always better when people think a film is shorter than it actually is!
No word yet on last night’s official Outtakes screening. Hopefully it went well too!
“[W]hilst in many places the effect of Ulysses on the reader undoubtedly is somewhat emetic, nowhere does it tend to be an aphrodisiac.” – Judge John M. Woolsey, 1933“We think that Ulysses is a book of originality and sincerity of treatment and that it has not the effect of promoting lust. Accordingly it does not fall within the statute, even though it justly may offend many.” – Augustus Noble Hand, Second Ciruit Court of Appeals, 1934
“[The sexual passages] are, in fact, cathartic and calculated to allay rather than to excite the sexual instincts.” – Stuart Gilbert, friend of James Joyce
Okay, okay, not all of Amazon. Right now DAMON AND HUNTER is the #1 Gay & Lesbian Documentary on Amazon.com. Still, pretty friggin’ cool!
On the eve of its release, it looks like ASHLEY AND KISHA: FINDING THE RIGHT FIT is leaving the nest almost like a full-fledged film. It’s already listed for pre-order on Amazon.com, has a listing on Blockbuster and The New York Times, and of course let’s not forget the all important IMDb listing.
“The intent to arouse is often cited as the dividing line between art and porn. In the whole range of emotions a director might hope to incite in his audience, arousal remains the last taboo – a taboo Tony Comstock gleefully breaks.” is something I wrote for the press release supporting last Summer’s QueerDoc screening of DAMON AND HUNTER: DOING IT TOGETHER.
Well last Summer, the Australian government slapped us down, calling DAMON AND HUNTER unfit for public exhibition and threatening the festival if they screened the film. We fought back as hard as we could, and lost. The screening was cancelled and we went home to lick our wounds. But a year later, with an impending write-up in Oprah Winfrey’s “O” magazine, one could make a case that our intentionally arousing films have penetrated the very center of mainstream culture.
So what’s next? I have no idea. ASHLEY AND KISHA has been submitted to about 15 film festivals. There have been some encouraging whispers, but nothing definitive yet. Lest I jinx it, I’ll leave it at that. The important thing is that it looks like we can keep making these films, keep taking what we learn from each iteration and incorporate that into the next one, all while keeping a roof over our head and our pantry full. What more could a person want!
