You’ve got to spread joy up to the maximum
Bring gloom down to the minimum
Have faith or pandemonium’s
Liable to walk upon the scene

Coming to a more grown-up sex-positivity has bubbled up in no less than three places in the last month. First over at Susan Quilliam’s blog, in her post “Reclaiming Joy“:

Sorry to revisit a topic I was going on about only a few weeks ago… but if there is one thing that I really “got” when I was rewriting Joy of Sex, it is that while sex may be the same as it was in 1972, the joy certainly isn’t. Given the drip feed of horror stories in the press and the continuous warnings about the dangers of sex from all sides, we’ve somehow lost our optimism, our innocence - somehow, we’ve flushed the joy baby out with the bathwater.

Don’t misunderstand. I’m not advocating condom-free orgies or emotion-free lust-fests. I’m as aware - and as vociferous - as anyone about just what we all need to do is order to make sex safe, sane, concensual and super-enjoyable. But I do feel that we’ve forgotten that sex is a Good Thing.

Then over at Clarisse Thorn’s Blog in relation to the screening of SEX POSITIVE in the sex-positive documentary film series:

As someone who grew up in the late eighties and nineties, it’s stunning for me to think about a time when safe sex was considered a sex-negative idea. Everyone in the subcultures I run in takes the idea of safe sex for granted … including just about everyone I’ve ever met in my age group (though maybe we should keep in mind that I was raised in liberal New York). Sure, we aren’t always perfect about practicing safe sex, but we take it for granted that we should be — and we all know exactly where we can go to get information on how to have safe sex. In fact, safe sex messages bombard us so thoroughly that we’re practically bored by them (another point highlighted by the documentary).

… the film raises personal questions about how important certain messages can be — how important we find certain messages, and what we’re willing to sacrifice to promote them when we know the task could be (a) totally thankless and (b) an eventual failure, partially or completely.

And here’s another activist-type question, arguably harder, raised by Lisa during the discussion: Obviously, Berkowitz was somewhat silenced by his community because his criticism was perceived as an attack … but his criticism was also necessary and important and, in the end, lifesaving. So how do we ensure that our communities allow space for tough criticism? How do we make sure that we ourselves give a fair chance to messages that could require us, and our communities, to change — change in major, identity-threatening ways — but that could be so important?

And then picked up by Audacia Ray at her blog WakingVixen.com in post Sex Positivity Includes Negative Experiences

This and conversations at the event last night really made something click for me, and that’s the title of this post: sex positivity includes negative experiences. Sometimes sex positive people get upset or squirmy when unpleasant conversations see the light of day (and that’s viewed as the airing of dirty laundry), but these conversations and challenges need to happen in order for sex and culture to evolve in a healthy, boundary-pushy, stigma-defying way.

Here’s the comment I left at Susan’s blog:

If I look at the films from that same era, what I see is a tremendous degree of naivete. It would seem that the denizens of the early 1970s thought that the pill and abortion would do away with all negative consequences of sex. (Or that anyone who suffered any sort of a wound that was not related to an unplanned pregnancy was simply a “prude” who needed to “get over it.” 

Of course by the end of the 70s it was becoming rather clear we had not entered a new, care-free sexual utopia. New physical dangers emerged, and there was still (and ever will be) the chance of getting your heart broken.

My own thinking about sex, both in my personal life, and as a filmmaker is tremendously influenced by my experiences as a surfer, rock climber, skier, and various other pleasures that reward responsible risk taking. Some of the most interesting literature in the mountaineering world is devoted to forensic examination of tragedies, which necessarily invite the reader/climber to reflect on their own values and form judgments.

“Judgment” is fairly nearly a dirty word in the sex-positive community, but it need not be. Good judgment is at least as fruitful a route to joy as anything else.

On Clarise’s blog, I simply commented on the sex-positive community’s ongoing failure to distance itself from AVN:

Watch it happen in real time as the sex-positive community grapples with its association with and patronage of AVN.

And on Dacia’s blog, I expanded on my comment left at Susan’s blog:

I would go on to say that the 70s naivete has been (largely) replaced by a stultifying combination of cynicism and/or pranksterism; hardly an environment that fosters being honest about sexuality as a holistic human experience, or reclaiming joy. (What was that line in Shortbus? “It’s like the 70s, only with less hope.” Something like that.) I also can’t help but think that much like the late 60s/early 70s, we’ve come to the end of an era and let yet another opportunity slip through our fingers. Over on thebuild.com, Blowfish’s Christophe placed (correctly in my opinion) the end of the organic search gold rush at September 2006. The marketing calculus for new ideas has changed, and not in way that favors new ideas about how sexuality can and should exist in our culture. While sex-positivity dithered over being inclusive and non-judgmental, the cynics and the clowns defined what sexuality, and especially what commercial sexuality is, with the same predictable result.

The conversation’s overdue. Maybe the next time a golden opportunity comes along, it won’t be squandered.

One conversation I think is long overdue is a sex-positive examination of the attitudes towards STIs in the “adult industry.” A few years back, when Vivid backtracked on their condom-only policy, I remember Chi Chi La Rue stopped working for the company. He said he couldn’t reconcile his concerns and public record advocating condoms and safer sex with Vivid’s new policy. But other than La Rue, I don’t remember anyone taking much notice.

From a producer’s point of view, building an industry around the acceptance of STI transmission between those who work in “the trenches” doesn’t seem very “sex-positive” to me. From a viewer’s point of view, watching depictions of people engaged in high frequency, multiple partner, unprotected sex doesn’t seem very “sex-positive” or for that matter, very entertaining.

The argument is that “the market” demands condom-free performances. The argument is that male performers find condoms inhibit their erections and that female performers find them irritating, especically in the extended sex sessions that are standard practice in the “adult industry.” The argument is that without the expectation that performers engage in high volumes of  unprotected sex with multiple partners, the “adult industry” would not be economically viable.

All these things may be true. But whether or not Vivid, or Evil Angel, or any other “adult entertainment” company can survive is not my concern. My concern is that I make films in a way that does not treat my subjects’ sexual health as something that can be sublimated to concerns about profit. That means I don’t ask people to do things in front of my camera that they are not already enjoying together as a part of their own, personal, off-camera sex life.

I simply cannot see how the introduction of a camera makes it “sex-positive” for performers to do things that we would decry in any other circumstance. Would a “sex-positive” person claim that a sex-worker is exercising ”agency” if she engages in unprotected anal intercourse with multiple clients? Or would we call this out for what it is, an unwise and risky practice? And when the sex positive community judges the “adult entertainment industry” by a different set of safer sex standards than we offer in any other circumstance, we diminish both the concepts of sex-positivity and safer sex.

The sex-positive community has already had, on more than one occasion, self-satisfied three-minute hates about phthalates and anal-ease, where we congratulated ourselves on our modern and progressive notions about sexual health and our discriminating taste in sex toys. We have repudiated the makers and purveyors of these products for being unconcerned with the with the health of their customers.

Will the sex-positive community be able to muster the same level of outrage and reject the health risks that are currently accepted as part and parcel of making “adult entertainment?” And if we did, wouldn’t that bring the world a little closer to a more grown-up and joyful understanding of sex?

I’ve just finished reading THE CONVERSATIONS: WALTER MURCH AND THE ART OF FILM EDITING. Murch is wonderfully eloquent in explaining the role that chance or serendipity can play in making films, without coming off as some sort of flake who leaves things to chance because he’s not creative enough or craftsmanly enough to control his projects.

Well thanks to the serendipitous combination of Violet Blue’s writing, The Chronical’s mainstream status, and the ever mysterious Googlebot, I’ve learned about things today that I never would have imagined.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Filtering DVD Player

The combination of Violet’s copy, mainstream placement, and the Googlebot is some sort of idiot savant uber algorythm for data-mining for everything that is wrong with how our culture thinks about sex. I just called Purity Solutions to ask how I could submit my films to become a part of their filtered films database.

No one was there, so I left a message.

Remember, a simulated depiction of the rape of a child, using an actual 12 year old child, made with the intent to horrify the audience, is art.

An actual depiction of adults engaged in consentual, mutually pleasurable sex, made with the intent to arouse and delight the audience is merely porn.

Are we clear? Good.

Last Friday, a quote from an unnamed source appeared on Time Magazine columnist and conservative commentator Andrew Sullivan’s blog THE DAILY DISH in his entry Theocons vs. Breeders:

I am a breeder. Not just a breeder, but a breeder who has bred. I treasure my children, and regard them as the greatest among many gifts my union with my wife has brought me. I know as well as anyone else that conceiving children can be one of the great joys of having sex.

But I deeply resent the suggestion, the assertion that by taking steps to avoid an unplanned pregnancy, or engaging in intimate acts that could never result in pregnancy that we have somehow degraded our love for one another, or debased the intimate time we spend together. I resent it when someone says that about my wearing a condom or my wife using contraceptives, and I resent it when someone says that about two men loving one another or two women loving one another. However it’s said, it’s an outright assault on the most precious, personal aspect of the relationship between me and my wife.

“I didn’t demand my wife prove her fertility before we were wed, nor did she ask the same of me. We became lovers, and then became husband and wife in large measure because of the sexual desire we felt for one another. And I deeply resent the assertion that the way I feel about my wife can only be justified by the possibility of conception.

If these words seem familiar to you, it might be because you read them here in my May 9, 2006 entry IT’S NOT ABOUT PROCREATION, a reference to the first line of DAMON AND HUNTER: DOING IT TOGETHER. (Sullivan’s edited version is consider less earthy than the original. I suppose that’s part of being a “conservative commentator”.)

This morning I see that Sullivan’s has also picked up on Violet Blue’s phrase “war on contraception” in his post about the appointment of anti-contraception activist Eric Keroack to the Department of Health and Human Services. That’s right, a man who believes that the “distribution of birth control is demeaning to women, degrading of human sexuality, and adverse to human health and happiness” is in charge of federally funded family planning programs.

At the end of his Friday post, Sullivan says “I’m glad more and more heterosexuals are waking up to the theocon agenda.” Well I’m glad to see a least one conservative waking up to the theocon agenda too!

Some few days ago, Chelsea Girl made a post to her Pretty Dumb Things entitled “mirror, mirror, against the wall” where she introduced the concept of ‘the fuckface’.

I have devoted no small measure of my creative and professional life to capturing the beauty I see in the fuckface, and so it was with great interest that I read GC’s take on her own fuckface; especially the horror she says she experiences when, in the midst of a good shag, she catches a glimpse of her own fuckface, or her imperfect body.

Over the next fews I wrote CG a note, then she wrote back, then I mowed the lawn and thought, then we exchanged another e-mail or two. In her last e-mail of the exchange CG said, “I think you should turn this email into a post”, so I am, and here it is:

Back in the late 90s, when Peggy and I were shooting the tests that became Comstock Films, we’d post to places on the internet where we thought sexually adventurous and libertine couples might be reading.Many of the responses were of the “and then we’ll film you, right?” variety, and a few “and then we’ll film you and then we’ll all fuck, right?”, but enough of the responses got what we were doing and were at least curious to find out more.

In particular one of those brilliant smiles stands out in my mind. It was the second couple we ever shot a test with – let’s call them Dan and Denise.

Dan and Denise were in their mid thirties, and while both of them were attractive by any measure, both of their bodies were far from flawless. Dan was virtually assless and had the beginings of a paunch. Denise had small, saggy, baby-chewed breasts (fried eggs, I think she said), and a hint of cellulite on her thighs.

This was of no concern to me. My only concern about them was that they be comfortable enough in front our our cameras for them to relax and enjoy each other, and perhaps even enjoy the thrill of being photographed. My only goal was that Peggy and I have a chance to experiement with coverage techniques that would allow me to capture footage that could later be edited into a naturalistic depiction of two people loving each other.

Denise’s awareness of being filmed bubbled up and broke into many smiles during their session, but the one that stands out happened right as Dan was fisting her (for the second time). She was on her hands and knees while Dan was being her, his fist churning away inside her. Denise was lost in it completely, eyes closed, calling grunting and calling out her husband’s name over and over “Oh Dan, oh Dan, oh Dan…”

In the midst of this, her eyes opened and she saw her fuckface in the mirrored headboard. She smiled at the rediculous ecstasy of it all, then her smile broke into a delighted laugh, Dan’s fist still churning away in her belly. Her laugh rose up and then dove headlong into the deep end of the pleasure pool. Her arms gave way and she was face down, ass up; completely lost again as Dan finished her off with his fist.

I know for a fact that Denise showed their film to many people, saggy boobs, celulite, fuckface, and all. I don’t think she ever felt the least bit self-conscious about letting people see that she did not have the sculpted, airbrushed body of a 19 year old girl. But I do know for a fact that she was delighted to let people see that she what a healthy, hearty, lusty woman she was, and what a beautiful, sexy film we had made with her and her husband.

“Western man, especially the Western critic, still finds it very hard to go into print and say: ‘I recommend you to go and see this because it gave me an erection.” — Kenneth Tynan

Yesterday’s post about DESTRICTED drew a post from Ms. Naughty which I’ve excerpted:

“I would say [DESTRICTED's] definition is fair enough…“If society was OK with porn’s place as a masturbatory tool, we wouldn’t have to talk about art being “disguised” as porn or vice versa.

Certainly attitudes toward sexuality and masturbation have their effect, but in the case of film it’s worth looking at this from a producer’s point of view.

When it comes to dollars and cents, the label “porn” is extremely marginalizing. Witness John Cameron Mitchell’s recent comments RE: SHORTBUS. “No one got a hard-on watching this film” says Mitchell. That’s a way of reinforcing the position that SHORTBUS isn’t porn. And with a budget of $2.5M — more than any porn film ever made — Mitchell and his backers can’t afford to have SHORTBUS shoved off into the porn ghetto, where returns are measured in thousands, not millions.

What I have noticed recently in reading reviews of films like THE DREAMERS, 9 SONGS, etc. is how venomously critics use the word “porn” - derision indeed. Whatever these movies’ failings, they look and feel nothing like any of the porn I’ve ever seen, and it makes me wonder just what sort of porn these critics have been watching that they feel a comparison is appropriate.

In fact it’s not, and in much the same way that “faggot” is used to dismiss a person’s sexuality as inappropriate and as the ultimate and overriding aspect of their humanity, these critics use the word “porn” to dismiss explicit sexuality as inappropriate subject matter and label the director’s interest in making such films questionable, and likely the product of a quirk or defect in the director’s psycho-sexuality.

In that respect, I would say that DESTRICTED’s and similar definitions of porn and erotica are anything but fair. At best it’s a useless construct that doesn’t really tell us anything about the work labeled “porn” or the work labeled “erotica”, save the economic ambitions of the person doing the labeling. (For some reason the phrase “straight looking/straight acting” pops to mind.)

More often such definitions are divisive, poisonous even; perpetuating a sort of Krafft-Ebing continuum for sexually explicit art, only instead of having poorly framed discussions about where the line between healthy and unhealthy sexuality lies, we have no less illuminating debates about where the line lies between porn and art. While this might lead to a lovely academic wank fest, it’s the wrong question, or at least a question I find utterly banal.

Let me lay my cards on the table about hanging the label “porn” on our work:

On one hand I have no qualms with being labeled “porn” because it lets people know in no uncertain terms that these films are absolutely frank in the way they depict sex and absolutely intended to arouse. If Mitchell proudly states that “all of the orgasms and all of the semen is real” but “no one got a hard-on watching SHORTBUS”, I am no less proud of the fact that my films also have real orgasms and real semen. Additionally, I am proud that my films have inspired countless happy erections, orgasms, and ejaculations. I’m please and happy that my films make people feel good about themselves and make them feel good about sex.

But along with the proclamation of sexual frankness, the word porn comes with a wagon-load of baggage and restrictions that I hope won’t be applied to my work. Like any artist, I want to have my work widely seen and widely respected. And like any business, we need to make money off the the work we do. The label porn is an obstacle to wider distribution of our films.

And just as I’m sure that directors who contributed to DESTRICTED don’t want to be lumped in with MEATHOLES, THROAT GAGGERS or CUM DUMPSTERS, I don’t want to be lumped in there, either. These are extreme examples, but by and large porn is cynical and poorly crafted; an insult to both sex and cinema. I am nothing if not sympathetic to filmmakers who do not want their work labeled as porn.

But what’s so very wrong about the the Porn vs. Art/Erotica vs. Porn question is that it supposes that whether or not SHORTBUS has crossed the line from art to porn (or whether our own DAMON AND HUNTER has crossed the line from porn to art.) is a relevant question.

It’s not; at least not if we’re evaluating the work without concern for its commercial potential.

Like Krafft-Ebing’s PSYCHOPATHIA SEXUALIS, this porn/art nonsense supposes a continuum where there is none. It separates sex from the rest of life, porn from art, and then tries to draw a line, or at least define a grey area. (Lest we go too far!)

This, of course, is sillly.

Sex is not apart from the rest of our lives, and in this context “porn” is merely an inflammatory, and largely meanless descriptor. (So is “erotica” for that matter.)

Either SHORTBUS is or is not a worthwhile viewing experience; either you are comfortable or take issue with the methods JCM used to achieve his vision. Either you enjoy watching DAMON AND HUNTER and are comfortable with the way it was produced or you’re not. Whether or not you got wet or hard only matters in as much as it helped or harmed your enjoyment of the film.

The rest is marketing spin or sophistry, or both.

Destricted

“The Destricted brand is the first in a continuing series. The seven films presented explore the fine line where art and pornography intersect. The films highlight controversial issues about the representation of sexuality in art: opening up for debate the question of whether art can be disguised as pornography or whether pornography can disguised as art or something else altogether. The result is a collection os sexy, stimulating, challenging, provocative, strange and sometime humorous scenarios that leave it up to the viewer to decide.”

Thanks for clearing that up. Can I have my hard-on now?

Morning in Casa Comstock; let out the dogs, set water to boil for coffee, change the younger daughter’s diaper, check the overnight e-mail, rouse the older daughter from slumber, check the server stats, make breakfast. Are you dressed? Did you brush your teeth? The bus is coming, we’re going to be late…

Well this morning we are late, late because of comments left that Jen P left on my and Peggy’s blogs, and the post she made on her own blog. It doesn’t really excerpt, so here’s the entire post:

Embracing FleshLet’s talk about sex here folks. If you’re of the ilk that doesn’t like to read these things…then go, far, far away because I’m breaking some serious ice into my own issues.

A couple of times a month, I’ll get a note from someone telling me they were so moved by one of our films that they got a little choked up, or shed a few happy tears. I am of course delighted by these notes. I’m a sentimentalist, and for me, getting an authentic emotional response (laughter, tears, arousal) is the highest praise a person can bestow. Finding that gentle edge is a big part of why it takes me so long to make each film; and when it works, no one gets more weepy-eyed at my films than I do. (If I’m not laughing/crying/aroused, why would anyone else be?)

But today is the first time I’ve ever got choked up by what someone’s said about my work. Not just choked up, I feel unstrung by what Jen B wrote.

Don’t get me wrong, it feels good, it feels very good. But more even more than good, it feels a lot; it’s quite a bit more feeling than I was expecting straight out of the gate on a Monday morning, and I’m a little overwhelmed by it.

Last week the edit Matt and Khym got so hot it literally burned up the G5 we bought at the begining of the year and it needs to be replaced. The sun’s come back out and the lawn needs mowing. And my brain has been scrambled (in a good way, but scrambled none the less) by Jen B’s post.

I’m hitting “post” and taking the rest of the day off!

Since making my last post about Psychopathia Sexualis, I have had the very good fortune of chatting with Bret Wood, the film’s director and he was kind enough to send me an advance copy on DVD-R, which Peggy and I watched last night. Getting an advance copy feels extra-special, because unlike porn, which goes straight to DVD, Psychopathia Sexualis is going to have a nice little art-house run before the DVD becomes available. Watching a preview copy makes me feel like a trendy insider!

Since a few of the things I have to say about the film are provisional, let me start with this; the film is boldly experimental in its subject matter, its storytelling style and its filmcraft. The film provided an entertaining evening, followed by a full morning’s lively discussion with my wife. It’s an entertaining (strange word for something creepy and unsettling) movie, and it’s provocative art.

So then what is this Psychopathia Sexualis? Let’s start with the basic facts:

The film is drawn from the 19th century book of the same name, written by the German physician Richard von Krafft-Ebing. Krafft-Ebbing’s book is a collection of 238 case-studies of sexual perversion, classified variously as antipathic sexuality, homosexuality, lust murder, fetishism, unconscious sadism, lesbianism in transition to viraginty, symbolic masochism, and other “catagories” of psycho-sexual illness.

In a series of sometimes intercut vignettes, Wood presents a handful of these case studies in full period regalia. There is red velvet and red satin. There are muttonchops and tuxedos and horse-drawn carts. There’s a hell-hole asylum with patients in sack-cloth gowns. There are housemaids in black uniforms with white ruffled aprons. There are taxonometric diagrams and calipers. With nearly 100 players and at least a couple dozen locations, the scope and ambition of the film is impressive!

The photography and production styles are also period, recalling films like Nosferatu and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Shadows are long, in each scene the pallete washed hard by one muted color or another, complimenting the stylized creepiness and sickly tone of the proceedings.

Not all of it works. The actors speak in contemporary American accents, which while pointing out the silliness of the conceit of having actors inflect their lines with the native tongue of their characters, also points out that it’s a conceit that works well.

Like most truly independent productions Psychopathia is shot on video, and mostly looks quite excellent, but when it doesn’t, the video look clashes with the period tone worse than it might with a story set in comtemporary times. Some of the acting is off-pitch.

But there’s plenty that works well enough, and quite a bit works brilliantly. If you’ll forgive the film its few stumbles, you’ll be rewarded with lush depictions of kink, combined with an empassioned take on the meaning of “sexual normality”.

Starting with a truly horrific tale of “lust murder”, the “pathologies” of the vignettes become less and less foreign, ending with a middle-aged spinster who has lived her entire adult life in the absense of sexual pleasure because she craves the touch of other women.

In Kraft-Ebbing’s time it seemed perfectly natural for an educated person to place homosexuality in a collection of psycho-sexual perversions along with rape and sexualized torture and murder, and it’s easy to see Psychopathia as an indictment of the good doctor, his times, and his methods. But if you stop there, I think you miss the real power of this film. This film is not just about kink and quackery.

At its core, Psychopathia Sexualis challenges the pervasive assumption that sexual desire and sexual acts lie on some sort of continuum; with procreative sex between married partners on one end, and lust-murder at the other — and the fear that is wound into the very fabric of our culture that sex for pleasure’s sake is the first tiny step to erotic cannibalism or other terrors, that sexual pleasure is inherently transgressive, and that the pursuit of that pleasure is fundamentally corrupting and anti-social.

This erotophobic continuum is easily seen in the fundamentalist strains of our culture, but having seen Psychopathia Sexualis I now see this erotophobia in myself, and how it pervades even the most sex-positive segments of our culture. We are all so steeped in this erotophobia, this fear that in being corruptable, we are inherrently corrupt, that we are compelled to excuse and justify our interest in sex for pleasure’s sake, and that in each of us there’s a least a little fear that in pursuing our desire for sexual pleasure, we take a small, but inexorable step towards becoming Hannibal Lecter.

Psychopathia Sexualis explores, challenges, and then ultimately explodes this continuum. Yes, there are terrible monsters, and perhaps some part of that dwells inside each of us. But sexual pleasure is not a gateway to evil, it is not a dance with the dark side of our nature; and marriage or procreation do not (and thankfully need not) provide some sort of magical protection to us when we enjoy our own bodies and our lovers’ bodies. How strange and beautiful that this is the ultimate theme of such a dark, gothic film!

Psychopathia Sexualis begins a one week run at New York’s Pioneer Theater on June 8th; a part of the theater’s Mindfuck: Sex, Art, and Psychology series. There used to be dozens of theaters like The Pioneer in New York City, now there are just a handful, making the chance to see films like this on the big screen rare. And if you miss seeing it on the big screen, you’ll have to wait till early 2007 for the DVD, so don’t miss it!

Bret Wood’s Blog

Psychopathia Sexualis Website

Pioneer Theater Website

Other Upcoming Showings:

CHICAGO
Gene Siskel Film Center, Opens June 9, 2006

SEATTLE
Grand Illusion Cinema, Opens June 9, 2006

SAN FRANCISCO
Roxie Cinema, Opens June 16, 2006

PORTLAND, OR
Clinton Street Theater, Opens June 16, 2006

ATLANTA
Atlanta Film Festival Atlanta, Opens June 16, 2006