Continuing in the vein of shameless narcissism and self-reflection, I want to share with you readers a part of my life as a porn reviewer that’s as great as it is aggravating: choosing porn to review.
As editor-in-chief at WHACK! Magazine, I am in the fortunate position of being able to pick one or two porno movies to watch every week for review. I also get to choose DVDs, less frequently, for review for Madison Young’s TheWomansPOV.com, and for this humble blog, as well. I’ve been doing this reviewing thing for a while, and over time my porn collection has grown vast. At this point I have an entire Rubbermaid tub full to the top with old porn DVDs and magazines in which my reviews and set copy have appeared, an entire dresser drawer, a growing stack of DVDs on my entertainment center, and two rows of my DVD shelves dedicated to my very favorite already-reviewed DVDs. And this is just what I own on DVD, rather than access online via VOD sites, CrashPadSeries.com, HotMoviesForHer.com, and etc. The picture above is but a small sample of the wares from which I must choose every time I decide to do a review.
And the material just keeps coming. Every week I receive between three and twelve new movies from Triangle Films, Vivid, Girlfriends Films, Digital Playground, Jules Jordan X-Play, Wicked Pictures, Jennaration X, and more companies than I can even remember. I literally don’t think it would be humanly possible for me to watch all this porn, but so much of it is SO good. How’s a girl to pick one sensual delight from a smorgasbord of smut?
For instance, in the next two days I’ll need to watch a movie and review it for WHACK! In the last week I’ve received, via mail, The XXX Avengers, a couples-oriented Wicked film, Star Trek: The Next Generation: A Porn Parody, and The Justice League of International Porn Stars, all of which sound fun. I also have stacks and stacks of all-sex, no-plot movies laying around: It Ain’t Gonna Suck Itself, is one, Sperm Sponges is another, and Scurvy Girls rounds out my top three curios. I have to admit, Scurvy Girls sounds really horribly unpleasant. I mean, I’m getting some pretty un-sexy images of toothless sailors in my head just thinking about it. But from the back-of-box images, I doubt I’ll get any. As a matter of fact, all these ladies look like they have plenty of Vitamin C in their systems. Not sure what the “scurvy” thing is all about. Hm.
Anyway, as you can probably imagine, choosing porn to watch every week isn’t so easy. So much sex! So little time! And the main difficulty in picking from amongst so much material is that I’m watching these movies, not to get off to (although I often do), but to analyze for review. I often go with the feature films because it’s a lot easier to write 500-1,000 words about a movie that includes a plot, a script, and some costuming than it is to spend all those words examining just boning.
But last night I was at a party in Brooklyn, telling a stranger about what I do for a living. I told him I was considering reviewing Star Trek: The Next Generation for review this week because I’d seen some rather remarkably well-made trailers for it. He stared at me. “But does anyone actually watch movies like that to, you know, jerk off to?” he asked, amazed. I couldn’t answer him. Because when I watch these films, I’m examining the costumes, the sets, the set-ups, the background music… AND the sex. But the sex is only one thing I have to take into consideration. And because my focus is different from most, I tend to pick movies that your garden-variety fan probably wouldn’t. Maybe this makes me a bad reviewer. An ivory-tower titillator, if you will. But am I willing to sacrifice the little enjoyments that clever scripting and a semblance of character development give me every week to be a better, more mass-appealing reviewer? I want to say I am, but my dearest readers… I love sex. Don’t get me wrong. I love watching people have sex. If I didn’t, I’d be in the WRONG business. But do I love it enough to spend 5-10 hours every week watching JUST sex without plot or character development (no matter how shabby)? No. No I’m not. I’m sorry.
I am, however, to sacrifice valuable porn-watching time to bitch about possibly the least problematic problem in the history of ever. And you know what the worst part is? I keep the best movies for myself, but with the influx of new material every day, I rarely get to go back to my favorites. And then, every time I realize two days late that a good friend just had a birthday, I feel obligated to send a really great skin flick to said friend as an apology for being too mired in dirty movies to have remembered in time. And so all the best material is slowly drained from my shelves, and I’m left with Sperm Sponges. Cause you can’t give that to your elementary school besty, but you can send the Sex and the City parody.
Sigh. Anyway, I’m off to play eenie-meenie-miny-moe with my stacks of smut. Wish me luck, and watch WHACK! Magazine this Wednesday to see what I choose!