Editrix Abby  

I Review Porn

Abby OD's on Porn

I just watched the worst porn movie I've ever seen. Oh, yeah, you may say. You're a chick; how the hell many porn videos has a chick seen? Well, this particular video, an appalling Kid Vegas offering, was my two-hundreth, give or take a come shot.

A few years ago, the only pornos I'd seen were the requisite Deep Throat and the slightly less so Debbie Does Dallas. Oh, and Edward Penis Hands, a video my mom and I picked out in The Tunnel Of Love at my local video rental joint to spice up a bachelorette party. But that was then and this is now. Now I'm a professional pornographer and I review adult videos for extra cash. Or, to be more accurate, to pay my mortgage.

What started out as a career at the genteel Penthouse Forum has metamorphosed into my being a down-and-dirty smutmeister, scribing knicker-centric editorial for Panty Play, a panty fetish mag, and reviewing porn "films" for Fox. In between I've contributed to Hustler, Screw, Variations, Dirty and Big Butt, among others, and started my own fetish publication, Extreme Fetish. But of all my assorted and sundry adult entertainment endeavors, reviewing these porn videos is what I can honestly call work.

Each month I choose a six-pack of screeners from titles like Dirty Debutantes 12, White Trash Whore 13 and Black Knockers 7 from a seemingly neverending stream of celluloid spewing forth from the San Fernando Valley. You see, the way the adult industry sees it, if it works once--or ten times--keep plugging away. If you'll pardon my pun. Almost any successful schtick--and, unfortunately, an alarming number that are somewhat less than successful--becomes a series. Which doesn't exactly make for a well-rounded viewing experience. After watching American Bukkake 2, I just don't feel the urgency to see #3 or #4. Each installment is the same: three scenes of a porno chick preening before a roomful of average Joes, their beer guts and bad socks all too visible, and then each of the aformentioned Joes jerking off onto her face till she's covered in the stuff. No plot, no dialogue and, unless that and only that is what actually gets you off, not a whole helluva lot of excitement.

It's a shame just how little excitement the standard product elicits. So I sit on my couch in a come-weary coma, attempting to fast forward the fast forward button, hoping against hope that something--anything--different will flash by so I can scribble down more than the same no plot, no dialogue lick, suck, screw.

Of course, there are some directors out there trying to create art. At times they err on the side of too much plot. And yes, it can be a bad thing. It isn't easy to balance a believable scenario with hot sex. Some even manage to make too much art. Michael Ninn's movies are so stunning they'd make perfect MTV videos or fashion promos if they didn't prominently feature the old in-out. And Candida Royalle has become a legend producing plausible porn, with footage that won't offend your lady friends--or frighten the horses.
But more often than not, when you plunk down your hard-earned dollars, you'll get the industry average of 90 minutes with five sex scenes, including at least one Sapphic entanglement and, if you're lucky, a gaping anus or two. If I were doing the spending, I'd pick up anything by Shane. Her real-life romps and raucous road trips are always a refreshing blend of amateur fan boys, half-drunk porn broads without their usual house paint makeup and enough raw, unbridled boffing to make even a seasoned veteran such as myself hit the rewind button. Yeah, I'm still capable of becoming occasionally turned on. I'm only human!

[Written in the late '90s sometime...]