It’s been a couple of days, over two dozen hours of sleep and a good bottle of pinot noir since my trip to LA, and I’m still sorting the whole thing out in my head. No, I didn’t get a column or a picture deal, or any bunnies, but my experience with the Playboy TV people was a total, mind-blowing success. They totally rocked and were very fun to work with — I was at ease and felt among friends. I absolutely cannot believe my luck, that they decided to do such a lengthy, detailed, accurate and overwhelmingly positive segment on me and my oral sex books — it’s like I hit the Karma jackpot. Los Angeles, and the porn industry, is a whole other matter, and the porn people I met and had to spend time with through the course of business make me wish I could take my brain out of my skull and put it in the dishwasher.
When I got off the plane, at the gate there was a cute tattooed guy holding a sign with my name on it — it was as if I stepped off the plane and into a movie. He was the Production Assistant, and we immediately chatted and joked like friends, which was good because he took me straight to the studio and I was plopped in front of the camera for hours of interviewing and a detailed set of questions clearly designed by an oral-sex obsessed sadist. Actually, the producer and cameraman were smart and funny, and we cracked each other up repeatedly while wading through the interview. We all wound up making fun of each other in one way or another and I dorked out as per usual, particularly when the cameraman filmed me when I thought I was having a private moment with the anatomy dildo and accidentally smacked myself in the forehead with it. I really thought no one was looking but at least it let them know the caliber of my grace. I was indeed busted playing "helicopter" with the cyber dick.
After, the PA drove me to my hotel, a Holiday Inn located in Porn Valley, a neighborhood slapped unceremoniously with a name reminiscent of sanitariums, nursing homes and cemeteries — Woodland Hills. It was far, far, far from civilization as I know it, and the clerk at the desk promised me that a cafe was "very close — only a mile and a half up the…" while old ladies meandered around the lobby possibly signifying their availability, or sending a distress signal to anyone flying overhead, sporting thick layers of bright turquoise eyeshadow. Hello, LA. Once in my room I flat-out panicked. Here I am in LA, the nearest bar is the Long’s Drugs cough syrup aisle, and I’m all alone. A danger to myself. I called Carly, but missed her. I got a call from Stacy — she quickly understood that my life had turned into a desperate reality TV show and I was about to vote myself out of the sanitarium; to my rescue came the sexy gals at Grand Opening!. They drove all the way to the boondocks to get me and brought me back to their adorable sex shop, where we spent at least an hour talking about the store, their terrific product selection and swapping weird customer service stories.
Next we drove around North Hollywood and I saw the Viper Room where River Phoenix died, and made a special trip to the Hustler Hollywood store, which was so cool and so much fun we spent hours there being sex nerds and hanging out. In true sex educator fashion, we wound up helping customers simply by winding up in the vibrator section and sounding knowledgeable — a hazard of the profession. The lingerie selection was sleazy and to my liking, porn and book selections vast, and of course they have every stupid and offensive novelty you can imagine (read: their sex toy selection). Lots of things you should never stick up your butt, midget blow-up dolls ("With three pleasuring orifices!"), and pocket pussies that bizarrely consisted of a severed pair of flamingo pink feet with a pussy grafted between them, or a pair of tennis-ball-sized and -shaped boobs with a pair of disembodied lips growing from between them like some kind of David Cronenberg sex toy. It makes me wonder if this is what guys will make when you can buy at-home cloning kits at the drugstore fifty years from now. I was stoked to see that Hustler carried my books, all looking well thumbed and prominently displayed near the cafe counter. In Hollywood I learned that "microdogs" are accessories, fifteen-word entrees are tiny, and buttrock is serious, not cynical.
I got a few hours of sleep at my hotel, then after a crappy cup of coffee that made me miss SF like it was my mommy (it is) and a dry power bar, I was whisked groggily at 9am to a mansion on Mulholland Drive for a full day of shooting. The house was a true LA cliche, and one of the guys remarked that he was waiting for Crockett and Tubbs to jump out at any time. Incredibly, the premise of the shoot was that a TV personality was talking a sexually dissatisfied couple through the answer to their problems… my guidebooks and personal oral sex instruction from me! They were going to re-enact scenes and oral sex techniques from my fellatio and cunnilingus books, and I was going to direct the sex — a dream come true for a sex guide author and a porn watcher like me. It was so very cool to be able to say, "no — don’t lick like that; put your hands here, flatten your tongue and press on the upstroke." After years of watching clearly unsatisfying and bogus oral sex in porn, I felt like I got a little comeuppance, if you will. I can’t wait to see the segment; if it gets the green light at Playboy (it’s a very explicit segment for them), I’ll post all the viewing details.
But what you really want to know is why, after such a positive experience, I want to soak my brain in Purell. After crusading against stereotypes in porn for years, I enjoyed the wonderful Karma of having to work with porn performers that embodied every negative stereotype of porn performers — and more so than anyone could believe. The production staff were the utmost professionals; smart, hilarious and skilled — and as the behavior and comments from the porn performers grew stranger and less professional, our humor and disbelief rose with the tide. I can’t go into details, but I will share what I learned:
* The AIDS "moratorium" has resulted in more work than most of these performers could handle. They each claimed they’d had more porn work than ever since the "halt in production."
* The type of work is the same extreme sex acts, business as usual
* These porn performers know nothing about sex, human anatomy, safety, identifying infections or disease transmission
* "Prizewinning idiots" should be a porn category
* Stereotypes exist for a reason
* Open minded sex educators can still get waaaay grossed out
* Never touch genitals unless you know where they’ve been for the past few years
* Pretty girls transform into nightmarish ghouls when they giggle like ten-year-olds and reveal their penchant for performing shockingly repulsive and life-threatening sex acts
* Someone is teaching these women that this behavior is desirable
* Sex ed books should come in versions that are only pictures, with tests at the end that read like Playmate of the Month data sheets ("Turn Ons: apple pie, guys with muscles, and taking a shower!!! Turn Offs: mean people, double anals, and drinking fluids from a stranger’s asshole!!!)
* I love boundaries like sunshine and kittens and happy butterflies, and now know how to cling to them like a life preserver
* I hate AVN magazine for making inhumane sex acts look glamorous
* TV is fun and I hope I can do more (definitely) much-needed sex instruction
* Directing porn is the one of the most unerotic experiences I’ve ever had (and I know it doesn’t have to be that way)
* In the future we will all have sex in full-body condoms
* I have now had one of the strangest experiences of my life
* I could really use a vacation; or at least a case of delicious wine and no deadlines — problem is, I have a manuscript due next monday
Enjoy the pictures, and know I absolutely did not touch anyone’s genitals — not even my own for a few days. Today I went to Wired’s Nextfest and had a blast — more pictures coming soon.
