by Howie Gordon
Men have been the driving economic force behind adult materials since the days of Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble. From creation to consumption, porn has overwhelmingly been a man’s world. The sexual fantasies contained therein were the fantasies where men got to have sex all the ways that men wanted to have sex. The real sexual concerns of actual women were never very much of an issue in the depiction of these male fantasies.
A case in point may be Deep Throat, the highest grossing X-rated movie of all time. In that story, a woman discovers that her clitoris is located in her throat. Has this ever happened in real life? Don’t think so. It’s a male fantasy. Why? In real life, most men don’t get their cocks sucked near as much as they want. BUT…if a woman really had her clitoris in her throat, she probably would be sucking a lot more cock. See? It’s a joke!
The clitoris in the throat remains a fiction, but don’t worry, our scientists are working on it.
“Vengeance Is Mine!”
Actor Bill Margold once described a common male sexual attitude in porn very well. In an interview for a 1991 book called Porn by respected UCLA Professor of Psychiatry, Dr. Robert Stoller, the porn veteran spoke about it this way:
My whole reason for being in the Industry is to satisfy the desire of the men in the world who basically don’t care much for women and want to see the men in my industry getting even with the women they couldn’t have when they were growing up. I strongly believe this, and the industry hates me for saying it. But I really believe that even the most satisfied Casanova-Don Juan-satyr has always wanted somebody he couldn’t get, and because of that he starts to harbor a revenge. So we come on a woman’s face or somewhat brutalize her sexually: we’re getting even for their [the men viewers’] lost dreams. I believe this.
I’ve been told this by people in audiences after I’ve done horrible things on screen to women. I’m not hurting them. It’s only an act, but it looks real — because I can scare people — I have a booming voice and I can become very intimidating. That gets the audience excited. I’ve heard audiences cheer me when I do something foul on screen. When I’ve strangled a person or sodomized a person , or brutalized a person, the audience is cheering my action, and then when I’ve fulfilled my warped desire, the audience applauds…
And so it was too, with Anthony Spinelli. The sex scene he wanted me to perform in Easy was of this same brutal style of porn that I’d mostly managed to avoid in my career until now. First it was with Serena in The Sensuous Detective and now it was with Spinelli, of all people, the great director, who was asking me to really get into it for Easy. I was crestfallen. It wasn’t lovemaking. It wasn’t even sex. It was revenge. It was mean and hostile and not my cup of tea at all.
“Which side are you on, boy? Which side are you on?”
In matters sexual, I’ve always been a big fan of reciprocity and fair play.
It gets me hot to see and feel a woman get hot. I like when we can ride over the falls together.
Growing up, sex was always filled with such guilt, repression, and recrimination in my life that I have taken great pains to make sure that my partners were in tune with me. It was the pursuit of the two-way street where “you get yours and I get mine.” Not only was that the romantic ideal but it was also good politics, and nothing really more than common sense.
Still, it was an attitude rarely reflected in porn movies where the one — way street of male fantasy thrived. Not only that but it was usually the He-Man Highway where the men involved were oft reduced to their most primitive, intimidating selves.
“Bend over, bitch!” the He-Man would say. “Bend over, bitch, and tell me that you love it.” It was the sexuality of the harem, of prostitution, of powerless men imagining unlimited power. Those were the guys with the dollars who were buying this porn. That was the kind of sex they wanted to see. Porn has never been about the sexual search for truth or justice. It’s always just been about the business.
Since the rise of adult films in the seventies, it’s been a cruel joke on the culture to present these hostile, vindictive male fantasies as if they are the sum total of the human sexual experience. But that’s pretty much what’s happened in the absence of a broader audience. The cultural sadness is that this one narrow point of view has dominated the whole of our sexual media.
Do angry men have a right to their fantasies? Of course they do. It’s not their fault that nobody else making sex movies has figured out how to make any money from showing a different point of view.
Where are all those other voices?
Sam didn’t want to get into an argument with me about sexual politics.
“Actors act,” he said, “Good guys, bad guys, what’s the difference? It doesn’t matter.”
In the straight world, one might argue that it didn’t matter, but porn was being held to a different standard.
I always thought that the preponderance of male domination was like the industry continuously shooting itself in the foot in terms of gaining any large-scale mainstream acceptance. It kept porn mired like a bad joke in the minor leagues. Common sense said that without a more balanced approach to human sexuality that would genuinely appeal to women, there would be no rise into respectability. How could there be? There was so little there to respect.
Chapter Sixteen
I took the job in Easy. I made Sam’s movie. I played the fucking scumbag just like the fucking scumbag Sam wanted me to play.
Tell me, if I had played Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs, would it have been a step up or a step down?
I took the job in Easy. I made Sam’s movie. One worked for Anthony Spinelli. One paid one’s dues. I figured that porn’s past may have belonged to the Neanderthals like Margold and Sam, but I thought that the future belonged to the children of the sexual revolution. Porn couldn’t do anything but get better. I’d surf that wave as far as it could take me.
Thirty years later, a writer friend of mine named Graham Hill actually sent me a copy this very scene from the movie Easy. Of all the scenes I have ever done, it was probably the last scene I ever wanted to see again, but I did watch it. I wrote him this letter:
Dear Graham,
First of all, thanks very much for thinking of me and sending along that snippet of movie.
When I watched it, I marveled at that body I had. My Lord, I was in such good shape.
Also, the acting I did in that scene did not embarrass me. Watching it these many years later, I felt like I had nailed the part. And the sex scene, once it got started, was hot and sizzled. Jesie St. James and I were well matched to become the two-headed beast and it showed up there on the screen.
Where I die a thousand deaths is in the sexual politics of that scene in Easy. I regret playing that part. Even though it was my introduction to Anthony Spinelli and it paved the way for me to enter the upper echelons of the men in porn, I find it disturbing and unconscionable to have portrayed that kind of male rage in the movies. I won’t go into any more detail here. I’ve actually written at length about it in my memoirs.
Just between us girls, Graham, the bottom line is that the business didn’t need me to add to the avalanche of misogyny that so pervaded the sexual quality of the industry. In hindsight, it is one of the regrets of my career that I ever lent my mind and body to any such effort.
I don’t argue that men don’t have a right to their anger, I’ve said they do, but the business was (is?) radically out of balance in its portrayal of human sexuality, to the great detriment of common sense everywhere.
xo,
H.
Chapter Seventeen
I still made the occasional loop. A loop, you may recall, was a short film usually shot in 16 mm that would play in stalls at adult book stores or be sold through a vast system of plain brown envelope mail orders to people who had their own projectors. Loops were heavy on sex and light on acting and salaries.
A buck was still a buck and there were certainly worse things one could do for an hour besides having s
ex.
Peter and Iris were shooting these particular loops. They would come to town every so often and arrange for two or three days of marathon loop making. It was like a factory. Couples or threesomes or whatever mating groups would be lined up and shot every hour on the hour. I was working again with Mandy on this one. It was like having coffee with an old friend. They were shooting MOS (mit out sound). This meant that we could actually just talk to each other during filming:
“Hi, Mandy, nice to see you! We better get undressed, they’re ready to shoot. How’ve you been? Mind if I finger you while we talk? My wife is fine. Yeah, she’s busy with a Master’s program in psychology. Would you please suck me now? They want me to have an erection. You and Michael Morrison broke up? God, I’m sorry to hear that. Could you spread your legs a little wider? They want to see your asshole. Nice. No, I hadn’t heard that Desiree Cousteau was thinking of dropping out of the business. I have to take off your bra now.
Glod itch hod to tlalk wif a mouf flull. Hmm, that feels good. When are you going back to Texas? Suck a little harder, dear, I’m losing my erection. That’s much better. Do your parents know that you’ve been doing movies? No, I haven’t told mine yet either. What? They want you to turn over now. God, these lights are hot. Are they serving lunch? They want doggy style in your ass. Do you mind? I have a small cock. It shouldn’t hurt too much. Yeah, I think they pay you $50 extra for this. Oh, my, that feels amazing. Yeah, I’m gonna come soon. Where do they want the come shot? Peter, where do you want the come shot? Okay, okay.
That was nice! I think we’re wrapped. Do you want to have an orgasm?
They need the set. We could go in a backroom or something. I’d be glad to suck you off. It’s just after two o’clock. Well, maybe next time then. Mandy, it’s been really good to see you. That was terrific!”
Chapter Eighteen
Things You Learn the Hard Way Part II
We were shooting a loop. She was famous, a big-time star and I was still nobody and eager to please. She had a yeast infection, or a bladder infection, or that’s where they buried Jimmy Hoffa, but it’s too cheap a shot to just make fun of it! No woman wants to smell like that and no man in his right mind wants to have to pretend that he doesn’t notice it. Because that’s what I did.
It was just me and her and the cameraman. We were in a one room apartment. He was playing with his cameras on one side of the room and we were starting to undress on the other. I suppose I noticed it first. It smelled like a dead gerbil. I thought it was coming from her. Hell, I knew it was coming from her, but I didn’t say a word. She was a big star! I was a still a nobody. What could I say?
When the cameraman caught the scent, he picked up his head like an animal in a nature film. A distinctly unpleasant quizzical look came upon his face. He sniffed as his gaze darted about the room. When our eyes met, I nodded toward our leading lady.
“You’re kidding!” he mimed back at me, “No!” He was trying not to laugh. I didn’t think it was so funny. Maybe now, but not then. I had to try to fuck that woman. He was the director! He was the one who should have done something about the situation. Yeah, what he did was use long lenses and shoot as much as possible from the other side of the room!
I was in the trenches that day. Breathed through my mouth as much as possible, but I did it. We did it. I wonder if she could smell herself? Or if it was a situation like, y’know, where your own farts don’t really bother you as much as they do the next person?
In any case, we successfully completed the mechanics of copulation that day though I fear that the footage might be less than inspiring to witness. Then, on the other hand, with knowledge of the backstory, it might prove to be a classic! If I ever see it, I’ll let you know.
P.S. Years later, I surprisingly stumbled upon the reason for the bad odor of that day. It had all been her boyfriend’s doing. He was a weird one, he was, who for a time while they were dating had forbidden her from “freshening” herself after sex scenes. He actually told me this, himself. He claimed that he enjoyed “the pungent ripeness of that odor.” Said it was a turn-on for him.
Cut to a swimming pool sex scene in another movie.
It was March in Marin County, on a sunny and cool day. The water was not heated. The director had rented himself a fancy underwater camera and he wanted to use it. I’m not gonna tell you the director’s name. He turned out to be a real asshole. Alright, his name was Bart Scum.
Me and Jesie St. James were gonna do this pool scene. That was good, I always preferred working with friends. Water was cold, but I actually got it up and got it into her. We were fucking. Director was shooting under water. Got himself some footage.
Oops! Turned blue and got the shakes. Hard-on went bye-bye.
Panic said, “Hi!” Had to take me into the house and warm me up by the fireplace. Got myself back to normal and then returned to the pool for more.
Take two. There was no take two. Panic and I were doing the cha-cha and my erection was nowhere to be found. Soon got the shakes and turned blue again. Back to the fireplace. Take three was a repeat of take two.
That was about it. I was a mess. Director decided to yank me and put in a relief pitcher to complete the scene. In fact, he took the job himself. And — he decided to move the sex scene from the outdoor swimming pool and shoot it inside, in front of a roaring fireplace. The director fucked Jesie St. James. The assistant director shot the scene.
After we were done and paid, Jesie confided to me that this director had been hitting on her all week. She had been turning him down. In the context of the movie, she didn’t think that she could say, “no,” and still get a paycheck. Jesie explained all this to me so that I would understand that I had been set up to fail.
Chapter Nineteen
Behind the Camera
I didn’t know that Milton Ingley was dead. I looked him up in Wikipedia and found out that he was gone. I confess that on some bad days, I’ve looked myself up in Wikipedia just to make sure I’m still here.
Michael Morrison was his stage name, but we all called him Milton. There was me and John Seeman and Vincent Fronczek and Milton. We formed a sort of male coffee clatch in those early days of our careers. We’d often find work for each other and have little photo sessions and dinner outings. We were all in the business and we were all buddies.
(Y’know, “Aunt Peg” just died a few days ago. Aunt Peg, aka Juliet Anderson, was another luminary from Porn’s Golden Age. She was seventy-one and they say that she just passed on in her sleep. God willin’ and the creek don’t rise, I’ll be going to her memorial at The Center For Sex and Culture in San Francisco. Makes me think I better hurry up with this book already. Nobody gets forever.)
So back to Milton. I found myself behind a camera back then because Milton Ingley needed my help. He was production managing a low budget masterpiece and his still photographer didn’t show up for work.
As I suspect I’ve already said before, reliability, upon either cast or crew, was often a thorny issue in Pornoland.
Sure, I would help Milton out for the day. I was an amateur photographer and had been for years. I’d never managed to comprehend much of the relationships between light and distance, film speed and f-stops, but I had a Canon AT-1, and when you looked through the viewfinder, if you could put the line through the circle and clicked, you could get yourself some pretty good pictures! It was a simple mechanical manipulation that precluded the need for any real knowledge of photography. I had a good eye for composition and Mr. Kodak, of course, did some very fine darkroom work for me.
On the set, Milton put a light meter around my neck. “I don’t know how to use that,” I told him.
“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “It’s a prop. Just makes you look like you know what you’re doing.” He pointed out the German producers to me. “They don’t speak any English so don’t worry about ‘em. Just use your camera the way you normally do. You’ll do fine. Smile and wave at ‘em.” I did.
The day’
s work would be two sex scenes. I would shoot my stills when the motion pictures cameras weren’t running. Not quite up to video yet, everything was still being done in film. Besides that, it would be my job to grab the actresses when they were not having sex and shoot lots of cheesecake photos of them as long as we didn’t interfere with the production.
I watched two sex scenes that day that put me through a ton of changes. To begin with, I got a boner early on during the first one and was struck with the realization that there’d be nothing I could do about it until much later when I’d get off, so to speak, from work. My arousal continued all through that day with the constant bombardment of sexual stimulation and there was no release. I was quite bonkers! I never felt like that when I was an actor, but I sure did that first day on the crew.
I developed an entirely new respect for the crew people. How they could just go on hour after hour doing their jobs with all that sexual stimulation going on around them was a mystery to me. I was beside myself with lust. I was spinning schemes and fantasies, one after another, looking for an actress who would slink off into the shadows with me for some sex play. Uh-uh, did not happen, which brought me to the second great enlightenment of the day.
It was amazing to watch the actresses flirt and fondle with the actors, but then totally draw the line with even looking at a member of the crew. Silly me, I’d never even noticed this before. It was separate and unequal, like the airline difference between coach and first class. It was the House of Lords versus the House of Commons.
I wanted to let those actresses know that I’d been an actor before! It was like, “Hey! I used to be somebody!”
“Yeah,” seemed to come back the attitude which said, “maybe you were, but right now, you’re just another jerk-off on the crew, so keep your bloody hands off me!” My overtures were ignored! Boy, was I shocked! How could those guys stand it? Stewing in the indignation of rejection and class warfare, I was exploding with desire.
