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| All right, I'm making it public: Nan Kinney, will you be my Valentine? You're hot, you're smart, you've been a firebrand of smart, hot, and well-made smut by women since way before it was cool. Through your by-queer girls-for-queer-girls video company, Fatale Media, you've been putting your money where your pornographic mouth is since, oh, around the time I came out, and I would be remiss in journalistic thoroughness if I didn't also admit that images of you with that big old strap-on have scampered through my mind since right about that time, too (check out her performance as Kenni Mann in the third vignette from Fatale's Clips, if you want to see exactly what I mean). So, Nan, it isn't exactly like you weren't already on my list of potential Valentine recipients. But then you went and sent me review copies of the two newest videos by your company, Fatale Media ...and I can simply no longer resist making my admiration public. I opened the boxes of Full Load and Take Her Down! excitedly and popped them into the VCR for a once-over. Then I did something that I do much, much less frequently: I watched them again. What merited the repeat view? Quality and variety. We're not just talking banal old girl-on-girl here, my fellow smutophiles. In just two films, Fatale has combined a whole mess of tastes that make for one hell of a banquet: studly butches, smoldering femmes, trash-talking dommes, totally fuckable FTMs, hot-to-trot alternacuties with lickable tattoos... plus the voluptuous spectacle that is all-girl oil wrestling. If I were going to write a one-sentence review of these two, it would be this: Stick out your pinkie, Nan honey, because you can just wrap me around it. Fortunately for the video-buying public, though, this isn't a one-sentence review, and I have space to tell you a bit more about why I found these two films so enjoyable. I should begin with Take Her Down! Lesbian Erotic Oil Wrestling Party, if only because I feel the need to chime in and dispel the cheese-o-riffic visions of the big-haired, silicone-titted usual suspects of traditional porn decked out as WWF wrestlers, writhing around in baby oil-filled kiddie pools for the benefit of straight men and all the while trying not to break an overly-long acrylic fingernail or smudge their eyeliner. Yes, I know, I originally thought the same sorts of things when I heard the title, but ladies, you should know by now that Fatale Media will take better care of you than that. And oh, how it does! Shot on location in a simply gorgeous house in the hills of Santa Fe, New Mexico, the opening scenes of a dozen dishy dykes splashing and playing in the lavish swimming pool had me caught between girl-lust and beautiful-house-lust. May I just take a moment to remind all of you how truly rare it is to find a porn video of any sort that's shot in surroundings one would actually want to visit? From my lips to the Goddess' ears, I hope, because this femme could certainly do with more of this kind of thing in her smut. (Oh, and to the person who owns that house: do you have any need of a somewhat inexperienced but willing cabana girl?) In truth, the loveliness of the set is only one layer of the very palpable beauty of this film. The filmmaker, Sondra Goodwin, lets her camera linger on curves and planes of bodies, on the intersections of lovers' limbs, on the spontaneous expressions of pleasure and excitement on the actress' faces. A video of a swimming pool full of lesbians canoodling to the tune of a Strauss waltz might sound like a parody, if it weren't so darned genuine and if it weren't done with such obvious love for women, their love and lust for one another, their playfulness, camaraderie, and diverse beauty. The same holds true slightly later in the film, during a body-painting and foot-bathing scene that precedes the actual wrestling of the title with a leisurely meditation on the lovely, muscled bodies of two of the film's protagonists. And then there's the wrestling. I'll be honest, I know precisely bupkes about oil wrestling, aside from the fact that it is (in my head anyway) part of a list of Sports That Could Take The Place of Wet T-Shirt Contests At Lame Spring Break Bars. So I wasn't actually aware that there are those who take it seriously as a sport, as does filmmaker Goodwin. Fortunately, one need not be an initiate to enjoy watching the goings-on, a fact surely due as much to Goodwin's good cinematic ambassadorship -- the camera's eye here is clearly practiced, and not merely that of an untutored pervy observer -- as to the fact that oil wrestling means writhing, churning, almost naked flesh and plenty of it. It took me a little while to get used to the idea of watching wrestling as a smutty thing. After all, it doesn't have the narrative pattern of most porn scenes, in which there is a progression of increasingly intense sexual activity that leads to one or more orgasms. On first viewing, the wrestling was a visually fascinating kaleidoscope of women's bodies, of muscles playing against one another, of grimaces and grins, but it didn't initially grab me by the crotch. There was an almost meditative quality to all the grappling and roiling, not unlike the playful puppy-pile vibe of a great deal of the swimming pool play, though, and I kept watching on the theory that watching oil- slicked dykes in G-strings groping around on a wrestling mat couldn't exactly do me any harm. On the second viewing, though, it was a different story. More familiar with the individual actresses, I was able to follow more of the interactions between them and notice how the scene built itself up deliciously, following its own paths to the more straightforward sex that finishes the wrestling scene, and from there, to the hotter-than-hot fucking in the lavish marble (ah, house lust strikes again!) shower afterwards. It might seem like this would be a liability for a porn flick, but to me, it's an asset. Most smut is, infamously, a you've-seen-it-once, you've-seen-it-a-thousand-times affair. On the very rare occasions when I come across an explicit video that isn't, it earns a coveted place on my shelf of Tapes I'll Actually Watch Again. It doesn't hurt that Take Her Down combines girly porn with house porn, either, and I'm sure that for girl-on-girl wrestling buffs, this tape will be the answer to a number of fervent prayers. In the final analysis, though, the real star of this show isn't the watch-it-again factor, the gorgeous locale, the hotties on the screen, or the wrasslin': it's Sondra Goodwin's smutty, arty, loving way with filming women and the way they interact, play, and fuck. Speaking of fucking, I have one thing to say about "Mass Transit," the first of the four vignettes that make up Full Load: very few things make me stick my hands down my pants while I'm reviewing a film, but the footage of Mistress Cobra calling the shots while she's being fucked from hell to breakfast by a sassy butch and held aloft, human-sling style, in the arms of two toothache-cute FTM boys, did the job. I'm not going to say a word about the implausible scenario or the truly goofy acting that occasionally plagues this first short film, though, because honestly, they don't really matter once things get rolling. Mistress Cobra is a femme top after my own twisted little heart, and that endorsement alone ought to be enough to get you to give it a look. In case it isn't, though, here are a few things that might. Butch Fire - The second feature is full of chunky studly goodness and coated with just a tingle of taboo, since in so many dyke communities butch-on-butch sex is just Not Done (or at least not talked about). Well, butch-loving-butches, c'mon out and enjoy your moment in the sun, because this is a delicious little tribute to butch grrls and the fabulous things they get up to together. Oh, and all you femmes who've bought into the myth that butches never like being fucked? It is, in fact, quite possible to fuck a butch so that she feels as butch on her back as she does in her boots. Pay attention. It'll do you (both) good. The Attic - Oooh, the girls in this third feature are just so darned cute, in a Manic Panic Punky Colours kind of way, that you just want to eat them up with a spoon. Or maybe just fuck them with your toes, after seeing the unexpectedly riveting foot play in this short. What's most fun of all about this vignette is the evident sense of fun the actresses share as they explore a wide range of styles of sexual play. Genuine wriggling and giggling are two of my favorite things to watch in porn. I have more fun when I watch people having fun. I think that's called a sympathetic response, in psychology-speak. Funny how that works. Full Load - Let it simply be said that any boy that cute can fluff and fold my delicates anytime. A tender little snippet of laundry-room romance between a sweet femme brunette and her handsome transman beau, it lets you live out (vicariously, anyhow) all those idle fantasies of what you wanted to be doing on the folding tables in the Laundromat while you were waiting for your clothes to dry. (Just an aside: Yes, yes, I know that some of you boys want FTM porn where transmen are getting it on as straight men, with straight women, and others of you want FTM porn where the boys are getting it on with other boys, bio or otherwise, but let's be realistic: there are a lot of transmen out there with dyke girlfriends too. Heaven knows there's always room for more good smut, so kwitcherbitchin and consider bellying up to the smutmakin' bar instead. I bet Nan would be happy to consider proposals.) There aren't a lot of things I would change about either of these films, as you might guess, but if I had to pick a few I'd put in a vote for more actresses of color and a wider range of body types as well. Both Full Load and Take Her Down! are populated pretty much exclusively by white women (forgive me if I'm wrong here and missed someone who identifies herself otherwise - but that's what it looked like from where I sat), and while that is a pretty accurate representation of what a lot of dyke communities are like, let's bear in mind that that's partly because women of color in the life and white queer women often run in circles that are segregated in fact if not necessarily by intent. Good smut would be an excellent place to set a more diverse and inclusive example. Same goes for body types. It isn't that the films don't show a pretty fair range of bodies, from chunky and thick and muscled to catwalk-lean and angular, but it looked to me like pretty much everyone in both films could probably find clothes in the average GAP store, which means everyone's general dimensions are more or less what our culture thinks of as "normal." Again, fine as far as it goes, but every women's community I've ever been a part of has had its fair share of gorgeous big bad butches and full-figured femmes whose chances of finding pants that fit at the GAP are about as good as our chances of turning on the TV some evening to see Harvey Fierstein being sworn in as President. Representing the full diversity of women in smut isn't necessarily easy, but I do think it's an effort worth making. And Nan? I know you're officially taken and everything. I am too, come to think of it. Still, I hope you'll accept this big fat Valentine from me, your now not-so-secret admirer. |
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12.07.06: Scarlet Letters -- in case it isn't glaringly obvious -- is currently
on an extended hiatus. The web has changed, we've changed, and
we're trying to figure out how we both fit together now, which isn't a process we want to rush. If you're looking for more current SL-related content, you can
have check out upcoming books from editor Heather Corinna and previous co-editor Hanne Blank, check out Heather's current sexuality sites, or explore sites through the femmerotic network. We hope to be back with you soon, as fresh, challenging and
unexpected as ever.
In the meantime, by all means, enjoy our years of past content,
all of which still remain in the public and subscription areas.
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