Review of THE GAME, Part 2: The Pickup Artist Dynamic–Lies, Lucre and Loose Zombies

The young woman made a horrible mistake: (Quotes from THE GAME are in italics.): “A Chicago office worker, Jackie Kim had accidentally forwarded her highly judgmental review of a date to her entire address book… ‘So where do I stand on…the date,’ she wrote.  ‘The car, the money, the job, the cute apartment, the boat—which by the way only seats six people, so I really don’t consider that really amazing—his mannerisms, and his great kiss will probably lock in another date.  But I can tell you now, unless he cuts his hair and sends me gifts, it won’t lead me to seek anything more than my thirty-year-old friend.’

The post became an Internet phenomenon, forwarded around the globe and chronicled in the Chicago Tribune.”  

A subsequent flood of angry e-mails poured into Kim’s inbox, chastising her for being so…yuppie.  In contrast to the invective, however, came a sympathetic missive from a man, ostensibly defending her. Touched by his apparent compassion, Kim replied to his e-mail. They dated. And had sex.  Unbeknownst to Kim, the man was a web-posting PUA (PickUp Artist) code-named “Maddash”. He gloated in a post to his admirers that he had bedded her without the benefit of a boat, haircut or gifts. Maddash hadn’t been looking for a relationship; his whole purpose had been to use his skills to “sarge (pickup and seduce)” Kim, so that he could boast to his fellow PUAs about his conquest.  

Maddash was so pleased with his fine-honed PUA skills that he proclaimed, “I’m starting to feel like I’m hunting rabbits with a howitzer.”

Other sexually-frustrated men wanted their own “howitzers”—and were willing to pay big bucks to get them.  A host of PUA gurus—spawned by the Internet—opened workshops. Author Strauss provides amusing descriptions of these guys: Ross Jeffries, inventor of Speed Seduction, is described as “our porous, bony guru of gash.”  David X is “ immense, balding, and toadlike, with warts covering his face and a voice of a hundred thousand cigarette packs.” (David X’s specialty: “Harem Management.”) David DeAngelo tells his students to get tips on handling women from a book called DOG TRAINING.  Steve P. claims to “’throw chi [a Chinese word for “energy force”] through my hands into a woman’s abdomen’” causing her to “’stack one orgasm on top of another’” until—as Steve P. puts it–“‘she’s shaking like a dog shitting peach seeds.’”

Fledgling PUAs glommed on to these “experts’” advice. One guru posts a recommendation to “’lightly body check her, whack her on the head with something soft, or physically accost her in some other playful manner.’”  And, writes Strauss, “…hundreds of sargers around the world were suddenly knocking into women with grocery carts and smacking them with gym bags. It wasn’t seduction, it was elementary-school recess.”

After successfully developing his own PUA skills, Strauss (AKA “Style”) and his business partner/mentor, “Mystery,” start their own workshops in a West Hollywood mansion. They begin by charging students $600 per course. Then, deluged with customers, they raise the tuition to $1500. “…we had pimply teenagers, bespectacled businessmen, tubby students, lonely millionaires, struggling actors, frustrated cab drivers, and computer programmers—lots of computer programmers. They walked in AFCs [“Average Frustrated Chumps”]; they came out players…We were breeding an army…No woman was safe. Workshops of fifteen people wandered the street like gangs.”  Like hungry Hollywood zombies, a horny horde of these newbie PUAs descend upon a group of casually-dressed female tourists—who turn out to be nuns.

The West Hollywood partners become too successful. Women in surrounding bars begin hearing the same lines again and again, and they’re puzzled. “’Let me guess. You have a friend whose girlfriend is jealous because he still talks to his ex-girlfriend from college. Like every guy keeps asking us that. What’s the deal here?’”

When Strauss tries “The Best Friends Test,” he receives a weary, “We heard that one already.”  He concludes that “the Sunset Strip was sarged out.”

But there are deeper problems with playing “The Game” than familiarity breeding women’s contempt.

The pickup game is infused with a sad irony: A compatible guy and girl might never meet unless his PUA training gives him the courage to approach her in the first place.  But his prepared shtick, engineered for deceiving a woman into thinking she is making a genuine emotional connection, prevents the guy from doing just that.  Like an actor, he’s too busy following his script for any real communication.

Author Strauss recognizes the dichotomy. “I was beginning to see women solely as measuring instruments to give me feedback on how I was progressing as a pickup artist…Even as I was having a deep conversation, learning about a woman’s dreams and point of view, in my mind I was just ticking off a box in my routine marked rapport.”

The phoniness eventually catches up with him and other PUAs.

———————

Next: Review of THE GAME, Part 3: The “Eves” of Destruction. Topics in this concluding post will include Sarging the Stars–Courtney Love, Heidi Fleiss, Paris Hilton and Britney Spears and The PUA’s Insidious Mode of Self-Destruction.

_______________

David Jennings is the author of SKINFLICKS: The Inside Story of the X-Rated Video Industry, which chronicles his rise from filmmaker for a large Mafia-controlled porno company to “mini porn king” with his own Superior Video, Inc. This personal memoir also traces the flourishing of the home video trade from the late1970s to the end of the 20th Century.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Review of THE GAME: PENETRATING THE SECRET SOCIETY OF PICKUP ARTISTS

This is a gonzo book review, defined as a description of a book that includes the reviewer’s own opinions, insights, prejudices, rants, raves, and other stuff that the reviewer feels like tossing in. Once again, I’m indebted to the inventor of the gonzo paradigm, the late Hunter S. Thompson.

The previous book I reviewed stands in hostile contrast to the subject of this post:

UNDATEABLE  was a snarky list of 311 things that render a man repulsive to women. Since most men are guilty of at least one of these things, almost all men are therefore “undateable.” The authors, two beautiful, glamorous, rich and smug diva-style executives  wouldn’t settle for any man who was not wealthy, handsome, romantic, stylish, polished, confident and respected as an ubermensch–in other words, an archetypical Alpha Male.

Well,

THE GAME:  PENETRATING THE SECRET SOCIETY OF PICKUP ARTISTS  by Neil Strauss is written for lesser men: the Beta, Gamma, Delta and even the lowly Epsilon men. These are the underdogs. They spent their adolescence cringing through high school hallways, shoulder-butted by jocks, snubbed by girls. They graduated to bars, only to be slam-dunked by cleavaged barflies. Seething with hang-dog horniness, they became desperate.

Enter the PUA (PickUp Artist) gurus. Spawned by the Internet, these entrepreneurs taught slack-jawed, mouth-breathing, scrawny, scraggly-haired, squeaky-voiced, pimply, balloon-bellied, wimpy and otherwise socially-challenged gents how to pick up busty, curvaceous, big-eyed, pouty-lipped centerfolds.

Author Strauss was one of these customers, schooled by an egocentric, six-foot-five pickup master code-named “Mystery.” Strauss went on to become a revered PUA guru himself, under the moniker “Style,” claiming that at one point he had simultaneously juggled ten MLTRs–Multiple Long Term Relationships (Terms from the book are in bold type.)

THE GAME is bound in soft black leather, like a Bible, since it purports to be The Bible of the Pickup Artist.  Because it is a complex, 600-page tome, this entry will be only Part 1 of the review.

The book  opens with the author (“Style”) trying to help his former pickup mentor “Mystery,” who has plunged into a shattering, suicidal depression.

Before revealing how mastering the pickup game leads to the downfall of both Mystery and–later–Style, the book delves into what, for most male readers, is the “meat” of the issue: HOW TO DO IT. The object is to turn AFCs (Average Frustrated Chumps) into skilled PUAs (PickUp Artists).

The toughest thing for most men in approaching beautiful women in bars, restaurants, malls, etc. is how to start and escalate a conversation.  An elementary principle in the book is Get used to rejection. Pro salesfolk know that if they get a 10% success rate on their pitch, they’re doing well.  Another principle: any approach is better than none. Some of The Game‘s PUA  masters send their newbie students on “tune-up” missions: “put on nice clothes, go to a mall and say ‘hi’ to women.” One PUA instructor advises neophytes to overcome their fear by walking up to a girl and saying, “Hi. I’m Manny the Martian. What’s your favorite flavor of bowling ball?” At least, you’ll get her attention.

I’m reminded of what my late karate sensei, Bob Ozman (subject of a previous entry), used to say: “The best street fighters are those who ‘don’t give a shit.'” In other words, they don’t worry about getting their ass kicked. They just focus on their target and attack. The same principle (hopefully with less violence) applies to “sarging” (PUA  slang for trying to pick up women. The term was coined by a PUA guru whose cat was named “Sarge”.).

“Anyone talking to a woman while simultaneously worrying about  what she thinks of him is going to fail.” (Quotes from the book are in italics.)

Well, beautiful girls won’t kick your ass (unless they’re students of teachers like Sensei Ozman). But the ones who are gorgeous enough to be hit on all the time get bored with men going into slobber mode. And the meaner ones might make you feel knee high to a toadstool.

Never fear. Follow the techniques detailed in THE GAME. First, use patterns, not lines.  Patterns require a woman to respond with more than a “yes,” “no” or a “Fucking get lost.”

Act like you want her perspective on something you’re seeking information about.  “Hi. Let me get your opinion on something.”

“Would you date a guy who was still friends with his ex-girlfriend?”

“Do you think magic spells work?” 

“I’ve been taking a course in handwriting analysis  While we’re waiting for our food, do you mind if I practice on you?” (Use cold read techniques to amaze her with how “accurate” you are in describing her, based on “analyzing” her handwriting.)

Or use something alarming like “Oh my God, did you see those two girls fighting outside?” (No, she hasn’t seen them. She’ll want details, so have a good story ready.)

Once you have her attention, that’s when the real “artistry” begins.  You learn how to Demonstrate Value, showing how you’re different from the last 20 guys who hit on her. You employ The Maury Povich Maneuver, the False Time Constraint, the IVD–Interactive Value Demonstration, The Yes-ladder, or The Evolution Phase-shift Routine. The book explains these and plenty more, as evidenced by a ten-page glossary.

You learn how to keep a woman interested through applying The Cat-string Theory. You ply her with “Chick Crack”: things like handwriting analysis and tarot cards. According to the author, women respond to “routines involving tests, psychological games, fortune telling, and cold readings like addicts respond to drugs.’”

Strauss points out that beautiful women are rarely found alone. Your target is almost always in the company of other people. If she’s with one other person, the duo is called a “two-set.”  If she’s with two other people, the trio is a “three-set.” If she’s included in a four-some, it’s a “four-set,” etc.

A daunting challenge faces the PUA when the set includes an AMOG (Alpha Male Of the Group). The book teaches students how to pry targeted beauties loose from these square-jawed alpha men–and to do it without losing teeth. (Well, at least one of these fledgeling PUAs suffered the result of alpha rage, when the woman’s husband came along, tossed him on the floor and stomped his face, fracturing an eye socket.)

 

You learn the value of sarging with a pivot, a platonic female friend who validates you as not being a loner serial killer.

You learn peacocking: wearing cowboy hats, rings, necklaces, fake piercings, etc.–items to use in starting conversations.  Here’s a description of Mystery’s peacocking:  “…he wore 6-inch platform boots and a bright red tiger-striped cowboy hat…skintight black PVC pants, futuristic goggles, a plastic-spiked backpack, a mesh see-through shirt, black eyeliner, white eye shadow, and as many as seven watches on his wrists…Girls followed him for blocks. Some grabbed his ass; one older woman even bit his crotch.”  (This was in Hollywood. Not in the real world.)  Mystery says, “I’m dressed for the outrageous club girls, the hot slutty girls, the ones I never could get. They’re playing groupie, so I gotta play rock star.”

As you sarge a girl, you look for IOIs (Indications of Interest), such as her use of your name while talking to you. You know you’re succeeding when she gets “the doggy dinner bowl look.”

So, do the techniques work? (Even the best PUAs  encounter the Shit Test: something you say that is a secret red flag in a woman’s mind and—presto—you’re as welcome as “dog shit on her Prada pump.”)

 

Author “Style” recounts his first, hesitant, use of Mystery’s teachings. He engages a pretty girl in a store. “Maybe you can help me settle a debate I’m having…”  He proceeds with The Maury Povich Routine.  He gets her phone number. Then he Googles her name and finds out she is Dalene Kurtis, Playboy Magazine’s Playmate of the Year!  He freezes, too chicken to call her–kind of like winning the lottery but not cashing in the ticket.

So, what does the preceding have to do with my historical memoir, SKINFLICKS: The Inside Story of the X-Rated Video Industry? Well, without the patronage of AFCs (Average Frustrated Chumps), the porn industry wouldn’t survive.  So, thank you, gentlemen.

My next entry about The Game will include Fleecing the Chumps; Sarging the Stars–Courtney Love, Heidi Fleiss, Paris Hilton and Britney Spears; The PUA’s Insidious Mode of Self-Destruction; and Attack of the Zombie PUAs.

_______________

David Jennings is the author of SKINFLICKS: The Inside Story of the X-Rated Video Industry, which chronicles his rise from filmmaker for a large Mafia-controlled porno company to “mini porn king” with his own Superior Video, Inc. This personal memoir also traces the flourishing of the home video trade from the late1970s to the end of the 20th Century.

Review of UNDATEABLE: 311 Things Guys Do That Guarantee They won’t be Dating or Having Sex

I’m back. Finally. After a long layoff.  (You missed me, right?)

Since I’ve blogged about every aspect of SKINFLICKS, inside out, upside down and backwards, I am expanding the scope of this blog to include…anything.

I’ll start with reviewing two contrasting books that I’ve read lately, on the subject of sex and seduction (big surprise).

This is a gonzo book review of
UNDATEABLE: 311 Things Guys Do That Guarantee They Won’t Be Dating or Having Sex

By Ellen Rakieten and Anne Coyle

The authors are both beautiful women with long, flowing, blondish hair.
Rakieten, president of Ellen Rakieten Entertainment  has been “a key force in creating, developing, writing and producing The Oprah Winfrey Show” for over 23 years (If her photo was taken after those 23 years, she must have started there at age 2.) She is shown wearing a Jackson Pollock-like splatter of desultory colors that would render any man who wore a similar scheme “undateable.”

Coyle is equally stunning. In her photo, she wears shimmering blue with nipple outlines.  She owns Anne Coyle Interiors, “a nationally acclaimed interior design firm.”

Both women live in the Chicago area.

The concept of “gonzo,” taken from the jagged journalism of the late Hunter S. Thompson, frees the commentator from traditional constraints. Therefore, in my review of UNDATEABLE, I inject my own snarky, prejudiced, and/or questionably sagacious comments.  I feel these are needed in order to shield the delicate sensitivities of male readers from the slings and arrows of these Authors. For example, here’s how they respond to a man who wears a sleep mask: “Oh yes…and will we be slathering scented moisturizer on our hands and covering them with rubber gloves before we turn in as well?” And don’t call a woman “my lover.” “We’d like to enact a new law: Any guy who uses this term immediately gets punched in the face.” If you wear an apron (un-masculine) while cooking a scrumptious dinner for her, “Your pumps better match your apron or we’re going to have to come in there and beat you again.”

Shades of SCUM (Society for Cutting Up Men—the invention of Valerie Solanas, the woman who shot Andy Warhol.)! At first, I thought the Authors were parodying the snooty, overly-picky SAP (Spoiled American Princess). Sort of like Steven Colbert (The Colbert Report) pretending to espouse the very things he is ridiculing.  But, no. The Authors are serious. In the Introduction, they write, “Perhaps, after reading the first few pages, you’ll think we’re just a bunch of uptight, judgmental nightmares.  And maybe we are.”

Yes.

So, let’s start with some of the items under the category…

WHAT NOT TO WEAR (Authors’ words in bold, mine in unbold.)

Jorts. (Jean shorts that end above the knee. Below the knee is bad, too.) Khakis are OK, as long as they end at the knee. Precision is critical.
Bad Facial Hair. Actually, any kind of beard/mustache/soul patch is bad. But they don’t diss that dirty-face, three-day-old stubble look, so give it a try.  That way, you’ll get more mileage out of your Gillette Mach 3 Turbo.
Hairy Body. So wax it. Ouch!
Hair plugs, toupees (unless you’re a Sean Connery clone), and bald on top with hair on sides is no good. Go full cue-ball, instead.
Overly cologned.  Recommended: “…aftershave with a hint of geranium, citrus, lavender, sage, rosemary, cedarwood, or cucumber.”  In other words, smell like a spice factory.
White briefs. Boxers preferred. (I say: If you’ve gotten as far as the underwear, don’t worry about it.)
Black jeans, embellished jeans, dad jeans, acid-washed jeans, pre-ripped jeans, sky-blue jeans. Also Dockers and pleated pants. So, what’s left? Scottish kilts?
Sports jerseys. So find a girl who also likes Da Bears.
Weekend White Guy. (Whatever the hell that is.)
Hawaiian shirts. Even if you’re in Hawaii, go with “polo shirt or lightweight cotton oxford shirt in white, pale blue, or mild stripe.” And “keep it untucked and un-ironed.” (Sorry, Mom.)
Cell phone on waist.  They belong in your manpurse (which they also don’t like—they call it a “murse.”). So, wear big pockets or use a body cavity.
Longish fingernails. Trim weekly, unless you moonlight as a transvestite.
Apron while cooking. Ladies, if the guy cooks for you, why do you give a damn what he’s wearing? Besides, do you want him to splatter his pale blue, lightweight oxford shirt?
Turquoise jewelry. I would say try fake diamonds, but the Authors also don’t like men with bling.  So, no jewelry.  Save your money for that Rolex.
Camo.  I agree, unless your date is for bear hunting.
White socks with non-athletic shoes. Tube socks. Black socks without black dress pants. Navy blue is OK. Also, they like going sockless. (Just remember to use your Odor Eaters.)
Transitions sunglasses.  What?  My ophthalmologist says they’re better for the eye.  Maybe the Authors prefer a manly, Clint Eastwood squint.
Speedos. I agree. Don’t reveal your size, or lack of same, until you’re in your briefs–or boxers.
Comb-over.  See preference for cue-ball look, above.
Multiple tattoos. Authors admit some women like ‘em, some don’t. Authors admit content of tats makes a big difference.  Here, I insert a marginally off-color joke: A sporting goods salesman loves his products so much that he has their names tattooed on his body. As he strips, he shows them off to his date. On shoulder: NIKE. On chest: SPALDING. On stomach: RAWLINGS.  He takes off his underwear and on his penis:AIDS. The girl reacts with a sound of horror. The guy says, “Wait a minute.”  He strokes himself up to full erection: ADIDAS.
Mullet.  Try ponytail instead.
Tank tops.  Only for beach or gym with requisite buffed body.  If badly built, use shoulder pads under Spandex.
Bad tie. “For a guy, his tie is like a woman’s breasts.”  Because it’s the first thing that attracts the eye. So, in the spirit of breast alteration, get a tie-ectomy. Or tie reduction—snip it in half. (For “tie help,” the Authors plug their website, undateable.com.)
Tie with short-sleeved dress shirt.  So? It’s hip to be geek. Ladies, be glad it’s not a tank top.
Stupid T-shirts.   Authors’ example: FBI  Female Body Inspector. (In other words, the invisible T-shirt of Everyman.)
Gold chains.  Tell women it’s an heirloom from your late grandmother.  Or find a pawnbroker who’s nostalgic for 1979.
Overly tan.  That John Boehner look. Or desert hobo. Out of place in Seattle, but OK in Las Vegas, where Hawaiian shirts and indoor sunglasses also help you score with hot, blue-haired grandmas.
Dyed hair. Gentlemen, women are good at spotting this. They’ve spent years examining it on other ladies and themselves.

WHAT NOT TO BE

Anal Andy.  Dream husband. Does dishes, laundry, shopping. Takes out trash, vacuums, cleans. Great cunnilingus—oops! I added that. Sorry.  Downside: Frets over wrinkle in shirt, needs weather report before leaving house…you get the picture. He’s not sexy!  (Ladies, go for the slob watching football with stinky socks.)
“Pregnant” man.  That slob mentioned above, taken to extremes. After mega-doses of sports TV and Budweiser, he looks like he’s in his third trimester. Cure: Adopting Anal Andy fixation with exercise. Or—failing that—turn to liposuction.  (Girls, seek a happy medium between the two above-mentioned types, but don’t try to reform either one.)
Benchwarmer.  Dresses in his fave team’s uniform. Emotes loudly with every play/pitch/basket/groin kick. Solution: Slip Valium into his beer.
Mr. Softy.  AKA couch potato. Ladies, to get his cardio going, tickle him.
Meathead.  “…roided-out, over-buffed physique.”  As if “Pregnant” Man’s bulge had been squeezed up into his biceps.  And you know what steroids do to the cojones.
Bitterboy. Angry white male. Maybe made so by trying to date one of the Authors.
Wimpy drinker. Gets drunk after two beers.  Authors say, “You need an infusion of male hormones.” No, you don’t.  You just have to practice drinking booze until your tolerance level goes up.

WHAT NOT TO SAY

(Note: So many of these are obvious, such as “Bros before hoes.” “Get your rocks off.” And “Gotta take a dump.”  So, listed here are the questionable ones. Trying to avoid them will turn you into “the strong, silent type”–minus the “strong.”)

Make Love. They prefer “Have sex.” OK. That cuts out the B.S.  As Tina Turner sang, “What’s love got to do with it?”
Fake swearing.  Such as “Heck.” “Jeez!” “Sheesh!” “Goldarn.”  The Authors want manly talk, like %#^&*,  *+@(>), or ^</!)*.  Do I have to spell it out for you?
Base names for breasts.  Examples: “Knockers.” “Jugs.” “Headlights.”  The Authors offer no alternative suggestions.  So, when referring to your lady’s cleavage, just use the word “breasts.” Or, better yet, don’t refer to them at all.
Clit.  Alternatives?  None. “Clee-toe-russ” sounds too formal, especially when confronting the item.  Gentlemen, when facing a clitoris, talking is the wrong use of the tongue.
The Family Jewels.  Say that around the authors or their Facebook followers and you get “a good knee to the groin.”  Besides, male genitalia are now referred to as “junk.” The Authors use that term when they say, “Don’t Rearrange your junk in public.” ( Instead, walk bowlegged to a men’s room.)
Slang terms for vagina. (Examples not repeated here.) Hmm…If male genitalia have descended (so to speak) from jewels to junk, then could the vaginas of dateable women be referred to as “junk collectors?”
Business clichés. “…pushing the envelope…run it up the flagpole…think outside the box…” Instead, say “My IPO has just made me a millionaire.”  By the time she finds out you’re lying, your family jewels will already have shown their bling.
Sports metaphors.   “Knock it out of the park.” “It’s a slam dunk.” “Let’s go for the goal line.” The Authors quote Jack Nicholson in As Good as It Gets: “People who speak in metaphors ought to shampoo my crotch.”  So, the Authors hate metaphors. Would they make the same offer as Nicholson?
Boner.  Or any other word for erection including “erection” itself.  Gentlemen, this is no time for “show and tell.” Just settle for “show.”
Pet names for your penis. See above advice for “Boner.”
Brewski.   Instead, call the beer by its formal name, as in “I’ll have an Arrogant Bastard Light.”
Bayotch.  “Bitch,” as said by a gangsta practicing multi-syllabic vocabulary. As a general rule, don’t say “bitch” unless referring to someone your date has already labeled as such.

WHAT NOT TO DO

Own a cat.  You’ll look like that dork, Jon, in the Garfield comics. Explain to her that it was a starving stray that you felt sorry for.  The Authors’ choice of words here begs the rhetorical question: Does anyone actually own a cat?
Own a violent dog.  Agreed. But if you need that Doberman to scare thieves away from your pot farm, tell the dog that if he behaves himself around your girl, you’ll set him up on a date with a Bichon Frise.
Own a rodent. Explain to your date that you only keep the cute little critters around as food for your pet python.
Own a reptile. OK, so the pet python is out.  Maybe a small turtle?
Own a PT Cruiser or a Corvette or a minivan or a Hummer.  The Authors don’t diss Ferraris—so, get one.
Attend Star Trek conventions. The Authors do not want to be beamed up. Or upped any other way.
Bring a glove to a baseball game.  In the film Fever Pitch, the Drew Barrymore character gets knocked out by a line drive. Show your date this movie before exposing her to Seattle Mariners’ foul balls (which is about all they can hit).
Leave porn lying around the house. The Authors especially detest Juggs, touted as “the dirtiest tit-mag in the world.”  (How much did the publisher of that rag pay the Authors for the plug?)
Go shirtless in public.  After all, the Authors would never do that to you.  Does “public” also include beaches?
Order a girlie drink. No Kahlua  and Cream, Grasshoppers or Mango Martinis.  Recommended are vodka and tonics, scotch and soda, etc.  And if you happen to date one of the Authors—or their followers—order a double. You’ll need it.
Be Lactose-intolerant.  If you are, date vegans, not the Authors, who might poison you with mozzarella pizza.
Open-mouth breathing.  Before a date, use nostril-clearing inhalants like cocaine.  And offer some to your date so that her nostrils will be clear, too.
Sell blood for money.  It proves you are too poor to date women.  But what if you are simply altruistic and you want the ER to have enough plasma on hand for the next mass shooting?  (Maybe the Authors and their followers want to keep all your blood in your body so there’ll be more to suck out of you.)
Not owning a TV set.  A quote from the Authors: “We like talking about The Office. Everybody does.” I say if you have better things to do than watching TV, you should find women who also have better things to do than watching TV.
“Not feeling well” and whining about it.  Authors’ quote: “For all our talk about equal rights, no woman wants to date a wuss.”  So, suck it up, big guy. That knee to the groin she gave you is just a test of your machismo.
Order wine at sporting event.  Only beer will do. Wine protects your heart, and women such as the Authors may not want that—especially after becoming your life insurance beneficiary.

I have just listed 61 of the things that render a man “undateable.”  Believe it or not, there are 250 more.

Can an “undateable” shlemiel be saved? Yes! The Authors provide a before-and-after makeover.  On page 14 is a photo of a guy with a Fu Manchu and a soul patch beneath his lower lip. At the end of the book, we see the same guy, clean-shaven, in the arms of his pretty, new wife.  But that worrisome mole on his cheek is still there.  Maybe he’ll get it removed through his wife’s medical insurance.

A Note to the Authors:  I trust that you attractive, polished, successful professionals have managed to find the only two men alive who have evaded all of the items that make men undateable.

But, no.  Rakieten is married, but—if Google has the latest bio information—Coyle is still searching for that elusive, thoroughly dateable Mr. Right.  Maybe her co-author has snapped up the last one available.

I recommend UNDATEABLE as a highly entertaining, fast read. The writing is witty, and you will learn new slang terms (that you must avoid) for sex organs, breasts, masturbation, excretion, and for sex itself.

Gentlemen, though you might be intimidated by the myriad things the Authors ask you to do or not do, I leave you with this quote from Danielle LaPorte, author of The Desire Map: “You will always be too much of something for someone, too big, too loud, too soft, too edgy.”  Her advice is to just be who you are and don’t “round out your edges.” And Rakieten and Coyle close out UNDATEABLE with this statement: “And remember, SWAGGER and CONFIDENCE can almost always counteract the damage caused by a really bad pair of Dad Jeans…”

So, Mr. Undateable, go boldly forth to your Star Trek convention, wearing your SPOCK ROCKS T-shirt. You just might meet a beautiful Vulcan maiden.

NEXT BLOG POST:  I’ll review THE GAME: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists by Neil Strauss.

New SKINFLICKS Review

4.0 out of 5 stars The best book on porn from the business side., October 20, 2013

 

By

Bill Scott – See all my reviews

 

Amazon Verified Purchase(What’s this?)

 

This review is from: SKINFLICKS The Inside Story of the X-Rated Video Industry (Kindle Edition)

I’ve read, The Other Hollywood, I’ve read Jerry Butler’s Raw Talent and Jenna Jameson’s book but this one is the best. The author is intelligent, he experienced the underground porn business, the porn golden age and the shift to video and porn garbage.
He’s dealt with the mafia and the entrepreneurs. Unfortunately his humanity got a little worn down but he’s still readable. If your interest in porn is intellectual as well as wish fulfillment, I think you’ll enjoy this book.

(Reviewed on Amazon Kindle)

Thank you, Mr. Scott.

–Dave Jennings

Why Does Sweden Have Europe’s Highest Rate of Rape?

When I think of Sweden, the last thing I think of is rape. Sex? Yes! Sweden has a reputation for erotic openness and freely dispensed sexual information. (The American idea of teaching teenagers to prevent pregnancy through abstinence is laughed at in Swedish schools.)   Yet, Sweden, in recent years, has Europe’s highest rate of rape: 63 per 100,000 people. Second in the world to South Africa. Six times higher than the American rate. Sociologists estimate that a Swedish woman now has a one-in-four chance of being sexually assaulted in her lifetime.

Why?  Before delving into the answers, let me share my experiences in Sweden.

In the Spring of 1969, I was sick of America.  I had recently been busted for pot (1 lousy joint!) and had just taken my draft physical (at the height of the Vietnam war).  After paying a $250 fine for my cannabis conviction, I had $200 left for a vacation abroad. (If my draft classification came back 1A, my absence from the USA would be permanent.)

At age 23, sex was a high priority.  But everything in America had lost its luster, including American women–even those at UCLA. The reputation of Swedish girls as being sexually aggressive held much appeal for an introvert such as myself.  As my departure date neared, I kept fantasizing lithe, flaxen-haired beauties, frolicking beneath the Northern Lights.

My entry into Sweden was delayed by customs agents picking my hippie self out of a line of entering tourists. They found a half-gram of hash in my backpack.  After hours of wondering what a Swedish prison would be like, I got my pipe back with a cheery, “Have a good time in Sweden.”

I did; but not at first.  Fresh from the customs delay, I dragged my dead ass into Gothenburg (Goteborg) on Sweden’s west coast. It was about midnight and my goal was to find a place to crash.  Suddenly, behind me, I heard loud female voices.  I ignored them until it dawned on me that these girls were tailing me–just as American men will follow an attractive woman, whistling and making comments.

In exhaustion-fueled petulance, I turned and snarled, “If you’re gonna talk about me, speak English!”  Instead of scurrying off, the girls started laughing.  Under the streetlamp, I could tell they were the kind of lovelies I’d been dreaming of (Gothenburg is a university town).  I changed my tune. “Could you tell me where a guy could find a place to stay tonight?”

One of them turned to her companion and said, “Oh, he can stay with us, can’t he?”  The other girl wholeheartedly agreed.

They were off to buy booze.  I was too exhausted to tag along, so they gave me directions to their apartment and told me to wait for them there.  But I was so tired that I got lost.  I ended up sleeping on a park bench.  Damn!

In Stockholm, I came upon an amusement park/museum called Skansen. Emerging from the front entrance was a gorgeous blonde in a uniform, leaving after her day’s work.  I tried to strike up a conversation, but she couldn’t understand a word I was saying. Puzzling. Everyone there spoke English. (Later, I found out they learned English in school. This girl was the equivalent of a high school dropout.)

Trading smiles and gestures, she beckoned me to follow her onto a bus. She paid the fare and we went to her apartment.  I waited in the parlor while she entered her bedroom, presumably to change into something less workplace.

I waited…and waited.  Finally I heard her say “Come (or something similar).”  I peeked into the bedroom.  She was lying on her bed, naked.  I didn’t need a second invitation.

Later, I met Marina, another lovely blonde.  I stayed with her a week.

At that time, American men were popular with Swedish women because they did something Swedish men seemed loathe to do: “hustle chicks.” (Another horny American tourist told me, “I know what’s wrong with these Swedish men: They’re over-fucked.”)

Back to the present. It’s not native Swedes doing the bulk of the raping.  Seventy-seven percent of the sexual assaults are committed by  a rapidly increasing immigrant population–mostly Muslims.

It makes sense. If a young man comes from a country where the womenfolk are so hidden under layers of cloth that an exposed ankle can cause erections (and the offending female to be stoned–and not with hash), imagine the effect of breasts bouncing in a string bikini.

These gents know nothing of moonlit walks, candlelight and whisperings of sweet nothings. Their idea of romance is paying a girl’s father enough goats to wed his daughter.  

But even in swinging Sweden, proffering livestock won’t get you laid (unless you lay the livestock). So then, what can you do with your maddening, turgid, pants-busting boner?  What better way to use it than to serve Allah,  punishing the infidel whores who have insulted Him with brazen displays of forbidden flesh.

What’s the solution to Sweden’s problem? I don’t know. I just hope I don’t get a fatwa for posting this.

Next post: Does Porn Cause Sex Crimes?

 

 

 

 

 

Book Review: PORNLAND by Gail Dines. A Tragical Mystery Tour Through Porn Hell

PORNLAND How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality by Gail Dines is a well-written examination of Internet porn that is both educational and alarming.  What Dines describes in grisly detail are sexual aberrations that most of us couldn’t imagine.

The book is well-researched and impeccably footnoted.  As a professor of sociology and women’s studies, Dines has examined porn for over 20 years.

Her main concern is that Internet pornography has jaded our nation’s men. According to Dines, young boys are “catapulted into a never-ending universe of ravaged anuses, distended vaginas and semen-smeared faces.”  “When men turn to porn to experience sexual arousal and orgasm, they come away with a lot more than just an ejaculation because the stories seep into the very core of their sexual identity.”

So, how did this sordid state of affairs come about? Dines gives a step-by-step progression.  The following, in order of appearance, are the items she tackles.

Dines begins by pointing to those ancient skin-mags Playboy, Penthouse and Hustler. She states that these relatively innocuous (compared to the stomach-churning stuff she describes later in PORNLAND) publications opened the floodgates to the tidal wave of smut that she says we are now drowning in.

Regarding Playboy, Dines passes along significant information about 83-year-old Hugh Hefner’s sex life: “…Hefner would have unprotected sex with a number of women, one after another, but regardless of how many women he penetrated, he could orgasm only by masturbating to pornography.”  (Hey, Gail, give the guy a break.  He’s 83!) Her reason for including this intimate detail, I believe, is to augment her description of how porn has affected men.

She laments “reality” shows such as Girls Gone Wild that further the “porning of our culture.”  Dines writes  “…the young woman’s behavior is frozen in time on tape; they can’t take it back, hide it or deny that they did it.” “Ellen started college with the hope of being a business major but after the tape of her having sex with her friend was shown at a frat party during the first semester, she dropped out of school…Tricia told me that ‘my life will never be the same.  I had so many plans and look at me now, a dropout with no future.'” (I feel that Dines should place more blame on our judgmental society for saddling these young women with such opprobrium.  But saying that might run counter to her theme of how our culture blithely accepts porn’s leadership in creating sexual “new normals.”)

As an example of porn’s degradation of its actresses, Dines offers up Jenna Jameson.  This porn queen is introduced with an anonymous blog post as having breasts “‘scarred from having her breast implants removed…her face looks like it collapsed…It’s a good thing she retired because this is one old slut that needs to be put down.'”  After that opening, PORNLAND recounts Jameson being gang-raped as a teenager and being so desperate to land her first gig that she “removed her braces with a pair of pliers.”

Dines says, “Before Jameson there was no woman in porn who had a lifestyle that was in any way desirable.”

Has this author who has studied porn so closely never heard of Nina Hartley?  Nina’s lifestyle, while unconventional (having both a husband and a wife), was–and presumably still is–happy and…desirable.  (Neglecting to mention Hartley in a book covering porn is like writing about 1920s baseball and leaving out Babe Ruth.)

Though Dines has studied modern porn intensely, her knowledge of porn’s distant history might be lacking: In addition to neglecting to mention Nina Hartley, she states that The Devil in Miss Jones was directed by Greg Dark (DMJ was directed by Gerard Damiano, who also helmed Deep Throat).

Supporting her claim that mainstream television celebrates porn, Dines laments that on Rita Crosby: Live and Direct, where she appeared with Vivid Entertainment’s Steve Hirsch, he got 50 minutes, while she only got 10. (The reason, of course, is that Vivid is a big-time player in porn. She isn’t.)

Dines decries porn’s widening influence by listing companies that, she claims, are mainstreaming porn.  Among them are media giants Time Warner Cable, Cox Communications, Comcast, DirecTV and Rupert Murdoch’s EchoStar Communications Corporation.  She lists the hotel chains Holiday Inn, Marriot, Hilton, Sheraton, Radisson, and Hyatt.  Her list of smut supporters even includes Microsoft.

In the second half of PORNLAND, Dines carves into the real meat (sorry) of the book when she details that outer limit of Internet porn known as “gonzo (wall-to-wall sex, no story).”

(I’ll admit I wasn’t up to date on gonzo. SKINFLICKS describes the porn world circa 1970-1999.  Beyond that era, I haven’t kept up. [Nothing makes you tire of porn faster than shooting it.]  For a retired old-time producer like me, PORNLAND provided an education–and a Cook’s tour for perverts seeking the grossest stuff imaginable.)

It’s no surprise that weirdos wield websites.  For small investments, slavering psychopaths worldwide can put their fevered fantasies out there, safe from American prosecutors who can’t reach them. (As First Amendment attorney Clyde DeWitt said, “Technology is the worst enemy of the censor.”)

In examining the most degrading of these sites, Dines inevitably falls into the conundrum that most anti-porn scribes do: giving these “entrepreneurs” free advertising, such as…

Defloration.com. proves that their girls are real virgins by “stretching open a vagina so the user can get a clear view of the internal genitalia, which depicts, the site claims, an ‘intact hymen.'”  This tissue is then “‘stretched and ruptured by an erect penis…$38 a month…”

She blames the 2002 Supreme Court decision allowing women over 18 to portray teens under that age for precipitating a rash of PCP (Pseudo Child Porn) sites like ultrateenlist.com., a website that features “Pissing Teens, Drunk Teens, Teen Anal Sluts, Asian Teens…”  Dines also provides graphic descriptions of such sites as SoloTeenGirls.net, MySexyDaughter.com and TeenDirtBags.com.

Reviewing the Internet-taught techniques of seducing young girls, the author turns to one of her favorite villains: sadistic producer/actor Max Hardcore.  Dines describes how, in Cherry Poppers, volume 10, Hardcore, who spent two years in prison for his rough-sex videos, “seasons” a young girl.  Dines includes the testimony of FBI child porn expert Ken Lanning, who vouches for the accuracy of Hardcore’s methods. Dines adds “…and man [sic] watching him may find pointers on how to season a child.”

When Dines confronts the dichotomy of men who desire sex only with adult women, yet are attracted to child porn, this social scientist is at her best.  She accurately describes the process of desensitization: the rapidly developing boredom that forces the pornophile to seek ever more bizarre thrills.  (In SKINFLICKS, I quote UCLA psychologist Neil Malamuth who said “Our research shows that every time there is a satiation of themes, people to some degree lose their ability to be aroused by it.  Therefore, newer themes are introduced, breaking new taboos.”)

As bored viewers become disgusted with the phony moans and fake orgasms of professional porn stars, they yearn to see women in the throes of real emotions.  And nothing is more real than pain.

Here, PORNLAND dives into the sewers of sleaze. The examples below include text from their websites.

• assplundering.com: “‘bitches wouldn’t be able to walk for a week after the utter anal demolishing.'”
• ghettogaggers.com: (Two white men rape a black woman.) “‘…we destroy ghetto hoes, and it be showin’ like a mutha fukka!'”
• britishbukkakebabes.com: (In bukkake porn, a group of men ejaculate on a woman’s face. Though it seems legally daring, this genre of porn was actually created to conform to Japanese law, which forbade showing genital penetration.)  “‘…you’re guaranteed to get off when you see their dripping faces full of cum.'”

• gagmethenfuckme.com: “‘We make them gag till their makeup starts running, and then they get all other holes sore–vaginal, anal, double penetrations, anything brutal involving a cock and an orifice.'”

Having seen “many Max Hardcore movies,” Dines presents the gloating sadist’s boast: “‘I also created the technique of cuming in a girl’s ass, having her squeeze it out into a glass, and then chuck the load down…I started pissing down their throats several times during a scene, often causing them to vomit uncontrollably while still reaming their throats.'”

Ye gods. And Dines makes a living studying this stuff.  (I hope she doesn’t become like Sargent Lloyd Martin of the LAPD Administrative Vice detail who became so obsessed with child porn that he kept a garage filled with it–just to show people how evil it was. As related in SKINFLICKS, the LAPD eventually fired him.)

Perhaps Dines’ ongoing studies of gonzo porn influenced her writing style. Here’s how she describes Caucasian male fans of the popular genre of black men screwing white women: “As the white man unzips, he steps out of the socially constructed cage of whiteness and into a thoroughly debauched world of huge, semen-filled black penises out to rip, tear, pummel, and hammer white women into the utter subordination of becoming a fuckee.”

Then there’s Dines’ correlating the film King Kong with the white man’s myth of black sexuality, calling the movie, “…the most dramatic rendering of black masculinity that this country had ever seen…”

Gosh. When I saw King Kong as a kid, I thought he was just an over-sized ape.

I would venture to say that when you study extremes of pornography for years on end, you begin to see its influence everywhere.  You become like someone who buys a yellow VW Cabriolet and suddenly starts noticing all these yellow VW Cabriolets on the road.

Dines writes,“We are so steeped in the pornographic mindset that it is difficult to imagine what a world without porn would look like.  It is affecting our girls and boys, as both are growing up with porn encoded into their gender and sexual identities.”

As examples of porn’s influence, Dines writes, “Whether it be thongs peeping out of low-slung jeans, revealing their ‘tramp stamp (a lower back tattoo just above the butt crack),’ their waxed pubic area, or their desire to give the best blow job ever to the latest hookup, young women and girls, it seems, are increasingly celebrating their ’empowering’ sexual freedom by trying to look and act the part of a porn star.”

I disagree.  I think they’re just expressing themselves as sexual beings.  We’ve come a long way from the Hays Office prudery that ruled Hollywood from 1930 to the mid-’60s.  And rightly so.

But Dines is correct about the need to somehow regulate the most extreme elements of the Internet. Left totally unchecked, the final step in pornographers’ race to be the most outre would be to emulate the Roman Coliseum and toss maidens to lions.

So, ultimately, what does Dines recommend?  She’s too savvy to slide down the Dworkin/MacKinnon slope of trying to ban pornography.  Instead, she invites readers to access her website stoppornculture.org, where two slide shows can be obtained for free.  Her aim is to unite people in a grassroots movement to battle porn’s excesses.

In the book’s concluding paragraph, Dines writes, “As long as we have porn, we will never be seen as full human beings deserving of all the rights that men have…in a just society, there is no room for porn.”

Hmm.  I Googled (or rather “Norton Safe Searched”) “Countries where women have the most equality.”  Answer: Iceland, Norway, Finland and Sweden.  (In Sweden, child porn was legal from 1971 to 1980.  Recently, a Swedish man was convicted of “aggravated child pornography [shackled children being raped].”  His sentence? Only one year in prison.)  In these Scandinavian countries, porn is freely available–though Iceland has a strong movement to ban the the most extreme “gonzos,” such as those described in PORNLAND.

Next, I Norton Safe Searched “Countries that stop Internet porn.” Answers: Bahrain, China, Iran, Kuwait, North Korea, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Qatar.   Hardly bastions of female equality.  And all pornography is illegal in Saudi Arabia, Iran and Pakistan.

Despite my differences with parts of PORNLAND, I believe that this is an important, educational and grimly entertaining book.  For anyone seeking an information-rich look at the “brave new world” of Internet pornography, without having to access its grand guignol of websites, I highly recommend PORNLAND: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality.

Next:  While doing my own research, I came across a strange fact. The European country with the highest rate of rape is Sweden.  That doesn’t sound like the Sweden I enjoyed visiting, where sexual freedom under the midnight sun kept Swedish men happy.  But there is a demographic development in Sweden that has become a growing crisis.

Next post: Sweden Raped

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Rape Films of Porn’s Golden Age

Today’s “gonzo porn” includes many categories of women subjected to brutal sex.  But these are cheap and dirty “wall-to-wall (sex only, no story)” videos.  They can’t compare with the big-budget 35-millimeter epics of the 1970s and early 80s that featured elaborate production values and intricate stories that involved debasing women in the grossest possible ways.

The audiences for these theatrical films were angry, sexually-frustrated men who comprised a large portion of that era’s “raincoat crowd.”

My duties as film and tape manager at VCX, Inc., included supervising the transfer of these films to videotape.  Among these pictures were the following “classics”:

(Passages from SKINFLICKS are in italics.)

In Alex DeRenzy’s Pretty Peaches (1978), real-life mental patient Desiree Cousteau plays a car accident amnesia victim who’s raped by the men who hit her. A quack doctor treats her amnesia with enemas. She’s gang-banged at a job audition.

At Compact Video, I supervised the transfer of Defiance, with underaged (16 year old) Jean Jennings gang-raped by the staff and inmates of an insane asylum; Expensive Tastes, in which a prostitute plays decoy to help bust a gang of rapists; and The Seduction of Lyn Carter, in which future rock singer Andrea True plays a housewife with a compulsion for further and further debasements from kinky sex researcher Jamie Gillis.

A Dirty Western (1975) featured a gang of outlaws raiding a ranch and raping the owner (Barbara Bourbon) and her daughters.

In Waterpower, Jamie Gillis (You want kink? He’s your man.) played an enema rapist.

After I left VCX, my new business partner Joe Loveland (a nom de porn) gave me a tape that his S and M protege Stephanie Bonds wanted to emulate:  The Mitchell Brothers’ Never a Tender Moment starred Marilyn Chambers suspended by wrists and ankles while butch lesbians beat her with whips; hung upside down while they insert all of a dildo the size of a baby elephant’s leg in her rectum.

Serena (Blaquelord) in All the King’s Ladies

Before she appeared in my video feature All The King’s Ladies, Serena had retired from porn after a shoot that nearly led to her death. In Mai Lin Versus Serena (1982), a filmed contest to see which actress could take on the most men, the compliant masochist was penetrated not only by forty or more studs but by the microbes they carried. “My doctor said the germs ganged up,” Serena told me. “My belly swelled up like I was pregnant.” Delirious from septic shock, she spent months hospitalized with severe pelvic inflammatory disease (PID)–epidemic in the wake of the libertine ’70s. The filmmaker didn’t even send a get-well card.

“It’s a unique irony,” wrote the historian (Jim) Holliday in the 1990s, “that under Nixon’s presidency adult films were rougher than they are currently.”

Yet, even after home video brought an influx of female viewers in the mid 1980s, there remained an audience of disgruntled men who made best-sellers out of videos like Biff Malibu’s Gang Bang Girls series.

Today’s misogynist porn can’t match the budgets of yesteryear, but it’s just as brutal.  Anti-porn academic, Gail Dines, rails against this gonzo genre, blaming it for corrupting the sexuality of all American men.  Dines has produced one of the most inadvertently hilarious jeremiads against porn that I have ever read.

Next post: Pornland by Gail Dines: A Primer for Perverts

 

 

 

Screwings: On-Screen and Off. When Porn Careers Clash

The all-time worst case of clashing porn careers has to be the tragic event that happened on the night of January 25, 1996.

From SKINFLICKS: The Inside Story of the X-Rated Video Industry:

For Randy Potes–AKA Cal Jammer–that stud image was everything. “Cal obsessed about his erections,” wrote AVN’s Gene Ross. “…he told me that after 20 years of living a wastrel’s existence, sex was about the only thing he had left going for him.” Able to perform 16 scenes in four days, the dislexic Potes wasn’t hired for his dialogue readings. Then, plagued by marital problems and that bane of porn stars, the IRS, Potes began failing. He fell into the funk of impotence anxiety, worsened by watching his estranged, actress wife Adrian continue her career in porn. With the O.J Simpson murder case as “inspiration,. Potes set out on the night of January 25, 1995, to murder her. Adrian locked herself in her bathroom, heard a “pop,” and emerged to find Potes lying on her lawn amidst his splattered brains.

Tensions between off-screen lovers who both have porn careers rarely reach the horror-show level of the Cal Jammer suicide.  At worst, they enter the realm of absurdity. (Note: Passages from SKINFLICKS are in italics.)

Matt Daniels couldn’t function for a doggie-style scene in Spinelli’s The Party, even though it was with his off-screen girlfriend, Heather Lere.  After she cussed him out in front of cast and crew, according to witnesses, the agitated actor slapped her butt and proceeded to–in Lere’s term–“spring board.”
     Whatever gets the juices flowing.

Serena Blaquelord in SUBMISSION OF SERENA, a full-length version of the scene in BOUND

In my S and M video Bound, Jamie Gillis and Serena Blaquelord demonstrated their bizarre sex-style:

In a skit the couple had concocted themselves, he made her beg, lick his hands and feet, and crawl on hands and knees wearing a collar and chain. If she was slow to obey his commands, he’d strike her with his hand, a riding crop or a cat-o’-9-tails. It looked brutal, with Serena’s yelps and the cat landing in her face, but she said later, “Jamie’s never given me a bruise, ever.”

On the past Halloween, he’d tied her naked in a bay window of their Polk Street apartment, displayed to the crowd below. Even revelers as bizarre as San Francisco’s could only stare upward, open- mouthed. 

Serena and Jamie were strong performers and established stars. (Maybe that’s why they eventually went their separate ways.)  But what about when a porn star has a partner who also performs but is known to be a “weak model?”  That was the case when a beautiful woman I hired for a loop series insisted that she work with her boyfriend.

Buxom Desiree West, “the BlackPanther porn star (she really did belong to that radical political group),” had to suck her boyfriend Dashiell hard for every shot; he kept losing his erection. Better with punches than penis, he practiced Kung Fu during breaks.

Sucking Dashiell for the come shot, Desiree warned, “Better not let a drop of that shit land on my face.” (Maybe the implications in that warning were the reasons he practiced Kung Fu.)

“Take it on the tits, then.” I wanted to feature them anyway.
(Dashiell managed a “dribbler.”)

“He travels fastest who travels alone, and that goes double for she.”  –Florence King, Reflections in a Jaundiced Eye

Especially in the fast-paced porno business.

So, were there any porn performer partnerships that worked?

Samantha Fox in my video production, SIZZLE WITH SAMANTHA

Yes. Bobby Astyr and the delightful Samantha Fox were a couple  from 1978 until Astyr’s death of lung cancer in 2002.  Bill Margold and his wife Drea were together from 1982 until their divorce in 1984.

 … in an Adam interview (1982), Margold said that he and his porn director wife Drea left the business on the movie set “and then we go home. Just as if we were working in K-Mart or Dunkin’ Donuts…You can only live in a fantasy land just so long before it starts driving you crazy.”

Nina Hartley in my video E.X.

The best porn relationship I ever witnessed was that of Nina Hartley and her husband Dave, with whom she was mated for 20 years.  Their relationship was unusual in that Nina also had a wife.

Dave often accompanied her on shoots. He enjoyed watching Nina in action, and she enjoyed being watched by him. Their mutual “wife,” Bobby Lilly, heads the anti-censorship group, Californians Against Censorship Together (CAL-ACT).

Dave was not a performer, but I was glad to have him on the set when I cast Nina.  He was an able crew member whose upbeat energy was welcomed.

Barbara Dare in E.X. (when she was still known as Kimberly Dare)

That supreme super-bitch, Barbara Dare, didn’t let a boyfriend get in her way.  Of course, it helped that she was a lesbian.

To these ladies, the malady of boyfriendinitis is irrelevant. “I don’t need men…” Dare told an interviewer from the lesbian magazine On Our Backs, “I need women.” They trade tales among themselves about seducing both the boyfriends of straight ladies and the girlfriends of screen studs.

Next:  The Rape Films of Porn’s Golden Age

 

 

 

The Curse of “Boyfriendinitis”

Adult Video News reported that a newcomer named Leena was so ecstatic about her heart-throb Peter North coming on her face that she left it on to show her boyfriend.

The boyfriend’s reaction was not reported, but he must have been more tolerant of his lady-love’s new career than the men described below.  These worthies are examples of that pornmaker’s headache called “boyfriendinitis.”

(Excerpts from SKINFLICKS are in italics.)

Amy Rogers (with Tom Byron) in DIRTY PICTURES

I’d hired stunning, voluptuous Robin Cannes for Dirty Pictures, only to have her husband decide at the last moment that
he didn’t want his wife in pornos. (I replaced her with equally voluptuous Amy Rogers, whose boyfriend, porn actor Kevin James, was glad to see her getting work.)

At one of Joe Elliot’s casting sessions, I hired a stunning new woman with the porn name of Connie Lindstrom.  She was every man’s fantasy of a flaxen-haired Swedish goddess.  Then, before the shoot, her fiance gave her genital herpes.  Unlike most porn stars, Connie was ethical enough to refuse to pass it along to screen partners.  She limited herself to fellatio–frustrating the studs who wanted a go at her cunny.

Samantha Strong claimed she got into porn to spite her boyfriend; then she left the business to please her new one, a wealthy Israeli. He reportedly walked into South’s office with $250,000 in cash, wanting to buy up all her movies and take them off the market–he was told the task was impossible. Then Strong decided her new love had a drug problem, dropped him, and returned to porn.

Adult Video News quoted giddily sardonic Nikki Wilde’s assessment of her marriage: “I hate him! We’re still married…I hope he dies soon. You hear this, (name withheld)? I’m gonna get you, ’cause I’m a Scorpio and you fucked me over.”

AVN reported a divorce proceedings stemming from a “background” actress telling her spouse she was going to a church festival, when actually she was heading for the set of Oriental Treatment II.

One of my favorite screen ladies, whom I won’t name in the interest of preserving her domestic tranquility, married a wealthy man who demanded she leave the business–which she did. Yet, she snuck off to perform in one of Superior’s features. Maybe she was bored.

Kristara Barrington lamented, “When I come home to my boyfriend and we make love, I think of it as work almost.”

Musing over why industry love affairs were so short-term, Juliet Anderson said, “When you drive a bus ten hours a day, you don’t want to spend your vacation on a Greyhound.”

Pursuing porn’s promise of wealth, many actresses would echo Samantha Strong’s declaration upon signing a 15-picture contract with Western Visuals: “I do not have, nor do I want a personal life right now.” Alice Springs put it simply: “I don’t have a boyfriend, thank God.”

OK, so a private-life lover can sour a porn career.  What about when both partners work in porn?  Good? Bad? Disastrous?  All of the above?

___________

Next:  Screwings: On-screen and Off.  When Porn Careers Clash

 

Porn’s Boyfriends From Hell

Gayle Sterling had the attributes that were in great demand: shapely body, pretty face, easy-going demeanor, long flaxen hair, and a love of sex. She wasn’t hired more often because of “Dennis,” who usually accompanied her on shoots.

He wasn’t the helpful sort of on-set mate, like Nina Hartley’s husband Dave, who’d run errands, string cables or hold pussy lights. Dennis would sit there watching, with an aura of menace. During the Chocolate Cream shoot, he lit up a joint.

“I like smoke as much as anyone,” I said, “but I have a policy against drugs on my set.”

The tall, bellicose man glared at me. I stared right back. If there was to be a contest of wills on my production, I wasn’t about to come out second. After a few tense moments, he snuffed it out.

After we wrapped, I found out why Gayle hauled Dennis along like excess baggage. She motioned me to a stairwell, away from the crew packing up equipment. Like a cop about to frisk a suspect, Gayle leaned Dennis against the rail. Chattering about how well-hung he was, she unbuckled his belt and pulled down his pants. I wondered what this was all about; Dennis didn’t work in porn movies.

Then I recalled how the couple had kept telling me about their exploits swinging with third parties–both male and female. Gayle alone I might have considered, but I wanted no part of this scene. To this couple, Gayle’s porn work was part of their elaborate fantasy life.

(Excerpts from SKINFLICKS, such as above, are in italics.)

Many a porn queen has found out the hard way that the worst thing in the world to have is a boyfriend.

A common phenomenon is the beautiful porn star, who could have her choice of gentle, caring men, yet sticks with a brutal boyfriend who beats her silly. (Example: Posche Lynn’s boyfriend who bashed her head open with a vase during an argument. Reportedly, they “patched” things up.)

Many, such as adult film historian Jim Holliday, cite low self-esteem among porn ladies. Declaring he’d no longer date sex pros after “more than half a decade of romantic frustration and grief”, Dave Patrick, editor of the Bay Area sex tabloid Spectator, quoted a rock musician who’d written in to agree with Patrick’s decision: “Strippers and porn stars are a lot like rock ’n’ roll groupies. More often than not, they come from similar backgrounds of sexual and emotional abuse. They don’t have much self-esteem. Treat ’em good and they’ll walk all over you; treat ’em like shit and they’ll worship the ground you walk on.”

At lunch one day, four of us were discussing the sobbing ladies who call (porn agent Jim) South to cancel appointments due to black eyes and chipped teeth. “They’re beautiful and they’ve always had men bust ass to do them favors,” said (porn director) Richard Mailer. “So they play ’em for chumps. They only respect the dude who treats them like dirt.”

“Maybe,” I conjectured, “They find it easy to leave the responsibility for their affairs in the hands of a guy who dominates them. When they step out of line, he clouts them to establish his control. Maybe they take that for love.”

South wisely refrained from offering his own theories. He had to deal with these ladies every day and didn’t want anything he said getting back to them. But the problem of the meddlesome mate was so common that South–and others–had a word for it: “boyfriendinitis.”

Next: The Curse of “Boyfriendinitis”