Mazel tov to one of our favorite CineKinksters, Lolita Wolf, for her prize-winning suggestion in Violet Blue's recent competition to determine the best sex-related ad campaign. Lolita's entry, last year's "Dominate Winter" interactive campaign for the Cooper Mini, which featured a cat-suit clad dominatrix encouraging the user to put the car through its paces.
Violet's criteria for the competition were pretty inclusive - by "sex-related I mean just downright sexy and hot, or incredibly clever, controversial, or just plain fun" - and a slew of tasty examples can be found in both the comments to that post and in her follow-up announcing the winners. (Both of which we've bookmarked and will be pillaging far into the future.)
Well, we're not sure how many Aspvik units it helped move. And we're way late for Violet's deadline. But for our money, our all-time favorite sex-related - and sex-positive! - ad continues to be Ikea's Neighbors.
Even though it was first released in 1997, Preaching to the Perverted was an obvious choice to open the first-ever CineKink NYC back in 2003, where it took home one of our first-ever Audience Choice Awards.
From British director Stuart Urban, the movie follows a fresh-faced infiltrator who is dispatched by moral crusaders in Parliament to gather evidence against fetish clubs in the United Kingdom, where many of the saucier activities are illegal. Thrust into a shiny latex world of clubs and parties, he instead - of course! - becomes infatuated with Tanya Cheex, leader of the fetish scene on both sides of the Atlantic. While he wants her to calm down, become "normal" and avoid going to jail, she wants to pervert him. Who will win? We can only say "hmmm..."
While it's one of the few wholeheartedly S/M-positive films created to date and a favorite recommendation, until now only a trimmed-up R-rated version has been available on DVD in the US.
But brilliant news! Featuring interview extras by film critic Alonso Duralde with the beyond-sexy star of the movie, Guinevere Turner, there's a new version out that is touted as unrated and looks to have a likely-key three minutes returned to its running time.
Amazing but true, but give the Midwest Teen Sex Show a few key concepts, some colorful props and several feet of rope and they manage to convey in the space of several minutes what it takes many a fetish-friendly documentarian - self included - a good half hour to express.
(Though we know they're kidding, our internal safety nazi wishes they'd spent a wee bit of that time literally underscoring the unwisdom of leaving anyone in bondage unattended. Probably the kids just get it?)
It's summertime and - much to our delight! - they definitely seem to have sex on the brain over at SPOUTBlog!
Just today, there's a round-up of The 10 Best Masturbation Scenes that will first have you questioning if there's even that many. Then have you rushing to comment on your favorite glaringly obvious omission. (Um, hello. Secretary?!?)
Beyond that, we've been horribly remiss in mentioning the blog's weekly posts by our provocative friend, Lauren Wissot, who began writing regularly for Spout back in June: "We wanted to call her column 'Art Films To Jerk Off To,' but in the end that might be too limiting––after all, who’s to say what qualifies as art?"
She was “always pulling her skirt down over her knees as if there were a national treasure,” Marnie’s lecherous employer-turned-victim Mr. Strutt mutters at the beginning of Hitch’s classic, introducing us to Hedren’s character as a trobbing cock-tease – who, of course, needs to be punished like the naughty little girl she really is deep down inside. Enter Connery’s controlling Master Rutland, immaculately dressed in suit and tie (I love a man in a uniform!), a big bad wolf smile on his face as he eavesdrops on Strutt’s report to the police. Is there any doubt that this is the perfect square-jawed, hairy-chest daddy for the B&D job?
Overwhelmed by indecision in the face of so many kinky cinematic possibilties? Give yourself over to our CineKink NYC All-Access Pass and prepare to submit completely!
Join us tomorrow for a New Year's double-header of works from Maria Beatty, each offering up the director's signature "erotic noir" style and depictions of a ride between pain and pleasure at the hands of a beautiful temptress. And then around the corner for a cocktail or two.
The Elegant Spanking
The Seven Deadly Sins
"Beatty makes porno into fetishistic film noir; imagine a kinky Louise Brooks, a sadistic Marlene Dietrich (who's the top?), and some nipple clamps and hot wax, and you're beginning to get the idea." - Tristan Taormino, The Village Voice
Screening: Tuesday, January 8 @ 7 pm Two Boots Pioneer Theater 155 E. Third Street (@ Avenue A), NYC 212.591.0434
Cocktails: China 1 50 Avenue B (@ 4th Street), NYC
"A fascinating programme that provides much insight into the nature of BDSM and the communities involved. Its style is frank and revelatory but also refreshingly non-judgemental." Tony Mitchell - Skin Two #52
More info, tickets and a preview trailer are here!
We're only into day #2 of the New York Leather Weekend + NYC Poly Pride mash-up - with a near week of events to go - and we're starting to get that tickling in the throat kind of thing that typically coincides with a change in the seasons.
Maybe in addition to our customary vitamin C + echinacea preventative mash-up, we'll power up with a bit of this?
CineKink, "the really alternative film festival," presents a special screening of film and video shorts from New York directors for a celebration of kinky Gotham. Dark and gritty, sleek and sophisticated, seamy and ... well, come and take a bite for yourself!!
On My Knees Directed by Kim Wood, 2003, USA, 13 minutes. Culled from the secret diaries of Hannah Cullwick, a Victorian fetishist and “maid-of-all-work,” a life of unabashed deviance is traced.
DragonLily Directed by Napoleon Lake, 2005, USA, 21 minutes. On a stroll around Greenwich Village, DragonLily discovers Steven Speliotis' book Asia Bondage and is transported to her own explicit fantasy world of intricate bondage.
The Black Glove Directed by Maria Beatty, 1996, USA, 30 minutes.The flame of the candle that illuminates and torments, reveals the wondrous form of the willing slave, whose haunting, wide eyes and full, parted lips recall the classic silent screen goddesses.
Meat Directed by Joe Gallant, 2005, USA, 7 minutes. A meditation on love in the crosshairs, the post-mod tectonic power-shift so visible in contemporary relationships.
Plus, for the first-time ever altogether! CineKink Trailer Redux Directed by Lisa Vandever, 2003-06, USA, 10 minutes.Since its start in 2003, CineKink has featured various NYC scene illuminaries in the trailer that runs before each festival program. With titles including Gay Cowboys Eating Pudding, CineKink Veterans for Truth, You Horah! and Sissies Gone Wild! - who do you know?!?
We've had so much going on in our New York calendar lately, it's been hard for everyone (especially us!) to keep on top of where we are when. And October's looking especially hectic...
In a recent interview with The Reeler, director William Friedkin discusses his back-and-forths with the MPAA to get an R rating for the original release of Cruising in 1980. Sadly, for anyone hoping for a bit more detail on what ended up on the cutting room floor - and what apparently still isn't being put back for the DVD release scheduled next month - Friedkin remains pretty mum:
What didn't make it didn't make it. I'm not about to circumvent the ratings board now and describe all the scenes that aren't in the movie. There's about a half-hour to 40 minutes. But I would have to say is was mostly just more of what was going on in the clubs, and they didn't change or advance the story in any major way.
You know. Just more of what was going on in the clubs. That kinda stuff.
Much less the buzz-kill, this week's episode of ReelerTV contains a clip of the film's memorable hanky scene, along with host S.T. VanAirsdale's revelation of which color he's flagging these days. Who knew?!
Right coast, left coast, we've somewhat lost track in our travels, but we're off to the airport now.
Actually old enough to remember a time when everybody dressed up to fly, now we'll just have to content ourselves with My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult and fantastizing about the flight crew...
If that's the case, looks like we actually have a bit of catching up to do. Somehow in our July torpor we missed the announcement that the documentary series, Indie Sex, began airing this week on IFC.
Fortunately, it's cable, so last night's missed episode will be back around shortly (and again and again). But we'll be watching closely to see if any of the footage the crew shot at last year's CineKink kick-off gala with the fabulous Wet Spots made it past network censors and into the final production.
And, if we're not lying somewhere on the cutting-room floor, would we be more likely considered the "Taboos" type - episode #2, airing tonight! - or a bit more an "Extremes" sort of girl?
Many thanks to everyone who came out for last night's sold-out screening of Pornology New York at Pioneer Theater - and our sympathies to those who ended up getting shut out in the cold!
Fortunately, Viviane's Sex Carnival was on the scene to snap a few photos. Below, Lenny Waller, former front-man of the infamous Hellfire Club and one of the documentary's key subjects, contemplates a celebratory stogie, while director Michele Capozzi and CineKink's Lisa Vandever are stunned merely to have survived the melee. (Visit Viviane's flickr for the rest of the images.)
It was a thrill to have such an enthusiastic crowd pack the theater for the documentary, a rare glimpse into the city's historic sexual underground. And with talks of another - midnight likely - screening in the works, more will have just that opportunity.
And one last thought for next time - advance online tickets!
"Pornology New York reinvents a time when anybody could go to Plato's Retreat, the Hellfire, Mindshaft, The Vault, the Anvil, Le Trapeze and even Show World, to indulge in their dirtiest, wildest fantasies and fetishes." - Stephanie Sellars, New York Press
Audience Choice Award - Best Documentary/CineKink 2005 Pornology New York Directed by Michele Capozzi, 2005, 85 minutes. A paean to the New York sexual underground, circa 1970-85, this engrossing documentary brings together four of its most colorful protagonists. Our guide to the action is Michele Capozzi, urban explorer and self-titled pornologist, with an up-close introduction to Neville Chambers, founder of the infamous porn-producing Fuck Factory; Lenny Waller, long-time front-man of the meat-packing district's now-defunct Hellfire Club and renowned pornstar/mistress/shaman, Porsche Lynn - for a look back in time, an assessment of where we are today...and one very wild farewell party.
Free pizza and beer reception follows for all ticket holders!!
"Pornology New York reinvents a time when anybody could go to Plato's Retreat, the Hellfire, Mindshaft, The Vault, the Anvil, Le Trapeze and even Show World, to indulge in their dirtiest, wildest fantasies and fetishes." - Stephanie Sellars, New York Press
Invited by Rachel Kramer Bussel to take part in the kinky virtual book tour for her just-published anthologies, She's On Top: Erotic Stories of Female Dominance and Male Submission, along with the complementary He's On Top: Erotic Stories of Male Dominance and Female Submission, we pretty readily chose the latter to highlight. Because we're switchy and all, but given a real choice in the matter, that's the direction we'd generally prefer to tumble.
That said, book in hand, we recalled, afterall, that our focus is ordinarily on kinky film and television, and that there are plenty of other outlets devoted to literature and such. What might we possibly add to the discussion, other than the observation that the bulk of the stories are well-crafted, engaging, achingly hot and, best of all for the adaptation-minded - really, really short! (We might also point out which of them are ripest for a jump to the silver screen - perhaps even suggest some casting possibilities - but that's generally the type of high-level development work best reserved for your cadre of unpaid interns.)
Instead, we thought we'd take He's On Top: Erotic Stories of Male Dominance and Female Submission as a jumping off point for a ramble through some of our favorite cinematic male dominants:
Rene/Sir Stephen/random guys at château This one was tough. It's one of the most obvious in terms of literary characters, but we just can't seem to make the leap to film with everyone successfully intact. Udo Kier plays a romantic if overly mopey Rene in L'Histoire d'O and Evan Stone nearly nails - so to speak - the role of Sir Stephen in Ernest Greene's recent O - The Power of Submission. We're still waiting for a rendering of "random guys at château" that anywhere near approaches the version that lives on inside our fevered brain.
Marquis de Sade
Another classic, one who's made countless cinematic appearances. Our personal best is Benoît Jacquot's Sade, featuring a rumpledly handsome Daniel Auteuil. This depiction takes place at a point when Sade is not confined to a grim cell, just merely detained with various noble others at a château (again with that!) in the French countryside, allowing for a bit of fresh air, lavish costumes and dalliances that include a wide-eyed daughter of aristocracy and a whip-flavored romp with the stable boy.
Dr. Sayer
This time the action moves to a villa in 1960s Italy for The Frightened Woman - and we'll cop to including this one largely so we could link to its mondo groovy trailer. But while Philippe Leroy is a bit bloodless for our taste - and, hmmm, is he a real dominant? - there's something about his chilly sadism that resonates. Bring out the big hoses!
John Grey
To our mind, 9½ Weeks has always gotten a bit of a bum wrap. Sure, it's from a big-budget Hollywood director and it's all mainstream and shit. But Mickey Rourke definitely looks great in a suit, knows how to smack a riding crop and he's always got this wry, little smile about to break through, so we're never quite sure how much trouble we're actually in for. (No château, but in Manhattan real estate terms, a penthouse loft is just as good.) So what if it turns out that Kim Basinger's really not all that kinky afterall? There's plenty more of us just waiting to fill the void.
Mr. E. Edward Grey
Just three little words: type it again.
Captain von Trapp
Yeah, this one surprised us a bit as well. But - a cautionary note to parents with young children - take a four-year-old to the movies and you might well create an imprint. We first saw The Sound of Music in its original release way back when. But then, during a latter years screening it struck us - Christopher Plummer - it all began right here! The handsome but aloof (suit-wearing!) man, just waiting for the right woman's love to melt his heart. The willful young supplicant who blossoms under (finally!) just the right amount of discipline and loving guidance. And, of course, row upon row of fresh-scrubbed faces gazing up beseechingly for approval. ("You've been fraternizing with Nazi sympathizers again? I'm afraid that Daddy's very, very angry with you.")
Hey, we're just glad we managed to avoid also fetishizing Bambi.
We're just back from the Leather Leadership Conference, the annual event that brings together hundreds of activism- and education-minded kink folk from around the country to plot strategy for eventual world domination.
After a few days of chewing on such heady topics as non-profit organizational structure, the rudimentaries of a press release and the full decriminalization of consensual BDSM in North America - actually, that last one is pretty heady - we find ourselves returned to the mundanity of our everyday. And jonesing for even just a few hot boys in leather. Rather than face the realities of our in-box, we'd much rather ponder - what did go down at that unofficial "men only" (ahem!) afterparty?
The classic short, Boot Camp, presents at least a few intriguing possibilities...
The original posts brushed teasingly through our consciousness back when we were in the full, happy thrust of SXSWing and, while we meant to come back for a good going over at the very first opportunity - well, you know how that goes. Just too. many. shiny. things.
Peter Coyote in a pig mask. Joan Chen getting her foot sucked off in Cinemascope. James Spader spanking Maggie Gyllenhaal. James Spader screwing a scar on someone’s leg. James Spader doing anything, come to think of it. Some of us just have a taste for the bizarre. Of course, that also makes creating a list of the kinkiest films a bit of a minefield. After all, one man’s aphrodisiac is another man’s bellybutton cheese – sometimes literally so.
After a nice nod to CineKink - yes, forgiveness is at hand, if that's what you really want - they go on to spell out some of the ground-rules for picking the top ten. Which became the top 14. Which looks to be evolving into a sequel, for which they'd happily welcome your suggestions.
Of the list, several had long ago been duly and hopefully noted for our possible inclusion at a future screening. (So, who does hold the exhibition rights to In the Realm of the Senses?) And a few others we've already had the pleasure of programming. But some left us dashing for our NetFlix queue. Especially now that we've been educated in the ways of Zoo, we can't wait to see what Jane Fonda gets up to with that horse in Spirits of the Dead! (Somehow we'd always just figured that was some old Bergman snoozer.)
As to potential additions, several spring to mind. But since the list seems a bit mired in gloom and doom, we thought we'd first add some happy S/M to the mix, in the form of our perennial favorite, Preaching to the Perverted, which took home the Audience Choice Award for Best Narrative at the premiere edition of CineKink NYC in 2003.
Directed by the UK's Stuart Urban, the film stars another perennial favorite, Guinevere Turner, as Tanya Cheex, a (usually) latex-clad dominatrix who runs a fetish empire on both sides of the Atlantic. Her world is violated by a young (suit-wearing!) infiltrator, dispatched by crusaders in Parliament to gather evidence against her immoral and illegal activities. Naturally, he grows infatuated and - see above - becomes quite enmeshed in much the very same. Ah, the savory rush of corrupting the fresh-faced and the righteous to a life of licentious profligacy!
But that's just us. What might be your suggested favorite kinky bit?
Oh, Ann. Just bite me. No, seriously, please just bite me.
Sure, it might be some seriously freaky roleplay, but we're certainly not the first to speculate on Ann Coulter's seemingly dominatrix-y demeanor. (See also Google re: Ann + Coulter + dominatrix.) But Ann's nattering on and on reached a new level of sadistic tedium when she appeared on FOX News recently, as part of an "alarming new report," Ivy Gone Wild, commenting on a wee bit of to-do in the news over Columbia University's BDSM Club, Conversio Virium.
I expected outrage from her, but all Ann does is giggle inanely and jab at "losers" who have to join a sex club to get sex. Her most priceless quote: "This has been well documented. Christians have more sex, better sex, more sexual satisfaction...you want a sex club, become an evangelical."
Oh, really? Is that the Religious Right's new rallying cry? Join us and get lots of sex? Seems to me the first thing the Evangelical Sex Club should do is stop telling everyone else that the way we want to have sex is wrong. Then let the orgy begin!
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Directed by Kim Wood, 2003, USA, 13 minutes.
Directed by Napoleon Lake, 2005, USA, 21 minutes. On a stroll around Greenwich Village, DragonLily discovers Steven Speliotis' book Asia Bondage and is transported to her own explicit fantasy world of intricate bondage.
Directed by Maria Beatty, 1996, USA, 30 minutes.The flame of the candle that illuminates and torments, reveals the wondrous form of the willing slave, whose haunting, wide eyes and full, parted lips recall the classic silent screen goddesses. 
