I Have a Dream: Porn, Race, and Reality

When I last talked to sister sex radical Tristan Taormino, she was fresh off her arduous job as the sex consultant on a Spike Lee joint, trying her level best to convince her director that women do indeed have this special thing called a clitoris.

In Bed with Susie Bright 246: House of Ass

But Tristan's new movie is her own, a runway inspiration titled House of Ass. She decided to to make a porn movie-cum-reality show, where as she put it, "people stop being polite and start getting naked."

The actors do get emotionally naked, in addition to the usual displays. Each of the performers are interviewed for their candid opinions throughout the course of  a weekend together in a mountain getaway, far from the Madding Crowd.

The spontaneous and blunt opinions Tristan elicits are what makes the DVD quite extraordinary. I know some will find my behavior bizarre, but I rushed through the sex parts to listen to what the next person had to say.

As an example, one of the young women, Joanna Angel, reviews her decision-making when she auditioned for the shoot. Would she do girl/girl? Sure. Anal? But of course! Double penetration? Not to worry.

But the next question was different: Will you do interracial?

Now this is a most peculiar industry standard question. It is only asked of fair-skinned women, and it only means one thing: will Miss Anne fuck a black guy? Men are not asked this question. Black women are not asked this question. Asian, Polynesian, Chicano, and biracial actors are not given a rag to bite down on. This is the  Mandingo-cliche of the film biz, a throwback  to the notion of "the flower of white womanhood." To see it on casting interviews still makes my eyes cross. It's part of mainstream movies too—  it's just baldfaced in porn casting, for obvious reasons.

Joanna demurs when she gets her interracial challenge. She explains, "I said no! I wouldn't want to do anything I hadn't done already in my personal life."

But afterward, her decision gnaws at her. "Am I racist?" she asks herself, goth eyebrows raised. She considers that it's unfair that she would stick any strange white guy's cock in her mouth, but that a black lover would be beyond the pale.  Her rational mind starts mocking her fears.

Now Joanna is young... her frame of historical reference is still her high school years. So are all the women on the shoot. The men tend to be a little older, in their 20s, or like Mr. Marcus, the 30-something black actor that Joanna eventually makes hay with.

I had the oddest feeling watching this movie, and it's because I haven't sat down to watch a two and a half hour porn movie from front to back in quite some time. I used to review porn for a living, from the time when there wasn't a disclaimer on ever X-rated movie warning you to be monogamous. Ha! Time has passed, and it hit me I have gone from identifying with the girl ON camera, to wondering what her mom is like.

The actresses on House of Ass, like all porn, are my daughter's peers.  A few years older, but the same emotional temperature. They live in that world where agony is whether you're popular or not. Insecurity about your looks is paramount, and adolescent bravado and determination is what pushes you through. 

So many of them are just crawling out of their egg. Joanna hasn't simply foregone a black lover in her history— I doubt she's had COFFEE with a black person before this shoot. You can tell that her life is segregated, like most suburban teens.  It occurred to me that that entering a porn career might be many people's first social encounter of any kind outside their demographic. Hello Amerikka!

Later Tristan interviews Marcus about his experience with racism in the porn business. He's frank, articulate, and a little weary, as you might imagine. This was my favorite interview of all!  After he talked, I wished I could see him get it on with someone his own age who has been around the block, but I guess that's a fetish of another kind.

The only movies I've ever seen where black men played the consorts of middle-aged women are the so-called "fat videos"— where a white woman's "voracious" appetite is further illustrated by her penchant for black men, all young muscular types.

It's as if when you're fat, you finally can go wild and have everything you ever wanted, every taboo wish— without apology. Finally, a relief from White Propriety. More pie? More orgasms? Dig in, Miss Anne!

Tristan Taormino's House of ASS
Starring Joanna Angel, Justine Joli, Sarah Blake, Keeani Lei, Saana, Mr. Marcus, Scott Nails, and Talon.

Check out the trailer at the link... nice music, eh?

Also on this week's radio show, I get a letter from a man who says he hasn't had sex in 13 years. Gosh, what's the rush?  (Episode 246, April 21, 2006).

Comments

[Steve]

Gee. I think that's kind of odd. Race would be the last thing that would make me balk. Of course, I feel like I'm always swimming upstream. To get right down to it, though, don't we all have our little taboos? For Joanna Angel it was a black guy. For someone else it might be anal. For another person, maybe they wouldn't do leather. Who knows?

It is definitely true that the black men in videos play a role. And yes, that could be called racist. But I still do treasure one particular porn video that's basically black on black.....

[Halcyon]

YES!!! I LOVED that movie.
Intention is always so important for me, and Tristan undertands that aspect of smut so so so well.

[Josh Jasper]

Steve Barnes has a rant to the effect that two black characters, a man and a woman, cannot have a good fulfiling relationship in 99% of Hollywood movies.

I'm probably gettinh this wrong. But his insight into race sex and movies is worth reading.

[Phoenix Woman]

Two words, Susie: "Southern Strategy".

In other words, the Party of Lincoln stopped being the Party of Lincoln and started being the Party of Strom Thurmond (why else do you think he and all the other Dixiecrats switched parties?). That was coupled with a concerted effort by the conservative/neo-Confederate racist wing of the GOP to not only purge out or convert the Rockefeller social moderates to born-again conservative racism (which is why the Bush family stopped backing Planned Parenthood two decades ago), but to buy up and/or cow into submission as many media outlets as they could. (Yes, children, Rush Limbaugh and his hate-based ilk didn't just happen. They were and are backed by billions of right-wing seed money.)

[Regina]

Thank you, thank you Susie! I saw the trailer for House of Ass recently (via a link from here), and although some of it seemed hot, the lasting impression I took away (being 30 years old and black/white biracial) was the Mandingo thing-- all these tiny young white or acceptably light-brown (asian and maybe chicana) women, and Mr Marcus. Frankly, I couldn't figure out whether I wanted to see it or not! I would so love to hear more about the movie. Are you still giving Audible tickets to first-time listeners? Could I be a first-time listener, please?

[Sarah]

I was watching House of Ass last night (I adore Tristan, and her explorations of how she can put her own stamp on mainstream porn are impressing this queer feminist quite a bit) and was really impressed to hear that interview with Mr. Marcus -- the racism, as well as the fetishization of any non-white/non-young/non-skinny porn performer, is one of my great frustrations with mainstream porn, and I was very, very glad to finally actually see it addressed straightforwardly within a film, even briefly. It's a start.

Also, the scene between Justine Joli and Sarah Blake knocked my socks off. Oh, my, yum!

[C.S. Lewiston]

I once had the hots for a very attractive young black woman while in my 20's. It went nowhere, not because of racial issues, but because of my industrial-strength shyness.

I'm glad that the 30-year-old trend of porn for people with brains is still up and running even in thses idiotically regressive times. Now if only I could convince local video shops to carry IT, and not the dime-a-dozen adult-bookstore horseshit they cram their "adult department" shelves with.

...But seriously, if I didn't know better, I'd think that a movie called "House of Ass" was a movie about Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, and the management of General Motors! (Ba-da-bump!)

[Peter]

Well, as they always used to say about Playboy, I'll have to pick it up for the interviews - sounds interesting. But a Justine Joli/Sarah Blake g/g scene on top of it? Damn, I'm buying a copy!

[Faith]

I only wish someone could ask black chicks in PornLand how they feel about doing white guys (especially scuzzy, sleazy ones...(see the "Gangland White Boy Stomp" series!) not like Dale DaBone or Evan Stone - oh, wait a sec! - them too:-)! (who LOVES eating pussy like there's NO FUCKING TOMORROW:-)! Or in "regular" entertainment - if you're interested in seeing the play on Broadway - "Caine Mutiny Court-Martial" - Sirs Daly, Ivanek,& Schwimmer look HOT TO DEATH in those uniforms - they can bang me anytime:-)!

[Rowan]

I am so very interested in Tristan's flick, though I must confess, I feel very conflicted about being turned on and ponderous at the same time. It is the biggest obsticle to my sex-positive explorations. My heart and my head bump into each other sometimes and I have to look inward and ask, "why?"

I think the reason why there is so much shit out there, be it pornography or Hollywood films or pop music, is because most people just can't deal with thinking about stuff, especially sex. They don't want to explore, they don't want to ask why, they don't want reexamine their own attitudes. They're happy to see/hear the same things on a loop. It's safer.

I know a few people, white, of course, who don't believe that America is all that racist anymore. Maybe if they put a magnifying glass up to their sexual entertainment (any entertainment, actually), they would feel differently.

[G Bitch]

**When I last talked to Tristan Taormino, she was fresh off her arduous job as the sex consultant on a Spike Lee joint, trying her level best to convince her director that women do indeed have this special thing called a clitoris.**

I had a feeling that was true about Lee. I find him incredibly narrow about women in his works even though he has sisters.

Who I really feel sorry for his wife.

White folks and black folks like to think they are more progressive than in the Bad Ol' Days but certain areas and subjects--like meetings of particular body parts--reveal the lengths to which we ALL still have to go. Great post. Thanks.

[Lynn Gazis-Sax]

It's totally weird to me that interracial would be more taboo than, say, double penetration. I mean, everyone in my family has either dated or married interracially, but double penetration is way outside my own life.

Actually, what's creepy to me about the spam ads I used to get for interracial porn (before I got them filtered out) isn't the interracial aspect, it's the interracial-as-taboo aspect. If I had the looks and the talent, I'd happily play Denzel Washington's love interest in some mainstream movie. But the "flower of white womanhood"? Ick!

[Dave]

Loved your review of "House of Ass" -- the wife and I laffed long and hard at some of it. I'm TOTALLY with you about the suspense of that moment of penetration: I love that. Love it, love it, love it! I really hate videos where we've somehow magically gone from a little tit sucking to deep anal fucking and all of the stuff in-between magically vanished into the ether like it never happened. After all, when you're with someone, all of the things leading up to that moment where you come together are way more than half the fun. I've long been fascinated by anal sex, love to watch it, love to do it, and have been fortunate enough to have partners adventurous enough to give it a whirl.

I could go on, but the bottom line is that "House of Ass" sounds like a cool movie and I'll probably have to hunt down a copy.

Dave