Who's your daddy?

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.

Boot camping it up at LLC!

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...

Vice & Consent/The Line Between @ Pioneer

Join us tonight for more kinky movies, pizza and beer as the Pioneer Theater welcomes us back for another special evening...

Friday, April 13th - 7 pm

Two Boots Pioneer Theater
155 E. Third Street (@ Avenue A), NYC
$10/$6.50 - 18+ only

Program includes:

Audience Choice Award - Best Documentary/CineKink 2006
VICE & CONSENT
Directed by Howard Scott Warshaw, 2006, USA, 56 minutes.
The candor, wit and wisdom of such prominent, long-standing members of the BDSM community as Midori, Jay Wiseman, Janet Hardy, Race Bannon, Cleo Dubois and Michael Blue, help shatter some popular myths about BDSM practice and its practitioners, looking instead at the gifts of intimacy that lie within.

preceded by
THE LINE BETWEEN
Directed by Jonathan Marten, 2006, USA, 24 minutes.
When straight-laced Meg is pulled inside the how-to BDSM video she has rented, she moves from voyeur to participant in an 'Alice in Wonderland' journey through the world of fetish. (The director, Jonathan Marten, will be on hand for a Q&A after the screening.)

A beer and pizza reception follows the screening for all ticket holders.

More info and tickets are here!

5 questions about blogging

Viviane's Sex Carnival has us tied to a chair, with a bright light shining in our face, and is forcing us to answers questions about blogging.

"No, damn you, Viviane! We don't care what you do to us - we're not telling you about our StatCounter!"

A little 2257 clarity?

Over at A Savage Place, there's a good bullet-point overview of last week's ruling in Free Speech Coalition v. Gonzalez, the organization's challenge of the revised 2257 regulations. (Hat tip Viviane's Sex Carnival)

In many ways a set-back for the FSC, the ruling does provide several points of clarity, giving definitions for several terms that have had many producers (and even so-called secondary producers - whatever those are) scratching their heads in wonder. Perhaps most immediately significant:

While producers do have to keep copies of the IDs of performers on file, they're allowed to blot out the day and month of the performer's birthdate and the performer's SSN and home address on those copies. That's a huge deal -- otherwise, think of the potential for identity theft and stalking if and when those records are released to "secondary producers", including retail outlets -- and I think it'll make the new 2257 regs a lot more palatable to people.

Meanwhile, a bit more eye-crossingly detailed, a memorandum on the ruling prepared by AVN's legal correspondent carefully emphasizes the most pertinent elements of the ruling and explains the implications of the case's rather convoluted "procedural posture." Bottom line?

...The court allowed FSC until April 16th to show why the law, as amended, is unconstitutional; and until the end of April for the government to reply. Therefore, any time after May 1, 2007, the court may rule that secondary producers are required to have copies of the records, have them indexed, and be subject to inspections.

Can we just go back to talking about our favorite kinky movies now?

The Kinky 10 14 15!

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.

But, we've returned - we always do! - for a closer look at ScreenGrab's list of the Kinkiest Films Ever Made, part one and part two:

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?