Porn Watcher

Do you remember twenty years ago when "cable television" was the hot new thing? In those days you didn't sign-up to cable for better reception (did you really get better reception?), nor for the all-news networks (there was only CNN, and we all thought that was a pretty dumb idea, who's going to watch news at three o'clock in the morning?), nor for the shopping channels (they were boring then -- and still are.) You might have gotten cable installed to watch MTV (I'll always remember talking to a friend on the phone late one night. She was also watching MTV at the same time while we chatted, and suddenly the video of Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go came on. Neither of us had seen it before, and the conversation went completely silent as both of us, fifty miles apart, stared in stark horror at our respective television screens. When the video ended, we both exhaled, and at exactly the same moment said, "What the fuck was that?" Talk about pornography!)

The primary reason folks signed up for cable was to subscribe to Cinamax and HBO. Now in those days, HBO didn't produce their own cool series' like Sex in the City and The Sopranos. Like Cinamax, HBO just showed movies and only movies, and you came to realize fairly quickly that you really didn't need to see Norma Rae or Police Academy six to nine times over a week. Sure it was fun to have these movies piped into your home, but we quickly discovered how much more convenient renting films and using the VCR is.

But we didn't unsubscribe from the Premium Movie Channels for one very good reason. Late at night they would show soft core sex flicks. Some were pretty tame, today they might even be rated PG-13. Others were produced for the sole purpose of being shown on cable in the middle of the night. And a few were hard core porn, but with any shots of dicks or penetration edited out. Sanitized for your protection, I guess.

I was twenty or twenty-one at the time, and at first I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. Here, it seemed, was porn in an endless amount (at least until about 5 AM), and I could sit there in my own livingroom and jack-off to my heart's content. I didn't have to rent porn tapes from the corner mini-mart, enduring the clerk giving me the fish-eye because he (or more likely, she) knew exactly what I was going to do while watching it. No, the sex was right there, nightly on my TV, with no middle-man.

Needless to say, even for a horny twenty-year-old it didn't take long to realize something essential was missing. There was no cock, no cunt, no fucking -- I started to wonder if the performers were really having sex or just acting. I mean, part of the reason I found (and find) porn so hot is the knowledge they're really doing it. And maybe they were, but there was no proof, no evidence (certainly no cum-shot.) Humphrey Bogart once said acting is like sex ... If you're talking about it, you're not doing it. It seemed to me these movies were packed with performers neither acting nor fucking.

I've been thinking about soft core films again because of my recent ruminations about the Boys Gone Wild series. I know it seems as if I should love soft core films, for the simple reason I'm enthralled with plots and the events leading up to the sex. But don't get me wrong -- I still like watching the sex! The problem I have with soft core movies is they don't function as anything you expect from a movie. They aren't cinema (The production, plots, acting, and direction aren't strong enough to maintain artistic intention), and they aren't porn (You don't see anything more than you would in an R rated film). So, the viewer becomes frustrated with the film both artistically and carnally.

I have to wonder what the soft core producer's intention is. We can't jack-off to them, and they certainly don't illuminate the human condition. I guess the intention is to introduce sex to kids that can't get porn any other way, and to frustrate those of us who really enjoy watching people fuck. I'll take a pass on soft core in the future.