If "couples film" is code for "softer sex that won't squick your wife/GF", then I'd like to offer that "feature" is code for "plot, acting, and production values just as good as a real movie."

Not all couples movies are features, and not all features are couples movies . But both sub-genre's seem to opperate on similar assumptions: woman and other non-traditional porn viewers like things prettied up, they like their sex presented in a less graphic, gynological way, they need a storyline to enjoy the sex, etc.

I'd offer that the above set of assumption are dead wrong. Here's why:

As I've told some of you, pornography is not my main business, I make my money as a documentary filmmaker. If you watch TV at odd hours of the night, you may have even seen my work. I started making pornography as a bet with myself.

"Surely," I said, as I ejected another dissapointing tape from the VCR, "I can do better than that." And so began a seven year quest to 1) Figure out why the porn I was watching wasn't turning my crank; 2) See if I could figure out what would; and 3) See if I could produce what I thought would do the trick for me.

This work was done avocationally, using every trick-of-the-trade I could borrow from my "ligit" work. My wife and I shot, and then I edit countless sessions of both friend and strangers fucking and sucking. We shot tender love scene with flower and candles; we shot all out fuck-fests with deep-pounding anal, fisting, and squirting orgasms, and everything inbetween.

What we discovered is that regardless of whether the action was pedestrian or balls-to-the-wall crazy, we used the same approach to shooting and editing. Tender love-scenes still needed close-up piston-pumping shots, and all out fuck fests were ruined is you stayed on the close-up too long. Whether the action was sweet or wicked the same rules of good shooting and editing applied.

Keep in mind these were pure sex scenes. No set up, no dialog, no nothing. And they weren't prettied up either. We shot on video in a raw, documenty style. These scenes were just two people stripping off each others' clothes and going at it.

And people loved them. Men loved them, women loved them. We could show these scenes to people and they got off on them, whether they were hardcore porn viewer, or had no interest at all in porn . You haven't lived till you've see a room full of non-porn watching people rave about how much they liked a hardcore fisting/squirting/buttfucking scene.

So no, I'm not put off when I hear "feature film" because I don't think the sex is going to be hot enough. I'm put off because I think I'm going to spend too much time with a remote in my hand instead of my dick.

T.C.

Edited by - TonyC on Sep 15 2003