Like A Virgin Sacrifice: My Very First Time

I believe all human animals are sexual creatures, but some more than others. I fall into the “some” category. This is not to say that I have more sex than other people (sadly, I don’t), nor that I need it more than the rest of the population. Rather, it means that sex plays a huge role in dictating my behavior, as it has my entire life. At the dawn of my pubescence, this was what drew me to my like-minded idol, Madonna, and it’s why some people find my “Vogue Boy” video profoundly uncomfortable to watch. I wasn’t fully aware of my sexuality at the age of nine, but I was beginning to appreciate that it was already a lot more potent than that of my peers. I will never forget one of my grade school classmates that year informing me that there were rumors about me at the junior high school, where I didn’t know anyone. I asked what he referred to, and the rumor, apparently, was that I was practicing sexual experiments at home. When I heard “experiments”, my young mind immediately pictured a mad scientist laughing maniacally in a laboratory with beakers full of glowing liquid, and I wondered how any of that tied into sex.

GODDESS WORSHIP:

The poster that adorned the living room wall of my first apartment. 

Until I was just one month shy of my twentieth birthday, my exposure to sex was limited to my exposure to porn, a pastime I picked up the summer after seventh grade. The first adult film I ever saw was Debbie Does Dallas, which still bothers me because I wish my introduction had been by way of the Marilyn Chambers classic Insatiable. Debbie Does Dallas, special place in my heart aside, is not a movie that I care for a great deal. Insatiable, on the other hand, is my favorite picture to emerge from the Golden Age of Adult Film. Even moreso than the genre-defining Deep Throat or Marilyn's breakthrough, Behind The Green Door, Insatiable is a profoundly liberating celebration of how much fun sex is supposed to be, regardless of gender or orientation. Debbie Does Dallas sends a different kind of message. For viewers sexually attracted to women, it is titillation in the form of a physical control fantasy about a woman in need of what her partner has. For those of us sexually attracted to men, the titillation is about mental control of the man who has what we want and how his partner will use sex to get it. To me, from “Debbie” onward, sex was always a means to end. It was about pleasing the guy I was with but hiding the power that his pleasure gave to me. It fulfilled my innate desire to be an Old Hollywood actress: like any great female movie star, having the ideal male co-star was crucial to making our happy ending work for an (imaginary) audience.

Drenched in "Drowned World" sweat: the last photograph of my virginal face.

During my late teens and early twenties, I was utterly infatuated with a virtual stranger whom I was certain I was meant to be with. While waiting for my secretly admired (aka "James") to fall for me too, I abstained altogether from physical intimacy: there was no sex, there were no encounters, and I never got in on any of the “let's try it out” action that was a part of so many people's high school and/or college years. I craved sex, but I also valued my virginity. After all, it had earned me a dedication in Madonna's Like A Virgin album--"to all the virgins of the world"--and I hoped that selling it off on eBay could earn me big bucks and lots of controversy and launch a phenomenal career in gay porn. But fearing that my chastity would not be able to compensate for my poor physical shape--or that police would find my ad before the press--I avoided negative feedback and/or jail time by nixing this idea.

The first night of The Drowned World Tour in Boston was the very first time I ever saw Madonna live, and her first moment onstage was the very first time I ever made direct eye contact with her. The second night of Drowned World in Boston…..well, let’s just say that that, as referenced in my recent Sex book post, was a different kind of “very first time”. It was August 8th, 2001, and I was loving the second show even more than the first, but feeling heartbroken that I wasn't sharing the experience with James. The music that fueled that particular Madonna tour was almost entirely from her 1998 Ray of Light album and 2000's Music. The former had been the soundtrack to the years that followed James leaving my school, while the latter was a constant presence in those final months before he left my life. Coupled with my loneliness was a raging case of sexual frustration. After two full decades without sex, the dazzling work of Madonna's beautiful male dancers aroused my mind and my libido, and the effects of that killer combo would soon redefine my life. 

After the show, I was still fueled by a longing for James, a lust for Christian Vincent (my favorite DWT dancer), and the lingering effects of a white-wine-and-klonipin cocktail used to calm my pre-show anxiety. I felt truly evolved after two nights of finally seeing Madonna live, as though the journey that began when I paid tribute to "Vogue" in Hampton Beach had lead me to Boston Garden exactly ten years later. A new journey was about to begin, but could only happen with a ritual sacrifice....of my own virginity. I was not consciously thinking of that metaphor at the time. But looking back, I cannot view my spontaneous and relentless determination to shed my chastity any other way.

Once my fellow Madonna concert-goers had gone home, I went to my gay sanctuary: the America Online “M4M” chat rooms. It was during my freshman year of high school that I began tiptoeing out of the closet by way of openly expressing myself online, but I never met the people who I chatted with and refrained from sharing photos of myself until James was out of the picture. But in the all-nighter that I pulled after the second “Drowned World” show in Boston, I was on a warpath against my own virginity, and determined to experience gay sex by way of AOL. I had a fantasy that Christian Vincent would be in one of those chat rooms, looking for the company of a nineteen year old virgin while the dancers were spending their last night in Boston. But assuming that fantasy might not come true, I was searching for a consolation prize in the form of the perfect guy--at least, the most perfect guy of whomever happened to be online in the wee small hours of August 9th, 2001. 

There was one guy whose general appearance was close enough to what James looked like to make  me crave his company, a'la Hitchcock's Vertigo. Alas, he turned me down. When I pleaded with him (by way of Instant Message) to reconsider indulging in the pleasures of my sexual inexperience, he encouraged me to cease my search. It’s funny that someone who did not know me at all, save for a few overlong IMs, could tell so quickly how naïve I was. This complete stranger knew that I’d very likely end up arranging my own destruction, and broke character from the coolness of "cruising mode" in a sincere attempt to get that across to me. The Universe is constantly sending me blatantly obvious alert messages like that, and I’m forever ignoring them for one reason or another. Perhaps my love of horror movie archetypes gives me a need to end up wishing I’d listened to wisdom instead of impulse. One way or another, I remember that guy only because I did NOT take his advice.

"I'm open...and ready....for you.....to justify my love."

It was somewhere around 7 AM the morning after "Drowned World" that I finally found the perfect candidate. I thought he looked like George Clooney in his (blurry) picture, and how could I possibly turn down losing my virginity to George Clooney? By the time he came over, I was falling asleep. In fact, I was woken up by his arrival at my door around 9 AM. Most unfortunately, and with all due respect, he did not look anything like George Clooney. It's not that he was unattractive, it's just that he was not the fantasy man that I opened the door ready to give myself over to.

Farewell, fantasy...

I was ashamed of myself and didn’t want him to know about my sudden lack of interest. So I said "hello" and immediately began making out with him. It was the first time I had ever passionately kissed anyone, and within moments, we were in bed. I was surprised by how naturally it all came, how effortlessly my body moved with his, how much I suddenly wanted to have sex with someone I was barely attracted to. Barring the rapid-fire showers we were required to take after high school gym class, it was the first time I had ever been naked with another man. And unlike in the locker room, I was neither covering my body for fear of being out of shape nor covering my eyes for fear of being outed. 

As this hot-'n-hairy stranger weighed down on me, ferociously pawing at my mouth and neck and chest, I found my mind going back and forth. One second, I was in the moment, absorbing something that felt so right. The next, I was having an out-of-body experience, looking at myself with my suitor and amazed that this was actually happening off of my TV screen. I was definitely impressed with my performance, and a “performance” it definitely was. In the months since James had ceased to be the active object of my affections, I turned my obsessive gaze to someone who looked a great deal like him: Lukas Ridgeston. I learned a great deal from watching the Slovakian gay porn superstar whose indescribable beauty made him king of the Bel Ami studio, and I put those acting lessons to use that morning. My suitor did not believe me when I kept insisting I was a virgin, and I took this as a great compliment. 

As a matter of fact, I still do.

Jeroen Krabbe & Renee Soutendijk in my favorite "gay film": Paul Verhoeven's De Vierde Man. 

I refer to this gentleman as “my first suitor” because I have no idea what his name was. For some reason, out of all the details I can remember from that life-changing day, his identity is not one of them. I think it was David, because that name kept popping out of my subconscious and into my creative work over the next two years. But it was very possibly an alias, anyway. He told me he was a lawyer, which I don’t entirely believe, and he also said he was thirty-six, though I suspected that he was probably closer to forty-six. Either way, he was a nice enough guy, but I was too convincing an actor, in no way letting on how uncertain I was about how far I wanted to go with someone who I desired so much more in fantasy than in the flesh. The naturalness and fulfillment of intimacy with another man was amazing, but the more I sensed his pleasure, the less I felt that my own reactions were genuine. We never fully consummated the traditional gay male sexual encounter, as defined by porn movies. He wanted to, but I did not, so I came up with a lame excuse to get him out of my apartment, though not before he left me with my first and only hickey. He pointed it out with pride, and told me to tell people I got it from shaving. By my own avoidance, I never saw him again. 

I immediately felt stained with shame, for the years I’d spent saving myself for James had just been flushed down the toilet by a horny stranger whose day got off to a GREAT start. After he left, I washed the sheets and did everything I could to get the hair and overpowering scent of his sweat out of the place. In retrospect, it really didn’t smell so bad at all: it was the aroma of animal lust, of consummated desires, of a bottled up passion finally let loose in the final weeks of my teen years. But at that time, it was the odor of sleaze and sin. It wasn’t that I felt sinful for being with a man, but rather that I felt sinful for being with a man other than my (imaginary) betrothed. Everyone I knew rightfully thought I should have gotten over James years earlier, and told me that putting my romantic life in the context of a ninth-grade classmate was, among other one-word reactions, absurd. The Catholic guilt I took with me when I graduated from St. John’s Prep reared its head that morning, and would continue to haunt me for months to come. But when I let go of that day's shame, and finally got over that James, my defining "Emmanuelle Era" truly began...

My Adventures In The Oldest Profession

“High School Honor Student By Day. Hollywood Hooker By Night.” 

My parents’ worst nightmare. My greatest fantasy.

I have always loved movies about prostitutes, and have always related to them in ways that made little sense to others. Maybe it’s because I wanted to please everyone and didn’t feel that I’d done a good job unless I left a room smiling. Perhaps it’s because I felt I had to play so many different roles with so many different people in order to achieve such a goal. Whatever the reason, I definitely loved that tagline from Robert Vincent O'Neill's Angel every time I passed it in the video store. It would not be until the 2003 DVD release that I finally saw the movie and loved it. But by then I’d already formed a fantasy, based on the concept, and on the cover, and on Roger Ebert’s oft-reprinted original review. The movie lived up to that fantasy. I myself could not.

In 2000, I was working at a store that sold rare laserdiscs and DVDs. Before throwing out a batch of semi-defective laserdiscs, the owner asked me if I had ever seen the film pressed onto all of the slightly marred copies: Ken Russel’s Crimes of Passion. Then and now, I am ashamed to say I had not. It was yet another film that I had formed a video store fantasy around, and even my own version of the movie in my head that starred Andie MacDowell and Madonna and had absolutely nothing to do with the plot of the actual movie. I didn’t even know that it was about a career woman who shields herself from heartbreak by masquerading as a streetwalker named “China Blue” and engaging in outrageous encounters.  Seeing the movie was a turning point, not least of all because I better understood where my desire to be a streetwalker came from: I wanted to be wanted, but didn't want to need that.

I don’t remember when I first wanted to be a prostitute, but I do remember when I first put up an ad for myself online. I had been reading about the escort industry and looking into reviews of some of New York’s more popular male sex workers. I even befriended one through a chat room, a nurse from Maine who I could have seen myself falling in love with at the time. I was flagrantly open with friends and even family about my sex industry ambitions because I found nothing about them dishonorable. In my school of thought, being a whore is nowhere near as sinful as being a freeloader. I also felt that it would be an invaluable insight for my writing, a means of understanding some of the “fallen women” in film who had most inspired me and to get a view of life from the other side of privilege. Of course, such an endeavor has since become a stereotype for naïve young college students and overambitious journalists. I could have lost my life. I could also have gotten arrested. Between the two, I would have taken the former: death scares me way less than cops. 

The closest I came to being a male escort was the closest I came to being arrested, and so that’s why I ultimately closed up shop right before the grand opening. I put up an ad online—ahem, on an “AOL Personal Homepage” no less—and included pictures I’d taken of myself looking pouty and sweet. I don’t remember much about my description, but I do remember that my rate was $100/hr. At that time, in 2002, the going rate for male escorts was around $300/hr, so I thought that I might have a shot at establishing a good customer base thanks to being twenty years old and relatively low-priced. I was insecure about being overweight, but even so, I thought I was a bargain. After all, I ALWAYS aim to be fair. 

Rob '02: Trying to sell myself on AOL as a precocious boy next door. 

I was so proud of myself for thinking of my customers that I failed to remember prostitution is illegal in this particular country. I remembered that reality vividly when an “interested customer” called me up and seemed a little too interested in the details of my one-man business operation. So I told him I’d decided to give up being a male escort and, at that moment, I did.

Bette Davis played my favorite screen prostitute of all.

I often regretted not being brave enough to do what I wanted to do in spite of the warnings of everyone in my life and, indeed, the state and federal government of the United States of America. I can admit now that they were right and I was wrong—not because it’s bad to be a prostitute, but rather because I would have been bad at it. I had never even met a sex worker until a visit to Amsterdam in 2006 lead me to one of the most popular male brothels in the city: Singel 21. There I met one of the most interesting fellows I have ever encountered, and the one who made me realize that prostitution was not nearly as appropriate a line of work for me as I hoped it would be.

His name was Zortak, or that’s what it sounded like. Something Hungarian. He was thirty seven and a twenty seven year old Dutchman, the youngest of the employees, was shocked that I wasn’t going off with him. But I didn’t know that I had a choice. Zortak spotted me first, and I thought that it was only right that I should go with him, despite the fact that the twenty-seven year old was beautiful enough to remain in my dreams forever. 

As we enjoyed mixed drinks in the lounge together, I told Zortak that I had such tremendous respect for his profession, and that it had in fact been my dream to be a sex worker. He looked at me in stunned disbelief. I could see that he was at once confused and insulted, so I just smiled and looked at the twinkling city of Amsterdam outside. I had dreamed of being a sex doctor to beautiful male patients. But Zortak's reality was entirely scripted and rooted in money, not sexual adventure. He and his co-workers were all laughing and joking with one another in Dutch while we waited for the room to be free, and I was convinced they were making fun of me. It bothered me because I wanted to be viewed as an ally, not a john, and also because I really wished I’d learned to speak the language before I left America. For a wannabe sex worker like me, nothing could be worse than rejection by Dutch prostitutes. However, a year later, one of my friends said they were probably laughing over the only twenty-four year old in the establishment being a client.

From the moment I walked into the room and until the time I walked out of the place, I put on a show. I got to be Marilyn Chambers, and I got to give back to an experienced sex worker all of the attention and affection that he had given to countless men before me. But that was the problem, too. I was throwing off the whole transaction by playing the part of “desirable one”, and upon realizing this I had to switch gears. That’s where the guilt came in.

Spending time with a sex worker is like getting a massage or a pedicure: you can feel guilty about it, or you can enjoy it. My experience with a prostitute was a combination of the two. After our intimate encounter, we somehow got into a discussion of AIDS minutes before I left. I forget the full context, but I believe that the man who owned the brothel had inherited it from his partner, who had died of AIDS. It was an awkward intrusion of reality, one which instantly burst the fantasy bubble moments before the fantasy was complete. 

As I walked down the steps, I somehow managed to accidentally make a call on my cell phone. I looked and realized someone was on the other line, and it was my best friend’s father. My best friend, I might add, was also my first love. We had broken up six months earlier, but remained as close as ever. With that having been said, I had no intention of calling he or his parents after my evening with a sex worker. All this came about only hours after I had arrived in Amsterdam, so between jet lag, White Widow, and afterglow, my mind wasn’t absorbent enough of the details for me to recall whether my phone got an answering machine or if I actually spoke to his father that night. I’m still convinced that that gorgeous young Dutchman, who took my politeness to Zortak as a rejection, cast a spell to cause the snafu. He could only be a witch, for as I walked back to the hotel that night, his was the spell I was under. 

When Marilyn Took Cannes Behind The Green Door

What better way to celebrate the first day of the 2012 Cannes Film Festival than with a flashback?

In May 1973, The Mitchell Brothers’ Behind The Green Door became the very first American pornographic film to compete for the Palme D’Or. John Hubner’s 1993 book Bottom Feeders, written about Jim and Artie Mitchell, confirms that being an official selection at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival was the ultimate validation of The Mitchell Brothers’ artistic ambitions. The film was greeted with thunderous applause at the first screening, and the crowd went even wilder when leading lady Marilyn Chambers responded by giving a speech in French. Behind The Green Door, already a commercial and cultural phenomenon in America, went on to become a sensation at the Cannes Film Festival.

In May 2002, I wrote about Behind The Green Door for my final paper for one of four classes I took with my favorite professor at Emerson College, writer Peg Aloi. It was during that semester that my first viewing of Gerard Damiano’s Deep Throat sparked a life-changing fascination with the ‘porno chic’ movement in American cinema. This enthusiastic appreciation of classic straight porn has always left people confused, but I hope that my favorite essay from college explains why every movie lover should mourn for The Golden Age of Adult Films. 

Robert Jeffrey

Media Criticism and Theory: Final Assignment

                 Feminist Porn? A Look Back Behind the Green Door

If film is an emotional medium, then by definition alone adult cinema could be the highest plateau of movies; no other genre has ever managed to spark such extreme reactions among the masses, nor can any kind of film equal its emotional/physical effect on the individual watching such a film. Adult titles often retail for much higher prices than conventional videotapes and DVDs, and yet they often prove to be bestsellers, for people are willing to pay enormous sums of money for the effect that they arouse within the viewer.

However, because the genre is so adept at provoking and exciting the viewer, filmmakers often take the power of the medium for granted. Technical merits and artistic aspirations are far too often neglected in favor of letting the “onscreen action” work for itself. The adult film industry had been given new life when Deep Throat, an X-rated sex comedy released in late 1972, became a box office phenomenon that played for years to packed audiences in mainstream cinemas as well as adult theaters. This led to a so-called “porno chic” movement throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s, during which numerous adult films were booked into major theaters, reviewed by mainstream film critics, and enjoyed considerable box office success to rival the profits of Hollywood films.

 In her revealing audio commentary accompanying the 1980 film Insatiable, Gloria Leonard, former adult film star and President of the Free Speech Coalition, noted that this was what made the adult films of the 1970s and early 1980s so unique. What once had been a sleazy underground genre made of short, technically inconsequential “stag films” rose up to the erotic feature films that played to widespread-and often mainstream-audiences. These films were shot on film, had linear storylines, and boasted stars that were as ambitious at becoming well-regarded actors as they were at shedding their inhibitions to engage in onscreen sexual activity. With the advent of video production, however, the genre once again slid into its less inspired roots, leading to today’s market of meaningless sex, cheap videography, and virtually absent emphasis on plot or performance (“Insatiable”).

In 2000, British film critic Derek Malcolm of The Guardian caused quite a stir with his list of the Top 100 Movies of the 20^th Century. Malcolm described it as a list of “not the 100 best, [but] 100 of the best…personal favorites which, I hope, I have good reason to celebrate”. This cinematic ranking was particularly unique and provocative because it omitted a good number of films that are generally guaranteed a high perch on the filmic totem pole. Among these would be Metropolis, Citizen Kane, It’s a Wonderful Life, The Searchers, La Dolce Vida, The Godfather, and Annie Hall (Malcolm “Century of Films”). In an article published in early 2001, several renowned film critics from the world assessed their feelings on Malcolm’s list. Some critics applauded him for his selections, particularly his more offbeat inclusions and exclusions. French critic Jean Roy, of “L’Humanite”, praised his “preference for style over stars, and for films which deserve to be reminded over crowd pleasers”, while German critic Klause Eder encouraged readers to “see his favorites and you know how exciting cinema can be”. However, the most revealing and representative comment-and the one on which I am essentially basing my ensuing reflections-came from Peter Keough, of the Boston Phoenix: “You’ve got to admire a 100 best movie list that omits Citizen Kane but includes Behind the Green Door” (Malcolm “What the Critics Say” 2-3).

The 1972 film Behind the Green Door was directed by “The Mitchell Brothers”, a collective dub for San Francisco adult filmmakers Jim and Artie Mitchell. Behind the Green Door was more than a movie. It was a phenomenon, and one that helped-perhaps more so than any other film of its time-to revolutionize the adult film industry. “Serious critics reviewed the film, while it raced up the list of the most popular movies as if nothing untoward were happening at all” (Malcolm “Behind the Green Door”, 2). “One of the most popular and recognized adult classic titles of all time” (Spooky 1), the low budget production went on to gross $100 million worldwide, making it one of the most profitable films of the 1970s (Adult DVD Reviews 3).

 The story is so simple that it’s star has often described it one sentence, but for the sake of an understanding of the film’s effectiveness, I’ll offer a few more words than that. Gloria (Marilyn Chambers, in her debut leading role) is an exquisitely beautiful young woman staying alone in a somewhat secluded hotel. One evening she leaves the hotel, extremely well coiffed as if attending a formal date, and is abducted by two masked men. She is taken to the backroom of an isolated location, which we soon learn is a theater-cum-sex club, where an older woman comforts her, massages her, and tells her to prepare to embrace “the most exquisite moment” of her life. Gloria soon finds herself walking into the elaborate sex club (from “behind the green door”), onto a stage where she is surrounded by beautiful, caped women, and in front of an audience composed of upper class couples comprising a variety of sexual orientations, body types, ages, and ethnic groups. What happens throughout the rest of the film is a bizarre, garish, gorgeously photographed and almost overwhelmingly erotic chain of sexual events, occurring both on stage and within the audience.

Contemporary porn films show sex. They do not “deal with” sex, because they generally cater to an audience not interested in the before-or-after effects of human sexual behavior. Behind the Green Door is perhaps the best example from the era of films that did, in fact, explore with the subject. What makes it especially unique is that the “before” and the “after” are secondary to the “right now”, in that the movie is about what is going through the mind of the central character while she is being subject to an experience that is at once frightening and intensely exciting and pleasurable. Chambers specifically requested that she not know what events would transpire when the character of Gloria walked onto the stage. She felt it “would be more interesting from the audience point of view by making it more realistic by not knowing what was going to happen” (Chambers 1). Gloria’s character never utters a word throughout the film, and this gave Chambers the chance to deliver a performance that is completely internalized-and which in turn is arguably more empathetic than a dialogue-driven work would have been. We do not simply look at Gloria; we feel what she is feeling. Her experiences are our experiences, as we, too, are taken to this exclusive sex club, unaware of what will transpire. And if the effect that “BTGD” had at the box office and on popular culture is in any way representative, we too are changed by the events of that night. 

Indeed, the biggest asset to Behind the Green Door on an artistic level (it was undoubtedly the best thing going for it from a commercial perspective) may be the presence of its debut star, Marilyn Chambers. Chambers, in her first (and most famous) leading role, truly personified the “girl next door” appeal that the Mitchell Brothers sought. Although strikingly beautiful, she was neither sultry nor glamorous; her beauty was simple, pure, perhaps even plain. She embodied the ideals of feminine innocence and virginal superiority, and her ultimate fusion of such qualities with genuine sexual exhilaration was as much an advancement for women’s equality as was any other feminist achievement in film. What makes her experience a unique feminist statement is that her liberation comes not through denying her femininity through dissolution into “a man’s world”, nor abandon any part of her personal identity to embrace more traditional feminine elements (i.e. Maternity, marriage). Rather, she fulfills her womanhood through exploring and appreciating her sexuality. Although some feminist groups have slammed the porn industry for degrading women, Behind the Green Door tells the story of a woman who pushes the limits of ingrained feminine ideals (purity, simplicity, asexual persuasion) before rejecting them altogether to engage in passion and pleasure with men and women alike. And despite the stigma attached to the genre, the message clearly shone through. Derek Malcolm pointed out that “there were as many female commentators who approved of the film as disapproved, since it was about a woman totally liberated by experiences that had previously been part of her private and unattainable fantasies” (Malcolm “Behind the Green Door” 2).

Seconds after Gloria enters from behind the green door, there is an unseen narrator, speaking to the audience within the film-as well to the audience of the film. He encourages the audience not to fear for the young woman onstage, for instead of being in any way harmed or pained, she will be “loved as never before” and free to leave at her own will once this experience is complete. Thus, he states, they (or perhaps we) should sit back and enjoy what is about to happen. The subsequent effect that the film has on its real-life audience is reflected in the response of the filmed audience members. As the events involving Gloria proceed on stage, the editing frequently cuts to how the audience is reacting. As the film goes on, the audience becomes more and more aroused, beginning to engage in their own sexual fulfillment, and their post-Free Love antics are every bit as titillating and fascinating to watch as is the stage show in which Gloria is the lead participant. Again, the themes of feminism and sexual liberation are forefront in the audience reflection. A good number-if not the majority-of audience members watching Gloria’s transformation are women, and their pleasuring of themselves at the sight of Gloria with men and women is perhaps the first onscreen acknowledgement in film history of women’s own titillation in response to erotica. Although the Mitchell Brothers probably were not suggesting that the sexual free-for-all of the audience within the film should be mimicked by the audience in front of the movie screen, clearly they were endorsing the notion that women should take part in the enjoyment alongside their male counterparts. Again, this effect also proved successful as Derek Malcolm noted that the Mitchells “were delighted that women were the bedrock of their audience” (Malcolm “Behind the Green Door” 2).

After the feminist statement being made by the film, another socially significant and widely discussed aspect of the film’s sexual content is that the very first heterosexual encounter is between Marilyn Chambers and a black man, boxer Johnny Keys. An interracial scene “is commonplace today, but probably turned a few heads in the early 70s when the title came out” (Spooky 2). Indeed this sequence seems to have been directed with the Mitchells extremely conscious of the effect it would have on audience members. The notion of interracial sex was clearly still a hot spot in the early 1970s (to a different extent, it remains so today), and the Mitchell Brothers played up the sequence by enhancing the stereotypes associated with the white female and black male involved. Marilyn Chambers-with her luminescent blue-green eyes and curly blond hair-was certainly the personification of America’s obsession with clean, virginal purity as whiteness; it’s no wonder she was once selected to be the young mother on boxes of Ivory Soap. The sequence begins with her lying on her back on a bed, with six females, clad in black, surrounding her as if holding her down. Johnny Keys enters through the green door, clad in tight white pants with a hole cut out of the crotch, thus presenting his fully erect genitals. He has lines of tribal make up on his face, shark’s teeth strewn around his neck, and prowls like a predator as a combination of the jazzy score and “jungle beats” blend in the musical soundtrack. Thus the symbolism is clear: the carnivorous black man is about to pounce upon the helpless white virgin, thus robbing her of her innocence and respect. The twist in the Mitchell Brothers’ film is that Gloria does, indeed, enjoy the experience, and it solidifies her shedding of inhibitions and sexual maturation. It further underlines her rejection of feminine ideals placed upon women by white male society, for she is a “good white girl” enjoying sex with a black man. It is at once honest in its enticingly taboo subject, while still socially conscious enough to break down this black-white barrier through graphic sexuality.  Thus what began as a fearful becomes sexual, extremely erotic, and perhaps even beautiful; indeed, the Mitchell Brothers had achieved in turning the tables on the audience conventions of interracial sexuality. That the audiences of a pornographic film would share such internalized stereotypes is indeed representative of the ingrained racism in America, and the Mitchells were more than willing to utilize such feelings to enhance both the social and erotic effectiveness of their film.

I suppose it would be prudish, if not downright ignorant, to gloss over the film’s depiction of sexual activity. Indeed, it is the most well remembered aspect of the film among mainstream audiences, and is the foundation of its appreciation among adult film fans. As mentioned before, the sex in the film is indeed erotic; so much that I would go so far as to call it beautiful. There is no pain or power playing in the film. Domination and submission are foregone in favor of unrestricted, unbridled sensuality. The actors in the film seem to be enjoying themselves, and thus there is not the mechanical, “I’m only here for the money” feel found in today’s pornographic films. Also, being the early 1970s, the exploits of the actors are clearly influenced by the hippie “Sexual Revolution” movement. There is no apparent preference among the actors on the stage or in the audience. They seem to have little interest in the gender of their partners, nor in their age or physical description. One of the most frequently featured audience members is an extremely overweight woman, something that would not likely be seen in a major pornographic production today.

The sex in the film is also extremely well staged and well photographed; the actors may give the impression that they are simply being “caught on camera”, but clearly the Mitchells were adept at giving their vision a natural feel. “The Mitchells opted for “art” and respectability [and] the film does have a charge that you can’t deny” (Malcolm “Behind the Green Door” 2). The brothers’ artistic ambition is most evident in “the ultimate moment in [the] film” (Adult DVD Reviews 3), when they take the so-called “money shot” (an industry euphemism for male ejaculation) of pornographic films and give it a wildly original spin that has never been surpassed. Although the portrayal of an ejaculation would seem impossible in any artistic context, Derek Malcolm points out that “the Mitchells could at least claim some imagination in making it” (Malcolm “Behind the Green Door” 2). The scene is shot in slow motion, but is then processed in such a way that the film’s color scheme becomes truly bizarre, giving the sequence the look of an Andy Warhol painting. The scene is played over several times, using different colors, strange, ambient sound effects, and a number of different, surreal angles, some of which are “mirror shots” that give the scene the look that Gloria’s face is reflecting itself. Although Malcolm describes the scene thirty years later as “more hilarious than arty”, I would disagree. Although it might come off as amusing to jaded contemporary audiences, this disorienting piece of psychedelia perfectly caps off the Mitchell’s grand ambitions to change the face of adult cinema by creating their own breed of “art porn”.

Reading this assessment of the film (and, perhaps as much, its genre), one might question whether I am talking about the state of film or simply the state of adult film. In fact, I am talking about both. I would argue that the two industries are strangely proportional, considering that the same peak years of American adult cinema saw a surge in quality films output by Hollywood studios. This is true today as well, as the sophomoric, “gynecological” (Chambers 2) adult films that dominate the market coincide with Hollywood films that aim towards a lowbrow mentality among predominantly teen and twenty-something masses. The quality-and perhaps more importantly, the popularity-of 70s adult cinema was representative of a Cinema of Grown-Ups, people who went to the movies in their 30s and 40s and sat down for intelligent entertainment that catered, as opposed to pandered, to their tastes. Adults crave sexual stimulation as least as much as they crave intellectual stimulation, and 1970s adult features provided both in spades.

I do not consider Behind the Green Door a film that transcended its genre. Rather I consider it the film most representative of a genre that was, for a brief but glorious time, transcending itself. “Pornography has been a staple of the cinema from the year dot,” wrote Derek Malcolm in his reflection on the film. “At no time, however, was it more respectable as in the America of the early 70s. Respectable couples did not care a jot if anyone saw them going in or coming out…[and] there were breakthrough porno movies that deserved at least some of the limelight they were once afforded” (Malcolm “Behind the Green Door” 1).

With that having been said, however, it should be noted that even among such well-crafted adult films of its day, Behind the Green Door was something truly special. No adult film before it was so consciously ambitious in its attempts to affect-and hopefully change-its audience. The movie sought to lure female viewers into adult films, and to encourage them to achieve personal liberation through sexuality. It broke down interracial barriers, and in fact dissolved any kind of dividers between two human beings interested in engaging in passionate sexual activity. “This was the most stylish, and some say the most erotic, of all of these [“porno chic”] movies,” wrote Derek Malcolm (Malcolm “Behind the Green Door” 1). I would certainly agree, but such an opinion is merely scratching the surface. In addition to being sexually charged to a degree rarely seen in adult films, it achieved something much more: bringing sex to the forefront of audience discussion. Although Deep Throat had achieved this same feat, Behind the Green Door was perhaps more impressive in this regard since it managed to do so without the need to lighten up the subject matter with bawdy humor. It encouraged audiences to become acquainted with their sexuality, to appreciate it, to be unafraid of it, and to use it to enhance their self-identities. Indeed, this was a truly “grown up” movie.

The Goddess Next Door: Why I Love Miss Chambers

None of my idols comes with a greater need for defense than Marilyn Chambers. You won’t find many who would speak ill of her because, true to her New England roots, she was a class act. That doesn’t mean I can reference my love for her without subsequently explaining why I’m NOT being ironic.

I never saw her face until I was nineteen. As a younger person, I got her mixed up with horror movie legend Marilyn Burns. I was under the impression that Burns was both part of the publicity campaign for something called “Ivory Snow” and simultaneously an X-rated superstar. I honestly spent years thinking that the blood-caked actress screaming hysterically at the end of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre went on to simultaneously sell soap and make porn. My naive mind had no idea that people whose faces are painted onto soap boxes can’t make hardcore porn and not pay a price. Marilyn Burns was never punished by Hollywood Puritanism, but Marilyn Chambers was. No one lost out more than film fans. 

I was a college freshman when I first saw David Cronenberg’s “Rabid”. I loved it, and found the movie terrifyingly prophetic in that it was made five years before the first reported cases of AIDS. But what amazed me was how hypnotized I was by Marilyn Chambers. I immediately ranked her turn as ‘Rose’ among my favorite performances in American horror, up there with the likes of Heather Langenkamp in “A Nightmare on Elm Street”, Jamie Lee Curtis in “Halloween”, or Mia Farrow in “Rosemary’s Baby”.  But “Rabid” is a David Cronenberg movie, not a Marilyn Chambers movie. She acted in service to Cronenberg’s vision, rather than showcasing herself at the expense of the film’s somber tone. I wish Marilyn had been afforded more opportunity to shine in the genre, because here she was dynamite, but not in a “my big break out of porn!” way. Her star wattage, however, could not be dimmed.

The Mitchell Brothers directed Marilyn Chambers in just two porn films, 1972’s “Behind the Green Door” and 1973’s “The Resurrection of Eve”, before she left the industry for several years to write popular adult fiction and perform music and comedy onstage. She even recorded a now classic disco single: “BENIHANA”! She became an internationally regarded performance artist thanks to successful gigs in London, New York, and Las Vegas, and it was also during this time that she filmed her role in Cronenberg’s “Rabid”. Had more non-porn filmmakers shown such an interest in Marilyn’s acting, she probably would never have gone back to X-rated cinema. Despite the unbelievable commercial success of her first two films, Marilyn never got the big breaks in Hollywood that she truly deserved. She was beautiful, talented, and already established as a household name, but the film industry proved far less progressive than Marilyn or her contemporaries in San Francisco. She was an intelligent hippie, and thought art porn would be a launching pad, not a permanent home. America was moving in a liberal direction, and she took a gamble in making “Behind the Green Door”. Sadly, it never fully paid off. 

My favorite Marilyn Chambers performance of all was her work as Sandra Chase, the sexually empowered heiress of 1980’s “INSATIABLE”. Even less plot-oriented film than the legendary “Green Door”, “Insatiable” is one of my Top 10 favorite movies of all time. It’s all about one day in the life of a woman in perennial pursuit of every kind of pleasures, from driving a Ferrari to flashing back to early sexual experiences to putting on perfume and a garter belt and caressing herself as she listens to two friends make love.  “Insatiable” is a sincerely happy film. It’s hedonistic without being devoid of a spiritual core, an empowering testament to the innately autoerotic quality of living life to the fullest. 

I know many people who would fantasize about living out “Insatiable”. It’s easy to see why Marilyn never had a single regret about the film. Although not credited with writing it, I do not doubt that her creative input was as great as Madonna has had over every one of her world tours. She chose the men, she chose the women, she chose the fantasies. It was delivered to the audience wrapped in her ‘Marilyn Chambers’ aesthetic: chic clothes, luxurious locations, and a healthy dose of aerial photography and scenes filmed outside of Buckingham Palace (!) to heighten the pleasure for lovers of 35mm film.

I’m a fantasy-oriented person as it is, and a bit narrow-minded to boot. So it never occurred to me that every porn star wasn’t like Marilyn Chambers and that every straight porn film wasn’t like “Insatiable”. It’s not that there weren’t other films of that era that I love to this day—“Devil In Miss Jones”, “The Opening of Misty Beethoven”, and “Café Flesh” are all brilliant and perhaps superior films. But “Insatiable” is different. It is presumably made for a straight male market, even though it is a straight female fantasy. Yet I simply cannot imagine ANY adult film that would have more appeal to lesbians and gay men. “Insatiable” defies quadrants and audience identification because it is a universally liberating experience. It is the rare work of erotica that sends a positive message to those struggling to understand their sexuality, whatever their gender or orientation. I felt unexplainably proud after viewing it, and as a twenty year old gay male I was hardly the intended audience. My only regret, as after every subsequent viewing, was that I truly, truly wish that I had seen “Insatiable” before ever having had sex. 

In early 2009, I was working on a screenplay for a film that I had hoped to see produced with Marilyn Chambers in the lead role. In tailoring the part, I went back to research all of her work that I had yet to see—specifically her “Private Fantasies” video series. Some segments were better than others, but all served as a fascinating precedent to Madonna’s “SEX” book. Whereas Madonna’s work was largely an artistic and political statement, Marilyn seemed to genuinely enjoy being able to live out her fantasies.

 

On April 13th, 2009, I learned of the death of Marilyn Chambers. She had died at 1 AM East Coast time, but her death was on the West Coast, and so she was pronounced dead on April 12th, exactly ten days before her fifty-seventh birthday. The tragedy was compounded by the fact that she had been found in her home by her only daughter, whose eighteenth birthday later that year would be spent without her mother’s physical presence.

Suddenly the woman whose talents as an actress had yet to be fully discovered would have to settle for never being more than “Queen of Porn”. One would have to be inhuman not to feel sympathy for the loss of a human being: a mother, a daughter, a sister, a friend. But few realized how great her loss was to the world of cinema because only a limited audience ever appreciated just how bright a star she was. 

Marilyn was devoted to her fans, and instead of treating them like a bunch of sleazoids in raincoats—which many of them may well have been—she brought to her fanbase a level of warmth and interest that was rarely demonstrated by movie stars since the WWII era. A perfect example can be found in this interview from the New York public access show “Midnight Blue”, as excerpted from the Blue Underground DVD “Midnight Blue: Adult Film Stars of the 70s”. 

Watching the interview, you can see Marilyn enjoyed flirting with the interviewer. But she wasn’t turning him on to demonstrate her control over him. She was consciously indulging his fantasies, before an audience, which in turn brought her enjoyment. She was happy to make him happy through performance, by playing the part of “Marilyn Chambers”. You could say that that is what drove her: giving people someone to fantasize about without leading them on or cruelly taking advantage of their longing. Marilyn’s rapport with her fans, onscreen and off, was innocent, sexy fun. It’s NICE to make people feel so good! I would love to bring to people as much happiness as she did in her life.

Marilyn Chambers is not entirely disconnected from my “Vogue” video. The same year that that video was shot was when Marilyn became a mother. As she often repeated in interviews, it was a totally life-changing experience. I shall always treasure the significance of it corresponding with a seemingly innocuous moment in my childhood that would go on to change my own life twenty years later.

Of all of my beloved idols, Marilyn is the one I relate to the most. We both dreamt of being stars in the vein of Old Hollywood when we were kids growing up in New England. Our work is defined by a shared civil libertarian philosophy, an adamant passion for defending free speech, and a natural openness to sexuality and alternative lifestyles. But we are both defined by something else: New England politeness. In one of her last interviews, as featured on both the 2007 and 2009 DVD releases of “Insatiable”, she credits her parents for instilling “good manners” which she later applied to her relationship with her fans. Like Bette and Joan before her, Marilyn had a love of her fans that went beyond the usual smile and handshake. She cared about making them happy. She did not condescend to them for fantasizing about her. In fact, she LOVED that! She was grateful for her audience, who were always there waiting for her next film, no many how many years or better roles passed Marilyn by. She was brilliant, and though she later battled and overcame drug abuse during the mid-80s, she was also sober and famously regimented in her lifestyle during the peak years of her career. This lends credibility to her words and mission, for Marilyn’s stardom was not born in an abusive childhood and fueled forward by addiction and self-destruction, like so many others in porn. In spite of her dreams of being a Hollywood actress never coming true, Marilyn kept smiling. Her daughter knows what I mean when I say that she still is.