Thanks for the awesome review Kat

You’ll need to be patient about the review, however, as “real life” has reared its ugly head once again and limited my ability to finish my review of “Dare,” in as timely a manner as I would like. Alas.

Interestingly enough I’m also writing about “Asa Akira is Insatiable III” at the same time. I think it would make an interesting study to focus strictly on Mason’s work with individual women — Dani Daniels, Asa Akira, Lexi Belle, Remy LeCroix (who has since left the business I understand), and a few others. She brings a unique sensibility and an artistic touch to her work that I find incredibly attractive. Her aesthetic sense and the context in which she shoots creates a level of intimacy seldom captured by adult video.

Elexis Monroe’s “Lesbian Storytime Theater Episode 1″ has some of this, although she achieves it via different means.

Nica Noelle’s best work also captures this, but not in the same way.

James Avalon is trying, but so far missing the mark, I’m afraid, in picking up where Nica left off at Sweet Sinner.

Dana Vespoli shows great promise in this regard and there are a few other directors, all women, who have likewise shown promise.

Manuel Fererra’s “Raw” series has generally managed to “get it” (although not always), and Chris Streams’ “Oil Overload 7″ definitely has it.

Oh my…look at the time, will you? I need to get to bed. Ciao!

“The ultimate limitation of hardcore, as Williams (1989) has pointed out, is precisely that it cannot deliver what it most desires: visual proof of
the involuntary spasm of sexual pleasure in the female body.” (HARDY, Simon: 2009: 5)

I honestly think I have not stopped talking about Dare. Dani’s discourse in itself is extremely rich, and I would like to go back to it soon. I have around 7 pages written while I was watching the film, and so many ideas I am actually a little bit dizzy. I reckon my confusion was turned into glee when I realized we are witnessing something new. I am looking forward to your review. Wish we could sit down and compare notes.

But I have a slightly different take, which I mean to explore in my own review of this outstanding work from Elegant Angel and its genius director Mason/Sam No. I’ll just say this much — part of watching porn in the 80′s and 90′s was about the suspicion I always had that the women secretly despised the men they were fucking. True or not, it formed much of my porn viewpoint for those decades and was one reason I sought amateur (real amateur, which you actually used to be able to find in video stores), or near amateur (Ed Powers, et. al.) where I had a chance to see a woman completely lose control of her body and experience real pleasure with another human being, be it man or woman. The vulnerability displayed during an orgasm is one of its chief attractions for this voyeur. That point where you can point at the screen and say THAT is REAL. It’s easy to see that in men. For obvious reasons it is much more difficult to see in women, which, of course, makes it all the more precious as a commodity.

But, there I go, giving away my review before it’s even written. So, I’ll stop there. and just say, again, thank you for a fascinating exploration of the phenomenon now known as “Dare.”

The angle which makes many stop and think, as opposed to rolling our eyes at these people and get back to watching porn, is the undoubted impact the sexual interaction of Gen Y that the sheer all pervasiveness of porn is having. The main issue being that young men’s expectations of sexual interaction with young women is being shaped by porn.

This is actually backed by research data not alarmism and it really has to make you stop and think.

For my generation – Gen X and more mature people, the idea that anyone except idiots could actually expect their real life to be reflected in porn is bizarre. Apart from anything else men my age know that even if we did, our mothers would be appalled, ashamed and all sorts of other things if they knew we had allowed this to happen. But more intellectually, I think that we as a society (in western democracies) view porn through the prism which we used to view Erotica. I’m not saying they aren’t the same thing, but Erotica was something furtive, something that you acquired subtly (if not illegally) and it had a subversive feel to it. Even in the censorship debates (in nation’s like Australia in the 1970s) it was always understood, if not explicitly stated, that Erotica was only to do with sexual fantasy – which was only one part of who you are as a person.

Whether or not Erotica and porn are the same things, we approach porn with the same attitude and assumptions as we did with Erotica in the past. But the sheer plenitude and all pervasiveness of porn thanks to the web makes porn today something altogether different since a generation is possibly growing up without the vital context that Erotica/porn is about sexual fantasy not reality.

PS your blog is AMAZING!!!!! Love it! Hope my comment isn’t too rambling
BC

Obviously the Director deserves huge credit but for me it’s the performances which set this movie apart, from say, it’s sister flicks at sweetheart video, which is why I agree with you about the Kastle/St Ives scene since Kate Kastle is one of those actresses whose responses/reactions are more authentic on average.

But Jasmine Jem makes this movie a classic. Her performance is the TOTAL key. She is totally believable in her role. Sovereign Syre does very well – but a few others could do the Celine role – self assured with a touch of vulnerability when confronted by the game changing authentic ‘something’ that is Jem in the role.