A few months ago, a former ENCI contributor stayed in my LA apartment. We had not seen each other for about five years, but I kept in contact with him and his wife via Facebook. Back then, they lived in Massachusetts, and we spent hours talking on the phone. As often happens with long-distance relationships, we gradually drifted apart.
I always liked “Ramon” (not his real name) because his support was essential during the first days of the publication. So, even though for years our only interaction was “liking” pictures on our walls, when he asked if he could stay in my place for a couple of days, I said yes without hesitation.
After his arrival, Ramon told me the reason behind his trip to LA was a family problem that could only be solved by a nephew who lived in the city. Apparently, the nephew wasn’t interested or lacked the motivation to solve it, so Ramon’s mission was to convince him to assume the responsibility.
Details about the problem are irrelevant, and I really didn’t ask much about it. Not because I wasn’t interested, but because I didn’t want Ramon to feel compelled to disclose personal matters just because he was my guest. However, between a welcoming bottle of wine and the goodbye breakfast, we talked about the curious encounter with his nephew, which occurred at a karaoke party organized by members of the porn industry.
The nephew dated a porn actress for a while, and during the relationship, he befriended some of her colleagues, who treated Ramon as if he was family in a seemingly ordinary party. That was until he noticed the inexplicable harmony reigning over a place jam-packed with stunning female performers.
In Caribbean countries (and most certainly in Venezuela), the presence of these women in any kind of social event would be, at least, inconvenient. Cocks would show their spurs and make use of their best bullshit strategies in order to impress the gals. They would shamelessly mention their salaries, marital status, brand of car (if expensive) and places of residence (if enviable). And if that didn’t work, they’d mention their diluted heritage in order to become the top prospect of the party (¡My Granma was European! ¡My uncle is a General!).
On the female side, Latin women have little to no tolerance for other hens in the hen-house and would mark their territory with open hostility after noticing the presence of birds with better plumage. After renouncing their affiliation to any feminist movement, they would introduce themselves as somebody’s girlfriend or wife, hang on firmly to their arms, limit their movements, triplicate their bathroom touch-ups, and would make an ass of themselves demonstrating that no one, n-o-o-n-e, is sexier than them on the dance floor.
The inevitably—though temporary—end of some engagement, marriage, or civil union would arrive after a few drinks, and we would see some ladies running home (shoes in hand) to allow their couples to spend more time with “their whores “. To cut a long story short, hot-blooded Latino culture will rear its ugly head thanks to the obvious and very real possibility of fulfilling a fantasy, but it is kind of unfair to regionalize this scenario. After all, here in the US of A, the center of the universe for ultraconservative politics and the multimillionaire porn industry at the same time, it would be hard to find a place where a couple of voluminous porn stars wouldn’t wreak havoc.
Meanwhile, peace reigned at Ramon’s party. Drinks in hand, the actresses strutted around the party greeting every guest they met with a hug and kissing other actresses on the lips. Some were married or dated other actors/actresses, but nobody seemed to care. They didn’t care if their couples spoke for hours on end with other girls/guys or if these girls/guys sat on their legs. And if they cared then these gals definitely were better actresses when they weren’t in front of a camera.
Porn actors, in the meantime, seemed more interested in the policies of the Obama administration and the consequences of global warming. Now and then, they turned to check someone’s curves with almost homosexual disdain, but they never abandoned or lost the thread of their conversation. If their partners approached, they invited them to sit on their unoccupied leg and updated him/her about the issue under discussion.
Overwhelmed by the bizarre spectacle, Ramon forgot about his nephew and joined a group discussing the recently approved law that enforces the use of condoms in pornographic “films.” Porn studios lobbied against the law since it was announced because they will bear the costs to implement it (meaning, the salary of someone watching a man put on a condom) and, naturally, everybody at the party was well informed about its reach. What Ramon didn’t expect, though, was that even the blonder blonde actress was able to eloquently express her point of view. With arguments! Not superficial opinions, and without trying to impose her ideas, only to express them.
Ramon stepped back. Where the hell was he? Were those real porn actors? The degree of lucidity and fraternity of these men and women was unbelievable and shocking, and it was starting to annoy him. Were they poking fun at him? Was there a hidden camera recording his efforts to keep his mouth shut? Nothing made sense, and for a brief moment, Ramon attributed everything to drugs. Perhaps everybody was on some sort of chemically induced daze that inhibited their libidos. Mushrooms? Marijuana? Definitely not cocaine. But then, why a porn actor would sedate his main working tool? Even if just for a night…and in front of all these beauties!
The conversation had moved on to the peace process after the Arab Spring when Ramon mentioned his observations to the veteran producer standing next to him.
“Incredible, don’t you think?” The man said. “In our industry, sexual tension is almost inexistent. At one point or another, these actors have fucked each other, they have fucked the wives of their colleagues, they have fucked their friends, they have fucked their enemies, and they have even fucked themselves. And if they haven’t fucked someone yet, rest assured that they will fuck that person in the near future. It is really impressive the mental clarity that you acquire when you do not have to compete for sex.”
An actress lost interest in the events of Tahrir Square when she heard Ramon babbling an answer. According to her, the lack of sexual tension is welcomed in her profession. She still remembered how, in her pre-porn days, she always had someone who wanted her or that she wanted and that the anxiety of getting away with that person destroyed any possibility of enjoying the moment. Now, everything was different. She was mostly surrounded by people she had “worked” with, and even though unusual if she wanted to fuck some actor off camera, she just went with it. They didn’t have to go through the whole process of impressing each other.
“The peace you get after getting rid of sexual uncertainty,” concluded the actress, “is priceless.”
“¡What a philosopher!” Said one actor as he slapped her butt. The girl’s boyfriend smiled. “Perhaps you are what the Middle East needs to solve its problems.”
The actress smiled wide, flashed her tits to the group, and walked away shaking her ass like a duck.
Some months after Ramon’s visit, I decided to call a friend who used to work in pornographic films. In terms of staff, nobody works in porn because they want to. Usually, people don’t find work in regular movies and end up doing anything to make ends meet.
That was the case with Alex (not his real name either), who was an accountant in two dozen porn films in the Valley of San Fernando (¡the porn capital of the world!) before he was hired to do the same in a reality show about chefs.
That was his career’s lowest point (working in porn, not reality television), and he didn’t like to hang out with the people he met in the industry, but somehow I managed to convince him to take me to the next porn party he was invited to in order to corroborate Ramon’s observations.
That party corroborated everything, but not in the way I expected.
Unlike Ramon’s party, this one was attended by numerous guests unrelated to the adult entertainment industry. Young men, mostly, and way too many, in reality, so passions at the humongous house of a porn executive didn’t take long to pop.
Wisely, in the beginning, the actors and actresses partied on the second floor, segregated from the general population by a wall of security guards standing at the bottom of the stairs. We were on the second floor thanks to Alex’s friendship with the host, and while the peace lasted, Ramon’s tale was quite accurate.
Had it not been for the clear heels and the unbuttoned shirts all the way to the belly button, the party could have passed for a parent’s night with teachers at school. Parents and teachers with boom box-sized breasts and 15 inches dicks, that is, but definitely just as civilized.
The actresses seemed happy to be there, drinking with men completely indifferent to their boobs and who listened—without interrupting—their never-ending opinions about the Aurora Massacre and the arrival of Curiosity to Mars. Next to me, an actor was particularly happy to have worked with a director he described as a “genius,” and he dropped so many compliments on him that, for a moment, I thought he was talking about Coppola himself. Actually, he was talking about a fellow called Ettore Buchi; winner of the AVN Award 2012 (the “Oscars” of the porn industry) as Best Foreign Director for the movie “Mission Asspossible”.
Buchi was not in the party, but in the long, wide, dark, and ultra-cheesy room that held what seemed to be a collection of old mirrors and “Renaissance” paintings squeezed between golden rococo frames, I recognized a few porno-celebrities.
Nina Hartley was on a couch next to a man more interested in a colossal coffee table made out of an old door. Knob and all. From a balcony, the laughter of Sunny Lane almost drowned a remix of “Otis” by Kanye West and Jay-Z. And at some point, Alex congratulated actor James Deen for “nailing” (pun intended) a role next to Lindsay Lohan in “The Canyons,” Paul Schrader’s latest film. Deen promised Alex to call later as an old lady dragged him to a group of men wearing safari shirts who seemed proud of the young stallion.
Once in a while, the actors walked downstairs and talked with the visibly intoxicated guests, but other than the occasional drink spilled on the wall-to-wall faux Persian rugs, everything went without incident. In fact, to be a “porn” party, it was quite lame, and by 1:00 AM, I had enough.
Alex and I were already outside the house when hell broke loose. We saw bodyguards dragging a drunken kid to his car while he yelled if they didn’t know who he was. The fat guards ignored him, but soon they were surrounded by his friends, who in turn were surrounded by the rest of the security detail in the house (who made the mistake of leaving their posts at the foot of the stairs). Radio in hand (and possibly worried by the numeric difference), one of the guards asked the boys to calm down, or he would call the police.
To avoid getting involved (and because the damn valet didn’t show up with my car’s keys), Alex and I decided to go back to the safety of the hippie commune on the second floor. But the ideal world we had left behind just minutes before had disappeared and was now in control of a horde of drunk, horny, and daring youngsters.
The actors and actresses, once sitting peacefully in large velvet sofas, were now surrounded by “fans” hungry for photos, autographs, and “conversation.” These “conversations” were nothing but embarrassing clichés that the actresses answered with nervous chuckles while they glanced around looking for security guards. “Who fucked you the best?” “Are your orgasms for real?” “What about your boobs?” And so on. And the more the actresses smiled, signed, and posed, the more chaotic the crowd grew, and the more audacious became the poses and requests.
In the beginning, the “fans” asked for ordinary pictures where a person stands next to the other, but they soon began asking for hugs, kisses, and tongue action. And when someone decided to break the ice with an unexpected and unwelcome tit grab, the actress pushed the “fan,” the “fan” called her whore, and one of the actors (who looked like a young Joey Silvera) crushed his sternum with his fist. A perfectly logical reaction, in my opinion, but one that did little to stop the course of events.
Alex and I rushed downstairs, where the host was yelling at the security guards not to call the police unless it was completely necessary. The guards looked at each other and ran upstairs obediently.
Alex pulled my keys from the valet’s locker, and we ran to my car. The DJ finally turned off the music. I was opening the door when someone yelled “nigger” on the second floor (most likely at one of the security guards). A muted scream followed the insult. Then, the night exploded with sounds of fists crunching bones and a rain of broken glass that only ended when a gunshot allowed me to hear crickets for the first since my arrival in LA. A few days later, I learned that the desperate host had fired a warning shot towards the ceiling, ruining (for good) a ridiculous fresco in which a multicultural group of naked women with gargantuan breasts washed disproportionally muscular naked men with sponges in Ancient Greece. Or something like that.
“It’s always the same shit,” Alex murmured as we drove away from the house.
“It’s the sexual tension,” I said with naive sincerity.
“The what?”
“The sexual tension…If we had no sexual incertitude…perhaps this would never…”
Alex clicked his teeth condescendingly.
“That’s what they tell everybody. People in the porn industry think that fucking is the solution to all problems because they solve all their problems by fucking. They always forget that the only reason they fuck people they do not like or do not know is because someone pays them to do it. So, don’t go around believing what hookers say. Sexual tension—Alex concluded mockingly—is of no importance. It doesn’t matter how horny you are, there will always be way more important things to worry about than finding a place to bury your dick at night.”
Originally published in El Nuevo Cojo Ilustrado as Mundo Porno: baldazo de agua fría acaba con sueños de paz mundial
