Movie – Good Luck to You, Leo Grande – Part II

So I watched Good Luck to You, Leo Grande tonight. And on the whole it filled the expectations that I mentioned in my first post about this movie.

I don’t want to spoil it for anyone who hasn’t watched it and might like to, so I’ll try to be general here rather than talking about specifics of the plot

If you are looking for an authentic picture of what an experience with a male sex worker is like, then Leo Grande is a reasonable portrayal (if overly dramatised). But I have to say that it is representative.

It’s not a bad film, generally it’s pretty good. It touches on real issues that I have dealt with – like consent, privacy, boundaries, communication, body image, low self esteem, difficulty achieving orgasm, and personal growth.

I will accept the conflict. That probably had to be in there for dramatic effect – but know this, your male sex worker should always be professional, no matter what.

I guess at the end of the day it felt good for me, a sex worker, to be represented in a realistic and mostly accurate and sympathetic fashion.

I think that it was also good to see Emma Thompson’s character – while vastly (somewhat unrealistically) over anxious – depicting so many things that women I often meet are going through.

On the whole I think that this movie is positive and a valuable contribution to education about sex work, sex workers, and why people – especially women – choose to see us.

John

Movie – Good Luck to You, Leo Grand

Whenever I hear of a new movie about sex work I always feel a little bit of anxiety. Will it be true to life? Or will it just be a rehash of stale old tropes about “hookers”, “rent boys”, and “Pretty Woman”.

Well, from what I can see in the trailer the new movie Good Luck to You, Leo Grande seems promising. The scenes shown match my experience of being a male sex worker for women – if a somewhat over dramatic version as I have never met a woman quite so stressed and manic as the female client character that Emma Thompson plays. But this is Hollywood and I guess we just have to expect that they are going to over dramatise everything for effect.

I hope that the movie can focus on the experience of Emma Thompson’s character without getting mired in overly simplistic morality questions about sex work.

We will have to wait and see!

You can see the trailer for Good Luck to You, Leo Grand here:

https://youtu.be/UZAgk9-e_rc

John

Fight Club, art, and meaning

I re-watched the film Fight Club by David Fincher recently. I did so because of a comment I heard about Fight Club being a “satire of toxic masculinity”. This didn’t resonate with me and I needed to take another look. It’s easy to dismiss new ideas and interpretations of art – especially if it’s art that you love – and to be fair I do like Fight Club (both the movie and the original book by Chuck Palahniuk).

But is it still relevant in this age of #meToo and calling out bad male behaviour?

Some art does not age well. Enquiring minds (well mine anyway) would like to know if this is the case with Fight Club…

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A grand day out!

It’s spring in Sydney, the weather is fine, and it’s time for the beach.  What could be more grand than that?

WARNING
this short film contains nudity and is NOT SAFE FOR WORK

If you would like your own grand day out (or night in) with me, then drop me a line.

John.

Burnt

I watched the movie Burnt (staring Bradley Cooper and Sienna Miller) recently. If you love food, cooking, restaurants, and drama, then this is a fabulous movie. It’s witty, with a great script and cast, it’s also beautifully directed, with outstanding production values, and a great score (including some excellent John Lee Hooker).

Burnt_Poster_Updated

For whatever reason, this movie scored very badly with critics, but it really touched me. Perhaps because for me (having run a bakery and loving good food and cooking), I can absolutely understand the passion, the intensity, the need to create and to astound with fabulous food. I also understand the lifestyle that people who work in the food industry live, the long and horrible hours, the poor pay, the work done because you love what you are doing, even though no one else will ever get it in the same way – even as they adore your food.

And then there are the egos. Many chefs truly are like psychotic rock stars. Their staff living in fear of the next outburst, the thrown pots and pan, the broken crockery. Cooper had experience growing up working in kitchens, and he then took that to the next level studying for the part at Gordon Ramsey’s three Michelin Star restaurant in London – as did all of the cast. It really was a movie that took the job of authenticity seriously. You can read more about that here and see what Gordon Ramsey himself had to say here.

It’s a great film – regardless of what the critics say (plebes).

If you love food you should watch this movie.  If you also love sex, then come and watch this movie with me and we can have great sex afterwards ;-)

John.

Pawn Sacrifice

I just watched the movie Pawn Sacrifice – a brief history of the life of chess grand master and world champion Bobby Fischer. It’s a lot less dry than one might think at first glance. Fischer was arguably the finest chess player ever, twice defeating the Russian grand master and world champion Boris Spassky. Fischer was also mentally unstable and increasingly paranoid. Something that would lead him to retire from public life and competitive chess at the age of 32.

It was strongly implied in the film that Fischer was used as a political tool by the US government against the Soviet Union in the middle of the cold war. The defeat of the best Russian chess players of the era by a boy from Brooklyn was a huge blow to Soviet pride I am sure.

Sadly for Fischer his mental health issues and antisemitism eventually bought him into conflict with his own government. His unofficial rematch with Spassky in 1992 lead to his US passport being canceled. Eventually Iceland offered Fischer asylum in 2005 and he died there in 2008.

The movie paints him as eccentric, irrational, paranoid, and truly a genius. It didn’t show the side of him that many people claim was kind and compassionate.

Earlier in the movie the comment is made that there are about 318 billion ways that the first four moves of any game can be played. That is a vast phase space to even try to consider, and it makes the game of chess effectively endlessly variable – to the average human mind like me anyway.

However, at the end of the movie, having beaten Spassky, Fischer makes the comment of chess:

“It’s almost all theory and memorisation. People think [that] there’s all these options, but there’s usually one right move. Of course in the end there’s no place to go”.

It’s unlikely that these are Fischer’s own words, but it’s a poignant moment and the artistic license seems fair. While there may be 318 billion options, most of them are to be ignored or dismissed outright, much reducing the phase space that a genius like Fischer would ever need to consider when playing.

At the end of the day, this is much life for the average person. We live in a world vastly more complex than an eight by eight board with 32 pieces on it. However the choices that we have available to us at any one time are always limited to a relatively small number of options. What our politicians and leaders do every day effects this range of options.

When a politician or a religious leader stands up in front of our nation and tells us that same sex marriage is unnatural and harmful (as they seem to be doing regularly in recent times), they reduce the possible phase space for a happy life for people who don’t identify as male or female and heterosexual. For many (especially young) people in the LGBTQI community they reduce it to nothing, leading to a life of bullying, harassment, exclusion, and for some, suicide.

Viewed from this (mathematical) perspective – an envelop of options or choices that can lead to happiness – “morality” as defined by our society and especially religion begins to look cruel and needlessly limiting.

Fischer perhaps saw a truth in the world. To defeat Spassky in the fourth game of the match in Iceland in 1972 (according to the movie), he took Spassky outside of the chess game phase space that his opponent expected him to play within (and had studied and knew). When he did that Spassky was lost and unable to respond effectively. And Fischer won.

When people tell us that enjoying our sexuality is wrong, or dirty, or bad they are limiting our opportunities for a happy life – limiting the phase space of our happiness and well being. When we fail to educate children properly about sex and sexuality and give them the chance to develop in a safe and non-judgmental environment, we are limiting their chances for a happy and fulfilling life.

I recently talked with someone who described how she has dealt with the subject of sex with her daughter who is almost a teenager. What I heard was the exact opposite of what most people seem to experience. That was a parent who never hid, or denied sex, who didn’t make a big deal out of it, but provided reliable information when her daughter was ready for and wanted to hear it. It was one of the best pieces of parenting I have ever come across.

In doing so I imagined the phase space representing the possible futures of that child opening up, blossoming, becoming richer with potential and pleasure and pruned of danger, of pain, of suffering – not entirely safe and secure of course, but she now has the tools and knowledge to avoid the worst pitfalls perhaps.

Nothing we do can keep children – or anyone – entirely from harm, but when we educate, when we put aside dogma and prejudice, we give people the opportunity to make better choices in their lives and allow them to avoid the bad ones.

John.

Sense8 sex

I don’t mind a bit of television in my down time, and I have been interested to see over the years how the depiction of sex has evolved in popular culture (like TV). Sex in mainstream movies is still very tame – hamstrung by the need to meet sensors requirements, directors tend not to risk too much, lest their work be shredded under the sensor’s knife. Television though, with its long format, high volume, and (relatively) low cost can try things that are more risky.

netflix-sense8So. I recently started watching the series Sense8. If you liked the series Heroes then Sense8 may appeal. It is written by the Wachowski siblings (who are more commonly known for movie scripts and directing), and as a result has a really interesting relationship with sex, sexuality, and gender identity. There are gay male characters, lesbian characters, a transgender character, a straight woman who loves gay male porn, the list goes on. It has to be the most sexually diverse range of characters ever assembled.

This is not so surprising though since Lana Wachowski, one half of the Wachowski siblings (born Laurance), underwent gender reassignment to become Lana around 2008. As such, I am sure that the transgender character in Sense8 will be at least in part auto-biographical. And there is nothing like an intense personal experience to give a story depth and impact.

What was most surprising though was a sex scene that (without giving away too much I hope) involved at least eleven characters. Yes, it was basically an orgy that included full frontal male and female nudity, female masturbation, gay male sex, lesbian sex, heterosexual sex. And more cross-gender and inter-gender kissing, cuddling, groping, and orgasms than you can handle.

It was seriously hot. And very, well done. Perhaps just the shock of what was actually being shown was part of why it worked so well. I have never, ever seen anything like it outside of porn – and then the production values, acting, and direction would not come close. It was genuinely interesting sex that made sense in the story without being gratuitous at all really.

So while Sense8 is mostly just fun action drama type television, it also has a very serious side. It is challenging perceptions about gender, it is challenging perceptions about what is erotic and when and where it is appropriate to show. And best of all I think, it is showing that sex is (or should be) a part of everyone’s life. It’s not something reserved for porn stars, or for actors in movies, and it doesn’t have to be the peak of some plot point. It’s for everyone, regardless of how you see yourself and how others see you. It’s for first thing when you wake up in the morning. Or last thing at night. And really any time in between. All you need is to feel that it’s right, be that solo, with a friend, a lover, or more.

It’s not about conforming to other peoples’ ideas of “sexy”. It’s you experiencing your body, your desires, you mind, and other bodies, other minds, other desires and finding out how they work best for you.

So I am saying thank you to Sense8 and the Wachowski siblings, the cast and crew. It takes guts and determination to make something that pushes boundaries. I am sure that much of conservative America (and Australia) will have real trouble with it, but I am hoping that the show will sell well, the studio make its profit, and subsequent seasons be produced.

I have a strong desire to see sex portrayed in a more realistic and well produced way on screen and I think that this is a leap (not a step) in that direction.

John.

The Petra Joy – Joy Awards … first prize!

Back in April a client asked me if I would help her to make a short erotic film about her experience of hiring me.  Our date was one step in moving forward in her life and getting over a bad marriage.  The film was to be entered in the Petra Joy – Joy Award, a short film contest for first time female directors of erotica.

The journey through script writing, storyboarding, filming, post production editing, sound recording, score production, and then rendering of the finished movie was an amazing experience.  Not something that I have ever done at such a serious level.

The result was a short film (3 minutes 40 second long) that was unanimously voted to be the best submitted to the award this year.  Interestingly the second prize went to a woman in Melbourne!  So Australia was well represented in the Joy Awards this year.

John.

Feminist porn

We just had a presentation from Tristan Taormino at Xplore about feminist porn.

She is a good presenter and makes an interesting topic even more fun.

Short story is that as a genera feminist porn (however you define it) it is growing at a huge rate. Lots of interesting new directors and content out there.

If you are interested to see more from Tristan Taormino have a look at her website:

http://www.puckerup.com

John.

Ten Minutes To Orgasm movie – Update

I have just had a quick look at the download statistics for my movie Ten Minute To Orgasm.  What can I say but OH WOW.

In the seven days since I posted the video it has been downloaded over 100,000 times.

That is simply stupendous,  I am lost for words …

My website traffic has gone up by more than an order of magnitude.  Lucky the server can handle it.

I think that I will just say “thank you” and leave it at that.

John.