Soaked in Sex, a 99-minute semi-hardcore porno released in December of 2007 by Playgirl TV, is an oddity from start to finish– not for the sex contained therein (for the most part, it’s pretty predictable stuff), but for the hazy concept of audience that Playgirl’s going for.

But first let’s talk about sex. I’ve been popped in the past for my “reviews” not actually, well, talking at all about the nuts and bolts of what goes on in the movie, so I’ll try to tackle the prurient interest first (if briefly).

1st scene: Jasmine Byrne gets it on with her landscaper, Kris Knight. This typically dumb porn scenario leads to seven minutes (seriously!) of making out, and then the clothes start to fall off. I believe in foreplay, but this is a bit much. An unrealistic, passionless cunnilingus episode goes nowhere fast; then, they go straight for the sex, only later getting into a boring, cut-laden blowjob scene with none of the original sounds kept in. Bad electronic music runs rampant through your mind. Then it’s back to the same position(!), and Kris Knight immediately cums on Byrne’s shapely leg. Not a keeper.

Jasmine Byrne and Kris Knight

2nd scene: Dani Woodward and Jack Lawrence are waiters. Dani’s sexy, and Jack Lawrence is a waxen-chested boring rod of a penis. Sparks fly, and they end up having one-position sex, too, but not before they make out for like ten minutes, also. Look. If I wanted to see people who didn’t really love one another kiss, I’d go over to my friend Rich’s house and watch him and his wife tongue-wrestle on their couch. But this ain’t what I need from a porno. Anyhow. A sad twenty minutes later, Jack ejaculates on Dani’s pretty stomach.

Dani Woodward and Jack Lawrence

Hey, I think you get the basic picture: this is a pretty useless porno. In terms of sexual cinema, this movie is well-nigh unwatchable, and it’s bad for all the reasons that porns are usually bad: the music is consistently offensive, the sex is utterly without passion for 75% of the scenes, and the thespian-styled touches that come with the film - i.e, the “scenarios” and the narrative voice-overs - are poorly executed and jarringly intrusive. The saving grace? These actors, both male and female, are very attractive.

Attractive people like to have sex

But that attractiveness is implicated in the problem that plagues Soaked in Sex. For maybe I’m just super-dense, but it took me literally the entire movie to figure out who this film was marketed for - and to be honest, I’m still sort of confused.

Let me explain: I’m a heterosexual male who’s watched roughly six million porn movies in my time. Left to my own devices, I’m nearly always going to choose a gonzo film, hopefully one that features a pretty girl (or several) who’ll do disgusting things. I always want to see real sex - where you can feel the vibe, and hear the asides, listen to the mistakes, and basically just feel like people are honestly fucking. I don’t need a mansion as a backdrop. Give me a starkly lit, non-pretty setting, and I’m happy. When it comes to dudes, I like my porn to be orchestrated by a team of working-class kind of guys with big dicks, who have a sense of humor and, if at all possible, a rudimentary sense of the absurd. That’s my ideal porn world.

Now, I admit, when it comes to male talent, I do prefer seeing “hot” guys to guys who are old/fat/look like they smell sort of bad. Good-looking guys are fun for me to watch in a scene. Maybe it’s because I want to pretend that I’m hot like they are. Maybe I just enjoy looking at beautiful bodies, no matter the gender. I’m not sure, but I do know that I’ll happily take Billy Glide over Ron Jeremy any day of the week.

Billy Glide in “Milf’s Like it Big.”

“Soaked in Sex” features Dani Woodward, Gia Paloma, and Taryn Thomas as the female eye candy. There’s not a bad-looking girl in the movie, actually - and the only pair of enhanced breastices we get are on Gia Paloma and Audrey Hollander, and neither woman sports giant, weird mammaries. All in all, they look good. But as hot as the girls are, the guys are even hotter. And they have even less hair on their bodies. Marco Duato, Kris Knight, Jean Val Jean and Eric Masterson are the notable beefcake.

Jean Val Jean in “Soaked In Sex.”

Now, I’d wack off to that, wouldn’t you? He doesn’t even look like a man. He looks like a blond Horse.

Nevertheless, the question remains: Who is Playgirl intending their audience to be? At first glance, I thought this was a couple’s movie. But when I watched it, I felt no man in the world could deal with the stuff they were serving up. I mean, literally, three of the five scenes have only one position. There are zero facial cumshots. There’s no original sound in the entire movie - just really bad music coupled with really bad voiceovers. So, that means that they were marketing to women, right?

Maybe not; because when I looked up “Soaked in Sex” on Google, my first hit was for DVD Climax, a gay video sex site. Also, there’s a bonus segment on this film that featured a “solo” - ie, just a dude stroking his cock. I don’t know many women who like to sit at home in front of their VCR’s and watch buff gay guys stroke their own cocks and come on their tanned stomachs. I just don’t.

Kris Knight in “Soaked in Sex.”

Fine then: it’s a gay movie, for gay men, who like to watch hetero sex, or at least who will tolerate it, if that means they get to watch hot gay guys fuck, and pretend to be straight - or hot straight guys fuck, and pretend to be gay. (Confusing, isn’t it? Kris Knight is a gay porn star - it took me 2.2 seconds to find a picture on the Net of him barebacking a li’l twink - but here he’ll bone a woman, with the objective being that a gay guy can watch him and imagine that Knight’s straight.) The main point being, the male body is on display here. And while the women do get naked and show some passion, it seems that they’re not there to be lusted after, so much as they are present to simply complete the equation.

Let’s face it, the movie has an identity issue. Playgirl in general has an identity issue, I think.

Playgirl has always mystified me. The magazine was supposedly meant to appeal to women, but did you ever see copies of Playgirl magazine littering the floor of your favorite bachelorette’s apartment? For that matter, have you even heard the absurd word “bachelorette” since the Dating Game? No and no. Instead, the magazine had to have reaped most of its profits from gay men who bought the magazine. Michele Zipp, the editor-in-chief in 2003, said that the gay readership was “30%.”

Suuuuure. Why didn’t Playgirl just come on out and say, “we’re a gay magazine?” A few reasons spring immediately to mind: one, it never would have made the grade in 1980’s Evangelical Christian heterosexist America. Hell, just getting Playboy to go over in 7-Eleven was a minor miracle in those days. Not to mention, the magazine was started as a supposed feminist reaction to Playboy magazine, and admitting it was designed for gay men would have blown their cover.

Playgirl was never designed for women; it’s not interested in women’s minds, not in any real way. The dumb fantasies introduced in these films as much as prove it. Boned by a landscaper. Boned in a bowling alley. Boned in the kitchen. There’s no “seduction” here - more, a series of perfunctory nods to the concept that women like their minds engaged, without the work done to really accomplish that task.

So we’re back to men - but Playgirl could never be up front with the fact that they were a magazine for gay guys. After all, gay guys might not have liked it as much. If they wanted straight-up gay, they could go and get a Bear Monthly. Buying Playgirl his had an air of appropriation to it, a cultural “winking” that, in the end, promised more fun.

The same may be true for Soaked In Sex. Forget the fact that this movie doesn’t feature any honestly hot sex, and that it’s musical directors have obviously studied at the Vivid Video School for Casio Synthesizer Surround-Sound Sex. If you are a person who can’t get enough beef in your cake, and prefers to watch hot men up against the backdrop of a pretty woman, instead of a different hot man, then this could be the movie for you. From Playgirl: the magazine for Men.

$33.99Playgirl: Soaked In Sex DVD by Playgirl TV Stars: Eric Masterson, Joey Ray, Alexis Malone, Dani Woodward Genre: Couples / All Sex / Straight Buy from EdenFantasys