Home

Back to Essays

Tristan Taormino's Sunday Night (2/26/06) New York Party

Tristan, Joanna Angel Tristan, Joanna Joanna, Justine Jolie Joanna's heels Tristan, Joanna Tristan, Joanna, Justine Tristan, Joanna, Justine Tristan, Joanna, Justine cake cake Justine Jolie, fan Justine Justine Justine Justine, Tristan Justine, Tristan Tristan, Justine Tristan, Justine Joanna Joanna, Tristan, Justine Audacia Ray Tristan Tristan, Cam Long Cam Long, Justine Jolie Cam, Justine Cam, Justine

Tristan Taormino once. Tristan then. Then. Then.

Smiling Arab writes on XPT: "Two Jews and a goysha. How the hell that race has survived for 5,000 years, from Moses to Sandy Koufax with sex appeal like that, I have no idea."

It was 17 degrees outside.

Cam says to Tristan: "You're prettier than I thought."

Tristan talks about her hair and make-up and outfit. "I like bold colors. I am not afraid of orange. These shoes are some of the highest heels I own. My bracelet matches exquisitely."

Cam: "She's right."

Tristan: "I'm not wearing a bar. I'm 34 and my breasts are standing up by themselves."

Tristan said she appeared in a porn video to "teach women that you don't have to be a porn star to have anal sex."

She waxes lyrical about the joys of anal sex. "As a sex educator, I've got to model good behavior. Food is not a sex toy."

She says the learning curve for her first porn movie "was steeper than anything else."

Tristan describes her latest porn video as a "take-off on reality television. Take them out of their natural habitat, LA, and let the cameras roll.

"People said I was crazy. Porn stars want structure.

"The thing that is important to me is that these are some of the best and brightest of the Adult industry. They love their jobs. Real female orgasms.

"Jezebelle Bond and Justin Snyder broke up during my shoot and did no scenes for me.

"I want to create gonzo that doesn't involve degradation. I want gonzo that is sex-positive. I don't know if I want to be a superstar.

"My two videos for John Stagliano have sold over 50,000.

"Will I perform again? That's a great question.

"I expected that you as Luke would be all over Joanna because he loves Joanna."

Trailer for Tristan's movie.

I ask Cam: "Did they treat you with due deference at the party?"

He replies:

I was treated very very well at the party. I think I may have been the only member of the media present. I missed out on the ass cake, but that's my own fault--I was busy with interviews. They handed out a very nice goodie bag at the end, and they gave one to my friends as well.

James DiGiorgio writes on www.simplyjimmyd.com:

I was bored this afternoon so I followed a link to a trailer for Tristan Taormino's House of Ass. And because I'm still a bit bored, I thought I'd write up my take on it.

As the trailer opens, we see a non-descript SUV moving slowly up a long, asphalt-paved, single-lane driveway with plenty of foliage on either side. I'm thinking weekend retreat or house in the country or mountains or something like that. The trailer then cuts to Ms. Taormino who is sitting in a chair in a medium shot with the lighting a little bit dark and artsy and contrasty. (Just like you'd see in the interview parts of many documentary films.) Throughout Taormino's introduction to her skin flick, the trailer cuts back and forth between her, speaking from her interview chair, and the SUV which eventually unloads a bunch of porn folks.

In Taormino's intro, she tells us what she hoped to accomplish with her movie besides, I'm guessing, making a couple of bucks: She wanted to bring a bunch of pornstars together in a relaxed environment to see if they'd let their guards down.

So there's the hook: Relaxed pornstars with their guards down. I'm guessing her initial pitch was a bit more complex than that but, for the purpose of the trailer, the hook's been boiled down to relaxed and unguarded pornstars.

So now I'm thinking the trailer is going to treat the viewer to some interesting and unguarded pornstar moments. But instead, all the viewer gets is a bunch of clips of pornstars having sex with some freeze frames of each peformer with their name super'd over the frame. I'll admit it's a pretty good cast and the sex looks okay but I was waiting to see some relaxed and unguarded moments and, frankly, all I saw was the same s--- I've seen in just about any porn flick.

Throughout the entire trailer not one pornstar utters one, single, word--relaxed, unguarded, or otherwise. In fact, I didn't see a single moment of unguarded action or silliness or introspection or whatever so the question is never answered: Did these pornstars ever truly let their guards down during the making of "House of Ass?"

Maybe it's all a clever marketing ploy -- You know, you have to actually see the movie to get the unguarded s---. Maybe the unguarded footage is bonus footage? Or maybe Ms. Taormino's going for a new rating for porn flicks: "U" for Unguarded? Or maybe... just maybe, it's simply Ms. Taormino's response to alt.porn, i.e., U-porn.