SEXIS WRONG

But I knew that couldn’t be the only thing “Girls Gone Wild”
had going for it. As much as I personally love the sweet moment
of sexual revelation, I found it hard to believe that this
was the force driving millions of customers into this company’s
arms. There was something else “Girls Gone Wild”
seemed to offer, something the video-porn industry just
doesn’t have a grip on: transgression.
I know that sounds weird. How could college girls pulling up
their shirts be more transgressive than explicit triple penetration,
or rubber enema bondage, or any of the other far-out
delicacies the modern porn industry has made available to
the general viewing public? Yes, yes, the mainstream porn biz
is doing filthy, filthy things, and their marketing departments
will natter at great length about how this week’s release is
pushing the envelope like nothing you’ve ever seen, totally
extreme to the max. Whatever.
Yet as softcore as they obviously were, “Girls Gone Wild”
looked like the real deal. “Girls Gone Wild” seemed way more
transgressive than hardcore porn—because the girls themselves
felt that way. The girls in the TV ads are crossing their
own boundaries, breaking their own rules. They aren’t “Wild
Girls”—they’re “Girls Gone Wild,” emphasis on the “gone,”
on the idea that they didn’t used to be slutty exhibitionists
and you’re getting to see them cross that line. They seem
like they’re probably fairly normal girls when they’re not at
Mardi Gras or spring break, and they seem to think that what
they’re doing is naughty and dirty and slutty and bad—and,
therefore, way more fun.
And that’s something the porn industry just
can’t give you. I don’t care how many guys
are jerking off in the actress’ face or what
she’s putting up her butt—she’s a professional.
She’s almost certainly done this before,
and if she hasn’t done this exact thing, she’s
sure done plenty of other things that aren’t all that different.
There’s no way that she feels like a good girl breaking the
rules, no way she’s feeling that sudden exhilaration of stepping
over a line and gazing into a bigger and freakier sexual
world. She stepped over that line long ago, and she’s been
in that big, freaky world for a while. I’m not knocking it—I
have a lot of respect for professionalism in the porn industry;
in fact, I often wish there were more of it. And I like seeing
people get nasty when they’re comfortable with their bodies
and their sexuality. But if what you want is the thrill of watching
someone break their own rules and do dirty things they
never imagined themselves doing, you aren’t going to get it
from the Vivid Girls.
Which leads me to the other very special thing that “Girls
Gone Wild” seemed to offer...and here’s where we start
getting into some seriously fucked-up regions of my psychosexual
geography. Because the other thing “Girls Gone Wild”
appeared to offer was humiliation. Not faked, not acted, not
a fantasy. When the girls in “Girls Gone Wild” stepped over
that line, it seemed like you’d be getting to watch, real-time,
while they shamed themselves: like you’d be watching them
let go of their dignity, place themselves in a position of public
debasement, offer up their bodies for the crude enjoyment of
a leering public eye. While I certainly don’t think flashing your
boobs in public needs to be any of those things (God knows
I’ve done it enough times, and it didn’t feel that way to me),
it seemed that these girls would feel that way. The girls in
the GGW ads seem like fairly ordinary, non-sex-radical girls,
“girls next door,” if you will, girls who most of the time would
have some degree of modesty and sexual shame. And what
you get to see in these videos—or what it seemed from the
TV ads that you get to see in these videos—was the moment
when they let go of their modesty, and let themselves experience
that tingly, twitchy, nakeder-than-naked blend of eroticism
and shame. In my fucked-up and deeply kinked little libido,
that had more oomph than almost anything mainstream
porn could provide.
The more I thought about all this, the more it turned me on.
The “Girls Gone Wild” ads went from an occasional bit of
fleeting, guilty pleasure when the ads came on, to full-time
masturbation material. Interestingly, I never imagined myself
as one of the wild girls: I’ve been around way too many
blocks way too many times, and not even in my most fevered
sexual imaginings could I picture myself feeling embarrassed
“Girls Gone Wild” seemed way more
transgressive than hardcore porn—
because the girls themselves
felt that way.
or naughty about pulling up my shirt for the camera. (For one
thing, I’ve already done it more than once....) No, my typical
“Girls Gone Wild” masturbation fantasy always put me
behind the camera. I’m the one enticing the giggling girl to
pull up her shirt, or pull down her pants, or take a shower
for the camera, or fondle her girlfriend...and I’m the one
who’s then enticing her to pull down her pants and spread
her butt cheeks, or get on all fours in the shower, or turn her
naked friend over her lap and spank her while she giggles
and writhes, or any of the filthy things I was hoping might be
on the videos. And I’m the one making sure my leering eye
caught every bit of it on tape.
So finally my curiosity (and my libido) got the better of me.
Among other things, I wanted to know if the videos lived up
to the promise of the TV ads. Would there, in fact, be more
GIRLS GONE WILD 165