So I had finally managed to get my grubby little hands on a copy of the definitive lesbian sex video, "The Lesbian Kama Sutra". I decided to take the advice offered on the box to "Lay back and enjoy with the ones you love the frank and intimate moments as these beautiful women reach the highest peaks of orgasmic pleasure in all the many ways the Kama Sutra provides."
Excellent, I thought. I was fed up with the old positions anyway. I wanted to unravel the mysteries of lesbian love-making and find all the erogenous zones I'd never been able to track down in 13 years of fiddling about. Now we could all stop trying to get wet by watching the scenes from "Desert Hearts" and "Go Fish" and spread our legs in a different direction. My palms were decidedly sweaty as I settled down with a couple of friends and my lustful girlie to view this "guide to the erotic pleasures of lesbian sex" unaware of and uncaring about the consequences. The sofa could take it. If we got hot and bothered, so be it.
We did. In fact, we got very bothered indeed. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but I always thought the Kama Sutra was a manual to the exotic side of sex, full of variant positions and packed with handy hints for enhancing a staid or tame lovelife. This Kama Sutra is so far removed from the original concept, you might as well scour through your old "Bunty" annuals for tips on becoming a cunning-linguist.
The opening line of script was "The male body is beautiful... except for the dangly bits." Innocuous enough I suppose, but it was followed by a number of comments that made me stop and rewind. Could I possibly have heard it right? "Sex with a man, sex with a woman. Who cares? It's all a fuck... I still have sex with a man just to make sure I'm not missing anything." I had to calm myself with a quick whipping when one woman said "If I fuck a man it doesn1t make me straight or bisexual. Physically, he's fucking me but that's not what's happening in my mind." I'd be extremely curious to know what is then! And finally, to add salt to the wound: "I love the thought that straight men get off on what I do with my lover."
Whoa, hold on there! Accuse me of being misanthropic if you wish - you can even call me old-fashioned - but enough is enough. I don't want to spend valuable time watching only to be presented with a wanking aid for heterosexual men. Let me double check: it does say "Lesbian" in large gold letters on the cover and yes, there's a picture of two women snogging... Odd then that there's virtually nothing on the tape to inspire a craving dyke.
It appears that whichever company is behind this venture realises that more straight men will sidle up to the counter and purchase it than lesbians, asute little profiteers that they are. Even newspaper adverts for this half-baked effort have been banned (cleverly fuelling more rabid interest) although fuck knows why. If I were a straight man, I would have marched back and demanded a refund. Personally, I think lesbians would be better off saving their cash.
Of course I understand that, in order to even get a lesbian-themed video certified and onto the shelves, it has to be deemed "educational" and therefore safe in content. No biting, no penetration, no fisting or fingering, no tongues, no sweat... and no bloody fun. That blasted educational label means that any hint of passion is killed stone dead - wetter than a cold fish, in fact. Raw lesbian libido? Passionate poontang? You may catch a flash of breast or (if you're lightning quick with the pause button) a smidgen of pubic hair. For 98% of the 40 minutes, there was heaps of slow-motion back kneading, light kissing and rolling around on a geometrically-patterned duvet from the Argos catalogue. Wow! Hose me down!
So where oh where are the lesbian sex videos with some "oomph" (or even some "Oooh, aah!") in them? "The Lesbian Kama Sutra" was a damp squib, quite unable to reproduce that delicious moist sensation I get from seeing Jamie Lee Curtis in her tangas. Do we have to resort to spending £700 on our own videocams and fixing them with sticky tape at the end of our beds? Do we have to accept - as the women suggest here - that gay male porn is the most useful tool for getting turned on? Discuss. Better still, make a film about it, but for god's sake, put some fucking elbow grease into it!
©Megan Radclyffe 1995
— same links, different pages! —
Articles Books Clubs Films Misc
Skip to...