NEW YORK — Feminist porn guru Tristan Taormino recruited well-known adult performers to help instruct in her new alt sex-ed film, “Tristan Taormino’s Guide to Kinky Sex for Couples,” releasing June 25 through Adam & Eve.
Luckily for viewers, Taormino’s class includes live sexual demonstrations — for “visual learners” — and lots of candid gushing about personal fantasies.
According to the writer/director, her guide is meant as an introduction for people barely stepping into what she calls “the kinky mix.”
“I feel like there’s some really good information out there for folks who are already comfortable with BDSM and have joined their local organization and all that stuff,” Taormino told XBIZ. “But this is kind of one step before that. I think based on all the popular success of 'Fifty Shades of Grey,' we’re seeing this whole new group of people start thinking about kink.”
Taormino believes that this new group is much kinkier than we give them credit for and that “we just have to validate their desires.”
The film encompasses many aspects of kink to provide viewers with a general “menu” from which Taormino says people can draw inspiration or learn basic techniques.
Topics includes toys (i.e., collars, cuffs, butt plugs, vibrators, nipple clamps and kegel balls); sensation play (blindfolds, hot wax, massage oil candles, edible items and feather ticklers); and physical activities (spanking, bondage, role play). All scenes are suffused with varying power dynamics involving dominance and submission, with men and women present at both ends of the spectrum.
Prefaced by a lengthy introduction by Taormino, with commentary from featured stars, the film then gives way to four scenes.
“The performers really communicate with each other and take their time,” Taormino said. “They really show you how to use some of these toys and the whole thing unfolds kind of organically.”
Alongside Asa Akira and Derrick Pierce, the film co-stars Danny Wylde, Lyla Storm, Evan Stone, Adrianna Nicole, Aiden Starr and Christian as both performers and instructors.
Each performer was expressly selected for their aberrational inclinations, so it is no coincidence that none of them hesitate to muse about the meaning of kink and their personal likes and dislikes.
“The roles of dominance and submission — it’s kind of like cowboys and Indians for adults,” Wylde says in the trailer.
Akira says she loves anal sex and spanking, but refuses to be tied up.
Taormino told XBIZ that concerned women, often self-identified feminists, ask her what is wrong with them, given the apparent discrepancy between their desires and their ideals.
Her guide, she hopes, will show these women — and people of all genders — that there can be “tremendous power” in submission.
“In many ways it gives women permission to ask for exactly what they want and then just surrender and take it and be the center of attention and get totally into that role where you don’t have to worry about who’s going to decide what comes next,” she said.
“Too often we confuse submission with powerlessness and that’s the wrong combination.”
Taormino is releasing another new guide “Tristan Taormino’s Guide to Bondage” in July.
