Mr. Deen and not the reporter he slept with.

No, unfortunately it wasn't us. But The Canyon star and pornography icon James Deen has slept with at least one of his interviewers, according to a new Vice.com article.

In "Future Sex: An Interview with James Deen, America's Porn Sweetheart," Daniel Stuckey Kelly Bourdet asked the dreamy Mr. Deen:

Okay, I have one more question for you. Have you ever had sex with someone who interviewed you?

Deen: Yeah, actually I have.

Now comes the fun part where we try to find out who that person is!

Our money is on Gaby Dunn of 100Interviews.com, who definitely had a close encounter with Deen ... at his house:

Later, he reads the Hebrew tattoo I have between my shoulder blades by running his fingers across it through my apparently see-through yellow shirt without warning me. I want to sing the chorus of ‘Don’t Stand So Close To Me’ by the Police.

“Oh my god,” I reply, bringing my notebook up over my face. “Stop. I am trying to just get through this interview.”

and:

He smirks and it’s totally killer. “I looked at your pictures first,” he whispers. I don’t hear him right away and then when I do, I gasp and get tongue-tied. He’s got me again. He laughs, “I am that sleazy. I totally am.”

and:

James shakes his head, “Just for that, now you’re getting finger-blasted,” he threatens, pretending to be tough. “Oh, sure,” I say, because now that we’re joking about it, it’s somehow less likely?

Other possibilities: Amanda Hess for Good Magazine, who also interviewed Mr. Deen at his home (and who quoted Gaby Dunn); Emily Heist Moss from GoodMenProject.com who wrote after meeting him wrote; "I feel strange, like in the last two hours my best hopes and worst fears about pornography have been confirmed"; or Ms. Bourdet herself.

Porn+Charity

If there was ever a good time to clear up any leftover misconceptions about the word "ironic," this is it. As in: is it ironic that PornHub.com is offering to pay one cent for every 30 unique page views on its "small tits" and "big tits" videos this month to charity?

The answer is no. It's just a nice way to celebrate Breast Cancer Awareness month while at the same time encouraging you to watch more pornography.
BUT:

Is it ironic that the money from said porn site will be going to the Susan G. Komen Foundation, whose founder Nancy Brinker tried earlier this year to stop her organization from giving money to Planned Parenthood because of anti-abortion pressure from GOP donors and the Catholic Church? A group whose ex-VP, former Georgia Secretary of State Nancy Handel, is so conservative that she makes Karl Rove look moderate?

Yes and no. It could be an example of irony, because you would expect a site that traffics in pornography to not donate to a charity being led by women affiliated with organizations that do not support contraceptives, abortions, free health clinics or, in the case of Ms. Handel, gay people.

But Ms. Brinker and Ms. Handel were disgraced right out of their jobs: Ms. Brinker is still the founder and has a management role at Komen's, but no longer makes an obscene amount of money as the nonprofit's CEO, while Ms. Handel is still trying to win this PR battle with a new book, Planned Bullyhood.

So go ahead and join PornHub as it spreads the word about whacking off to a good cause:

The Save the Boobs web page will keep track of the total unique visits for the month so be sure to encourage your red-blooded friends and family (yes, tell your fathers too) to become a hero of the headlamps and a champion of the cha-cha’s! While on the page you can also tweet the link to your social circles.

Together we can give fundraising our breast shot!

And remember: this isn't about politics. It's about breast cancer. And porn that you were probably going to end up looking at anyway. Everyone wins?

From left: Elizabeth Stephens, Annie Sprinkle, Gloria Leonard, Veronica Vera, Veronica Hart, Candida Royalle.

“How many people here have I fucked?” called out an exuberant Annie Sprinkle to the crowd Tuesday night at the Museum of Sex. The group had  gathered for the reunion of “The Golden Girls of Porn,” as the panel discussion was billed. She got a few laughs, and some raised hands when she asked how many had seen her cervix in her infamous stage show.

The Q&A was led by Ms. Sprinkle’s partner, Elizabeth Stephens and also featured Veronica Hart, Gloria Leonard, Candida Royalle and Veronica Vera—each exuberant, proud and, at times, wistful as they recounted their careers in the adult business. Fittingly, they formed their support group, Club 90, named for Ms. Sprinkle’s nearby former apartment at 90 Lexington Avenue, in 1983, and have met semi-regularly ever since; all were bridesmaids at Ms. Vera’s wedding to artist Stuart Cottingham this past weekend.

Porn, it turns out, wasn’t a calling so much as “why not?” opportunity. Ms. Hart, armed with a theater degree, wanted to be an actress, and was drawn to her first set because she liked the script (she went on to have parts in Boogie Nights, Magnolia and Six Feet Under), while Ms. Vera slipped into one of Ms. Sprinkle’s scenes to help out a male actor experiencing, ahem, difficulties.

The adult industry, to these ladies, was about making a statement rather than a quick buck. Ms. Leonard, the only one to share her age (71), started her porn career in her mid-thirties as a political act supporting free speech; she sounded quite pleased that during her tenure as editor of High Society, they were sued by the likes of Barbra Streisand and Ann-Margret, and won. Similarly, Ms. Vera smiled wickedly when highlighting a bondage photo of her that she included in her testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1984.

The only points of contention struck were over the environment and condom use in porn. Ms. Sprinkle, who hosted a talk with Ms. Stephens at the Museum of Sex last night called “Assuming the Ecosexual Position,” expressed concern that porn is “killing the mountains” by using up so much bandwidth.California’s mandatory condom-use law, which took effect in March, was largely scorned. Ms. Hart declared, “Our numbers for HIV are lower than the general population. We have policed ourselves." When Ms. Royalle said she wanted to protect her actors and set a “positive example,” Hart shot back with, “We’re not the only business where people take risks; look at policemen or firemen.”

The overall mood was celebratory, as if their porn days were more nonstop party than work, though Ms. Royalle admitted to going into therapy to work out her early ambivalence about performing on camera and explained the group’s necessity with, “You can’t know how it feels to be scorned for something you’ve done and never be forgiven.” Her favorite memory was learning to skateboard while preparing to shoot 1979’s Hot & Saucy Pizza Girls.

Not much love was given to the modern porn industry, save for Ms. Royalle’s Femme Productions line and Ms. Hart’s ongoing work behind the camera (one of her sons, who was in attendance, works alongside her as a director of photography). From the crowd, infamous cable access host Robin Byrd lamented, “When you ask a multiple-choice question of today’s porn star, they say ‘uh-huh,’” giving the final word her best airhead inflection. “I can’t think of a single name of a girl performing in porn today who will likely be remembered in twenty years,” Ms. Leonard declared.

The fact that these women are still, if not household names, successful (though Ms. Leonard admitted she is “living close to the poverty level”) and able to pack a room largely with their peers (one male audience member remembered scenes more accurately than their performers) is testament to their longevity.

Jeff Vanzetti, webmaster of the Internet Adult Film Database, agreed that Club 90’s members helped shape porn and still have ardent fans. “Just like there’s still a market for old music, there’s still a market for old porn,” he said, citing the Blu-Ray release of The Opening of Misty Beethoven, starring Ms. Leonard. Lisa Vandever, director of the CineKink film festival, concurred. "Their work has been instrumental in creating a happy, positive voice for women around pleasure and sexuality, both in their porn of the time and their endeavors since. It felt like we were basking in their presence."

While none of the women publicly discussed any negative repercussions to taking it all off on camera, Ms. Vera told The Observer some men she dated disdained her career choices. “Porn saved me from a lot of bad relationships.”

As even the intermittent online porn viewer might admit, an endless cavalcade of uploads means scenes that are initially titillating can quickly become trite. "It's like with puppy videos," a girlfriend explained. "Now I need a puppy, spooning a panda bear, hugging a sloth." Next to the usual staged moaning and manufactured filth, the couple by the sink offered the same kind of novelty. Mr. Deen, credibly unaware of the cameras, splayed his hands in her hair and whispered something imperceptible. Whatever he said, it was working.

I'm hardly the first XX chromosome to have noticed. In a $13 billion industry driven by the single-minded pursuit of the solitary male orgasm, Mr. Deen has made a name for himself by appealing to the opposite sex. In the past six months, his allure has become something of a pop culture curiosity, a cipher about female desire that isn’t actually that hard to decode. The first real test of his crossover appeal, however, may come via one of his more literary admirers, Bret Easton Ellis, who wants to cast Mr. Deen in his new micro-budget noir movie, The Canyons. The project, which starts shooting in July, will be directed by Paul Schrader, the screenwriter and director behind Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and American Gigolo.

But before I could parse Mr. Deen’s mainstream potential, I had to figure out his name.

"Brown hair, kinda cute, really wants to get the girl off?" I asked my friend. "Oh, I actually know who you're talking about. And he's Jewish!" she squeaked, as though her Bubbe would approve. We were at a Korean restaurant in the East Village. She grabbed my iPhone and pulled up a lengthy profile in Good magazine about Mr. Deen. Before the banchan arrived, I Instapapered the story for the subway ride home. I was 27 when I swapped out erotica for something more visually stimulating. According to Good, many of Mr. Deen’s teenage fans are much, much younger.

After the article wound its way around the web, Slate was left squinting its eyes at “Porn Women Like to Watch,” as though it were a novel concept. Nightline followed up this February with an obligatory finger-wagging segment about Mr. Deen's underage enthusiasts, as though he were a gateway drug to Rick Santorum’s worst nightmare. The Nightline segment in turn prompted sex toy company Doc Johnson to mold a nine-inch, life-sized latex tribute targeted to Mr. Deen’s “very enthusiastic fan base."

Although the latest Nielsen ratings reveal that a third of the visitors to porn sites are female, apparently, it hadn’t occurred to anyone in the San Fernando Valley that girls might want to fantasize about the dude next door too.

At 5' 8" and 26-years-old, Mr. Deen is slight of build, fresh of face, and looks like that cute boy from your high school Spanish class. A little bro-y, maybe. Sophomoric, definitely. But he has a surprisingly witty Gmail handle and a sly sense of humor. He could be your boyfriend, if your boyfriend knew his way around a ball gag and just when to pull your hair.

“He doesn’t look like those mastodons with their bleached hair and their waxed pecs flexing,” Mr. Ellis explained by phone from his Los Angeles apartment. “It’s a more democratized look.”

Mr. Deen taps into a female fantasy that hasn’t seemed to interest porn studios much: a sensitive boy with closed-door swagger—the flip side of a good girl with a dirty mind. Onscreen he seems to exhibit savant-level responsiveness to his partner’s cues, anticipating (correctly, by the sounds of it) when she’d like to be kissed and when she’d like to be slapped.

His facility with the latter has incited a rising heart rate of moral unease, even among some of his co-stars. Mr. Deen, who has recently broken into directing, films about a scene a day—roughly one bondage and S&M scene for every three straight ones. Online, his teenage fans tweet and tumble and make gifs about his devastating eye contact—even as his co-stars lie bound and gagged at his waist. “There are these weird long flashes of tenderness that you don’t really see in straight pornography,” noted Mr. Ellis.

“I’ve been into rough sex pretty much my whole sexual life and so I’m not, like, bad at it,” Mr. Deen told me by phone last month, on his 26th birthday. “I don’t know how to say it without being a hideous prick, but I’m pretty good at having rough sex. It got to the point where a lot of girls who aren’t into that type of sex were afraid to work with me because they thought I was going to slap them in the face or something.  But I only do that if the girl is into it. There’s no reason to choke somebody if they don’t like getting choked. Then you’re basically being an asshole.”

When the two finally met, Mr. Ellis filed that type of misunderstanding under something they had in common. “We chatted amiably about the unearned feminist hysteria we both received at certain points in our careers,” Mr. Ellis happily tweeted out to his 250,000 followers in January.

Mr. Deen has spoken publicly about abandoning certain “porn star punishment” sites for what he called “weird and sort of preachy reasons.” The sites he works for now, like Brazzers.com and Kink.com, make girls sign “limit sheets” that rate their comfort level on “every sort of sexual thing you can imagine,” he said. “Everyone has to sign it, the director, the top, bottom, everybody.

“It’s not like I’m beating women or sending messages that it’s okay,” he added. “Actually the opposite. Why don't we just say it? The submissive is always the dominant party.”

On the blog A Feminist Sub (as in submissive), the twentysomething author analyzed her "crush" on Mr. Deen last June. "His scenes show how sex can be ‘degrading’ without being for-real degrading,” she wrote. “He does a lot of BDSM porn, and plays the dominant role, but is not a prick about it." She also noted his exuberant approach to oral stimulation, which rarely gets as much screen time as when the genders are reversed, pointing to a particularly stirring 20 minute session, during which Mr. Deen was moved to "growl."

There does seem to be something in Mr. Deen’s approachability and eagerness to please that makes conversations about pornography—and how women consume it—suddenly permissible in polite company. Of course, not everyone thinks inspiring girls to talk about porn, often with each other, is a good thing. Just ask Nightline.

To Mr. Ellis, James Deen's success represents the dawn of a new kind of porn star—one who reflects a transitional moment in popular culture. "The dissemination of pornography has been this hugely liberating thing. You don’t go to a movie theater on Vine and sit in the dark by yourself or nervously walk to a newsstand and buy an issue of Hustler,” he pointed out. “James has grown up with it in a way, so he’s got a casual, comfortable relationship with it. Men of my generation don’t."

Nowhere is that comfort level more evident than on Mr. Deen's Twitter feed, which is regularly updated with self-effacing observations on nineties nostalgia, requests that someone bring him a burrito, and goofy musings on porn like, “Dry humping is the new anal” or “I wanna get your brain pregnant.” Mr. Deen also tweets out links to his unbelievably unsafe for work blog, which features extreme close-ups of his partner’s undercarriage and giddy narration of the scene he just filmed: “remy lacroix is one of my favorite new girls. this girl is super hot and really fun to bang and puts things in her butt...”

It’s easy to be sex-positive when no one ever taught you to be negative in the first place.

Mr. Deen, it should be said, is also unwaveringly complimentary of his partners, both on and offline. “There’s been a scene or two where I’ve had to put on a little bit of show,” he admitted, “But 99.9999999999 percent of the time, I’m just into it. I mean it’s pretty rare I’m like, ‘Oh god, what is wrong with this girl, she’s so mean.’"

So his turn-offs don’t include cellulite or silicone, but mean girls? No wonder he’s in the teenage girl pantheon next to Justin Bieber.

"I have a lot of friends who are James’ age, and I get it,” said Mr. Ellis. “I get the humor, the irony, the ‘dumbness’ of—dumbness in quotes—of how they express themselves in their blogs or Twitter. So what if he writes about wanting a burrito? What do you want him to be writing about?" Those who are offended by Mr. Deen’s blog posts, he said, are “having an Empire attitude about it.”

For a few years now, Mr. Ellis has been expounding on his notion that society has crossed over from “Empire” to “post-Empire.” His close reading of Mr. Deen’s appeal situates the porn star firmly in the post-Empire landscape. The rubric, which jumps off from Gore Vidal’s term for postwar American hegemony, basically marks a move away from hierarchical tastemakers toward “exhibitionistic display culture,” as he once put it, describing Charlie Sheen’s public meltdown. The Hills is Empire, Jersey Shore is post. Mr. Ellis recently offered another example by email: “Lana Del Rey? Totally post-Empire. The media reaction against her? Empire.”

In fact, it was that shorthand that helped him discover Mr. Deen. His producer Braxton Pope—who also worked with Mr. Ellis and Mr. Schrader on the shark horror flick Bait, dead in the water after five years of development (so Empire)—emailed over a couple articles on Mr. Deen. “’So, what do you think of this guy? Empire or post-Empire?” he asked. Mr. Ellis’s reply? “Totally in the top ten of post-Empire!”

The writer and the performer eventually met for dinner, at Soho House in West Hollywood. “He said he was super nervous,” Mr. Ellis recalled.

“Maybe it’s because I’m an over-analytical Jew and all the issues that go with that,” Mr. Deen confessed. He was also worried about whether he could do the job. Mr. Ellis insisted he could. “We would not be having this conversation if he couldn’t pull it off, if he was simply a leaden actor who was just being hired because of the size of his dick.”

They addressed the question over dinner. “He was worried that he had no acting training,” Mr. Ellis recalled. “I said, ‘That’s not a problem, there are plenty of bad actors who do.’”

Mr. Deen, who is prone to calling his work “quote unquote acting,” still seems unconvinced. Looking at a girl while having sex with her, “doesn’t really feel like acting,” he elaborated. “I’ve been a fan of his since I was a little kid,” he said of Mr. Ellis. Nonetheless, Mr. Deen added, “I don’t know why he wants me in this movie so bad.”

Mr. Ellis, who is self-funding The Canyons (working tagline: “It’s not The Hills”) along with Mr. Pope and Mr. Schrader, will be releasing the movie via iTunes, Netflix, and VOD rather than theaters. The film, he said, will feature explicit sex scenes, but purely in service of character and plot development. He insisted that unlike in the Sasha Grey-Steven Soderbergh project, The Girlfriend Experience, Mr. Deen will not be playing a “a meta version” of himself.

First, though, he’ll need to win over 65-year-old Mr. Schrader, who Mr. Ellis says finds “the busyness” around James Deen “more of a distraction.”

If Mr. Deen gets the gig, don’t expect him to go the way of Sasha Grey, who retired from the porn business last year after breaking into the mainstream. “I got into porn because I want to do porn,” Mr. Deen vowed. If he sticks with that promise, it might be the most post-Empire thing about him.

“Doing the same thing every day is never going to be fun, which is another reason I’m so excited about this,” said Mr. Deen, reminiscing about his early years in the porn industry, when he felt pigeon-holed in one genre. “I would show up to work and it would be, like, ‘Okay, this is gonna be a rough sex scene.’ I’m like, ‘Oh, man, I kinda just want to make out with the girl and have normal sex with her?’ And they were like, ‘Yeah, well, you can do that at home.’”

-ntiku@observer.com

OWS' Dirk Diggler? (Photo via Getty)

The porn industry has been in a rut ever since the Internet starting offering amauteur sex for free. Now everyone's looking for the next big, flashy hook: 3-D porn? Virtual porn? Snuff films?

Well, that last one might not be too far from the mark: New York-based porn company Dirty Boy Video has just released "Occupy My Throat," a homoerotic caper through the tents of Oakland's Occupation. (Hopefully, the stars escaped unscathed during the police raid.)

But now Dirty Boy Video is expanding their repertoire back on their home turf. Remember Brendan Watts, the protester who lost his virginity in Zuccotti before having his head bashed in and pants pulled off by the NYPD during OWS' Day of Action?

The men behind Dirty Boy are reaching out to Mr. Watts, writing an open letter appealing to his sense of social injustice as a reason why he should star in their porno:

We at Dirty Boy Video believe in free expression, challenging the status quo, and standing up to injustice.  It is in this spirit that we present an open letter to Brandon Watts, the blood soaked protester arrested on the Day of Action:

Dear Mr. Watts,

We are vocal supporters of Occupy Wall Street and the statement it makes.  Your energy, commitment and drive have directly contributed to the success of the Occupation movement. As I watched the police drag you away in handcuffs, your face covered in blood, I could only think, “Wow, he’s hot!” Later, I learned you were among the first to pitch a tent in Zuccotti Park, making the movement a literal occupation. The NY Daily News reports you even lost your virginity in that park. Congratulations! Dirty Boy Video has long encouraged young men like yourself to pitch tents in parks. I offer you the opportunity to perform on our website, an opportunity to express yourself and your politics freely and without censor.  Working together we can create a sexy, fun platform that inspires you, be that with other actors, actresses or both. Whether you choose to work with us or not, I salute your dedication and your courage.

Sincerely,
Andy Fair
President
DirtyBoyVideo.com

We're pretty sure you don't need to sign up with Dirty Boys to "express yourself" "without censor" on the Internet. That's why God invented XTube. Really, the worst thing for an Occupier to do is get involved in the porn industry, which we all know from that one David Foster Wallace essay on the AVN Awards is full of money-hungry, superficial crazy people...just like Wall Street.

Illo: Cameron K. Lewis

When I run into John on the arm of his new girlfriend at Milady’s, a bar on the Soho block on which I’ve lived for eight years, I figure I have two options: throw a glass of wine in his face, or fling my friend’s pint of Guinness instead.

Then I remember our sex tape. I still have the footage, but he has the link. In a way, so does every other wanker on the internet. Maybe we shouldn’t have posted it after all.

Returning home a bit drunk—and yes, a bit nostalgic—I find myself searching my hard drive for the unedited file. Soon enough, I’m reliving the moment. To be honest, we weren’t half bad. Our off-camera rapport may not have been great, but our on-screen chemistry was explosive. Watching John and myself execute a flawless transition, around minute 20, from doggy style to reverse cowgirl without, um, missing a beat, I can’t help but be impressed. We had great sex. No wonder we decided to show it off!

“What are your feelings about pornography?” I remember John asking during breakfast. It was a Monday, which meant that John was eating a toasted bagel and cream cheese to offset the return-to-work blues.

Here it is, I thought. We’d just hit the Three Month Crossroads. In my experience, this is the moment when a couple either ramps it up, or calls it a day. And since we were getting along well enough, I figured I’d indulge his desire for a porn-watching session.

Truth be told, I kind of like porn. I’m not into anything overly kinky or sadomasochistic, but the gentler stuff can be interesting, if not always illuminating.

Later that night, John sat in the office chair in front of the computer and I perched on his lap as we clicked through the cavalcade of erotica on view. We recoiled in horror at certain clips (perhaps it was feigned horror, to be honest) but were rapt throughout. There were thousands of them, with every possible kink represented and uploaded from seemingly every nation on earth: a “small world after all” -- of pure unadulterated smut. It seemed most citizens of the world were willing to share their most intimate moments with us.

If it weren’t so damn lewd, it might actually be sort of moving.

That’s when it occurred to me that not everyone is doing his or her part for the common good. Many of us watch porn online—perhaps all of us, at one time or another—but only a noble few make contributions commensurate with our viewing habits. Suddenly, sharing a homemade porn with the cyber world seemed as important a societal contribution as recycling.

“Let’s post our own,” I said.

“What?” John asked, flabbergasted, with one hand snaking toward my waistband.

“Really. We owe it to the world! If we’re going to watch them, they should be able to watch us, especially while we’re still young and attractive.”

He looked skeptical.

“And virile,” I added meaningfully, shifting my weight a bit. We resolved to shoot the following weekend.

Until that point, the closest I’d come to exploring porn within a relationship was the occasion on which I traded favorite naughty clips with a former lover while he was out of town. That episode led to a heated debate on the merits of Lesbian Homework Club versus Blonde Girl Blowjob. Eager to better understand my would-be audience as well as the competitive landscape, I began doing some due diligence on my own.

I researched role-play and costuming options and noted the importance of lighting and mise en scene. I even Googled Viagra, figuring it could be fun to pop one beforehand. Then I read the list of Viagra’s side effects, which included dizziness, headache, heartburn, nosebleeds, and, most notably, difficulty deciphering blue from green. Nevermind!

Finally, I sampled more footage. Alone at home, agog before my laptop, I combed through any site that offered free content: XHamster, NewbieNudes, YouPorn, FilthDump, RedTube, RealAmateurFuck, etc.

An hour later, I felt a bit too acquainted with variations on male and female genitalia, and way too familiar with disingenuous orgasms. The moans and howls ringing in my ears were more “Kim Kardashian Gets a New Rolls” than “Kim Kardashian Gets Boned By Ray J.”

At 8pm on the appointed night, John and his Flip cam arrived.

“Let’s talk set,” I said. “We need to explore angles…”

Surveying the space, a moment of panic set in. What if my apartment was recognizable? I tore through the bedroom in a panic, tucking away framed snapshots, pieces of art, and magazines and envelopes (no doubt there’s a subset of tech-savvy voyeurs who zoom in on postal labels). My teddy bear Balthazar was banished, too, lest he end up the cum-stained blue dress that would ruin me.

But John remained fixated on me. “I’m really excited to do my part for the human race,” he said, mentally undressing me.

“Right,” I said. I grabbed the camera and aimed it at us while we lip-locked. A minute or so later, I withdrew to position the camera so it would capture the bed. I hit play on our iTunes “Makeout” playlist, which starts with Carla Bruni’s “Quelqu’un M’a Dit” and, however oddly, ends with The Mills Brothers’ “You Always Hurt The Ones You Love.”

From the start, I liked being filmed and I sensed that John did too. The idea that we were on camera—and that our activities would potentially be viewed by thousands, perhaps even millions, of internet users—lent the proceedings a considerable frisson. We tried to be natural. There was no attempt at reenacting The Notebook or even One Night In Paris. We were being ourselves—which might explain the klutzy Mélanie moment that soon interrupted the fun.

At about minute five of heavy petting we were both still clothed when I ordered John to sit back and watch.

While he rested on the edge of the bed, I slithered backward to the center of the mattress on my knees. In each hand, I clutched a bunch of my flimsy yellow dress and flashed John a glimpse of my nether regions. I was in the process of flinging the frock aside and closing with a naked human y-shaped “Tada!” when my arm unexpectedly assaulted the ceiling fan.

Bang!

“Holy shit! Are you okay, Sweetie?”

“Yes,” I whimpered, scowling at the low-hanging fan that had just Kanye’d my femme fatale routine.

John rushed to get ice.

“Maybe we should cancel the shoot,” he said.

But I was I determined not to let a little mishap be my Jesse Spano–does-Showgirls downfall. “I refuse to be put on the disabled list!” I said.

“Walk it off,” he replied.

“Maybe you can fuck it off,” I suggested.

I’ll spare you the play-by-play, but suffice it to say that I soon forgot about my injury. We did a little of this, a little of that, and some of the other thing. We climaxed in sync. It was quite a performance, I must say.

John hopped out of bed and started downloading. Shortly thereafter, I joined him at my desk for the premiere.

As the tape rolled on, John and I cocked our heads and gawked in unison.

The director’s cut ran to 35 minutes. “Solid run time,” I said. “Even if you count the tragic opening.”

“We look pretty good,” he said.

We did.

We made a few edits, and eventually succeeded in getting the film down to a quick and dirty three minutes. With the help of a free video compositing and special effects app called Wax, we then blurred our faces. We were even able to tweak our voices, to better protect the guilty. It was one thing to donate our services to the world at large, but quite another to risk losing our jobs, being gossiped about by our friends, and having some very very awkward conversations with our parents.

We chose a website and followed the instructions to register, which meant listing an email address (fake, of course), confirming that we were 18 or older, and agreeing to the terms of use. Simple as starting an Amazon account!

By the next morning, our video had been approved and posted to the site. John and I monitored the page religiously, notifying each other of any significant upticks in view count. The footage never lost its appeal to us (naturally we both rated it five stars), but what was more interesting was scanning the comments section, an interesting window into the demographic we’d cracked.

“Props on being real you two,” quoth pu$$yluvah. And, from 6tea9, “Way to get down without getting to [sic] dirt-ay.” Most of the comments were more or less favorable (if not always grammatical), save for a remark by an obviously misguided viewer called ProfessorFucking, who wrote, “These Trix ARE for kids,” to which I could only reply, “Eat me, silly rabbit.”

I mean, don't be a mastur-hater.

As an aphrodisiac, exhibitionism worked wonders. We must have watched that thing 50 times. In retrospect, though, the whole thing probably kept our us together months beyond when we should have called it quits.

As a couple, we may not have made it, but our porno lives on, buried between the tits and asses of strangers, right where it belongs.

“What you been up to?” John said, when we met in the bar. I gripped my wine glass tightly.

“Saving the world,” I said.

melanie.berliet@gmail.com /@melanieberliet

Let Moby direct your sex life.

Hey, he didn't name his LES beverage shop Teany for nothing:  hipster vegan and technically active musician recently spoke to Bizarre magazine about his next entrepreneurial endeavor: pornography. Of course. Why not.

"I've never understood why porn made for men often stars studly guys with enormous, you know? Surely that’s intimidating to most guys watching? My porn flick would exclusively feature men with normal-to-titchy-sized penises in order to make viewers feel better."

It makes sense that Moby would want to make porn the least intimidating for men as humanely possible, since absolutely nobody in the world is intimidated by Moby. He is the world's least aggressive human being, but at least he knows his niche. He uses words like "titchy-sized," which we hope to God is not a reference to a micro-penis. And hey, maybe what the world needs are more porn films featuring nice-looking women engaged in mediocre love-making sessions with average-sized phalli.

Armory Week's closing weekend was marked by two very different art parties. One was a bawdy art opening in a nightclub, the other an exclusive brunch in a private house. Ryan McGuinness' Friday night opening of Women:The Blacklight Paintings was held in the Le Bain nightclub (the Boom-Boom Room's raunchier counterpart) at the Standard Hotel. The most conspicuous guests were a group of naked women painted in the same neon shades as Mr. McGuinness' paintings. Instead of the typical socialites, the crowd was full of young art advisers, dealers and artists, all starring goggle-eyed at the naked women, who would circulate in the crowd coolly stirring drinks when they weren't performing. A youthful 39, the artist was nattily dressed in a jacket and tie with a neon mask pushed back on his head to keep his leonine hair in place. The Observer asked him what had inspired his exhibition. "These works were inspired by nudie cards. It's a tradition that goes back to, like, the 1650s in India. I made my own version of them recently-although they might be disappointing if you want to look at actual naked women, as they are just simplified iconic forms." And the reason for the naked guests? "I thought that strippers were a fun way to showcase my recent paintings and those cards." Groups of young women pushed us aside trying to get Mr. McGuinness' attention, so we moved on and chatted to an Italian friend of the artist, Alessandro Zenti. Mr. Zenti was a successful ex-banker pursuing his dream career as a pornographer. He'd decided that what Italy really lacked was free porn, and has created New Gentleman's Club magazine, now distributed throughout Italy. As Mr. Zenti was a friend of one of the strippers (she'd recently been featured in the magazine), he suggested that we take a seat and watch her routine. After a few minutes of watching her blue-and-yellow-painted form execute impressively flexible maneuvers on the pole, we drifted off in search of André Balazs, Mr. McGuinness' patron and the proprietor of the Standard. Mr. Balazs admitted that he didn't personally own any of Mr. McGuinness' art but thought it "looked great in this space." As Mr. Balazs is known as a keen collector, we asked if he'd been to any other Armory events this week. "No, but I don't think there is any connection between parties and collecting."

Click here for the Week's Best Parties

One of the most coveted invitations of Armory Week is the exclusive Hort brunch on Sunday. Susan and Michael Hort are two of the city's top art lovers and founders of the Rema Hort Mann Foundation, which provides grants to promising artists. Patrons of contemporary art for 26 years, they have amassed an extensive range of contemporary artists and have collected more than 3,000 works in total. "When we fall in love with an artist's work, we like to collect their work in depth. Michael and I do not feel we 'collect' an artist until we have five major works," said Susan Hort. The Observer asked them which of their new pieces was their favorite. "That's like asking me which of my children I love the most. You know what I used to say to that-whichever one is giving me the least trouble." French, Polish, Italian, Russian and Dutch voices filled the rooms as the crème de la crème of the art world nattered to each other about the extraordinary video installations, iconic paintings and fascinating sculpture. Conversations about the brilliance of Jacco Oliver and the importance of Elizabeth Peyton swirled about like leaves. This was seriously Important Art. "The brunch started 10 years ago after we spoke to the head of the Armory, who said that in Europe people open their houses during the art fairs, and no one does that here. So we said we could accommodate 150 and it has grown from there," said Ms. Hort, nibbling on a bagel. Eric C. Shiner of the Andy Warhol Museum and his friend, artist Jeremy Coste, looked around in amazement. "I love that they really live with the art. They buy early and they keep it." Upstairs, Jamie Cohen Hort, the Horts' daughter-in-law and first-time curator of the installation, was pointing out a giant work of beer cans and silver paint shavings by David Newman. "I'm sure I hung too much in this room," she said nervously (no one shared her concern). As the day wore on, the collectors, gallery owners, curators and artists lingered. One of the last guests to drift out was overheard to say, "Everyone who is in New York right now goes to this party." -Daisy Prince

With that sentiment in mind, is there nostalgia for the era of dirty and dangerous Times Square? Now, with the updated version of the block now complete, a newly installed feature at the Times Square Alliance visitors center suggests that we're ready to embrace the sex-obsessed culture that once upon a time permeated this part of New York.

The visitor's center has reinstalled the famously seedy Peep-O-Rama machine, and it's encouraging tourists of all ages to peek inside the openings.

Granted, the images seen when you peer inside are going to be "G-rated," The New York Times reports. But just having the peep show apparatus itself is a conscious reference to the past life of the area.

"A big city should, in some way, be able to write its autobiography in places,” William Taylor, author of “Inventing Times Square,” told The Times. "New Yorkers love our underworld in film and fiction, so it makes sense to somehow preserve it in reality."

The sign was donated to the center by the Durst Organization, which acted as landlord to the "garish pornography emporium," as The Times puts it, until it closed 8 years ago. 

And if a phony striptease booth in a museum just doesn't strike you as authentic, there are still plenty of strip clubs and smut peddlers elsewhere in and around Times Square. You just have to look past all the Disney.

nfreeman [at] observer.com | @nfreeman1234

The dirty minds at Vivid Entertainment seem to think so. Bonnie Fuller's Hollywood Life is reporting that Vivid, the world's largest adult video producer, is in the early stages of making a porno based on the complicated relationship that has developed between the two. 

“Vivid is definitely considering the situation between Taylor and Kanye for a movie,” reveals Steven Hirsch, founder and co-chairman of Vivid Entertainment. “Of course, our take would be in parody form and could heat up the relationship between the two.”

Hirsch didn't elaborate on what he meant by "heat up," and neither will we. Though we may as well put forth our entry in the sweepstakes for the film's name: "Letting Her Finish."

nfreeman [at] observer.com | @nfreeman1234