I've always had a problem with...
I’ve always had a problem with British made porn. There is something inherently distorted with our culture when we can make television and movies that resonate and yet fail miserably when it comes to a bit of filth. We're a nation that prefers to hide sex rather than flaunt it.
Much like our politicians, our top shelf industry is a damp affair with no flair for showmanship, trudging through the motions with zero zest. There’s also no sincerity to the dishonesty, no over the top yet somehow still relevant enthusiasm. We know it’s a lie but make us believe it’s the truth. Instead, it remains lacklustre, lazy and awkward. A moody copy of an original. No fireworks, no 4th of July. Our porn is mostly comparable to our politicians because much like they enjoy to be gagged and flogged, we all wish it remained unequivocally private and the very thought was never made available for public consumption.
The disconnection here is an obvious one. The Americans understand the product and mass produce it with the utmost professionalism. High budget, gonzo, parody...no matter the style and direction. They share no self loathing or embarrassment. They are masters at making us believe their pretence is real. You are immersed and anchored to the fantasy. We Brits are all at sea. Drowning in cringe and grotesque coloured lingerie.
British porn is at its worst, not for the visuals but for its dialogue. We all know pornos are hardly Sundance Festival levels of quality when it comes to scripting, but it takes something special to pull you out of the moment (excuse the carefully inserted pun). If the Americans gave us the pizza delivery boy, the Brits seem to mass produce glamour girls that talk with the same tone you'd find down the post office when exchanging sterling for foreign currency.
Our porn is tragically polluted with these genre destroying verbal artefacts. It’s a linguistic holocaust where the viewer joins the billions of sperm in ‘death by misfiring money shot’. I imagine the men directing behind the cameras are too busy thanking their lucky stars, watching the graphic nudity rather than focusing on perhaps a little bit of craftsmanship and refinement. Whilst the women involved speak the words they mistakenly assume will have the viewer twitching in their pants to whatever sordid trick they’re playing out. Instead, we're tortured by the audio and passionless facial expressions spurting out every conceivable word that should play no part in what is meant to be sexually gratifying content.
“F*ck me you git” remains one of my all time favourite lines alongside its posh variant "Bastard!" and numerous matter of fact observations that break the fourth wall.
In a classic scene with an assortment of ladies uncomfortably partaking in a same sex orgy whilst mounting furniture in quite possibly the worst advert for a DFS sofa ever, one turns to the other and mutters the immortal line “If I had known your ***** was this good I would have licked it a long time ago".
Please, for the love of all things, leave the improvisation to Larry David.
I went through a Porn Hub phase where I spent hours searching for gold like this not so I could make a mess but so I could laugh uncontrollably. Watching a lesbian scene where the girls are all sporting huge junks of plastic truncheons strapped around their waists whilst screaming “You slag!” at each other will never get old. The audio alone is reminiscent of a punch up in an East End pub. It’s the version of Snatch we all deserve.
Now I know what you’re thinking. All of this is building up to a brilliantly executed punchline. Sadly it’s not. Much like the porn I’m referencing, the comedy is ultimately fruitless and is a projection of the sadness and failure to be something whole. The punchline is Moussa Sissoko.
You see if Harry Kane is peak 1990s Jenna Jameson - beautiful, powerful and absolutely vibrant and dominant - then Sissoko is the bird in a British porno pouring baked beans over her chest. You’re not sexually aroused but you sort of feel sorry for her so you slap on a couple of pieces of toast and just think ‘f*ck it, I might as well tuck in’.
You want to watch but not because you seek satisfaction. It’s more of a curiosity. You want to see where it’s going because you genuinely have no f*cking clue. You don’t mind the time spent doing so because you have the means to achieve a more pleasurable experience later. But there you are, still transfixed, and although you dare not admit it...there is something comfortably inane about it in amongst the unnecessary and arguably avoidable juxtaposition.
You're left wondering if the beans are cold out of the can or moderately heated as they drip and slide down her body as you ask yourself...”Why does this even exist?”
