I can freely admit that I am not nearly
open-minded enough to willingly allow someone to tie me up,
string me up, slap me, step on my nuts and pee on me all on
the path to sexual gratification. Nor do I have any
particular desire to watch that. But I can also freely
admit that I am not nearly closed minded enough to pass
judgment on you, if that's how you like to get down.
Brothers and sisters, life is short, fleeting, fragile and
difficult. As long you aren't hurting anyone against
their will, then do what you have to do to get as much
enjoyment out of this difficult life as you can. This
leads us into the James Franco produced, Christina Voros
directed documentary 'Kink' which explores a little corner of
the webisphere in which the website Kink.com provides just
these kinds of services, and a whole lot more, to their
discriminating customers.
Kink was founded by Columbia grad student Peter Acworth who
himself had a bit of a thing for bondage. The film opens
at the iconic San Francisco armory building where Kink studios
houses its various properties, with Mr. Acworth telling us how
he came about acquiring this particular piece of land and also
showing us a couple of his prized works of art. The
subjects of these particular works should shock no one.
Next we will spend some quality time on the sets of some of
these choice properties and sit in and chat with the directors
of these small films. I would tell you the names of
these particular sites under the Kink umbrella, but the
director didn't feel the need to let us know what these titles
were that these directors were shooting. I only know
that Kink has a bunch of titles under its corporate umbrella
because I looked it up so I don't know if the director's I was
listening to were directing Bound Gods, or Everything Butt, or
Ultimate Surrender or F**king Machines... I knew with crystal
clarity the subject matter of what these director's were
directing, because we spent A LOT of time on set, but I don't
know what names they were being filmed under.
So we talk to the director's who give us
their views on what they do and point out to us, to a person,
that they wouldn't ask a performer to do anything they haven't
tried, and we also speak with some of the performers, some of
the technicians, the casting director… some of whom display a
true passion for what they are doing at Kink, most of whom do
their best to assure the viewing audience that what they are
doing is completely safe and consensual. And we spend a
lot of time watching these individuals do what they get paid
to do. Probably half of this brief 80 minute movie
consists of watching Kink in action, which almost makes this
documentary, unto itself, pornographic.
As we examine this documentary 'Kink', we have to admit that
we are a little disappointed by it. We certainly
appreciate the bravery our director showed in taking us behind
the scenes, not allowing her camera to cut away from anything
that we might view as shocking as these directors set about
the process of doing their work, but watching this holds very
little interest for me. If that's what I wanted to see
I'd simply pay my fee, log on to one of Kinks many websites
and go to town, and in that sense there were times that this
movie felt almost promotional in nature.
No, what I found interesting in this documentary is not the
kink behind Kink.com, but kinksters behind kink.com.
Peter Acworth looks to be a really fascinating guy, but I
really can't tell you much about him because we spent all of
about three minutes talking to him. This is his thing,
so I would've been very interested to know how this cat came
from Great Britain to eventually end up in San Francisco
running a multimillion dollar pornographic empire, but I
didn't get that.
This documentary was at its best when we spent quality time
with people who told us more about themselves, and less about
what they actually do at their jobs. The lovely woman
who was the dominant in the Dominant / Submission setup we saw
gave us this as told us about her life, her children, her
family's reaction to what she does for a living, and her own
feelings about what she does for a living… this was a moment
when 'Kink' was at its pure best. When the gay bondage
director was telling us about being raised on a farm dreaming
of tying up football players, that's interesting stuff.
The path from that humble beginning to how he ended up where
he is now is the real story, if one was to ask me.
Watching what he was directing… less so. The behind the
scenes revenue meeting was fascinating, the actual business of
porn at work, but we only got a snippet of that because why
show this 'boring meeting' when we can watch a woman duct
taped to ceiling with some odd vibrating contraption strapped
to her crotch.
Then there was the young man we met earlier who seemed a
little nervous about what he was about to do, then we saw what
he was about to do, that being bound, gagged, bent over with
some woman standing behind him with a strap-on about to give
him the business. I know that would make me a little
nervous too. Thing is, this guy is doing this in hopes
of one day being behind the camera. Now THAT'S a story I
want to hear. I want this young man to tell me, in
detail, what his plan is because there has got to be a better
way to get from here to there than what he has devised.
I imagine one shouldn't watch a documentary about a fetish
website and then be disappointed that they saw fetish website
stuff. But I am, because it's the people behind the
fetish that fascinate me, not so much the fetish itself.
