Amateur Hour! Adventures In Porno Self-Publishing

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 thousandsof 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.