ON THE AIR since 1990, HBO’s documentary series Real Sex has proven to be hugely popular with millions of cable subscribers curious about the sexual practices and fantasies of their fellow Americans. Ostensibly unscripted and nonfictional, the series’ ring of authenticity adds to its appeal. A viewer of Real Sex can expect to see something “different”—one segment spotlighted adults who pay to become human ponies at a special ranch—and in the bargain be titillated, offended, or amused. “Real Sex 25” was an episode that aired in 2000 and included a “strap-on party,” a “flirt fest,” an “erotic cabaret,” and a “pleasure party.” The strap-on party segment appeared first and followed the activities of the two women who organized and hosted the event.
In typical Real Sex fashion, the segment cuts back and forth between interviews and event footage. Attired in fetching, body-molding outfits, the women are seen putting up posters, shopping, and getting ready for the party. The interviews provide a context for and explain the main event. The assumption is that the viewer may be at a loss as to why the women gathered at the party are having such an obviously wonderful time brandishing, going down on, mock-masturbating, and even penetrating one another with strap-on dildos. Over the course of the segment, the two hostesses tell us about the use and significance of the strap-on: “There’s a whole generation of women who love their dicks, who have a collection of dicks, and party with their dicks.” The strap-on has revolutionary potential because “it gives everyone the power to fuck.” And, just in case viewers think that the only fun to be had is in confusing gender categories, they make it clear that the strap-on gives great physical pleasure: “The part of me that is meant to be penetrated feels good when it is.” This pleasure is by no means limited to the lucky woman on the receiving end: the strapped-on dildo stimulates the wearer’s clitoris as she thrusts. We are told that women can have multiple orgasms “just by doing the fuck.”
Weena Perry is a doctoral candidate in SUNY Stony Brook’s Dept. of Art History. She is beginning work on her dissertation, “America in Ruins: Photography and the Art of National Meanings.”
