This early release in Nina Hartley's excellent XXX educational series of videos for Adam & Eve clearly features a modicum of proselytizing, but overall is an effective introduction to an interesting alternate lifestyle that seems to have been "sweeping the nation" for well-nigh onto 50 years now. Or about the same lifespan as hard porn.
Whether deemed "open relationships" or as Nina refers to it in insider fashion as simply "THE LIfestyle",this free-loving approach to sex and intimacy has, like its sister kink BDSM, a whole lot of dos and don'ts. And that is why Nina's primer is worthwhile -to teach the curious the importance of basic tenets like No Means No, and careful communication and consent.
I enjoyed this particular Nina video more than most of her 30 or 40 titles in the series because it brought back the '50s approach to audiovisual sex education. Instead of Nina's soothing and often entertaining filibuster, in which she yaps about her sexual subject far too long for prurient viewers, this time she enlisted the talented porn team of Anna Malle and Hank Armstrong to act out very brief domestic scenes (not sex) to illustrate how overbearing verbal statements can scotch the entire enterprise of a couple opening themselves to new adventures.
Once the actual XXX content begins, the video becomes quite arousing, beginning with Christi Lake as a seasoned swinger visiting the couple, taking over Nina's slot as lecturer and then giving Anna a Sapphic workout culminating in the stars' hot threesome. I had recently watched this trio acting together comfortably in a pair of features produced by Christi for VCA "Southern Comfort 1 & 2", and it was nice to see them all together again.
Last half hour of the video has an orgy, as Anna & hubby accept Christi's invitation to join the full-fledged world of swingers. A dozen players, including an enthusiastic Nina, join for group sex, and as promised by the auteur this is staged more naturally and organically than the usual phony-baloney orgies of porn films in which a climax of as many cum shots as possible are edited together. Shining in this ensemble are the uninhibited Arianna attending with her real-life man Luc Wylder, while the frequent crew member and extra Dic Tracy actually participates in XXX action for a change.
This feature was reissued in 2002 shortened to 59 minutes in tandem with a shortened version of "Nina Hartley's Guide to Anal Sex", under the umbrella title of "Nina Hartley's Guide to Alternative Sex".
