TS, I Love You

I'm an avid follower of Dana Vespoli's work, especially her ongoing girl/girl videos for Sweetheart Video, but her more ambitious recent efforts have been seriously flawed. Like "Boy/Girl" where she ambitiously explored gender issues in a XXX setting, "TS, I Love You" attempts to bring transsexual Adult entertainment out of the niche/gonzo realm into the mainstream but is way too fake to pass muster.

Though her most ardent fans may embrace her decisions here (she even won an industry award for a scene I found both timid and hokey), Dana's approach is questionable on many levels. First, she adopts a "let's pretend" understanding with the viewer that she is naive on the subject, just visiting pal Christian X with video camera in tow to ask him for advice regarding sexual novelty, as she's in a rut (both personal sex life and professionally).

She tells Christian about a recent sexcapade, cuing a flashback of sex with Xander Corvus, well-performed by Dana & Corvus but strictly routine boy/girl action. That footage and the rest of the video is shot with hand-held, first-person solo camera for "realistic" real-time effect that eschews reverse- shots and professionalism and is ultimately tedious.

After listening to this, Christian suggests she try something "interesting" and out by his pool sunning herself is none other than TS superstar Jessy Dubai, whose work I have enjoyed recently in several excellent Nica Noelle features.

In real-time Dana gets introduced to Jessy, gropes her a bit (Vespoli is uninhibited as her fans well know), and watches her have sex outdoors with buddy Christian. They alternate taking the dominant position when it comes to anal sex, performed bareback, and Dana somewhat timidly joins in giving Jessy a hand-job, and both deliver money shots on cue, Christian's seeming a bit premature (which he acknowledges) and Jessy's facial for Christian reflecting her professionalism in this no re-takes "iive sex" format.

What really bothered me is that when the beautiful, buxom and full-booty Jessy reveals her surprise "package", Dana exclaims "Wow!" and "Gee Whillikers", amusing but patently phony reactions. Even a wet-behind-the-ears (pardon my left-field metaphor) fan could not be bamboozled by Dana's pretend stance of innocence - she's a world-renowned actress/director and not some "Blair Witch Project" novice trying to pull the wool over our eyes.

No sooner is this very stimulating scene over, then Dana heads inside and another TS star just happens to be waiting there for Christian and Jessy. It's Venus Lux, a tall, striking Oriental beauty who is pure eye candy and allure for Dana (and the viewer). Dana "just happens" to be wearing a strap-on dildo and uses it on Venus -get the AVN awards committee on the horn and give that lady an award. As in a later scene, this begs the obvious question of whether Dana would go the extra mile and have a TS lady's cock in her posterior, but no such luck in this video. Our auteur is not too timid to dish it out and have her handy strap-on at the ready for all comers.

After a "One Week Later" title card is flashed, at least conceding some honesty about the phony visit structure laid on us so far, Dana has wine poured and a romantic setting at home for another TS star Foxy, who presumably she's just met as a pick-up. However, Foxy early on expresses bewilderment at the wine and declares she's not into girls, a simple misunderstanding with Dana presumably showing a lesbian interest. Not to worry, enter handyman Chad Diamond, a nerdy-looking porn actor who as they say does "specialty" routines. He's fixed Dana's plumbing (no puns please) and before you know it he's tied up in bondage for the two girls to play with. Foxy reveals her dick, Chad cheerfully sucks it till it gets long and hard and then Foxy humps his ass. Dana with still the first-person POV camera, joins in for a threesome featuring her fancy pink strap-on dildo for humping Chad and in this instance Foxy uses a condom for sex rather than going bareback.

Both Foxy and Venus have made numerous appearances in gonzo videos for Dana's Evil Angel distributor, directed by Joey Silvera and others.

This all serves as a novel way to introduce a "straight" (I use that term as loosely as possible) audience to niche porn that is not only avoidable but quite distinct from mainstream porn. Just as in the Golden Age it was rare for a gay porn scene to pop up in a regular film (see Damiano's "The Story of Joanna" as most famous exception), and also rare for a transsexual sex scene to be included (even those films starring Sulka were pretty well labeled and known to prospective viewers), today's sex videos are stove-piped into niches and the careful consumer need not worry much about mixing of content. Even "anal" and "interracial" are clearly labeled, as a come-on.

However, what Dana's done here is retrogressive compared to that innovator in whose footsteps she continues to trail, Nica Noelle. Starting three years ago for the defunct TransRomantic label (subsidiary of lesbian-themed Girl Candy) based in Frisco, and currently at Mile High's label Transsensual, Nica has made over a dozen TS dramas in which the freak aspect so beloved by gonzo filmmakers is eliminated, and the entire mixed cast (of TS, boy/boy, girl/girl and boy/girl professional talent) is treated equally. No "Gosh!" or "Gee Whiz what a big dick you have!" scenes in Nica's work. Perhaps Dana will take that NN innovation to heart next time she indulges herself with something "new and interesting".