Sex World

SexWorld fully deserves its status as one of the best and most renowned porn flicks not only of the Golden Age of American production. As the promotional slogan on the poster admits, the film’s premise is loosely inspired by the high-concept hit Westworld (1973) and its sequel Futureworld (1976). Except this time, instead of an amusement park populated by robots and offering a flawless illusion of the Wild West, we have a sort of spa to which sexually frustrated people go for the promise of the opportunity to live out their fantasies. The concept is perfect for a porn film, as it makes it possible to freely link together a wide variety of sex scenes, but it isn’t used only as a simple donkey bridge. The constituent episodes are built on empathetic depictions of the broadest variety of sexual preferences and sexuality thus becomes a means of profiling individual characters. The world in which any fantasy can be made real thus becomes a mirror of the characters’ personalities as well as a figurative illustration of the general conflicts and frustrations in human society and romantic relationships. Though the film has no shortage of exaggeration and humour, each segment is rendered with maximum empathy. Instead of the matter-of-factness and efficiency that inundated porn with the advent of the video market, SexWorld is marked by the ambition to approach sex in an erotic way while placing emphasis on the impressive expression of the characters’ desire and pleasure. Thanks also to the great casting of both established porn stars and newcomers (Kay Parker, Annette Haven, Desiree West, Sharon Thorpe, Lesllie Bovee, Jack Wright, John Leslie) who possess charisma and acting ability in addition to their physical attributes, the characters have nothing in common with the one-dimensional and characterless figures that we associate with mainstream porn today. By contrast, the men and women in SexWorld have an attractiveness that goes beyond the physical. (20.03.2014)