It is a classic American situation: a guy graduates from college and goes far away from home to some section of the promised land to claim some part of the American dream. For Sam Benjamin, though he didn't realize it when he set out, the dream turned out to be pornography. It was dreamy for a while, and fun, and lucrative, and while it didn't last for him, it was educational. Readers can enjoy vicariously the lessons he picked up, without having to be physically present at any of the yucky stuff, in _American Gangbang: A Love Story_ (Gallery Books), a funny, lyrical, frank, and raunchy memoir. Benjamin is a gifted writer, with an ear for dialogue. Although he has plenty of self-deprecating humor, he doesn't let himself off the hook here; he did some dodgy, even reprehensible things during his porno days, but they are included in the story. People who like porn will enjoy reading a first-hand account about the facets of its production and will also enjoy a bit of titillation. Those who don't like porn will find arguments against it (but of course they won't read it). Either way, there is a high dose of entertainment here, and insights into a world that is hidden from most of us.
The book opens as Benjamin is newly graduated from Brown University in 1999, and he has but one goal, to move to California. After seeing a stash of old porn films, he envisioned himself directing such films, but his would be different. "I would pull off a _surprise_ - a sex film that had heart, one that had soul. I'd make a porno that was actually _good_..." He lucked into contacting the administrator of a website which specialized in interracial videos and charged users a monthly fee. Benjamin met plenty of professionals, like John E. Depth and Tony Eveready. He made one introduction on set while one of the actors had already started caressing the actress: "Tasia," he said, "meet Brian Pumper and Lucky Starr. Soon, you'll be having sex with them." There are tangles of various tabs into different slots in that encounter and lots of others which are relentlessly described. When he was first explaining himself to his dad in one of their many phone calls, he justified thus: "Dad, there's no need to get all riled up. I'm part of a very well-established, historically sound industry." But as he later reflects, "How do you explain to your parents that you are completely revitalizing the face of modern urban pornography?" His parents remain shocked, and much later when his career is going very well, his father wants to know just what special things Benjamin is doing out in California "that makes videos of people having sex become _art_?" This is a stumper, and Benjamin can only stammer that he is right now concentrating on just making money and that he is succeeding at that. "Perhaps your artistic goals have proven slightly unrealistic?" comes the response. The art never seems to take over. When Benjamin gets his direction from his boss about a particular anatomical display that has to be featured in the next film, he mumbles, "But what about... making it funny... what about... a story." The response is purely practical, purely commercial: "Stories are all well and good, Sam. But we have to make sure we get enough hardcore footage in the bag. That's what pays our bills."
"I came here to _change_ the game, not get changed by it," he explains to a partner, but it didn't work out that way. In particular, his fondness for a disturbing tape called _Slap Happy_ plays itself out in his real-life dating behavior in a particularly distressing way. He does what he can to produce a cinematic masterpiece, but it never happens, not even close. "Brilliance had eluded me," he reflects toward the book's end as he is planning ways to get out of the scene and do something else. Well, OK, maybe we do not have a brilliant young pornographer to open our eyes to new, serious aspects of sexuality. But we do have a writer who has brought us a serious look at "a historically sound industry," its paradoxes, and its quirky participants, many of whom seem to be kind and courteous people, you know, just like the rest of us. Benjamin didn't make any movies he could be proud of, but there is no shame in making a memoir as lucid, funny, and revelatory as this one.
