1980: seka and vanessa del rio in “showgirl superstars presents 2: seka’s fantasies”

title: showgirl superstars presents 2: seka's fantasies, scene 2

performers: seka, vanessa del rio
production credits: none listed
studio: vcr | running time: 22:30
release date: 1980 | purchase

seka, vanessa del rio

one of the reasons i wanted to launch this project was that i felt i didn't have a good grasp on the performance qualities or personalities of some of the biggest adult stars of past generations. seka and vanessa del rio are both legendary names in late 70s and early 80s porn, but my few dips into those waters some fifteen years ago had never really turned up anything notable in the girl/girl genre which was even then my preferred way of consuming porn.

i hadn't looked hard enough, clearly. i was startled to run across this, an epic-length scene for its era, and apparently shot as part of an early home-video package. in that package, seka's fantasies, the first scene is a threesome with eric edwards; the third scene is a seka solo. aesthetically it has little in common with theatrical porn; rather, it's very much descended from the cheaply but voluminously produced peepshow loops that were the principal income stream for the filmed porn industry's first decade, since peepshows were much easier and cheaper to set up and run without attracting vice-squad attention than x-rated theaters, which could be few and far between outside of big cities. but unlike those 6 to 12 minute strips of film, this scene has sound, capturing the spontaneous if not necessarily genuine conversation between the two superstars as they ease into the business of having sex with each other.

that conversation, and the professionalism with which they get down to business, was what surprised me the most about this scene. by now i'm used to the general stiffness, hesitancy, and polite distaste with which the vast majority of adult performers of the era approached the requisite girl/girl scenes; but seka and vanessa reminded me much more of current performers in their performed eagerness to get their hands and tongues on each other, in their capacious dirty talk and in the thoroughness with which they performed both the giving and receiving of pleasure. (that performance is all i ask; unlike the vast majority of girl/girl fans i do not pretend to know the hearts of the performers and so prefer to take their words and deeds at face value.) this is, in fact, one of the earliest gonzo girl/girl performances in porn history. activity-wise it's pretty tame, limited entirely to cunnilingus, fingering, and tribbing, but the energy remains high, and their vocal appreciation for each other could have been heard in any gonzo scene shot in the twenty-first century.

what could not have been heard on any post-1990s production was the soundtrack, which apparently was what was playing in the room as they got busy with each other. for the first few minutes as they began to get into it and the even-tempoed funk music started i was wondering why i could hear a man's voice murmuring underneath their muttered encouragements — was the anonymous director choreographing them, forgetting that the room was wired for sound? — and then i realized that it was because a barry white song was playing. and in fact actual 70s r&b, not the plastic simulacrum that pop culture still uses bow-chika-bow-wow to represent (long after porn transitioned to having the sex be the part of the movie that doesn't have music), continued to soundtrack their workout, generally deep enough in the background that you can't really place it without headphones, but definitely audible enough that rights holders would almost certainly have a case for legal action if they were alerted to it.

but who cares, it's just some old fuzzy videotape porn, nobody watches that stuff any more, right? well, almost nobody. but i'm very grateful to have seen this. seka's angular dietrichian beauty and vanessa's lush caribbean curves are some of the most fantastic in porn history, and they worked so much better together than i could have imagined.

1980 runners up:

marilyn chambers and serena in insatiable, scene 1

miracle (dir. godfrey daniels), 16:34

serena, marilyn

marilyn chambers, who starred in behind the green door in 1972 (the film that meant deep throat wasn't just a fluke), returns in a big-budget character study as a wealthy model whose voracious sexual appetite is the only way she knows how to relate to other people. jesie st. james is her majordomo, and serena is an agent giving marilyn her first big break; as marilyn and serena devour each other in the swimming pool, jesie watches coolly from a balcony above. mansions, helicopters, location filming in london — even the intro here is dripping with the kind of money that lets you know investors are confident of a sure thing. and presumably the boy/girl sequences were more convincing.

ashley welles and rachael livingston / maria tortuga and susan nero in ball game, scene 2

evolution enterprises (dir. anne perry-rhine), 9:34

maria, susan, ashley, rachael

apparently there's some plot having to do with a corrupt prison warden, a baseball game, and some heavy-handed political satire; but this scene is exclusively about guards ashley welles and susan nero barging in on inmates maria tortuga and rachael livingston, who are playing cards and drinking wine, and demanding sexual favors so that the warden doesn't hear about it. ashley and rachael stay in the cell, while susan marches maria off to the lavatory, but the sex between the two pairs is intercut, so it's all one scene. rachael, the black inmate with short natural hair, is the highlight both giving and receiving, but maria sliding susan's billy-club into herself is close behind. the filmmaking is lurid and trashy, but it's supposed to be: this director understands exactly what kind of genre she's working in.

barbara daniels, kandi barbour & marlene willoughby in the pink ladies, scene 5

ace booking (dir. richard mahler), 8:04

marlene, kandi, barbara

i'm a sucker for historical fiction in my porn, so this brief sequence in a film otherwise set in the present day (kandi barbour ignores her randy husband to read a barbara cartland novel and imagines what women in a turn-of-the-century new orleans brothel get up to on a slow sunday, with herself in the central role) is exactly my flavor of fantasy. the gorgeous cinematography and rollicking soundtrack almost make up for the deficiencies in sexual technique on display, but my favorite element is the beautiful though uncredited black girl who mimes playing ragtime and masturbates as the above-the-line talent perform sex on each other.

christie ford and misty regan in velvet high, scene 4

pegasus films (dir. john christopher), 8:44

christie, misty

misty regan plays the titular velvet, a high schooler who has had sexual encounter after sexual encounter, as detailed in the movie's previous scenes; but as she explains to her friend over a game of chess, she hasn't gotten any satisfaction out of any of them. so after quoting masters & johnson out of left field, christie shows her how to have an orgasm. extremely basic stuff: but the gauzy filmmaking, exquisite soundtrack work, and misty's delicate but full-bodied performance of novice sexual pleasure all make this an unforgettable little sequence anyway. of course the final scene presumably has a boy taking her over the edge, and thus counts more, but despite how much youth-centric porn grosses me out, the production here was just too good to ignore.

also noteworthy:

scenes

• juliet anderson and sharon kane in aunt peg, scene 9 | cal vista (anthony spinelli)
• annette haven and mai lin in the blonde, scene 7 | artimi (elliot & henry lewis)
• merle michaels and seka in inside seka, scene 4 | evart (joe sarno, seka, ken yontz)
• hillary summers and linda vale in justine: a matter of innocence, scene 8 | sendy (roberta findlay)
• dominique saint claire and marilyn jess in les mauvaises rencontres, scene 3 | dorcel (marc dorcel)
• morgane and serena in les nymphomanes, scene 3 | alpha france (burd tranbaree)
• arcadia lake and lisa de leeuw in october silk, scene 4 | winvan (henri pachard)
• lisa b. and veronica hart in a scent of heather, scene 1 | video-x-pix (bill eagle)
• gloria leonard and sandi suarez in silky, scene 7 | evart (joe sarno)
• seka and veronica hart in tara tara tara tara, scene 3 | gloff (leon gucci)

all-girl releases

• class reunion | blue (robert lynn)