During a recent media-swap with a buddy, I spotted a show I’d heard a lot about but never really settled down to watch. Maybe because its subject matter isn’t something that easily gets folks settled. That show is the British Channel 4 documentary series, ‘The Dark Side of Porn’, made up of several 48-minute-long episodes that examine a bunch of topics related to the porn industry. From season 1′s “Debbie Does Dallas Uncovered”, which deals with the background of the infamous 70s porn movie, to the final and most hectic episode, “The Real Animal Farm”, which looks at the history of a Bodil Joensen, the so-called ‘Queen of Bestiality’. And all I thought I’d get out of this media-swap were copies of the 2008-2009 Spectacular Spider-Man cartoon!
The show’s quite old already and, because there’s no narrative throughline, I’m not watching the episodes in any particular order. So far I’ve only managed to get through two of them because, despite the lack of actual on-screen sex, well, this show is one dark, fucking ride on the human trauma highway. (Un)fortunately, I’m sort of preoccupied with the depths of human experience and how we deal with trauma, so this show is (pardon this and the numerous other accidental puns that follow) right up my alley.