With porn so privately accessible now, we don't worry about the stigma attached to its consumption, the thought of someone pausing to peruse the art in front of an adult movie theater (hell, the thought of an adult movie theater) instead of just ducking in before being seen is almost touching. Which is why there's something incongruous about the existence of posters for porn movies.
You can skip the text in Sexytime (sample: "You remember a 1970s when a movement called Porn Chic took big pink shits of fuck all over the place") and head right for the graphics. There are few attempts in these collected one-sheets to achieve anything like the spare, striking look of the poster for Behind the Green Door. Many of them, illustrated in cheap garish colors and made before photos of the performers listed (among them John Leslie, Leslie Bovee, Annette Haven, the delightful Serena) would be a draw, look like slightly more naughty versions of posters for R-rated exploitation movies.
The poster for Breaker Beauties would look at home next to the poster for Truck Stop Women; blink and you might mistake Pussycat Ranch for Meatballs. Maybe it's false nostalgia to pine for the tease of the titles and posters for these movies. The one-sheet for Hot Lunch, with its silver serving platter over a busty waitress's crotch, isn't exactly subtle (at least it isn't Box Lunch). But next to the box covers of today's DVDs — most of which aren't even trying to be movies — there's something kind of sweet about the promises they hold out, even if those promises were only sporadically kept. You can pore through this book the way some of us used to pore over horror-movie ads in the paper, trying to imagine what the reality of these movies are, wondering if our imaginations were even up to it.
SEXYTIME: THE POST-PORN RISE OF THE PORNOISSEUR :: By Jacques Boyreau :: Fantagraphics :: 120 pages :: $29.99
