[Note: Reeler editor S.T. VanAirsdale is taking the week off, but the blog is in the good hands of trusted friends and colleagues; click here for other entries in the series. Lisa Vandever is the co-founder and director of CineKink, which is dedicated to the celebration and encouragement of kink-positive depictions in film and television. She likely watches less porn than you think she does.]
Historically speaking, August is known as the poor-pitiful-me month around CineKink world headquarters. This is the time of year when, leading into our annual October festival run in NYC, everything suddenly feels mind-crushingly undone. Promotions feel uninspired. Sponsorships feel unconfirmed woefully untapped. And, most pressing, piles upon piles of tapes and DVDs feel unscreened, sitting accusingly in a post-triage, pre-viewing assemblage in various corners of the office.


With our call for entries doubled over last year, we’re also enjoying some nice growing pangs this season. While this is great in terms of “mission”–providing a safe and enthusiastic harbor for the kink-friendly and sex-positive from around the globe, the more the merrier–this kinda sucks in terms of enjoying the activities one traditionally associates with summer. Quite certainly, everybody else in the free world is enjoying a sun-dappled day at the shore. And/or taking in the latest high-production-valued studio release involving snakes on a plane or any other inconsequential somesuch.
Instead, childhood admonitions to get outside and get some fresh air jump to fevered mind while sitting in the air-conditioned dark, eyes fixed blearily to the screen, pondering life’s eternal questions: Which is the stronger drive – the one for sex or the one for narrative? Is this an insightful commentary on the desire to be taken fully by another–or a juvenile miscomprehension of that crucial little thing known as consent? How much screen time devoted to full-on cunnilingus will a theatrical audience tolerate in today’s remote control society? (And how do you spell “cunnilingus”?)
Happily, I’ve been able to take a brief respite from all of that, as this guest missive finds me in beautiful Portland, Oregon, my hometown and site of the latest Best of CineKink screenings. This touring component of our festival was just introduced this year; our bookings have been haphazard to date, with the determining factors generally being a welcoming venue, along with a personal desire to visit the city of said welcoming venue. The notion of turning my usual late-summer visit with my parents into a tax deduction made a Portland run quite attractive, and a friend was able to put me in touch with the Clinton Street Theater, a city institution that also boasts one of the country’s longest continuous bookings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. (I was there for it once, sometime circa 1981.)

The audiences for the tour have been a little hit or miss. Mostly hit, fortunately, with a turnout surpassing New York in some places. And even where the actual attendance has been rather grim, we’ve been greeted with a seemingly heartfelt appreciation and anecdotes of someone driving all the way across state for the chance to take in the program.
Still, back on my old turf, I’m exceptionally nervous. As the screening draws near, I’m expecting to count four heads in the audience with the knowledge that two of them are my parents (and my dad is also one of the filmmakers featured in this particular showcase, which is a whole other story.) We linger as long as possible over dinner, then venture to the theater. Waving aside the offered comps, I insist on paying for my parents so they’ll count in the box office tally.
Inside, though, the crowd is not only not embarrassing, it’s altogether respectable. Better still, since the theater also hosts a brew pub, they’re drinking–always a good predictor for a fun screening. As the films begin to play, I relax, though I always relax at this point. It’s never about the quality of the works. The drama is always over getting people into the seats to see the works in the first place.
I wander outside and snap a few pictures of the marquee. I chat with the cashier and learn that the attendance is not only phenomenal for a weeknight, but the crowd is mainly new faces drawn to the theater by CineKink. In the pub, I commiserate with the owner over the ever-shrinking pie of revenues–and we talk about doing a fuller festival run next spring.
The post-screening Q&A is brief, but friendly and enthused. No anecdotes of cross-country ventures this time, but the enjoyment and appreciation of the works is most definitely there. I find myself ready to go back and delve into those waiting stacks of tapes for the next go-round of CineKink.
Though a few days at the shore would also be nice…

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