Fetishes

Rating:
Summary: A tour of the wild side
Review: A British male documentarian does a work on Pandora's Box, an SM service in NYC. Like many African Americans, I find the idea of whipping and "owning slaves" highly problematic. However, to each his or her own. This film does show powerful women in sexy leather and shapely corsets giving much attitude and representing. This film will put you in a mood to swish your hips and yell, "Do what you're told!" Still, the main dominatrix was bothered by the filmmaker's refusal to try bondage and I don't blame her. He does come off as a pest and a snoop. I especially hated the way he had to drag opinions out of interviewees' mouths. Though this movie is mostly about male submissives and female dominatrices, the first images are of same-sex, female, SM scenes. I think this was designed to attract the heterosexual male viewer who enjoys lesboeroticism and thinks of it as exotic. Still, it's somewhat misrepresentative. There is one dominatrix of color and though you see her in a race-laced scene, she is never interviewed. I bet she would have been a fascinating subject and I wonder if the filmmaker was being Eurocentric by excluding her. This film is not a history of SM; it focuses solely on one club. I was also worried that this British documentary was meant to act as just another project to make Americans look crazy. However, one dominatrix speaks with a thick, natural French accent and one submissive is English-born. I am glad that some submissives spoke openly to the camera because folk should be proud of what they do sexually as long as it's adult and consensual. I don't think I'd try this, but I will admit that this was a sexy documentary. I have to give credit where it is due.