Good Vibrations Magazine

What do you want when you watch an adult movie? You want to see something that turns you on: an image or set of images that flip your arousal switch into the “on” position, igniting a charge running from your eyes straight to your groin, no stops along the way. For a few people, the switch simply turns on with a superficial image — cock in pussy, cock in mouth. For others, however, it takes more than the immediacy of imagery to make them wet or hard. It takes authenticity.

Finding believable sex in porn is tough. Bored-looking blondes, guys who look like they’re having sex only with themselves despite their partner, and straight girls with long fingernails fumbling around each other’s pussies in another depressing fake lesbian scene — no problem. These icons are like a landscape you have to travel through to reach a destination of realistic sexual encounters: “Look honey, another fake orgasm.” But the good stuff is out there. It’s helpful, however, to have a direction that can help you find genuine heat in the sex you’re about to watch. Looking for porn that contains real-life couples is an excellent way to start.

There are two ways you can go about looking for porn with real couples. You can either find films from non-mainstream or amateur sources, or you can familiarize yourself with actors and actresses in the adult industry who are couples in real life. Often with the latter category, the couples (as couples in real life are wont to do) eventually break up or divorce, but you can still look for films or scenes they made when they were together. Either way you slice it, pros or not, nothing beats seeing people who are really hot for each other go for it and have searing, emotionally charged sex onscreen.

In mainstream porn, one very hot couple has made several films, many of them high quality and with high production values and content. The lovely Missy and her very handsome husband Mickey G really had a hot affair raging in front of the camera in Eyes of Desire 2. From female director Candida Royalle, Desire 2 follows protagonist Missy as she moves into a new condo directly across the valley from a wealthy voyeur (Mickey G). Going against her common sense, she becomes irresistibly drawn to him and begins a relationship where he dominates her emotionally and sexually, and compels her to do anything for him — including sex with strangers, couples, and other women, all while he watches. When the two of them have sex, the intensity and chemistry sets a standard for heat in porn that few films have been able to match.

The compilation Deep Inside Jill Kelly does what most “Deep Insides” do: it goes one-on-one with Jill to reveal her sexual fantasies and onscreen firsts. This one does the others one better by featuring two different scenes with Jill and people she was in love with when the scenes were filmed. One scene has Jill in the middle of a squishy, sexy and very authentic threesome with a man and a woman she was simultaneously involved with, and their heat and familiarity with each other’s turn-ons are deliciously evident. The other unforgettable scene on the tape is from another time in Jill’s life when she was deeply in love with one man, and the sex scene is heartbreakingly romantic as they play a just-married couple on their wedding night making love — and really making love! Jill introduces the scene saying that the moment caught on film is one of the happiest times of her life. And the sex sizzles.

Another notable couple is the recently married Ava Vincent and John Decker. This stunning pair recently appeared in acclaimed director Paul Thomas’ fantastic sequel to the award-winning Bad Wives, Bad Wives 2. Thomas spared no expense on budget, and it shows; the acting and storyline are also superb. But in at least one sex scene, you can tell that a certain couple aren’t acting at all — Decker and Vincent seem to not even be aware that they’re being filmed as they share a bout of hot, rough, almost alarmingly passionate sex. Some of the scenes near the beginning of Wives 2 lack heat, but the video gets hotter and hotter until the end. Most of the sex scenes in the video are good enough to make it worth picking up the tape. Decker and Vincent’s scene conveys the newfound lust that couples really have for each other, a lust and craving for carnal consumption that’s impossible to reproduce with mere actors.

Non-mainstream porn virtually overflows with real couples doin’ it in front of the camera’s unflinching eye, and sex ed videos are where you can reliably find the real deal. In the early ’90s a “real couples” series called Videos for Lovers: Behind the Bedroom Door featured ordinary folks talking about their love life, and then demonstrating their favorite sexual activities. Sweet and down-to-earth, this series, though now a bit dated, gives a taste of love, passion, and enthusiasm between real people that is consistently missing from regular porn. This low-budget, independently produced series bordered on sex ed, and the next wave in this genre saw the rise of instructional videos from the Sinclair Institute. Since 1991, Sinclair has been producing erotic educational videos that almost exclusively feature real couples graphically demonstrating sex techniques. They have medium-range production values — though for some reason even their most recent releases still have a dated and distinctly 1980s feel to them, and the action is broken up by the talking heads of professional sex educators that often seem overly groomed to be unthreatening. However, these quirks don’t take away from the excellent information they provide or the tenderness and intimacy that the couples convey. Ten Secrets to Great Sex features several different and very diverse couples dishing and delighting in sex tips, such as playing with food and having fun with erotic games. The Joy of Erotic Massage is a great video to grab to not only get a great primer on erotic male and female massage, but also because it features two attractive couples who can’t keep their hands off each other. The list from Sinclair goes on; I also highly recommend their Better Sex series.

Nina’s Guide to Couples’ Sexploration is another recent release in sex ed that manages to retain a dated feel to it — but to the viewers’ delight the first scene features porn star Shayla LaVeaux and her husband of 10 years. Sexploration also includes host Nina Hartley and her partner Runninghorse, who gives her orgasm after orgasm, and the final scene with Nina and Joel Lawrence is so intimate and full of affection that one might think that they were real-life partners.

For a more modern approach to sex ed using real couples, we need to dig into the underground and reap the rewards of truly independent filmmaking. In a lubricious labor of love, Fatale Video produced Bend Over Boyfriend in 1997 as how-to for heterosexual couples that want to explore the wonders of male anal penetration. This video became a top seller at Good Vibes (and it still is), and it has a refreshingly modern feel (and cast). The information it packs in is solid, and the couples burn up the screen trying out strap-ons and positions. Recently, Good Vibes’ own Sexpositive Productions released two explicit sex ed videos of their own, Please Don’t Stop and Whipsmart. Please is made by and for lesbians of color, and kicks off the festivities with two hot African American lesbians having hot sex — the first of an entire video of real-life lesbian couples showing us how it’s done. The production values are raw and there are no genital close-ups, but the knee-buckling butch-femme scene in an auto body shop with a gushing ejaculation makes the film worth your while. Whipsmart is a stellar production; sleek, well shot and full of gorgeous regular folks. An introduction to S/M for heterosexual couples, it’s narrated by the stunning Mistress Morgana (a regular Good Vibes After Hours program instructor) and we get to see all the techniques put into practice with eager couples.

Explicit educational videos can be a great way to get off while getting an unusual education, but you don’t always have to learn something when having a good wank watching real people screw is all you want. If the idea behind Bend Over Boyfriend sounds enticing but you can do without the how-to, pick up the sequel, SIR Video Productions’ first film Bend Over Boyfriend 2: More Rockin’ Less Talkin’. It does just what it says, boasting pairs of modern het lovers having really hot strap-on encounters — and a few of these scenes are off the scale. With the exception of two scenes, all the couples are deeply in love and committed, and it shows. They also play with their favorite turn-ons, including female domination, pony play and role-play with uniforms. Ageless Desire features real couples over 50 talking about the hot sex they share, and then giving the camera an explicit eyeful.

Finding genuine heat in porn by watching real couples is a sure bet, though finding the porn itself is spotty. The above list features some real-life couples’ scenes here and there, occasionally an entire film with one couple, and a whole lot of educational videos. Real couples are a genre worth seeking out — if done right, that is, by pornographers. I’m still waiting for a modern wall-to-wall all-couples series — I’ll buy that one in a New York minute.