Enjoying Guilty Pleasures Review

Reviewed by astroknight  on  9/26/2005

The Little Details

Running Time: 57 min.

Production Date: 05 / 2003

Director: Mark Schoen, Ph. D.

Cast: Wendy Divine, Eric Masterson, Pason (listed as Judy), Kris Slater (listed as Chris), Chennin Blanc (listed as Wendy), Cheyne Collins (listed as Mike), Joelean, Ben, Karen, Julian St. Jox, “Lee”, “Billy”, “Julie”, “Tony”, “Tania”, “Chris”, “Lisa”, “Leila”, “Charles”, and “Kristian”in sexual roles and hosted by Jane Monreal with experts Herb Samuels, Ph.D., Louise-Andree Saulnier, M. A., and Jack Morin, Ph.D.

The Short Story

Initial Expectations: Sinclair’s features have been fairly hit or miss for me. I’m not quite sure what to expect here.

Initial Reaction: It’s a little basic, but for the audience it’s aimed at I think it’s very well done.

Who Should Watch It : Anybody who’s extremely nervous about sex or who feels completely lost

Who Should Avoid It: Anybody who doesn’t want graphic sexual instruction

The Technical Stuff

Audio /Video Quality: The audio is very well done. You never hear the performers, but there’s enough music and voiceovers that it works for the feature. The video is also very well done. It’s nicely lit and has just a hint of grain that makes the feature feel slightly more artistic.

Music: The music is very soft both in balance and style. It fits the feature extremely well.

Menus: The main menu is pretty unimpressive and uses the typical Sinclair logo menu. The chapter menu lets you go directly to different subjects based on the subject and a still photo.

The Feature

Sex isn’t easy to talk about for many people, yet doing the same thing over and over again only leads to boredom in the bedroom. Sinclair aims to promote sexuality positively and to create long lasting intimate relationships. After a few questions about judging sexual behavior and what’s acceptable and not acceptable, Jane Monreal lets the viewers know that there’s going to be a wide variety of subjects in the feature complete with a look at why it’s considered acceptable or unacceptable.

Things start out with Drs. Saulnier and Samuels giving a history of sex and taboo sex acts. Jane returns to talk about erotic films while a couple of the couples watch one and play with each other. A window opens where Julian and Lee can talk about why they enjoy adult films as well as things they learned from them. Oral sex is covered next for both male and females complete with a couple tips and a little discussion from both the experts and a few of the participants. Anal sex is covered for both men and women, and is continued a little through the fantasy section talking about using toys to simulate double penetration fantasies. Several other fantasies are also covered as well as places other than the bedroom to have sex to help with some of those fantasies. S&M roleplaying is discussed as a normal couples game, and nicely looked at from both the male and female points of view. A few different variations are brought up, such as tie-up games and blindfolds, and there’s a great emphasis put on safety and respect for one’s partner. There’s plenty of comments from the participants throughout the action, and plenty of hardcore sex (which is tastefully done) used in demonstrations.

Enjoying Guilty Pleasures is a nicely done instructional release. It’s fairly basic and doesn’t give any extremely detailed information, but it does give enough information to get things started for a couple. I like some of the looks at history and why certain sex acts were considered taboo, and the comments from the participants added a lot and made the subjects seem very normal and approachable. Although I recognized many of the participants in the demonstrations from other adult films, they come across nicely as real people (and are often real life couples). The closest thing I had to a complaint here is that the names of the products being used in the feature popped up during the feature, making some of it feel a bit too much like a commercial. I think it would have worked much better if the names were left in the extras where a person could check them out there. It could even be taken one step further and linked to an on-line store done that way. In the end, though, Enjoying Guilty Pleasures was nicely done. It might be a little basic for some people, but I don’t think that those people are the ones this release is aimed at. At the same time, it’s done well enough that if one of those more experienced people picks it up to watch with a less experienced or nervous partner, they shouldn’t be dozing off five minutes in. Enjoying Guilty Pleasures is a very well done feature for introducing people to some of the fun that can be found outside of the missionary position in the bedroom.

The Extra Stuff

As usual, sexual health information is included. There’s also a list of products featured in the movie that lets you have a good look at them as well as letting you jump to the point in the movie where they’re used. Finally, there’s a sexy little featurette on kissing as well as a behind the scenes featurette.

The behind the scenes featurette lasts about nine minutes. There’s comments from the performers as well as plenty of shots of the segments being captured. There’s also comments from the experts on who they think the movie is made for and what they think the most important ideas in the feature are. There’s nothing groundbreaking here, but it is a nice little featurette.

The Down -n- Dirty Sex Stuff

Themes: Straight, instructional, oral, male anal penetration, anal, toys, and S&M (light)

Raincoat Factor: High

Condom Usage: Some

The Bottom Line:

Currently, many of the Sinclair Institute’s DVDs can be found online for between about $13 and $28 with a few stores offering them at the lower end. As with all instructional features, I’d suggest renting this one first. It has a lot of great information, but it might be a little too basic for some people. The technical aspects are nicely done and there’s even some nice effort put into the extras. This is a very nicely done instructional DVD.

Note to Sinclair: I’m a little surprised at the lack of condoms here. For a company that seems to point out the importance of safe sex so much, it’s awfully odd to see so few condoms in the movie.

If you have any questions or comments, please e-mail me .

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