Sexual Sensations (Playgirl) Review

Since this is a Playgirl production it’s a given that its’ principle target audience is women, so it’s fair to say that from a strictly male pov expectations ought not to be too high. I may as well say at the start that, despite some positives, there is not a great deal to recommend here.

Again to be fair, the immediate packaging & presentation does little to mislead. The front cover depicts a still from one of the scenes, showing both performers in softly-lit, intimate contact, perhaps suggestive of half an eye on the couple market, but I admit to being a little beguiled by a few not un-promising stills on the reverse. (On a strictly personal note I should add that seeing the name of Ms Penny Flame in the list of female performers was sufficient to tempt this reviewer to take a closer look.)

Once past the cover the situation is less encouraging, & indeed there is little to invite male interest in the general presentation on the disc itself. If you had not seen the cover (& ignoring, for a moment, the clue in the word “Playgirl”) you might think you were looking at gay porn. The opening credits of the main feature & the titles of the bonus features list only the male performers, & the ‘bonus solo’ offers a male striptease/masturbation. In surveying all of this the strictly heterosexual male viewer feels like something of an uninvited guest. The question I will attempt to answer here is whether there is any reason to take the hint & leave early.

The Main Feature

Sexual Sensations is a collection of 6, relatively short soft-core scenes (probably wanting to be called “vignettes”), with a 7th scene in the menu of bonus features. The emphasis is on the sensual/romantic. Generally this mood is inherent in the action itself, but is enhanced – I assume that’s what is intended – by low lighting and/or soft focus camera work or “arty” direction, and by some extremely tedious slow-tempo music (of which more below).

Some scenes are better than others. Overall the lighting & camera work/directorial style are at the very least a mild distraction from the action but are not (except in one scene) fatal to the possibility of enjoyment. Far more damaging is the music. Never better than unnecessary it is, at worst, turgid, suffocating & leaches away most if not all of the erotic potential that might otherwise be inherent in the action. Such enjoyment as can be found in being able to hear the interaction of the performers – dialogue, breathing, kissing noises, moaning etc – is totally eliminated from most of the scenes on this disc. Unless you find the music pleasurable – a concept I find difficult to imagine – what enjoyment there is has to be found in the purely visual.

1st Scene – “Dangerous Lovers” (Adrianna Nicole & Scott Nails)

This scene is probably the most representative of my overall opinion about this disc. The positives in the scene (in this case that being the rather lovely Ms Nicole & her performance) are oppressed by the poor lighting, the arty direction & the truly hideous musical accompaniment.

A weird introduction is quickly revealed to be part of a dream sequence in which the dreamer, Ms Nicole, goes on to enjoy the attentions of her fantasy-lover. The actual action in this scene (apart from a boredom-inducing pussy-licking sequence at the start) is not at all bad. Ms N reciprocates the attention to her pussy with attention to his cock & balls. There is something to admire both in that sequence & the succeeding ones in which there are some nice views, especially in the doggie episode.

In a scene without the negatives listed above the action would be over too quickly but I was all too eager for the music to end. I have not encountered Adrianna before, & I can at least be grateful for the introduction, but beautiful as she is she cannot salvage this scene.

Female looks/performance – 7/10
Scene overall – 2/10

2nd Scene – “Marital Bliss” (Shy Love & Seth Dickens)

The bliss is all theirs. This is a straight-forward romantic interlude between 2 (probably married) partners on the conjugal bed. For fans of Ms Love (which I’m not) this might well be a tour-de-force of sensual soft-core porn but it left me cold. It begins with extended slow foreplay, progressing to a long sequence of pussy-licking before – some 15 minutes into the scene – Ms L begins to lick & stroke his cock. That sequence is short-lived & the camera work is poor, being more concerned with SD’s butt & his facial reactions than the action itself. This is followed by short sequences of missionary & spooning before culminating in a cum-shot that I suspect will win few admirers.

The slow, teasing build-up, soft caresses & so on is all very well. I’ve nothing against it, but personally I don’t find Ms Love a good exponent of it, & even if I did I cannot imagine the scene surviving the deadly soundtrack. One to forget.

Female looks/performance – 3/10
Scene overall – 1/10*

(*I need to preserve zero for a later scene).

3rd Scene – “Office Love” (August & Marcus Leon)

Happily things pick up here somewhat, if you ignore the incongruous title & the even more incongruous music. The title & the music do not fit a scene that is clearly trying to be something else. If the viewer had been allowed to listen to the dialogue/interaction between the performers, instead of being shut out by the wall of inappropriate sound, this could have been an enjoyable premise, & the illicit adult fun triggered by August (playing secretary to ML) could have been a worthy spectacle. The direction & the action are not bad.

August initiates the action following her discovery of porn in a cardboard box delivered to her desk. She shares the discovery with her boss. They are both turned on by it & demonstrate this with each other.

August might not be top-drawer in looks but she has solid sexual charisma, a very shapely ass, & achieves decent chemistry with ML. As in the disc generally the camera tends to prefer the male performer but there also good views of her, & she does well in the blow-job sequence.

The scene resists it to some extent, but is still spoiled by the music. A pity. It’s not saying a lot, but this the best scene so far.

Female looks/performance – 6/10
Scene overall – 4/10

4th Scene – “Pool Hall” (Jenaveve & Kris Knight)

The improvement continues. There is erotic potential in the premise – a game of strip-pool – and the sound-track, whilst again shutting the viewer out of full involvement, is much less irritating than in the other scenes.

After a few (unintentional?) foul shots the performers decide to abandon the pool for a different game. Again, the emphasis is on the slow & sensual but it works better here than in other scenes.

Once the clothing is removed Jenaveve gives her opponents’ cock some oral action, which would have been much better if KK did not lose wood partway through, & then the scene progresses to an extended cow-girl sequence. The main problem with this scene is that this sequence, which I liked, is the final action. With a lot more action this scene might have scored quite well. Jenaveve is a good-looking woman with a great body & the views of her in the later parts of the scene are excellent. I can actually forgive this disc a lot for the final, unforgettable shot of her ass. Speaking of shots the cum-shot in this scene may disappoint for being virtually undetectable, but since it occurs in the foreground of the aforementioned view of her ass I for one didn’t mind.

Female looks/performance – 7/10
Scene overall – 5/10

5th Scene – “Poem” (Nicole Sheridan & Voodoo) Any thoughts of continuing an upward trend were dashed quickly with this scene, which encapsulates all of the negatives on this disc and (for anyone not a fan of Ms Sheridan) lacks a single redeeming feature.

The idea – if I’ve got it right – is that Ms Sheridan & her partner act out a piece of erotic poetry, recited at the beginning of the scene by a male actor. The action is fragmented by the extremely heavy-handed, arty direction, so for example there are several brief glimpses of what might have been an excellent blow-job if the viewer had been allowed to see the whole thing. Ms Sheridan is not a favourite of this reviewer, but frankly I don’t think it would have helped if she had been. The lighting, the irritating camera work, the dire sound-track & the idiotic premise are simply too overpowering. I suppose it has to labelled “porn”, but this is at the risk of giving porn a bad name. Possibly the worst scene I have ever come across.

Female looks/performance – 2/10
Scene overall – Zero.

6th Scene – “When the Music’s Over”* (Penny Flame & Steven St Croix)

*But it never is. To be fair, however, the music accompanying this scene is not a total distraction. The viewer is allowed to partially overhear what is going on, & the music itself is not as bad as in the other scenes (Scene 4 excepted) – or maybe my particular interest in Penny Flame was an influence? I can’t be sure.

As a particular fan of the delectable Ms Flame I always expected this to be the best scene, & it is. It’s not great but it does, just about, make me glad I inserted the disc & pressed ‘play’.

I’d have preferred it without the music, & without the soft-focus camera work. Take those things away & I would then have preferred a longer scene. For me, Ms Flame does the slow, sensual thing – as shown here – as well as she does the raunchier material, & I defy anyone not to appreciate the view of her standing in high heels on a staircase, camera looking up at her as she leans over a banister, panties at half-mast.

The premise of the scene appears to be that Penny & SStC are guests at a party of some kind, but have stolen away for a private interaction. She is sipping a glass of wine as she & SCC slowly descend a staircase, flirting heavily. Partway down they stop to engage in foreplay which develops into full-blown, on the spot sex. There are 3 stages to the action – Penny being slowly stripped/seduced by SCC, superb views throughout; Penny licking & sucking SCC’s cock (to her usual standard); Penny receiving doggie, with one sequence standing on one leg (SCC supporting the other) permitting a perfect view of the action & of her.

Most of the shots are whole-body shots, & are good but could stand being closer to the action some of the time. On the whole I found a decent amount to admire here, but for this review I have to resist commenting on the longer, sound-track free & better directed version of this scene that is running in my head, rather than the actual scene. Looking at it that way I have to admit that even with the advantage, for me, of my favourite porn star, this is a mediocre scene by most standards, albeit that it is easily the best on the disc.

Female looks/performance – 9/10.
Scene overall – 7/10

Bonus Features

These are unexceptional. I’ve mentioned the “bonus solo” above, which is as much as I want to say about it.

The highlight (I suppose) is the bonus sex scene between Rebecca Love & Sascha, Ms Love responding warmly to a gift of flowers. As in the second scene it’s all about a slow, sensual prelude of romantic foreplay building up to some fairly mediocre action. The music isn’t quite the dire distraction as in some of the other scenes. To be honest I did quite like the slow, sensual thing – the eroticism came over rather better than in Scene 2, the other ‘Ms Love’ scene, which is the nearest comparison. I’d pitch this somewhere between scenes 2 & 3 in terms of enjoyability.

The other bonus features include a Slide Show, Trailers, a Promo Reel, some website information & a “Behind the Scenes” feature. Only the latter merits any comment at all – a mini documentary with 2 performers (Luccia & Manuel Ferrara) giving short interviews about their work & working together in a scene, fragments of which are shown intermittently. Nothing special.

Final Summary

At the end of the day there is no getting past the fact that the scenes on this disc are produced with a female audience in mind. Assuming it hits the mark for that audience, or a portion of it, it goes to illustrate significant gender differences in terms of what is arousing.

As a male it was never going to deliver what I wanted, but it delivered enough to make me think fondly of what might have been if the scenes were handled differently, & especially if the near all-pervasive music had not inserted a strange barrier between me & the action.

Some images have lingered in the mind as a pleasant recollection but I have to acknowledge ultimately that I don’t think this disc wanted me as an audience; whilst the feeling is not quite mutual there is no-one male to whom I would actually recommend it. Overall a waste of some very good female talent that deserved better.