1.Porn & Art in the 1980s || 2.Style || 3.Gender Differences || Appendix || Copyright

Skull in the Cage. Max Melodramatic (Andy Nichols) reciting his soliloquy in the middle of the Military Lesbian tableaux.

Changing Face of Masculinity || Max Melodramatic || Raphael and La Fornarina || The Transformation || Is she or isn't she? || Hope for Masculinity || Male vs. Female ||Gender Issues || The Future of Sex

Changing Face of Masculinity

Cafe Flesh objectifies men in the sex performances as much as women. Johnny Rico, the long awaited male performer that every woman lusts after, never says anything the whole time and lives under the aura of his own fame. The film goes out of its way to dehumanize and uglify male characters. The two anonymous men in the telephone tableaux wear telephone masks (unlike Angel, whose face is always visible). The man in the "Mr. and Mrs. Sane" tableaux sports a long tail and snout. Silky, the short pimp-like character, is freckled and pretentious-looking. Spike (who counsels Nicky about his problems) has scars all over his face. "With this mug," he said, "there ain't no use sending roses. Believe me, I've tried. (54:10)"

Part of the reason for this distorted view of masculinity may have to do with the undue attention to the female's physical and emotional responses—maybe because the male responses are already familiar to them. Masks and "uglifiers" direct the male gaze towards the female and prevents the viewer from identifying too closely with the male's pleasure. It represents a wish-fulfillment fantasy of very attractive women desiring average-looking men. The male can desire, but cannot control the extent of other people's desires for him. Some of the movie's men ignore the problem by completely buying into the notion that vicarious pleasure is just as great as actual pleasure. One male Sex Negative talks glowingly of the sex performances he attended like a fan talking about old boxing matches. Nicky is the only one not duped. He cannot enjoy sex and won't pretend that the performances are enough for him. He wants to know sensuality, preferring a few painful caresses with Lana (that make him sick) to the imaginary sensuality of the sexual tableaux. The irony is that Nicky is sexually attractive and well-liked. Angel comments on his sexual attractiveness even before meeting him. ("Are they Negatives or can they do it?" she asks. "Negative," Silky replies. "All the best cake is" (11:00)). Moms treats him so affectionately that she calls him "Moms' favorite boy" and with embarrassment says that Moms is "protecting him."

Being desirable or likable is not enough for Nicky. He wants to initiate desire and act on it. The film is based on the premise that most of the population lost their sexual potency from a nuclear fallout. Still, the impotence has a special resonance with Nicky. Could a man be satisfied by simply being an object of desire without being able to consummate it? Paradoxically, the 1980s were a decade where movies and books were becoming more sexually explicit, but AIDS was also reducing the spontaneity and availability of sex and where rules for sexual advances were being redefined. The gap between desire and consummation was widening, perhaps to be alleviated by virtual sex, commercial sex services or old-fashioned abstinence. By movie's end, Nicky leaves the cafe in a daze, as if renouncing desire altogether (until he bounces back again).

Max Melodramatic

The specter of emcee Max Melodramatic looms over the movie. Max impersonates every icon of machismo. At times he acts like Count Dracula, the Three Stooges, James Dean, Marlon Brando, the Big Bopper, Elvis, a transvestite and a bevvy of other male figures. Max is a running target, ever changing, switching identities and never truly knowable. Max is a host of contradictions. A tough guy and bully who lives in fear of Moms' authority. He verbalizes his sexual excitement more than anybody at the cafe, and yet confesses under duress, "There's Possies and Neggies and nothing between / I lost my weapon in World War Three."(52:00)

Max is the powerless id during the sex performances, the Shakespearian jester who vocalizes what others are afraid or unable to. As a standup comedian before the acts, Max craves audience response, but is used to performing without one. "I know you didn't come to see my gorgeous mug," he jokes before an act, knowing full well that the audience will have to keep waiting until he finally introduces the act. Max simultaneously loves and loathes his audience. He revels in the freedom and power of being onstage as an emcee. Because the audience knows that his routines are "just for yucks," he can say whatever he wants. Max uses his position to chide the audience, a chiding that seems to have no purpose since visitors to the cafe can hardly go home and have sex for themselves. The true audience for Max's harangues is the cinematic audience (and it is no wonder that when the movie initially appeared at an actual movie theatre, several people went to the box office to demand their money back). Max rapidly changes personality and emotions during his introductions, but Max is expressive without having genuine feelings. Perhaps he's a homosexual troll who gets his kicks by pretending to be straight and impersonating straight men. Perhaps he is the voice of Art itself, a voice which speaks and offers wisdom about the seamier side of human existence. Perhaps he is the self devoid of gender identification, scoffing at anybody who embraces heteronormativity or the dependency created by sexual desire. "He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man," (30:10) Max says during the "Skull in the Cage" tableaux. Max is not a beast—he just acts like one. His lips and teeth are a blood-curdling red, and his tongue drops out of his mouth, but of course all of this is just an act. If Max exonerates bestial behavior as he suggests, it's because Max knows that no audience member would ever go so far to act that way.

Taunting Nicky. After Lana leaves Nicky to perform onstage, Max slaps and taunts a stunned Nicky.

Max is the new self revealed to viewers by porn: the ineffectual, isolated and self-loathing self that can do nothing but engage in self-analysis. Max knows. His mediating position onstage permits near-omniscience into the viewers' hearts and minds. He senses their secret emotions and knows how to exploit this knowledge. He knows Nicky's insecurity and how to provoke his anger. Max happens to be present when Lana privately rediscovers her sexuality in the backstage dressing room, and he even whispers Lana's own desires to her ears during the Johnny Rico tableaux (and beckons her onstage during the transformation). And finally, he is privy to Nicky's despair at seeing his girlfriend perform with Johnny Rico.

Max dishes out the crap, but also has to take it from the audience of Sex Negatives. Although the audience certainly despise Max's presence onstage, he is the only aspect of the performance which Sex Negatives can interact with (somewhat analogous to the strange relationship a customer might have with the store clerk who checks out a porn DVD). Max offers understanding without showing actual sympathy.

Raphael and La Fornarina

Perhaps one of Ingres' greatest and most enigmatic paintings is the 1813 "Raphael and La Fornarina." La Fornarina was a model and courtesan who posed for one of Raphael's most famous Madonna and child paintings. She later became his mistress, and Ingres shows the couple sitting closely together surrounded by Raphael's paintings of her. The famous Madonna and Child rests on the back wall, and at forefront right is another more erotic painting that exposes her breasts. La Fornarina looks calmly and contentedly at the image of her which Raphael has just painted. It is a strange and compelling painting. Though no real eye contact is made between them, they are perfectly at peace; the different direction of their gazes doesn't seem to disturb the intimacy of their embrace.

"Raphael and La Fornarina" (1813). Painting by Ingres.

This image is echoed in Metzger's Private Afternoons of Pamela Mann where the couple making love are simultaneously surrounded by mirror images and movie images of Pamela's sexual escapades, and in one incredible shot, the film projector flashes directly at the viewer (blocking the man's head) while the woman looks ahead smiling. The viewer has become the viewed, and the distance between viewer and viewed becomes a matter of appreciation.

Picasso: "Raphael and the Fornarina. IV: With the Pope Pulling Back the Curtain". Picasso. Etching on copper; printed on Rives vellum paper. 1969. Copyrighted. ^[16]

In 1968 Picasso took the Ingres painting as the subject for several drawings. In his later years Picasso had an erotic obsession about the relation between artist and model. Whereas Ingres establishes physical and aesthetic distance to preserve the integrity of the image, Picasso does everything he can to overcome and even demolish this distance. Picasso paints in order to touch, to grasp, to transform (and to defile). He tries to insert himself into the painting and bring the subjects of his paintings into his own world. "The extraordinary," he said, "would be to make with all the liberated means a picture that would incorporate itself into reality." In one very bizarre variation by Picasso on the Ingres theme, Raphael and his model are entangled in an amorphous mass of limbs and genitals and easels while a sad-faced papal figure views everything, not with delight but resignation.

Ingres and Picasso embody opposing stances towards the imaginary world. Ingres confines beauty to classically enriched forms; Picasso seeks to dissolve all boundaries. Ingres sits in awe of his images; he adores his Pygmalion but knows better than to bring her into the world of the living. Picasso creates in order to despoil; he commandeers images and shapes to produce a new personal vision of the world.

Cafe Flesh examines the progression from Ingres to Picasso, from detachment to active involvement. At the very start of the movie, the world is divided into Sex Negatives and Sex Positives. Sex Positives perform, and Sex Negatives watch. The Positives can act our their id, but lack individuality. Sex Negatives have personalities and odd appearances, but no id. Sex Positives are comfortable moving around and even performing in various tableaux of desire. Sex Negatives are simultaneously transfixed and paralyzed by this alternative imaginary world.

Negatives and Positives inhabit different worlds, a point repeatedly emphasized by the director's refusal to show Negatives and Positives together in the same shot during the performances. It is a symbiotic relationship. Negatives need the Positives to remember the allure of eros; Positives need the Negatives to validate their performances. But aside from the physical imperfections, Negatives are no different from Positives. When Angel admires Nicky and Lana and asks if they were Positives or Negatives, Silky replies, "Negatives! All the best cake is!" Backstage, a performer about to perform tells Lana, "I watch you when I'm up there. I fantasize. You turn me on. How'd you like to perform with me?"(29:15)

How does one reconcile the two disparate worlds? Max has found a way. He participates in the performances in minor ways and helps Sex Negatives to interpret their emotions. His comic relief may even enhance the viewer's response to the performance. But he may simply be adapting to not having workable sex organs to begin with. The only person who could enjoy living as an ineffectual and sarcastic clown would be someone without a choice.

Cafe Flesh suggests a way to bring these worlds together. Its message is not simply that everyone ought to lose inhibitions and be willing to leap onstage to perform. If the "message" is simply an exhortation, it would make the life of action simply a matter of will—without ever shedding light on the allure of remaining a spectator. The film's far more radical message is that maintaining a solid wall between the two worlds may very well be impossible. Remaining an observer is untenable because the observer cannot avoid noticing one's own responses. The position of observer ultimately collapses into participation.

Lana Struggling with Secret Longings. Lana's secret self-caresses as viewed through a window from within the empty cafe.

The participation happens in stages. It starts with Lana after she stays behind in the cafe's dressing room and looks forlornly outside the open window into the dark deserted cafe. With a single tracking shot, the camera drifts around the cafe and returns to that same open window, but with Lana leaning against the far wall, brimming with desire and holding her hands near her hips. Slowly, deliberately, Lana's body sinks to the floor and the cinematic gaze follows her hands as they move down her breasts and onto the floor itself (where she loses herself to self-caresses). As the camera moves slowly away, the viewer can now see that Max had been standing in the hallway, watching the whole thing with curiosity but not excitement. This shot is remarkable because it stands as one of the only shots throughout the entire movie that show observer and observed in the same frame. Generally all the sex scenes in Cafe Flesh alternate between shots of the Sex Positive and Sex Negatives, but never show them together. By giving Lana's masturbation scene an observer, the movie turns the private caresses into a performance; the (male) viewer is not allowed to fantasize about this woman without also seeing his voyeurism reflected in the figure of Max. The cigar in Max's mouth and unkempt clothes (a contrast to what Max wears onstage) presents a particularly unflattering image of the spectator. With the arrival of Johnny Rico, everything changes.

Final Tableaux with Angel (Marie Sharp). Licking her lips while looking up at the mysterious Johnny Rico.

The Transformation

"Who can tell what a real man can bring out in a crowd?" Max asks the audience in the final tableaux, "A real woman perhaps?" Johnny Rico, the male performer everyone talks about for half the movie, finally makes an appearance at the cafe. His very presence melts Lana's mind and heart to mush. Before Rico even shows up, Nicky is jealous of Lana's fascination with Rico.

The final scene opens with a shot of a slender and attractive nude woman sitting elegantly under an old-style hair dryer, reading "Movie Life" magazine and glancing at the audience. From her glance we go to Johnny Rico lighting a cigarette and bringing it to his mouth in an ultracool way. As the audience oohs and ahhs, Angel kneels on the bed looking up adoringly at him. Lana reacts differently; she seems lost in her private world of desire and dreams for this tall impassive man. Something about the scene transfixes her, and I would suggest it is not simply Rico's magical presence, but the presence of a third person (that woman under the hair dryer) that draws her in. It is a haunting, mesmerizing image. Unlike previous sex scenes, where nonperforming actors may have stood or sat in stationary poses, this woman under the hair dryer is the first to face the audience and play the unabashed role as voyeur. This woman never budges. Her eyes periodically glance at the sex on the bed. Watching this scene, Lana sees a distant version of herself—desiring and desirable, yet perfectly composed—in this mysterious woman sitting under the hair dryer. When Rico stands at the bedside and Angel fellates him, the woman under the hair dryer watches with detached amusement. (I've always thought that if an actress kept appearing in porn movies without saying anything or undressing, male viewers inevitably would ignore the onscreen sexual performances of everyone else and focus entirely on her). The juxtaposition of these two images—Angel sucking Rico off and the woman sitting peacefully beneath the hair dryer—creates a hot and cold sensation simultaneously. Just as the side canvas in Ingres' painting serves as the third point of the painting's triangle of desire, the mysterious nude woman under the hair dryer becomes the apex for the triangle of desire between Lana and the couple onstage performing. For the mysterious woman beneath the hair dryer, both Lana and the couple in carnal embrace coexist in the same world. This perspective allows Lana to step back and realign her relationship to the Sex Positives. Indeed, the film echoes this transformation from desiring object to object of desire; while Lana watches the Sex Positives, Nicky watches Lana and how she transforms. The camera drifts from Nicky's glance to Lana's enraptured eyes, following her hands as they drift down her body and towards her erotic regions.

Procession Onstage. A transformed Lana is ushered forward by a line of animated Sex Negatives.

At some point Lana's erotic consciousness (and Sex Positivity) is awakened; she becomes aware of her own physical arousals (captured by quick closeups of her eyes and mouth and breasts) and finally feels empowered to walk forward in a dreamlike procession to the stage. Max, the voice and instigator, waves her on, flailing his arms wildly, and the other Sex Negatives wave her on as well. The movie action changes to slow motion, and all that can be seen is a flurry of audience hands pushing, touching, gesturing, waving Lana onstage—an improvised gauntlet of desire and excitement in which Sex Negatives can experience the brief thrill of being an unexpected part of the performance. As Lana arrives onstage, she first climbs atop Angel to caress her. The woman with whom she'd been identifying just moments ago now became an object of her affection. The lesbian embrace was a way to validate Lana's Sex Positivity, a narcissistic prelude to actual fulfillment of her desires to be with a man. During the lesbian embrace, Johnny Rico becomes an observer, the same status of Nicky and the rest of the crowd. But we never actually see Rico watching; his impenetrable expression and dark glasses veil the male gaze; it turns Rico into an object of desire for the audience (and other performers). It allows Rico to watch the women's performance without appearing to have any interest in it. Although the shots alternate between that of the women 69ing each other and audience responses, there is one shot where the camera travels from Lana's crotch being kissed by Angel up to Johnny Rico's indecipherable face. Rico sits impassively next to the female couple but suddenly turns around, grabs Angel away and penetrates Lana from behind, a position which maximizes the visibility of Lana's face to the audience while hiding Rico's face entirely. For Nicky, having his girlfriend's sexual pleasures be exposed to himself and the cafe audience was a shock to the system.

Is She or Isn't She?

Tempted by a Positive. Lana talks to a Sex Positive in military uniform before going onstage.

How was Lana able to become a Sex Positive at the end? Was she always a Sex Positive but didn't realize it until the final scene? Or did something transform her into a Positive?

This a crucial question. If the final scene transformed her, then Negativity could be reversible for everyone as well; it would imply that all Negatives had the potential to become Positives. It would also suggest that something about the final tableaux had triggered her Positivity. Perhaps cafe performances can empower watchers and restore sexual passions instead of paralyzing them.

Another possibility is that Lana always was a Sex Positive, but had been hiding that aspect of herself either consciously or unconsciously. This leads to other questions. Why would a person presumably enthusiastic about sex pretend to be incapable of it? Are any other Positives impersonating Negatives?

Still another possibility is that all Sex Negatives are actually Sex Positives, but are either unaware or unwilling to become Sex Positives.

Some evidence suggests that Lana always was a Sex Positive. Before the Enforcers arrive to flush out the Positives, Lana stands up to leave, announcing that she was going to tell Moms that they had come. She remains absent during the whole time the Enforcers are questioning Angel. That might indicate having something to hide. Lana's fascination with Cafe Flesh exceeds that of other Negatives, and she even expresses excitement at the prospect of someday being allowed to choreograph a fantasy. That contrasts with the resigned, cynical attitude of other Negative audience members. When Lana and Nicky are talking in the apartment and Nicky complains about Max's teasing, Lana replies, "They're just jealous of what we've got." That hints at some special relationship or status. At several times Lana expresses enthusiasm for their old sex life, and perhaps Lana chooses to hide her Positivity as a way to remain faithful to Nicky. But if that is true, why wouldn't they try to engage in sexual activity that at least brought sexual pleasure to Lana? Why would she hide her self-caresses from Nicky if he was already aware of her (hidden) Positivity?

While talking backstage to one of the Sex Positives, Lana lets a female Sex Positive caress her breasts lightly (although seconds later Lana objects or at least pretends to). The private masturbation scene does seem to support the idea that Lana is a Positive, though it's unclear whether this was the first time she tried it or whether she did it often. Could the very state of being a Sex Negative mean that one could touch oneself but never feel pleasure from being touched by others? The movie never hints that other Sex Negatives might have similar private moments of Positivity. Also, if many Sex Negatives were hiding their Positivity, wouldn't the Enforcers be identifying a lot more Sex Positives? How do the enforcers "flush out the positives" anyway? One enforcer holds a mechanical device like a Geiger counter while the lead enforcer seems to rely on biographical details about Angel when he confronts her with her Positivity. As the Enforcers search for Positives, the movie pans through the crowd of immobile and impassive faces until it reaches the terrified face of Angel. As scary as the raid was, Nicky seems to think it's no big deal, suggesting that this raid was a regular occurrence. To the surprise of everyone there (including Moms), Angel turns out to be a positive.

If Lana were always a Sex Positive, how would she have been able to elude the Enforcers every time they came? Nicky and Lana speak nostalgically about the times when they could have normal sexual relations. But when Nicky and Lana try to make love in their flat, they both vomit, suggesting at that point that Lana was still a Negative. On the other hand, it is Nicky who vomits first; Lana could simply be pretending. But is she hiding her true nature from Nicky—and does Nicky even realize it? When it is revealed that Angel is a Sex Positive, Nicky asks her, "why were you hiding?" He seems oblivious to the idea that his own girlfriend could be hiding her Positivity as well. On the other hand, Nicky realizes that Lana has an unusual interest in the Cafe Flesh performances and loves hanging out with Sex Positives.

When Nicky asks Lana to come closer so he can kiss her, Lana replies, "Why torture ourselves?" She knows that sexual consummation between them is impossible. But it's left unclear whether it is simply because Nick is impotent or whether they both are. At several times Lana alludes to once being able to have sex with Nicky. When a female Sex Positive starts caressing Lana, she says, "There's nothing I miss more than the feeling of Nick inside me—holding me, touching me. But I can't." (29:35) It's unclear whether Lana is saying this because of her physical inabilities or simply because she needs to stay faithful to Nick.

The most compelling evidence that Lana was normally a Sex Negative (and not just pretending to be) is her external responses to the Cafe Flesh performances. Although Lana's physical arousal is evident during the Johnny Rico number, she shows no signs of arousal during the first four cafe performances. Her reactions are no different from the other Sex Negatives, and the camera gives her expressions no special prominence. Until Lana's masturbation scene, Lana appears to be a Sex Negative both in word and behavior.

Lana's sexuality is left unclear. She can and she can't. In the masturbation scene she uses her imagination to awaken desire. She imagines herself as a Positive; as the camera wanders throughout the empty cafe, she seems to imagine herself as a performer. Whether she is pretending or pleasuring herself for real does not matter; it does not make a difference for Max who is watching Lana or the (male) movie viewer. The viewer sees Lana making the motions of masturbation and imagines her in an orgasmic frenzy.

But a filmed sex scene is already a contrivance, one in which the performers have to complete the assigned tasks before a camera. Sexual pleasure might still occur during the shooting, but the viewer can never really know except by external behavior. Actors in Cafe Flesh were instructed to play the sex scenes without emotion, making it that much harder for the viewer to read. By de-eroticizing Lana's external behavior and providing a setting in which she appears to "re-eroticize" herself, the movie preserves character autonomy (allowing viewers to identify with her pleasure) and turn her into a sex object at the same time.

The ambiguity of Lana's sexuality allows the viewer to take pleasure in her pleasure which she appears to pursue willingly. At the end she is the center of attention, seeming to dwell in the dreamy state of sexual passion. She is a Sex Positive, although her subjective state remains a mystery. Is she satisfied? Feeling dehumanized? Basking in her own sexuality? Longing for the desiring attention of Negatives in the audience? Or longing for Nicky? The viewer can only speculate.

Hope for Masculinity

Throughout the Johnny Rico sequence, Nicky watches helplessly. He looks on in a daze, and Max stands besides him roaring with laughter. ^[17]

Neggies & Possies Together. This is the only time in the movie where Sex Negatives and the performing Sex Positives are included together in the same shot.

Johnny Rico ejaculates over Lana's body, and for an instant the camera shows Nicky's back while he watches the embracing couple. This brief shot is the very first time throughout the movie where a Negative is put in the same frame as performers. Finally, the bartender ushers Nicky's stiff zombie-like body to the back of the cafe and out the huge door guarded by Mr. Joy, who asks sarcastically, "Leaving so soon, friend?"

Mr. Joy's question is interesting. Does Nicky come back? Does Lana's conversion to a Sex Positive affect their relationship? Has the final scene sparked a change in him or some new self-discovery?

Nicky moves away from the cafe performance while Lana enmeshes herself in it. In all likelihood Nicky will return to the cafe, though the situation has changed. Now that Nicky has two Sex Positives defending him, it's less likely that Max will be taunting him. And the female performer he'll be watching will no longer be a stranger but his girlfriend. Perhaps Lana's new role as a Sex Positive will make it difficult for her relationship with Nicky to continue. More than likely, their romantic relationship will continue while she performs. But with Lana's Positivity now in the open, Nicky will experience new emotions. That brief shot of Nicky watching Lana and Rico in the same frame suggests that Nicky can no longer remain completely detached from the performances. Perhaps Max can watch with more involvement and maybe even enthusiasm. The new arrangement might even trigger his own Positivity. Or maybe it will help him to accept who Lana has become and help Nicky to overcome the self-loathing that accompanies his voyeurism.

Male vs. Female

Do images empower or emasculate? Imagine for a moment if the roles of Lana and Nicky were reversed and Nicky were the one to change from Negative to Positive. Why would this not work? For one thing, the male viewer is not eroticized in the same way by the notion of his own sexuality. If the movie showed Nicky on the dressing room floor masturbating instead of Lana, it would be unthinkable for a male viewer to watch (though if a woman were included in the scene, it might somehow be acceptable). A male viewer is less interested in exploring the sexuality of his self-image than locating an object of desire, an image of a sexualized woman he can incorporate into his imagination. Incorporation is a way to bring HER to HIM, although in no way does it bring HIM closer to HER.

Lana is transformed by the images in the Johnny Rico scene, and eventually she enters the tableaux as a participant. Why does it seem unnatural that a man put in the same situation could ever make such a move? A man acts on his desire in a situation he can control, but Lana acts on her desire by entering an erotic situation completely out of her control. The movie is enticing for both sexes; it offers the image of a woman losing control completely in fantasy and succumbing to the fantasy by essentially walking right into it.

Gender Issues

In her psychoanalytic essay, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema", Laura Mulvey denies that the viewer's pleasure at watching a film can be possible without "stealing" the image of the woman and turning her into an object. She also claims that the aim of her psychoanalytic critique is to destroy the viewer's sense of beauty or pleasure while watching a film.

The Future of Sex

Cafe Flesh came out in 1982, and already it's out of date. X-Rated theaters have disappeared and with it any semblance of a live audience. Now we have livestreaming, VR porn and traditional porn video. Individual performers and couples are producing their own sexual vids which they can market directly to consumers, and online censorship continues and thrives. The threat of AIDS has diminished, while revenge porn, deepfake porn and sexual blackmail continues. In the US, access to abortion and pregnancy services has decreased while recording technologies continue to improve.

Nudity, porn-watching and sexual behavior have made it into mainstream movies and TV shows (though we also have intimacy coaches and still no erect penises or ejaculation). Gameshows and reality TV have allowed young reality stars to flirt and date and maybe even fuck for the viewer's entertainment. Song lyrics and comedy acts have more sexual jokes than ever and life-sized sex dolls are entering the market and a source for mockery.

The issues in Cafe Flesh are not only still they relevant, they will be more so.

Consider the possibilities:

Images can now be colorized, computer-generated and inserted into anachronistic situations. Once a nude image becomes available on the Internet, there's no telling what can be done with it. It might be possible to simulate Marilyn Monroe or Mickey Mouse having sex or any person having sex with a virtual image of oneself.

The division between performer, watcher and director will blur. Already some directors have made themselves the star of the erotic show, and actresses have taken over the camera. When the 90s porn performer Shane succeeded in licking a man's balls while still holding the camera in place, "It takes a lot of practice," she said coyly. ^[18] The time will inevitably come when spectators can invisibly watch sexual performances in virtual 3-D and perhaps even choose to participate in their own private telesex performance.

Identities will become more mutable. New porn stars already use phony names. The virtual sex world might allow participants to use phony identities and even phony bodies. Already in Internet chat, it is impossible to tell whether someone is a sexy young woman, a gay old man or an AI bot.

Sexual harassment and crimes will be more far-reaching. A man who used to be a flasher could (if he put his mind to it) send an explicit image of himself to every single computer in the world. If rape were a crime of violence and domination instead of physical passion, this same domination could be reenacted in ways that are not physically threatening but intimidating psychologically. A rapist can still be jailed, but virtual versions of himself can still roam the virtual world, and computer viruses and dark webs can multiply all kinds of pornographic content.

People can have sexual contact before actually meeting. Romance will solidify sexual ties instead of sex solidifying romantic ties.

Honeymooners might put their honeymoon porn tapes next to the wedding album on the bookshelf. Maybe someday it will be possible to witness one's own consummation.

Sex will be easier to import. Commercial sex workers could work from anywhere and never have to touch or see a client. Thailand, once the sex capital of the world, can infiltrate the world with its licentious army, earning all types of hard currency to reduce its national trade deficit. Sex is the only industry where no one nation can hold a competitive advantage.

A man could spend his entire life watching the rest of the world having sex.

Next: Appendix and Notes

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