“Barcelona Sex Project”: Erika Lust’s Masturbation Celebration

To say that Erika Lust's "Barcelona Sex Project" is masturbatory is not to imply that it's self indulgent. It is, at its heart, a movie focused on masturbation—and the masturbatory habits of six young Spaniards.

The movie—or docuporn, if you will—has a simple format, one we've seen before in films like "The New Romantix" and the work of Tony Comstock. Each of the film's subjects (three men and three women) are interviewed, telling the audience about their daily lives, their favorite books and music, their hobbies, and, of course, a bit about their sexual desires and fantasies. As the interview draws to a close, the film then cuts to a scene of the interviewee masturbating him or herself to orgasm. It is, as the tagline promises "true intimacy, personal interviews and real orgasms."

In the American porn market, "Barcelona Sex Project" is a bit (okay, maybe more than a bit) of an oddity: as a film focused solely on masturbation, and featuring a mixed gender cast, it's a film that defies convention. It's neither straight nor gay—but bisexual doesn't seem quite right as a description, either. It's simply a celebration of solo sex, one that eschews labels and opts to celebrate all sorts of self love; which, in our label-obsessed society, is a bit of a breath of fresh air.

Since this is the "Barcelona Sex Project," and not the "Dayton, OH, Sex Project," the interviews are conducted in Spanish. Subtitles are available for those who aren't fluent in the language, though to be honest, watching a porn erotic film with subtitles is a slightly odd experience. It's not that we have trouble with subtitles—many of our favorite films are foreign—but rather that subtitles require a certain amount of concentration and focus, and we're more used to being able to sit back, relax, and let the porn do the work. If you can soldier through, though, the interviews are quite fascinating, giving an intimate look at the subjects' lives (and if you can't, you can always just fast forward to the really hot self love scenes).

· Buy "Barcelona Sex Project" (blowfish.com)
· "Barcelona Sex Project" (lustfilms.com)