"Crash Pad 5": Now With Actual Padding

Feel a little creepy watching porn? Guess what: lesbians think you're creepy, too. In this latest episode of "The Crash Pad," an unblinking techie monitors for your benefit the Sapphic (and bepenised) goings-on at a sex drop-in center for Ladies.

The Crash Pad 5: Revolving Door

Studio: Blowfish
Director: Shine Louise Houston
Cast: August, Stacy Staxxx, Rex, Scarlett Chaos, Red, Cyd Loverboy, Kuma, Julie Warren, Shawn, Mickey Mod

Review by: Gram Ponante

Not that the whole creepy/proxy thing is spelled out. Indeed, little is explained in the "Crash Pad," other than the format for this episode is similar to that of its predecessors: there's someone watching, but she has no bearing on the antics of those she watches.

So if she has no bearing, if no one discovers her, if her watching has no effect on the watched, why do we even see her? No reason, really, other than just the slightest whiff of context always makes porn more exciting. It is like "Wide World of Animals" if Marlon Perkins had just stayed out of the beasties' way.

Well, not really. But we like to watch regardless.

And this episode has a lot to watch, such as the very first scene, in which transsexual Stacey Staxxx offers herself as a birthday present for (at first) dubious girlfriend August.

"It really made me feel pretty," August said.

"So," a no-nonsense bespectacled woman rocking Joanna Angel hair says to a plaid-shirted pickup, "when I saw you at the club you were flagging orange. That means Anything Goes. You ready to put your money where your mouth is?"

Another couple trusses, tussles, and straps each other, the top pummeling her partner's chest in a rain of blows you would not see in straight porn. There is caning, spitting, and an aggressiveness that the viewer feels is just fine with the submissive.

"You want me inside you?" says a bald top wielding a whip.

"Yes Sir," her partner says, flouting the patriarchy it took ages to get Just So.

In straight porn there really isn't such a thing as politics. There is only "When will she do anal?" But in "The Crash Pad 5," the final scene is one that has people talking, has people angry, has people blushing.

The final scene is between sunny-faced dyke Shawn (aka Syd Blakovich) and a man named Mickey Mod. In the world of the scene, he is sitting on the bed of the Crash Pad and Shawn walks in, thinking she found the wrong place.

It doesn't take her long to reconsider. As she says in the BTS interview, "Gender doesn't matter if you find someone attractive." And the scene they do together, featuring mutual masturbation and what I imagine is the first cumshot in this series, is a lot of fun. I hope no one burns down the Crash Pad for it.

"The Revolving Door" is a just a little darker than the other episodes of the "Crash Pad" series, but director Shine Louise Houston shines an expert light on a portion of the citizenry we don't see enough of.

· Crash Pad Series (crashpadseries.com)
· Buy "Crash Pad 5" (blowfish.com)