“Ashley Loves Julie” Is No “Joanie Loves Chachi,” Thank God

With a title like "Ashley Loves Julie," you'd expect a credits montage featuring a quasi-lesbian romp a la "Laverne & Shirley" rather than a stark cold open of one woman mercilessly slapping another's "fat tits" around. But I don't watch much television anymore.

Julie Simone picks on Ashley Renee over the course of several scenes and frankly, Reader, I believe that Simone isn't as offended as she claims to be. I mean: Renee tweets that someone else is "the best rigger in the world"? Common sense suggests that such a slight not be met by tying up Renee and beating her. But I think the premise of "Ashley Loves Julie" is that these two like their relationship.

But that is the insular joy of fetish films: it's such a small community—even by porn standards—that we see some of the same players over and over again and we also get to know their signature moves. Renee is curvy, white, and easily bruised. She has a great look of I've Been Here Before vulnerability that Simone seems particularly attracted to.

Simone herself is neither a shrill yeller nor a self-consciously asexual domme. We get the feeling that in a previous life she was a bombshell pinup who would have given anything to take a few swats at Bettie Page.

Simone's films are intimate and low-budget, but I like this one because she and Renee work together in several different settings rather than the same dungeon. Even a woman whose job it is to be professionally roped and beaten needs to get roped and beaten with an occasional change of scenery. This is probably why "Ashley Loves Julie": because Simone ropes and beats her all over town. and then leaves her tied up outside.

Still, imagine if, after singing "When You Look At Me," Chachi had rigged Joanie to a diagonal crucifix and fucked her cruelly?

· Buy "Ashley Loves Julie" (juliesimone.com)