We Angelenos love things easy. We wait for the DVD rather than going to the trouble of a movie. We’ll order-in much more often than we get snazzed up to go out and when we do bother to pick up a book, it's paperback over hardcover every time. Then there are the things that deserve the effort and extra packaging: a premiere at the Arclight, the omakase at Matsuhisa and if you found yourself at Alpha Male and Coco de Mer on Thursday night for Taschen's Big Penis Book release party, you'd know there's at least one subject that should never be offered as a softcover.
The book's a follow-up of sorts to editor Dian Hanson's Big Book of Breasts and as she signs copies, she surveys the crowd and enthuses, "This is going to be my biggest hit! I'm going to sell a million copies." As she signs my copy (To Japhy, Cock Rules! D.H.), I ask her if she always knew she had a success on her hands. "After the first book, everyone was asking me what I was going to do next and everyone thought it'd be the vagina, but I knew there was only one thing I could do!" Apparently it was no big thing convincing publisher Benedikt Taschen to get behind it. "I mean, really," Hanson says. "Who doesn't love cock?"
Who doesn't indeed, Dian. The dick on display in the book, except for the cover (more on that in a moment) is vintage. It's also, as promised, big: No guy is under 8 inches. As typical for Taschen, the book is as much an objet d’art as it is a publication. Crack it open and each of the 400-plus photos have the pungent musk of ink about them. Each photographer has either an essay or interview included, in English, German and French. If you've ever wanted the authoritative, critical take on Falcon Studios, it's here. One of the photographers, Charles Hovland aka Chuckpixx, is in attendance and I ask him if he ever thought he would be published in an art book. He laughs, "No, never! Do you want me to sign yours?" He gracefully slides a flyer for his porn website into the fold as he hands the book back to me.
What surprises me is that the crowd isn't at all what you'd see at say, your local neighborhood sex expo: There are model types outfitted in Comme de Garcons, a smattering of film executives of both sexes and a middle-aged woman in pearls. Genius jewelry choice! A boy in a blue velvet blazer explicates for me, "This is not your typical L.A. crowd at all. You know, you go out in L.A. and you see girls in baby doll dresses and bleach blond hair. These girls are women." We're both in another line, this one to get our book signed by its cover model, Chad Hunt. When removed the clear plastic jacket reveals all and as we're staring at Chad Hunt's cock, the boy tells me, "I need to call my ex. He's going to be so jealous." They used to both get off to Chad, he explains, and his eyes light up as we get closer. "I've never met a porn star before. It's weirdly intimate to meet someone you masturbate to."
Chad signs my book Keep it Hard, which is also the exact same thing he tells me when I ask him what he'd like to say to Popnography readers. I try asking him a few questions but all I get are variations on "Awesome" and "It's great to be here!" The only interesting thing about him (I mean, other than the obvious) is that he's brought his teenage son along with him. The kid stands behind his dad, smiling now and then.
There are some people who will be turned off by the high-falutin’ ambitions of The Big Penis Book. They prefer their porn without introduction, in cheap glossy magazines that you throw away once soiled. Those guys might cynically sneer that they don't need a veneer of pretension to enjoy their smut. Okay, but that's not really the point. As long as you have a pulse these photos will turn you on, but they're also interesting artifacts of the Sexual Revolution, making them erotic in another way. Many of the models in the book were hustlers and criminals; almost all of them are dead, mostly from AIDS or drugs. The photographers were usually only marginally aware of their own gay identity and often hated themselves for what they did -- and all that bleeds through onto the photo. You look at these hung guys and like all good porn, you fantasize; but not just about what you’d like to do with him, but who he was, what his life was like and what happened to him.
As a sort of living coda, Taschen has Falcon porn star (you never hear about porn actors, do you?) Tony Capucci modeling on top of a bookshelf, sucking on a tiny pink penis lollipop while filling out a pair of graphic print briefs. Thinking about the models in the book, I ask for his take on his career choice. "It's fun! I get to go to parties like this and besides --" He pauses for effect and sticks the lollipop in his mouth, a move that really plays when you're a mostly-naked Italian hunk: "It’s a great way to meet guys."
-- JAPHY GRANT
Great review. You could have gone so many typical places with this story but you kept it tasteful and interesting.
Can wait to read(?) the book.
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