This Week's Guest: Conner Habib
You may think you already know a lot about Conner, given that you've probably seen him naked in such films as Dad Goes to College, Hot House Backroom Volume 18, and Brief Encounters.
But Conner actually holds his cards pretty close to his furry chest. Though you might've seen him naked in porn, you probably know less about his background growing up in Mennonite country, dabbling in the occult, getting lost in the Pennsylvania punk scene, and his secret super power.
"There was something appealing to me about being a kid with superpowers," he says, reflecting on his childhood obsession with Superfriends. He'd fantasize about having powers of his own (something he still does to this day). Back then, he longed to be able to control animals -- maybe because he had severe allergies that prevented him from even being able to touch the family dog. "It kind of just shows that I was really lonely," he says.
Later on, he stumbled across a book on the occult in the school library, and his new obsession became spells and hexes. Alone in his room -- or sometimes with a friend -- he'd open the stolen book and chant incantations and make voodoo dolls. And even when the spells seemed to have no demonstrable effect, such as when he tried to turn himself into a cat, he was confident that at least something was happening. "I look back now and think maybe I shouldn't have messed with that stuff," he says, but "I just wanted there to be more magic."
It wasn't easy being gay in his small town. There was one neighbor who he'd have sex with, then berate himself endlessly. At school, he'd beg male friends for sex, and they'd all laugh it off as a joke.
As he got a little older, he fell in with the Pennsylvania punk scene, which was a good fit for his strangeness and rule-breaking. Even though he scene was pretty homophobic, the punks that he met seemed to respect that queer people were doing something that freaked out the mainstream, and they respected him.
Eventually, he decided, he was going to move to San Francisco to become a porn star. He was teaching at the time, and his students thought it was awesome. Once again, he was going to dive into a world outside the mainstream -- whether fantasizing about superheroes, chanting spells, listening to punk rock or slipping away for gay sex. Throughout his life, he realized, he's been an outside.
But after a while, if you're an outsider in enough ways, "you're no longer an outsider. You're a bridge."
By the way, Conner's hosting a live online course on Sunday, June 5, called Pornworld that's all about what porn teaches us about sex. I'll have more details on that at the end of the show, or head over to ConnerHabib.com to find out more about the course.
This Week's Recommendation: The First Nudie Musical
Even though these days Connor only takes off his clothes on an infrequent basis, there's still plenty of porn to be enjoyed in the world. And for this week's recommendation, I suggest you find a movie called "The First Nudie Musical."
The film was made for a couple of bucks in the late 70s and stars, of all people, Cindy Williams from Laverne and Shirley. The story is that a low-budget porn studio is about to go out of business, but the owner -- who inherited it as a legitimate movie company from his father -- wants to keep the family business alive. His secretary, played by Cindy, suggests that they make a pornographic musical extravaganza called "Come Come Now." And there you have it: an excuse for a series of bosom-bearing scenes set to song.
As musicals go, it's, well, fine, with numbers like "Lesbian Butch Dyke" and "Dancing Dildos." As porn goes, it's probably not going to win any Grabby awards. But there's something about the blend of the two styles that's hard to look away from.
And in a way, it's a bit like sex: occasionally hot, mostly messy, sometimes funny, a little serious but mostly really really really weird. There's nothing profound about the movie, no deep truths revealed by the sight of Cindy Williams wearing a hat shaped like a middle finger, no philosophies explained by the actress who brags at an audition that she's done some minor bestiality. Like a good roll in the hay, a sexy film doesn't have to be deep or penetrating -- sometimes the best ones are just a bit of silly, harmless fun.
Music:
Parisian Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/