T H E_.H O T_.S P O T A call to hearts By Susie Bright Being single on Valentine's Day doesn't have to be a downer (02/05/99)   ___________________ Got an urge you need to satisfy? Check out barnesandnoble.com's selection of sex books ___________________   R E C E N T L Y Decade of the dick By Deanne Stillman Bobbing from one scandal to the next, the male member has seized center stage at the close of the millennium (02/11/99) Boogie bites By Jenn Shreve Porn star activists want to pave the way for a new era of enlightened porn ... but isn't this an oxymoron? (02/04/99) Strap-on epiphany By Virginia Vitzthum In becoming the penetrator, a woman learns to see sex -- and the world -- through male eyes (01/28/99) Confessions of an office pervert By Angie Monroe In satisfying her own nasty desires, one woman discovers the key to worker productivity (01/21/99) Bonfire of the porn queens By Benjamin Weissman Trapped between a silicon breast and a hard place, the Adult Video News Awards struggle to boost their legitimacy (01/14/99) - - - - - - - - - - Browse the Urge archives - - - - - - - - - -		Dr. Block's little house of sexual horrors A GROTESQUE L.A. EVENT PROVES THAT WHEN IT COMES TO BEING UNSEXY, IT'S REALLY HARD TO BEAT SEX. ____________________- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -----BY CAROL LLOYD A woman wrinkles her nose, her pretty face a mask of derision. "Have you ever seen anything more unerotic?" A silver-haired, barefoot woman next to her agrees: "This is really shitty porno, like all porno. Look, he hasn't touched her once." "That's because he's gay," the first woman says. "Then why is he doing it at all?" wonders a dreadlocked young man. "Maybe he's a professional," I offer. The group raises their eyebrows, considering this. There must be an explanation for the scene taking place just five feet away. A blond, large-breasted woman and a massive black man are fornicating with methodical, casual self-consciousness, like two body-builders pumping iron after an injury. He is on top, banging away unhurriedly, holding himself away from her with two knuckled fists planted on either side of her hips. She doesn't touch him but fidgets with a silver vibrator while preening at the small live audience and the roving, carnivorous camera. The peanut gallery continues with its kibitzing, trying to make sense of how such an explicitly sexual spectacle -- the climax to an evening of broken taboos -- can be so deeply, utterly unsexy. The event seemed too good to pass up. Dr. Susan Block, a sex celebrity who is, among other items on a groaning résumé, an advice columnist, a maker of videos bearing such titles as "The Fine Art of Fellatio," the author of "The 10 Commandments of Pleasure," the holder of a doctorate in philosophy, a radio and cable access talk-show host and the cleavage-friendly poster child for all things sex-enlightening and self-promoting, was throwing a Valentine's Day party to celebrate the opening of her new sexual institute, located in an old 1920s speakeasy in "the heart of downtown L.A.'s art, fashion, financial and convention district." The invitation, on creamy, textured, heavy-bond paper, promised a Boschian garden of earthly delights: an erotic art exhibition, an "aphrodisiac buffet," cabaret-style entertainment, impeachment erotica, a chemistry lesson in how to "use fantasy to arouse reality" and the vague but intriguing "wild orgiastic felliniesque fun." The dress code (lingerie, pajamas, formal attire, uniform, naked in a trench coat or stylish slutwear) and the steep ticket prices ($150 for couples, $120 for "select individuals") made the event seem all the more legitimate. But what sealed my resolve was the event's charitable raison d'être -- a portion of the proceeds would go to save those endangered paragons of polyamory, the bonobos. I envisioned glamour and revelry, dosed with social responsibility and sprinkled with transgression. Oops. Down a dark street of boarded-up buildings past men huddled in furtive transactions, the folding table with a small copier seems like a beacon. "Fill out these forms," snaps the woman. "I'll need to see ID." Our driver's licenses are whisked out of our hands and run through the machine, while we fill out four pages of release forms -- giving our names, addresses, phone numbers and e-mail addresses. "Look this way, Miss Lloyd," says the man. A blinding flash. "It's all for HBO's show 'Real Sex,' Miss Lloyd." We climb a squalid, fluorescent-drenched stairwell. "I don't know if I want them to have my image," mutters my friend, a brunet dead ringer for Michelle Pfeiffer who has similar ambitions. Her husband sighs, "That was weird." I have lured them here with my own hyperbolic promises and now, the more they wish they hadn't come, the more I thank God they did. Inside the entrance, images proliferate like an epidemic. It would be unkind to call these Barnumesque figments people; I assume people inhabit these bodies at other times but now under the merciless HBO lights, in the stark chintz of artworks that repeat vulvas and phallae like so many corporate logos, each face becomes a surface too hard and opaque to emit any light. The dress code has been largely obeyed: Women shift in sheer scarves tied around their breasts or corsets or gownlike inventions that defy the laws of physics; men light cigarettes in silken pajamas or trench coats or pose in "slime wear," those shiny, skinlike fabrics that go taut with every move. Unlike my beleaguered friend, images are precisely what many people have come here -- and paid dearly -- to give away. Take me, HBO! Have your way with me! Dark, moody lighting and music might have shrouded this fact. But in this setting, the obscenity of imagery is far more striking than the imagery of obscenity. I dressed down, wearing a little skirt and a furry hat that numerous people in attendance seem to regard as some kind of fetish totem. "Hi Carol," comes a voice out of nowhere. A man with a monster spike choker and silver paint ringing his eyes like an extraterrestrial raccoon stands before me in a buttoned-up trench coat. "Remember me?" he asks. "I took your class." I peer closer. It is one of my recent career counseling clients, a shy, heavy-set artist. "Hello there," I smile. "I didn't recognize you. That's quite a get-up." He smiles bashfully and begins to unbutton his coat. Still cheery as morning light, I stammer my sudden concern for my friends and beat a hasty retreat. N E X T+P A G E | Free black breasts now! - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Become a Salon member. Click here. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - PHOTOGRAPH BY TOM ZIMMERMAN