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In spite of what you may think of Brent, the founder of insex.com, the
infamous bondage and torture website featuring gorgeous models being
bound gagged and drowned, the man was prophetic in his use as the
internet to engage users in anonymous guiltless sexual interaction that
paved the way for reality shows, thousands of voyeur and fetish
websites, and also helped streamline the concept of live feeds as we
know it. "Graphic Sexual Horror" is a documentary that's almost
impossible to sit through. While I am someone who is fascinated with the
darkest of sexual taboos, founder of insex.com, Brent, is an unabashed
lover of S&M, Torture, and bondage, and takes great pride in depicting
small filmed sequences involving women being tortured in some of the
most horrific ways possible. One woman is tied down and has hot pepper
cream applied to her vagina and she screams for minutes straight at the
burning sensation, and a girl is dropped in to a tank of water only
re-emerging from air whenever given permission. It's these sorts of
situations that while consensual and legally binding, are difficult to
watch mainly because for many this isn't a fetish they'd subscribe to.
But as is the saying, they
wouldn't be making this if people weren't asking for it.
Brent is a man who fancies himself an artist, and through
most of his interviews he takes great joy in showing us how
he's combined his love for performance art with his lust for
bondage. Through the ninety minutes given to us, we're
allowed to watch the many facets of insex.com unfold
including interviews with potential models, concoction of
torture devices, and even the audition process in which one
woman nearly begins to argue with Brent when he nonchalantly
explains he'll gag her with her own socks.
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But like every website out there, Brent
is feeding his own desires as well as his models in the process of
feeding his subscribers. The models are all tested as submissives
who are more than willing to be bullied and punished and often times
these filming segments end up becoming more about their need to
please Brent, their master, rather than fill their bank account and
resume. Quite often the models who engage in grueling film shoots
eventually trail back to the statement that they enjoyed it and
enjoyed that they made Brent happy. Brent is much like a grittier
Larry Flynt, someone who took his love for the human form and
sexuality and used it as a way to give people what they wanted, and
with the internet revolution, he was able to thrive financially and
artistically, without limits. And as with all artistic processes,
Brent does manage to falter every now and then as he indulges in his
sadistic desires and explores one incident involving a water tank
that ends with him and his engineer arguing back and forth about
whose fault it was (which if you step back looks like two jellyfish
trying to pin an accident on one another rather than owning up to
their faults).
One of the most powerful anecdotes involves
a live feed with a model who requested not to be slapped in her
contract, but Brent wanting to give a viewer what they wanted, slaps her
quite horribly over and over. Her reaction following this improvised
action is surprising and quite gripping revealing the potential
drawbacks and violent repercussions in feeding your own natural instinct
when applied to sex. The requisite mocking by Brent is also quite
nauseating. All the while the moment asks the audience to decide if
Brent is just a sadistic psychopath with an artistic coating, or an
artist willing to do whatever it takes to create a masterpiece. Even if
it means making someone suffer or exploit their vulnerabilities for all
of the world to see. Many people will definitely debate for hours on who
and what Brent is as a man and a filmmaker, and they'll decide for
themselves by the time the film had faded to black. Brent, whether he's
a visionary or a misogynistic pig, is a man who has shown us that film
can affect all of us and after seeing some of his videos, you'll no
doubt be changed. More than anything "Graphic Sexual Horror" is a study
of human nature and the sadism and masochism we're fully capable of and
fully willing to engage in if it means touching a base need in ourselves
to be punished and inflict punishment on someone, because deep down
we're all truly violent animals.
What
the directors behind "Graphic Sexual Horror" asks us as the audience to
do is think about what we as sexual beings are capable of and what
lengths we'd be willing to go through to feed our desires; more so why
does this sort of imagery arouse and titillate us when we just finished
crucifying soldiers for doing the exact same thing to prisoners in Abu
Graib? What does that say about us as a society? Is Brent just a monster
in sheep's clothing, or someone who knows better than we do what we want
out of the sexual experience?
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