The sound of loud, breathy faux orgasms ricocheted upstairs at the Coolidge Corner Theatre. The ecstatic noises came from the screen, and they came from the audience. After midnight last Friday and Saturday, the Coolidge stepped back in time, to when there was a Combat Zone in Boston and porno theaters reigned. In those pre-VCR days, an anonymous, all-male raincoat brigade populated the theaters. In today’s DVD/pay cable/Internet-era, porn is generally a private pursuit. But this was porn as a social event, as group bonding. The theater was populated by boisterous mixed couples, groups of friends, mostly folks in their 20s and 30s. These people were out for some titillation and a few giggles. And they got it, because this was a Kim Airs production.
Airs used to own the women-oriented sex boutique Grand Opening! in Coolidge Corner and is now a consultant — her word — to the company that took over the space, Good Vibrations. She’s moved to California, but she comes home now and then, and she has a soft spot for staging racy entertainment at the cozy theater near her old store. For eight years, she put on “You Oughta Be in Pictures,” a locally based amateur porn fest. Last weekend, she staged “SmorgasPORN,” 13 old and new XXX clips, replete with running commentary from Airs, who at 48 is not shy about . . . anything. (I went Saturday with about 150 others; Friday’s show drew about 125.) Before the screening, she talked about how she’d scored tickets to three Red Sox–Yankees games last year. She put an ad up on Craigslist stating, “Yes, the Yankees suck, but so do I.” She got numerous responses and three hook-ups, one she said with a Red Sox player she would not name.
Kicking off “SmorgasPORN” was ’80s porn star Little Oral Annie, who was featured first in a poorly directed, though very explicit, threesome that led to much laughter, as Airs cracked, “It’s like she’s driving a stickshift.” Airs also brought the mic into the audience to solicit supplemental audience moaning, and she gave away sex-toy goodie bags to the winners. She did the same when she asked for a good title for a “bi” film and someone called out “I Get Bi with a Little Help from My Friends.” The most audacious clip may have been “Hot Squirts with Cytherea,” where the porn star demonstrated female ejaculation with a female co-star. The most revolting was “Chronicles of a Pervert,” with its necrophilia, zombies, gore, and copious bloodletting. Airs said that Adult Video News had named “Chronicles” the most outrageous sex video of 2006. No argument here. She did close on a warm note, with a Mr. Bill–like puppet video where the male and female puppets indulged each other’s fantasies and then snuggled. In porn, real people don’t snuggle; they spurt.
