The Blowfish Blog

[The Pro Circuit] More Fun With POSSporn

It would be hard for anyone who appreciates elements of the unusual with their prurient interest to not be compelled by the strange history of the Verne Troyer sex tape. Most recently, AVN.com has featured a lengthy video interview with Ranae Shrider, Troyer’s ex and the woman who appears with him in the purported tape, and most notably in the 25-second clip posted on TMZ.com. It also has a photo gallery of her, including numerous bikini shots, va-va-va-voom.

Shrider, an aspiring actress, can look forward to a lifetime as “The girl in the Verne Troyer sex tape.” As such, she might have my sympathy if she would just stop saying bizarre things — for instance, as she has said of the Playboy Mansion party where she met Troyer: “I was totally not in my element there . . .A friend I was with said, ‘Let’s go over there and meet Mini-Me.’ I was hoping to meet someone like Ian Ziering, but hey.”

“Hey” indeed, Ms. Shrider. Might she also have more claim on my sympathies if she hadn’t just certified to a judge that the video camera used to create the footage was hers, not Troyer’s, and granted permission for TMZ.com to repost the 25-second clip, all the while shopping the tape for a reported $25,000 asking price? Surely.

In the AVN interview, Ms. Shrider claims not to be seeking her 15 minutes of fame, which is probably a good idea, because she’s not gonna get it. “Reasonably hot chick in the Verne Troyer Sex Tape” does not look great on her resume — we’re talking seven minutes, tops, Ranae, and then it’s gonna be a long parade of miserable years as “Shower Corpse 4″ and “Nude Victim in Peepshow” in late-night made-for-Skinemax movies with titles like Poisoned Passion and Vampire’s Slurp.

No, it’s Troyer who has my sympathies, having been, apparently, unwittingly dragged into the porn industry’s love affair with “persons of small stature” — hence the title of this column, referencing POSSporn, which I came up with strictly because nothing politically correct could ever stand up to the insulting term “midget porn.” I’m not so sure POSSporn is an improvement, but at least I’m trying.

Porn has an affinity for little people — a more obvious affinity, even, than comedy, where many little people actors have found work. But with porn, the connection between gawking and wanking is more obvious. When P.T. Barnum exhibited General Tom Thumb, the viewing public was encouraged to pay for the privilege of looking at things they’re not supposed to. Sound familiar?

The mounting interest porn has in portraying Grand Guignol enterprises like the double-anal or bukkake is just the latest extension of the testing of the taboo. Porn featuring little people has never been a large niche within the adult industry, but it’s a solid theme that keeps returning. Is that complementary to, or counter to, sex positivity? I have no idea, and I do not hesitate to admit that the whole thing freaks me out a little. POSSporn is, to me, about as weird as interracial and ethnicity-oriented porn, with its endless parade of offensive epithets and weird stereotypes, or “BBW” porn with its euphemisms like “Rubenesque” that drive some viewers frothing mad with anger, claiming condescension. And yet persons of small stature cheerfully act in porn, and non-Caucasians act in potentially offensive interracial porn, and large women in BBW porn with questionable intentions. Are those performers doing a disservice to anyone, including themselves? Any glib politically-correct answer I give, pro or con, is going to be bullshit from some angle. Bridget the Midget has every right to work, and every right to work as a porn star if she digs that. And if people dig her, or Verne Troyer, for reasons that make me uncomfortable? Not so much Bridget’s problem.

Things get stickier, if you’ll forgive my pungent language, when you consider the case of Diablo, about whom I simply must quote myself:

In [the] opening scene, Paris Gables plays a dominant nun teasing Amber Rayne with a riding crop, whereupon Brett Rockman shows up dressed like a priest. He begins misquoting scripture while Diablo, a differently abled little person dressed like Jesus, hangs on a cross and screams non-sequitur encouragements like “Oil her ass! I need my fucking dick sucked! I’m Jesus!”

This from my review of Thomas Zupko’s bizarre porno Ass Squirts, in which I as a viewer was pissed off not so much that Jesus was screaming at me (I’m used to that) but that Diablo never did get his dick sucked. Here, Zupko’s artistic intent, clearly, is to freak you out with Diablo, not so much to turn you on. Does it make a difference? Who the fuck knows — not me. The thrill of the forbidden and the thrill of the politically incorrect seem too close to call in so many things.

Easier to look at up close is the case of Tripod Mike, a person of small stature whom I witnessed in flagrante delicto, as he was kinda hard to miss, at a recent private party. A documentary about Mike was recently produced at my day job. In it, Mike describes himself as “an attention whore,” and more power to him; I support all types of whores. If your attention span is on the short side, thrill to a YouTube video of Mike wrestling in applesauce with a hot chick named Megan, which seems like a worthy pastime for any person of any stature, performer or no, though in the future I’d encourage Megan to seek out grits or oatmeal wrestling gigs in order to minimize the risk of yeast infections.

And Verne Troyer? Plenty of people have been accusing him of using the sex tape as a way to hoax headlines and get publicity, but others, including me, are less convinced. Amelia G at Blue Blood, for instance, recently posted that she received a notice to take down a YouTube imbed code of the 25-second footage from someone claiming to be Troyer’s manager. Amelia’s post indicates numerous instances of sketchiness on the part of the claimed Troyer manager, but the entertainment business is filled with sketchy characters, many of them legitimate in their sketchiness. Amelia took down the imbed code and apologized to Verne Troyer for posting it. Her post is the reason I’ve not linked to TMZ’s footage in this article, and if you can’t use a search engine, you’ll just have to live without it (I’m sure you’ll survive).

Yeah, maybe the controversy’s a hoax and Troyer is getting ready to cash in — but I doubt it. I think it’s more likely he’s wishing Ranae Shrider was shopping her sex tape of Ian Ziering right about now. More than likely, so is Ian Ziering.

Thomas Roche blogs about nuclear politics, H.G. Wells and the AK-47 at thomasroche.com.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, 8 July 2008 at 12:00 pm and is filed under Industry. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.