NEW YORK — Despite repeated threats from Mayor Rudolph Giuliani to shut it down, Erotica USA has run its course at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center.
Sex-toy vendors have packed up shop. Porn-site publishers have pulled the plug. Fetish queens have donned overcoats and slipped away to hide from the light.
What a relief.
The four-day festival promised to deliver the state-of-the art in the age-old world of sex, but with the exception of a few gizmos that generated a bit of buzz, the larger event failed to stir much passion.
See also: Sexing the Big Apple
“It’s like an arts and crafts show at the state fair,” said Nathan Inwood, a special-effects make-up designer. “Except there’s no art. There’s really nothing erotic. Putting on a latex suit and jumping around does not make you erotic. A booth that sells porn mags is not erotic.”
How sexy can a staged show at a convention center be?
The show came to a climax, so to speak, at Saturday’s Clublove.com ball hosted by Seth Warshavsky’s self-promoting porn site crew.
“Be there as Clublove’s sexual liberation army of porn sluts turn their other cheeks and take Manhattan by storm,” urged the teaser on the Clublove Web page that would host the event’s live Webcast.
That apparently sounded appealing to a good many folks. Hundreds lined up outside Club New York, a throbbing disco just west of Times Square, waiting to revel in the promised “outrageous acts of carnal celebration.”
A middle-aged couple, desperate to pump some steam into their tepid sex lives, flew down from Canada just for this. They stood silent in line, focused and tense. There were many couples like them.
There were the new couples, still eager in the early days of sexual discovery and looking for a frolic. “We heard Guiliani was against it, so we figured it must be for us,” said a strapping young fellow. His girlfriend giggled mischievously.
Then there were the singles: Self-conscious leather-clad women, accountants or lawyers or some-such, out to prove they still had a dark side; packs of drunken men in button-down shirts slapping high-fives and taking bets on who’d get lucky; dreary voyeurs in long-coats skulking in the shadows. The bored and casually curious waited impatiently. At 10 p.m. the doors opened, the crowd rushed in and … nothing. An empty dance floor, a Clublove banner, a couple bars. No techo-gadgetry. No cyber-sirens. One of the bartenders was bare-chested, but he seemed a bit surly.
“This is it?” cried the Canadian man, staring at his wife in disbelief. They wandered across the dance floor, sat down on a low sofa, and watched glumly as the crowd streamed in to stand with folded arms and hands in pockets, realizing there would be no guided tour into the heart of darkness.
“You’re in a discotheque, get the hell out there and dance,” shouted the DJ after an hour or so. A peroxide blonde with enormous fake breasts bounded onto the floor, and slowly others followed.
In the corner, a group of suspiciously well-built women in typical evening attire sulked and smoked cigarettes. The Clublove girls. “I’m really bored,” one said.
Their chance for excitement happened shortly thereafter with the kickoff of the party’s sole event — the erotic dance. Only the girls weren’t dancing. Instead, they pulled drunken men from the audience and urged them to take it all off.
They didn’t have much success until they tapped a black-clad vampire with filed teeth. He and his companion happily took it all off, and the show came to an abrupt halt when the two tried to have sex on stage. “We have to be really careful with Guiliani and all,” said a Clublove spokeswoman.
With that, there was nothing left for the crowd to do but drink and dance.
As the air of staged eroticism dissipated, the older couples shuffled out the door, defeated. The new couples ground and swayed happily on the dance floor. The leather-clad single women danced with the same cocksure and presumptuous men they swore off years ago. The packs of drunken men in button-down shirts stood on the periphery of the dance floor, slapped high-fives, and took bets on who’d get lucky.
Dreary voyeurs in long-coats slipped quietly away to the peep show booths and smut shops that still lurk near Times Square.
Same as it ever was, same as it ever was.
