The Film (2.5/5)

"Instructionalsploitation."  A term, coined by me, to describe Vinegar Syndrome's release of the circa 1970s pornographic film The Oral Generation which is considered a "loop" "marriage manual" and considered by me to be historically cinematic gold.  You might ask, what the hell is a "loop" or what is a "marriage manual?"  Let me lay down upon you some rated X American culture by explaining these terms and where they possibly could have originated.  "Loops" are to put basically plotless pornographic 35mm short films or also more commonly known as peepshows that were widely popular on the west side of 48th and 49th avenue of New York City between the late 1960s and early 1980s.  These avenues were highly lucrative with rows upon rows of mini cinemas that had marquees promoting various adult XXX films or stag films.  A product of or a bastardized spin off of the "loops" spun into being what is considered to be "marriage manual" films that graphically instructed husband and wife on how to explicitly please each other in the art of love making.  To put it more plainly, "marriage manuals" were the makeup to cover the dirtiness of sex.  "Loops" have come and gone due to advances in cinematic technology and the ability to privately watch your own porn movie at home making the "instructionalsploitation" film a part of the past, but now we can relive our carnal culture, our hanky-panky history, and our love for lust in the re-releases of films likes these such as The Oral Generation.

The presentation begins with an all out preview trailer for the main presentation which pretty much spoils and spills all the juicy content for you, then we're shown four short films entitled and in this order:  Clinical Sex, Any Way You Like It, Naked Sexes, and The Different Sex.  Each short has their own take on sex, some more abstract than others.  The more abstract for instance in Naked Sexes involves four women laying about what looks to be a hotel room.  Without one word being said, one women turns the switch on a radio and music begins to play (you know, the sounds of retro-groove porn) and the women begin to laugh along with three muscular and balding men - imagine carnival strong men.  The men and women are never shown in the same scene together, but we're made to think that these hyena-like women are laughing at the hulk-built men because they're literally making fools of themselves in small black thongs by slapping each other on the ass, shaking their butts, popping their thong strings, blowing up their already oversized chests, and performing ludicrous acrobatics.  The whole scene is off putting and lasts for over 15 minutes so be prepared for constant chuckling and banana hammocks.  Clinical Sex bares more a realistic nature, but the tone of this light-hearted short is far more disturbing by standard public view.  The male doctor helps his female patients with their sexual frustrations by being intimate with them in the patient examining room.  After being shutdown for his obvious ethical violations, he makes a light hearted joke about it and for the most part, these shorts are mainly farcical and, more importantly, not hardcore!  Unlike the feature presentation, the shorts don't show any penetration or any oral pleasures; in fact, only one phallus graces the screen and there is definitely a penis avoidance, but me being a man, I rather have my healthy intake of breasts and bushy vaginae.  Having these shorts companion The Oral Generation is either very idiotic due to their polar opposites when sexual explicit material is concerned or a part of strategic ingeniousness that creates the illusion of foreplay before the main event. 

The Oral Generation starts aggressively enough with some rough foreplay from an enthusiastic couple and then quickly cooled off by providing narrative history of people's sexual rights and while women were becoming more liberated in society, their sexual rights were becoming even more liberating.  Instructional literature was produced at an extraordinary rate with graphic illustrations making sexual exploits more easily obtainable for men and especially for, from this film's point of view, women.  If you're a history buff, you might have interests in learning more about a woman's expansion of rights.  For me, the voice over historical lesson was quite a lackluster and was just flat out boring, but the instruction on how to please a man leads to more stimulating content.  Oral pleasure, interracial sex, hand jobs, and threesome are the topics of choice and accompanied by a voice over; most likely someone reading from a script and not actually partaking in the action which is the feel that I receive.  The whole "marriage manual" of The Oral Generation feels like a misogynist take, but then you see porn actress Teri Russell and you're brought back down from Mars and realize that prominent porn actress get paid to do this sort of work.  Beside being on the DVD front cover, Russell appears in quite of a few of these scenes as either a stripper by edited cut-ins into the interracial blow job scene or in participating in intercourse with the threesome scene.

Russell, in my opinion, is the the hottest woman in the film.  It isn't the retro bush that you have to hack away with a machete that turns me off, but rather the frumpiness of the women, but then again that look is far more natural unlike today's porn stars  The 1970s starlets aren't made up to look like dolls and aren't stripped of their vaginal hair-dos to look like 11 year old girls.  These are women even if they're not portrayed as present day ideals of what a porn star should resemble.  The Oral Generation is a curious film in the aspect that many of these couples engaging in sexual activities might actually be real couples.  Besides Teri Russell, there is no cast list or no famous face to place.  To further suspicions, one pixie-cut woman had a face of anguish when her man stuck his penis in her mouth.  I'm not lying.  Her eyes where shut with such force I thought the wrinkles around her eyes would create permanent crevices.  She hardly moved an inch during the whole scene of mouth loving making.  A professional knob-gobbler wouldn't make such a face or go at it with such caution.

What makes The Oral Generation a unique porno is that it uses extreme closeups.  None of the male performers were exactly graced with a 10 inch, genetically engineered penis, but with the extreme closeup of oral sex, the illusion of a giant penis being caressed by a woman's swirling tongue fills your entire screen for what seems like an eternity.  I've viewed my fair share of today's porn industry product and the close ups never come as close as to what The Oral Generation provides.  Also, white on black porn was a lot more rare than it obviously is today.  The second scene features an Afro sporting black man getting "worked on" by his white, gingered haired woman.  All the while, scenes of the said black man are cut in with him stereotypically garnishing karategi, wielding sai, and making strenuous faces while sweating profusely.  Maybe this is what all men feel like when getting head?

Audio/Video (2/5)

The 35 mm film went through a 2K scan and turned out rather well for the 1.37:1 full screen presentation that Vinegar Syndrome offers.  With porn, I'm not expecting much in video quality; however, with that being said, circa 1970 porn never looked better as the grain was reduced and the color is not entirely saturated nor heavy in gray.  The editing could have used a little more attention as portions of the scenes were cut due to male "performance issues" and other scenes were badly edited to create certain facial effects.  

The audio is a bit choppy at times and can be a bit monotonous.  The dialogue is clear and soundtrack is audible and rather catchy too.  The mono sound is as good as it's going to get, but at least you'll have better satisfaction with video.

Extras (0/5)

There are no extras on the DVD.  There is a note accompanying the back cover that states, "to maintain an authentic theatrical viewing experience, the program will start as soon as the disc is inserted."  Basically stating that the trailers, shorts, and film are all in one.  You can navigate to a menu by pressing the 'menu' button, but I would call the whole package the film. 

Overall

The Oral Generation offers a inside look into the liberated woman of the 1970s.  While this kind of material is now obsolete in the porn industry, it still can be considered and be offered as an introductory or educational film into the world of porn - an ease into what is now in your face porn that is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year with toys, foreign gadgets, animals, and transsexuals.  Don't expect to be highly turned on by the content with the more natural woman and the hairiness of the men, but you will come to appreciate that the act of sex has not changed drastically over the years and that even four decades ago, we as the human race have been consistently perverse all that time.  Vinegar Syndrome's disc is also region free and everybody around the world can enjoy the pleasures of The Oral Generation