FIRST YOU HAVE to get over the weirdness of watching porn in a movie theater with a bunch of strangers. Then you have to move past the idea that all porn involves ladies with giant boobs uttering stilted dialogue while being penetrated by enormous dicks. But if you can get over those two things, then maybe CineKink is for you. The New York-based kink-and-sexuality film fest is chockfull of hardcore flicks made not for the furtive-trenchcoat crowd, but for people who want to be loud and proud about diverse types of sex.
CineKink has been running an annual porny film fest in New York City since 2003, and is bringing its best-of films from 2012 to Portland (the only other place it's screening this summer is Vegas). Their one-night show has two screenings; the first, "Kink and Kinship," is short films with titles like The Transexual Dominatrix and Sisterhood of the Sash: International Ms. Leather at 25. The second screening is the "Best of CineKink," made up of eight favorite shorts from the larger festival this year.
The films themselves are a mixed bag. Films fluctuate from a serious, informative documentary about adult movie theaters in San Francisco (Smut Capital of America), to a juxtaposition of interviews about queerness with graphic video of queer sex (What Makes Us Queer), to a zany Scandinavian music video about wanting to fuck a bald man (Skallamann). There are films that drag, a few fun moments, and a lower-than-expected dose of sexiness (though keep your eyes open for gorgeous Portlander Poppy Cox in Pedal to Pleasure). All in all, CineKink is more about what its films mean—and the experience of watching them together—than how they actually play.