Muse

In an era when pornographers have nearly given up the ghost of narrative storytelling in favor of grinding out gonzo content, Kayden Kross helmed this web series, starring Maitland Ward in a showy role as an ex-porn star turned university professor teaching impressionable youth in the Psych department about sex and sexuality in the digital age. Actually, her course is about the age-old issue of can porn be considered an art form? In the hands of KK, the answer is decidedly yes!

The five episodes of Season 1 compiled in feature form on this 2-DVD set feature Prof. Ward and her set of students, at work on a challenging homework project: each kid has to "create something pornographic" for prof to review and grade. KK keeps us up to date (and interested in) each student's activities and progress, while delivering gonzo XXX scenes involving Ward and the co-eds.

Ward is something of a female version of the prototypical film noir antihero, except she is a survivor of the porn wars, not WW II. She lectures a good game on the history of pornography and from a decidedly feminist posture (clearly as on-screen surrogate for auteur Kross) argues that art must be indecent and disruptive, and that clearly goes double for porn art. Episodes open pretentiously with quotes from Steinbeck, Da Vinci and Salvador Dali, and a key tribute is paid to Buttman aka John Stagliano re: his philosophy about porn, as he defended himself in a famous obscenity case. Like her less talented but equally pretentious current XXX competitor Bree Mills, KK's dialectical approach is a take it or leave it endeavor.

Key content includes Ward's fascinating BDSM sex scene with Gay Porn star Dante Colle, as she fights back against him and Ramzi Abed as a dunderhead pair of fans of her porn career who sexually harass her on the sidewalk and end up in bondage as her sexual prisoners.

Episode two continues with student Adriana Chechik going gonzo with boyfriend Seth Gamble, rebelling against her tyrannical and terminally jealous/controlling husband Ryan McLane, a hissable villain if ever there was one. By season's end Chechik has treated us to her ultra-fake brand of extreme squirting twice, including sub action hog-tied up in suspension in Episode Five.

Plenty of interrcial sex is doled out, as another case of sexual catharsis by Ward with BBC's possessed by Isiah Maxwell and Sly Diggler, who also are improbably a convenient form of release for Chechik. Students Gianna Dior and Scarlit Scandal have IR sex in a threesome with uncredited stud Rob Piper, as part of Scarlit's porn homework assignment, and MILF Lena Paul likewise has IR sex with Tony Francisco for hers. Robby Echo plays Lena's bratty son Chris, and like Piper he also fails to get a screen credit at DVD's end. Young superstar Gabbie Carter plays the sexiest of the students, more erotic in her softcore assignment here than her XXX peers.

A key subplot featuring suave (and smug) Manuel Ferrara as Ward's ex is teased throughout, and obviously saved for Season 2 to be resolved. DVD ends with a cryptic scene of a male chauvinist student named Ernest shopping at a convenience store, evidently to set him up for a larger role in Season 2. He is played by a minor actor (A. J.) I recognized from his lucky stiff role having a 3-way with London River and Casca Akashova in a Naughty America assignmentl.