Shades of Pink

Succeeding where many a would-be filmmaker has failed (now that cashing in on "50 Shades of..." content is in open-season), Melissa Monet scores a home run with "Shades of Pink". This is top-notch 21st Century pornography, highly recommended to fans of lesbian video with a difference.

Given the role of a lifetime, redheaded Justine Joli plays your friendly neighborhood lesbian dom, opening the feature with a reverse striptease, and then revealing to us her lovely female slave Maddy O'Reilly.

Turns out Maddy is leaving her, so Joli heads to a restaurant/bar and picks up stunning Kirsten Price as potential replacement. I had seen her many, many times starring in rather routine boy/girl roles for Wicked, but this lesbian action reveals a lot of undisclosed talent.

Joli has Price make love to Maddy, and elements of BDSM, including spanking and training in the "Yes, Mistress" school of etiquette accompany a hot lesbian scene.

Movie's set-piece follows as Joli next brings home the indomitable Dana DeArmond, who takes her place, for the occasion, as dom in a no-holds-barred sexual bout where both are winners. Kirsten hiding not symbolically in the bedroom closet is voyeuse witnessing this spectacle along with the satisfied home DVD viewers.

Monet spends much of the film showing us how the innocent enough Kirsten is trained by Joli for slave-hood, not the "12 Years a Slave" Oscar-worthy kind but the modern version where for better or worse many a sexually active youngster is just yearning for such a life. What emerges is quality Sapphic sex with just a touch of bondage and submission, eschewing the gross-out excesses that a Madison Young, Julie Simone or Dana Vespoli brings to such material.

Next vignette is also extremely arousing, as Joli with Kirsten at the bar where they first met assigns the fledgling sub to coax two women to make love to each other. Job is pretty easy when they're lesbian actresses, and we're treated to a strong pool-table clinch by superstar Sinn Sage with cute relative newcomer Kiera Winters, who, alas, more recently has succumbed to gonzo boy/girl castings. Kirsten is more observer/instructor in this episode, rather than 3-way participant.

Feature inevitably climaxes with a solid Joli/Kirsten bed scene, with Joli firmly in control, but the S & M content in check. The ending of smooching and a snuggle reveals that we've watched, as intended, a sensual lesbian romance, not a heavy-duty BDSM exhibition.