Nina Hartley's Guide to Exploring Open Relationships

Nina Hartley has continued her decades-long association with the Adam & Eve label by fronting a series of white-coater semi-documentaries dealing with various aspects of sex. This one, co-hosted with Reid Mihalko, has the pair delivering lots of interesting information about swinging and polyamorous life styles, but the second half of sex demos (basically what the white-coater genre was invented to present to a prurient public) is lousy.

Bringing a wealth of experience to the subject matter, Reid and Nina discuss the differences between polyamory and swinging, former amounting in an odd way to a time-sharing approach to emotionally committed relationships. Swinging, of course, revolves around a solidly united couple experimenting with short-term, immediate gratification hook-ups with like-minded individuals.

I've been aware of these subcultures since the '60s, when movies began to explore the finer details from an entertainment point-of-view. But Nina and Reid present the possibilities in cogent, non-pedantic fashion, and the result is useful educational content -aimed at showing the viewer routes to greater fulfillment.

But then, under the direction of Nina's husband Ernest Greene, we have two lengthy segments to illustrate what's been said. Problem is that they amount to just two generic group-sex scenes, with swinging covered by interracial sex when a white and black couple switch partners, and the polyamory section having almost nothing to do with polyamory.

Problem might have stemmed from casting porn regulars, which distracts from the realism that might have been achieved with "just folks" getting it on. Closest to being just a man off the street is Bradley Brennan as one of the swingers, but conversely he merely demonstrates, through lack of experience & charisma, that perhaps porn pros are what the fans want to see after all. Adam & Eve has many amateur videos in its catalog, but many of them (as in the Amateur Angel series) are filled with superstars of the future or ringers.