Studio: Pink Visual
Director: Rico
Cast: Misty, Emma, Jeanie, Shasta

Portions of this review originally appeared on Fleshbot

A couple looking to spice up their marriage. A friend with a camera. The Internet. Arizona. What could possibly go wrong?

Before popping in this disc I was worried that the "couples" in question would not be real, or that they would be not much older than teens themselves. Turns out I needn't have worried. From scene one it was apparent that the couple on the prowl for an Internet teen (she a sculpted, deep-voiced woman and he a wise-crackin' good old boy with love handles) were both married and twice the age of their prey.

The word "seduce" is really overused in adult content, because everything is planned. If seduction happens, it's by accident; the money has been agreed on and, more important, the cast has seen everyone's HIV test.

But as the first couple made its way to an Arizona mall, a friend with a camera in the back seat of the car, it appeared more and more that this was actually happening. At that point I got a little scared. These people were going to pick up a girl that the wife had met over the Internet. The girl, Shasta, did not know the husband was coming and certainly didn't know there'd be a camera there.

We watch the tense negotiation before the young woman gets in the car. It's not just the lack of a smoke machine and porn heels that makes this look real.

And it continues to look real, with most sticking points explained away (continued presence of a camera), until the fucking happens. The husband goes from his wife to the young woman, back and forth, without a condom. I relaxed. It waasn't real, but it looked real enough. These people were professionals (although the wife really needed to go to a different tanning salon).

The remaining three scenes didn't spend so much time on exposition, and featured a pornier-looking couple. Where did Couple One go? It is as if they were kicked off Swinger Island.

In the remaining scenes, the feeling of watching something potentially awkward and sexy transpire in real time gave way to the realization that the cast should hurry up and stop pretending they'd just seduced each other.

When I seduced you, did I leave on all the lights in the motel room? No I didn't. Because I care about you, baby.

Natural-breasted Misty from scene three was my favorite, but if my wife and I decide to go seduce a teen, we're gonna stay away from Arizona.

Buy Couples Seduce Teens #1.

Studio: Private
Director: Xavi Dominguez
Cast: Liliane Tiger, Mya Diamond Tiffany Hopkins, Sonia Baby

Portions of this review originally appeared on Fleshbot

When the Private bundle arrived I was prepared for a certain kind of inscrutability. Foreign porn dubbed into "American" English, featuring performers whose lifestyle is different from the people who live down the street from me, with a wacky sensibility out of step with the too-cool and mercenary aspects of Porn Valley Porn.

Private's penchant for making porn out of mainstream movies is part of a formula that has allowed the Barcelona company to stay around for four decades - that and bigger budgets and beautiful models.

The concept of three hot crimefightin' babes is enough of a pole to hang a porn script on, and director Dominguez makes a nice effort to create an original "Charlie's Angels"-type story, with Liliane Tiger playing the Cameron Diaz part. That the plot is very hard to follow and centers on how cute the pricipals are should be no surprise to anyone who has watched either the Aaron Spelling TV show or the movies.

Tiger is lovely and amazing, with a blonde wholesome look. I turned the sounnd down when the dubbing got too ridiculous. Co-stars Sonia Baby (who appears to fly a helicopter), Tiffany Hopkins, and Mya Diamond all have a healthy look about them, as if they go running in the morning, smoke cigarettes, film some porn, and drink a lot of water.

While the movie is formulaic in its dependence on something its audience is already familiar with, I always find myself discombobulated when the sequence of events doesn't follow the standard blowjob+two positions+anal+popshot I'm comfortable with in my daily life.

Not so discombobulated that I couldn't watch Liliane Tiger anymore, though.

Buy it.

Studio: NinnWorx
Director: Michael Ninn
Cast: Hillary Scott, Adriana Nicole, Annette Schwarz, Tyla Wynn, Roxetta, Nikki Hunter, Otto Bauer, Marco, Dirty Harry

Portions of this review originally appeared on Fleshbot

From yesterday's exploration of men slapping women earlier this week we skip lightly to NinnWorx' stylized Pushed: Cat Fight, in which women slap each other for a change.

While the movie started off as high-gloss, sterile, and vaguely misanthropic—reminiscent of Ninn's "Catherine"—it really paid off in the end (not that I have any problem with misanthropy).

"Are you gonna let her get away with treating her ass like that?" asks Nikki Hunter of a game catfight between Alicia Rhodes and Hillary Scott, a British blonde paired with Chicago's Finest.

Why Hunter serves as emcee rather than participant is beyond me, especially since the ring announcer's role in this movie serves no purpose except to make the scenes louder. But this scene is the first of several studies in Pretty Girl SM-lite in which bruiseless, squealy, stage-moan slapping is paired with Dirty Talk 101. And the cast is adept at it.

Otto Bauer uselessly moderates a much more compelling scene between German Annette Schwarz and Adriana Nicole. Both stand about six feet in heels, and we get to hear Schwarz call Nicole an American Bitch.

Meanwhile Bauer drops bons mots like, "Do it. Do it. Do her. Do it."

I believe Bauer is director Ninn's on-screen proxy in the same way lead actors have of late fulfilled that role in Woody Allen's movies.

Just as in the first scene, the ladies are joined by male performer Marco after they are done slapping each other. He does not slap them.

When all seems destined to fade into a by-the-book but intriguing sameness, along comes Scene Three, a blue-lit hallway slamfest evocative of a similar sequence in "Altered States". Except this one has Tyla Wynn and Roxetta in it, both of whom perform their duties lustily.

Voyeur Dirty Harry appears and is not averse to being roughed up himself. This is a very taut, hot scene. I should start an awards show just to recognize it.

The behind the scenes footage is itself very slick and compelling, like the sexiest music video you've ever seen (aside from that Duran Duran video).

Buy it.

Studio: VCA
Director: Cat P.
Cast: Justine Joli, Jezebelle Bond, Vanessa Lynn, Daisy Layne, Hailey Young, Jayna Oso, Gia Jordan, Genesis Skye, Hollie Stevens

Portions of this review originally appeared on Fleshbot

Hot on the heels of the dispiriting news that Pluto is no longer a planet did Alpha 15: Reform School Girls arrive in my inbox. Why was Jezebelle Bond on the cover if Justine Joli was the star? Why had the name been shortened from its Alanis Morrisette-worthy length to describe Alpha 15 as a reform school when the opening sequence calls it a prison?

More to the point: Why was the movie so bad?

The Ron Royster era at VCA was a heady time, filled with intrigue and shenanigans. Royster put together an earnest, hard-working crew and produced three movies: Atomic Vixens, Benny Profane's Barbed Wire Kiss, and finally, Cat P.'s Alpha 15.

From the beginning, there seemed to be an Artists vs. Corporate America vibe in the Royster camp, and LFP decisions like changing the cover model and the title would seem to bear this out, but this movie is a train wreck from start to finish, and LFP is only at fault insofar as it released it.

From the comma-filled expository roll that lets us know we are both in a futuristic society and that it is the year 2969, to the poorly-lit prison scenes with the sounds of the director in the background, to the deliberately unsexy (and why would you do that in a porn movie?) images of "Big Sister", the movie didn't seem directed and produced as much as it appeared scraped off the windshield.

Cat P. shot behind-the-scenes footage for other Royster movies, including an informative, heavy-handed, and earnest documentary about her introduction to the porn business. This movie, on the other hand, does a backhanded service to porn in general by proving that making a good adult film isn't as easy as picking up a camera and getting $25k for locations, cast, and salaries.

It is a monumentally bad movie. You should watch it just to see how bad it is.

Now the good parts:

The cover. Whenever a porn movie is shot, there is a professional on-set photographer who is usually independent of the film crew. Fotog Kaden took this tasty but, in the context of the movie, unrepresentative shot of Jezebelle Bond.

The cast. This was clearly a movie for which the first thought was, "I'd like to see {insert name} naked; how do we make that happen?" Joli, Bond, Hollie Stevens, Genesis Skye, Hailey Young, and Jayna Oso look great.

Joli's scene with Genesis Skye in the shower. Probably because there was a light on in the room.

The rest of the movie. If you liked the night-vision, done-in-secret aspect of auteur Rick Solomon's "1 Night in Paris", this movie is for you.

The bonus disc. Antonio Passolini's Lezbo a go-go is worth the price of admission, in the same way the best thing about King Kong was the Spiderman 3 trailer.

Labels: reviews, vca

Studio: Naughty America
Director: Brett Brando
Cast: Tyra Banxxx, Carmella Bing, Taryn Thomas, Dillan Lauren, Holly Black

Portions of this review originally appeared on Fleshbot

Website-to-DVD transitions don't really pull punches. The sets are spare and we don't spend too much time worrying about context. Still, Naughty America, in its exploration of workplace relationships in offices where people don't wear underpants, at least makes a case for the existence of an outside world in which people don't sit around and blog all day.

I was not aware of such a place.

I don't know what-all the company provided or produced that would hire the whippet-muscled Tyra Banxxx to supervise employees, but in her scene (apparently her first onscreen anal endeavor) with a male underling, she is able to redirect his request for time off into a mouthful of sperm (her mouth). This trope keeps coming up. Who does she think she is - Puma Swede?

The transitions in this movie are somewhat rusty and overlong. Would it kill those people to pretend a camera wasn't there? Banxxx looks directly at the camera when she is supposed to be addressing her subordinate and suddenly I no longer had my precious fourth wall. Would she be blowing me next? I wasn't even dressed.

The next scene features the delightful Carmella Bing and some clod. The setup is that Bing is going office to office collecting money for the company birthday fund.

"Alex" has positioned his chair right up against the wall and is tucked into the desk. The office walls are bare. There is no rug. There are no photos on the desk. Anyway, Bing walks in.

"Hi, Alan?" she says.

(pause)

"No: Alex," he replies. Clearly he has never taken an improv class. And who would deny Carmella Bing?

As she tries to cajole money out og him, he replies that the company even forgot his birthday. "This company sucks," he says all sullen-like. Big-hearted Bing tries her damnedest to console him. Myself, I would have given up.

"Well fuck you then," I would have said.

Not Bing. You can imagine what she does to retain the employee. Sometimes it's more trouble to let the deadwood of a company go than to simply appease them.

The next scene is kind of sad. Dillan Lauren is interrupted by her boss while masturbating. She has been having phone sex with her boyfriend. Her boss not only dresses her down for the long distance charges but also derides her boyfriend.

Lauren is silently seething at her pig of a boss. What else can they do but have sex?

The most compelling scene, because it hit so close to home, was that between a corporate hatchet man and Taryn Thomas. Tasked with the onerous duty of firing her, she manages to get a year's severance out of him the only way she knows how. The verbal back and forth was very impressive; it was as if each had been in that position before.

The final scene features Holly Black, who looks like a more evil Carmella Bing. This cognitive dissonance prevented me from watching the rest of it, but it involved a negotiation for square footage.

Like Pink Visual's web-to-DVD efforts, Naughty America's movies are low on overhead. Naughty Office 4 had an edge because it depicted events that were so close to my own life.

Buy it.

Studio: Platinum X
Director:Martin Del Toro
Cast: Puma Swede, Samantha Roxxx, Velicity Von, Lexi Love, Vanessa Figueroa

Portions of this review originally appeared on Fleshbot

"You put a greased naked woman on all fours with a dog collar around her neck, and a leash, and a man's arm extended out up to here, holding onto the leash, and pushing a black glove in her face to sniff it. You don't find that offensive? You don't find that sexist?" asks Bobbi Flekman in "This Is Spinal Tap".

Watching a sweaty, near-naked Puma Swede crawling around a Porn Valley house on a leash held by two guys with erections might well inspire the same reactions in accidental viewers of Platinum X's Bitch Slapped, but we are reminded that the check was cashed and that everyone involved knew what she/he was getting into.

I've met Swede and she is one of the most well-adjusted, fun, down-to-earth people I've had the pleasure of meeting in this business. But if I didn't know her and saw what befell her in this movie I would think all sorts of Dworkinesque things related to misogyny and lack of choice.

She gets gagged, whipped, slapped, and otherwise treated most roughly before ultimately gargling a mouthful of sperm. I can only hope the IKEA furniture was of some comfort. Even the camera lens gets stained, and stays that way through the rest of the scene.

Vanessa Figueroa is next. Pulled mouth-first from a closet by Billy Glide (he is wearing Pharaoh-style bicep bands and sunglasses), she doesn't fare much better than Swede.

An interesting thing about Max Hardcore, JM Productions, and Platinum X movies is that often one has the opportunity to view the exact moment a performer decides that working in porn isn't for her after all, like a rollercoaster ride that must be endured. Samantha Roxx, removed from the trunk of a car with the Sharpie'd-on license plate "Slut 666" looks like she isn't having fun anymore.

Oddly-enough, it was on another Platinum X movie, Baker's Dozen 5, that I watched a woman named Natalie Knoxx silently give her notice. That Lisa Sparxx moved back to Kentucky makes me think that having a double X in one's porn name is too on the nose for hope of future success. We like to be subtle here.

It is the solidly-built Velicity Von who is alone in appearing to be enjoying herself in Bitch Slapped, but her sequence is almost devoid of the aggressive element that characterized other scenes.

The movie ends with Lexi Love in a three-way with Michael Stefano and the grizzled but dependable Brian Surewood. If it wasn't from the outset ("I thought Bitch Slapped would be about women slapping each other," a female colleague said. "For me, that would have been more palatable and probably hot. As it was, I got queasy"), it was now clear that women were to have as little participation as possible in this movie. That was the hook. Things would be done to them at a level greater than that of most other porn movies.

All this soul-searching is for nought in that I watched Bitch Slapped with my wife and she liked it.

We really should have Puma over.

Buy it.

Studio: Hustler
Director: Clive McLean, Erika McLean, Andre Madness, Van Styles, others
Cast: Memphis Monroe, Monica Sweetheart, Kayla Marie, Alexis Malone, Belladonna

Portions of this review originally appeared on Fleshbot

Culled from several episodes of the "Barely Legal" series, this seventh volume of the "All Stars" compilation is a crapshoot that pays off in unexpected places. At its worst, however, this movie is a study in how not to make a demo reel.

The "Barely Legal" franchise was launched by the late director Clive McLean. It was briefly taken over by his widow, Erika, and is now helmed by Andre Madness.

While it would be foolish not to mine Hustler's huge library for frequent compilations, the opening scene, featuring current contract star Memphis Monroe, does not show the Kentucky pinup at her best. Directed by Erika McLean, this scene is clunky and the acting is poor even for porn. That the movie from which this scene was taken came out in January of this year, it is evident that there is a salvage job going on.

But the DVD picks up speed in later scenes, showing Clive McLean in inspired mode and, well, less so. An all-girl segment from 2004's "Barely Legal 50" is a powerhouse, featuring not only Belladonna (who was a few years more than legal even then), but also Cytherea, Monica Sweetheart, a long-haired Kimberly Kane, and Audrey Hollander.

Alexis Malone in a scene from "Barely Legal 31" (it seems like it should be from a decade ago, but it was only 2003) and an otherworldly peach grove scene with British Kira Beckham from "Barely Legal 43" (2004) show how differently porn was shot just a few years ago. There was a corninesss and imprecision to it that really required good performances to transcend the small budget and poor filmmaking. Sometimes it worked, and sometimes I wondered where these performers disappeared to.

Kurt Lockwood and Nadia Styles show up in a "BL" variant directed by Van Styles. Also from 2004, "Barely Legal Corrupted 1". How this fits in to the "BL" theme I don't know, but Styles' style is a lot slicker and less hokey. No peach picking here.

The movie concludes with a ranch scene from "Barely Legal Summer Camp" (2003) featuring Simone. She fucks a ranch hand while we and horses watch.

If "Barely Legal All Stars 7" were the Arthurian Legend, the one brief shining Camelot moment would doubtless be that round table with Belladonna and Monica Sweetheart and friends. It is the only scene which qualifies as an all-star outing.

Buy it

Studio: Sin City
Director: Barrett Blade
Cast: Jayna Oso, Cindy Crawford, Vanessa Lane, Jeanie Marie, Jamie Elle

Portions of this review originally appeared on Fleshbot

With hundreds of porn titles being released every month, it is easy to become frustrated with the general sameness of most of the content while at the same time ragging on the deturgidifying pretense employed by porn's auteurs.

So what do you do when you're a director who's not out to push any boundaries but who still wants to make your genre movie stand out?

It would be easy to say that Blade knows how to direct porn because he is regularly on the other side of the camera, but if one looks at some of the directorial efforts of other talent, that observation doesn't hold much weight.

It seems, instead, that Blade simply knows who his audience is and knows that sales will drop if he suddenly chooses to get edgy and groundbreaking. Smokin' Crack 3 is an effort that delivers what it should - energetic sex from central casting porn girls - but frames each vignette so that it, pardon the pun, pops.

"I took him in the back and fucked the shit out of him," says the subtly muscular peroxide Cindy Crawford in a voiceover. She is describing - what elsde? - a strip club patron who admired her smokin' crack 3. What follows is a by-the-numbers scene from the established porn canon that delivers everything necessary and doesn't detour into Weirdsville.

Not that I don't, myself, live in Weirdsville. But how much company do I need?

Vanessa Lane is next. She talks about how she was pumping gas one day with her "little crack hanging out", then she takes two observers home to fuck them. Does that resonate with you? Does that resonate with America? Of course it does.

Would I kick Vanessa Lane off my little electric golf cart on Catalina Island? Hell no. But I didn't need to see what she was up to beyond her gas-pumping story. I'm more a fan of Tory Lane, Suynny Lane, and Charlie Laine, but Vanessa boffins doubtless will see her in all the familiar poses.

I employed skipping technology for Jamie Elle (ass crack hanging from back of boyfriend's motorcycle) but landed on Jeanie Marie Sullivan, whom I haven't seen before and whose Catholic school smoking area voice repopulated my diocese.

I admit that Sullivan told a story that I found far-fetched. Apparently she had been in a co-ed jail, and crack-snacking had ensued. I reasoned that I didn't need trust to be a high prioroty in our relationship.

Sullivan is petite and skinny. You wouldn't expect her to have a voice like she has, unless she was a student of evil. I only expect wonderful things from her.

The compact and deadly Jayna Oso ends her baseball-themed anecdote with, "and that's how my smokin' crack (3) got me fucked in the ass." In this scene it is important to note that ponytailed Nick Manning plays her baseball player. I believe Blade is Canadian, so that might explain the utter implausibility of Nick Manning being a baseball player.

Oso is hot, though, with small breasts. You might wonder why such a tiny person might adopt a porn name that is the Spanish word for "bear". Many porn personalities take their names from streets in the northwest San Fernando Valley. Oso is one, as is (former director) Mason, (Bobby) Rinaldi, and explorer and creampie innovator Vasco Nunez de Balboa.

The five-scene movie seemed to end quickly, but nothing more needed to be said. Despite the film answeering all my questions about smokin' crack, however, I have no doubt there will be a sequel.

Buy it

Studio: Pulse Pictures
Director: Jack the Zipper
Cast: Faith, Allie Sin, Jade Starr, Charlotte Stokely, Brea Bennett, Riley Mason, Alicia Alighotti, Charlie Laine, Joanna Angel, Loretta Loren, Taryn Thomas, Roxy Deville

Portions of this review originally appeared on Fleshbot

"A 'blacklight beauty' is an old strip joint expression," director Jack the Zipper told me. "It refers to a girl who only looks good under a black light, who you wouldn't want to see during the day."

I think the cast Mr. the Zipper assembled for this flick would look very fetching indeed under any light conditions, but I agree that they would look more appropriate grinding on some Bukowski types than, say, giving a morning class at the garden store.

When Jack the Zipper conceived of this film, which he describes as "My 'Exile on Main Street'", he must have had the Pope or Prince in mind, because everything looks vaguely purple (it's true - I even tried degaussing my screen).

But the movie, which begins with one of the old MPAA "XXX" ratings cards from Times Square days, is all about capturing the feel of a seedy dive from times long past. Even the faux Quincy Jones/Isaac Hayes score lends the film a classic exploitation vibe.

Everything from the better-than-average packaging to the cover art has High Expectations written all over it, so I was a little let down when the first scene revealed itself to be nothing more than a well-shot bathroom romp with the tight Allie Sin. It's not that Sin isn't as compact a sex machine as anything our laboratories can produce, but when I hear 'Exile on Main Street' and 'old strip joint', I expect a sloppy, desperate hoedown that makes up in enthusiasm what it lacks in technical proficiency. Sin, on the other hand, is nothing if not technically proficient.

Things start cooking in Scene Two, featuring an Oliver Twist-y Riley Mason in a girl-girl interlude, and Scene Three, with covergirl Faith's flashlit gangbang in a darkened theatre.

In a surf guitar-scored scene, Jade Starr dons a striped strap-on to match one stripe-stockinged leg and gives every inch of it (the strap-on, but maybe there's a cutting room floored version with the leg?) to her partner.

My favorite scene involves A Clown in a strip joint.

"So, you like walking in to classy establishments dressed like an asshole and expect pretty girls to pay attention to you?" asks a hood of a man dressed as a clown (with a shoutout to North Hollywood's Circus Jr. Liquors to boot).

In that the Clown is joyously serviced by stripper Taryn Thomas one chapter stop later, the scheme paid off.

In the next scene, Charlotte Stokely, wearing a mascara bandit mask, is attended to by James Deen as a muezzin wails on the soundtrack. This sequence wandered into wrongheaded steveporn territory for me, as I found myself pulling my forelock in confusion rather than pulling anything else. Is it sexy when you have to figure it out? I mean, I kept wondering if they were about to be interrupted by the faithful being called to prayer.

We return to Riley Mason, except this time she's with a fellow (Deen again). The blacklight really works for the pale, dark-haired Mason, and the casting, lighting, and editing choices coalesced for the movie's most solid scene, which combined the Zipper's trippy artistry with a coupling that would appeal to a cross-section of porn consumers.

The Clown returns to fit Joanna Angel with a circus vibrator. Part of Angel's appeal, I think - in that she returns to this expression often - is her appearing surprised by what is happening to her, even if it is clear she asked that Clown to spit in her pussy.

Mr. the Zipper has created a hybrid genre with "Blacklight Beauty": a despair-laden arthouse gonzo with wacky recurring characters. I expect black-clad wry teens on Melrose Ave. to start showing up with The Clown t-shirts very soon.

Buy it

Studio: Adam & Eve
Director: Toni English
Cast: Carmen Luvana, Austyn Moore, dozens of contestants

Portions of this review originally appeared on Fleshbot

"You're not The Man because you couldn't get your dick hard," spat Carmen Luvana, both in context and verbatim, several times during Adam & Eve's porn star recruitment effort "Reality X: The Search for Adam & Eve".

The contest, which took place throughout several cities last year and culminated in a fuck-off in Jamaica, is very entertaining television even if the winners do not become adult megastars.

One thing that is interesting about this show is not the number of amateur ladies with coccygeal tattoos and husbands who like to watch. Instead, it is the number of guys who appear horrified that they would be asked to get an erection on camera. At a time when everyone wants to be on TV, the surprising thing is encountering the people who don't.

Carmen Luvana hosted this search in Tampa, Miami, New York, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles. In each city she was joined by local judges who chimed in with questions like, "Have you ever had sex in front of other people?" etc. But it was Luvana who got to the meat of the issue each time. Of one man she asked, "Could you take a strap-on up the ass from me?" ("Depends on the day," he replied, never to be seen again). Of another, she said, "I like your body but your dick ain't hard. That's a problem."

The women fared much better, and appeared ready for anything. It would lead the casual observer to believe that America's women are horny as hell, and that finding a man who can perform is much more difficult.

None of the women appeared to be virginal girl-next-door types. Some were strippers, others were swingers. Each, aside from the woman who admitted she probably wouldn't want Lexington Steele in her ass, claimed that she would do "anything" in the bedroom.

But the presence of a camera continued to be a foil for the male contestants.

"Am I not hot enough for you?" asked an incredulous Luvana after yet another guy failed to get hard and almost ran away from her. She even spoke Spanish to him and yet: nothing.

Occasionally it became clear that even if a woman could have sex on camera it didn't mean that she should. The dead eyes and flat affect of Britney, a Las Vegas escort who claimed Jenna Jameson as a role model, underlined the difference between hookers and porn stars. Some can travel effortlessly between the two worlds, others can't hide the mercenary element.

Once the finalists arrive at Hedonism III in Jamaica, director Holland gives them tips such as, "It's not about your pleasure; it's about the audience" and reveals that 70 percent of men in the adult industry take Viagra (I was not aware of this survey) so directors will understand when a man asks for 30 minutes of lead time to a scene.

The finalists, among them pink-haired "sexual superheroes" Tassy and Halcyon (sadly, no longer a couple) are put through several paces while judges comment from a sidebar. They see what it is like to have sex under porn conditions, and many do not rise to the challenge.

Many truths are revealed in this pay-per-view DVD, but one says it all.

"If you could walk in here with all this crap happening around you," Holland said to one wood-challenged contestant, "and STILL get an erection, you'd have to be sociopathic."