October 3, 2006 | Sex & Society

One sexy bus ride

What do a few erect cocks, explicit penetration and plenty of splashy cum shots amount to? Standard fare for your average porno. In the mainstream world of feature films, however, they're a surefire recipe for controversy. Just ask John Cameron Mitchell, whose new movie, "Shortbus," is taking hardcore sex to the big screen.

"Shortbus" is Mitchell's long-awaited follow-up to 2001's "Hedwig and the Angry Inch;" it made its North American debuts in Toronto on Sept. 10 and in  New York  last week.

The film did not premiere quietly, however. That's because "Shortbus" shuns your standard nude scenes -- quick shots of tits and ass -- in favor of complete, full-on sex scenes in which actors have real, sweaty, unchoreographed sex with one another.

In essence, "Shortbus" is about a group of interconnected people in New York City who frequent a sex club -- named Shortbus -- that's run by a pseudo drag queen played by Justin Bond. The characters all are struggling with sexual issues and include a Chinese therapist who's never had an orgasm and a gay couple that wants to have their first threesome.

The film's actors were recruited via video auditions in which they were asked to discuss some element of their sex lives on tape. Five hundred people applied and the result is a diverse cast acting in a film that defies easy definition, for even though the director insists it isn't porn, some audiences might disagree.

"So much in life is about black and white situations and gaping generalizations -- so we have porn, and everything else," actor Sook-Yin Lee told Xtra in August. "So what happens when it's a different color? What do we call it when there's been no precedent; when we don't know what it is; when the genre hasn't been created yet?"

If early reviews and buzz are any indication, we can call it both hot and entertaining, full of both titillating sex and great storytelling. After all, why should a movie have to be one or the other when it can easily be both?!

• Shortbus review and premiere [fleshbot.com]
• Shortbus at Toronto International Film Festival [xtra.ca]