Spunk & White: “The Elements of Desire”

Porn of the Ancient World

“I’d been feeling restless and a little unfulfilled for quite some time,” says bored trophy wife Julia Ann in 1994’s “The Elements of Desire,” which stars everyone from Asia Carrera to Shayla LaVeaux to Daisy, who would later adopt the name Jenna Jameson. “But it all really started when we got that new satellite dish.”

You can see how this script can now write itself. All you have to do is put on some Color Me Badd (or the whole “New Jack City” soundtrack—you’re not proud), and then craft a movie in which Julia Ann finds her repressed sexuality through the exotic channels the new technology allows her.

Released in April 1994 (but, according to the Helen O’Connell obituary prominent in Julia Ann’s neglectful husband’s Los Angeles Times, it was filmed in September, 1993), this movie, we must keep telling ourselves, having seen Julia Ann all naked and in person just the other day, is 19 years old.

But this is classic 90’s fare right down to the ambiguous title. Julia Ann finds channels from “some European country” (though the actresses all speak English). She masturbates and fantasizes: “I found myself being drawn in, feeling the pleasure I could give myself.” She consults a clairvoyant—Dyanna Lauren—who determines she is repressing her sexual desires.

Along the way she reconciles with her mulleted husband and enters into a plural relationship with LaVeaux, newly confident in her sexual agency now that she has really good cable.

There are a number of reasons why a movie like “Elements of Desire” could not be made today, least of which involves the budget for such a huge cast.

The main reason is that the premise of new technology awakening something dormant or undiscovered inside us is a hokey idea, because we now expect technology to adapt to serve us, not dazzle us.

A porn plot involving an iPhone app wouldn’t fly, simply because that app will have become old news in the two months it takes the movie to come out.

We don’t watch our various screens to be surprised. Instead we get impatient when they don’t satisfy us fast enough. We’ve become too blase to give anything else credit for our happiness.

My favorite scene involved a poolside blowjob administered by the juicy Celeste (not to be confused with Bunny Luv, who would later take the name Celeste when directing for Digital Playground), but “Elements of Desire” has so many scenes with performers at or approaching their prime that it’s worth picking up Adam & Eve’s Romance SuperPack, on which “Elements” is included with three other movies.

Next time you’re stuck in traffic idly playing with your phone, try to imagine yourself saying, “But it all really started when we downloaded Angry Birds: Rio.”

• Buy “Elements of Desire” (and three other 1990’s porn films!) here

Previously on Porn Valley Observed: “Flashpoint”—Back(draft) to the future; Today in Lesbians—how they work
See also: Adam & Eve