Synopsis: We invite you to enjoy a genuine Times Square cinema program, circa 1970!

First a sultry preview of coming attractions, then four sex soaked shorts unfold in skin realism color: Clinical Sex, Any Way You Like It, Naked Sexes and The Different Sex.

Finally, the main attraction, The Oral Generation, a penetrating scientific study in oral love! Youíll learn about love between men and women, women and women, and every variety in between. All your questions will be answered in explicit, close-up detail!

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The Oral Generation 6.75

eyelights: the DVD’s presentation. the lovely ladies. its uncensored approach.
eyesores: the redundancy of much of the material.

I stumbled on ‘The Oral Generation’ at a local independent video store a couple of years ago. I had no idea what it was, and the box didn’t really help to shed any light on the matter. It looked like a ’70s exploitation movie, but it seemed to suggest that it was a documentary.

But which was it? I didn’t care: The title alone drew me to it like a moth to a flame. Whether it was an exploitation flick or a documentary proper, my own oral fixations made me want to discover what lay beneath its cover. And so I rented it (it was far too expensive to blind buy).

It turns out that it’s a bit of both.

‘The Oral Generation’ is an exploitation film disguised as a documentary: its shows scenes of men and women going down on each other, wrapped up in a monotonous narration by a man purporting that the ultimate purpose of the picture is to educate about and liberate women’s sexuality.

Granted, it refers to all sorts of then-recent ouvrages on sexuality, along with some of the erotic fiction that was seeing the light of day, but only in a vapid attempt for legitimacy. At no point does it discuss their content at length, lazily serving up conclusions instead.

Essentially, it wanted its audience to know that it’s okay for today’s liberated women to want to please their partners orally – and it was more than eager to show us how. It also spent a short amount of time showing men how to reach the “elusive” female orgasm.

Orally, of course.

Really, this is just pornography. Sure, it may have been useful if the audience had no idea that oral sex existed, but it doesn’t actually provide any detailed explanations. It’s quite clear that the scenes were shot more as visual stimulation, for titillation, than to be educational.

It’s also clear that the film’s content is intended to get women to go down on their partners. The focus is chiefly on the man’s pleasure, not on the woman’s – perhaps because it’s so “elusive”. Either way, it’s a lop-sided approach by any measure for a purported educational film.

It may all sound ridiculous but it had its hot moments, though: some of the girl were really pretty and the way they caressed their partners was tender, very different from the way it would be in today’s porn. Although it was clearly staged, it didn’t feel especially rehearsed.

The way one young woman kissed and licked her partner’s ear before carrying on with the rest of his body was pure delight, and the manner in which another cavorted and masturbated by herself was clearly designed to turn us on; it wasn’t at all intended to teach anyone much of anything.

There were also some funny moments, like the “testimonial” by a woman who is woefully unable to read her lines, which is followed up by her showing us just how liberated she feels now that she’s expanded her repertoire, jumping in the shower with her man and getting him off. Ha!

And then there were the peculiar inserts in later sequences, one of which cut to a brunette in black lingerie stripping and stroking herself for our visual pleasure. As though watching the other girl going down wasn’t enough. Or how about the inserts of the black guy doing martial arts? WTF!

Still, it got me thinking about the fact that even ten years prior (the film came out in 1970), not only would most of these acts not even be contemplated by the majority of the population, but it would have been illegal – and the film would have gotten plenty of people arrested.

That’s progress.

Frankly, in spite of my predilections, I started to get bored of watching ‘The Oral Generation’ by the end; they tried to change things up by going inter-racial and doing a threesome, but the initial sexiness was dropped for pure sex – and not particularly inspired sex at that.

What I took away from this picture is just how much social mores have changed in 40-50 years. Although you can still get arrested in some parts of the world for performing oral sex, nowadays it’s so commonplace that event a former President of the USA was caught in the act.

I also reflected on the changes in personal grooming since then. Nowadays, it’s commonplace to wax everything off, and even some men shave their body hair. Back then, this wasn’t even a consideration. And, you know, all unnecessary ’70s bush jokes aside, the girls were quite lovely.

Yes, even with all their fuzz. In some cases, especially so.

So, ultimately, although it outlasted its welcome, I thought that ‘The Oral Generation’ was relatively entertaining. Informative? Not so much, especially nowadays. But it does lend one a certain perspective. And if not that, then at least it is stimulating to some degree.

But what makes ‘The Oral Generation’ especially enjoyable is the fact the Vinegar Syndrome DVD has been packaged as a full programme, complete with a trailer and then a bunch of short films before playing the feature presentation. In fact, the DVD begins play that way.

The only other place I’d seen this before is with some of the Classic Warner Bros films that have been released on DVD, including ‘The Treasure of the Sierra Madre‘. And I quite like this feature, because it transports you to a time and place, a cinematic experience long gone.

In any event, here are the opening shorts on this DVD:

1. Trailer for “The Oral Generation’: A monotonous female narrator tells us about the picture and then begins to talk dirty over explicit and uncensored images from the film. Quite the exciting start to the set, and a nice way to build up an appetite for the feature. 7.5

2. Clinical Sex: This pseudo-documentary is just a softcore short that shows a sex therapist treat a couple of women patients: one by caressing her naked body, arousing her, then “examining” her in depth with his penis, and the other with the able assistance of his nurse, who it turns out is more to her liking. His patients are naturally very pleased with his services. Hilarious stuff. And, perhaps to calm the censors, it ends with a moralistic change of heart by the doctor. Too much. 8.0

3. Anyway You Want it: A doctor and his nurse are about to get it on when a MILF stumbles in on them, concerned about seeing seeing her son using a personal massager on various young women. The doctor tries to calm her down, but eventually resorts to hypnosis and then uses his own massager to get her to appreciate its finer virtues. Naturally he gets the nurse to help out by stripping and massaging herself. Hilarious, especially due to the poor performances and the audio, which is muddled by passing traffic. No joke. 7.0

4. Naked Sexes: This one was weird. It consists completely of a bunch of topless young women and a trio of muscle-bound dudes in g-string laughing. That’s it, for something like 5 minutes’ time. It’s surreal, trippy, even slightly mad. A WTF moment. 3.0

5. The Different Sex: This softcore short is pathetic. It tells the story of a sex ed major who is studying the human orgasm and needs to research it. So she gets a couple of her guy friends to self-sacrifice and proceeds to have sex with both of them – with their underwear on. The narrator is her roommate, and she’s waiting in the other room, naked, masturbating with a magazine (didn’t catch her name, but it must have been Nikki). Then her friend and neighbour have a threesome, which leads to the most hilarious part of the DVD: the neighbour’s licking of her and sticking out of her tongue in a demented and frenzied fashion! Too much! 5.75

6. Untitled: The final short before the feature presentation shows a young couple giving each other oral sex in a number of different positions. It’s explicit and doesn’t look staged one bit. In fact, it actually looked like a home movie. So I guess we’ll never know who that lovely redhead was. Le sigh… 7.5

Adding to the experience is the fact that there’s a scratchy reel in between each film, giving the impression of being in a cinema back in the ’70s. Honestly, as far as novelties go, this one’s a winner – irrespective of the quality of its content, which is subjective at best.

In any case, ‘The Oral Generation’ is a DVD to watch with someone.

In your lap.

Story: n/a
Acting: 5.0
Production: 5.0

Nudity: 8.0
Sexiness: 4.0
Explicitness: 8.0

Date of viewing: January 2, 2016