Quim magazine

Myrna Elana and Debi Sundahl, “Year of the Lustful Lesbian,” On Our Backs 1, no. 1 (Summer 1984): 4.

I’ll be at @kuntinuum tonight for @rebeldykes fundraiser, talking about creating #prosex #dyke #photography and editing at #onourbacks and #quim magazines in the 80s & 90s #lesbian #sexpositive with slides from @phyllischristopher & my own #archives #1990 #OnOurBacks cover photo by @jessica_tanzer

“When I first met her I thought she was sleazy, I thought she was just another dumb porno slut. But I was wrong.”–Tigr Mennet on Sharon Mitchell. So begins Kamikaze Hearts–it’s a raw story about an impossible relationship between a young woman, Tigr (Tigr Mennett), who becomes obsessed with a beautiful porn star, Sharon Mitchell. From their first meeting Tigr is mesmerized by “Mitch”–by her joie de vivre and flamboyant sensuality. Tigr’s life is changed forever when she is drawn underground into Mitch’s world, a world of strip joint rock and roll, mainlined cocaine, and high-paying commercial sex. Filmed on location in San Francisco, notorious home of the XXX film industry, where North Beach provides an existential backdrop to Tigr’s dark odyssey. Stylistically, Kamikaze Hearts is best described as a dramatic documentary. But this is not a “docudrama” in the made-for-TV-movie sense, with actors portraying “real people” in “real situations.” Tigr calls it a docudrama, an intensely personal narrative with real people playing themselves in scenes from their lives. Additionally, a documentary camera crew followed Tigr and Mitch through the production of Gerald Greystone’s ill-fated sex opera version of Bizet’s Carmen. Into the fabric of this eccentric footage, director Juliet Bashore and editor John Knoop have woven a bizarre drama by turns absurd, ironic, ridiculous, and simultaneously brutal, disturbing, even tragic. Kamikaze Hearts resists easy classification. The film draws freely from both documentary and dramatic conventions. It is complicated, stirring, and controversial.

*Recommended by: Netflix