Confessions of a Teenage Peanut Butter Freak

This time, in our effort to map out the golden era of pornography, we will venture into the murky waters of the San Francisco porn scene of the mid-1970s. Given its semi-legality at the time, it was characterized on the one hand by a distinct low-budget sleaziness, but often also by free-spirited hyperbole and radically fresh concepts. All of these qualities are on full display in this grotesquely absurd porn curio from director, writer, producer and actor Zachary Strong.

A shy young man meets a girl and they recount their previous sexual experiences. This basic framework is blatantly predictable in its further development. But that certainly can not be said of the specific progression of the flashback-framed scenes. The horny premises, which elsewhere would follow hackneyed clichés, are treated by Strong with a relaxed down-to-earth brashness and subversive absurdity. He mocks classic gender dynamics and highlights the sleaziness and ickiness of sexual acts which, instead of fulfilling desired fantasies, lead to frustrations, unhealthy fixations, or crushing consequences. The film treats all of this with sarcastic bemusement that radiates from it despite the painfully schlocky execution and the amateurish cast whose biggest star, physically at least, is the legendary John Holmes.