HEAVY PETTING (1989)

In much the same way that THE ATOMIC CAFE (1982) explored the horrors of nuclear devastation through old film clips of atomic preparedness shorts, HEAVY PETTING takes viewers down the hormonally-raging road of adolescent sexuality with ancient sex education footage, interspersed with various celebrities relating their own teen fumblings.

The film segments are almost uniformly alarming in both their stodginess and the way they practically kill all interest in sex thanks to scare tactics and stern lectures (you haven't lived until you've heard Lorne Greene, Ben Cartwright on the classic TV western BONANZA, talking about nocturnal emissions and menstruation in that deeper than God's balls stentorian voice of his), and the celebrity segments are in turns both tragic and downright hilarious; Allen Ginsberg's discussion of his feelings of being unloved is a real kick in the guts, while an account of a circle jerk with the goal of filling a milk bottle boggles the mind, especially when one considers how much — or how little — population paste you actually end up with after rubbing one out (unless you're famed porn firehose Peter North, see below).

Filling that bottle must have taken a loooooong time...

The film covers all the — pardon the expression — bases, from the onset of secondary sex characteristics to dating rituals to teen pregnancy, the existence of GASP!!! homosexuals, V.D. and pornography, and not one second of it is boring. There's also a second disc that features several of the sex ed films in their full-length versions, some of which are must-sees for sheer scare tactics and graphic content akin to gory driver's ed movies, only this time featuring dripping, sore-covered cocks in hideous closeup rather than your run of the mill mangled corpses. The all-Black, made-for-the Army "Easy To Get" is a WWII-era shocker that depicts in waaaaaaaaay-too-graphic detail the misadventures of a number of servicemen and their encounters with women whose pussies are roilling cesspools of virulent disease, and we get to see these poor bastards whip out their pus-drooling units right into the camera (presumably stunt-Johnsons with actual nasty goo, which the afflicted squeeze out at the viewer, thank you very much), along with a ghastly shot of soldiers stopping at the local Prophylactic Station for a "Pro," which is where they drop trou en masse, vigorously wash their junk — calm down, gay readers, this is light years away from being even a bit erotic — and then schlamp a tube of anti-V.D. ointment straight up their urethras. *SHUDDER* It's horrible, but it's also incredible to see such material from back in those days.

Bottom line: HEAVY PETTING is a thoroughly entertaining documentary that belongs in any collection, and just may scare your young 'uns int keeping it in their pants until they're, oh, maybe thirty-five.

TRUST YER BUNCHE!!!