Stimula is an adult film from Vivid that stars one of my favorite female porn stars, Sasha Grey. The premise is a journey of the senses; taste, sight, sound, smell, and touch. There are five scenes with five different hetero sexual couples. Each scene is supposed to be centered around one of the five senses. Sounds like this could be kinda cool, huh? Erotic even. I was curious to see how they would explore the five senses in porn.

I figured food play for taste, that was a given, but what else would they do? Would they focus on tasting each part of the body from head to toe? What would they do for sight? Strip tease, some cool binding effects with rope, or maybe a peep show? My mind was immediately filled with endless possibilities for showcasing the different ways to stimulate the senses. I imagined scenes involving candle wax, massage oil, latex, silky satin, lace, rough rope, smooth leather, loud slaps, and soft whimpers. I imagined all the things about sex that make it a journey for the senses. Turns out, I have a much greater imagination than the makers of this movie.

For example, the first scene starts with Sasha Grey eating a strawberry, then some whipped cream gets sprayed from a can into her mouth, then some honey gets dribbled down her face where she plays with it and tastes it. Then they further set the scene by artfully scrolling the word TASTE followed by its definition. Okay, all well and good. A bit of erotic imagery for fore play, I can get down with that. Except it isn't woven through the sex scene itself. It's literally just these "artsy" shots of her doing these things. You never see the person feeding her. Then there are some more artsy shots of her in this plastic bubble type chair where what looks like milk is pouring down the sides. Okay, again... Sasha is hot, her outfit is smoking, and this looks pretty cool. BUT... when they cut to the actual beginning of the sex scene, Sasha is sitting in that chair, minus the milk. Now, I know you are saying, "Who cares? It's a porno!", and normally I would agree. It's just that it was a bit confusing. I kept expecting these shots to come into play during the actual scene, but they didn't. The scene that followed is pretty typical of what you would expect from main stream porn. Aside from some foot worship in the beginning, it's a pretty average sex scene. They never go back to the original "theme" and address taste, aside from typical oral sex.

My favorite scene is the one they do for "sound". Again, it doesn't have much to do with sound. The guy is pretty dominate, so he screams and orders her around a lot. The screaming sounds forced at times, but I like how bossy he is. I also like dirty talk during sex, so this scene turned me on the most. What I like about it is that the set is completely white. All you see in the room is a full length mirror, a big square shaped piece of furniture that reminds me of an ottoman but bigger, and the couple. It takes away the distracting back drop and cheesy back ground music, so you focus on the actual sights and sounds of the sex. I liked it a lot.

The rest of the scenes are pretty much the same. I don't want to spoil anything for people who end up buying this. My man and I found all the women attractive, and I thought the guys were pretty hot too. The only complaint we have about the actors is that they are ALL white. We would have liked a little variety. He is partial to Asian women, while I like to see a nice black cock thrown in there every now and then, but that's just us. We also would have liked to see some girl girl action, or a threesome, but all in all it was pretty decent.

Perhaps my imagination ran a bit too wild and had my expectations way to high for this movie. Had I just went into this expecting a typical porno with an attractive cast, I would have been able to enjoy it for what it was from the very beginning. In fact, I would have been pleasantly surprised by some of the artistic and erotic elements like the color palette, the lighting, and the sets. I could have sat back and enjoyed the ride. Unfortunately, my analytical mind took over, and I found my self disappointed at first. After watching the first scene and understanding that it was pretty much a "regular" porno, I accepted the fact that this was how the rest of the movie was going to be. Once I did that, I had a much easier time enjoying the rest of it. The actors are hot and the sex was just hot enough to get me aroused enough to climax. My man enjoyed it, though he gets impatient and wants to fast forward through the long scenes. He's the type who would have loved to have the "positions" feature on the menu, which this DVD did not have. That was his major complaint about it. He likes to be able to pop in a porn, hit that one button and go right to what he wants to see.

This is still a good movie for Sasha Grey alone, but it doesn't have a lot of replay value for us. It is more mainstream than the porn we usually like to watch. I can't say we will never watch it again, but we like our other pornos much better.