Coming Attractions: The Making of an X-Rated Video

The late UCLA psychiatrist Stoller ( Porn: Myths for Our Time ) and Levine, a journalist and screenwriter with X-video credits, have collaborated on an unusual (and necessarily explicit) oral history of the world of erotic films. The voyeuristic and curious may learn much, as well as lose what Levine calls ``lurid misconceptions,'' through such interviewees as a male actor who confesses fears of AIDS or a female counterpart who cites Piaget in discussing the emotional unreadiness of 18-year-old women for the trials of public sex. There are provocative observations: one porn director calls her work ``a document of contemporary Western sexuality''; a male producer believes it's healthy for men to see violence against women; a female actress maintains that women from dysfunctional families go into porn for ``adoration and love.'' Levine himself dubs the industry a ``hideout for arrested development cases.'' Surrounded by much incidental verbiage, these points would benefit from more explication. There are no photographs, either. (June)