(2006) Having the appearance of a video documentary with graphic scenes of male genitalia, female frontal nudity, and explicit sexual intercourse, writer/director John Cameron Mitchell's frank film explores a subterranean world of New York City.

Curling himself up so that he can ejaculate into his mouth, James (Paul Dawson), a life guard who volunteers for Meals-on-Wheels, tapes and records himself for a video he's creating for his partner Jamie Mitchell (PJ DeBoy), a former child actor. Together they make an appointment with Sophia (Sook-Yin Lee), a Chinese-Canadian sex therapist (or couples counselor, as she prefers to be called): James tells her of an older man who drowned in the swimming pool on his watch; Jamie says, "I need to love everybody," which Sophia dismisses as a "false epiphany," resulting in her slapping him and then apologizing for being "pre-orgasmic."

After she confesses to never having experienced an orgasm, the boys recommend an evening in Brooklyn at drag performance artist Julian Bond's Shortbus (the name taken from a school bus for handicapped and gifted students shorter than regular school buses) with its cinema and orgy rooms. Expressing the view that female orgasm may be nothing more than a myth, Sophia listens to a group of lesbians describe their best big O. Also in the room is Severin (Lindsay Beamish), a mean dominatrix, who snaps Polaroid photographs of people, writes on the picture, and gives it away.

Also present at Shortbus is Tobias (Alan Mandell), the elderly former mayor, who tells Ceth (Jay Brannan), a gay male model, that New York is where everyone comes to be forgiven; he admits to feeling guilty about not having done enough during the AIDs crisis. Ceth joins the Jamies (James and Jamie) to form a threesome.

At home with her husband Rob (Raphael Barker), Sophia uses a vibrator on herself but gets upset with Rob in the next room playing music too loud while masturbating to images on his computer screen. During a session of reconciliation, Rob says he feels small: "I can't give you an orgasm."

Seventy percent of women have difficulties getting off, Severin informs Sophia, who has come to her for help: "Feel the thought first, then get on the bus." For her part, Sophia becomes a real connection for Jennifer (Severin's actual name). Taking Rob along to Shortbus but agreeing to explore separately, Sophia (a vibrating egg tucked into her vagina for which Rob has a remote control to occasionally buzz her) listens to Justin's vision of his house becoming a magical motherboard where people try to find the right connection for themselves. (This brought to mind a definition of "bus" referring to a circuit connecting a computer's CPU with other devices.)

However, there are bugs to be worked out in the system: angry with Rob, Sophia denounces him as a "balding, impotent liar; inside a closet with Severin, James reveals his past as a hustler who feels nothing inside. Across from James and Jamie a voyeur neighbor, Caleb (Peter Stickles), has been watching and videotaping them through their window for two years, fascinated by their enjoyment with each other. Rob has a session with Severin in her black-lace costume with a whip.

Different folks, different strokes.

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Copyright © 2008 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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