The Deuce – reviewed by a former porn star and sex journalist Porn stars, live show performers, writers, sex workers of many stripes – like many of my colleagues I eagerly anticipated […]

Porn stars, live show performers, writers, sex workers of many stripes – like many of my colleagues I eagerly anticipated the premiere of HBO’s series The Deuce.

We had all worked on it. Not the show – but the actual ‘deuce’, the area of New York City that was Times Square/42nd Street.

Until the mid-90s era of real estate redevelopment, the area was home to peep shows, adult book stores, assorted sex emporiums and prostitution activities.

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From 1979 through the 1980s I was a sex journalist with a monthly column in Adam, an adult magazine. Times Square was my beat.

I made a few porn films, but mainly I wrote, using the commercial sex industry as a place to explore my own sexuality and that of everyone else who I observed, worked with, partied with, and interviewed.

These were the formative years which prepared me for my career as an acknowledged expert in the field of human sexuality.

The Deuce is the real deal

This first season of The Deuce takes place in the ’70s, a time in which New York City was ‘broke’.

The pilot episode recreates the physical environment to a tee. It’s gritty and rat infested – the city could not even afford to pick up its garbage.

The bar where Vinnie (James Franco) works looks very much like Bernard’s, which was a sort of club house to the demi-monde.

A neon sign designates the Senton, the actual hotel where prostitutes would bring their Johns for a ‘matinee’, a quickie, day or evening.

Candy (Maggie Gylenhall) and other streetwalkers gather for cheap eats and conversation in another central hub, like the Popeye’s Chicken I remember.

The pimps hang out at the dicey Port Authority bus station, to pick up fresh meat among the young hopefuls, who arrived daily. Many are clueless, though Lori (Emily Meade) appears to have been around the block.

The pilot introduces us to a great variety of characters to be explored and through them the issues of the day: prostitution, pornography, drugs, organised crime, police corruption, the war in Vietnam and feminism.

The ’70s in New York was a time when some women worked the corners while others marched in the streets.

There’s plenty of nudity: full-frontals of both women and men.

The producers did their homework

Episode One is pretty grim. I missed the kind of fierce, funny comments that often come out of the mouths of pros who dish about their clients.

But fear not, episode two has it all. Complex relationships begin to be presented as such: the familiarity of the cops and the hookers, the camaraderie of female prostitutes, the infiltration of the ‘mob’ into businesses which actually helps sustain gay bar life.

One of my favourite scenes has the pimp CC (Gary Carr) sweet-talk Lori, letting her know how hard life is for him, and how much he needs her, how special she is.

Opportunities for black men in executive jobs were few and far between in the ’70s. You almost feel sorry for the guy –until you remember, it’s just a con, like a carrot that’s dangled at the front of a donkey cart.

There is a good reason why The Deuce rings with such emotional and physical authenticity: these producers did their homework. All of the characters are composites, but the identical twin brothers Vinnie and Frankie played by James Franco have real life counterparts.

Maggie Gyllenhaal’s character inspired by feminist porn pioneer

The arc of Maggie Gyllenhaal’s ‘Candy’ brings to mind the career of Candida Royalle, who rose from the ranks of porn actors to that of pioneer film maker.

Candida produced erotic movies from the women’s point of view and is credited with creating ‘the feminist porn genre’.

Candida, Annie Sprinkle, Jane Hamilton AKA Veronica Hart, Gloria Leonard (R.I.P.) and I formed Club 90 – the first porn star support group – in 1983, and have been best friends ever since.

Ms Royalle died in September 2015, and producers and actors from The Deuce were among the 300 people who attended the celebration of Candida’s very big life at Judson Memorial Church, a bastion of free speech, social justice and art.

Consultants were hired from the porn community. Gyllenhaal acknowledges the help she received through frank conversations with former prostitute and now international performance artist Annie Sprinkle, the first porn star to earn a PhD. And others.

Showing Maggie the ropes

I myself enjoyed a two-hour lunch with Maggie Gyllenhaal.

We met at Miss Vera’s Finishing School for Boys Who Want to Be Girls, the world’s first transgender academy which I created 25 years ago.

The school had begun as a way to finance a memoir of my life in the ’80s, but the school took off and became a brand new chapter, eclipsing the memoir until now.

I earned every bite of that lunch as she probed me with questions for two hours. It was actually the second time I met Ms Gyllenhaal. The first time was a benefit for the incarcerated Russian artists Pussy Riot. I had quickly introduced myself as a fan and made special reference to one of her early films, Secretary.

I said I admired the intelligent way the sexual relationship, one of dominance and submission, was presented. Women’s lives, freedom of expression and an unflinching exploration into human sexuality matter to Gyllenhaal.

The character of Candy could not be in safer hands.

Of all of the consultants, a vast treasure trove of material came from the interviews and archives created by Ashley West for his Rialto Report Project. About ten years ago, West began finding ’70s porn stars and conducting in-depth audio interviews.

Teams from The Deuce practically lived with the Wests as they gathered material for the show.

To the benefit of viewers and the credit of all involved, the results of all of this passion, perseverance and talent are reflected on screen.

Read more about Veronica Vera at her official website missvera.com and her blog at veronicavera.wordpress.com

The Deuce continues on Sky Atlantic, Tuesdays at 10pm