Retro Porn Review - Confessions of a Teenage Peanut Butter Freak

While there’s always been room for shy guys in porn — and it will likely keep on being a recurring type in many videos to come — having an unknown, awkward, neurotic young man as the lead in your feature adult film is not exactly a go-to move. Of course, when that same nerdy kid happens to be the writer/director of the movie, it starts making a little more sense.

Zachary Strong was known for his 1970 odd sexploitation debut Overdose of Degradation, as well as his slightly pretentious first foray into hardcore with 1974’s Deep Tango. Some of the elements present in those movies are still here, primarily the dark undertones that are weirdly then addressed with slapstick-y 8-year-old humor. The major difference when watching Confessions of a Teenage Peanut Butter Freak is how personal this one gets.

By the time of this shoot, Woody Allen had been building a niche with his own movies as the prototypical Jewish neurotic unafraid to express his sexual hangups, and you can tell Strong took this idea to heart. Just how autobiographical it is, we might never know, but sexual failure and humiliation is a huge part of this film.

Billy (played by Strong under the name Rex Roman) is an incredibly awkward scrawny guy who’s not exactly smooth around ladies. That, however, is not discouraging Priscilla (Helen Madigan) from trying to bed the nerd of her affections. She invites Billy over for peanut butter (not code for anything; it’s the only thing the kid seems to eat) and that at least guarantees his presence (he really likes peanut butter). When she asks him if he’s always been this nervous around girls, Billy gives her a very thorough description of his past sexual failures to explain himself. Flashback scenes recreate the whole story.

As a teenager, Billy’s Aunt Opel caught him masturbating. Her disapproval is intense and judgmental, but that doesn’t stop Opel from “teaching” her nephew the ways of sex. In between all the emasculating scolding she gives him, Opel rubs some peanut butter on her vagina to make it more appealing for the young man. I’m not sure what’s worse, the sexual abuse or the psychological one that guilts him into feeling worse about everything that happens.

Billy then goes to another aunt’s place for the summer, and as he walks in he catches her cousin having sex with her beautiful lesbian girlfriend (Constance Money). When discovered, as punishment for “spying on them”, the girls decide it’d be fun to rape the boy and teach him a lesson. A confused Billy resists but ultimately gives in. His frustration and sexual insecurity, though, continues going strong.

What are the odds for a shy introverted kid to find himself in such an incestuous and abusive family?

John Holmes shows up later as Billy’s “cool friend”, who tries hard to hook him up with girls. Holmes and Money are actually given top billing for this film, since they’re the biggest names, though all he has is one scene — albeit a good one, with the very hot Veronica Taylor. An amusing/interesting thing about Holmes’ part is that for some weird reason, he seems to be trying out different accents for different lines. His Irish attempt is funny.

Priscilla’s charm manages to relax Billy, which then translates into a wedding that may or may not be happening. The Hebrew nuptials make it a bit darker and more powerful, as the psychedelic music builds the tension. There’s this sudden and strangely sweet symbolism using slices of bread with either peanut butter or jelly (suggesting that the lonely peanut butter had finally found someone), but this is interspersed with clips of all of his past traumatic sexual experiences.

This is a strange porno; there’s no way around it. Then again, that also seems to be the intention on more than one occasion. The story is certainly different from other adult films, but it’s hard to sell this if you’re only interested in the sex parts. Then again, if you’re a diehard fan of incest, peanut butter or awkward sex, you might feel right at home.

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