Fast Forward: Confessions of a Porn Screenwriter

“Like most pornography, I found Fast Forward to be a relentless and indecent assault on the traditional family values that Americans find most sacred. Makes a great stocking stuffer."—Amy Sedaris

With dreams of becoming a highly respected screenwriter, Eric Spitznagel moves to Los Angeles. When Hollywood fails to notice him, he settles for the next best thing: writing scripts for adult films. Determined to make the most of his bad luck, he sets out to make a movie that will be celebrated more for its witty dialogue and gripping plot than its raw depictions of hardcore sex. As Spitznagel discovers, making the Great American Porn is far from easy, especially when you've been hired to write a sequel to Butt Crazy.

Spitznagel struggles to be taken seriously as an artist, a seeming impossibility in an industry averse to “complicated words.” Along the way, he meets a director with delusions of being the porn Kurosawa, an actress with a scholarly knowledge of medical maladies, and an NBA star who might just make the biggest mistake of his life. In an industry devoted to churning out disposable erotica, can one lowly writer make an adult film that compels viewers to admire the plot without hovering a thumb over the fast forward button?

Eric Spitznagel is the author of four humor books, including The Junk Food Companion: A Celebration of Eating Badly (Plume, 1999). His writing appears frequently in Playboy, Esquire, Harper's Magazine, and The Believer.

Eric Spitznagel is the author of four humor books, and a frequent contributor to Playboy and The Believer. An excerpt from Fast Forward was previously published by Salon.com.