Bike Porn, Literally
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Bike Porn, Literally

Sometimes naming your bike isn't enough.

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Bicycles can be ridden sitting down, standing up, or—as local actress Elle Chronique shows in a recent scene of niche erotica—in reverse cowgirl position. That steamy scene is from Wheel 4 Woman, a short that sees Chronique and fellow artists Natascha Malta and Becca Jaine use the two-wheeler as an object of desire, and a driving force to explore sexuality.

The project began as a response to an open call for submissions from Bike Smut, a touring annual bike-porn festival founded by Phil Sano, currently in its eighth year. Now, the Toronto-made production is making its sexy rounds through the U.S.

The thought of putting together her own salacious cycling production had been taking shape in Chronique’s mind since last year, but she’s been attending Sano’s film fest since back in 2011. “I went to go see this interesting collection of bike erotic shorts and I was like, ‘What is this? This is the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen,’” she recalls of losing her Bike Smut virginity in Ottawa. “I’ve just been, I don’t know, inspired isn’t really the right word. I’ve been turned on and kind of excited to think of my own creative submission.”

That’s where Malta and Jaine come in. They helped Chronique write Wheel 4 Woman, with Jaine also handling filming and production, and Malta, an illustrator with her own yearly art show called Bike Porn, directing. “Elle kind of had this fantasy and I just wanted to help her bring it to life,” says Malta.

The resulting stop-motion movie follows a young queer woman (played by Chronique) as she goes on a date with a bicycle (a blue Raleigh Tarantula that Chronique’s had since she was 12) that she met via Craigslist. For Jaine, who shot the film on her D-SLR camera one bright October day, the absurd, comical premise fit perfectly with what the project’s all about. “We wanted something that would make people laugh, because ours was about the joy in sexuality,” she explains.

So far as bike erotica goes, the film is on the lighter side, as Bike Smut entries range from hardcore exploits to efforts like Wheel 4 Woman, which contains no nudity although it isn’t exactly G-rated.

Beginning with a close-up of a Missed Connections post (hence the movie’s title, a play off Craigslist’s w4w category), the four-minute-plus movie traces the trajectory of an internet date from Chronique’s bedroom to the park—and back. Twee shots of the online daters lazing around outside a Catholic school eventually lead to the climax: Chronique in a black brassiere mounts the bike in her room, the well-worn saddle suggestively placed between her spread legs.

Wheel 4 Woman’s meant to titillate, sure, but it’s also intended to send a message of empowerment. “Throughout it all, it’s very clear that [Elle’s character] has complete agency in this and that she is not powerless, that this is something where she has the authority and the control,” says Jaine. “This was something I was trying to get across about hook-up culture, as well as young women owning their sexuality.”

The process didn’t come without its difficulties, and the hardest parts of the shoot came during its most intimate moments. “Probably staying in certain positions for a long time and really trying to connect with an inanimate object,” were the biggest challenges on set, Chronique says. To really get herself into character and play the part convincingly, she experimented.

“I just kind of visualized what the bike would look like in my mind if she was human,” she says. Strange as it may sound, her mental gymnastics worked. “I was totally turned on—it was really fun,” she adds. “It certainly helped out that I’ve been with the same bike for 20 years.”

“It’s clearly my longest relationship.”

Though Bike Smut already passed through Toronto on April 24 at Soybomb (156 Bathurst St.), Wheel 4 Woman and 11 others productions are on tour stateside until June 20.

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