We are robots, but we can still be in love. Beyond the campy excess and the bargain basement compromises, Sins of the Fleshapoids (isn’t that a tremendous title?) is a pretty simple, pretty straightforward, pretty undeniable plea for tolerance, for the right of the different to pursue their difference. Does this just open the doors for gay people (whether or not Mike and George were thinking in that direction)? Well, yes, and what of it? It’s like the AIDS ribbons of yore, isn’t it? We may be afraid that we’re being conscripted into a cause in which we don’t believe. But there’s a bigger cause beneath the apparent cause. People love, deserve love, and, often, are suffering! We can find some common ground in that, can’t we?
But what of perversion? Well, at this point at least, there really isn’t any. Yes, there’s some frat boy toga wearing, as well as some kind of purposeful massaging. (The latter is more of the Jack Smith variety, though; you have to be pretty susceptible, pretty oblivious not to see the joins.) There is clearly a slippery slope with regard to this kind of material, and the Kuchars would soon slip all the way down it. But there’s really nothing wrong here—we have an acknowledgment of the sensual, we have an acknowledgment or a demonstration of how funny the over-vaunted, over-idealized sensual can be, and we have a fleshapoid climax that is pretty tender and sweet. Craziness aside, there’s plenty of decorum here. Plus Bob Cowan’s football helmet. Good one.