Reading Between the Loins: Raging Stallion’s “San Francisco Meat Packers”

On the surface, Raging Stallion's slice-of-life concept porn San Francisco Meat Packers (d. Tony Dimarco) is definitely the wiener fest you think it is. Just like a visit to the butcher shop, you get exactly what you pay for -- moderately hairy muscled-up manly men having a pepperoni party behind the scenes at the sausage factory. There's not even a synopsis written on the back cover.

Pry deeper though and you'll discover a complex undercurrent of workplace oppression in the film that fuels the setup to each sexual tryst. There's universal truths here everyone can relate to, from self worth to public image to fear of rejection. The opening fuck with Boomer Banks and Angelo Marconi is the exception, although the scene itself is hot enough to serve as a sort of visual thesis for what's to come. You just masturbated to two meat workers wordlessly womping in front of eight bloody pig carcasses, and now you need to know why.

Enter Tony Orion, our lowly vessel into the unexplained. Tony's an instantly likeable guy who plays by the rules, a real winner. Equipped with a polished skill set including flexibility, punctuality, and a good work ethic, he almost seems overqualified for the job. Little does he know that in order to become a packer, he must first become packed. So his boss Fabio Stallone fucks him in an intensive crash-course training session, really hitting home the dick/meat metaphor rampant throughout. There's even an interesting Monica Lewinsky-style throwback with a cigar, undoubtedly a reference to the scandal that single-handedly fetishized workplace sexual oppression.

Next we're whisked away to the world of Shawn Wolfe. In many ways, Shawn is what Tony Orion's character might be like a couple years down the road. On the outside, he's an overachieving, paint-by-numbers kind of guy. His ability to wear many different hats is the reason he probably works at the counter, serving customers what he thinks is a socially acceptable image of meat factories. But inside, he's a complete and total fuck-up -- he can't even stock the freezer without developing stage 1 hypothermia. Luckily, Billy Santoro is there to calm him down, proverbially corking the baby with a pacifier by literally corking his hole with a cock.

Finally we have Landon Conrad, a submissive top in need of a power bottom. A meat packer in need of an assembly line. A once brilliant employee turned to shit due to his inability to successfully intertwine sex and work like the others. The story of how he ended up at the factory is a complicated one that runs far deeper than we probably know, but he's graciously kept on staff with a wink and a nudge so he can figure it out. Adam Wirthmore is the only guy who truly gets him, unabashedly powering his bottom over to Landon who had been staring at Shawn Wolfe for hours behind a dead mule.

This is the final scene of the film for good reason -- it's pretty hot. Landon is the only character in the movie that refuses to trek down the same path as the others, yet he somehow still gets laid. He's willing but he's not willful. And if he wanted to sue the San Francisco Meat Packing Factory for sexual harassment, he's the only character who might have a chance at winning. But judging by the way he was moaning, I'm led to believe this is just the beginning and we might even see him initiate something in Part 2. Either that or he's the main star of a spin-off taking place at the vegetarian section of Whole Foods.

The film is well shot, well lit, and features an experimental musical score of robotic synths and industrial snares. Immediately I'm reminded of the Seinfeld theme song but slowed down to about 30%, creating a trippy tangent universe to the sitcom I don't believe a coincidence. There's also legit meat packing staff shirts you can buy online (at Ajaxx63) similar to those weathered $40 tongue-in-cheek Aeropostale Ts from the 90s. I'm wondering if this film's script was adapted from a T-shirt or if all those tongue-in-cheek Ts are actually mass-produced porn props? Hopefully the latter.

The DVD is also packed with extras, including a bonus reel almost an hour and a half long featuring scenes from similarly plotted woebegone occupational Raging Stallion porn experiences. First there's Hard at Work with Eric Evans and Tom Vacarro as porn office employees, which is a little too post-modern for my tastes but I did appreciate that an extremely fat cat was randomly dropped into frame at 1:10.

Then there's Tough as Nails with Sean Harris and "Huessein" playing randy construction workers. Finally there's a fourgy from Lube Job with Nick Stone, Cory Koons, Jacob Slader, and Manuel Torres playing a quadruple entendre in human form.

The prompt in the Raging Stallion writer's room was clearly to pick a member of the Village People and write a porn about him, but I appreciate their devoted consistency in getting across this whole men/work/sex message in the DVD. Not all their films are set in Sim City, anyway – another 37-minute preview reel showcases a more versatile oeuvre including the hitchhiking doom porn, Open Road, a post-apocalyptic techno Deliverance parody, Timberwolves, the international-themed Sexo En Barcelona, and Heretic, a found footage film from a torture playground.

Buy San Francisco Meat Packers