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Ever since the Pussycat Theater on Western was torn down in 2003 to build the
aesthetic concentration camp that is Walgreens, and Santa Monica developers decided
a Buca di Beppo would be better suited to serve sausage with cream than the Pussycat
on Second Street, L.A.’s straight porn theaters have been put on the endangered
species list. Apart from occasional midnight kitsch revivals at the Sunset 5,
the Tiki Theater (5462 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood, 323-466-4264)
is all that’s left. Forty folding chairs, an oh-so-welcoming turnstile clicky-clicking
one through the entry, and four or five features daily and through most of the
night. (The Tiki closes for an hour or two for the inevitable cleanup — there
are more sighs and groans heard here than during the results of the 2004 Presidential
election.) As one Web site devoted to adult theaters so tactfully puts it, “nearly
everyone agrees this place is a useless dive . . . only a twisted, extremely perverted
male-female couple would go into the Tiki.” But that’s the point: Go here if you
want to face the realities of sex again, where sexuality is discomfiting and not
made up of a notion in which an individual’s desires are as clean or right-page-aligned
with yours. I want to be frightened by sex from time to time in this era of 10-year-olds
wearing sweatpants with “Juicy” written on the ass and Jenna Jameson making The
New York Times’ best-sellers list. One young lady accompanied this reporter
for the scooperoo last Valentine’s Day — anyone who says he doesn’t “test” their
significant other at some point just isn’t being honest!

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