It was a cold Muncie evening in mid-November 2010, just before Thanksgiving break, the twilight time of a college semester where papers aren’t quite due yet and studying seems like a far-off battle not worth fighting. My roommate had a degree that actually required effort, so I was alone in our on-campus apartment — probably watching some bullshit rather than socializing. And by bullshit, I mean hardcore pornography.

At some point, I decided it was time to look at some superhero porn.

All things considered, this wasn’t terribly abnormal. I’m a child of the internet and also one of many people whose love of superhero comics intersected with puberty. Those big-breasted, questionably revealing costumes? Those well-written and interesting characters constantly on the verge of consummating their passions before someone or another stopped them with violent intent? These imaginary worlds that built up a reason to develop para-social relationships with fellow fans online that always inevitably invited sexualization of fictional characters as a way of expressing our pubescent desires and frustrations? When it came to comics and other stories laced with sexual innuendo, suggestive imagery and screaming subtext, I was among the target audience in a generation that pioneered a much more open discussion of sexuality (and sexism) in this type of popular fiction.

I can rationalize it all I want but, honestly, I was bored in Muncie and just really wanted to look at some superhero-themed pornography.

And not just any old Rule 34 image or sultry fan-fiction about the Caped Crusader and Catwoman making good on all their chemistry; this was a year or so before Catwoman #1 mainstreamed graphic sex scene in an honest to go D.C. comic. I wanted to see what was up with the closest thing to a mainstream pornographic sensation in 2010 — director Axel Braun and Vivid Entertainment’s Batman XXX: A Porn Parody, headlined by adult stars Lexi Belle, Tori Black, Evan Stone, James Deen, Ron Jeremy and Dale DaBone.

Problem is, this was before the rise of Tube sites, and most of the new Batman XXX porn parody wasn’t easily accessible via Google Images or Google Video or any of the other quick-fix porn sources. I wasn’t in the mood to just take care of things in a few minutes and get back to whatever else I was doing. No, I wanted to watch this movie, this porno. So I booted up my usual torrent site and realized I was using campus internet, where torrenting was strictly tracked and prohibited.

I was not to be deterred. What else was I going to do that night, be social? Do homework? So I drove over to my friend’s house. At the time, he was living in a rental a few blocks away with some roommates I didn’t really know. But that night he was arguing with his girlfriend. I wasn’t in the mood to hang out anyway, so I just parked on the street outside, logged into his private internet connection and sat in my car for an hour downloading my high-definition pornography. It wasn’t so bad — sitting in my car, listening to music, thinking about the world and downloading illicit material that could potentially get my pal sued without his knowledge; Braun had filed a lawsuit against 7,000 individuals who seeded torrents only a month prior.

Oh, sure, it was a little weird when his girlfriend looked out the window at the car parked across their yard and saw me sitting there illuminated by the glow of my laptop screen. I did eventually tell them what I’d used their internet for, and they both thought it was a funny story at the time. At least they seemed to think so.

What of the movie, though?

I didn’t revisit Batman XXX to write this essay, which was really just an excuse to share one of my completely unexceptional college anecdotes. There was no need to, and besides, the production is notable for starring two former male porn stars who have now been accused of heinous sex crimes. Deen, who played Robin, was popular enough in the 2000s to actually take on some “mainstream” work but was hit with dozens of accusations about a half-decade ago by some of the most famous women in the industry. He has since disappeared. Ron Jeremy, one of the most iconic male stars in American pornography, has been indicted on over 30 charges of rape and sexual assault. It wouldn’t be worth watching again.

To my recollection, it wasn’t particularly fun or arousing at the time, either, even without behind-the-scenes knowledge. Braun’s approach to filming his big-budget pornography has never been to my tastes. His sex scenes are prolonged, overly choreographed and poorly shot — frantic, even, in a way that was not particularly erotic or character-based. It just never felt like I was watching a movie about Batman and Catwoman fucking, you know? Just two fairly recognizable performers in decently tailored costumes with unappealing genital zippers and flaps. Not a turn-on.

Additionally, most of the scenes are actually between various villain characters and women, which has never done anything for me. Not into villains in this context! Especially when the Riddler was played by Evan Stone, an extremely ugly man with massive testicles that haunt me. To his credit, Stone was really funny as Captain Edward Reynolds in the 2005 parody Pirates, but only with his clothes on. That’s a problem for a pornographic actor.

Braun’s direction of the interstitial narrative material was actually OK, though, insofar as it’s pretty easy to lampoon Batman ’66. The double entendres are more overt, and there’s less homoeroticism, but it’s still just camp. It’s an easy job, but he doesn’t mess it up. None of the spinoffs spawned from the success of Batman XXX ever quite lived up to it, being that they required some amount of original material between sex sequences and attempts at actual drama which is not really the strong point of this genre. I tapped out of Braun’s career after his Spider-Man parody left me cold due to its unappealing depiction of Black Widow.

Anyway, I graduated college about a year and a half later, in May 2012. During the last stretch of college after Batman XXX, I managed to find a girlfriend, break up with that girlfriend, and watch a shitload of non-pornographic movies with my life partner Sam Watermeier. Mostly sad 90’s movies which are, again, not a turn-on. It was May of that year, and I was preparing to leave Muncie to move back to Indianapolis. (Sam would stay another two years, and I was only six or so months from meeting Aly). We were at the Northside Family Video, our regular place, and jokingly entered their infamous adult-film section. I was bemused to see that they had a well-worn case from Batman XXX sitting on the shelf, disc rented. Had I known it was an option, would I have rented it instead of risking my friend’s internet connection and reputation given the legal furor around the movie at that time? Probably not. In truth, if I could choose a different way for this story to have gone, I would’ve ended it with him being sued without ever knowing I was the loser downloading superhero porn on his internet connection while he argued with his girlfriend about something stupid. That would’ve made this Muncie memory perfect.