When we read that New Zealand filmmaker Paul Oremland had made a documentary about the 100 sexual partners he has had over the past 40 years, we were really most impressed. Not with the number of conquests that he has clocked up, but by the sheer fact that after all this time he could actually remember them all. It was, therefore, refreshing to discover that when it came to details of each of the men, Oremland was sometimes vague beyond the brief nickname that he had given them at the time like Will The Gypsy, Closet Samoan etc.
Nevertheless, although occasionally light on facts, Oremland’s story from his first boyfriend breaking his heart so bad he ran off to see the world, (well London anyway) does neatly mirror how male gay relationships, in general, evolved during those decades. As a 19 year old desperate to work in the film business Oremland landed a job in one of Soho’s seedy sex bookstores with a backroom where all the ‘action’ took part. He was also expected to edit the ‘money shots’ out of porn movies to make them legally watchable, and this time in his life was a big learning curve for such an impressionable young Kiwi.
It was also the start of his own sexual exploits and it was fascinating to see some of the guys now that he had bedded back then. Many talk fondly about what was a happy time in their youth, although it was funny to hear from a once successful dancer that Oremland was rather fixated on who frankly admitted he had no recollection of their encounter at all.
Back then when gay men were just discovering their sexual freedom, very few even considered monogamy for any length of time, and it brought the advent of the AIDS pandemic to change all that. One of Oremland’s exes, now a priest voiced a very common choice at the time of opting to be celibate.
However, It wasn’t in London that Oremland would find the love of his life, but in Wales when on a day trip he met John. After a couple of train journeys back and forth, the two moved in together and for a short while at least Oremland stopped adding other scalps to his headcount. Then when they drifted into introducing another person into their bed, and then eventual having sex outside of their relationship, Oremland started finding more candidates that would end up on the list
The documentary is no great anthropological study, and to most gay men of Oremland’s age there is nothing startling or shocking about his story, but there is, however, something quite intriguing in the way he looks back at his past as a clue to how his life turned out. Like so many in our community. he still es an element of surprise that he survived the whole tragic period at the height of the AIDS epidemic when people were sadly falling like flies. He had his fair share of sublime happiness and heartbreak, both of which he talks about eloquently. Oremland is immensely charming and a talented storyteller which in the end negates any disappointment we may have had that we got scant details about so many men from the list.
However, It’s almost guaranteed that once the final credits roll, you will without a doubt thinking about complying your own list, wherever the number is less or even much more than 100.
