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An uneventfully vanilla erotic thriller whittled down from a miniseries takes a spanking on streaming

Maybe stick to the miniseries if you want to get your kicks.

american-kamasutra
via Epoch Cinema

The multi-billion dollar success of the Fifty Shades franchise has a lot to answer for, with erotic thrillers finally breaking free of their leather-bound prisons to escape onto film and television screens everywhere, with American Kamasutra marking the second coming of a story that had already climaxed.

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Six-episode miniseries Submission ran on Showtime between May and June of 2016, but even though it was hardly showered in critical praise, it was decided that the entire thing would be re-edited and released as a feature with a much more salacious title, with American Kamasutra promising all sorts of titillating goings-on that would get viewers hot under the collar.

american-kamasutra
via Epoch Cinema

Based on a 3/10 average on IMDb, we’re inclined to say that such desires went woefully unfulfilled. Creator Jacky St. James admitted she wasn’t best pleased with the BDSM on show in Fifty Shades, so sought out to do it justice. As it turns out, turning a middling episodic romp into an even worse film wasn’t quite the best way to go about it.

People love the forbidden fruit of vanilla erotica, though, especially when it’s available on-demand at the push of the button to negate the need for locked doors or hurriedly-closed browser tabs. As a result, American Kamasutra has been giving the Prime Video charts a right good spanking this week per FlixPatrol, having edged its way onto the Top 10 in multiple countries across the globe.

If you’re interested, the story finds a woman becoming roped into a dangerous love triangle involving the author of a popular erotic novel. Based on the general response, we’d suggest “no thanks” as your safe word of choice.