Hooked
Reel Affirmations 2003
Review by Sean Bugg
Rating: 
(5 out of 5)
[Critic’s Pick!]
Saturday, 10/25/2003, 2:00 PM
Feature presentation, $9 at Lincoln Theatre
YOU KNOW YOU’VE done it. You’ve looked around at online chat rooms, written yourself an enticing (you hope) profile, and maybe even gotten together with someone who sounded, well, kinda hot.
And then maybe you did it again. And again.
Finding sex online is perhaps the least obscure sexual trend in the gay community, although its also one of the least understood. Why, for example, do so many men play so fast and loose with the truth?
Are “AOL inches” simply a fact of life?
Hooked doesn’t quite have all the answers, but it certainly makes for a captivating look at the questions. Interviewing a broad range of men from all over the country who avail themselves of online cruising, director Todd Ahlberg captures a wildly diverse world where everyone thinks they’re looking for the same thing, but everyone’s actually looking for something very different.
Along the way you’ll meet the bald-faced liars, the sexual compulsives, the gymbots, the freaks, the geeks and everything in between. One of the funniest moments comes when an average gay Joe sums up a particularly bad hookup with, “I shouldn’t have to ask, ‘Do you have teeth?'”
But it’s not all fun and games, as a large number of these men are obviously compulsive. Some realize it, and lament their treatment of other men as objects, yet keep on hooking. “I’m speaking as somewhat of a hypocrite with a conscience,” says a young college student. “Deep down I know it’s something I don’t want and it’s something that I’m settling for.”
Whether you’ve partaken in the online sexual derbies or not, Hooked has plenty to hook you in.
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