Come up and I'll beat you some time: bosom bosses and other stories

Anything goes in Hollywood, where sexual fantasies come alarmingly true. Xenia Gregoriadis sifts through the fetishes

"THERE are sooo many augmented people, sooo many implants here - most women in LA are skinny with fake tits - so we have one size called 'SWBT': small waist/big tits," announces Randy Shrier, co-owner of Hollywood's favourite purveyor of erotic underwear, Trashy Lingerie. Together with mom and dad, Randy (by name) sells fantasy sex to fantasy bodies, including Dolly Parton, Roseanne Barr, countless strippers and wannabe starlets. Throughout the shop, leather-bondage gear, "Trailer-Trash" gingham and "Super-Stripper" rubber arouse tired mannequins, while the homely Mrs Shrier elucidates the benefits of crotchless knickers and shares the secrets of sex appeal: "It's how you wear it, honey!"

Sex, or more accurately, the fostering of sexual fantasy, is a ten-billion dollar industry in the States, and nowhere is it more rampant than in Hollywood. "Here we have a world of hard-core pornography where there are porno conventions and millions of porno films sold," says Al Goldstein, the rather lascivious editor of Screw magazine. "Do I defend pornography?" he asks. "Most people in the business are gutless, faceless, opportunistic lowlifes."

Al Goldstein, the people he denigrates and the industry they sustain are the subject of Hollywood Sex, a series of four films produced by David Green for Sky Television. The films document the gamut of sexual hedonism in a city of extremes, from pubic-hair sculptors to transvestite teachers, from porn stars to sex therapists.

See Tantric lovers "dance in the places of pleasure", and oiled swingers revel in foreplay. Meet Ava Cadell, ex-page three girl-cum-qualified sexologist and 69-year-old erotic poetess, Joan Hotchkis. In celebration of sexuality, Cadell advocates the practice of loving, monogamous but "spicy" sex, and using Kitty - her model vagina - she teaches her pupils the Venus-butterfly technique (a combination of clitoral and G-spot oral stimulation) for a mere $75 per hour. "There is such a need to learn about sexuality because there's no one there to teach us," she insists, bemoaning the puritannical attitude towards sex in an otherwise liberal American culture. "Sex is the life force," argues Hotchkis, challenging sexual taboo and particularly the oppressive de-sexualisation of the elderly. "Feeling sexy and being in touch with my body has saved my soul."

Meanwhile self-confessed "depraved pornographer" John T-Bone works hard to demolish the myth of sacred sex. "I take unbelievably beautiful girls and put them into degrading situations. I'm a pornographer not an erotic artist," says T-Bone. "Sex between people is an incredibly animalistic act. It's like two pigs rutting. That's how I see it. I don't like to glorify it or pretend that it's pretty or beautiful." And as we see the young Jasmin St Clair consent to continuous sex with 300 men in order to make a million dollars and secure her name in the annals of porn, John T-Bone reflects on her achievement. "Damaged by the gang-bang? I hope so. I would hate to think that someone could go through that and not carry some kind of scar."

Violence is certainly more acceptable than sex, explains hard-core S&M enthusiast, Sir James. Within the confines of his club, Le Chateau (the only legalised S&M club in LA), "fondling for sexual gratification" is forbidden by law. "You can whip, pinch or slap a nipple but you cannot kiss it. You cannot take a vibrator and shove it up a guy's butt to stimulate his prostate but you can slam it up his ass to punish or humiliate him." For $80 per hour and $2 per minute thereafter you can submit to any "switch" (dominatrix) of your choice. Mistress Morgan likes play-piercing, Kira likes electricity, Mystique likes sensory domination and Gwendolin likes rope; "but they all do the humiliation, verbal abuse and discipline requested by the clients," confirms Sir James. Have a nice day.

'Hollywood Sex' begins Sunday April 5th, 10pm, Sky One.