A video docu-drama that pairs a handsome, muscular female-to-male transsexual and his brand-new penis with Annie Sprinkle could have had strong erotic appeal. While this is not that video, the tape is quite good.

The creators —Al Jaccoma, Johnny Armstrong and Annie Sprinkle— try to hang their premise on, and build sexual tension around, the debut of Les (nee Linda) Nichols' surgically constructed phallus. But the real interest lies in the processes, both psychological and physical, by which a woman becomes a man. Seeing the Teflon stiffening rod uses in Les' erect phallus rip through a condom on its maiden voyage is not a hot sex scene. However, it is fascinating watching Annie make love to Les and his "original equipment" vagina.

The entertainment and information more than make up for any lack of eroticism. Viewers will learn more about f-to-m transsexualism —and have more fun— than from a week of Geraldo or Donahue. Les' candid discussion about his earlier life as a woman and now as a man in interspersed with photos of Linda growing progressively more masculine. Annie appears in a series of black and white flashbacks that string the video together. The entire tape is distinguished by imaginative camera and editing techniques. The graphic descriptions of the surgical procedures may be too much for some viewers; the squeamish can always avert their eyes.