tristan taormino's educational porn for smitten kitten

I posted (here) about Smitten Kitten's new line of free (online) educational porn and have been meaning to write a more comprehensive review of the films, in particular of those made by feminist pornographer Tristan Taormino. In the meantime, you might be interested in Epiphora's recent post where she breaks down as follows the reasons for whey you should also buy the expanded full version of what Tristan made for Smitten Kitten:

5 reasons you need to buy the Dylan + Danny scene on the Smitten Kitten
I mean, we all know that Dylan Ryan and Danny Wylde are hot. And that Tristan Taormino has an amazing eye for shooting porn. But all of them combined? Explosion of awesome. It’s even better than I thought it would be. 

Here’s what happened: Tristan shot a couple sex ed shorts for the Smitten Kitten on the topics of cunnilingus, fellatio, and female ejaculation, but they also decided to release the full 48-minute scene between Dylan and Danny. The scene is 1 GB, 960 x 540, and it will BLOW YOUR MIND.

if everyone's dressed and no one's having sex, is it "porn"?

Baldguy was shown at this fall's annual Berlin Porn Film Festival, but is it "porn"? Everyone's dressed and no one's having sex.

A vital musical film about being who you are and loving who ever you want.

A story about a young man's quest for love and acceptance, all in a lively musical film about being yourself and loving whoever you want. This is a film about forbidden and boundless love and the risk of losing everything when your choice is head on with the morally accepted.

Set in northern Norway and originally titled Skallaman (2011), this short film by Maria Bock has in fact been a favorite on the international festival circuit, and has won several awards, including the BAFTA/LA Award for Best Short Film at the Aspen Shortsfest 2011. ("Recognized as one of the world's "50 Leading Film Festivals" by IndieWIRE, Aspen Shortsfest is one of the world's premier international short film and video showcases for the trend-setting art form: the short.") According to feminist sex and porn blogger Ms. Naughty, the film also inspired cheers and much applause from the audience at this fall's Berlin Porn Film Festival.

"child porn"?! hide any picture of your naked child!

Lilly (at almost 3)

Did I commit sexual abuse when I took this picture of Lilly? Is this "child pornography"?

In 2008, an Arizona couple was accused of sexual abuse after taking bath-time photos of their children — then ages 1 1/2, 4 and 5 — and then trying to have them developed at Walmart. The parents were not allowed to see their children for several days and didn't regain custody for a month while the state investigated. Ultimately, neither parent was charged with sexual abuse and they regained custody of their children.

Imagine the lasting harm this inflicted on the children and their parents. Then imagine it happening to you.

With sexting and nude photos of minors causing a growing cultural panic, as addressed in a recent article by professor emeritus Paul Rapoport, it is not too unlikely. Stated a Canadian police officer recently after an eruption in the media's talk about sexting in Cape Breton, N.S.: "Taking naked photographs of anyone under the age of 18 — even themselves — constitutes making child pornography.” Comments Dr. Rapoport: "Really? Forget about teens; it’s time to destroy those cute photos of your baby in the bath."

new survey on women's online porn habits and self-pleasure

Gender studies professor Hugo Schwyzer and sex educator Jamye Waxman have teamed up to find out more about women's online porn habits and masturbation. Explains Jamye in her blog:

My friend and fantastic professor, writer and researcher Hugo Schwyzer approached me a few months back about working together on a project about porn and self pleasure. Hugo was interested in learning more about women’s porn habits online. He said that not only has porn viewing by women increased, but he’d also talked with women who expressed a gendered idea. It was this idea that watching porn made them “act/feel more like a man.” I found that phrase fascinating. I had questions. Questions like:

• How does a man act? Feel?
• What is the definition of a man anyway?
• What is it about porn that makes us put a gender to what we do?
• How has watching porn changed how we pleasure ourselves as women? Has it changed how women masturbate?

filament interviews sex-positive performance artist annie sprinkle

Filament Magazine ("for women who like hot men and intelligent thought) has a new issue out in print and is currently featuring online an interview with legendary sex-positive performance artist and feminist pornographer Annie Sprinkle: Annie Sprinkle on porn, love, and ecosexuality. Here Annie discusses her sex-positive performance art integrating life and art in ways that today inspires the likes of Madison Young, and she talks about her support of sex workers' rights. Originally a golden age porn star, Annie begins by sharing her thoughts on porn and how she has sought to change porn conceptually through her post-porn modernism. Says Annie about porn:

There’s a lot of porn that I don’t necessarily like or identify with, but to me that’s okay. Porn is a reflection of where people are at and what people like. I’d like to see more people in the art world experimenting with pornographic images. I love art. There are so many kinds of porn now, it’s better to call it pornographies: plural.

21st century sex and porn women want

Porn Women Want:
James Deen (tumblr)

A fall issue of the Utne Reader is devoted to 21st century sex. Featuring many good articles, it also includes an excerpt from A Billion Wicked Thoughts by Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam. The authors boastfully claim to have conducted "the world's largest experiment" "to understand the specific cues that trigger human desire." True, they report some curious findings about people's online searches for porn (on which their purportedly extensive study is based). But they appear sadly unable to unstuck themselves from stereotypical assumptions about gender. "On the web, women prefer stories and men prefer images," they claim. And the kinds of stories women like feature "sexy vampires and lusty werewolves" because "supernatural males are alphas among alphas, turbocharging cues of masculinity ... fully capable of protecting the ones they love." Men, on the other hand, like to look at young women, MILF (Mothers I'd Like to Fuck), big penises, and cuckold porn because it stimulates "sperm competition," which enables a male's sperm to compete with other males' sperm to impregnate a female's egg. ("If a man believes that his sexual partner may have been with a rival, he is driven to have sex with her as quickly and as vigorously as possible").*

If you read their book or the excerpt published in the Utne Reader, I ask that you also read feminist sex and porn blogger Ms. Naughty's sharp post critiquing these authors' study and their findings (I also post a bit about it here). As Ms. Naughty noted when she wrote her post back in June, plenty of other bloggers had by then already pointed out various problems with this book and the methodology used. But Ms. Naughty adds some eyeopening facts debunking their study.

newsy porn stuff for women and men who care

Is Mapplethorpe's art arousing?
Depends on who you ask.

Adult sex educator Charlie Glickman has written a post Untangling the Gordian Knot of the anti-porn agenda of professor Robert Jensen. It's a long one, but definitely worth plowing through. Writes Charlie in response to Jensen's "demonizing porn (and by extension, porn viewers):" 

I think his arguments would be stronger if he explicitly recognized that how people think about and use porn isn’t evenly split along gender lines, that there are people who are trying to make porn that shows genuine connection and passion between performers, that the reasons that people have fantasies are complex, that the lines between art and porn are fuzzy, and that the reasons that people feel discomfort around porn are personal as well as political. It might not be as conceptually elegant, but it would be much more honest and that’s what we really need.

I particularly appreciate Charlie's refusal to revert to a simplistic pro-porn stance, calling instead for a more nuanced and complex discussion on porn. I agree that "we need to be willing to look at the ways in which the content and messages of porn shapes how we think about sex." And that while "we need to make room for the voices of people who enjoy being in porn (and not tell them that their choices are inauthentic or that they have false consciousness)," we also "need to make room for the voices of people who were treated badly or hurt while performing in porn (and not tell them that they’re making it up or that it’s their fault for making a bad decision)."

mom-daughter lingerie ad campaign has the media in a tizzy

The Lake and Stars lingerie and swimwear company has received a lot of attention in the last few days due to a lingerie campaign featuring a mother and her daughter. Fox News is, unsurprisingly, in a tizzy:

“These ads are highly suggestive. They are clearly designed to titillate consumers; mostly men. The incestuous and lesbian suggestions, with the phallic images of cactus and logs, are juvenile at best,” psychologist Dr. Nancy Irwin told FOX411’s Pop Tarts column. “I'm disgusted, yet hardly surprised by this. Advertisers (particularly of undergarments) continuously push the envelope on good taste to simply get attention and drive sales."

Comments Fashionism about the ad campaign:

There isn't anything particularly 'humourous' about a mother and daughter pair posing so provocatively. In fact, it is quite awkward and uncomfortable. Some might even think this is disturbing ... Personally, I believe that in a society where girls are already faced with a lot of peer pressure and competition from their friends and colleagues, it is unnecessary to add the burden of comparing themselves to their mothers.

According to the Huffington Post, The Lake and Stars co-founders Nikki Dekker and Maayan Zilberman intended to spark discussion:

sadie magazine interviews erotic filmmaker candida royalle

Sadie Magazine is "a magazine for young women who might otherwise read glossy teen magazines that focus on hair, makeup, and prom dresses. Rather than training women to consume, Sadie aims to empower girls with stories of risk-taking ladies. Our goal at Sadie is to offer resources in order to make young women (and all interested young men) self-sufficient, independent, and knowledgeable."

I was recently approached by Sadie Magazine to write an article describing my top ten feminist porn films. I have submitted my article and expect it will be published in their next (fall/winter) issue.

In Sadie Magazine's current (spring/summer) issue is a personal interview with iconic erotic filmmaker Candida Royalle (b. 1950) who never fails to come across as real (notes Candida: "I’ve learned that the way to really reach people and engage them is to touch them where they live. So if things are too surface and predictable you kind of miss the boat").

in the news: when porn does us good and more women watch it

Highlights from last month that deserve special attention, in particular as they pertain to women:

Anna Arrowsmith

Firstly, the Guardian published an article titled Porn is good for society by Anna Arrowsmith, also known as feminist pornographer Anna Span. Excerpt:

Women's rights are far stronger in societies with liberal attitudes to sex – think of conservative countries such as Afghanistan, Yemen or China, and the place of women there. And yet, anti-porn campaigners neglect such issues entirely. A recent study by the US department of justice compared the four states that had highest broadband access and found there was a 27% decrease in rape and attempted rape, and the four with the lowest had a 53% increase over the same period. With broadband being key to watching porn online, these figures are food for thought for those who believe access to porn is bad news.

why i keep calling it porn when it doesn't look like it

When I first showed a former colleague some of the re-visioned porn I write about in my book, his response was: "But this isn't porn! It's film!" Others have since reacted the same way and many have asked me, "Why do you keep calling it porn? Why not call it 'erotic' or 'explicit,' 'adult' or 'sensual,' or whatever, just not 'porn'? You're going to turn people away from your work," they would warn me.

So why do I insist on using the "porn" word?

Porn has gotten a bad rap for good reasons. And in fact, several of the female (porn) filmmakers whose work I look at in my book stay clear of the “porn” word lest they turn their targeted audience away from their work. Instead they label their films with the terms that I have been recommended to use too.

But others refuse to allow men free rein in defining porn, and therefore claim the “porn” word as a way to subversively change its meaning.

This position appeals the most to me. Because words can hold a lot of power. – Whore. Prude. Slut. Women and men are cursed by words. And women and men have been cruelly labeled by words. In turn, some women and men have claimed words to deny their derogatory undertones.

"Porn” is a loaded word that brings up a lot of negative imageries in our pornified culture. “That’s so ‘porn’” has today become an expression to describe excessive or trashy taste. But imagine if the content and connotations, and even the effects of porn were different: positive and empowering rather than negative and degrading. That’s what I’ve discovered to be the potential of re-visioned and transformed porn by women.

afro empowerment in the form of an intelligent porno-musical

Simone Valentino as AfroDite

My new article at Good Vibrations Magazine is up today, featuring AfroDite Superstar (2007). With allusions to Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing (1989), AfroDite Superstar is an intelligent porno-musical that excels cinematically on all levels, delivering strong performances and a terrific soundtrack. The lead actress, Simone Valentino, won a Feminist Porn Award as Best New Star in 2007 for her performance as AfroDite.

The film follows the journey of AfroDite, a young black Beverly Hills woman who wants to become a rap star on her own terms. Interspersed throughout the film are compelling home video monologues in which AfroDite finds an outlet for her thoughts and fears, insecurities and longings.

smitten kitten: educational porn

pucker up

Whether you're local to the Twin Cities or not, you'll be interested in checking out the new line of "educational porn" just released from sex-positive feminist sex shop and educator Smitten Kitten.

This first Smitten Kitten collection of sex-ed shorts features three short films by high-profiled sex educator, author, editor and feminist pornographer Tristan Taormino (on cunnilingus, fellatio, and the G-spot), and two by feminist queer pornographer Courtney Trouble (on strap-on sex and on finding the right dildo for you). They are all available for free view streaming online here. Presents Smitten Kitten:

pucker up: tristan taormino's sex-positive salon

Award-winning author, columnist, sex educator, speaker, and feminist pornographer Tristan Taormino has revamped her pucker up site and it looks great. Highlighting her feminist endeavors, the site now also features feminist porn resources and an article on the history of feminist porn, featuring a list of educated definitions of feminist porn by various people (including by me).

I really like Tristan's own definition, which she quotes from a lecture she gives called “My Life As a Feminist Pornographer.” Here are Tristan's thoughts on what constitutes feminist porn to her:

My feminist porn is made under fair, ethical working conditions: all activities are consensual, no performers are coerced; performers set their monetary rates, which are not questioned or haggled over; everyone on the set treats each other with mutual respect; the work environment is clean and safe; performers must present proof of negative STI results with tests that are less than 30 days old (industry standard) or a shorter time of their choosing; and performers are offered the option of using condoms and other safer sex barriers.

cabaret desire

Cabaret Desire (stills)

Cabaret Desire, the latest film of feminist porn maker Erika Lust, is inspired by an actual New York-based Poetry Brothel with branches around the world, including in Barcelona:

The Poetry Brothel, a unique and immersive poetry experience, takes poetry outside classrooms and lecture halls and places it in the lush interiors of a bordello. The Poetry Brothel presents poets as high courtesans who impart their work in public readings, spontaneous eruptions of poetry, and most distinctly, as purveyors of private poetry readings on couches, chaise lounges and in private rooms. The Poetry Brothel is a place of uninhibited creative expression in which the poets and clients can be themselves in private.

Apparently, The Poetry Brothel from New York and its Barcelona branch participated in the making of Cabaret Desire with their "high courtesans," or "whores" as they also call themselves. Explains Erika:

strawberry seductress' art core

I am working on an article about the "art core" films of German-born Petra Joy (b. 1964) who lives and works in Great Britain. In the US, Joy's work has recently been featured by Candida Royalle under her Femme Productions label. Comments Royalle: “Joy’s work is completely unique and never wavers from her commitment to a feminine vision.”

Joy founded Strawberry Seductress in 2004 and has since produced four of her own films, and two collections featuring re-visioned porn by other women. Her focus is on female pleasure and sensuality.

Joy’s motto is “feeling it, not faking it” and she prefers to work with amateurs and couples who’re together outside of the set as well.

While seeking to capture real chemistry, Joy also aspires to create artistic films, however: "art core." Her films--typically shorter vignettes--reflect a penchant for soft hues and filters, and are less about crescendoing to climax and more about a creative lingering on sensual intimacy. The vignettes integrate artsy shots of food play, sex toys, role-play, lush feather displays, burlesque silhouettes, and other artistic props and effects, including blurry dimmed filters in soft red hues, floating camera movements, and dissolving images fading in and out. There is no dialog; the vignettes are instead accompanied by mellow bluesy soft cabaret jazz music.

I will let you know when my article is complete and up at Good Vibrations Magazine.

Update: My article was published at Good Vibrations Magazine on October 13:
Feeling It! Petra Joy's "Art Core"

re-visioned porn by women reflects growing gender equality

A new study on the correspondence between a country's relative gender equality and the degree of female "empowerment" in each country's porn had me thinking about my chapter contribution to Generation P?. As I show in this article, women have been re-visioning porn to match a time of greater gender equality for years. And it's their porn that appeals to the sexually emancipated and empowered young modern female porn consumer.

As I also argue in my After Pornifed book, this kind of porn is becoming a surefire counterweight to all bad porn and pornified media that discriminates against women as well as men.

brief update

Earlier this week, I was approached with an invitation to contribute with an article based on my book to an anthology on feminist porn. Then a progressive magazine aimed at women invited me to write an article for them on feminist porn. I am excited to write both as soon as I get over this nasty head cold that has turned into an even worse sinus infection. Despite a throbbing headache, I did manage to complete my article on Eva Midgley's lush erotic vignettes, however; it was published today at Good Vibrations Magazine: Erotic Moments from Eva Midgley.

Oh; I am also working on revamping my sites. You might notice that a lot of the gadgets are gone from the sidebars here. I am developing a platform for all my sites, including Love, Sex, and Family and my blogs (this one and quizzical mama). A lot of the information that's been replicated at the different sites, will be published only at my platform/author page. Watch for a slicker, cleaner look to come (shortly).

coco de mer exquisite: lushly styled erotic vignettes

Photo for Coco de Mer

I am working on an article for Good Vibrations Magazine about the erotic short films by Dutch-born (Brooklyn-based since 2005) Eva Midgley made for the luxurious woman-run sex boutique Coco de Mer. Eva's exquisite work reflects her background in fashion (she was a fashion editor for years, including for Dutch Esquire); the results of her eye for esthetic detail are simply stunning.

In 2000, after moving with her family to London, Eva made a career shift to film. She attended film school (the National Film and Television School and the Raindance Institute), creating short experimental erotic films, among her other assignments. And then she met the woman behind Coco de Mer.

From Erotic Moments ...

It was at the nursery gates of a Montessori school in London that Eva met human rights activist and environmental campaigner Sam Roddick also picking up her child. Sam, the daughter of Anita Roddick who founded the cosmetics company Body Shop, was at the time in the planning stages of Coco de Mer, which opened shortly after in Covent Garden. The two soon became friends. Recounts Eva: “We just got talking and spent hours at various school events talking about why it is that porn is effective? It’s butt ugly. It offends. And yet, it gets you going in seconds.”

easy on the eye: britain’s first female porn producer

Anna Span

Good Vibrations Magazine has published an excerpt from my book on new porn by women; in this case featuring the porn by Anna Span with her Easy on the Eye Productions ("British Humor in Anna Span's New Porn"). I devote an entire chapter to her work in my book so it's high time I shared some of my thoughts on her porn.

Since 2003, Anna has released 20 DVDs, each containing five episodes, most part of her “Anna Span’s Diary” series.

Distribution of porn was illegal in Great Britain until 2000 when the R-18 certificate was introduced for hardcore porn with 18 as the rating for softcore. Due to membership of the European Union, import of porn had already been legal, but not sale; the law was intended to clean up this awkward purchase- and sale situation.

porn stars' breasts are for babies too

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

kira's erotic fantasies: keep or not?

I like the idea of keeping my section on Stella Film Productions in my book as an example of what not to do when attempting to re-vision porn into something truly good. The below section on Kira's erotic fantasies could also be included as a cautionary example -- or not. What do you think?

I first checked out “Kira’s erotic fantasies” (2005) by nude model Kira Eggers (1974) because it came to me highly recommended by the woman-run sex shop Lust. Before making “Kira’s erotic fantasies,” Kira worked as a mainstream porn actress. She quit to launch her own online erotic business featuring nude pictures of herself and other women. And to make her own “erotic fantasies” films. – A second volume featuring more “erotic fantasies” was released in 2006, and a third in 2007.



The packaging of Kira’s erotic fantasies is certainly “softer” and “glossier” than what you’d find in mainstream porn, but other than that, the content remains much the same. And I have issues with the film’s styling too. Though the film features attractive actors, costumes, and sets. And though the close-ups of genitals are sexy and beautiful; not gynecological and sterile. Kira has also invested in a melodious musical soundtrack, and the sighing and moaning are discreet.

corny cliché porn outtake, or what do you think?

I asked a little while back if you'd be interested in reading some of my book's outtakes. Now that I'm in the finishing stages of editing my book, reinserting some sections that I had taken out and cutting other stuff, I'd be curious to hear your thoughts. Was I wrong to take the below out, or not? Please chime in.

Not all porn revisionists in New York belong to the innermost cool circle of sex positive mavericks. Sure, I did find a link on New Yorker sex activist and feminist porn maker Audacia Ray’s former Waking Vixen blog to Estelle Joseph’s Stella Films Production, but as it turns out, that’s about all the two have in common. The website is no longer there, but it impressed me when I first came upon it spring of 2006:

Stella Films Production (SFP) is a completely female-owned adult entertainment company. As an independent New York film company, SFP strives to expand beyond the stereotypical image of “porn.” The company majors on minor details to provide high-quality films that appeal to the senses and intellect. SFP movies are produced by women for a broad audience, especially for women and couples. They feature superb acting, appealing set designs, classy locations and original music sound tracks.

how about we get a progressive sex shop downtown?!

On the front page of today's local paper is an article on "Adult Business" discussing the issue of getting a sex shop -- and a gun shop -- in town. While conflating sex and violence, as the tendency unfortunately is in our society, an intriguing question about the healthiest place for locating an adult business came up.

In response to a city councilman's suggestion the commercial zone be widen to allow an adult business to get set up on the outskirts of town, a city councilwoman notes that "the healthiest choice to locate them for our community” is not necessarily "anywhere along the highway.”

I like her point. New women-run and female-oriented progressive sex shops, such as Smitten Kitten in Minneapolis's Uptown neighborhood only 45 minutes north of town, have shown that progressive sex shops can have a positive effect on their neighborhoods.
 
Founded in 2003, Smitten Kitten has seen a rundown stretch of blocks transform into one of the hippest stretches on Lyndale Avenue, inspiring a surge of gentrification. The shop's owner, Jennifer Pritchett, holds a graduate degree in Gender and Women's Studies. In 2005, she co-founded the first ever community advocacy organization and adult industry education organization, The Coalition Against Toxic Toys. Pritchett has spoken about healthy sex toys and practices at colleges and universities, including at our Lutheran college in town.

To our local newspaper, a Lutheran minister who is also the head of an organization that has led the fight to rid his community of adult businesses, argues that they give "a negative impression of his hometown." But the trend of progressive sex shops show that they can in fact contribute to the health and prosperity of our communities.

censored: feminist porn, topless toddler girls, and quizzical mama

Eyes of Desire

In today's new porn by women post at Good Vibrations Magazine — "Eyes of Desire: Mutual Gaze and Reflective Role-play" — I discuss Candida Royalle's Eyes of Desire. The film picks up on the exchange of a desiring gaze, which Royalle introduces in her early Femme Productions erotic rock videos; but in this film's case involving the use of a telescope.

As I will discuss more in posts to come, Eyes of Desire and Eyes of Desire 2 also interest me for their featuring of a range of sexual preferences and reflective approach to role-play. Other Femme Productions films such as My Surrender (1996) and The Bridal Shower (1997) also focus on characters demonstrating a mindful appropriation and play with erotic fantasies without becoming reduced to the part they perform. On the contrary, role-play here becomes a way to expand the characters’ sexual play-field, suggesting how new porn by women can serve as a vehicle for women (and men!) to explore their sexualities, and even a radical, liberatory new language with which to approach heterosexuality.

i make porn and i love it

"Owning 5 dildos is not proof of being sexually liberated. Knowing how and if you want to use them is." 

[Murielle Scherre, owner of the ultra hip international underwear fashion company La Fille D’O and new porn maker of J’fais du porno et j’aime ça (2009; I make porn and I love it).]

Scherre's new porn film includes twelve exciting and exquisite vignettes that are bound to make you feel good. I write more about each vignette in my post today at Good Vibrations Online Magazine; "I make porn and I love it: catchy music video porn for the young and hip."



As I say in my post (which is an excerpt from my book), the style of Scherre’s films reflects her side gig as a DJ as well as her trendy sense of sexy design that has made her vintage inspired, upscale lingerie so popular around the world among a hip, alternative young crowd, including famous musician artists such as Lady Gaga, Robyn, Roisin Murphy, Juliette Lewis, and Vieve La Fete.



J’fais du porno et j’aime ça was originally released in August 2009 as a supplement to the popular Belgian lifestyle magazine Goedele and is now distributed by La Fille D’O. Explains Scherre:

I hold nothing against porn itself. What does make my skin creep is the total lack of the pure basics of what I consider good sex: the hunger, the curiosity, the eagerness, to surrender, to give into your needs, the satisfaction ... This project is an open manifest to reclaiming what is given to all of us but what seems to be lost to the commercially driven. 

Scherre also collaborated with Blue Artichoke Films' Jennifer Lyon Bell on Skin. Like. Sun. (2009), a longer erotic experimental documentary music video portraying the sex of an actual couple who also performs on Scherre's J’fais du porno et j’aime ça. I encourage you to check out her work!

dirty diaries and more naughty tidbits

"Skin" (Dirty Diaries)

In my latest post featured at Good Vibrations Online Magazine today, I focus on the Swedish, heavily state supported porn DVD Dirty Diaries (2009); a collection of twelve artistic and feminist porn films produced by artist and filmmaker Mia Engberg.

As I was writing that post, which is based on material from my After Pornified: How Women Are Transforming Pornography & Why It Really Matters book, I began to think I should perhaps feature some of the stuff that I have cut OUT from my book. -- I have cut some film discussions from my book, mainly because I don't find those films all that good or successful according to my criteria for evaluating quality in porn (I present those criteria briefly in this post). If you follow this blog (or not and are just checking in); what do you think? Would you be interested in checking out those outtakes? Please let me know. And thanks!

"Skin"

women not visually aroused? really?!

The Male Body

Feminist sex blogger Ms. Naughty who is the largest producer of online porn catering to women, has a powerful recent post debunking the much media featured book A Billion Wicked Thoughts by Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam. Their study looks at searches for internet porn to find out what they reveal about human desire.  Ms. Naughty points out serious flaws with this hyped up study, revealing how the book reiterates the age-old notion that men seek out visuals whereas women prefer stories.

Ms. Naughty's post is important. -- A study conducted back in the nineties has already found that women do in fact respond physically to sexually explicit imageries, regardless of their nature. Professor Ellen Laan at the University of Amsterdam had a group of women watch an episode by female catering porn maker Candida Royalle as well as a scene from a typical mainstream porn film. She found that the women responded physically to both films, but when interviewed afterwards the women spoke with disgust about the mainstream porn film while they were more positive to Royalle’s film (New York Times August 13, 1995).

Ms. Naughty has been critiquing fallacious research claiming women aren't aroused by sexually explicit material for years (see e.g. this post). And in a recent more personal post where she stood up for the beauty of penises in response to the Anthony Weiner penis photo drama, she writes that she thinks "cocks are lovely. They’re a fantastic piece of the human anatomy and we should celebrate them." She concedes, however, that

I didn’t always think this way. I remember feeling a little squeamish about cocks when I started out. I enjoyed looking at handsome faces, muscles, hairy chests, gorgeous legs and pert butts… but the penis didn’t really thrill me. I may have considered them to be a little ugly to be honest (although, to be fair, I didn’t find female genitals all that appealing either). I was a typical example of my culture at that time; as a woman I wasn’t encouraged to look at men nor was I exposed to male nudity very often. While female nudity was common, the cock remained secret and hidden. Especially images of the hard cock, which were (and are) regularly censored.

She continues that what changed is "sheer exposure:"

Over the years I got to know the penis and I finally came to appreciate how lovely it is.

new porn to look for

Coming shortly on DVD from Europe are three new porn films by women creating progressive sex films.

US-born Jennifer Lyon Bell of Blue Artichoke Films in Amsterdam, announced on twitter before the weekend that Skin. Like. Sun., which she made together with artist/DJ/author/lingerie-designer Murielle Scherre of La Fille D’O, will be available in the US within the next couple of months. The film premiered in Antwerp in October 2009 and has already screened in the US in conjunction with CineKink NYC in February 2010. Skin. Like. Sun won the award for Best Direction at the Feminist Porn Awards in Toronto (2010):


Skin. Like. Sun. (Des Jours Plus Belles Que La Nuit) - trailer from Jennifer Lyon Bell on Vimeo.

Earlier this week, Swedish-born Erika Lust of Lust Films and Publications in Barcelona released the trailer for her upcoming film Cabaret Desire, scheduled to come out in October:


Cabaret Desire - Trailer from Erika Lust on Vimeo.

Finally, German-born Petra Joy in England has announced her fourth film, Female Voyeur:



To find out more about these films, click on the following links:

•  Skin. Like. Sun.
• Cabaret Desire
• Female Voyeur 

puzzy power and cupido

My latest article at Good Vibrations Magazine was posted earlier today. Titled "Pink Prison: Power Play and the Woman's Gaze," I write in it about the most successful so-called "Puzzy Power" film, namely Pink Prison (1999). The film stands out not just with its high production quality, but with its meditation on control: claiming it or surrendering it. The film is also striking for its focus on the female gaze studying male sexuality.

 A series of porn aimed at women, Puzzy Power was launched in the late nineties by the mainstream feature film company of renowned filmmaker Lars von Trier, director of such films as the Cannes Film Festival Palme d’Or awarded Dancer in the Dark (2000, starring Björk and Catherine Deneuve) and Dogville (2003, starring Nicole Kidman). All three Puzzy Power films are stylistically well-made and strive to focus on women as sexual subjects with their own agency, and not as objects of desire at the fancy of men's desires. However, while all have been bestsellers, the other two films--Constance (1998) and All About Anna (2005)--in my opinion tend to reinforce traditional gender roles in terms of what women want.

However, as the first hardcore porn films to be produced by an established mainstream film company (the largest in Scandinavia), the Puzzy Power films represent a brave and intriguing concept, which is encouraging for what it reveals about the growing attention devoted to the need for progressive, gender democratic porn catering to modern women and men.

While on vacation in Norway these last couple of weeks, I had the opportunity to also meet with the founder and editor of Cupido, Norway's oldest sex and lifestyle magazine. You can read my articles publishes there a few years ago here (in Norwegian). A well-established progressive magazine and online shop and social forum, I hope to begin writing more for Cupido within the next few months.

new porn empowering women: focus on masturbation

(This post was originally published online at Good Vibrations Magazine)

Three Daughters

I will never forget how my mom caught me red-handed one day, touching myself beneath the covers in my bedroom, home sick from school. The look of disapproval in her face. The humiliation I felt.

Later on my older sister gave me a book about puberty and sex aimed at youth; I threw it in to the back of my closet, still feeling the shame.

Around this time, Candida Royalle, the pioneer of new porn aimed at women, launched her Femme Productions company.

Three Daughters (1987), one of Royalle’s earliest films, features the sexual self-exploration of the youngest daughter, Heather. Lying in bed, she first studies a book about human sexuality with illustrations of women's vulvae, while examining her own with a hand mirror, before drifting off into masturbating. The film was selected for a special screening at a conference of the American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors, and Therapists (AASECT), of which Royalle—as the first producer of adult films—is also a member.

Incidentally, the book Heather studies is one by New York-based sex-positive feminist Betty Dodson. Around the time I was born, Dodson was beginning to host regular masturbation workshops for women, having recognized early on the need for more attention to women's genitalia and masturbation. Dodson has also made several inspiring and powerful sexological films featuring women masturbating. Sadly, I never learned of Dodson's or Royalle's work until I was well into adulthood. But I am glad I finally did.

"That's What I Like" - Creating Porn for Women

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beautiful male bodies

Rachel Rabbit White's recent post about the gross male body got me thinking about how much I love male bodies. The slim yet fit body of my husband, the shape of his hands, the firm feel of his abdomen, the way his buttocks casually strut when he walks, the curve of his collar bone, his arms, his deep blue eyes and thick blond hair.

Of course, I'm biased towards my husband, but I love looking at men in porn too. -- In new porn by women, that is. I'm not so fond of the porn studs in mainstream porn. But I do adore the man who performs as the "TV Idol" on Candida Royalle's Femme; his kind and handsome appearance, his head covered by dark blond wavy hair, his body naturally fit. And the pizza deliverer in Erika Lust's "The Good Girl" (Five Hot Stories for Her) with his dark, almost Italian-like look, in a charming, unthreatening, and kind sort of way. The dreamy appearance of the young guitar-playing man in Lust's "Love" (Life, Love, Lust). And Tucker with his dark curls down to his shoulders in Audacia Ray's The Bi Apple.



And I love not only the look of Dax in Peggy and Tony Comstock's pornumentary Xana and Dax; I love the way Xana describes his body as well; the compelling love and kindness in her voice, filled with desire and admiration, smiles and warmth.

White's thoughts on how women come to think of the male body as gross--"that men are creepy"--are interesting, however, for how they touch on the way women still struggle to own their desire; "it’s become okay, post Sex and The City, for women to use vibrators–but jacking it to hot dude porn? “Ew.” That gives masturbation a desire."

The Bi Apple and Gender Bending Sex Films

(This post, which was originally published online at Good Vibrations Magazine, includes an excerpt from my forthcoming book After Pornified: How Women Are Transforming Pornography & Why It Really Matters.)

Bringing up the rear

Salon.com recently featured an article—Bringing up the rear—on the growing trend of more straight men exploring a formerly taboo hot spot: the male anus. A national sex survey published last year in the Journal of Sexual Medicine found eleven percent of men ages 20-24 reporting that they've been on the receiving end of anal intercourse at some point in their lives. Says sex educator and editor of Good Vibrations Magazine Dr. Charlie Glickman: “more heterosexual men are discovering prostate and anal play with their female partners than ever before.”

Often compared to the female G-spot, the male prostate is surrounded by two bundles of nerves and plays an essential role in ejaculation. Some progressive sex pedagogical films released since the late nineties reveal the sex positive feminist potential of female-on-male strap-on sex where women’s active role is advanced as gender differences fade away. Among my favorites are:

• Bend Over Boyfriend: A Couple’s Guide to Male Anal Pleasure (1998), a Good Vibrations’ best-selling tape in the years after it came out, and the top rental, it features Good Vibrations staff sexologist Carol Queen demonstrating female-on-male strap-on sex.
• Bend Over Boyfriend 2 (1999), which features more demonstrations of female-on-male strap-on sex.

And then there are Tristan Taormino’s several anal-sex focused films, including:

• Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex for Women # 1 (1999),
• Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex for Women # 2 (2000),
• Expert Guide to Anal Sex (2007), and
• Expert Guide to Anal Pleasure for Men (2009).

New progressive porn is also picking up on the potential of anal sex play to transgress conventional gender stereotypes through a floating exchange of sex roles. Taormino’s porn reality series Chemistry includes female-on-male strap-on sex amongst famous porn performers acting in a way you won’t see them do in mainstream porn.

The Bi Apple

Sex activist Audacia Ray (1980) confronts the homophobic fear of the male anus head-on in her edgy gender bending porn film The Bi Apple (2007). The film follows Simone, a sex researcher who is on a visit to an apartment called “The Fuckhouse” where open-minded women and men hang out and, well, fuck. With notebook and pen in hand, Simone studies a wide range of different kinds of sex play in the apartment’s various rooms.

In one room, Simone meets Tasty Trixie and Tucker Lee (a real life couple who runs the website SpyOnUs.com – Authentic homemade porn). Trixie and Tucker are sitting cross-legged on the floor meditating; she deeply concentrated, he rather fidgety and impatient. The point, explains Trixie, is to balance the chakras and open the senses to attain even greater sexual pleasure. While Trixie shows a genuine interest in experimenting and expanding their sexual repertoire, Tucker always just wants to be “fucked up the ass.” Simone is invited to observe their sex play, which evolves effortlessly the way it does between two lovers intimately familiar with one another.

objectify me

Anne G. Sabo (Photo: Agnete Brun)

Feminist sex blogger and woman oriented porn producer Ms. Naughty recently posted about how anti-porn feminists can't acknowledge feminist porn. It's a good read, in particular for Ms. Naughty's deconstruction of anti-porn arguments about porn as something inherently bad. 

Linguists have critiqued language as essentially flawed at least since the days of Friedrich Nietzsche. And as film scholar Linda Williams points out in her historical analysis of porn, HardCore (1999; first ed. 1989), porn is just but another language; specifically a discourse about sex -- and sex has historically been defined and discussed from men's point of view (ref. Michel Foucault’s discourse analysis). We have no choice but to speak with the language we have at hand; but we can seek to re-vision it. 

What truly intrigues me about good new porn by women, is its ability to re-vision and recreate porn as a filmic genre and as a discourse with which to approach (hetero)sexuality, in fact liberating more room for women, as well as men, and help them break out of traditional gender roles and explore and expand their sexual repertoires.

I also appreciate the issue Ms. Naughty takes with the typical accusation against porn as discriminating "objectification," usually of women, as if this is an essential characteristic of porn while in fact it is a human trait. New porn maker Anna Span makes this point too: 

She believes that to sexually objectify, that is to fleetingly view a person's sexual attractiveness separately from their personality/person, is a natural human experience NOT just a male one, as traditionally depicted.

I think Span’s emphasis here on the fleeting gaze—rather than thinking of objectification as a discriminating fixation on body parts—is interesting.

In my book, I further write about how objectification in some new porn by women is turned into an affirming, adoring act:

Blue Artichoke Films: Cinematic Quality Porn

(This post, which was originally published online at Good Vibrations Magazine, is an excerpt from my forthcoming book After Pornified: How Women Are Transforming Pornography & Why It Really Matters.)

Jennifer Lyon Bell

Blue Artichoke Films in Amsterdam is making a name for itself by producing cinematic quality porn. US-born Jennifer Lyon Bell (1969) is the creative force behind its three films, which are of notable atmosphere and texture. Feeling that her own sexuality is not reflected in mainstream porn, Bell is using film languages and styles to re-vision pornographic films. In fact, her first film, a ten-minute short, doesn’t even show explicit sex; yet its sexiness rises up into the frame from what the viewer doesn’t actually see.

Headshot (2006) literally shows a man from his shoulders up – as he’s getting a blowjob. As Bell explains, the point with this film being to see how it can be erotic not so much because of what you see, but because of what you do not see.

Headshot

We hear a woman enter through a door, and the man briefly speaks with her before she kneels down in front of him. We only catch a glimpse of the back of her head. Then there’s the sound of her sucking and pumping. But first and foremost the man’s face is in full view and speaks to the viewer: the shivering contractions of his features, the expression in his eyes, his breath, moans, sighs; how his face shuts and opens when he comes, his big charming smiles afterward, and the look of WoW! that he radiates. Headshot screened at the Cannes Films Short Corner (2006) and won the award for Best Short Erotic Film at the Atlanta Underground Film Festival (2009).

Pre-show rehearsal

Matinée (2009) is Bell’s first explicit sex film, presented as “a fresh look at what erotic film can be … [an] erotic film for people who like film.” It’s about Mariah and Daniel, two theater actors who perform the parts of lovers on stage: Lola and Tony in the play Two Days in Berlin. In the story, we learn that reviews of the play have critiqued their performance for lacking chemistry.

At the beginning of the film, Daniel suggests to Mariah that they improvise in a significant reunion scene to make it more natural. — A talent agent will be in the audience, meaning this could be a big break for either if the performance goes well. Mariah is skeptical at first, but later decides to give it a go – placing a condom in the pocket of the kimono that she will be wearing during this scene.