feminist porn in australia

High-profiled US-based sex educator, author, editor and feminist pornographer Tristan Taormino is on tour in Melbourne, Australia this week, giving talks and workshops and in general raising awareness about feminist porn. Explains Tristan to The Age:

These anti-porn feminists who say that 99 per cent of porn is violent and misogynist … clearly, they haven't watched enough porn,'' she says. ''I'm not denying that stuff is out there but to claim it represents the entire industry is a lie.'' Melbourne, she adds, has a reputation among her peers as ''a hotbed of radical sexuality''. Thanks to the efforts of local women such as Gala Vanting, Anna Brownfield and Liandra Dahl, it's also considered a leader in ''feminist porn''.

Yet this term confuses many. Some wrongly assume that ''feminist'' means an absence of male performers; others imagine that films made by women involve endless dialogue and soft-core sex scenes. In fact, the films of Taormino and her Melbourne counterparts are highly explicit. What distinguishes them from mainstream erotica is their ''sex positive'' ethos and alternative depictions of female sexuality.

"I embrace the idea that what you already are is sexy,'' says Vanting, whose work appears on local self-portrait website ishotmyself.com and beautifulagony.com, in which users submit videos of their faces as they orgasm. The site has had 5 million unique visitors since launching in 2003. ''Mainstream porn presents a very narrow range of body types and sexualities,'' Vanting adds. ''We're much more 'come as you are'.''

Feminist erotic filmmaker and performer Gala Vanting (left) and sex therapist Cyndi Darnell (right)
believe in the idea of a sex-positive society. Photo: Penny Stephens (The Age)

Anna Brownfield of Poison Apple Productions says her films — including the upcoming Screwed in Suburbia and 2009's The Band — are a reaction to the ''homogenised, silicone-breast, Barbie-doll look of mainstream porn where everyone is waxed to within an inch of pre-pubescence.'' In The Band, filmed partly at the Tote Hotel in Collingwood, the camera lingers on the men as much the women, both of whom come in all shapes and sizes. It has a storyline. Condoms and lubrication feature prominently. There are no vacant eyes or theatrical fake orgasms; no passive women being overpowered by steroidal men. No one contorts into uncomfortable positions for the sake of a graphic close-up. Everyone, it appears, is genuinely enjoying themselves. [...]

Taormino says her films challenge the harmful messages of mainstream porn — and more importantly, the pernicious depictions of female sexuality in books, movies and TV. Most romantic films, she points out, feature women who ''hold out'' until their male love interest proffers the requisite amount of gifts and dates. Those who pursue sex, in contrast, tend to get their ''comeuppance'' in the form of an unwanted pregnancy or a grisly fate. "Until we get out of this narrative, we can't have women who are fully sexually empowered," Taormino says.

Read the entire article, which also features input from sex therapist and educator Cyndi Darnell, here.