check out "porna" or porn for women at dusk!

Dusk!

I only recently found out about Dusk!, a Dutch digital cable TV channel solely devoted to providing erotic material to straight women 24/7. I wish I had come across it sooner; it features many of the films I feature in my After Pornified book and is well worth checking out.

Dusk! is the only channel of its kind in the world and has been available since 2009. The channel is now being rolled out into Belgium and is looking to expand into several other European countries.

Dusk! does its own comprehensive research on what sort of porn they should be showing via a panel made up of over 1500 women. Each month every panel member reviews 6 to 9 porn film fragments of a variety of sorts of porn, including both hardcore mainstream and from a female point of view. After looking at a film, the women are asked to fill out a survey, rating and responding to the snippets. Before Dusk! arrives at any final conclusions about a film it is first viewed and rated 100 times. 

after pornified reading at monkey see monkey read

Launch party at Smitten Kitten

I'm happy to report that the US launch party in Minneapolis last Friday was a blast! This week has been busy preparing for my Europe tour this fall with more readings and events in London, Berlin and Amsterdam. But first: a reading at my local bookshop in our small college town; an event I am very excited and pleased about!

Event details: Anne Sabo Reading Oct. 11

Please visit Monkey See Monkey Read for an evening with Anne G. Sabo, a former St. Olaf college professor turned author and mama- & sex blogger on Thursday October 11th at 7:30 PM for a reading and discussion of After Pornified: How Women Are Transforming Pornography & Why It Really Matters, a book about how women have seized the means of representation to create a positive counterweight to pornified media and porn as it’s been known.

Though her book will no doubt appeal to women who already show an interest in porn, After Pornified is primarily addressed to all the women who are skeptical to porn as she was, and who value asserting ownership of their bodies and sexuality against the media’s discriminating sexualization of women.

With more young people exposed to porn, Sabo’s book is also aimed at them; to empower young people to read porn critically and to see that there is a positive alternative.

after pornified launch party next friday at smitten kitten in minneapolis

This event is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served. (I'm told they get the good stuff! Expect delicious chocolate, cheese, fruit and perhaps some more...) Check out the Smitten Kitten's Facebook event page for this US launch party.

the winners of cupido's first film award

Erika Lust's short film "Handcuffs" received much acclaim at Modern Porn: Cupido's Film Award to Best New Short Film that I presented last weekend in Oslo, Norway. Featuring a play with submission/domination fantasies and the titillating attraction of voyeurism, "Handcuffs" won both the jury's award and the audience's award on Saturday.

The audience's award on Sunday went to Elin Magnusson's short film "Skin" on Dirty Diaries, a collection of short films produced by Mia Engberg. You can find my review of this album at Good Vibrations Online Magazine here. "Skin" is the first of twelve short feminist porn films, and it stands out with its quiet but intense erotic energy, circling around the layers, vulnerability, and eager excitement and passion that intimacy between two people can entail.

update from cupido festival

I attended the first day of Cupido Festival today, after which I put the final touches on my own presentation of the films I've nominated for Cupido's first Film Award, which will take place tomorrow Saturday and Sunday afternoon.

People seem quite psyched about the award (as they should be!); one of the jury members told me on the side she was quite impressed with the films I've nominated (as she should be!).

I do not know who the winner is, but a winner has been selected by a select jury. There will also be an audience award, so anyone who attends my presentation of the films tomorrow will have a say.

We will find out both the jury's verdict and the audience's at the Cupido Festival gala party tomorrow night.