The year is drawing to a close and thus it’s time again to take a look back at all the newsy and interesting things that have occurred in porn for women in 2009. Overall it’s been a big year with plenty of media attention and what appears to be a growing recognition within the adult industry itself that yes, women do enjoy porn.
In The News
* The big deal this year was that Oprah featured a show about women and porn. Stunned by the idea that 1 in 3 porn surfers are women, the show’s producers decided to look into the topic. The show featured web sex expert Violet Blue and a brief piece on Kelly Holland, director of many Playgirl’s films, but the main focus was an extended interview with Jenna Jameson, hailed as the most famous porn star in the world.
The end result was a mixed bag. While Violet did a great job at promoting women’s erotica and sex-positive attitudes to porn, Jenna was made out to be some kind of feminist icon, which stretches the truth a little. She seemed to put a lot of female viewers off, judging by the negative comments in the Oprah Forum. It also emerged that Candida Royalle had initially been asked to appear, only to be swept aside when the focus turned to Jenna.
Nonetheless the show did prompt a larger interest in porn for women with several media outlets featuring articles on the topic. Most seemed amazed at this “new” trend, but for me it’s old news.
* In July Violet Blue again made waves thanks to her article on CNN about women and porn which caused a surge of media interest in the topic.
* In August Nightline featured a report on women and porn. The item included interviews with Candida Royalle and Nica Noelle.
* In September a kerfuffle erupted in Sweden thanks to the public funding of a feminist porn film called Dirty Diaries. Filmmaker Mia Endberg and several others created images of female eroticism with home cameras and mobile phones. Naturally the government funding had conservatives frothing at the mouth of the “waste of taxpayers’ money” while fellow feminist porn makers could only sigh wistfully at the thought of it.
* Playgirl was heavily in the news in November thanks to its almost-nude spread of Levi Johnston, Sarah Palin’s ex-son-in-law. They were also reportedly offered naked photos of Tiger Woods post scandal but declined to publish them.
* In October I was interviewed by Spanish magazine 20 Minutos about porn for women.
Hatches, Dispatches… and Outings
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* In May Filament magazine appeared on the scene and was met with the usual tired “women aren’t visual” response. The editor Suraya Singh also met with difficulties in getting the second issue published because the printers refused to print photos of erect penises. She managed to turn the problem into a useful awareness-raising campaign and the magazine has been a huge success. I published an exclusive interview with Suraya on the blog in July.
* In the same month it was announced that major women’s erotica publishing label Black Lace was shutting up shop, a fact that caused a great deal of distress for readers and anger for authors who said the company had abandoned a profitable arm of the business. Many bemoaned the loss of one of the few outlets for female sexual expression.
* In July it was also announced that HBO would be producing a new television series based on the idea of an old-school feminist starting a porn magazine for women. Diane Keaton is said to be in the lead role.
* November saw the media world explode with the news that sex blogger/writer Belle De Jour had outed herself. The fact that highly intelligent research scientist Dr. Brooke Magnanti was behind all those explicit tales of unrepentant prostitution had the moralists in a tizz.
New Porn Movies For Women
2009 was really a big year for diversity with a wide variety of new erotic films released that don’t fit into easy-to-define genres. Independent films and movies made for women have been making headway even as the mainstream porn market has collapsed in the wake of the global financial crisis and growing piracy.
* Director Nica Noelle made a big splash this year with the release of her Sweet Sinner line of erotic films. Rejecting many porn traditions, Nica has created an impressive, female-friendly series that’s high on storylines and good-looking porn stars.
* Petra Joy released Her Porn 1, a compilation DVD featuring the work of numerous female directors such as Marianna Beck, Maria Beatty, Emilie Jouvet and Candida Royalle. Candida also released Petra’s film Feeling It under the Femme label in November.
* Anna Span launched her new line of films for women called Women Love Porn, with two films: Apocalypse Angels and Rock Hard. The third eponymous title was delayed due to censorship issues in the UK – see below.
* Queer pioneer Courtney Trouble has moved into film directing, releasing her debut Roulette along with follow-ups Nostalgia, Speakeasy and 7 Minutes In Heaven. Her movies cross all genre boundaries, featuring lesbian, gay, transgender and straight sex scenes.
* BDSM and Queer trailblazer Madison Young was a veritable powerhouse in 2009, directing and starring in six of her own films as well as running her San Francisco art gallery Femina Potens.
* New Zealand director Astrid Glitter released Triple X Vignettes, her straight follow up to her impressive gay debut John.
* Australian filmmaker Anna Brownfield made waves in Berlin when The Band opened the Berlin Porn Film Festival. Her impressive film is now available on Amazon.
* Shine Louise Houston continued to prove that lesbians are making the porn of the future with her feature film Champion, an epic that went on to win awards all over the place. She also released more episodes from her successful dyke site Crash Pad Series.
* Tristan Taormino pushed the boundaries of feminist porn with her amazing film Rough Sex. The movie explored the idea of consensual power play where women act out submissive fantasies through rough sex. She also helmed several more releases in her Vivid Ed series.
* The Playgirl production line continues apace, releasing at least one film each month of the year along with a line of gay male masturbation titles.
Awards and Festivals
* The Feminist Porn Awards had another successful year. It was the first time the awards offered a large list of nominees – a sign of how far we’ve come, perhaps. I’m pleased to say that For The Girls was a sponsor this year and the event was sold out. The announcement of the winners saw Pink and White’s Champion named Film of the Year and, indeed, many of the awards went to queer and lesbian movies. My one gripe about the awards was that the subsequent press and blog reports were rather one-sided and an outsider may not have realised that there were any straight films at the awards at all.
* The AVN awards in January didn’t offer much in the way of nods to women’s films. The preceding Adult Entertainment Expo offered a “marketing to women” panel at the expo starring Kelly Holland and a bunch of other women I hadn’t heard of. Madison Young made headlines by walking the red carpet with dyke porn star Syd Blakovitch, causing the AVN people all sorts of genre headaches. (AVN magazine later went on to cause outrage due to several unsavoury articles – one promoting racist porn and one discussing BBW porn in the most derogatory terms possible. They also had dust-ups with Violet Blue and Madison Young over the racism issue.)
* The inaugural Poryes awards were held in Berlin in October. Instigated by Sexclusivitaeten adult store owner Laura Merrit, the awards acknowledged the contribution of Candida Royalle, Petra Joy, Annie Sprinkle, Shine Louise Houston and Maria Beatty. The awards aim to promote sex positive, feminist erotic films.
* Also in Berlin, the Petra Joy Awards were handed out to first-time female erotic filmmakers at the Berlin Porn Film Festival. My film That’s What I Like won first prize.
* The Berlin Porn Film Festival was a bright point in the erotic calendar because this year the focus was really on female filmmakers and female sexual perspectives. With roughly half of all films shown made by women, the festival waved a flag for the growing movement of feminist, indie adult filmmakers. My short doco about the festival is here.
* There were a number of other erotic film festivals making waves around the world in 2009. Cinekink was a huge success in New York and went travelling around the US afterwards. Rated X in Amsterdam also attracted positive reviews. Meanwhile the Sexy International Film Festival in Melbourne has expanded and now has outposts in Perth, Paris, New York and Los Angeles.
Research, Surveys and Reports
* 2009 saw an awful lot of news reports and research into the “mystery” of female desire. As usual clueless editors and writers asked the question “What do women want?” with the inevitable generalisations and shrugging of shoulders. One lot even opined on “the real reasons women have sex” – which caused much derision in the blogosphere. Thankfully, the idea that female desire is a paradox was mentioned in one piece, which needs to be said more often. One interesting piece of research suggested that women enjoy being lusted after a-la Twilight and Pride and Prejudice. There was also a refutation of the idea that “women aren’t visual” which is always welcome.
* I also encountered numerous studies into the way teenagers use porn – some enlightening and some accompanied by the usual hysteria. What has become apparent is that teens are not turning into monsters because they use porn; research shows they often view it with very critical eyes. Meanwhile, the US government-funded Internet Safety Taskforce found that teens were rarely in danger from sexual predators while online.
Censorship
The battle against censorship has continued apace this year. My focus has mainly been on Australia thanks to the ongoing battle over the planned mandatory internet filter but also due to other ridiculous incidences of censorship and sexual oppression.
* In March it emerged that the muddled and very flawed net filter plan involved using the AMCA blacklist, a secret collection of URLs that only selected politicians and beaurocrats were allowed to see. Thanks to the inherently anti-democratic nature of this blacklist, it was promptly leaked to the public on Wikileaks. The list revealed that perfectly legal websites such as Abby Winters, I Shot Myself and Whale Tale had been banned, along with political sites such as an anti-abortion site and a pro-euthanasia one. The ACMA scrambled to change their list and maintained that it only contained child porn links but the incident proved just how much of a slippery slope mandatory censorship will be.
* STOP PRESS – I was still writing this post and the news has come through that Conroy has given the filter a green light. Suffice to say I am NOT HAPPY JAN.
* In July police raided the offices of Garion Hall, owner of AbbyWinters.com, the largest Australian adult site. Egged on by a tabloid journalist who told them the models were underage, officers seized computers but in the end did not press charges. The incident brought to light a lesser-known law that means it’s illegal to shoot “objectionable films” in Australian states. No cases have been brought to test what “objectionable” means.
* In August the Melbourne Underground Film Festival was due to screen Jennifer Lyon Bell’s Matinee, a relatively tame yet explicit depiction of two consenting adults having sex. The Australian Office of Film and Literature Classification banned the film without having seen it, preventing the festival from screening it in public. The festival directors pointed out that the OFLC had passed Lars Von Triers’ sexually explicit and violent film Antichrist for another festival because it was “art” but that Jennifer’s beautifully shot example of erotica was considered too dirty for everyday people.
* In July I looked at the inconsistent and hypocritical decisions made by the OFLC with regards to “art vs porn” using 9 Songs as the example.
* In the UK Anna Span celebrated a small victory over the British film censors. Her movie Women Love Porn had been held back from release for almost two years due to the presence of a female ejaculation scene. The BBFC said it was urine; Anna brought in experts to prove otherwise. The censors begrudgingly gave way although they still maintain that female ejaculation isn’t real. The case highlights how censorship often discriminates against expressions of female sexuality.
Ms Naughty In 2009
It’s been a bigger year for me than I expected. In February I shot my first erotic short film That’s What I Like under the name Louise Lush. The film has gone on to screen at Berlin and Melbourne and, as mentioned above, it won the Petra Joy Award. It’s available at For The Girls and should be out next year on the Her Porn 2 DVD.
I had every intention of making more erotic films this year but fate intervened. My husband was diagnosed with mild epilepsy which meant a lot of worry and doctor’s visits for several months, although everything is fine now. Meanwhile, Garion Hall’s arrest in July created legal uncertainty about whether I should make more films. Right now it seems I will have to move overseas to pursue my artistic vision.
I did make a couple of small films including Paddling The Pink Canoe and my Berlin doco. I also attended a short course in guerilla filmmaking in March that was extremely educational and motivational. Going to the Berlin Porn Film Festival in October was probably the most important thing I did all year because it meant I was able to meet so many wonderful filmmakers and other porn industry people. I can see the future and it’s very bright indeed.
For The Girls continues to grow. We’ve published such a wonderful variety of high quality erotic fiction this year and we were also joined by Jamye Waxman, who makes vodcasts for us, and porn star Tyler Knight who writes moving and funny accounts of life in the world of mainstream porn. In the next few weeks we’ll launch our exciting new member’s area.
Some Larger Blog Posts From 2009
The joy of my sex education – how I learned that sperm should wear top hats
How did “yes” become “yes I’ll fuck the whole football team”? – Musings on consent amid the Australian rugby league sex scandals.
This is why we need porn for women – a few glaring examples of why the phrase is still relevant
I’m not really a sex blogger – why I don’t get too personal on this blog
How long is the ideal sex scene? – ruminations on how long it takes to shag on film
Why you shouldn’t assume all porn should be free – my thoughts on why people should be prepared to pay for good porn.
Oh yeah, and then there was the silly Hunks In Aretha’s Hat post. Now that’s quality porn.
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