In the wake of last week’s Feminist Porn Awards there’s been a flurry of articles in the media discussing feminist porn and the kind of erotica that women enjoy. This has co-incided with media interest in the e-book bestseller Fifty Shades of Grey. I thought I’d combine them into something of a mega-post.
Erika Lust won film of the year for Caberet Desire at the FPAs. She’s been very busy promoting herself and her film the in the last week. She’s just appeared in the Spanish version of Marie Claire talking about her life and her family. Erika Lust: How do you tell your daughters that you direct adult films?
She’s also got a profile and interview at Vice: “One thing that had always been my passion was feminism, and another was sexuality, so I combined all of these things and decided to make an explicit film.” – Erika Lust is Occupying Feminist Porn.
The Toronto Sun had a decent summary article about the Feminist Porn Awards and featured Erika’s work. “‘If films can be art, if sex can be art, if actors can be considered artists — why can’t porn?’ asks Erika Lust, whose almost surreally beautiful film Cabaret Desire won Movie of the Year.” – The article also included quotes from Buck Angel and Nenna.
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The Examiner also did a short summary of the awards here.
As mentioned in a previous piece, the Feminist Porn Awards attracted a bit of anti-porn criticism. Naturally these feminists know better than us and dismiss this genre as being either male run or irrelevant. This long piece in The Daily Beast also prompted a male writer at Jezebel to conclude that submissive BDSM could never be feminist. I left comments.
Jincey Lumpkin also weighed in at The Huffington Post defending her style of porn with Feminist Porn and the Myth of the Wicked Woman.
“I believe that because the myth of the “wicked woman” is so pervasive, any woman who chooses to express her sexuality openly is called out and criticized… What if a feminist wants to be debased, dominated, and disrespected? What if she’s turned on by that? Is it wrong? Shouldn’t she be allowed to express her sexuality without judgement?”
The questions of female desire and BDSM is now being relentlessly debated by a largely clueless media thanks to Fifty Shades of Grey and the subsequent Newsweek article by Katie Roiphe. The novel explores the relationship between a willing female sub and her sadist dominant guy. It’s place on the bestseller list caused the media to flail their hands wildly at the thought that: a. Women are reading erotica; b. They’re reading BDSM erotica and; c. They’re reading BDSM erotica on e-books that DON’T HAVE COVERS!! Shock horror! Somebody think of the children!
Anyway, the Newsweek article uses the popularity to extrapolate that women are tired of feminism, or something like that. Apparently we’re all sick of having power in the boardroom and want to relax and be submissive in the bedroom. Every single one of us.
Naturally this prompted a shitstorm of responses, thus:
The New Shades of Feminism? – NY Times
Fifty Shades of Grey: Dominatrixes Take On Roiphe – Slate
A trend-spotter’s guide to female desire – SMH
Tut-tutting over sex is a form of bondage – SMH (I liked this one)
Actually, Kate Roiphe, Feminists are not perplexed about submissive sex – The Frisky
Sex and the new feminism – LA Loyolan
Interestingly, this writer thought Roiphe had a point: Too Many Shades Of Grey. To me it feels as though she is using a false consciousness argument, albeit in numerous shades of grey.
A few other articles of interest on other feminist porn topics this week:
* A mainstream film about a woman becoming an actress at Kink.com in San Francisco has made it’s debut. About Cherry stars Heather Graham and James Franco and was created by writer Stephen Elliot. The film is being welcomed thanks to its positive portrayal of sex work. There’s an interview with Stephen about his film here.
* Kitty Striker has written a piece for Huffington Post about the emergence of positive and feminist porn: Principled Pornography: How Queer/Indie Sites Are Reframing the Industry. I’m pleased to say that For The Girls got a mention – thanks Kitty!
* Jiz Lee gave a presentation on queer porn at Williams College in Massettchusetts and Fox News managed to report it reasonably nicely. In contrast, the UK’s Daily Mail ramped up the “controversy” and used it as an excuse to include a whole bunch of sexy photos of Jiz.
* A panel consisting of performer Sinnamon Love, performer Tina Horn, ex-producer Dan Reilly, Museum of Sex curator Sarah Forbes, creator of Make Love Not Porn Cindy Gallop, performer Madison Young and Lynsey G. discussed porn as part of an exhibition called Consent at Apexart gallery. “If you’re not paying for porn, you’re going to get what you’re not paying for, ” Madison said.