OK, so I’m just going to write thoughts as they happen while watching the Feminist Porn Awards Livestream. I can’t be in Toronto this year so this is as close as I’ll get.
* Opening: Indigenous welcoming song and also one dedicated to women and two spirit people. I’m used to Australian Aboriginal smoking ceremonies and welcome to country so it’s interesting to see the Canadian version of that. Not sure if audience participation is the best idea, though.
* Ryan and Lex do their introduction. Lex makes some truly awful jokes and then they spruik sponsors… They make an allusion to controversy but turn it into a joke about fashion.
* OK awards. Sexiest Short. There’s 2 films. Wall of Fire by Lisa Ganser and Parchise by The Madame are the winners. Wall of Fire features two plus size performers and one of them is an amputee. Parchise is a het couple in strong lighting. In her acceptance speech The Madame invites up her performers and says she makes her films for $200 and shoots with her iPhone.
* Kelly Shibari is in the spotlight, talks about boobs, defines feminist porn: “It’s anything that makes you feel better for having done it.” Says she can ride dick but can’t ride a bike.
* Steamiest Straight Movie presented by Sophie Delancy and Samantha Lee (hi guys!). The Sexual Liberation of Anna Lee by Jacky St. James
* Hottest Trans Vignette: Trans Lesbians by Courtney Trouble. Tobi and Drew accept, discuss the growth of trans porn, make a comment re the FPAs & how to define feminist porn*.
*Sexist Star Feature: JL + DD by Dani Daniels and Jiz Lee. Jiz talks about making the scene and the drama of getting the scene out there – it took 3 years.
* Performance: CoCo LeCreme. Wields a menacing fuel container. Fellating fuel containers: don’t try this at home folks. Twerking, oil, hotness. Thank god there were no flames, I was a bit worried.
* Most Dazzling Docuporn – Carlyle Jansen and Nadine Thornhill present. Bound by Borders by Tobi Hill Meyer. Tobi discusses the power of the docuporn medium. “In my sex life, there’s a lot of things that aren’t sexy… Being able to address the whole reality of our sexual lives is a really important part of being our whole selves… and that’s really what I was trying to do with this film.”
* Smuttiest Schoolteacher Award: Jessica Drake’s Guide to Wicked Sex: Plus Size by Jessica Drake and Kelly Shibari. Kelly accepts, talks about playing with the awards and DP. From Jessica: “Everyone deserves great pleasure-based, inspiring sex ed.”
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* Ryan spotlight – Shine Louise Houston. Reminiscing about the first FPAs, how there was a small audience, now it’s grown. “I’ve seen the most spectacular pole dancing of my life here.” Talks about the changes in Pink and White over the years. Het queerness, Heavenly Spire, Pink Label distribution. “Feminist porn is porn that celebrates women and also encourages the people who love them to appreciate them even more.” Hopes she’s still making porn in 10 years time. “We really want to be a support network for the next wave of pornographers.”
* Carey Grey and Mikey Singer present Golden Beaver Award for Canadian Content: Queen Bee Empire by Samuel Shanahoy
* Hottest Newcomer: Evie Eliot (Twitterbaiting). (Feed lost due to technical issues)
* Best Direction: Ovidie for Pulsion. I saw this film in Berlin, loved it! Ovidie says feminist porn is an activist community, is glad to be a part of it.
* Lex: “Using Comic Sans font to sell sex toys is like inviting a children’s birthday magician to a gangbang.”
* Performance: Il Na Na(?) 3 person dance troupe. The stream is pretty jerky so I can’t really appreciate this unfortunately. Also, I hope the male pole dancers come on again this year. And can someone do the YMCA so I don’t feel so goddam old and unfashionable?
* Honored Websites presented by Jon Pressick, Eden Bailey and Doug Claxton
YAY Bright Desire won Honored Website! So happy, so honoured. Thank you!
Performer Vivienne L., accompanied by Harley J and Maxx gave my speech: Thanks to the Feminist Porn Awards, thanks once again to all my performers, without whom I couldn’t make my porn. Thanks to Luke, my cinematographer and beautiful partner. And here’s to feminist porn – we’re changing the world one orgasm at a time
There were two other awards given: QueerPorn.tv and XConfessions.com
Intermission. Phew! It’s midday here, might be a bit too early for champagne…
OK, we’re back. Quick lunch wolfed down, no champers yet, I need to keep up the live blogging.
Lex launches back into the witty repartee about pussies sticking to her face. Like you do. The audience won’t leave the bar, as usual. Last year only half returned to their seats.
* Jennifer and Lorraine from Good For Her present four films that receive:
Honorable Mentions: Fuck Dolls by Zahra Stardust, Hello Titty by Skyler Braeden Fox, Homance by cocopop, Maxine Holloway, and Siouxsie Q, Alias and Knives by John Bee**. Congrats to the winners!
Raffle time. Lex seems to be struggling with a difficult audience tonight but she’s making some good jokes, I think.
“Pino Grigio cock ring” —the host of the Feminist Porn Awards referring to the regrettable LELO Pino #FPA2015
— Epiphora (@Epiphora) April 18, 2015
Ryan in spotlight thanks all the behind-the-scenes people. Lorax of Sex, Vitima McTab (not sure of that?) and Kara Sutra present:
* Hottest Kink Film: Love Hard by Gala Vanting! Yay, this is such a beautiful film, congrats to Gala one of the Australian porn posse
* Hottest Lesbian Vignette: Lesbian Curves 3 by Courtney Trouble
* Best Boygasm: Heavenly Spire by Shine Louise Houston. Shine says “I feel like I’m hogging this title because we got it for Bed Party. This is my self indulgent project about masculinity… It’s about every different type of men and the ways that masculinity can manifest on different types of bodies. There’s many ways to manifest being a man than society sometimes allows.”
*Ryan spotlight with Erika Lust. She talks about how long its been since she was there. “You learn by doing. I have done a lot of films. I have a vision and its so much easier to put that vision on film now. Today I’m finally pretty close to what I want to do… I’m trying to turn people on but it’s important that we don’t ignore that porn is a discourse… and I think its very important that women participate in this… we need to express our sexuality on film. Teens do watch porn and most of the porn out there is shit, its done by narrow minded chauvinistic men… I look for personality in my porn. Next for me – going to German to shoot a commercial, after that I will shoot again for XConfessions, my favourite project in the world.”
* Lex mentions Dell Williams, creator of Eve’s Garden, the first women’s sex store. She died this year. Also discusses the criminalization of poppers.
* Dainty and Sly present:
*Most Tantalizing Trans Film: Biodildo 2.0 by Christian Slaughter – Jiz Lee thanks the director, her co-stars, dedicates the award to the other nominated trans directors.
* Best BDSM Film: Instructed!! Holy shit! This is by me and Pandora Blake. What a beautiful, amazing performer and person she is. Thank you to Good For Her for this award!
* Hottest Straight Vignette: X Confessons 2. Erika Lust says “I have two now!” and thanks her crew and performers.
* Lex talks about the Semenette and now its performance time again. Its the hot male pole dancers from last year but no poles and they are currently wearing too much clothing 🙁 Also, the stream is crap again.
* Ryan Spotlight – He and Dainty are going through the VIP gift bags and the various sex toys in them. Zahra Stardust is supposed to be presenting… her video hasn’t worked. She’s here in Australia. Lex is stalling… eeep! Ah, here’s the video.
Hearththrob of the Year: The winner is Morgana Muses! She has supplied a thank you video, thanks Petra Joy, Anna Brownfield and her collaborator Josie Hess. Also her daughters, who are proud of their Mum.
Carlyle thanks her team, says the colour peach is for desire and also for gratefulness.
People on Twitter are complaining they can’t hear what’s being said on stage.
Lucas and Skye present: Movie of the Year: Marriage 2.0 by Paul Deeb. Paul asks all of the award winners to come up on stage. He says “This isn’t my award, this is the award for all of the 10 years that has taken place here. Everyone who has won an award and who has participated in this movement, they’re all part of this award. This is the movie of the year. Let’s have the audience get up. You’re part of the movie of the year too. Let’s remember this and let’s go for the quarter century. Thank you.”
Lex gets the boobs out! Apparently it’s 2am there. And they close with a mention of the sponsors. Heckler Kimm starts hugging Lex and then it gets a bit hardcore. And they wind it up.
OK so that’s that. Well, what a morning that’s been for me. Feeling pretty damned pleased with 2 Feminist Porn Awards, to add to my 2 honorable mentions from 2013 and 2014. Thanks again to the FPAs and Good For Her for organizing the event.
Additions: * I have asked Drew and Tobi to send me their speech. They ad-libbed but Tobi wrote up a recollection of what was said:
@drewdeveaux @msnaughty @ChelseaPoe666 Here’s what I was trying to say. I think I actually said maybe 3/4 of this. pic.twitter.com/eual2X2XX5 — Tobi Hill-Meyer (@Tobitastic) April 19, 2015
** John Bee (@johnbee) of the Spit Magazine tweeted that the mike didn’t work when accepting for Alias and Knives so he added his speech to Twitter: “It’s really humbling to be considered this way, esp in front of so many of our inspirations. Now we’ll spend the next year trying harder to prove we really deserve it, and with this incentive I think next year we can show you something even better.”
Update: I’ve posted a complete list of the 2016 Feminist Porn Award winners. I’ve also made a larger post with photos giving my thoughts on winning those two awards here.
And here’s an embed of a recording of the stream, though you can’t flick through it.