The Feminist Porn Awards are about to kick off in Toronto and I’m wishing I could be there for the screenings, workshops and awards.
Meanwhile, the enevitable “witty” comments are starting to appear. The awards are in their fourth year now, so I’d just like say that folks, your oh-so-clever remarks about how feminism and porn are a contradiction in terms are getting a bit old. We’ve heard them all before.
This from someone on Twitter:
“The Feminist Porn Awards? i take it thats women dressing like men fucking each other then?”
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Or this from a blog commenter:
“Now this is what i call feminism…..girls objectifying girls for the male gaze.” They then went on to make laugh-out-loud jokes about how feminists must have learnt to use a razor.
Oh, the hilarity.
Come on, people. It’s not that hard to understand that porn and feminism can happily co-exist. Drag yourself out from the cumbersome weight of all those assumptions and try and grasp what we’re doing here. Making porn for women. Making ethical porn. Making BETTER porn. For everybody.
I guess what the comments reveal is how much people still assume all porn is for men – to the point that they can’t even imagine a feminist, female-friendly porn scenario. Porn is always about women getting fucked, right? And it’s always for a male viewer, because we all know how much women hate porn, right?
It it also shows how the “porn objectifies women” dogma has become so utterly tied to the concept of “feminism” that some can’t comprehend the idea that a woman would voluntarily consent and want to be involved in porn. In that world view, all porn is made by predatory men and all the women in it are victims. And if a woman moves behind the camera, she takes on the role of the evil, predatory male. And if a woman says being a porn star is empowering, she’s obviously been fooled or tricked or brainwashed somehow. She doesn’t know her own mind and needs to be saved.
Yep, heard it all before. And, no doubt, we’ll hear it all again in the next week as the FPAs hit the news again.
We’re feminists and we make and enjoy porn. Get over it.
Amen. People make jokes when they’re uncomfortable. What is it that they fear about women producing porn?