By The Way, There Were Straight Films At The Feminist Porn Awards

Here’s a relatively long video report from the Feminist Porn Awards, held on the 25th April. The video is by Xtra which is a queer friendly site and it gives some great interviews from award participants.

What it doesn’t do, however, is give the viewer a complete picture of the awards, mainly because it focuses solely on the queer performers. And I’ve noticed that in the last week, almost all the reports, blog posts and Tweets concerned themselves with the lesbian, trans and queer films that received awards. Even my recent blog post about how the lesbians are creating amazing porn was in the same vein.

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But you know what? I feel like this isn’t quite right. Sure, the queer films that won are fantastic and deserve to be lauded, but I feel as if the straight films didn’t really get much of a look in.

Mimi Balfour made an appearance at the awards and her film Man of My Dreams received a special award but she’s rarely been mentioned in the reports I’ve read. Tony Comstock has received his third Feminist Porn Award for Bill and Desiree but you wouldn’t know it unless you check back through the previous award pages. Intense Desires by Lennox Films won Sexiest Straight Film but I’ve got no idea what it’s about and no-one seems to have written about it whatsoever.

There’s a few reasons for the queer emphasis this year. One is that more queer and lesbian films won awards than straight films. That’s not a problem, as the Feminist Porn Awards have always had a large variety of categories that recognise the diversity of new wave porn. The award night itself was heavily attended by the creators and stars of queer and lesbian movies such as Syd Blakovich, Madison Young, Courtney Trouble and Dylan Ryan. Also, the people doing a lot of the blogging about this subject are lesbian or queer so that’s where their interest lies.

Even so, I feel the urge to wave the flag for some of the straight films that won awards and received honorable mentions (especially Jennifer Lyon Bell’s Matinee and Erika Lust’s Barcelona Sex Project). And I also hope that straight women new to the awards don’t write it off as a “gay event”, something that doesn’t involve them. Because that’s exactly the kind of division we don’t need or want.

I love the idea of the Feminist Porn Awards – that’s why For The Girls ended up sponsoring it this year. It’s an inclusive event that recognises ethics and excellence in adult films of all kinds – and yes, that includes straight movies as well.