I Won Two Feminist Porn Awards!

Winning Honored Website. Photo by Ovidie (thank you!)

I’ve spent most of my Saturday watching the live stream of the 2015 Feminist Porn Awards and I’m pleased to sat that I won two of them. Bright Desire received an Honored Website award and Instructed, which I made in collaboration with Pandora Blake, won Best BDSM Scene.

The last 15 months have been huge for me. In that time I’ve filmed one scene a month for Bright Desire, maintained and promoted my network of websites and also produced my first feature film, The Fantasy Project. On top of that I did a shitload of travelling for work, including trips to Canada and Berlin to attend porn gatherings, give lectures and shoot scenes. It’s been a really busy time so the Honorable Website award feels like a vindication of all that hard work.

When handing out the award, the presenters said that all of my nominated films were impressive and they felt the best way to honor them was to give Bright Desire the award, since all of my work is featured there. For me, it’s the one award I’ve wanted for years; my work has always been online and I’m unable to produce hard copy DVDs so the web is where I’m at. So I’m really pleased to be able to say I have a Feminist Porn Award for Bright Desire.

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Because I was unable to travel to Toronto this year, I instead had 3 of my performers represent me on stage. Vivienne L, Maxx (aka Alias) and Harley J. were the stars of the MMF threesome in The Fantasy Project. We shot it just over a year ago in Toronto. They were all at the awards gala and went up to accept the trophy for me. I had emailed them a little speech in case I won (didn’t actually expect to but you have to cover the bases). 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.”

They tweeted a couple of photos that made me laugh:

@msnaughty @mswe promise to deliver your trophy only slightly broken in.

— maxx_TO (@Maxx_TOSP) April 18, 2015

Thanks to all three for being there and for being such wonderful performers! The threesome scene is one of the standouts of the film, everyone loves it and I think you can see why from just these photos. They’re such a cute bunch! (Thanks for the photos as well).

The second award just makes me feel incredibly happy. As you’ll read in that blog post about Instructed, it was the first time Pandora had done “hardcore” porn and it was such an interesting idea, I’m really glad Luke and I were able to do it some justice as filmmakers. It’s since gone on to screen at the Berlin Porn Film Festival 2014, the Pornotopia Film Festival in Albuquerque, the British Festish Film Festival and Cinekink NY. Now we have this amazing award to add to the list.

The other reason I’m happy is that Pandora needs some good news right now. She’s been incredibly vocal in her opposition to the new ATVOD censorship laws in the UK and unfortunately that’s made her a target. She’s currently facing a legal battle to keep her website open and it’s taken its toll on her health. I hope this moment at least gives her some support at such a hard time; we’re all behind her and hope she wins. These laws are ridiculous and need to be challenged. It’s so unfair that they target small businesses who can least afford to fight them.

Unfortunately neither of us was there to accept the award which resulted in an awkward pause on stage. Ah well.

I actually thought Pandora was in line to win Heartthrob of the Year thanks to her advocacy and porn work. Instead, that award went to another friend, Morgana Muses, who has been absolutely blazing a trail in feminist porn with her amazing personal story and growing collection of films. It’s been wonderful to watch her journey and I congratulate her on the award.

The other big story of the night is that the Aussies are totally on fire! Along with me and Morgana, Gala Vanting  and Aven Frey won Hottest Kink Film for Love Hard and Zahra Stardust received an Honorable Mention for Fuck Dolls which was directed by Anna Brownfield. Zahra also made waves handing over Heartthrob of the Year from a bathtub, via video. The Australian Feminist Porn Posse, which first met up over 2 years ago, is such a progressive, amazing group. And I include Aeryn Walker, Michelle Flynn and all of our performers in that. We do so well for somewhere that doesn’t officially have an “industry” and I think we’re showing the world just how positive and intelligent porn can be. We rock!

And of course, I have to offer my congratulations to all the other award winners and nominees. There’s been so much amazing porn produced in the last year, although I haven’t had a chance to see all of it. I have met so many of the winners and performers and it always makes me feel good to see people I know win. Also, I’m so pleased to see new faces on the scene this year. Here’s hoping we keep the momentum so that feminist porn continues to be a force for change in the world.