The National Post has a nice feature article discussing the recently held feminist porn awards. A few quotes:
“‘It’s not that sex is degrading – sex is awesome. It was the images that were degrading,’ explained Abiola Abrams, an African-American porn producer based in New York.”
“While feminist porn is made for women, the directors hope there will be a sort of sexual trickle-down effect, that men will see what women respond to and incorporate it into their sex lives. ‘If we can create a trend toward better sex,’ said Bowers, ‘then that’s what we should be doing.'”
“Candida Royalle said the industry was skeptical of her romantically charged porn until they saw how well it was selling. Taormino’s movies are best-sellers in the American midwest and Smut magazine now has subscribers in Missouri. And, when I went to Good For Her to rent some of the female porn directors’ work, almost all of their videos were out for the night.”
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Meanwhile, Ass Queen Tristan Taormino has written a great piece at the Village Voice about the awards and her ideas as to what constitutes “feminist porn”.
“Some say no porn could ever be feminist. Lots of us disagree. But that doesn’t mean we agree on what it is: each filmmaker defines her or his work differently. For me, feminist porn is about character, choice, and consciousness.”
And I like her comments about why so much gonzo porn is exactly what the anti-porn feminists were upset about:
“I’m not saying all gonzo is bad or all rough sex exploitative by nature, but a lot of it has become very one-sided. The lack of female pleasure in porn just sucks. I mean, if you’re going to go to the trouble of sticking a girl’s head in the toilet, you damn well better give her an awesome orgasm.”
Board Comments
There was a depressing response to the whole idea of Feminist Porn Awards on adult webmaster boards in the last two weeks. Most threads on the topic were started by men, and the tone was either derogatory or amazed. One thread title called them the “Feminazi Porn Awards.”
“There’s no such thing as feminist porn,” was a common comment. Another guy wondered if “feminist porn” meant seeing Gloria Steinhem and Camille Paglia in hot lesbian action.
And every thread had at least one man come in and do that thing where he insults women or feminism, but it’s “all just a joke.” There were comments like “Well, it’s good to see the little ladies having their thing, it gives them a break from the cooking and ironing.” It’s like some kind of passive-aggressive thing where the guys are trying to assert their power and make the women feel like outsiders.
Commenting in those threads is a minefield. You can’t win. When men make those sort of “jokey” comments, any response a woman makes is doomed to failure. Either you complain and are branded as a whiney bitch with no sense of humour, or you laugh it off and have to then accept the tacit, thinly disguised insult. It really shits me. Especially as those threads offer an opportunity to inform other webmasters about the concept of offering porn to women. In that environment, it feels as though there is no point.
Adult webmastering is still very much a man’s game, but I try.
Previous posts on the Feminist Porn Awards:
Vixens and Visionaries
Feminist Porn Awards: The Winners
Too true. I am still pretty much a newbie in this biz (been at it just over a year) and it didn’t take me long at all to realize that a huge chunk of the “information” exchanged on adult webmaster boards is basically pissing contests between the guys.
The funny thing is, I think most guys actually get off more on seeing a woman getting off than they do on the femgasm-denying crapola. The ultimate fantasy for most guys I’ve known (biblically and otherwise) is to be with a woman who ACTUALLY GETS OFF on nasty, slutty, animalistic sex. Fortunately for them, there are plenty of women who DO…if we are given half a chance to express it in this world where so many forces are trying to convince us that “good girls” don’t.
Well, I have not visited any adult forums myself but I would think that some of the negative response from men towards the idea of feminist porn stems from decades in which feminism and pornography have been set up as polarized opposites. When most people I know seem to think that all feminists are against pornography, the idea that any feminists would produce pornography would come across as something as bizarre as fundamentalists fighting for free speech. It just seems oxymoronic. The truth is I doubt that most men would actually have a problem with women creating feminist-styled pornography. They might not be into it but they would not mind its existence. We just need a lot more awareness that not all feminists are against pornography – that many are in fact pornographers themselves.