The Feminist Porn Book: The Politics of Producing Pleasure (4 page)

Throughout the book, we explore the multiple definitions of feminist porn, but we refuse to fix its boundaries. Feminist porn is a genre and a political vision. And like other genres of film and media, feminist porn shares common themes, aesthetics, and goals even though its parameters are not clearly demarcated. Because it is born out of a feminism that is not one thing but a living, breathing, moving creation, it is necessarily contested—an argument, a polemic, and a debate. Because it is both genre and practice, we must engage it as both: by reading and analyzing its cultural texts and examining the ideals, intentions, and experiences of its producers. In doing so, we offer an alternative to unsubstantiated oversimplifications and patronizing rhetoric. We acknowledge the complexities of watching, creating, and analyzing pornographies. And we believe in the radical potential of feminist porn to transform sexual representation and the way we live our sexualities.

Notes

1
. Robin Morgan, “Theory and Practice: Pornography and Rape,” in
Take Back the Night,
ed. Laura Lederer (New York: William Morrow, 1980), 139. On the porn wars or sex wars, see Carolyn Bronstein,
Battling Pornography: The American Feminist Antipornography Movement,
1976–1986 (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 2011); Lisa Duggan and Nan D. Hunter,
Sex Wars: Sexual Dissent and Political Culture
(New York: Routledge, 1995); Carole Vance, ed.
Pleasure and Danger: Exploring Female Sexuality
(Boston and London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1984); Pamela Church Gibson and Roma Gibson, eds.,
Dirty Looks: Women, Pornography and Power
(London: British Film Institute, 1993); and the documentary film by Harriet Koskoff,
Patently Offensive: Porn Under Siege
(1991).

2
. Annie Sprinkle,
Post-Porn Modernist: My 25 Years as a Multimedia Whore
(San Francisco: Cleis Press, 1998), 149–51.

3
. Annette Fuentes and Margaret Schrage, “Deep Inside Porn Stars,”
Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media
32 (1987): 41–43,
http://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/onlinessays/JC32folder/PornWomenInt.html
.

4
. Susie Bright,
Big Sex, Little Death: A Memoir
(Berkeley: Seal Press, 2011) and Susie Bright, “A History Of
On Our Backs:
Entertainment for the Adventurous Lesbian, The Original: 1984–1990,”
http://susiebright.blogs.com/History_of_OOB.pdf
.
See also, “About Fatale Media,” accessed September 5, 2011,
http://www.fatalemedia.com/about.html
.

5
. Feminists in Europe who used sexually explicit photography and film to explore themes like female pleasure, S/M, bondage, gender roles, and queer desire include Monika Treut (Germany), Cleo Uebelmann (Switzerland), Krista Beinstein (Germany and Austria), and Della Grace (England). In 1998, Danish film production company Zentropa wrote the Puzzy Power Manifesto that outlined its guidelines for a new line of porn for women, which echoed Royalle’s vision: their films included plot-driven narratives that depicted foreplay and emotional connection, women’s pleasure and desire, and male and female bodies beyond just their genitals. See Laura Merrit, “PorYes! The European Feminist Porn Movement,” [unpublished manuscript] and Zentropa, “The Manifesto,” accessed January 29, 2012,
http://www.puzzypower.dk/UK/index.php/om-os/manifest
.

6
. In addition, we must acknowledge the early work of Sachi Hamano, the first woman to direct “pink films” (Japanese softcore porn). Hamano directed more than three hundred in the 1980s and 90s in order to portray women’s sexual power and agency, and challenge the representation of women as sex objects only present to fulfill men’s fantasies. See Virginie Sélavy, “Interview with Sachi Hamano,” December 1, 2009,
http://www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk/features/2009/12/01/interview-with-sachi-hamano/
.

7
. Feminist Porn Awards, accessed September 5, 2011,
http://goodforher.com/feminist_porn_awards
.

8
. Laura Kipnis,
Bound and Gagged: Pornography and the Politics of Fantasy in America
(New York: Grove Press, 1996), viii.

9
. See Feminist Anti-Censorship Task Force,
Caught Looking: Feminism, Pornography and Censorship,
3rd ed. (New Haven, CT: LongRiver Books, [1986] 1992); Linda Williams,
Hard Core: Power, Pleasure, and the “Frenzy of the Visible
” (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989); Jane Juffer,
At Home with Pornography: Women, Sex, and Everyday Life
(New York: NYU Press, 1998);
Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media,
eds. Julia Lesage, Chuck Kleinhans, John Hess (
http://www.ejumpcut.org
); Drucilla Cornell, ed.,
Feminism and Pornography
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2000); Linda Williams, ed.,
Porn Studies
(Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004); and Pamela Church Gibson, ed.,
More Dirty Looks: Gender, Pornography and Power
(London: British Film Institute, 2004).

10
. Gayle Rubin, “Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality,” in
Pleasure and Danger: Exploring Female Sexuality,
ed. Carole S. Vance (Boston and London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1984), 279.

11
. Rubin, “Thinking Sex,” 280.

12
. Tom Waugh, “Homoerotic Representation in the Stag Film 1920–1940: Imagining An Audience,”
Wide Angle
14, no. 2 (1992): 4.

13
. Jill Nagle, ed.,
Whores and Other Feminists
(New York and London: Routledge, 1997), 3. Emphasis in original text.

I

MAKING PORN, DEBATING PORN

Porn Wars

BETTY DODSON

Artist, author, and sexologist
Betty Dodson
has been one of the principal advocates for women’s sexual pleasure and health for over three decades. After her first one-woman show of erotic art in 1968, Dodson produced and presented the first feminist slide show of vulvas at the 1973 NOW Sexuality Conference in New York City where she introduced the electric vibrator as a pleasure device. For twenty-five years, she ran Bodysex Workshops, teaching women about their bodies and orgasms. Her first book,
Liberating Masturbation: A Meditation on Selflove,
became a feminist classic.
Sex for One
sold over a million copies. Betty and her young partner Carlin Ross continue to provide sex education at
dodsonandross.com
. This piece is excerpted from Dodson’s memoir,
My Romantic Love Wars: A Sexual Memoir.

W
hen it comes to creating or watching sexual material, women are still debating what is acceptable to make, view, or enjoy. The porn wars rage on while most guys secretly beat off to whatever turns them on. Meanwhile, far too many feminists want to control or censor porn. Most people will agree that sex is a very personal matter, but now that sexual imagery has become prevalent with Internet porn available on our computers 24/7, I’d say—like it or not—porn is here to stay.

The fact that pornography is a multibillion-dollar industry and the engine that first drove the Internet proves that most people want to see images of sex whether they admit it openly or not. After women’s sexual liberation got underway in the sixties and seventies, women turned against each other to debate whether an image was erotic or pornographic. Unfortunately this endless and senseless debate continues today.

My first attempt at drawing sex was a real eye opener. In 1968, I had my first one-woman show of erotic art titled
The Love Picture Exhibition.
The experience raised my awareness of the many people who enjoyed seeing beautiful drawings of couples having intercourse and oral sex.
With my second show—of masturbating nudes—all hell broke loose. The show not only ended my gallery affiliation, but it was then that I became aware of how ignorant most Americans were about human sexuality. My six-foot drawing of a masturbating woman holding an electric vibrator next to her clitoris—an erect one at that—might have been the first public appearance of the clitoris in recent history. It was 1970—the year I became a feminist activist determined to liberate masturbation.

In 1971, I had my first encounter with censorship when
Evergreen
magazine published images of my erotic art. A Connecticut district attorney threatened to issue an injunction if the magazine was not removed from the local public library. My friend and former lover Grant Taylor drove us to Connecticut to meet with the DA. His main objection was my painting of an all-women orgy. He pounded his fist on the page spewing out the words, “Lesbianism is a clear sign of perversion!”

When the meeting ended, the press descended on me. I don’t recall what I said except that sex was nice and censorship was dirty and that kids were never upset by my art, but their parents often were. A few people complimented me on my words and art. One woman said she found my art “disgusting and pornographic,” but that I had a right to show it. Her comment was the most upsetting. Driving home, I remember asking Grant how anyone could call my beautifully drawn nudes disgusting: “Why can’t people distinguish between art that’s erotic and art that’s pornographic?”

“Betty, it’s all art,” he said. “Beauty or pornography will always be in the eyes of the beholder.” He went on to warn me against making the mistake of trying to define either one. It was an intellectual trap that led to endless debates with no agreements in sight. After thinking about it, I knew he was right! That night I decided to forget about defining erotic art as being superior to pornographic images. Instead, I embraced the label “pornographer.” All at once, I felt exhilarated by the thought that I could become America’s first feminist pornographer.

The next day, I got out my dictionary and found the word pornography originated from the Greek
pornographos:
the writings of prostitutes. If society treated sex with any dignity or respect, both pornographers and prostitutes would have status, which they obviously had at one time. The sexual women of antiquity were the artists and writers of sexual love. Since organized religions have made all forms of sexual pleasure evil, no modern equivalent exists today. As a result, knowledge of the esteemed courtesans was lost, buried in our collective unconscious, suppressed by the authoritarian organized religions that consistently excluded women.

The idea of reclaiming women’s sexual power by creating pornography
was a heady concept. Feminists could restore historical perspectives of the ancient temple priestesses of Egypt, the sacred prostitutes, the Amazons of Lesbos, and the royal courtesans of the Sumerian palaces. Sexual love was probably what people longed for, so I gave myself permission to break the next thousand rules of social intimidation aimed at controlling women’s sexual behavior. I did just that and continue to do so to this day. In order for women to progress, we must question all authority, be willing to challenge any rule aimed at controlling our sexual behavior, and avoid doing business as usual, thereby maintaining the status quo.

After I fully enjoyed the United States’ brief outbreak of sexual freedoms that began at the end of the 1960s, my glorious group sex parties allowed me to realize how many women were faking orgasms. So in 1971, I designed the Bodysex Workshops to teach women about sex through the practice of masturbation. It was sexual consciousness-raising at its best as we went around the circle with each woman answering my question: “How do you feel about your body and your orgasm?” We also eliminated genital shame by looking at our own vulvas and each other’s. Finally, we learned to harness the power of the electric vibrator with the latest techniques for self-stimulation during our all-women masturbation circles.