The Feminist Porn Book: The Politics of Producing Pleasure (48 page)

M
y passion for sex education made me a pornographer. In 1998, I published my first how-to book,
The Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex for Women,
and began touring the country teaching anal sex workshops, mostly at sex-positive sex toy stores. Many people asked me, “When are you going to do a video version of your workshop?” I’d watched sex-ed videos, and while they were clearly informative, I didn’t
find them very sexy. If I was going to make an educational movie, I wanted to do something different. I wanted to make a film that not only taught people how to have safe and pleasurable anal sex, but was so hot that after watching it, they were inspired to run out and
do it.
I knew there would be plenty of explicit sex in the movie I envisioned and I would be in triple-X territory. I considered trying to self-fund and self-distribute an independent production, but then I’d only be preaching to the already converted. I wanted to reach the masses with my message. So I sent a proposal to several big adult companies asking them to fund an educational anal sex movie geared toward women that was also a hot porno. The people I made this pitch to responded as if I were speaking a foreign language, and they all ignored me or turned me down.

Months later, one of the people I sent a proposal to called me: John Stagliano, head of Evil Angel Productions, a well-respected industry mogul credited as the father of the gonzo genre (the cinema vérité of porn). Several conversations later, he agreed to produce my movie. That led to a crash course in porn production, where I was mentored by both John (who co-directed and shot the film himself) and well-known fetish film director Ernest Greene (who co-directed and co-produced). I came to the process with no filmmaking knowledge or experience and only a little familiarity with the industry, but plenty of confidence, enthusiasm, and idealism. I didn’t bring any sex-war baggage from second-wave feminism with me; I never believed that all porn was degrading to women and awful, although some of it certainly was. I’d seen lesbian feminist smut films like
Suburban Dykes
and
How to Female Ejaculate,
so I knew that sex-positive, non-exploitative, revolutionary porn was possible.

I was determined to show authentic performances by women who truly enjoyed butt sex, real female orgasms, and condom use in addition to more realistic portrayals of anal sex than I’d seen in conventional porn—with communication between partners, plenty of lube, clitoral stimulation, and lots of warm up before intercourse. But I also had to meet the expectations that came with the Evil Angel name; Stagliano was known for his long, lingering shots of women’s asses and hardcore anal action. There was no discussion or debate about how each scene would end: it would culminate with a money shot—when the male performer ejaculates on the female performer’s body. Alternative endings were not an option, but I did put those feminist theory classes I took in college to some use: I declared there would be no facial cum shots in this production.
It’s a porn trope! It’s degrading! Women don’t enjoy it!
My assertion surprised performers and probably annoyed John, although he didn’t fight me on it.

Over the course of a seven-day shoot, the learning curve was steep. I made decisions, compromises, and my debut in front of the camera, not just as a sex educator, but as the subject of a full-cast group sex scene. I glimpsed a microcosm of the adult industry: performers with different levels of motivation, commitment, and enthusiasm for their jobs. In 1999, Evil Angel released
The Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex for Women.
It got a lot of attention, won several awards, and I even made a sequel,
The Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex for Women 2.
I was proud of my accomplishment, but never saw myself as a full-time pornographer. So I returned to my life of writing, editing, and teaching sex workshops.

In 2005, I decided to make porn a larger part of my work and return to the adult industry. My decision was fueled by my belief that gonzo was corrupt, female viewers continued to be mostly ignored or thrown the same formulaic bone, and porn hadn’t reached its full potential.

I have always been a fan of gonzo as a genre because, as a viewer, I don’t need high production values, elaborate sets and costumes, or contrived storylines in my porn. I love the spontaneity, raw chemistry, and organic feeling of gonzo.
Who cares if there’s a light stand in the way, look at how intense their connection is!
By the mid-2000s, gonzo had gone wild—but not in a good way. The trend in gonzo was the more extreme, the better. It had become all about rough sex, multiple impalements (how many things can we fit into how many orifices simultaneously?), gaping assholes, and circuslike stunts. It was as degrading and offensive as any antiporn feminist’s worst nightmare. The scenes were not about exploring dominance and submission, being rough, or pushing the envelope. The spirit of some seemed downright hostile. Plus, they lacked a fundamental component: female pleasure. I mean, if you’re going to go to the trouble of calling a woman a slut and smacking her while you fuck her, there damn well better be an awesome orgasm in it for her. If she’s not having a great time, what’s the point?

Another reason that I decided to come back to porn was because the genre of “porn for women” wasn’t growing or diversifying and there were few self-identified feminists making porn. When performer-turned-director Candida Royalle introduced the world to her “porn from a woman’s point of view” in the late 1980s, she crashed the boys’ club and proved that women and couples were a viable market. Her line of films focused on high production values, romance, and female pleasure and deliberately excluded conventions of mainstream porn, including extreme genital close-ups, anal sex, and external cum shots. When it debuted, everyone balked, but today, films aimed at couples and women
essentially replicate a lot of her formula. The dominant view within the industry is that couples and women want softer, gentler porn. This notion both reflects and reinforces stereotypes about female sexuality: we want romance and flowers and pretty lighting and nothing too hard. And that’s true for some women, but
not all of us.
Women were left with few options from existing porn: “porn for women” stuck in an idea born in the late 1980s, gonzo gone in a direction that was often alienating, or other genres where they were left to fend for themselves in finding something appealing and not offensive. I wanted to create an alternative for women
and
men.

Ultimately, directing porn was a way to challenge myself. I could spout the theory, debate with antiporn feminists, and talk about the potential for porn to be revolutionary, but could I
do it
? Could I actually make a different kind of porn? In the time I’d been away from the industry, I worked as the editor of
On Our Backs,
the nation’s longest-running porn magazine by and for lesbians. I’d directed dozens of photo shoots of explicit sex and what readers responded to most was the level of authentic desire and connection between the people. If I could capture that in a moving image, it could be even more palpable and powerful. The once-fledgling independent, lesbian-produced lesbian porn genre was enjoying newfound growth and diversity. It was time for me to bring feminist ideals to mainstream straight porn.

I signed an exclusive deal to direct for one of the largest companies in the industry, Vivid Entertainment, and my first project was a reality series called
Chemistry.
I wanted to return to the roots of gonzo, where the camera is acknowledged, the action is unscripted, and it’s shot more like a documentary. I borrowed the premise of
Chemistry
from my love of reality television. I take a group of porn stars to a house for thirty-six hours. There is no script and no schedule and everything is filmed. They decide who they have sex with, when, where, and what they do.

I tell the performers before we begin shooting:
forget everything you know about porn.
Mainstream porn is very regimented and there is a strict formula for most heterosexual scenes. In the final edit, it looks like this: two minutes of fellatio, two minutes of cunnilingus (this is
optional
), two to three minutes of the first intercourse position, two to three minutes of the second position, two to three minutes of the third position, external cum shot. Sometimes there are slight variations, of course, but for the most part, that’s it. First of all, it’s boring and redundant. It’s not the way people have sex off camera. And it doesn’t leave much room for female pleasure: there is not a lot of warm-up before intercourse, intercourse is positioned as the goal and centerpiece of sex, and switching
positions so often interrupts the connection between performers and the momentum of building arousal (which could lead to orgasm). I’m interested in allowing the action to unfold organically (as organically as it can with lights, cameras, and people standing around you) and for people to move and fuck in ways they want to, for however long they want to. I want to empower the performers to show us what they want to do, to share a part of their sexuality with the camera. So much of porn asks performers to act out someone else’s fantasy or do what someone else thinks looks sexy: what if they were given the opportunity to do their own thing? Plus, I give them their own camera (which cast members from
Chemistry
’s prequel
House of Ass
dubbed “the perv cam”) to shoot themselves and each other.

Unlike reality TV, it’s not a random group of strangers. I cast one performer first, then ask for her “No List.” This is standard industry procedure: all performers have a list of other performers they will not work with. Then I do something less common: I ask them for a “Yes List”: Who do you have great chemistry with? Whose company do you genuinely enjoy? What about people you haven’t worked with before, but who have piqued your interest? I choose the second performer from the Yes List, then repeat the process. So, before shooting begins, I know that everyone likes each other and is at best enthusiastic and at least open to having sex with most everyone else in the house.

In addition to the sex, I spend hours filming interviews with all the performers, which are intercut with the erotic action. Interviews have become very popular, sometimes as part of the beginning of a scene but more often as behind the scenes footage added as a “bonus” on a DVD. But like the sex, these interviews follow a common pattern. A camera pans over to a girl sitting in a chair getting her makeup done. A voice says, “Why don’t you introduce yourself and tell us what’s going on.” She looks at the camera and says, “Hi, I’m Brandy, and today I’m gonna get fucked.” And
scene.
That’s it. As for the men of porn, in a typical video, they don’t speak. In my experience, there are performers who actually have a lot more to say: about what they do for a living, why they do it, what they like, what they hate, and how it affects their relationships. They are self-aware, opinionated, and fascinating, in fact. It’s important to give sex workers an opportunity to speak for themselves, something mainstream media rarely does. Many viewers have told me that they feel like they get to know the performers in my movies, and when they do, they are more invested in seeing them have sex. Suddenly they are three-dimensional human beings, instead of glossy sex robots. Performer interviews have become a staple in my work, and I incorporate them
into two other series I created and direct: my Expert Guide sex education series and my vignette series Rough Sex. Each of these series has a different focus and vision, but what remains constant is my mission to create feminist porn.

So, what is feminist porn? Some say it’s an oxymoron, that no porn could ever be feminist. But lots of us disagree. However, that doesn’t mean we
agree
on its meaning or a standard definition. So I will talk about what feminist porn means to me.

First, the production must be a fair and ethical process and a positive working environment for everyone. Performers set their own pay rates and know up front what I am hiring them to do; there is absolute, explicit consent and no coercion of any kind. They choose their sexual partners for the scene. There is mutual respect between performers and production crew. The work space is clean and safe. Performers must comply with the industry’s self-mandated testing policy: testing for STIs every thirty days or less. They may request that their scene partners have a more recent test (some people, for example, have a personal policy of fifteen days). In addition, I offer everyone the option to use safer sex barriers, including condoms, gloves, and dental dams, and have those items on set.

These standards are important to me, along with making the set as comfortable as possible for performers. I’m asking them to perform a physically demanding job—get naked, have sex for a lot longer than civilians do, under hot lights, sometimes under difficult circumstances. I go out of my way to find out what they need to get that job done and do it well. Like to have your favorite flavor of Gatorade on set? A well-hydrated sex performer is a better sex performer, with more stamina and endurance. How about fresh, nutritious snacks to stave off low blood sugar and crankiness and a clean bathroom fully stocked with all kinds of personal hygiene products? To some, these sound simple, but they are significant. In sex work especially, I think there is a danger of folks dismissing these basic standards with “It’s just porn” response. “It’s just porn” stems from the sex-negative “It’s just sex” concept prevalent throughout society, a sentiment that devalues sex work and sex workers and denies them the same fair treatment and labor policies as other kinds of workers.

As part of creating a positive work environment and to give performers an active role in how they are represented, collaboration is an important element of my process. Before we step foot on set, I have conversations with my performers, get to know them, ask them questions about their sexual likes and dislikes, favorite activities and toys, and what helps them have a really great work experience. I design their scenes around this information. Ultimately, I want the performers to participate
in creating their own representations. Women and men are given choices: they choose who they will have sex with, they choose the positions they want to be in, they choose the toys they play with, all based on what feels good to them, all based on their actual sexuality, not a fabricated script. I want to capture complex, three-dimensional beings, rather than simplistic stereotypes. I want to create an open environment that’s safe for everyone—and especially women—to take charge of their pleasure and be able to express their desires freely. I’m trying to capture some level of authenticity, a connection between partners, and sense that everyone’s having a good time. Think of it as organic, fair-trade porn.