Right ON
I linked to Dacia’s latest post about “feminist porn” in my del.cio.us links yesterday, but I had such a “yes yes YES that’s IT!” reaction to it that I feel compelled to quote liberally here…
To me, making feminist porn is not about what is actually shown on screen and much more about what is happening on the production end of things. This is very clearly an expression of my years working in the sex industry and working for sex workers’ rights, but like Petra says in the beginning of this paragraph, “our tastes on what we find sexy in the bedroom or on film differ.” We can have a whole argument about the nurture and nature of “taste” – but I don’t think liking or not liking specific acts can make or break a feminist.
I don’t care if porn shows a woman masturbating by herself (like in many of the Abby Winters photo sets and videos), a woman fucking a guy with a strap-on (like in The Bi Apple, a woman enthusiastically sucking cock (like in Erika’s films), or a pregnant woman getting fucked up the ass with a baseball bat (like in Belladonna’s Fucking Girls Again). What I do care about is: does that performer want to be there? Is the director/producer respecting her needs and paying her appropriately? Did she get blindsided by requests for acts she doesn’t want to do?
The answers to those questions determine whether or not the porn is feminist, sex-positive, and ethical for me, not what is happening on screen.
Do you get it now, people? Do you? I still do not know why this is a difficult concept, but clearly it is. And so these things must continue to be said, emphatically.
I might write more about this later. I need to crawl into bed now, though, because I got up at 6:00 a.m. on a Saturday.
Chemistry 3 (wherein I pretend to be a porn reviewer)
A few weeks ago, Tristan Taormino sent me a copy of Chemistry 3, her latest film. Rusty and I watched it off and on whenever we had a free moment, and finally finished it before we left for vacation last week.
Chemistry 3 won Best Gonzo at the 2007 AVN Awards. I found this interesting because a lot of people equate gonzo with degradation and, basically, all the ‘bad’ in porn. But Chemistry is closer to the real meaning of gonzo than all that other stuff people equate with the term:
Gonzo pornography is a filming style of adult video. It is characterized by a filming style that attempts to place the viewer directly into the scene. The name is a reference to gonzo journalism, in which the reporter is part of the event taking place. By analogy, gonzo pornography puts the camera right into the action — often with one or more of the participants both filming and performing sexual acts — without the usual separation characteristic of conventional porn and cinema.
What I liked about Chemistry 3 was that it included lots of laughter and a generally laid-back, not-forced feel. That’s the whole point, of course; the three guys and three girls could fuck whom they wanted, when they wanted, and had cameras on hand to film as much of it themselves as they wanted.
There were also several “confessionals” with the different performers, where they talked about their personal preferences, their experiences in the adult industry, and a variety of other topics. When I saw Ren’s comments about porn companies putting “behind the scenes” stuff on DVDs, I immediately thought of Chemistry 3. The entire film has the feel of those behind the scenes extras. And I think that’s important – a lot of folks could stand to be reminded that people who work in the adult industry are, well, people. Shocking, I know; but porn performers have likes and dislikes, interests and opinions, and parts of their lives that don’t involve fucking – just like the rest of us.
To anyone who goes around spouting off at the mouth about how horrible and exploitative porn is, I’d recommend watching Chemistry 3. The women aren’t getting slapped around and referred to as bitches and sluts, and at no point does anyone have a bored, going-through-the-motions look on his or her face. If you watch Chemistry 3 and call it degrading, to me that says that you think sex on the participants’ own terms, where everyone is enjoying themselves, is degrading.
Oh, and for that matter – because why end with snark? – I recommend Chemistry 3 to anyone who wants to see some good porn. Always Aroused Girl is even having a contest at her blog where you can win a copy. If I were some kind of pseudo-professional porn reviewer with a rating system based on stars or thumbs, I’d give Chemistry 3 the maximum number of those.
[Cross-posted at Pro-Porn Activism]
I learned a lot last night
Last night, Rusty and I went to see A/V Geeks Greatest Hits at Eyedrum. It was hilarious and awesome. I hadn’t laughed that hard in quite a while.
Skip Elsheimer’s collection of old educational filmstrips is mind-boggling. He has about 18,000 (yes, that’s the right number of zeroes) filmstrips dating from the 1930s to the 1980s. The ones he showed last night all featured particularly catchy and/or annoying music. And it’s fairly evident that the people responsible for some of them were under the influence of some pretty serious psychedelic drugs.
Some of the films are available on YouTube, including one of the creepiest ones from last night: Telezonia, which is all about how to use the telephone (and includes some painfully obvious metaphors about racial and gender equality). Rusty and I now know what we’re going to be for Dragon*Con and/or Halloween, assuming we can pull it off. I’ve never been good at making stuff, so if anyone has any ideas as to how to recreate the question mark costume, let me know. (Rusty gets to be “Telly;” now, where will we find a shirt with a big Ma Bell logo in the center?)
A/V Geeks Greatest Hits was part of the Film Love series; we’ll be going back to Eyedrum in two weeks for Summer of Love: Sex, Drugs, Rock, Art and Protest in the Counterculture circa 1967. And we’ll be interviewing Andy Ditzler on a podcast soon, so stay tuned.
Shortbus: the short review
Last night, Rusty and I saw Shortbus, and it was awesome. I had heard nothing but good things about it, and read good reviews, so I was expecting it to be awesome – but I got even more than I’d bargained for. As we left the theatre, Rusty’s first comment was, “That was a pretty incredible piece of filmmaking.” And I have to agree.
It kinda bugs me that this film has been billed as porn in some places. Not because I think there’s anything wrong with porn, but because I don’t think it’s an accurate description of the film. On the way home, Rusty and I were trying to articulate what it is and where it would fit, and we honestly couldn’t come up with anything. We got into a conversation about why more people aren’t making films like this, and how it can’t be easily categorized, and why it’s probably really hard to get the greenlight on this kind of stuff. There are just so few movies out there doing what Shortbus does that I’m hardpressed to name a genre for it. (Coincidentally, Dacia posted today about some other filmmakers who’re stepping out there.)
During our conversation last night, one big distinction I came up with was that in most porn (that I’ve seen, anyway), typically if there’s a storyline, it’s there to facilitate the sex. In Shortbus, the sex was there to facilitate the storyline and the characters’ development. Plenty of movies have tried to do this same thing, but without showing actual sex, and they miss the mark. Because another thing that was awesome and unique about Shortbus was that the sex wasn’t pushed into the margins as merely a plot device, or something dirty or superfluous. This, in turn, made the characters seem more real, because guess what, in real life people have sex and do all kinds of “dirty” things, and it’s just a part of life.
I don’t want to write too much about this because Rusty and I plan to include Shortbus in a forthcoming movie review podcast. But if you get a chance to see this film, you absolutely should. (It’s playing at Landmark Midtown, for those of you in Atlanta.)