Katie Jenkins who writes for both the Independent and The Guardian reached out to us in May. Katie is "working on a series about how women are tackling misogyny and mental health stigmas in online spaces" She continued with "One of the 'spaces' I am looking at is feminist porn, and I would love to speak to different women who are involved in the industry about their experiences emphasizing the female gaze. Given Sssh's reputation as the world's first feminist porn site, I would be really interested to get your insights and hear more about your experience. Why is it important for women to take up space in this industry? What more do you think needs to be done going forward?" Our responses in full are below. This interview has not yet been released.

1. Over the years, various female pornographers have taken issue with the term ‘feminist porn’. What does the term mean to you?

The problem with the term “feminist porn” is that in some ways, it’s just another label and another means of pigeonholing women – and I think boxing women in, or placing limits around our expression is antithetical to the very idea of feminism. To me, feminism is about women making our own choices, being treated equally under the law and having our autonomy respected. Individual women have the right to view feminism in different ways and those of us who make films have the right to express our own vision of feminism, without worrying about whether what we make fits inside a “feminist porn” box – a box that other people have constructed and for which they’ve defined the criteria and limits.

2. You’d had a varied career before starting Sssh.com in 1999, having studied business and journalism, and worked as a filmmaker in other genres. What attracted you to the porn industry?

In part, it was happenstance. I was already working in the adult industry, helping run one of the first adult membership sites to ever launch online (Wasteland.com, which my husband Colin runs to this day) and I couldn’t help but notice there wasn’t much content that seemed to be made with women viewers in mind. Everything was catered to the “male gaze” – and I just thought that was weird, narrow-minded and wrong. I started asking other people in the adult industry why there wasn’t more porn out there for women -- or created by women, though that was in many ways an even deeper question --  and the response typically was “Oh, women don’t watch porn” or “there’s no market for that kind of thing.”

I thought the people saying there was no market for erotica that appealed to women were simply wrong – especially in their belief that women aren’t “visually stimulated.” Personally, I’ve always been drawn to film as a storytelling medium precisely because I’m visually stimulated. I’ve also always pictured stories in my head unfolding like a film, as opposed to like a narrative in a book. So, the combination of a need in the market and my existing desire to make films dovetailed into a perfect opportunity. Here was a space in which I could express myself, making cinematic erotic films with strong storylines, propelled by a different sort of imagery and aesthetic than what I was seeing on the adult market at that time. Soon, Sssh.com was born, I was also collecting survey data to get a better idea of what women who were thirsty for a different kind of adult film wanted to see and I was off and running on a career path I’ve been traveling down ever since.

3. Can you tell me a little about the process of launching Sssh.com. As it was the web’s first feminist porn site, did you encounter many obstacles?

The only real obstacle was the perspective of many of my peers in the adult industry. Many men -- because my industry peers at the time were mostly men -- felt that I was wasting my time and barking up the wrong tree by making porn with women viewers in mind. There were also some shared thoughts about making content that was an “alternative” to the more conventional porn that was widely available at the time. I didn’t listen to any of it though, so their resistance to the idea was largely irrelevant. It was an irritating attitude to run up against, sure, but it didn’t stop me from making films or growing my site’s fan base.

Later, when the broader adult industry started to come around to the fact that women watch porn too, I did sort of shake my head at people acting like this was some amazing new discovery, but mostly I just welcomed the epiphany on their part. It meant there’d be more opportunities for women to get into adult filmmaking, which I believe is good for everyone involved. The more diversity you have behind the camera, the more diverse the choices will be for consumers. However, though many consumers continue to opt to choose porn that taps into conventional tropes or themes (which is fine -- diversity must go both, or many, ways), existing consumers find new forms of content they enjoy and new consumers discover content that pleases them where previously there was none. And as more consumers come to the space, more adult studios will feel safe in breaking old molds and exploring more interesting territory.

4. What did you originally hope to achieve with Sssh.com? Have your original expectations matched its reputation over 20 years on?

In many ways, Sssh has exceeded my original expectations. If you had told me 20 years ago that I’d be winning awards at mainstream film festivals, or that my films would even be accepted by such film festivals for consideration, I would have said you were clearly talking about someone else.

My hope when I launched Sssh.com was quite humble, really. Maybe I could build a small community of women who would enjoy the site, offer feedback on and ideas for my films -- which, given that the “feedback” I was seeking was based in fantasy and a form of sexual confession, which… the gender issues there alone and the trust this required is significant and a whole discussion in of itself -- and enjoy an outlet for expressing themselves and exploring a side of their sexuality that society mostly discourages women from tapping into. Back then, I never thought about whether Sssh would still be going (and growing) 20 plus years later. I was always so focused on the next movie, I really wasn’t thinking about the long term.

5. Why do you think it’s important for female pornographers to take up space in the industry? What impact could a continued male gaze have both on female viewers and female actors?

I think it’s important for the same reason it’s important that there are women who write novels, or make mainstream films, or work in the sciences, for that matter. It’s about diversity of perspective and making sure women are well-represented in all walks of life. If we’re not there in the adult industry, crafting depictions and shaping the way women are portrayed in porn, then we’re ceding the playing field to men pornographers and consumers. We’d be right back where porn was when I started making films, in other words – a relentlessly “male-dominated” space.

6. What more do you think needs to be done in the industry going forward? Discussion of #MeToo has applied to many sectors, but do you think it has translated to the porn industry in the same way?

I think the industry needs to continue to welcome and encourage directors and performers from all backgrounds and perspectives to share their stories and put their visions out there for the world to see – and much more needs to be done to serve consumer diversity, as well. (The same can be said of mainstream entertainment too, of course.)

The industry also needs to do more to emphasize the primacy and crucial importance of consent. I think most adult studios do a very good job of assuring there’s 100% agreement between the performers and the director on all sex acts to be performed and depicted, but I don’t think we do good enough a job in communicating that fact to viewers, or a good enough job in depicting affirmative consent within our films.

#MeToo is an enormously important movement – and given that sex is part and parcel of making pornography, it’s a movement that should inform the choices we make in the adult industry, especially as it pertains to interacting with performers. I know that on my own sets, the performers call the shots, period. I don’t care if they’ve signed six forms saying they’re fine with engaging in a certain sex act; if the moment comes and they’re not comfortable with doing it, then we don’t proceed. That’s just an ironclad commitment on my part – there is no choice a performer can make that they can’t change their minds about later, regardless of when that change of mind takes place. There is no higher priority on my set than the comfort, safety, security and wellbeing of the performers. I’d like for that perspective, that orientation of priorities, to be universal across the adult industry, but I don’t think we’re there yet.

7. What repercussions do you think the coronavirus crisis will have on the industry - be that in the production of content or how people engage with it?

I worry that some of the smaller operations will fold, because they can’t afford to be out of production for as long as combatting the coronavirus could require them to stop. I’m worried about film crews and everyone involved in the chain of production. At Sssh, we’re in pretty good shape, because we already had a lot of unpublished content in the pipeline, but I do worry about some of our friends and peers who are in different circumstances. I think most of the performers will be OK, especially if they’re well-established in the webcamming sector because traffic and business in camming is actually going up during all the sheltering-in-place going on around the world (so far, at least).

In a broader sense, the pandemic is impacting the whole of society and will continue to do so in ways that are hard to anticipate or prepare for and I’m sure those effects will be felt throughout the adult industry, as well. We’re liable to be living in a very different world by the time we emerge from this pandemic (whenever that may be) so I don’t doubt the adult industry will undergo some big changes as part of that, too. I can’t predict what those changes might be; all I can do is adjust to the changes as they come along and try to help others adapt and survive, too.