Remaking Sexual Media with Feminist Porn

by Ava Mir-Ausziehen

The words ‘feminist’ and ‘porn’ have a lot in common: they both carry a lot of baggage, evoke a lot of strong feelings, and can be interpreted in many different ways by many different people. Consequently, people are often hesitant to identify with these terms or label things with them. This is in part why a moniker like ‘feminist porn’ can be so jarring, a seeming contradiction. But as editors of The Feminist Porn Book: The Politics of Producing Pleasure (Feminist Press 2013), Tristan Taormino, Celine Parreñas Shimizu, Constance Penley, and Mireille Miller-Young explain, there is a long tradition and thriving community in which these two words are not only not contradictory, but in fact make a perfect political combo.

Sitting in the halls of the University of Toronto, I listen to director Tristan Taormino describe feminist porn as ‘organic and fair-trade’. Much like the fair-trade food movement, she explains, feminist porn targets the conscientious consumer, the consumer that wants to know they are buying products from companies that respect people’s labour conditions. Treating actors fairly, paying good wages, and creating a healthy, respectful working environment are all key components of what makes a production ‘feminist’. Like any marketplace, sexual markets have the potential to be socially progressive and engender social change, writes contributor Lynn Comella (92). Feminist porn differs from mainstream porn by taking chances and placing ethics before (or at least alongside) profits. This works counter to the formulas of mainstream porn, which, writes Mireille Miller-Young, ‘replicates exactly what sells and innovates only when other things sell better’ (112). Having worked on a number of Sssh’s movie sets, I can attest to the fact that while the word ‘feminist’ may not appear on the website, this fair-trade ethic is strongly adhered to in the production of our movies.

Feminist porn is also about rewriting and exploding the gender and sex codes that are taken for granted in the bulk of mainstream porn. It counters ideas such as the passive woman who, as performer Dylan Ryan describes in her article, seems to have sex done to her rather than something she is engaged in as an active participant (122). Other tropes such as the ‘meat shot’ or the ‘money shot’ may be played with or discarded; a wider variety of bodies, ages and races may be depicted; and more ‘sensual’ sex may be part of the picture. That said one of the key misconceptions about feminist porn is that it essentializes what ‘women want’ based on outdated ideas of men as aggressive and visual, women as gentle and sensual. Feminist porn does not seek to imply that all women want the same thing, nor that only women have an interest in watching feminist porn. There is no quest, as Jane Ward’s contribution argues, for the holy grail of ‘authentic’ female sexuality inasmuch as there are many ‘sexualities’, plural, to be enjoyed, all of which are mediated by culture and none of which are exemplary of some ‘base’ or ‘natural’ sexuality (133). All kinds of people want to see all kinds of sexual imagery. As the editors write, ‘feminist porn does not shy away from the darker shades of women’s fantasies. It creates a space for realizing the contradictory ways in which our fantasies do not always line up with our politics or ideas of who we think we are’ (15). If there is one essentialist motivation, it is to address the porn consumer as not always a white man, to not presume the euro-centric male gaze. How that manifests, of course, is then up for grabs by the myriad ‘female gazes’ we can conjure.

Basics of the anti-porn movement gleaned from this book are the idea that a) porn is a ‘monolithic medium and industry’ and therefore we can make ‘sweeping generalizations about its production, its workers, its consumers, and its effects on society’ (9); b) that men’s sexuality is dangerous, uncivilized, and needs to be ‘reigned in’ to protect women from it (53); and c) that people who believe porn can be a source of joyful and equitable labour or expression are suffering a false consciousness, deceiving themselves, and that they fail to critically address porn, saying all porn is always empowering (9). Anti-porn feminists see porn as a commodification of rape; this view seems to inherently consider sex as demeaning to women, as if women do not seek sexual expression and satisfaction, or that they cannot do so safely in a world still marked by racism, misogyny, patriarchy, and classism. But we pro-porn feminists do not believe sex is inherently demeaning or objectifying, that’s why we invite women to explore their desires and boundaries in a safe space like Sssh.com. A key understanding of feminist porn is that sexual freedom, the right to enjoy and express sexuality, is intimately linked to our overall sense of freedom and wellbeing in the world. In this sense, porn is a political platform.

But no one is claiming that porn is never problematic. It may be your negative encounters with porn that brought you to Sssh.com in the first place. In expanding on precisely what political stance is invoked by feminist porn, the editors write that:

feminist porn uses sexually explicit imagery to contest and complicate dominant representations of gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, class, ability, age, body type, and other identity markers. It explores concepts of desire, agency, power, beauty, and pleasure at their most confounding and difficult, including pleasure within and across inequality, in the face of injustice, and against the limits of gender hierarchy and both heteronormativity and homonormativity. It seeks to unsettle conventional definitions of sex, and expand the language of sex as an erotic activity, an expression of identity, a power exchange, a cultural commodity, and even a new politics […] Ultimately, feminist porn considers sexual representation – and its production – a site for resistance, intervention, and change. [9-10]

All this AND you get to jerk off with a clean conscience!

If all this is more political philosophy than you care to think about when watching a dirty movie, consider it simply as an issue of media representation. Porn is a form of entertainment, and like TV, movies, the Internet, radio, performances, theatre, or any spectacle, what happens on and behind the screen or stage has concrete ramifications on the presumptions people make about others, and on how folks come to understand the world.

The Feminist Porn Book addresses one element that I feel very strongly: the collaboration of academics with porn producers and actors themselves. The edict ‘nothing about us without us’ demands that those who are removed from a phenomenon such as porn production must consult with and integrate the voices of those who are actually touched by the industry in formulating their theories. This volume seamlessly brings together porn studies academics (yes, it is a field, with its own peer-reviewed journals, university programs, conferences, and specialists) with porn performers, directors, and webmasters. Too often only academic voices get heard, or performers are only involved provided their voices are ‘filtered up’ through the refined pen of the scholar. Of course, some academics are also performers (such as myself), but because of stigma we often have to balance our desire to be ‘out’ with our desire to keep a job without harassment.

One of the reasons I think this collaboration is so important is that it encourages non-industry porn consumers to act in solidarity with the hard working porn stars labouring to get them off. A key concern, as some scholars have stated, is that women can be hesitant to consume porn because they worry that it ‘objectifies’ actresses, or that women in porn are treated poorly. I understand this concern, but want to point out that porn is remarkably similar to any other industry: there are companies that treat workers well and pay fair wages, and other that do less than a stellar job at it. Be confident that you have made the right step by joining an equitable and fair website! Give you and your credit card a little pat on the back.

How exactly is a porn performer, an agential human being, objectified? While some argue that objectification is endemic to certain industries (like porn and fashion) I think it depends on the viewer more than the industry itself. If we consume a product without respecting the labourers that produce it, we are the ones guilty of objectifying the people involved. Creating a sex-positive community where we can enjoy our kinks in mutually enriching ways means we must appreciate the contributions of those creating the product. The power to objectify is largely in the eye of the beholder; so check yourself and those around you if they start to imply that the women featured in porn are ‘sluts’ or ‘whores’ or that they must be drug-addicted, irresponsible, or any other number of the stereotypes that get pinned on the backs of sex workers. Reading the words of porn performers themselves is a responsible and easy to way to humanize and respect those we may not encounter in our day-to-day lives (although I assure you, you’ve stood in the grocery line next to a sex worker before, you just might not have known it).

If you are still struggling with the idea that porn can be feminist, I urge you to check out this book. One of its finer points is that it, as far as I’ve read, is the first work to bring us up to speed on the feminist porn movement since the introduction of the Internet and into the 2000s. It also gives excellent historical context for those unfamiliar with or wanting to know more about the ‘Golden Age’ of porn in the 70s (when big budget productions first developed and screened) as well as the conflicted debates in the 80s (known as the ‘porn wars’ or sex wars’). These debates continue to mark the ways that we often conflate ‘feminism’ with ‘anti-sex’ or ‘anti-porn’, and I would argue, are in large part responsible for the decreasing willingness for people to identify as feminists. If you have ever had any hesitations or ambivalence about watching pornography, this book, which moves from more theoretical arguments to testimonials and is varied in its linguistic accessibility and style, is a fantastic historical critique of how porn and sex have disrupted and been disrupted by feminist movements. It offers a number of entry points to understanding the potential for porn making and porn consumption to subvert the potentially negative aspects of the industry and of our sexual culture more broadly. It normalizes the industry in ways that can make porn seem less foreign, distant, and impenetrable (no pun intended) and more like any other form of media. A focus on critical media literacy and ethical consumption put the power into the hands of the viewer. Feminist porn is not an obscure and confusing topic, it is as simple as buying fair-trade coffee and drinking it from your eco-friendly travel mug.

Copyright © 2013 Ava Mir-Ausziehen • All International Rights Reserved You may not distribute or reprint this article, in whole or in part, without express permission from Sssh.Com