What is Feminist Porn?

Recently, the Swedish government gave Mia Enberg 500,000 SEK ($69,000) to create Dirty Diaries–a selection of feminist porn.  The author of this article on The Local argues that the State should not fund “feminist porn,” primarily because Enberg’s has created lesbian porn and referred to it as feminist.  The female author’s argument: mainstream porn isn’t attractive to women because it “often features a great deal of sex between women,” and because she is heterosexual, girl-on-girl isn’t attractive to her.  Furthermore, she writes, while “it might very well broaden the market for people with different sexual orientations, it should not trade under the banner of feminism” because gender equality is not “about excluding men and privileging women.”  Apparently, describing lesbian porn as feminist is wrong as it’s anti-equality because there’s no men!

Obviously, this woman is twisted.  Lesbians aren’t anti-men because they are attracted to other women.  However, I do agree that lesbian sex isn’t necessarily feminist, as she does bring up a valid point when she mentions that mainstream porn fetishizes lesbian sex for the male spectator.  The real question is: what makes a porn feminist?

If it is made by and for women does it make it feminist?  Does a female director automatically guarantee the title?  Or is it the portrayal of female characters that deems it feminist?  These same questions sprout up in film criticism all the time, as many theorists have tried to figure out what makes a certain film feminist.  However, like the various definitions for “feminism” there are various arguments for what makes a film “feminist.”

Personally, for porn (or any kind media) to be considered feminist, it is dependent on the portrayal of women.  In traditional porn, women are treated as props to service the cock.  ‘She’ is a body to pound and her pleasure is only shown to intensify the male spectator’s orgasm–as ‘He’ identifies with the male performer and fetishizes the female’s performance in order to reach climax.  The real reason mainstream porn doesn’t appeal to most women, is because most women can tell the female performers are faking it–she is a pair of tits and a vagina, little else in her performance matters.

Porn is about the visual representations of sex and not the actual act.  The cock, the vulva, the positions, the penetration of the penis into the vagina.  The performers are objectified as body parts rather than as a person, and through out history (and specifically through out film history), women have been objectified and in order to create a feminist film of any kind, one must stop treating the performers as objects, and begin portraying them as real people.  I need to believe the woman is enjoying herself, and that she isn’t there to service the male spectator in order for a porn to be considered feminist.  A female director or a female audience doesn’t guarantee a porn will be feminist.  I’ve seen plenty of films made by and for women that were not feminist, so why would porn be any different.

Sadly, I can’t weigh in on Dirty Diaries as I haven’t seen it, and I do think the article about it is rather ridiculous at points, but I enjoy the discussion it raises.  What is feminist porn to you?

The Beginning

Before I dig into the ethical problems surrounding viewing and enjoying porn, we need to take a step back to the summer of 1972, when a woman finally discovered her clitoris in the back of her throat, and sucked her way to a bell-ringing orgasm. That’s right, I’m talking about Deep Throat and Linda Lovelace.

Every thing you read about porn will discuss Deep Throat, which is understandable as it revolutionized the adult entertainment industry. It became part of the national conciseness, and created the 1970s “porno chic” craze. Deep Throat was the first adult film with a good size budget and a feature length plot, and for awhile it became popular for middle class couples to go to porn theaters together…

Blah blah blah.

Nearly all Americans will have heard of Deep Throat, and I think that proves the impact of it on popular culture. If you want more information, there are plenty of places to go to read about it. Or if you’re brave enough, discuss it with your parents (as I did–WARNING!) or anyone else who was alive and old enough to legally see it during 1972. Instead, I want to focus more on the star of the film, Linda Lovelace (Linda Susan Boreman) and her experience post-Deep Throat.

During the 1980s, Boreman spoke out about her participation in the adult film industry, saying she was coerced, forced, and beaten by her husband, manager, and pimp, Chuck Traynor. These claims are backed up by many of her co-stars and directors. She joined the feminist anti-pornography movement, wrote many memoirs of her experiences, and spoke at various events. Now, with testimony from the first adult film star, the anti-pornography group had a poster child for the exploitation of women in porn. They had proof that women were coerced and forced into porn (similar to any argument against any form of sex trade), and the movement grew momentum.

While I do not doubt Boreman’s claims of abuse, and I feel that speaking out about her experiences was necessary to bring up the problems of exploitation in pornography. However, it has been well over 30 years since her experiences, and, hopefully, things have changed since then for most female adult performers. Sadly, the misconceptions of the porn industry and the exploitation of women hasn’t changed. Stick around to see how (and if) things have changed since Linda Lovelace first sucked cock on celluloid.

Hello world!

This project began after an interesting night with some friends. It was the weekend and we had enjoyed some drinks, when the conversation naturally moved to porn, a friend suggested a website or a video she thought I should see. I can’t remember what exactly it was that spurred me on to say it, but my response was “I don’t know, I’m an ethical porn viewer.” Of course, we all laughed as it didn’t seem possible to be ethical and enjoy porn. However, it got me thinking about how I can reconcile my feminist beliefs and my belief that porn is healthy. I’ll admit, it’s a very gray area, but I do believe a person can make ethical choices in the porn he or she watches. I plan on dealing with many aspects of what makes porn ethical or unethical.  My  primary focus will be the exploitation of women in porn, particularly, what bothers people the most, the portrayal of women or the exhibition of female performers–and if they are one in the same.

Hopefully, this will become a discussion and a guide to help others with their viewing habits, as well as provide me with a voice and a place to wrestle with my ideas. And so, let’s take this journey together!