Anyone who calls themselves a feminist (if you’re reading this, you probably should) and works in some capacity of the adult industry will be asked what feminist pornography is over and over again. Violet Blue’s thoughtful piece in response to the Feminist Porn Awards breaks it down in a way I wish I could have last weekend. Although, in my defense, you try discussing Dworkin after 4 hours in the sun drinking bad beer.
The best thing, for me, to come out of the feminist porn awards this year is that suddenly everyone is talking about women and porn a lot. I’ve read a bunch of great articles and blog postings over the last week that discuss the fact that women enjoy watching people fuck and that it’s pretty great. Yes, there are movies that make my tummy hurt a little, but there are also a lot of great things happening in the adult industry that many women can be empowered by. I mean, I find the fact that Paris Hilton authored a book totally humiliating, but I’m not going to stop reading because of it.
For those of you who are too busy to follow the link and read the article in it’s entirety, here’s a fantastic quote from Alison Lee, the manager of Good For Her:
“A porn film can be classified as feminist, I think, as soon as women are taken into account as viewers, and that as actors within the film, their own desires are taken into account. This means basically showing that women have just as much right to erotic entertainment as men do, and their desires and pleasure is important, too. I don’t think that feminist porn has to show women at all though, and there is a growing body of excellent smut out there starring trans people (mostly trans men so far) that is looking to show genuine pleasure, consent, and loving relationships outside of the gender binary.
Try not reading the rest of Blue’s article after that gem!
