About women and porn – the women in the article are definitely not doing the old “couples” movies and romantic soft core that used to be passed off as women’s porn. I think you give the porn industries too much credit, their are no marketing analysts telling them what kind of porn to make. They see that their copies of interracial porn practically print them money in the American South and you end up with movies with disgusting titles like “Jenna has a Negro Problem.” They see that some other studio has a movie about pirates having sex, and they want one too. That’s all their market analysis is. It’s basically taken a new wave of feminism and men comfortable with different ideas about sex and sexuality to start new trends in pornography. The average consumer however, is still the typical male that the industry has been churning out movies for in the past thirty years. There are some male directors who more feminist inclined porn stars love to work with, but the typical porn audience thinks of their films as boring art films and call the directors things such as “faggot” and “sissy”. But, since generational mores about sexuality keep sliding towards something more inclusive, the feminist porn pioneers today may have lasting effect years later. Violet Blue’s tinynibbles.com is not the be all and end all of information on feminist porn, but it certainly is the best starting place I can think of. Sorry for the anonymity, but it is porn, and even now, unless you’re in the industry, the amount of knowledge one may have about it can be considered embarrassing.

I understand the anonymity and I certainly do not begrudge it. Comments like yours are the reason I have enabled it 🙂

I know Violet Blue and I have her blog in my RSS feeds because I consider her approach to sexuality much more positive than almost anything in mainstream media. Sure, she might not represent the entire spectrum of human sexuality and gender but that would be an impossible task for just one person.

I also think that the other phenomenon changing the porn landscape are amateur clips. If we talk about media representation never before has there been such a variety of bodies and experiences out there. Some of it is still problematic and it raises serious issues of consent (those “hidden camera” features, just to use ONE example out of many).

The reason I am mostly interested in porn is not so much because of its erotic aspects (sure, some of it can be titillating) but because of how it can push the boundaries of social acceptance. Sexuality is such an important part of the human experience and yet, so many people feel isolated and stigmatized because of it. So many people are bullied and hurt because they deviate from what mainstream media has deemed to be “normal”. Porn, or better said “good porn” has potentially the power to change that by presenting a whole range of erotic experiences on equal grounds.

Notice I said “good porn”. And that is not what we see almost everywhere. In the meantime, I will continue celebrating attempts at new styles of production and narratives. And I can only hope for the best.

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