Feminist pornography, also known by other terms in internet such as ethical pornography or fair-trade pornography, is a genre of film developed by or for those within the sex-positive feminist movement. It was created for the purpose of promoting gender equality by portraying more bodily movements and sexual fantasies of women and members of the LGBTQ community.
Background Feminists have debated pornography ever since the women's movement commenced. The debate was particularly vehement during the feminist sex wars of the 1980s, which is when feminist porn originated. It acquired momentum in the 2000s because of the Feminist Porn Awards, originated by Good For Her in Toronto in 2006. These awards spread awareness amongst a broader audience, extra media exposure, and assistance in uniting a community of filmmakers, performers, and fans. Many third-wave feminists are open to seeking freedom and rights of sexual equality through entering the adult entertainment workforce. However, many second-wave feminists believe that the oppression and/or sexual objectification of women is inherent in all pornography involving them. The conflict between the two waves causes many struggles between these different feminist views of pornography.
Tristan Taormino, who is a sex educator, feminist pornographer, and co-editor of The Feminist Porn Book, has said: 'Feminists pornographers are committed to gender equality and social justice.' Feminist pornography is porn that is produced in a fair manner, where performers are paid a reasonable salary and treated with care and esteem, their consent, safety, and well-being are vital, and what they bring to the production is appreciated. Feminist porn seeks to challenge ideas about desire, beauty, gratification, and power through unconventional representations, aesthetics, and film making styles. The overall aim of feminist porn is to educate and empower the performers who produce it and the people who view it.
History
Theoretical origins (c. 1975–1983) From the mid-1970s up until 1983, it was mostly a theoretical discussion amongst feminists (including some self-identified feminist men) whether making feminist porn was even possible. Some feminists, later known as sex-positive feminists, argued that it was, but it still had to be made, sometimes giving a rough sketch of what that should or would look like (for example, Ann Garry's plot in 1983). Others in the middle said it may be possible, but they had not seen any examples of it yet (1981). A third group, the anti-porn feminists, maintained throughout the 1980s that it was in principle impossible, because 'feminist pornography is a contradiction in terms' or 'an oxymoron', and that whatever was feminist but appeared to be pornographic should instead be labelled 'erotica'. Feminists like Gloria Steinem wrote that pornography promoted unequal power dynamics, while erotica represented sex as a positive expression of sexuality. Others such as Andrea Dworkin claimed that even 'erotica' was too much like pornography to be considered feminist.
The majority of the feminist debates on pornography were initiated by events such as the 1976 presentation of the film Snuff, in which a woman was shown being mutilated for the audience's sexual satisfaction. Two of the first American feminists to suggest the development of feminist pornography were Deb Friedman and Lois Yankowski (members of the Feminist Alliance Against Rape) in a 1976 article in Quest: A Feminist Quarterly. Claiming that the oppression of and violence against women portrayed in pornography had gone too far (citing the recent controversy around Snuff), but considering that censorship may not be the proper tactic to deal with it, they wrote:
The Friedman-Yankowski essay became very popular and was widely reprinted. On the other hand, erroneously believing that its scenes of eroticized torture were real, Andrea Dworkin organized nightly vigils at locations where the film was being shown. She became the main theorist of the U.S. anti-pornography campaign. Well-known feminists, including Susan Brownmiller and Gloria Steinem, joined her to establish the campaign group Women Against Pornography. The anti-porn campaign escalated with Take Back the Night marches around locations such as Times Square, which contained 'adult' book stores, massage parlors (a euphemism for a brothel) and strip clubs. Dworkin and other feminists arranged conferences and lecture tours, showing slide-shows featuring hard- and soft-core porn to women's awareness groups.
Rise of feminist pornography (1984–1990)
In the United States, production of explicitly feminist pornography began in 1984, initiated by two independently formed groups. Dissatisfied with working in mainstream male-centred porn, Candida Royalle founded her own adult film studio Femme Productions and hired performers from the porn actresses support group 'Club 90', which originated in 1983 when they started informally talking about what they wished to change about the industry. Separately, in reaction to the 1983 Dworkin-MacKinnon Ordinance, lesbian feminists founded the sex-positive lesbian sex magazine On Our Backs. This was in reaction to feminist magazine off our backs, which had been campaigning for banning porn in preceding years, and On Our Backs started producing erotic videos the next year under the leadership of Susie Bright. Others including Annie Sprinkle followed in the years thereafter, and by 1990 a small group of feminist pornographers, some of them united in the Manhattan-based Club 90, could be distinguished. Between 1984 and 1990, sex-positive feminists claimed these directors and producers had made feminist pornography a reality, increasingly referring to their works as examples of it. Anti-pornography feminists remained adamant in their opposition, claiming that these productions were either still following the patterns of 'mainstream' or 'male-dominated' porn, or were in fact erotica, a legitimate genre that was separate from pornography.
Meanwhile, in Europe, feminists such as Monika Treut (Germany), Cleo Uebelmann (Switzerland), Krista Beinstein (Germany and Austria) and Della Grace (England) started using sexually explicit pornography and film in order to explore themes such as female pleasure, BDSM, gender roles, and queer desire.
Early industry development (1990–2005) In the 1990s and early 2000s, many feminists perceived Dworkin and her anti-porn perspectives as excessively polarized and anti-sex. Feminists continued to debate the extent to which pornography is harmful to women. Some feminists have emphasized the way cybersex encourages its participants to play with identity, as users are able to take on diverse characteristics (e.g. gender, age, sexuality, race, and physical exterior). They point out a number of other benefits from new technologies, such as enhanced access to sex education and 'safe' sex, and opportunities for women and minorities to make contact and to manufacture and allocate their own representations.
The successes of Royalle and Hartley had made an impact on the mainstream adult industry by the 1990s, leading major U.S. studios such as Vivid, VCA, and Wicked to also make couples porn, as well as developing 'a formula of softer, gentler, more romantic porn with storylines and high production values.'
In 1997, the Danish company Zentropa became the first mainstream film production company in the world to make explicit porn under its Puzzy Power subsidiary, aimed at a female audience. The next year, Zentropa published the Puzzy Power Manifesto, which set guidelines for creating porn for women, similar to the standards established by Royalle.
In the early 2000s, a new generation of filmmakers who specifically called themselves or their work "feminist" emerged in the United States and Europe. American examples included Buck Angel, Dana Dane, Shine Louise Houston, Courtney Trouble, Madison Young, and Tristan Taormino, while Europe saw the rise of sexually explicitly independent films identified as feminist pornography by filmmakers such as Erika Lust (Spain), Anna Span and Petra Joy (United Kingdom), Émilie Jouvet, Virginie Despentes, and Taiwan-born Shu Lea Cheang (France), and Mia Engberg (Sweden). The Dirty Diaries (2009) were a compilation of feminist porn shorts directed by Engberg and 'famously funded by the Swedish government', while Swedish-born Lust's 2004 debut The Good Girl released on the Internet for free under a Creative Commons licence, launching her career as 'one of the most celebrated feminist pornographers in the world'.
Feminist Porn Awards and beyond (2006–present) The 2006 creation of the Feminist Porn Awards (FPAs) by the Toronto-based sex toy shop Good for Her is said to have significantly spread the influence and recognition of the modern feminist porn movement. The launch of The Feminist Porn Book (2013) 'helped to put feminist pornography on the academic map'. In the same period, some disagreements emerged about what makes certain pornography feminist, and how it may be distinguished from male-centric mainstream porn, exemplified by the controversy over whether to exclude facials (always excluded by earlier feminist filmmakers such as Royalle (1984–2013), Ms. Naughty (since 2000), and Petra Joy (since 2004), excluded in the early career of Taormino (since 1999) but included in her later career, and included by Lust ever since her 2004 debut).
Public discourse Purpose and production Tristan Taormino (2013) has stated that pornography created by women for women can give women control over what is being presented about female sexuality and how it is represented and distributed. She argued that feminist pornography allows women to have a voice in a male-dominated industry. Taormino states:
Royalle (2013) rejected the notion that pornography is automatically 'feminist' whenever it is made by women: 'Rather than creating a new vision, it seems that many of today's young female directors, often working under the tutelage of the big porn distributors, seek only to prove that they can be even nastier than their male predecessors. (...) if they're not concerned with what women want, should it then be considered feminist? (...) What bothers me is the media identifying their work as feminist when it has nothing to do with speaking for women and advancing the principles of feminism.'
Performers and society Mireille Miller-Young researched the porn industry between 2003 and 2013. In addition, Miller-Young also interviewed a vast amount of performers and encountered several positive aspects of pornography in women's lives. According to Miller-Young, "For some performers, pornography is a path to college and out of poverty. For others, it is a chance to make a statement about female pleasure." Miller-Young states that the women she interviewed were excited to enter the pornography industry and viewed it as a profitable opportunity as well as an accommodating job that would grant them independence. Women who had worked in retail or in nursing discovered that pornography gave them more control over their labor and greater respect in the workplace. Some women believed being part of the pornography industry had granted them the ability to escape poverty, provide for their families and attend college. Others stressed the inventive features of pornography and stated it grants them the ability to boost their economic mobility while also creating a strong statement about female sexual pleasure. Miller-Young claims that according to the performers she interviewed, the most difficult challenge they dealt with was social stigma, as well as gender and racial inequality.