Avert your eyes, children or people offended by pornography.
Today I met with Sterling. We shared mediocre cake and excellent conversation. During our discourse, Sterling mentioned a recent entry I’d written on the subject of good/bad TV. Because Sterling is Sterling he’d honed in on a reference I’d made to the amazing Tristan Taormino. He reiterated a request he’d left in the comments for an expanded post on pornography, complete with many hyperlinks.
One last warning for good measure: Don't click on the links at work or in church!
Tristan Taormino is a sex educator, author and porn star in her own right. She’s also a self-proclaimed feminist. She’s one of the sex industry’s leading advocates of anal sex and pleasure. Taormino’s website links to another site called Everythingbutt.com, which according to her, is the web-manifestation of her anal-centric imagination. Taormino is an advocate of female-friendly porn. But Sterling observed that the scenarios presented in the video clips aren’t necessarily that different from mainstream porn, save for cuddling at the end.
There’s on going debate amongst feminists about the merits of porn. I’m just one woman. I’m not out to rehash the debate. But for the record, know that I’m a feminist who watches and enjoys porn.
I saw my first hard core adult flick when I was a teenager. I was babysitting for a couple with a statellite dish (cutting edge in 1991!) Long after my charge had gone to bed, I was diddling (pun intended) through channels and holy shit, people doing it! Completely naked, with all the parts showing having actual sex for real and for true! As a friend of mine once said, 'when you’re a horny teenager, seeing porn for the first time has virtually the same effect as having sex yourself.' I just about came and had a stroke all at the same time!
Porn was instantly arousing. It wasn’t long before I began seeking it out. My developing libido learned to respond to all the thrusting and skin. But emotionally I was a bit at sea. There was a disconnect between my own sexuality and what I saw depicted on screen. Though I didn’t have the awareness to describe it as such at the time, I knew I wasn’t entirely comfortable despite the fact that I was very turned on.
As a teenager I bought into a lot of dichotomies ideas about who I could/should be as a woman. I could be smart girl or a pretty girl. I could be a nice girl or slut. I definitely saw myself as a good girl with brains. The porn I was watching placed women firmly in the beautiful whore group. Mainstream porn told me that my sexuality was about empty-headed passivity. I hated that. The thrusting and skin was still fascinating, but the arousal I experienced felt like a betrayal.When the Man of Mans and I started dating we tried watching porn together. When I complained to him about the content, The MoMs suggested we do some research and explore more female-friendly fare. We discovered a producer named Candida Royalle. Royalle is a porn-star-turned producer, who’s entire mandate is to produce erotic films from a female point of view. The first video we watched was The Gift. While it was a relief to feel that porn producer was actually acknowledging women as consumers of porn, there was far too much plot and not nearly enough nastiness for my horny tastes.
But as I said, it was an improvement. Encouraged, I sought out other alternatives to mainstream. And I got a clearer sense of what I liked and disliked. I liked lots of nudity, smutty dialogue and the hot, hot sexors. What I disliked were female characters who only served to fulfill the male characters desires. I wanted down and dirty, I just wanted to feel like everyone involved was into it.
(Royalle’s more recent films are more explicit and less dialogue driven, while still maintaining a female point-of -view. I highly recommend Afrodite Superstar.)
A little while later, I discovered producer Anna Span’s series of films. I adore her stuff. All of her movies, whether scripted or not have an authentic sense of spontaneity and great fun and her actors are all sexy without surgical alterations.
I also really liked the early episodes of the Shane’s World series’. Just a friendly girl and her friends, going on weekend trips and having lots of hot, unapologetic sex. Eventually Shane left the business and the films. The series continued, but without Shane the franchise took an icky, vaguely exploitative turn.I love classic, 70-era porn. I love the diversity in terms of age, ethnicity and body type. Yes there’s plot, but it rarely takes itself seriously. I kind of love the original Debbie Does Dallas, which is disarmingly effervescent in it’s portrayal of teenage prostitution. I also love the “Girl” series (Pizza Girls, Taxi Girls and Garage Girls). Cute women with regular breasts, who enjoy sex and are proficient at auto-mechanics. There’s a reason they call it the The Golden Age of Porn!
As for cuddles? They’re fine. But the presence or lack of romantic affection isn’t what defines a good porn experience for me. I want to watch people who are into the sex they’re having, or at least people who are good enough actors to make me believe they’re into it! I don’t want to be told that women who like sex are dumb, passive or damaged. Good, smart girls have sex. If they want to make movies about it, I want to see it!
This was originally posted at over a Nadine's blog, Adorkable Undies.
She enjoys candy, fashion and dreck television. She does not care for pants. Find her on Twitter @NadineThornhill. She also blogs on the Adorkable Undies. Find her blog on Facebook and Pinterest.
