The definitive history of feminist pornography has yet to be written. Even when it is (and I'm counting the days) hopefully it won't attempt to create a monolithic single definition of what feminist pornography is. From a sexual health perspective it's much more interesting to look at what porn that has been identified as feminist adds to our understanding of sexual expression than to argue about what does or does not qualify as feminist porn.
It’s important to distinguish the relatively new idea or production of explicitly feminist pornography from the slightly older, and much more thoroughly documented discourse of feminist responses to pornography. Feminists making pornography and calling it feminist is a very different topic than feminists talking about pornography other people have made.
What Makes Pornography Feminist?
Here are a few criteria people making and writing about feminist porn have suggested for what makes pornography feminist:- there is a focus on female pleasure
- the material is primarily (or solely) made by women
- the material has a mission, its primary goal is not to arouse, but to engage on a political level
- the content is made by someone who self-identifies as feminist
- there is a conscious effort to challenge traditional gender and sexual roles and stereotypes in the dialogue and action
- the production is “ethical” and considers the safety and dignity of the performers
- material that is as much about representation of identity and pleasure of the people in the production as it is about getting the viewer off
A Brief History of Feminist Pornography and Pornographers
If we accept that feminist porn is any explicit sexual imagery made by someone who identifies as feminist, the history of feminist porn is much older than even the history of the moving image. For this article however I’m going to focus on contemporary feminist porn that is most often traced back to the early 1980s.In 1983 a group of politicized women working in the sex industry, mostly in mainstream porn, formed a support group they called Club 90. The following year they were approached to participate in a public art performance for which they created a show called “Deep Inside Porn Stars” meant to address in part the question of what is feminist pornography (you can read more about this in Annie Sprinkle's excellent book, Post-Porn Modernist).
The participants in that performance are among the first women to talk explicitly about being feminists and making pornography. They include Annie Sprinkle, Candida Royalle, Gloria Leonard, Veronica Hart, Susie Nero, Kellie Nichols, and Veronica Vera. While she wasn’t in this group, Nina Hartley is another actor of this generation who has long identified as a feminist and a pornographer. Until recently most of Hartley’s work was in front of the camera. Her work raises interesting questions about whether or not feminist porn requires a feminist behind the camera, in front, or both.
The next major event in feminist porn happened the same year, when Candida Royalle created Femme Productions, the first explicitly feminist porn production company. Royalle gave herself the task of focusing on female pleasure and eliminating the elements of mainstream pornography she found least interesting to women; namely prolonged close-up shots of genitals and the external male ejaculation shot (the "money shot"). Royalle began with little funding or support and her company became wildly successful. From a business perspective she is largely responsible for changing the face of the mainstream industry as her success proved to other producers that targeting women, and creating content that looked different could actually work. From a feminist porn theory perspective her work offers the most unified vision from one producer and is a fascinating body from which we can talk about whether what "women like" can or should be directly equated with what is feminist.
Next page...feminist porn hits the web
