The porn industry isn’t necessarily the first thing that comes into people’s heads when they think about feminism. After all, the mainstream adult industry – that is, sites with pages after pages of free content – are saturated with stolen content, underage women, coercion, themes of incest, racism, unhealthy power dynamics and not a single effort to showcase safe sex…not exactly the picture of equality. However, porn is changing like no other form of media has before. With the rise of the Indie Adult Film Industry over the last decade has come a rise in porn directed for and by womxn – and the results are miraculously equality-driven.
From women-only sets to equal pay to a variety of body and races being represented on set, Independent Adult Cinema has arguably done more for the equality stakes than regular film and television. A pioneer of independent porn and arguably the best-known woman in the feminist porn scene is Erika Lust, owner of Lust Cinema and XConfessions. Using Instagram to promote her work by posting tasteful, well-shot stills from her films, Erika creates a space where porn is normalised as if it is just another category of cinema, rather than something ‘dirty’ and unmentionable.
While porn is absolutely something which is more of a ‘personal’ experience than a regular film, there’s no need for porn to be some kind of dirty secret amongst legal-to-view adults – especially when it caters to the sexual desires of those who have been criminally underrepresented within the mainstream industry. Even just a scroll through Erika’s Instagram (@ErikaLust and @Lust.Cinema) is a breath of fresh air – there’s no girls of is-she-or-isn’t-she legal status, no lesbians attempting to perform acts which defy the laws of biology and physics, and female actors aren’t expected to adhere to specific power roles. Instead, she shows a variety of ages, a variety of roles and couples who practise safe sex, at a physical and mental level within her work – that is, showing the appropriate ‘afterwards’ instead of crudely ending the scene as soon as the ‘actual sex’ is over.
In turn, Lust has created a pornographic genre which focuses on naturalistic sex, rather than hyper-production-based films which are almost always based on the male gaze. Instead of appealing to the societal standards of what men find attractive, Lust taps into the psyche of womxn by focusing on mutual understanding, pleasure and, lo and behold, the female orgasm. While on the set of regular porn, the act is considered ‘finished’ when the male finishes, Lust turns this on its head and ensures that the female orgasm is seen as a crucial feature of sex, rather than one that’s purely optional. This small change to ‘definition’ of sex ensures that women’s bodies are celebrated and seen as something other than a purely passive vehicle of men’s desire – and what could be more feminist than that?
As a side note, Lust also has a team of carefully curated directors who specialise in specific genres. For example, Madison Young (a director and actress in her own right, and director within Lust’s XConfessions project) has brought an array of inclusive BDSM related content to the feminist porn table. While BDSM remains a relatively popular sub-category of mainstream porn sites, the way its executed is often far from the way which the subculture intended – that is, in a safe way that adheres to safety precautions and safe words. Instead, mainstream porn has turned BDSM into a gateway of harming women by means of showcasing unsafe and extreme acts which no indicators of mutual consent or enjoyment. It is also overwhelmingly heteronormative. Instead, Young aims to bring BDSM back to its queer roots, showcasing performers of all sexualities and genders partaking in safe, mutually enjoyed BDSM: clearly, fulfilling a niche in the indie porn market while sticking to feminist credentials.
Aside from Lust and her team of directors, another woman who has been a force within the independent adult industry is Shine Louise Houston, founding producer and director of Pink and White Productions. Being a self-proclaimed “voyeur with a production company,” Houston encourages her actors to make their own decisions about the scenes which they are participating in, rather than micro-managing their every move when directing – a huge factor in terms of creating realism within her films.
The problem with a lot of mainstream porn is that its nothing like what actual sex is like. While most adults know this, we can’t help the fact that we absorb the content which we watch and unconsciously try to imitate whatever we’ve seen within porn, no matter how much we try to avoid this. Porn is, at best, educational and while I’m in no way condoning under-18’s watching porn, they absolutely do and will continue to do so. And so, creating porn which is as close to reality is important and will ensure that young people and adults alike are not exposed to potentially psychologically damaging material which depicts women as voiceless sexual playthings rather than human beings enjoying their sexual experiences.
Also, being queer herself, Houston is able to deploy a ‘gaze’ which doesn’t fetishize the performers in the way that mainstream porn absolutely does. Instead, her work is queer for queer people, not queer for men to look at. And so, she has clearly handed the sexual power back to queer people within the sex industry; a much-required shift after decades of queerness being a ‘fetish’ rather than an identity within the industry. Better still, Young has used some of her profits from the industry to found Femina Potens Art Gallery, a non-profit art gallery and performance space in San Francisco that serves the LGBTQ+ and Kink communities – therefore, helping the queer community inside and outside of her career.
While this diversity is certainly feminist, porn cannot be ‘feminist’ based on diversity alone. In order to fulfil an empowering role, it has to offer safety and empowerment on set. While no form of labour can be strictly ‘feminist’ under capitalism, workspaces can be created where safety and payment for the sex workers are at the forefront of the business model. And one way to ensure that sex work is a safe space is to ensure that their content isn’t free. When you pay for porn, you ensure bigger budgets for smaller creators and allow them to keep producing content which is inclusive and empowering for the audience and workers alike.
Also, large porn sites which are free often exploit their workers by withholding payment, stealing their workers content and pushing them into performing within derogatory categories in order to ‘make it’ within such a merciless industry. By buying into independent porn – which, of course, isn’t free from its own scandals from time to time – you are at least ensuring you aren’t buying into abuse, coercion and an overall very unsafe working environment.
So, as these women – amongst many, many other performers and directors – have changed the adult industry for the better, it is wholly necessary for us, the viewer, to alter our viewing habits for the better. While not everyone can afford to pay for porn, you can support women like this who are changing the industry by supporting them on social media, sharing their projects, donating to their Patreons, telling other people about their content. The more we change our habits surrounding porn, the more income these women will have in order to keep creating and catering to a long-required female, feminist gaze within the adult industry. Or else, we’ll have decades after decades of misogynistic, coercive pornography continuing to be the ‘norm.’
