Feminist pornography
[1] It was created for the purpose of promoting gender equality by portraying more bodily movements and sexual fantasies of women and members of the LGBT community.
These awards spread awareness amongst a broader audience, extra media exposure, and assistance in uniting a community of filmmakers, performers, and fans.
'[6] 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.
[6][7] Feminist porn seeks to challenge ideas about desire, beauty, gratification, and power through unconventional representations, aesthetics, and film making styles.
[13][14] Feminists like Gloria Steinem wrote that pornography promoted unequal power dynamics, while erotica represented sex as a positive expression of sexuality.
[b] 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.
[17] On the other hand, erroneously believing that its scenes of eroticized torture were real,[18][clarification needed] Andrea Dworkin organized nightly vigils at locations where the film was being shown.
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.
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.
[20] 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.
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).
The next year, Zentropa published the Puzzy Power Manifesto,[24] which set guidelines for creating porn for women, similar to the standards established by Royalle.
[25] 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).
[35] Taormino states:[36] “Feminist porn searches to expand the ideas about desire, beauty, gratification, and power through unconventional representations, aesthetics, and filmmaking styles.
"[38] 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.
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.
On the other hand, there are some who approach porn as a mode of acting out or coping with psychological issues, such as searching for their father's love or receiving punishment for being an immoral woman.
If the fruit were not forbidden, would anyone care to take a bite?Miller-Young (2012) wrote that at both large and small pornography studios, men typically marginalize the viewpoints and concerns of women.
There are a range of women from diverse backgrounds who enter the pornography business, such as soccer moms, single mothers, and college students, who filmed themselves and presented their own pornographic fantasies.
'[32] Lust (2007) retorted, mocking 'the Church of the Pure Feminist Porn Producers... declaring that certain sexual practices that me and other women across the world happen to like, are a sin.
[47] Feminist pornography makes it a point to explore many different forms of sensuality and sexuality, with a prioritization of authentic and ethical pleasure.
[49] The scope of the adult entertainment industry depends on the preferences of the majority of their viewers, which creates the need for female actresses to be young and overtly sexualized.
[52] Some producers, like Tristan Taormino, address this by staying away from stereotypical, mainstream tropes, like 'cum shots', while still respecting the expression of rougher sex.
[52] The rise of on-screen appropriations, such as items like a strap-on dildo used by and for the pleasure of females during sexual intercourse, has allowed for more agency for women within the industry.
[56] Some pornographic actresses such as Nina Hartley,[57] Ovidie,[58] and Madison Young are also self-described sex-positive feminists, and state that they do not see themselves as victims of sexism.
There is no simple equation for feminist depictions of queer and lesbian porn when it is also directed to satisfy men's desire to sexualize the films and appropriate the sexualtiy.
The focus is on body, acceptance, safety for the actors and understanding that sexuality involves more than just the physical but emotional, social, political and more encompassing factors.
