In three days Bill and Desiree: Love is Timeless is going to have it’s North American Premiere when it plays in the Sex Positive Documentary Film Series at the Hull House Museum on University of Illinois at Chicago Campus. Clarisse Thorn has done a remarkable job of curating and organizing this year long film series, and Peggy and I are delighted that Bill and Desiree is included among so many other outstanding films.

We’re also delighted because this North American Premiere of Bill and Desiree almost didn’t happen, and the reasons why this screening almost didn’t happen are more or less the same reasons why yesterday, when CNN re-printed Violet Blue’s Oprah Magazine from 2007, they linked to Pure Life Ministries (a porn addiction sleep-away camp for adults), but did not link to Maria Beatty or Comstock Films, which are also mentioned in the piece.

I first became aware of the Sex Positive Documentary Film Series when my good friend Ell pointed me to a comment she left on Clarisse Thorn’s blog:

Great list but I’m surprised to see no films from Comstock Films included – I know of no other documentaries that would more closely match your desire to screen films that present a positive, informative spin on human sexuality and love.

Good luck with your program!

Clarisse responds:

@ Ell: I’ve been all over the Comstock Films website and watched one of their movies. I wouldn’t exactly characterize their usual stuff as “documentary”. Which isn’t to say I don’t support what they’re doing — just that I don’t think it’s right for this series. I am seriously considering shifting things around a bit and screening the feminist porn documentary “Hot and Bothered“, though.

– that’s like a knife in my gut. I’ve been making talking-heads based documentary films for 15 years. If you removed the “below the waist” sexually explicit footage from one of my films, i.e. created a “R-rated” version, my films would shrink by perhaps 15%-20%  and still leave a coherent, if someone bloodless narrative. (I know this because I did this to try and satisfy the OFLC’s demands around the 2006 queerDOC Sydney Gay & Lesbian International Documentary Film Festival.)

If a self-described sex-positive BDSM activist putting on a sex-positive film series can’t take my work seriously, can’t respond without maybe I have been fooling myself all these years.

Ell responds, including the dictionary definition of “documentary”:

Hey it’s your program Clarisse but I do know several well respected film festival directors have included the Comstock Films in their documentary programming and one of the films took a “Best Documentary” prize at a festival.

“of a movie, a television or radio program, or photography) using pictures or interviews with people involved in real events to provide a factual record or report”

Cheers

Ell

Clarisse responds:

@ Ell: Wow, that’s fascinating. I can’t decide how I feel about it, actually. On the one hand, it’s really cool that Comstock Films productions are taking prizes at festivals. On the other hand, I find it sort of depressing that they have to be labeled “documentary” in order to succeed. See what I’m saying? I mean, I’ve always called Comstock Films features “porn”, although now that I check their website again I see that they call themselves “documentary fims”.

I guess the point I’m trying to make is that I would rather people tried to legitimize porn, than that they made interesting porn but called it documentary.

At any rate, while I can get away with a lot in programming this series, it is still going up at an academic institution and I am already screening some pretty radical material. Now that I’m thinking about it more, I do believe you’re right that it would be cool to screen a Comstock Films feature as a documentary, but man … that would be really pushing the envelope. I’ll think about it some more and talk to the Hull-House Museum people. Thanks for the suggestion!

At this point I feel like I have to weigh in. As is my wont, when I go, I go heavy:

Clarisse,

Please don’t depressed. As a sex-positive, pro-sex, pro-queer, pro-kink person, I’m sure you understand that people have the fundamental right to identify as they think best suites them and to name that identity as they see fit. I am a filmmaker. I make documentary films; erotic documentaries in the case of the work in question. The people appearing in my films are (documentary) subjects. If it pleases you to call our films something else, that’s certainly your right, but please don’t suggest that you are “depressed” because we’re not doing what you wish we would do to serve your agenda.

I am glad to hear you are reconsidering the inclusion of one or another of our films in your series. After all, what could be more appropriate for a sex-positive film documentary film series that films that document the importance and pleasure of the sexual bond between loving and committed couples; depicted with all the frankness, candor and beauty that is a part of any healthy sexual relationship!

None the less, I understand your concern about the venue (in fact, those concern speak volumes to the difficulty that filmmakers face in trying to create and then have seen by the public, films that treat sexuality as a legitimate subject matter for artistic inquiry.) My experience is that academic institutions are often more able to understand and evaluate the bone fides of artwork than the work itself. In the hopes of helping you make your case for the inclusion of one or more of our films in your series I have appended below a list of the various film festivals, awards, and other recognition that our films have received in both the cinematic, educational and therapeutic community.

Thanks again for your consideration!

Yours,
TC

BILL AND DESIREE: LOVE IS TIMELESS (December 2008)

Official Selection, 2009 Amsterdam Erotic Film Festival
Held in the Kinsey Institute Library at the University of Indiana
Held in the San Francisco Sex Information Hotline Library

ASHLEY AND KISHA: FINDING THE RIGHT FIT (July 2007)
Winner, Best Foreign Film, 2007 Melbourne Underground Film Festival
Winner, Best Foreign Director, 2007 Melbourne Underground Film Festival
Official Selection, 2007 Long Beach LGBT Film Festival, Long Beach, CA
Official Selection, 2007 Out on Film LGBT Film Festival, Atlanta, GA
Official Selection, 2008 Tel Aviv LGBT Film Festival
Official Selection, 2009 Lesbian Cinema Arts Program, NYC LGBT Center
Held in the Kinsey Institute Library at the University of Indiana
Used in Planned Parenthood Outreach Programs
Held in the San Francisco Sex Information Hotline Library

MATT AND KHYM: BETTER THAN EVER (January 2007)
Official Selection, 2009 Amsterdam Erotic Film Festival
Held in the Kinsey Institute Library at the University of Indiana
Used in Planned Parenthood Outreach Programs
Held in the San Francisco Sex Information Hotline Library

DAMON AND HUNTER: DOING IT TOGETHER (May 2006)
Winner Best Documentary, 2006 Melbourne Underground Film Festival, Melbourne Australia
Official Selection, 2006 QueerDOC Film Festival, Sydney Australia
Official Selection, 2006 CineKink Film Festival, New York
Official Selection, 2007 Outtakes Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, New Zealand
Official Selection, 2008 Tel Aviv LGBT Film Festival
Official Selection, 2009 Amsterdam Erotic Film Festival
Held in the Kinsey Institute Library at the University of Indiana
Used in Planned Parenthood Outreach Programs
Held in the San Francisco Sex Information Hotline Library
Used in Gay Mens Health Crisis Outreach Programs.

XANA AND DAX: WHEN OPPOSITES ATTRACT (May 2005)
Held in the Kinsey Institute Library at the University of Indiana
Used in Planned Parenthood Outreach Programs
Held in the San Francisco Sex Information Hotline Library

MARIE AND JACK: A HARDCORE LOVE STORY (October 2002)
Best of the Fest, 2002 Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality Sexual Health and Pleasure Film Festival, Los Angeles
Best Overall, 2002 SinCine Film Festival, New York
Best Documentary, 2002 SinCine Film Festival, New York
Held in the Kinsey Institute Library at the University of Indiana
Used in Planned Parenthood Outreach Programs
Held in the San Francisco Sex Information Hotline Library

Clarisse is gracious:

Yikes, Tony! It sounds like I offended you, and I’m really sorry. I always thought that you considered yourself a pornographer. When I first started looking into Comstock Films about a year ago, I read a bunch of interviews and blog posts that — I thought — said that you were intending to make porn movies that would work against the dominant porn paradigm.

With that in mind, I assumed that you “had to” rename your films “documentaries” in order to gain acceptability. Does that make sense? That’s why I was bothered — I thought that you considered yourself a pornographer but that you were forced to use the “documentary filmmaker” label in order to legitimize your work.

Of course, if you consider yourself a documentary filmmaker and have thought of yourself that way all along, then this is my mistake! I certainly wouldn’t want to label you or your films in a way that you find objectionable. Nor was I trying to co-opt your films into my “agenda”. Honestly, I am just happy knowing that Comstock FIlms is out there — whether you call your movies documentaries or porn.

OK, that’s a lot of words just to get across one point, which was: I’m sorry it seemed like I was renaming your films to suit my agenda. That wasn’t my intent.

I will consult with Hull-House and I’ll get in touch if we can include Comstock Films material.

Do you see the trap here? Clarisse would “rather people tried to legitimize porn, than that they made interesting porn but called it documentary,” but only when my films are framed as documentary (which has do be done by argument and presentation of bona fides rather than simply by watching a film where more than half the footage is two people, fully clothed, sitting and talking about their relationship) will they be considered for inclusion in her Sex Positive Documentary Film Series. And even then Clarisse is concerned about whether or not the Hull House will allow sexually explicit footage.

Long time readers know that I’ve stopped thinking of pornography as a genre and have begun to look at it as a business model that is ultimately dependent in illegitimacy. I’ve been exploring this in great depth over at The Intent to Arouse: A Concise History of Sex, Shame, and the Moving Image.

But even if you don’t agree with my (admittedly radical) take on pornography, I don’t know how Clarisse or anyone else who seeks the “legitimization of pornography” ever hopes to accomplish this legitimization when they routinely engage in the sort of casual dismissal and marginalization of sexually explicit films that is simply taken for granted at places like CNN or the San Francisco Chronicle, or PBS.

But that’s not what I said to Clarisse. After all, I wanted her to play one of my films!

No, no offense taken!

My feelings about porn/pornography started off ambivalent and have moved to antipathy; partly because of what I’ve learn about the “porn industry” over the years, partly because it keeps the people who would most like to see our films from seeing them. With your indulgence, links to a few blog posts:

http://www.comstockfilms.com/blog/tony/2005/01/27/the-first-post/

http://www.comstockfilms.com/blog/tony/2005/06/30/whats-in-a-name/

http://www.comstockfilms.com/blog/tony/2008/11/23/forced-into-googles-sex-ghetto-kicking-and-screaming/

At that point the conversation between me and Clarisse move to the telephone, and I was genuinely surprised at how anxious Clarisse was at making the case for the inclusion of a film (from a multi-award winning director) that included sexually explicit footage. My advice was simply to present it an appropriate curation choice given the mission of the film series, and to express shock and umbrage if anyone dared to express concern; in short, to use the same tactics I had used on her.

Deciding when, where, and how to make these fights is never easy. Last December, following the SF Chronicle’s not linking to my post on Violet Blue’s Top 5 Under-reported Sex Stories of 2008, I had an excoriation loaded up and ready to blast at The Chronicle’s publisher. I ended up holding my fire, but in the process of coming to that decision, I fear I have irreparably damaged my relationship with Violet, someone I’ve been proud to call friend and ally for more than six years.

Yesterday, even as we enjoyed a notable surge in traffic (and modest rise in sales) I was mowing the lawn, and composing in my head an “open letter” to CNN and their parent company Time/Warner, but this morning the skies are grey and I don’t feel the same lust for battle I felt yesterday when the skies were blue.

Whatever my films might get called, fighting for their legitimacy is hard work; fighting for their legitimacy requires taking risks, both emotional and financial; it requires being willing to lose more often then you win, and hoping that when you do win, you win big enough to cover your losses. It takes a strange mix of calculated reckless and gentle belligerence, or at least that’s what it takes for me to do it. 

I am bummed that my relationship with Violet has become awkward. I am mixed about the CNN thing (a financial plus, an emotional minus.) I am thrilled about Bill and Desiree playing in the Sex Positive Documentary Film Series. Thrill partly because it represents a minor victory in the fight for legitimacy, but mostly because I know it’s a good little film and that something special happens when people get the chance to see my films in the communal setting of a theater, when they get a chance to laugh out loud together, and sigh together, when their own reactions are amplified and affirmed by the people siting all around them. There’s precious little opportunity to get to do that in sex-positive context, and I’m proud I’ll be helping that happen in Chicago this Tuesday!

Bill and Desire: Love is Timeless, North American Premiere
with Hot and Bothered, Feminist Pornography
Tuesday July 29, 7PM

Jane Addams Hull-House Museum
800 South Halsted
312.413.5353
FREE
All are welcome!

I am at T minus 60 days until my debut at the New York University Film School as “Tony Comstock, Independent Scholar.” Today’s post at TheIntentToArouse.com puts me just past the half-way mark in the first section: SEX, CENSORSHIP AND TECHNOLOGY: AN HISTORICAL OVERVIEW. I’m up to about 15,000 words so far, which I guess means I’ve got about another 45,000 to go. Long time readers know there’s never been a shortage of words here at The Art and Business of Making Erotic Films, so I should make it. The real question is how to condense all that back down into a 60-90 minute presentation!

Anyway, I think today’s post is a good one. Here’s the pull-quote:

When I say Betamax vs. VHS is the wrong question, what I mean is that it doesn’t matter. Whichever format might have prevailed and for whatever reason, the future of sexuality and cinema took a decisive turn when it moved from a high risk, high expectation, high volume, high reward production and distribution format (theatrical) to a low risk, low expectation, low volume, low reward distribution format (home video).

Home video would utterly change the creative and business calculus both; replacing the need and potential reward of producing a film that could be enjoyed as a collective experience in communion with fellow audience members, with the much more fragmented task of producing sexually explicit erotic material that would be enjoyed in private. 

For the rest please head over to TheIntenttoArouse.com and read Why Betamax vs VHS was the wrong question, and is still giving us wrong answers.

Over at Amazon, Daniel Rapheal gave a really really nice review to Ashley and Kisha:

A Tender and Candid Romance

This is a DVD that I wish everyone would see. Even the most repressed and biased people would derive some benefit from seeing this. The sweetness between these two young women is right there to see–and the fact that this is presented with their sexual feelings for each other, makes this a very constructive and hopeful presentation. The story of how they met and fell for each other is so similar to so many other stories–regardless of sexual orientation–that it is easy to relate to. It helps that, while they look nice, neither of these women is a stereotype of beauty. The greater part of their appeal is the emotional intelligence and genuineness of their mutual affection and attraction. It’s a good sign that a real-life story like this is widely available, because that in itself means there is reason to expect that ignorance and intolerance will be accordingly diminished.

There’s a special sort of poignancy reading this review today, because today I also read Ms. Naughty’s reaction to her first viewing of 9 Songs. There’’s not much I can add to Ms. Naughty’s reaction. 9 Songs got an X-rating from the OFLC (no public screenings, no festival screenings, highly restricted DVD sales) and through an expensive appeals process was able to get that reduced to an R-rating (the Australian equivelent of the MPAA’s NC-17 rating.) Apparently one of the reasons the OFLC saw fit to reduce the rating for 9 Songs from X to R was that they thought the people who were likely to see 9 Songs would be intellectually equipped to understand Winterbottom’s use of sexually explicit imagery.

A few years later Ashley and Kisha was banned from the Melbourne Underground Film Festival on the grounds that if it were to be classified by the OFLC it would likely receive an X-rating. How did the OFLC make this determination? By looking at the X-ratings it gave to my previous films Marie and Jack, Xana and Dax, and most notoriously Damon and Hunter, which was chased out of the queerDOC, the Sydney International Gay and Lesbian Documentary Film Festival with threats of fines and imprisonment made at the festival director.

Had Ashley and Kisha been submitted by a different festival (the Australian Center for the Moving Image) or by a different director (Michael Winterbottom or John Cameron Mitchell, or perhaps even Shine Louise Houston)  or if I had a better class of friends in Australia (Margaret Pomerance or Alison Croggon for example) the result might have been different.

Of perhaps if I had used the usual ploys – “It’s educational don’t you know, and besides, it’s not porn, it wasn’t made with the intent do arouse. Nobody got an erection…” – well anyway too late for that. I was silly enough to think my films would speak for themselves. Now I know better.

I am exploring the whys and where-fors of all of this at TheIntentToArouse.Com and will be giving a lecture of the same name at NYU in about two month’s time.

None the less, I am extremely grateful to Daniel Rapheal and the hundreds of other people who have told me how much they have enjoyed our film, and to the thousand and thousands of people who have bought our DVDs. 

Reviews like Daniel’s let me know that while I might have been stupid to go about marketing my films the way I did, I wasn’t crazy in making them the way I did. There’s more than a little comfort in knowing that.

The title of this blog is “The Art & Business of Making Erotic Films.” Today’s post over at TheIntentToArouse.com just might be the best bit of writing I’ve ever done on the business side of why sex on film — from porn, to art films, to sex-ed —  looks the way that sex on film looks:

“The second couple with whom we ever did a study enjoyed (much to our surprise) some relatively exotic sex acts as  a part their bedroom play, including vigorous fisting, female ejaculation (squirting) and anal sex. This couple was long married and none of what they did with each other was illegal in the state of New York. The film we made was and remains private, and has only ever been shown to invitation-only audiences in New York and California.”

For context, click on over to TheIntentToArouse.com and read Miller vs. California: The “Miller Test” and how the magic camera transforms legal actions into criminal thoughts.

We’re into Jacobellis v Ohio today at TheIntentToArouse.com:

For me the great irony of the colloquial use of “I know it when I see it” is that it rests on the idea that obscenity/pornography can be readily identified by strictly (as Walter Murch might put it) “in the frame information.” Yet the various legal and quasi-legal definitions rest entirely on “out of the frame information,” i.e. the ability to divine the intent of the artist, and/or the effect on the viewer. From a practical stand point, what it means for an artist who explores sexuality is that one’s work will be found to be obscene/pornographic at the convenience of the person laying the charge, and that whether or not the charge sticks is pure realpolitik.

It means that the same night that Destricted plays at the government funded Australian Center for the Moving Image (complete with a panel discussion on the difference between art and pornography), the same government will dispatch  armed police to prevent the world premiere of Ashley and Kisha: Finding the Right Fit at the (privately funded) Melbourne Underground Film Festival. 

It means that when a District Attorney in Utah decides that “penetration is illegal” the only thing he has to do to make his interpretation of obscenity stick is to drop off his business card in a lingerie shop owner’s mailbox every few weeks (I met this women at an apparel trade show in 2007 where she decided she couldn’t risk offering our films to the women who frequent her shop.)

It means that when I met a Harvard-educated professor teaching at a university in Oklahoma at the 50th annual meeting of of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality  and he picked up on of my DVDs and asked me if my films showed penetration, and I answered “Of course,” he set the DVD back down and told me “Oh, then I can’t use them. Penetration is illegal in Oklahoma.”

It means that after 15 years of making my films first and foremost for the entertainment of my audience, I feel compelled to pause, and turn my attention towards making explanations for the benefit of critics, theorists, and lawyers.

To read the rest, click on over to Jacobellis vs Ohio: “I know it when I see it.” at TheIntentToArouse.com

A not to be dismissed lightly New York media outlet is doing a Top 10 Best Selling NYC Produced Porn Films story and wants to know what our best selling title is (and whether we’d give them a copy for a reader give away.) 

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them?

I’ll be talking to the writer later today. I should be thankful for the chance (once again) to reevaluate my values, convictions, and branding strategy. Right?

Back in 2006 I sent Outfest a screener of DAMON AND HUNTER: DOING IT TOGETHER. They said no thanks.

In 2007 I sent Outfest a screener of ASHLEY AND KISHA: FINDING THE RIGHT FIT. Again they said no thanks.

And that’s the last I ever heard from Outfest. Until last week, when Outfest sent me this:

Thank you to the 40 filmmakers who have already joined Outfest as a part of the 100 Filmmakers Campaign! We have already raised almost $5,000 toward supporting Outfest’s work protecting, showcasing and nurturing GLBT films and filmmakers…

Our goal is to get 100 filmmakers to join Outfest at any membership level. We are asking writers, directors and producers who have had a film in Outfest or Fusion to become a Member before Outfest 2009.

So I called Outfest and basically said, “WFT? I sent you two really nice movies. Movies that have been very well received in other festivals (general and LGBT). Movies that you turned down. Movies that helped us raise nearly $2,000 for NoOnProp8.com. Movies that you didn’t do thing one to help. And now you’re holding out your hat to me? Are you serious?”

Outfest’s response? A week later they sent this:

I am so proud of all of Outfest’s programs and you, the incredible artists who make our programs shine. For many of you, Outfest has been a launching pad for your career and has helped you to grow as artists. I am asking you to become an Outfest member as part of the 100 Filmmakers Campaign and support the very valuable work that Outfest does.

Our goal is to get 100 filmmakers to join Outfest at any membership level. We are asking writers, directors and producers who have had a film in Outfest or Fusion to become a Member by June 15, 2009. We have a special offer for those who join by June 1st. We will enter your name in a raffle to win 2 seats at an intimate dinner in Los Angeles on June 4th with Academy Award Winners Dustin Lance Black, Bruce Cohen and Dan Jinks.

I can think of hundreds of reasons to be a Member of this organization. But for now, here are four:

1. Outfest: The Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Film Festival - Our flagship festival is always a non-stop, 11-day celebration you don’t want to miss! (Outfest 2009 takes place July 9-19 – save the date!)
2. Fusion: The Los Angeles LGBT People of Color Film Festival - An experience like no other – a 2-day festival and conference celebrating the rich diversity of our community
3. The Outfest Legacy Project for LGBT Film Preservation - The only program that protects and saves the now vast but threatened canon of LGBT films
4. Access LA - Forges connections between new talent and established industry professionals with programs that include Industry Link and the Outfest Screenwriting Lab.

It’s #4 that really jumps off the screen at me. “Give us some money and we’ll give you access.” Oh yes, access, I want some of that please. If only I had access. That’s what’s standing between me and my dreams of indie film glory!

Or I could just save the $100 bucks (and another $25 submission fee) and put it towards replication for BRETT AND MELANIE: BOI MEETS GIRL.

From US vs. Ulysses: The origin of  ”intent to arouse” as legal doctrine.

When working with sexuality, a producer faces an added burden. Not only must you manage and shape the out of the frame information in a way that helps sell your film to your audience, you must also shape the out of the frame information in a way that satisfies the state that the ideas you are expressing are not a criminal offense. You must create a narrative for your intentions in order to place the outcome of those intentions inside the boundaries of what the law permits.

I have to say, I’m really enjoying making a more formalized distilation of a lot the ideas I’ve explored here over the last few years! It’s fun to see all this stuff that swirls around in my head taking a logical shape.

The last five posts have covered self-regulation and eroticism in Hollywood films, and now we’re moving on to legal regulation, i.e. obscenity, and effect that has on how sexuality is depicted in cinema:

I am not a legal scholar. I don’t know where this idea of obscenity originates. But as a filmmaker my entire body of erotic work lives in shadow of this concept; and as a citizen I am under the constant threat that my ideas will be accused of being obscene,  that my right to put express these ideas publicly will be denied, and that the state will deprive me of my liberty and property.

I understand that for many readers this is going to sound hysterical, so I will go into some specifics on how the threat of obscenity prosecution has directly effect my work. But first I want to lay some groundwork  by touching on historical obscenity cases that (from my point of view as a filmmakers and distributor) continue to cast a shadow on the cinematic landscape. Language from these cases, some of which have been overturned by later decisions, continues to have a “chilling effect” on the marketplace of ideas…

Read the rest over at The Intent to Arouse: A Concise History of Sex, Shame, and the Moving Image.

A Fourth of July post at TheIntentToArouse.com:

I first started thinking about this post when we started selling our Real People, Real Life, Real Sex series on Amazon. This was about the same time that Kirby Dick’s MPAA expose doc This Film Not Yet Rated came out on DVD. Kirby and I have rather different takes on the MPAA, and whether or not the MPAA functions as a de facto censorship body; and I think This Film Not Yet Rated, while making some valid points about the vagaries and inconsistencies of the MPAA’s rating system, does a real disservice to the conversation around grown-up movie making by conflating the function and scope of a trade organization with censorship and by promulgating myths about the NC-17 rating.

Of course Dick’s film was enthusiastically received by the indie film community, and not hard to understand why. Indies films often deal with provocative subject matter, and the idea of the Big Bad MPAA destroying maverick films and maverick filmmakers by assigning the dreaded NC-17 rating is an appealing one, or certainly one I found appealing, especially in light of the sort of violence that receives an R-rating.

But in the course of making and marketing our films, I’ve come to believe that the way the system works actually suits exploitation filmmakers like me and Kirby Dick to a T. To understand why, let’s first get a working definition of an “exploitation filmaker.”

Click here to read the rest of The MPAA Took My Baby Away!: Why exploitation filmmakers love to hate the Motion Picture Association of America, and have a safe and happy Fourth of July. If you like the films Peggy and I make, no that it would be possible without the freedom we’re all celebrating today!