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!

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