About two months ago, wrapping up a post entitled Am I Every Woman?I wrote:
“I’m not stupid. I know that when I say race or gender or sexual orientation aren’t always the most important thing, I’m saying it from the point of view of a person who’s never had his race, or his gender, or who or how I fuck held against me in any but the most trivial sort of way. And so I suppose it’s only natural that if I, as a middle-aged, white, straight man make a film about young, black, lesbian women, I’m going to have to prove that I can make the things they and I have in common count for more than our differences.That’s fine. It’s my privilege and honor to have the chance to try.”
Earlier today I found out that my film Xana and Dax: When Opposites Attract received the award for the hottest straight sex scene at the first ever Feminist Porn Awards held last Thursday night in Toronto, Canada.
The Feminist Porn Awards (the Emmas) were part of Vixens+Visionaries: Female erotic directors revolutionizing porn, an evening that along with the awards, featured a round table with some of today’s leading voices in women-made porn, and I have to admit I was surprised to see Xana and Dax on a list alongside films from Candida Royalle, Tristan Taormino, Shine Louis Houston (Way to go, Shine!) and other directors who are not men.
But the criteria was “genuine female pleasure, women having a good time, films that were produced or directed by women, and adult movies that ‘expand the range of pleasure for women’, and by that criteria Xana and Dax is a worthy recipient. My films are very much about sexual pleasure, and I will gleefully admit to giving a little extra consideration to women’s sexual pleasure, both the women who appear in my films, and the women I imagine will be watching them, and I’m proud to have that recognized.
Anyone who’s a regular reader of this blog knows that I sometimes get my nose out of joint over the “by women for women” porn thing, but the fact remains, the notion of women viewing, let alone making sexually explicit imagery remains a radical and polarizing phenomenon. When I ask a women to spread her legs for my camera, I’m just “doing what men do”. For whatever risks (financial, social) I take to make my films, being a man making porn doesn’t make me a sex radical. There’s nothing revolutionary about a man wanting to take nudie pictures of women.
But twenty or so years ago, when Candida picked up the camera, she was making enemies of everyone — the old boys network that made porn, the “feminists” and fascists that opposed porn, and the academics with their studies proving that “women’s sexuality isn’t visual”. Twenty years later, the landscape is only slightly less hostile to the idea of women making or even enjoying sexually explicit imagery. And when a woman presents erotic work, it’s always evaluated in the context of her gender – what does it mean that a woman made it?
Doing this work is hard enough without feeling like the whole world is sitting in, whispering in your ear about what a “proper woman” or a “good feminist” would or wouldn’t do. So for whatever envy I feel at the way the press pricks up its ears when it hears “woman-made porn”, in the end I’m thankful I can do my work unburdened by other people’s expectations of how I should represent my gender, or how I should represent their politics.
And while I’ll probably still get my nose out joint when I hear that the problem with porn is that it’s made by men, I’m proud to be counted among a group of artists who are challenging poisonous, devisive assumptions about what it means to be a proper woman or a good feminist. Thank you to Good For Her for sponsoring the event, and congratulations to all the winners!
The 2006 Feminist Porn Award Winners
Hottest Anal Adventure
Winner: House of Ass | Tristan Taormino; Adam & Eve
Presented by Josey Vogels and Carrie Singh
Best Smutty Schoolteacher (Educational)
Winner: Orgasmic Women | Betty Dodson
Presented by Rebecca Rosenblatt (aka Dr. Date) & Valerie Scott (Sex Professionals of Canada)
Sexiest, Most Diverse Performers
Winner: Caribbean Heat | Manuela Sabrosa; Femme Productions
Presented by Manjeet and Michelle Chai
Hottest Straight Sex Scene
Winner: Xana And Dax: When Opposites Attract | Tony Comstock ; Comstock Films
Presented by Tara McKee
Hottest Dyke Sex scene
Winner: The Crash Pad | Shine Louise Houston ; Pink and White Productions
Presented by Chanelle Gallant and Deidre Walton
Hottest Fetish/Kink Scene
Winner: Tanya Hyde’s World Without Men | Tanya Hyde
Presented by Russell Smith & Carrie Gray
Hottest Trans Sex Scene
Sugar & Steele: All that’s Good For Her | Good For Her productions
Presented by Lorraine Hewitt and Flare
Fiercest Female Orgasm
Nina Hartley’s Guide to Double Penetration (Bonus scene) Aria | Adam And Eve
Presented by Renee Pilgrim
Indie Porn Pioneer
Dana Dane
Presented by Cheri Michael
Best New Canadian Pornographer (Vixen Next Door) Angela Phong
Presented by Niki Clover, star of ErocktaVision
Lifetime Achievement in Women’s Erotica
Candida Royalle
Presented by Carlyle Jansen
