Porn Review: XConfessions

When asked to explain what “feminist porn” is, one of the definitions I often come back to is: it’s a genre of porn that prioritizes women’s authentic sexual fantasies and desires.

It seems like that’s the definition favored by Barcelona-based feminist porn director Erika Lust, too, since that’s exactly what her XConfessions series sets out to do: bring real women’s sexual fantasies to life on screen. Users of the website submit their juiciest fantasies, and Erika picks her favorites and turns them into porno shorts.

I first discovered XConfessions this past February when I attended a porn pyjama party at my local sex shop Come As You Are (yes, CAYA is awesome and does awesome stuff). Two of the films they screened that night were Erika Lust’s I Ama Verry Badx Secvretary and Let’s Make a Porno. What immediately struck me about these films was that they are beautiful, visually: they use a lot of natural lighting, and they have a lot of genital and face close-ups that are fabulously dirty without being porno-gross.

Audio is important to me in the porn I watch, and XConfessions gets it right, in my view. There’s a good mix of music and natural sex sounds (moans, the slapping of one body against the other, etc.): neither overpowers the other. Overall these scenes have the production value of a really well-done indie movie. I think it was smart of Erika Lust to prioritize quality visuals and audio so highly; it seems to me, to generalize from purely anecdotal evidence, that women tend to care more about these things than men do, and so if you wanna make a women-friendly porn site, you have to make sure it looks and sounds nice.

While XConfessions could do a better job of featuring non-normative bodies (fat folks, trans folks, folks of color, etc.), they do feature an impressive amount of body hair, including pubic hair. There’s also a lot of sexy accents in these films: French, Spanish, British, and various others. These are small details but they add to the overall appeal of the scenes for me.

Some of the fantasies depicted are fairly “normal” and close to vanilla: romantic sex, lesbian sex, sex with a male escort. Some are a little kinkier: spanking, pegging, being bullied by a sadistic personal trainer. But the scenes I find most interesting are the ones that really push boundaries and explore territory that other feminist pornographers might shy away from.

There’s a scene about being taken advantage of while drunk, one in which a couple roleplay as a pair of animals in a predator-and-prey situation, and even a scene that takes place in a slightly creepy kids’ playroom (it reminded me of that weird scene in Wolf of Wall Street). These scenes are risky, sexy, unusual, and brave. They’re in line the same feminism I subscribe to, the one that says no sexual activity is “unfeminist” so long as it’s mutually and enthusiastically consented to.

Some of my favorite scenes include Cinéma X (sex in a porn theatre, including some fabulous cunnilingus on top of a piano), I Believe in Happy Endings (a sensual woman-on-woman massage followed by manual and oral stimulation), and A Weekend in the Garden of Eden (an idyllic outdoor fuckfest that begins with the handsome British star explaining the benefits of fruitarianism). Most of the scenes are between 10 and 20 minutes long, which I find is ideal.

A lot of these scenes build up slowly, taking a few minutes to create context and atmosphere before getting to the sex. This plays well with the old stereotype about women preferring “storyline” porn, but if you’re not into that, you could either skip the first 2-3 minutes of each scene or skip the site altogether. Personally, I don’t mind a little backstory in my porn.

Tech-wise, I sometimes have issues streaming the videos directly on the site, for reasons that might have to do with my setup or with theirs; I don’t know. Luckily, however, members can download videos in HD or SD, so I quite often do that instead of streaming them. I know that it can present piracy issues for porn providers to allow their videos to be downloaded, but I always appreciate when that option is offered, since it enables me to watch even when I’m having internet problems or experiencing any other barriers to accessing the streamed versions.

Membership is $19.95 per month if you sign up to be billed month-by-month, but as with many porn paysites, you can get a discount if you sign up for multiple months in advance. It’s $39.95 for 3 months or $99.95 for a year. I think those prices are very reasonable, considering what you get: full streaming or download access to the 38 films already on the site, plus the two new ones posted every month. Membership also allows you to submit your fantasies to the XConfessions database and to read and comment on others’ fantasies.

Overall, I really, really love this site. This is the kind of porn I am always looking for, and I know lots of other women (and men, and non-binary folks!) who would love this kind of thing too. It’s visually stunning, well-produced, sexy as hell, and it’s based on real people’s relatable and delicious fantasies. Yes, yes, yes!

Thanks so much to the good people at XConfessions for letting me review their beautiful porn!

Feminist Porn Week Rocked

It is kind of astonishing to me that I live in the city where Feminist Porn Week happens to take place every year.

It is truly so amazing and fantastic that it feels like a gift, a glorious coincidence, a joyful miracle. I do not take it for granted.

This year I live-tweeted the whole Feminist Porn Conference, and it made me even more hyper-aware of what was going on around me – in a good way. Reading other people’s moment-by-moment tweets, and composing my own, allowed me to process and enjoy the talks and panels even more.

I won’t write an exhaustive summary like I did last year, because frankly the #FPCon2 hashtag is full of fantastic accounts of what went on. But I will write a little about the most memorable moments and experiences that happened to me during Feminist Porn Week.

The fisting workshop. I will be honest: I bought my ticket not so much because I wanted to learn about fisting (which is still, I think, well out of my vagina’s conceivable grasp), but primarily because I wanted to see Courtney Trouble… in person… fisting someone. I mean, how amazing is that?!

The “fist-ee” was Zahra Stardust, the adorable pink-haired Australian porn princess who ended up winning Heartthrob of the Year at the FPAs two nights later. I developed an intense crush on her from the way she talked intelligently about porn laws down under and then took Courtney’s fist with seemingly no effort. She squirted on the people in the front row. Courtney fucked her powerfully and intensely and it felt so intimate that I shouldn’t be looking, and yet I couldn’t not look. It was beautiful and educational.

Dylan and Danny’s talk. Um, I may have mentioned how much I love Dylan Ryan and Danny Wylde before. They are my favorite porn stars, ever. But I love them even more now, because of the wonderful talk they gave at the conference. They spoke openly and candidly about “getting in and getting out” of the porn industry and how those transitions have affected their identities. They are both amazingly smart and thoughtful. The room was positively packed, for good reason: it was one of the best talks of the conference.

Tobi’s talk. Tobi Hill-Meyer is a trans woman who makes feminist porn, so of course, she’s no stranger to receiving criticism. Her talk was about how to deal with criticism effectively. Of all the sessions I attended, this one had the most pertinence to my real life, and I think many people there felt similarly. When you work in a controversial area like sexuality or feminism, no matter how peripherally or centrally, it is useful – nay, vital – to know how to respond gracefully to critics. I will be sure to start implementing some of the strategies I learned in Tobi’s presentation.

Aussie porn. Australia has some fucked-up porn laws. A lot of it is illegal, and they are very strict about things like fetishes, BDSM, squirting (which they classify as urination and therefore a type of fetish), and fisting. The Aussie porn session, run by the very articulate Ms. Naughty and Zahra Stardust, screened several films, many of which were political and commented directly on the injustice of the porn laws there. I also discovered that Ms. Naughty’s company, Bright Desire, makes the exact kind of porn I’ve been longing for all my life: female-gaze-oriented, female-pleasure-focused, sensual, sexy, soft, yet also hardcore. Hey, my birthday’s in about a week; I’d gladly accept a Bright Desire subscription if you’re not sure what to get me! Wink wink.

Courtney Trouble’s keynote. Oh my fucking god. Everyone was speechless. Not literally – we were all tweeting up a storm and cheering our hearts out – but figuratively, we had the wind knocked out of us by what Courtney had to say. I will embed the video below, because you MUST watch it; there’s little I could say about it that could embody just how powerful it really was. Courtney, if you read this, thank you, thank you, thank you, for saying so many things that badly needed to be said. Every single person I’ve spoken to has said that this speech was one of the main highlights, if not the highlight, of the conference.

Were you at any of the Feminist Porn Week events? What were the highlights for you?

Heads up: there’s a sponsored link in this post!

Porn Review: SPIT

Some friends of mine have started a feminist porn collective, and it is blowing my mind and titillating my genitals.

Spit calls itself “alternative porn for the aroused mind.” It’s photographic porn featuring performers who have never or rarely made porn before, so it feels authentically sexual – because it is.

Most of the photosets on the Spit website thus far were shot at play parties (i.e. sex parties) held with the explicit intent of generating porn imagery. Participants can have sex privately anywhere in the space, and if they want to get involved in the porn, they can sign up in advance, get partnered up with another performer based on mutual attraction, and fuck in a porn-specific room in front of photographers.

I have friends who have modeled for Spit, and I can confirm from their stories that they’ve been treated ethically and have had a great time doing their shoots. Ongoing consent is valued and is clearly communicated through the photos. That’s important to me in the porn I consume. My conscience needs to be at ease before my pussy can get in on the arousal party. If you’re that way too, you’ll dig Spit.

Straight sex, queer sex, hard-to-define sex. Some sex without kink, some kink without sex, and a whole lot of kinky sex. Cocks, twats, hands, toys. You’ll see all of this on the Spit website.

The photographer of each set is identified along with the performers, so if you find yourself digging a particular photog’s style, you can look at other sets they’ve shot. I find it especially fun to see different photographers’ takes on the same erotic event: while one artist might focus more on genitals, another might pay more attention to facial expressions. It’s so cool to see.

I’ve never been a huge fan of still-photo porn – it calls to mind stuff like SuicideGirls, which is beautiful to look at but (at least for me) not nearly as arousing as video – but some of Spit’s sets capture passion and movement wonderfully.

The folks behind Spit also mentioned to me that they will be moving into the realm of video in the future. I can’t wait.

I’m in an interesting position in that I know a lot of the people who are in these shoots. I’ve talked with them, I’ve sipped wine with them, I’ve cuddled with them – so it’s surreal and magical and cool to see them fucking each other in porn.

But I think, even if you’ve never met any of these people, there is a neat sense of “Huh, these people look like average, regular people.” They’re sexy as hell, in a “I could actually fuck a person like this” sort of way. I love that.

The website’s interface isn’t the best. Each photoset is laid out all on one page, so it’s not terribly friendly for people with slow internet connections. I’d prefer a system that allows for flipping through sets using arrow keys, or viewing a set of thumbnails and choosing just the pictures I want to see. Spit is still in its infancy, and I’m looking forward to seeing its functionality improve as it gets bigger.

Membership is $9.99 a month, which gets you unlimited access to the photos. (Spit also hosts some erotic stories, but the photos are really the main event. You can find sexy stories all over the internet, but these photoshoots are one-of-a-kind.)

If we’re betting on what’ll be the Next Big Thing in the feminist porn genre, my money’s on Spit.

Thank you, lovely Spit folks, for letting me look at your porn!

Porn Review: Tristan Taormino’s Guide to Kinky Sex for Couples

Fuck Fifty Shades of Grey; this is what couples should be watching if they want to learn how to have kinky fun together.

Tristan Taormino’s Guide to Kinky Sex for Couples is a no-nonsense, no-shame guide for people who know nothing about kink. It introduces all the basics of BDSM play, one by one, in a way that’s gentle and non-judgmental.

As with all Tristan’s instructional DVDs, this film is formatted to alternate between educational spiels from Tristan and super-hot sex scenes that illustrate what she’s just explained. In the past, I’ve sometimes found Tristan’s explanations the tiniest bit grating – “Get to the sex already!” – but they seem a lot more natural and enjoyable in this film. Tristan seems happy and excited to be imparting every piece of information, which adds to how totally un-intimidating the film is.

Tristan starts out by defining some key terms, like kink, BDSM, and scene. She explains a little bit about why someone might enjoy kink – the fine line between pain and pleasure, the hotness of power exchange, etc. – which I think is really useful information for the target audience of this film, who might be curious but confused about kink. She then goes on to explain other crucial concepts, including enthusiastic consent, safewords, and safe-signals.

As an introduction to the first sex scene, Tristan goes over some of the kink implements the performers will be using – blindfolds, feather ticklers, edible body dust, and massage oil candles. These descriptions are interspersed with clips from an interview with the performers and clips from the sex scene itself, which makes for a nice preview of what’s to come.

The first sex scene involves Danny Wylde (my love!!) and Lyla Storm. At the outset, Danny is dressed in a lavender button-up shirt and a silver tie, and he looks fucking adorable as always.

Lyla is very giggly. My boyfriend and I watched this together, and he found Lyla’s “bubbliness” tiresome. I mostly just thought it was cute. She giggles her way through the entire scene, and I think it’s a good way to start off the film, since it makes kink seem fun and friendly instead of scary and intimidating.

They play with a feather tickler and edible body dust. Danny licks her clit while tickling her (and, as always, dude appears to be a stellar cunnilinguist). She moans and giggles all over the place.

At one point, they find themselves in a very inventive position: she’s on her stomach with her hands behind her back, and he thrusts into her hands. It’s the strangest handjob I’ve ever seen, but totally hot.

Shortly thereafter, while fucking her from behind, he drips oil from a massage oil candle onto her back. He doesn’t continue to thrust while he massages her, but my boyfriend and I had a whole debate about whether or not he could massage me and fuck me at the same time. (He thinks he could; I doubt he has the coordination. Maybe we’ll try it one day…)

The rest of the scene is pretty much a standard fuckfest, without a lot of explicit kink involved. He fucks her in a position I associate with James Deen while she uses the We-Vibe Touch on her clit. My boyfriend thought Lyla sounded “like a dinosaur” during her orgasm; I thought she was cute. The scene ends with Danny coming on her stomach.

Overall I thought this scene was a good warm-up for what’s to come, but it didn’t strike me as anything amazing. I don’t think Danny comes off as a natural dom in this scene; he’s being really gentle and playful, not especially commanding. But, then again, that might be a good thing for a viewer who just wants to dip her toe into the world of kink.

In her intro to the next scene, Tristan defines terms like top, bottom, and switch. She describes and explains orgasm control and denial, and why someone might enjoy wearing nipple clamps. In a clip from an interview, Danny Wylde provides one of the best takeaway quotes from the film: he says that kink is “like cowboys and indians for adults… This is a game.”

Sex scene numero dos stars Evan Stone and Adrianna Nicole, both people I don’t find particularly attractive but who always bring all their energy and enthusiasm to every scene they do. I gotta respect that, man.

Evan comes off as way more dominant than Danny. He forces Adrianna to strip for him slowly, throws around a lot of ownership-related dirty-talk, and even squishes her face into his balls. There’s plenty of face-fucking, gagging, rimming, and ball-sucking. This scene is an oral servitude fetishist’s wet dream.

In a demonstration of what Tristan calls the “tease and torment” game, Evan alternates licking Adrianna’s pussy and slapping it. It looks painful but kinda hot, and is a vivid example of that orgasm denial stuff Tristan explained earlier. (I love that she explains things and then they’re immediately shown in the next scene. I think it would make these new terms and concepts a lot easier to learn and process for beginners to kink.)

He makes her beg for his cock, and then takes it away and puts some nipple clamps on her instead. Later, he makes her beg again, and when he finally starts fucking her, there are a couple of moments where his dick slips out of her by accident and she begs for him to put it back. Girl is a killer sub, and she’s definitely met her match in Evan.

When Adrianna blows him until he finally comes, he makes her lick all the semen off him and then tells her, “You missed a spot.” Then she asks permission to get herself off with the Hitachi, and he says, “Yes, you may.” Did I mention that Evan is an amazing dom…?!

I think this scene is the roughest and most extreme on the whole DVD – but it’s not so intense that it would scare off beginners to kink, so long as they’re open-minded. This scene is chock full of enthusiasm and chemistry, and it demonstrates a healthy model of mutual pleasure within a D/s dynamic. I probably enjoyed this scene the most of any of them.

Tristan intros the next scene by explaining something really important: how to communicate and ask for consent in a scene without breaking character. This is super crucial information for beginners to know, since it can often seem awkward or impossible to ask for consent without breaking the mood, until you know how.

The third sex scene features Aiden Starr and Christian. I adore both of these performers. Aiden is an adorable, tiny, loudmouthed dom chick, while Christian won “Heartthrob of the Year” at the Feminist Porn Awards this past year, so you know he’s a hottie.

This is the only scene on the DVD where the dom is a woman and the sub is a man. I kind of wish there was another femdom scene in the film, for reasons of gender equality/balance, but this scene is so good that it almost doesn’t matter.

Aiden is one of the best lady-dommes in the biz, and she really struts her stuff in this scene. Right off the bat, she sets up the rule that Christian isn’t allowed to come until she does (which isn’t exactly true, as she comes many, many times before he does).

She makes him beg for her pussy, to which Christian responds, adorably, “Please, can I have your vagina?” (I didn’t know how to feel about the fact that he used the word “vagina” when she had been saying “pussy,” so I just laughed.)

There is lots of kinky stuff in this scene. She blindfolds him and puts a collar and leash on him. She sits on his face in such a way that she’s practically smothering him. She makes him literally kiss her ass. She talks dirty to him the whole damn time. There’s even a part where she tells him to remove her shoes, and when he takes too long to do it, she berates his shoe-removal technique. Aiden Starr is a fucking powerhouse, and looks gorgeous while domming the shit out of her sub.

There is lots of fucking, and she uses a Hitachi. She comes practically a zillion times, and every orgasm is accompanied by a cute eye-roll (I love when people have distinctive orgasm faces!).

The actual scene doesn’t show Christian’s orgasm, but earlier in the DVD, when Tristan talks about orgasm control, they do show that part of the scene. It is hot as hell: Aiden tells Christian he can come when she finishes counting to 10, and he does. I’m not sure why the editor(s) didn’t include that part in the scene itself, but it is hot and worth watching nonetheless.

Before the last scene, Tristan talks about spanking – how to do it safely, what implements to use, why it feels good, etc. She also talks a little about anal play, and drops another of the best quotes in the film: “Realize that it’s your butt in the driver’s seat.” She goes over some stuff that beginners to anal play usually worry about, like pain and cleanliness. “If it hurts, you’re doing it wrong!”

The final sex scene stars Derrick Pierce and Asa Akira. This scene has a more relaxed D/s dynamic, sort of like the first one with Danny and Lyla – Derrick is clearly running the show, but he’s smiling the whole time and is more of a benevolent dom than a bossy one.

He uses Lelo Luna Beads on her, which she had apparently never tried before. He inserts them before spanking her with his hand and with a paddle. It had never occurred to me that Kegel balls would pair so well with spanking, but after seeing this scene, I think it’s pretty much the best idea ever and am dying to try it out.

There’s some more orgasm denial in this scene: Derrick holds a Hitachi on Asa’s pussy, and just as she’s getting close to orgasm, he jerks it away. He tells her that she’ll have to stay perfectly still, or he’ll move it. She obeys, and as she comes, he pulls out the Luna Beads really fast (is this a thing? I thought that was only supposed to work with anal beads?).

She blows him while he spanks her, and she says, “I wish I could just live my whole life like this!” There’s some choking/gagging during the BJ, which always turns me off instantaneously, but she handles it like a true champ.

Asa is definitely a sub, but she’s very active compared to the other subs – she takes action, initiates things, talks dirty, begs for Derrick’s cock without being asked, and so on. It’s good that her sexual style is so different from the subs in the other scenes, because it gives viewers a different perspective on what submission can look like. Yay, sexual freedom!

Toward the end of the scene, Derrick starts warming up her ass, using a Tantus Little Flirt and a larger metal plug. He smiles and says to her, “It’s your cock, I’ll let you put it wherever you want.” (Ungh, swoon.) Then they have anal sex, she comes several times, and she brings on the end of the scene by shouting “You can squirt in me” until they have a simultaneous orgasm.

I really like this scene because it has a very friendly, playful vibe to it. It feels like an actual, real-life couple rolling around in their bed.

To summarize, I really adore Tristan Taormino’s Guide to Kinky Sex for Couples. It’s the best introduction I can possibly imagine for beginners to the world of kink. It’s easy to understand, full of information that every kinkster of any skill level should know, and the sex scenes are unbelievably hot. As per usual, Tristan has created what will be an invaluable addition to anyone’s porn library.

Thank you so much to Tristan Taormino for sending me this film! All photos courtesy of Tristan, too.

Obscenity, Authenticity, and Coming Out: My Day at the The Feminist Porn Conference

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On Friday night, I attended the Feminist Porn Awards, an annual event held by my local sex shop Good For Her. I hadn’t planned on going, because I’ve been a little strapped for cash lately, but my friend happened to have an extra ticket and invited me along at the last minute. Obviously, I was thrilled.

The awards were really exciting and a lot of well-deserved films took home Crystal Delights butt plug trophies. I was especially pleased that Fifty Shades of Dylan Ryan (which I loved) received the prize for best kink film, and that so many oppressed groups were honored – for example, in Nica Noelle’s awesome trans-positive flick Forbidden Lovers, and Matthew Clark’s short film Krutch, which focuses on disability and sex.

Honestly, though, it was sort of hard to concentrate on the awards because I was surrounded by so many hot porn stars I could hardly breathe. Dylan Ryan was a few seats to my left, Wolf Hudson was to my right, and directly in front of me were James Darling and Jiz Lee. I have watched all of these people fuck, many times, and have gotten off doing it. I’ve met some of my favorite celebrities before, but seeing someone in person who’s actually induced an orgasm in you (however indirectly) is quite a different story. (And yes, I was way too shy to speak to any of them!)

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The next day, I got up bright and early for the Feminist Porn Conference, put together by Tristan Taormino to coincide with the recent release of the Feminist Porn Book (a great read which I highly recommend). My boyfriend, whose career and hobbies have nothing to do with sex, had nonetheless enthusiastically agreed to come with me, so we went together.

The first session we attended was Lesbo Retro: A Dyke Porn Retrospective, hosted by Shar Rednour and Nan Kinney, two totally captivating dykes associated with iconic lesbian porn companies like Fatale Media and On Our Backs. It was an hour of lezzie porn from the ‘60s up through the ’00s. A lot of it was silly and strange – voluminous hair (both on performers’ heads and in their pubic regions), stilted dialogue, “dyke drama” screaming matches – but I walked out of it with damp panties anyhow. (What can I say? I love a good cunnilingus scene.)

Shar and Nan recalled when they couldn’t ship media to certain zip codes because of the obscenity laws that existed there. Sexual acts like fisting and female ejaculation were considered too extreme to be legal. They would have been risking jail time by distributing those materials to some areas, mostly in the south. I said a little prayer of gratitude for the internet and its magical powers of distribution, as well as for the trailblazers (like Shar and Nan!) who ushered us into our more sex-positive time.

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The second session we attended was To Be Real: Authenticity in Queer & Feminist Porn. It featured Jiz Lee (swoon), Dylan Ryan (also swoon), Shar Rednour again, and Dr. Jill Bakehorn, a sociologist whose research has focused on feminist porn.

The discussion was lively and thought-provoking. Many questions were raised: what is authenticity? How do we know if something is authentic? How can something as performative as porn ever really be authentic? Are we using the word “authentic” when we really mean something else, like sincerity or relatability? And if it gets us off, does it really matter whether or not it’s authentic?

This conversation really hit home for me, because although I’ve often told myself and others that I like “authentic” porn best, sometimes I watch porn that’s probably as genuine as any but just doesn’t do a damn thing for me – like porn where a performer isn’t making any noise, or is making noise but in a way that’s gratingly repetitive and monotonous. Who am I to say that that’s not how those people genuinely react to sexual stimulation? It would be more accurate to say that I simply like porn that suits my tastes, regardless of how genuine it may or may not be.

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Next up was a panel called Being Out Now: How Performers Navigate Sexual Morality and Media Representation. It featured Tina Horn and James Darling (both favorites of mine, both pictured above) as well as Arabelle Raphael, Bianca Stone, Jiz Lee, and Quinn Cassidy.

This panel’s contributors were amazingly diverse in experience and identity. All of them do porn, all of them have at least dabbled in other kinds of sex work (most still do it), two identify as genderqueer, one as trans. All come from different sorts of families with different tolerance levels for what they do and who they are.

There was much discussion about whether one is obligated to come out, and how to remain true to oneself even in situations where one chooses not to come out (a choice usually made out of a desire to maintain safety for oneself and/or the people one is close to). For example, Arabelle suggested that sex workers who don’t want to come out can still vocally support sex workers’ rights when talking to people they’re not out to.

It was interesting to hear the perspective of a white cis male, Quinn Cassidy, in this feminist discourse. He pointed out that the parameters of a person’s “closet” can change depending on what environments that person exists in – meaning, for example, that he often has to “come out” as a cis male in queer communities that may assume he is genderqueer.

Moderator Tina Horn asked the audience to participate in an exercise: we were told to raise our hands if we are “out” about our involvement in the sex world, first to parents, then to siblings, extended family, the world at large, and our employers. It was interesting that so many people (including several of the panelists) said they are out to the internet and the world, but not to their aunts, uncles, and grandparents.

The panel concluded with a discussion on how to be a good ally to sex workers, which included advice like “Listen to them” and “Don’t call yourself a sex worker if you’ve only shot one queer porn scene” and “Start a chapter of SWOP in your area.”

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The last session we attended was a Q&A with Shine Louise Houston, the creator of Crash Pad Series, a huge presence in today’s feminist queer porn world. I’ve reviewed a few Crash Pad scenes before (here, here, and here) and I’m a huge fan of the site.

Shine screened a video she made in which she “interviews herself” via the magic of post-production. The interview was funny and honest, like Shine herself. One thing she mentioned which struck me as particularly interesting is that she almost never jerks off to her own porn, even though the whole Crash Pad Series is based around her personal fantasies of voyeurism. She also pointed out that porn is “about more than getting off” – when done well, it can be a medium for pushing boundaries, for exercising one’s right to free speech, and for normalizing certain sex acts so people feel they have permission to explore. Hear hear!

The Q&A session after the video ended up being mostly a discussion about coming out as a pornographer, after Shine confessed that she isn’t out to her kids and doesn’t plan on changing that in the foreseeable future. While I appreciated that some of the audience members felt strongly about coming out as a form of political activism (“being militantly out,” as Quinn Cassidy had phrased it earlier in the day), I didn’t like that some of them seemed to be shaming Shine for her choices. I think everyone gets to choose whether or not they want to come out, and to whom, and it isn’t helpful to shame someone for staying in the closet if that’s what they want to do.

It was also interesting to hear that people frequently complain to Shine about her site not being diverse enough, but that she also receives complaints when she puts a cis male on the site (some past examples include Ned Mayhem and Mickey Mod). How sad that the queer community, known for diversity and acceptance, would revolt against cis guys even if they’re having sex in deliciously transgressive ways.

Just before leaving, I bought a copy of Tristan Taormino’s Expert Guide to Pegging (which had nabbed Tristan the Smutty Schoolteacher award the night before, yay!). Then I headed home, smiling and feeling wonderfully enlightened.

Photo credits: the Feminist Porn Awards, Wikipedia, Crash Pad Series, and Queer Porn Review.