xconfessions

On Wednesday April 15th I went to the Royal Cinema to see Erika Lust speak about her vision for the future of porn. After her brief talk, she screened several scenes from her inspirational paysite XConfessions – which, as you might remember from my review, I loooove!

Erika’s porn is aesthetically gorgeous, undeniably feminist, and often quite funny. When “I Wish I Was a Lesbian” started playing, I turned to my friend and said, “This is the one with the platter of dildos!!” and I think she thought I was joking… There was also a scene where a man fellated a penis-shaped lollipop in the middle of a public park, during which the audience laughed uproariously. Erika’s sense of humor really shows through in her porn, in addition to her sexual and artistic proclivities!

I think my favorite scene I saw at that screening, however, was “Dude Looks Like a Lady,” in which a seemingly straight cis man starts dressing up in drag and is surprised to discover his partner gets turned on by it. This scene is such a perfect example of how Erika refuses to shy away from topics other porn companies might find distasteful or just hard to categorize.

My outfit that night included a navy and white striped shirt tucked into a black and white polka-dotted skirt, with red tights, red lipstick, and black Doc Martens. I was kind of going for a “50 shades of grey” theme, because of where my evening went next…

After the XConfessions screening, I literally sprinted to the streetcar stop so I’d be on time for the Drunk Feminist Films screening of 50 Shades of Grey. Drunk Feminist Films is a new screening series at the Revue Cinema and it is exactly what it sounds like: a bunch of clever intersectional feminists crowd into a theatre, load up on wine and beer (if they want to), and watch a movie through an analytical lens. Now that’s my idea of fun!

DFF’s 50 Shades event began with a brief talk on BDSM and consent given by kinkster, trauma survivor, and game-maker Soha Kareem. She contextualized the abuse perpetrated by Christian Grey by contrasting it with how real kinksters operate. I felt so proud and fortunate to be at the kind of event where this potentially life-saving information was expressed.

We were all given fliers bearing the drinking game rules for the movie. They encouraged us to drink every time Christian employed abusive tactics, every time Christian ignored something Ana said, every time Ana said something self-effacing, and so on. Needless to say, most of us got pretty drunk. (That movie is a fucking mess.)

My favorite thing about this event, however, was the feeling of feminist sisterhood directed at Ana’s character. Lots of 50 Shades critics have targeted Ana as complicit in her own abuse, or stupid and naive – but at the Drunk Feminists screening, we were encouraged to yell “AGENCY!” and twirl tampons in the air* every time Ana stood up for herself. And, contrary to what I remembered from the last time I saw the film, there were plenty of moments like this. I found myself practically crying each time Ana pushed back against Christian and the whole theatre of feminists erupted in applause and celebratory tampon-swinging.

*Yes, tampons were provided. Yes, it was awesome.

Then I rode home on the subway while sleepily resting my head on the shoulder of a feminist male friend of mine, who asked for my consent before stroking my hair in a comforting manner. So overall it was a pretty fantastically feminist evening!

The next and last part of my FPW wrap-up will cover the Thursday night screening and the Friday night awards gala, so watch out for that!

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!