Ms Naughty Porn for Women Blog

Archive for December, 2010

This seems a nice way to round out the year – the epic striptease finale from 1997’s The Full Monty. You can’t not smile when you see this. And yes, it IS sexy.

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I’m an atheist but I still enjoy Christmas because it means good times with my family. Whatever it means to you, here’s wishing you a fantastic festive season.

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Another year has whizzed by and it’s time to do another rundown of all things porn for women in 2010. This year the adult industry has again endured tough times in the face of ever-increasing free content and the dismal global economy. Nonetheless, erotic content for women continues to grow and become more popular. There’s been a real attempt by many in the industry to try and cater to women, perhaps out of desperation. There’s also been an explosion of queer and alternative porn.

In The News

* “Hello Ladies.” In February, Isiah Mustafa first uttered the opening line to the now much-loved Old Spice ad and caused an internet sensation. The advertisement took a quirky view of masculinity and also unashamedly appealed to the sex drive of straight women, something that is still rare. Now millions of women around the world have begun to fantasise about a well-spoken black man who’s on a boat… and a horse.

* Playboy TV made headlines in November when they announced a revamp of the channel, setting their sights on female viewers. They plan to offer “softer” content with “real chemistry, nonenhanced body parts, varied body shapes and contextualized’ sex.”

* In January the Shady Lady ranch in Nevada caused a stir by getting approval to offer male prostitutes to female clients – a first. One of the new workers (”prostidudes”) called “Markus” caused a stir by comparing himself to Rosa Parks. He didn’t last long, quitting in March. The Shady Lady continued on without him.

* The Twilight books and films were so popular that some took to calling the saga “porn for women”. I disagreed.

* British women’s porn pioneer Anna Span put her filmmaking career on hold to run for parliament in March. She stood for the Liberal Democrats using her real name of Anna Arrowsmith and came in third, considerably increasing the LibDem vote.

* The ongoing saga of the .xxx domain continued and I was actually quoted in the Guardian opposing it.

* It was also a huge year for censorship – which I’ll address a little later in the post.

The Magazines Are Back

* 2010 was a bumper year for UK startup magazine Filament, with strong sales and an expansion into the US and Australia.

* Playgirl announced that it was going back into print after a year of web-only publication. The headline-grabbing nude photoshoot of Levi Johnston (Sarah Palin’s would-be son-in-law) prompted the turnaround; his pics appeared in the February edition, causing much distress because there was no full-frontal nudity.

* In January Candy Rain, another magazine for straight women, was launched. Only one issue appeared all year however a benefit has recently been held to assist in publishing the second.

New Porn for Women Movies (Straight)

* In my opinion the best film for women released this year was Erika Lust’s Life Love Lust. Her beautifully-produced vignettes have a depth and vision not usually seen in porn. She also dared to portray sex that results in… a baby. For The Girls interviewed Erika in July and I included pics from the movie here.

* Petra Joy released Her Porn 2, another compilation of erotic short films and excerpts for women. I found this important because it includes my first short film, “That’s What I Like”. Petra also completed filming her fourth feature, despite ill health and numerous production issues.

* Netherlands-based director Jennifer Lyon Bell teamed up with Belgian artist Murielle Scherre, aka La Fille D’O, to create Des Jours Plus Belles Que La Nuit, a depiction of a real couple making love in real time. It won a Feminist Porn Award for Best Direction. It is due to be released in the US soon, following the already successful Matinee.

* Mimi Balfour created a softcore erotic film called Man of My Dreams which also won a Feminist Porn Award.

* Sex advisor and author Jamye Waxman directed 101 Sex Positions For Lovers which was filmed in Jamaica and featured real-life couples.

* Larger producers Playgirl and Sweet Sinner continued to release new features aimed at straight women regularly in 2010. Major studio New Sensations also created a new line called “Romance”, aimed at women and couples.

Lesbian and Queer Porn

* Artist and porn star Madison Young had a huge year in 2010. She directed and starred in a swathe of films including Pregnant With Desire, a new film exploring the sexual aspects of pregnancy. Madison herself is expecting her first child in 2011.

* Queersexual personality Jiz Lee was everywhere this year, appearing in many indie and alt films as well as popping up in more mainstream productions. She also set up her own charity website, Karma Pervs and appeared in a massive queer orgy for her 30th birthday on Crash Pad Series. For The Girls interviewed her in November.

* Courtney Trouble was also a queer filmmaking powerhouse this year, releasing numerous films through the Reel Queer Productions label including several titles in the Roulette series and Seven Minutes In Heaven. She also maintained her stable of queer porn sites including NoFauxxx.

* French director Emilie Jouvet took a group of queer friends on a sex tour of Europe and released Too Much Pussy: Feminist Sluts on the QueerX Roadshow, an erotic documentary of their trip.

* Triangle Films made waves with their major production River Rock Women’s Prison which won several awards.

Statistics and Surveys

* In February the Sun reported that more women were watching porn than ever with 76% of readers “admitting” to enjoying porn.

* In June, Cosmopolitan reported on a survey of their readers and found that 60% of their readers enjoyed porn, either alone or as part of their relationship. Another 15% said they hadn’t seen it but were open to the idea.

Awards and Festivals

* In April the fifth annual Feminist Porn Awards were announced with gongs handed out to a variety of groundbreaking straight and queer films. The list of nominations was substantial, revealing just how much the female-friendly and alt porn movement has grown. 2010 saw the first Emerging Filmmaker award handed out to Tobi Hill Meyer.

* The AVN Awards continued to mostly ignore alternative films, concentrating on the mainstream industry. Tristan Taormino won Best Educational Release for her Expert Guide to Threesomes but that was about it. The awards night was attended by the “Queer Porn Mafia” (Jiz Lee, Dylan Ryan, Amber Flores, Madison Young and Courtney Trouble among others – see pic above).

* The Pornutopia erotic film festival held in Albuquerque was cancelled after local authorities told them they were breaking zoning laws. The city maintains it isn’t censorship but the festival directors aren’t convinced.

* I didn’t get to attend the Berlin Porn Film Festival this year which was a pity as they had a record-breaking attendance. Jennifer Lyon Bell conducted a workshop on porn and feminism and Emile Jouvet’s film Much More Pussy received an honourable mention.

* Cinekink, the kinky film festival based in New York, toured the US throughout the year. I’m pleased to say my film That’s What I Like featured at a number of screenings.

Our Porn, Ourselves and The Anti-Porn Brigade

* 2010 saw a major increase in campaigning against pornography, thanks mostly to Gail Dines who was flogging her anti-porn book Pornland to anyone who’d listen. Dines uses shock tactics and generalisations to argue that porn was “hijacking our sexuality” and ultimately should be prohibited. Dines said “Women defending porn are likely deluded by the near trillion dollar industry.” My reply to that is here.

* Religious groups are also moving to ban porn using the dodgy concept of “addiction”. In May I looked at Dirty Girls Ministries, a site that charges women money to help cure their “addiction” to masturbation and porn.

* Blogger and author Violet Blue fought back against the anti-porn movement, creating Our Porn, Ourselves, a gathering of pro-porn activists including many women who enjoy explicit material. Violet’s Facebook page had over 3000 members when Facebook shut it down without warning or explanation in July.

* Moral panic about the “sexualisation of children” has also spurred numerous calls for censorship. In July a conference in the UK attended by Australian academic Catharine Lumby sought to cut through the nonsense and properly study the issue. They pointed out that most of the “research” on the issue is biased or poorly conceived. I wrote about the issue here.

Other Censorship

Looking back at my blog posts over the last year, it’s depressing to see how often censorship and anti-porn campaigning comes up. Perhaps its a personal obsession but I think it’s part of an overall trend. The governments of the world have woken up and they want to control the internet. Part of that is a panic over online porn and a demand for increased censorship. Here in Australia, the nanny state has gotten worse in 2010 with numerous arrests and crackdowns on adult material.

* In January a storm erupted in cyberspace over reports that Australia had banned the depiction of small breasts in porn and were also banning female ejaculation. The news came from The Sex Party and I wrote about it on this blog post. Within days the story had gone viral and turned up in mainstream media. The censors eventually denied that this was the case, although it did publicse the fact that material can be considered child porn if the models *look* underage.

Nonetheless, it rapidly became an established internet “fact” and even resulted in web vigilantes Anonymous attacking the Australian parliament in “Operation Titstorm” as part of a protest against the proprosed mandatory internet filter.

* In March TV show Hungry Beast raised awareness of censorship with their report on the way magazines alter images of female genitalia to meet classification guidelines: “Too Much Genital Detail”

* In May Garion Hall, the owner of AbbyWinters.com, was found guilty of “making an objectionable film” – even though the magistrate didn’t watch the film or ask for anyone else to classify it. It was the first conviction of its kind in Australia. Abby Winters has now moved all operations to The Netherlands.

* Also in May, an adult shop owner was sent to prison for three months for selling X-rated films in Sydney. Since then there have been numerous raids on sex shops and a crackdown on selling explicit porn in several states. It is not illegal to own or buy X-rated films in Australian states but it is illegal to sell them. NSW has since given police the power to decide if a film is illegal on the spot, rather than handing it over to classifiers.

* In July Australian Senator Stephen Conroy announced that the planned mandatory internet filter would be delayed pending a review of the classification categories. The subsequent federal election saw a minority Labor government with the filter still on the cards.

* In the US in April, adult director and author Tristan Taormino faced protests from a “family” group before giving a presentation on porn at Princeton University.

* In December, the UK parliament decided they wanted to jump on the censorship bandwagon, looking at a plan to ban online porn unless adults “opt in”.

Ms Naughty In 2010

Professionally, this year hasn’t been the best for me. The biggest problem has been neverending delays with the upgrade of For The Girls. You can read the full, painful story here. I still haven’t got a refund and I lost so much time waiting, putting things off. I also held off on my plans for more erotic films. So it’s been very frustrating.

Indeed, writing this retrospective based on my blog posts has been difficult simply because I haven’t posted as much this year. Twitter is partly to blame but I’ve also been spending time doing other things.

Still, the last couple of months have seen me get back on track. I’m still editing the footage I shot in November and I also took part in a fabulous male model shoot at the start of December for FTG. The results are fantastic.

2010 marked my 10th anniversary creating porn online. It’s kind of hard to believe I’ve been doing this for so long. I have been suffering a bit of porn fatigue lately but I’m also motivated to head into the new year with a fresh mind and try new things. Lots to do!

Perhaps my biggest non-porn achievement of the year was cycling 500km over 9 days in September. I also attended the Rise of Atheism conference in Melbourne which was inspiring and interesting. And I handed out “how to votes” for the Sex Party which was more fun than I expected.

Some larger blog posts from 2010

Defining the harm of porn – a look at Michael Flood’s research and why it’s flawed
What Oprah didn’t tell you about porn for women – I wrote a guest piece for Good Vibrations blog on my favourite topic.
Dear kinky people, cut vanilla a break, will ya? – A somewhat controversial post about how vanilla sex is sometimes derided as boring or repressed.
It Gets Better… But why should it be bad in the first place? – Are teenagers forever doomed to be horrible to each other?
In 2010, a prosecution for procuring an abortion – My thoughts on abortion.
Fiona Patten reveals how the NVE classification was derailed – a video from the Humanist Conference detailing how porn was almost legalised in 1999.
How sex with your head in a toilet bowl can be OK – Not all porn is degrading
The female gaze does not exist? – Another bit of musing (and arguing) on the terms “porn for women” and “the female gaze”.

Eye Candy Posts

Admiring the mankini
The Dirk Diggler dick from Boogie Nights’ last scene
In defence of facial hair

Previous End Of Year Posts

Porn for women retrospective 2009
Porn for women retrospective 2008
Porn for women retrospective 2007
Porn for women retrospective 2006

Image Credit
Pic of the Queer Porn Mafia by Courtney Trouble from here.

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Just a random Christmas porn post to brighten up the blog.

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I’ve just finished writing a review of Batman XXX: A Porn Parody for For The Girls. That goes live shortly but I thought I’d quickly post some of the notes I made while writing the film, just for a laugh.

—–
The jokes are good but sometimes the delivery is a bit too slow. Needs quicker editing.

Dale DaBone looks like he’s had very bad plastic surgery. Thankfully he’s in a mask for most of the film.

“Eat my dirty asshole” she says and The Riddler giggles. Evan Stone can stay in character while fucking. Not bad. But suddenly we’re into unprepared anal. Eek!

OK, there’s just something very wrong with seeing 1960s Batman with his tights around his ankles and a huge erect cock. It’s messing with my childhood. Somewhere inside me a Batman-loving kid is crying “Make it stop! Make it stop!”

“Holy Popshot” says Robin. Then he and Batgirl start to get it on. Damn those capes keep getting in the way

The Joker reveals his evil plan:
Robin: “You won’t get away with this so easy.”
Batman: “Easily”
Robin: “Sorry, easily.”
Batman: Good grammar is essential, Robin.”

Skin tight costumes make for interesting and awkward undressing scenes.

Gagging. Deep throating. Stupid dirty talk. Double facial cumshot with extra cum in the eye. This is not how I envisaged Batman and Catwoman finally getting it on.

Tori Black comes across as completely shallow and silly in her behind-the-scenes interview. “What did I do to prepare for the role? I shaved my legs.”

Dale DaBone nails his role. But then he says this in the behind-the-scenes interview: . “I’ve never in my whole career looked at a script until five minutes before I shoot it. If you over-rehearse it, that’s how it sounds.”
—

I didn’t mind this movie to be honest, even if the sex was typically porny. Buy it here.

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“Censorship is telling a man he can’t have a steak just because a baby can’t chew it.” – Mark Twain

We’re into the… let me think… fourth year of plans to introduce a mandatory internet filter in Australia and now it seems the UK conservatives want a piece of the censorial goodness. The British government is going to start talks with ISPs to discuss creating an “opt-in” version of the internet where all porn is mandatorily censored unless you put your name on their list.

Wow, sounds horribly, stupidly familiar. And I can only assume that the UK will now go through the same process we have: first, questions will be asked as to the technical feasibility of it all. Because naturally the idea will be prohibitively difficult to pursue and also expensive.

Next, they’ll have to work out what they mean by “porn”. Are we talking just the hardcore stuff? Nudity? Breastfeeding? Sex education sites?

Then, the geeks shall arise. Porn-loving people will realise they’re not alone, that they won’t stand for the government telling them what they, as adults, can and can’t see and they’ll start to get organised. To protest. To stand up for free speech. Because this is absolutely an attack on free speech.

The usual excuse is being used: “Won’t somebody think of the children!”

The MP (Claire Perry) rejects claims she is anti-porn, instead insisting tighter regulations would stop children from viewing restricted content.

“Why is the onus on parents, teachers and carers to act as web guides and policemen? Where is the industry responsibility?” Ms Perry asks.

(Source)

Why is the onus on parents, teachers and carers, Ms Perry? Because that’s their fucking job! That’s what “parenting” is about last time I looked. But never mind that, she is going to impose censorship because she believes most people can’t look after their own kids. Insulting to both the child-free and those who are responsible parents.

She also defends her position because apparently most people won’t use filters, either because they don’t know how or they don’t want to. Sorry, Ms Perry, but the rest of us shouldn’t have to pay for other people’s stupidity.

Read her full opinion piece here.

Alarmingly, she does her best to back up her call for censorship with the claim that there’s “compelling evidence” that porn does harm to children. Her source for this is a group called Safer Media. I looked up their site. They are a Christian anti-porn group who believe that any kind of media can induce crime. Aside from 4 outdated studies from the 70s, their main example of this “compelling evidence” is a study called “A meta-analysis of the published research on the effects of pornography” published in 1997. It seems to be a favourite of the anti-porn and religious purity brigade because it’s quoted often on the various anti-porn sites.

And, unsurprisingly, the research for that study was conducted by The Marriage and Religion Research Institute in co-operation with the “Love and Responsibility Project of The Center for the Study of Catholic Higher Education.” The opening statement on that study says pornography is a “grave offense” that “perverts the conjugal act.”

Yep. Nice bit of unbiased research there. Read it and be impressed by the way it reaches its conclusion at the start, unhindered by any trifling concern with scientific method.

One biased meta study by a religious group shouldn’t comprise enough evidence to motivate a government into large-scale censorship. Because the fact is there is still no definitive peer-reviewed scientific evidence that porn is harmful – to children or adults.

So, UK readers. It’s your turn to stand up and fight this crap. Tell these people that they can’t take away your right to free speech just because some people are bad parents. Tell them that if they want to start censoring porn, they’d better come up with real, quantifiable scientific evidence that it actually does harm.

And pop on over to the various Australian websites like Gizmodo where we’ve already been having this argument for four years. You’ll be able to see all the opposition’s nonsense trotted out in advance, along with the well-reasoned discussion points you can use in reply. And note that we are still fighting this shit – even though the government has been forced to back down and change its position numerous times thanks to our ongoing opposition.

You can win this. We can win this. You just have to stop being embarassed about liking porn and be prepared to stand up for free speech.

And if enough of you can unite to get Surfin’ Bird into the Christmas singles chart, you can definitely stand together to save the internet from government philistines.

Pic is from here.

Update – more good posts:
Sex educator Dr Petra Boynton unpacks the whole shebang here.

Good critique of dodgy data at Thought Soup.

Bish Training has another great perspective.

Violet Blue shreds MP Claire Perry’s “research” at ZDnet

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Now, I love looking at guys and I think penises are lovely. But I do have to agree with the general message of this video: a closeup pic of a cock is not really that appealing by itself. Genitals are much better in context. And if you’re sending said pic over a phone to a girl you don’t know… stop it!

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I’ve sat on this post for two days now, hesitating on publishing it. Even now, I’ve cut out a fair bit that was a bit too ranty and controversial or wrong-headed. In any case, here it is:

It started when I discovered that Fleshbot has decided to do weekly posts discussing porn that straight women might enjoy. I was surprised to discover this as that porn blog has never really acknowledged that this audience exists. Their categories are straight (naked women, girl-girl and standard hetero porn aimed at men) and gay (nude men and gay couples sex). They have occasionally featured news about female friendly porn but it’s often with a derisive comment about the very concept of “porn for women”. I’ve had a couple of brief discussions with editor Lux Alpatrum about it and she has said she doesn’t think the phrase is a good one. That’s fine. The only problem is, it’s meant that porn specifically created for straight women has either been ignored or lumped into either category. Until now.

I tweeted about this change and also put up some of the shots from our recent photo shoot. Then I had a brief exchange with @quietriot_girl about the idea of porn for women and the female gaze.

She said: “why is porn aimed at women so bloody soft-focussed and ’sensual’ I like my men like I like my sex: ROUGH.”
I said: “‘Porn for women’ doesn’t have to always be sensual. Tristan Taormino’s Rough Sex series is female-friendly
She said: “Rough can be arty too! I don’t really know what ‘female friendly’ means. My favourite porn is gay porn.”
I said: “The pics we like at forthegirls.com are varied but I’m a fan of sensuality and arty stuff, not really into rough.” and “The term “porn for women” is broad. I always take it to mean that it is catering to the female gaze, not 1 particular type of content.”
She said: “but what is the ‘female gaze’ my gaze enjoys things that many men do. I don’t think the ‘female gaze’ exists.”
I said: “It’s not the subject, its the assumption about the audience.”
She said: “But ‘the female gaze’ and ‘women’s porn’ also makes assumptions about the audience regarding gender/sexuality”

At this point I had to stop because you just can’t get into this topic in 140 characters. Nonetheless, I’ve spent quite a while now pondering the idea of not only not using the phrase “porn for women” but also abandoning the phrase “the female gaze.” And it’s bugging me because I find both phrases incredibly useful and still relevant.

Quietriot_girl’s argument does have some merit. My recent interview with Jiz Lee has made me very aware that, for some people, gender is fluid and they are often left out of the binary language surrounding sex and gender. Discussing “the female gaze” may make assumptions about the sexuality of the audience, yes. So perhaps it is a flawed term.

Then again, those who are genderqueer aren’t necessarily interested as defining themselves as male or female. In terms of their “gaze” (their perspective taken into account when creating content), we would perhaps refer to it as the “genderqueer gaze” – in a similar way as you may also have the “gay gaze”, the “lesbian gaze”. The “female gaze” is perhaps a broader term and can encompass women of all sexualities – just as “porn for women” can.

Perhaps the problem is that I should be more specific with terms. So when it comes to the porn I myself enjoy and create, it is porn for straight women and thus I’m trying to cater to the “straight female gaze.” I’m happy to accept that in theory because it makes sense.

Still, I’ll probably keep using my preferred terms for three reasons: firstly, straight women are in the majority and they’re my target market. Secondly, the majority of people make their own assumptions about what those phrases mean and it’s overwhelmingly associated with straight women. Thirdly, I’m a creature of the web and I deal in search terms. So whittling down my language can easily result in a whittling down of search engine traffic and, as you can imagine, I’m not so keen on that. What can I say, I’m an evil, capitalist pornographer.

No doubt we could then go into the other argument – that not all women are the same, that the “straight female gaze” is too prescriptive because it makes assumptions about “what women want.” I don’t think so. The subject matter of the gaze is not the issue. It really comes down to acknowledging that the audience is made of straight women and giving priority to their experiences and fantasies, whatever they may be. A single example of catering to a straight female gaze – e.g. the photos we shot last week – does not mean that it should apply to every woman or that it’s a “standard” of some sort. It’s not all-or-nothing here. Rather, it’s a matter of thinking: right, I want to appeal to a certain type of woman, this is what I think she might like and I’m not going to make any apologies to any other members of the audience if they don’t like it.

Beyond all that, I still feel agitated about the dismissal of the “female gaze” idea. And I wasn’t quite sure why. So I wrote the draft blog post and had a great email chat with Flexibeast who is poly, trans, genderqueer, kinky and… well vanilla too.

What I’ve realised is that I feel a little beseiged by these kinds of discussions. Sometimes I get the feeling that trying to promote and speak about porn for straight women is frowned upon by those who are more pansexual in their outlook. As though it’s a lost cause or inferior or something because sexual and gender fluidity renders the whole idea of straightness and femaleness as moot. I don’t really agree with that stance; I accept the diversity of gender and sexuality but I also know that there are plenty of women out there who simply identify as female and straight and I want to cater to them.

And I feel that in the rush to embrace the diversity of queer and genderqueer porn, the straight women are being sidelined. That we’re dismissed as hedgemonic from the queer side but then also ignored by the mainstream which is still dominated by porn aimed at straight men.

It may just be paranoia but it’s something that I’ve been feeling for a while. And perhaps I’ll attract some abuse for saying that, though it’s not meant to be anything other than an exploration of a vague frustration I have.

I think my frustration also occurs because decrying terms like “porn for women”, “female friendly” and “the female gaze” (however flawed they are) can have the effect of denying straight women their own space in the pornosphere. As I said in this post two and a half years ago, these phrases are about creating a space in an overwhelmingly male-dominated industry. They’re about putting up a flag so that it’s easier for straight women to wade through the crap and find something different. I’ve been making porn for ten years and I’m still one of only a handful of people who are legitimately trying to offer erotic content to straight women. Sure, the big porn companies have lately started to make an effort but they’re not very good at it.

So in the teeming city of the porn industry, there’s still only a small shack on the outskirts that consciously labels itself as meant specifically for straight women. And the sign on the front door, right or wrong, says “porn for women.” Because that’s the most obvious and easiest thing to write.

Women can, of course, visit any other building in the city if they want. Sure, those skyscrapers are all run and populated by men who often like to use the term “stupid bitch” and they don’t have any ladies toilets, but if that’s what they like, there’s nothing stopping them.

In the meantime, someone decides that you can’t have that sign on the door of the shack because it can’t possibly describe everything inside (and, there is an awful lot inside). There’s no other pithy suggestions as to what the sign should say so the shack stays unidentified. Meanwhile, lots of straight women start complaining that there’s nothing in the city that they like. Sure, there’s a new building called “queer” that looks nice and all but they don’t really feel at home there. And the one labelled “couples” looks pretty much like the rest of the skyscrapers but with nicer plastic plants.

OK, I’ll stop labouring this metaphor.

I guess the ultimate conclusion is that labels are problematic but, for me, useful. And that maybe it’s personal: I’m a straight woman, I want to offer porn to straight women like me who like the things I do. But sometimes I feel that arguments over labels suggest that what I’m doing isn’t legitimate or politically correct or wrong somehow. And I know that what I do IS worthwhile. Because boring old married vanilla-type straight chicks like me do like porn and I think we deserve our space at the table as much as anyone else.

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The blog has been neglected for a week because I’ve been rather busy with For The Girls – specifically, we were doing a major photography session to be featured in upcoming updates. We booked a swish apartment at the beach and proceeded to move every single piece of furniture around, setting up a temporary photo studio. Then we had six very lovely men come in so we could capture their general hotness on film. I also took some fun behind-the-scenes video which we’ll also feature – I got a little video-happy and now there’s 4 tapes to edit.

We were also going to do some scenes on the beach but the weather was atrocious. It rained almost constantly – at least, until the day we were leaving.

There were a few times during the two days when I had a “how did I get here?” moment. It’s when you realise that you’re in a very unusual situation that your careers counsellor never anticipated. One such moment involved me standing clothed in the shower cubicle, hosing down a naked erect man with the hand shower while Jane took pics. There’s not a lot of small talk you can make in those kinds of situations, besides “So… do you come here often?”

I also had the job of wrapping electrical cables around another model for an arty shot and arranging a computer mouse just so. Good fun.

These pics are just a taste of what we shot. It’s going to take a while to edit things and I suspect Christmas will get in the way but they’ll be appearing at For The Girls very soon.

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This month’s feature at For The Girls is an exclusive interview with Queer porn superstar Jiz Lee, who has appeared in numerous alternative and queer movies and regularly turns up at the Crash Pad Series website.

Jiz also runs a charity porn site called Karma Pervs which donates the proceeds from memberships to worthy sex positive causes.

Here’s a snippet of the interview:

Being sexually active and an exhibitionist, in combination with being a performance artist, I think it was only a matter of time before I found pornography.

My lover at the time, Shawn, invited me to do a scene with her in Shine Louise Houston’s first flick, “The Crash Pad”, filmed in 2005. That was my first professional scene and the rest is history. I really love sharing my sexuality and the love I have with others on screen. I also value having this documentation — like a scrapbook but even better! In addition, for queers, there’s very little representation (or authenticity) of our sexuality. So being a part of pornography for me is a radical thing. Bringing our sexuality to the screen is a chance to share with one another, to educate, to validate our life! For so many of us it is terrifying to come to terms with our sexuality. It’s not well-documented, it’s not reflected in media, it’s not taught in schools, it’s often shamed and hidden and criminalized. So to have visible pleasure is an extremely empowering thing.

The rest is available to members of For The Girls.

Thanks Jiz!

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I’ve been away for a week, visiting Sydney on a bit of a junket. While I was there I joined in the Marriage Equality march that went from Town Hall to Taylor Square. I had intended to go to the speeches at the start but… well, I must admit I got a little caught up at the AC/DC exhibition. Marching is more fun anyway. I took a bit of video as we went along. As you can see, someone threw an egg from an apartment near Hyde Park which thankfully missed. Most people, though, were supportive.

The Sydney Star Observer says there were around 2000+ people there which they considered to be a good turnout. The comments then erupt into an argument over whether that number of people is good enough or not.

I must admit, I sometimes feel that rallies and marches have had their day. It seems that now we’ve got the internet, it’s a bit redundant to march down the street shouting slogans and blocking traffic. I think I developed this hesitation after going to a very-poorly attended anti-filter protest in 2008. I KNEW that heaps of people opposed censorship but unfortunately they didn’t turn up. It was too hard, apparently, they were all busy doing something else. It left the rest of us looking like a rag-tag bunch of losers protesting something that no-one really cared about.

I suspect it may be more effective to spend the time writing emails to MPs or creating online campaigns. I noticed that not a single major media outlet covered this Marriage Equality march, even if there were photographers there. Getting on the news has become the main reason for protests now; it feels as though the success of your issue relies solely the mercy of a faceless old-media editor somewhere.

Maybe I became cynical about protest rallies in 2003 when MILLIONS of people turned up to anti-Iraq war protest rallies all around the world and it made no difference at all. And yet I know that it’s still important to get out there and be loud and visible sometimes. It is worth it – if only so we can make witty signs and then upload our videos.

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