Brooklyn, the haughty, dominant lesbian pauses in her frantic fisting and then whispers in the ear of Vai, her moaning, submissive female partner. She points to the toilet her lover is leaning on.
“Do you want to put your head in there?”
Vai, panting and flushed as the result of several gushing orgasms, looks a little hesitant. “Is it clean?” she asks.
Brooklyn nods. And so the eager submissive lifts the lid and places her face into the toilet, her hair dropping into the water as Brooklyn fucks her hard with a strapon.
When I started watching Tight Places, the new queer film from Good Releasing, I expected to see fisting, strapon sucking and female ejaculation, the sort of sex that is par for the course in this kind of authentic lesbian/queer porn. What I didn’t expect was a scene that raises questions about personal taste and provides grist for the debate surrounding the “degrading” nature of pornography.
Right now, anti-porn activist Gail Dines is touring the world, marketing her book that agues that porn has “hijacked men’s sexuality.” She maintains that the current crop of porn websites and movies is far more sexist and degrading to women than ever before. She cherry-picks examples from the dark alleys of internet porn to illustrate her point. One of the regular things she mentions are sites where women’s heads are pushed into toilet bowls while they’re fucked.
How interesting, then, to encounter the very same sex act in a film that aims to be feminist, sex positive and queer- and female- friendly; a movie that features a cast of lesbians and trans-identified people but doesn’t star a single straight man.
Clearly, this movie is not following Gail Dines’ script.
I must confess to being more than a little squicked out by the scene itself. Watching someone being fucked while their head is in a toilet bowl is definitely not my bag, baby. Indeed, I found it to be rather disturbing, perhaps because this act has so many negative connotations involved. For a start, it’s just not a nice physical position to be in, as most of us who’ve suffered bad hangovers can attest. It’s hard to put yourself in her place and not feel a little, well, nauseous.
Beyond that, it has very negative philosophical associations. I’ve only ever seen it in porn that’s very abusive and hateful towards women – exactly the kind of porn that Gail Dines says is “standard” in the industry (not really true, but that’s an argument for another day). I’ve always found those sites to be pretty disgusting and avoided them if possible, so it’s confronting to find this kind of thing in a female-friendly movie. It took me out of the moment, making me analyse the politics of it all rather than simply enjoying the scene.
And the politics are pretty interesting. Because this scene is a perfect example of how consent and intent make all the difference.
Though I was personally turned off by the sex act portrayed, there is actually nothing wrong with the scene itself. Both performers consented to being in the scene and, once it’s underway, Vai voluntarily puts her head in the toilet bowl. Indeed, it seems to increase her physical pleasure by ramping up the psychological arousal. Her partner may have done it to degrade her but the intent is benign; Brooklyn seeks to get her partner off rather than to exert power or make her look or feel bad.
It’s an important difference and one that pro-porn feminists are doing their best to illustrate. It’s not the sex acts that are important, it’s the ethics of consent and how the performers are treated.
If the goal is consensual female pleasure, who cares how the results are achieved?
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The rest of my review of Tight Places appears at For The Girls this week. In case you’re wondering, I did enjoy the rest of it – the sex is authentic and hot.
I watched Tight Places courtesy of Good Vibrations.
This new movie consists of three erotic film jewels by the acclaimed director Erika Lust.
Last year my friend Jamye Waxman disappeared to Jamaica (of her own accord) in order to film a new instructional adult movie. She then amused us on Twitter with her ongoing search to delineate all 101 sex positions featured in this film. 
28 Feb
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