The term “feminist pornography” sounds like something of an oxymoron.
But last Monday, Becky Goldberg proved that the feminist movement is making its way into the adult film industry. After screening her documentary on feminist pornography, she gave a short talk about the growing movement’s history and politics.
Goldberg said she was inspired to create her film when she moved from her relatively conservative hometown in Nebraska to New York University in order to pursue her life-long dream of making social documentaries. In a city as large as New York, Goldberg expected that feminist pornography would be readily available. However, she had trouble finding any, and consequently became interested in discovering why.
“For ages, it has been the right of men everywhere to talk about sex,” Goldberg said. “But when the subject came up, women were just supposed to sit there and turn red.”
She explained that many women today are uncomfortable watching porn because they have been brought up in a society that teaches them it is somehow wrong or inappropriate to do so. They have been led to believe that women are not supposed to be sexual aggressors. Thus, a major step in the feminist movement is to create porn that real women are comfortable with, one that can help them explore and express their individual sexualities.
In her documentary, Goldberg interviewed some of the major leaders in the growing feminist porn industry, and included fairly graphic clips of anal sex and female orgasms from their films.
One of her interviewees noticed an increasing demand for sex products that were more aware of their female audience, and responded by co-founding a company called Blowfish. The company is now a multi-million dollar corporation.
“There are strong female role models within this industry,” Goldberg said.
Although porn has long been a male-dominated genre, she explained that the women’s movement is educating people about women’s sexuality. Furthermore, feminist porn seeks to portray realistic images of them.
“Sex is a gift that all women should be able to enjoy,” she said. “You don’t necessarily have to look like a teenage boy with plastic boobs.”
Goldberg said she met many of these women simply through association and word of mouth.
“The porn industry is composed of a very tight-knit group of people, mainly because everyone has slept with everyone else at one time or another,” she joked.
During the interview process and her time on the movie sets, Goldberg said she was surprised to find that the leaders of the industry were all very “normal” people.
“It’s not like I expected them to be insane, but I thought they’d be a bit kooky, at least,” she said. Instead, she found that most of them were mothers with normal occupations who had found a respected place in the porn community. “It’s a chance for them to stand on their soapbox and work toward something they fervently believe in.”
Justin LaSelva, ’09 said Goldberg’s lecture was what he expected it to be: a different perspective on porn.
“I thought it was interesting that someone would devote their lives to studying this particular genre,” he said. “But the lecture didn’t change my opinion about the porn industry.”
The screening was sponsored by the Cunt Club, an on-campus, radical feminist organization that was created five years ago in order to celebrate the many aspects of female sexuality and encourage its members to feel more comfortable with them.
Goldberg said she was optimistic about the future of the porn industry.
“It’s not going to go away,” she said. “A while ago, there was a movement to take porn off the internet, but then they realized that doing so would have crushed the internet industry altogether. If people are smart with their choices, porn could take a turn for the better and become very beneficial to society. People watch it to learn about sex and how it works, so if it can definitely help to create a more informed and open-minded society.”
She contended, though, that there is a chance that the rise of feminist pornography could have the opposite effect. Because of the porn industry’s desire to retain their “in the gutter” image, it is possible that they could take increasing steps to counter the feminists’ efforts.
Goldberg is currently in the process of creating what she calls “the boyfriend film” to her feminist pornography documentary. In this next movie, she plans to go to Los Angeles to research male body image and sexuality, focusing on penis enlargement surgery.
Goldberg said she is having trouble finding the means to fund her next documentary.
“You can expect the film to be out by about 2080,” she said. “Not many people are willing to give you money to make a movie about penises.”
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