Erika Lust doesn't just direct adult films for women, she directs porn for people “who don''t think that sex always has to be presented as cheap, tasteless and vulgar”.
Free adult content on the internet and a demand for increasingly extreme porn is causing growing concern. In a world where a child's introduction to sex often takes place online, what will they grow up to understand sex as?
Feminist porn is becoming the antidote to some of the most prevalent issues within adult content, and its growing popularity suggests it is having the desired effect on pornography as a concept.
Lust is one feminist film-maker who hopes to subvert the dominant male gaze by allowing women to embrace and understand their sexuality within empowering adult entertainment.
Her first adult film, The Good Girl, was uploaded online for free, downloaded more than 2 million times and awarded first prize at the International Erotic Film Festival Barcelona.
Her work is ethical, ensuring everyone involved is paid fairly, and each production is tasked with creating a good working environment. Shot from a female perspective, the emphasis is on developing an engaging storyline for the viewer to enjoy as well as presenting scenes that depict female pleasure. Her films avoid more disturbing scenes, such as those depicting simulated abuse or coercion.
“I don''t just direct adult films for women, I direct adult films for people who don''t think that sex always has to be presented as cheap, tasteless and vulgar. I show sex as fun and full of passion, but I also pay attention to context, details, location, styling - everything that you would pay attention to in a film without explicit sex. To me, that adds to the feeling of eroticism and excitement. If you can answer the question “why are these people having sex?” in a captivating way, it makes the whole thing more fun. [It should] also involve real pleasure, not loud faked orgasms on a depressing couch.”
She is a feminist so those values are injected into every part of her films. Lust had had positive comments from both genders. They both like how relatable her films are. She injects comedy into some of the films to make them feel more real and authentic.
Lust believes that porn has the power to make a statement, educate, express ideologies and values, and also opinions about sex and gender. Most importantly, children and young adults aren't just exposed to one version of bad porn that teaches them bad values.
Her set workers hare 90 per cent female and she works with a team of around 15 - most porn sets only have around 5.
With the number of young and new production companies and directors popping up across the globe, it''s obvious that mainstream adult content isn''t satisfying people anymore and more people want to take it into their own hands to open the conversation and show something different. They have a wider range of tastes, they want realism, they want their sexualities represented, they want to see people, contexts and narratives they can relate to. They are also more open than we or any of the older generation were. They want to openly talk about sex and sexuality and explore it.
The Independent