nef@calmasd.Prime.COM (Nancy Fox) (02/02/90)
Mother Jones' latest issue has an article on the new feminist pornography - porn for women, by women. An interesting article. She discusses a little, but not at any great length, the question of whether porn can ever be feminist, and discusses the issue of bondage in fantasy. Anyone read the article and want to discuss it? I'd also like to hear from anyone who has seen any of these videos. She said most of the new videos were on the boring side, with many women admitting that they skipped ahead to the "good parts." The videos put out by On Our Backs were described as being a pretty far out, or something to that effect. Sorry if this subject has been discussed here before. I'm just back to reading after a long absence due to a release... Nancy
carole@rosevax.Rosemount.COM (Carole Ashmore) (02/06/90)
In article <925@calmasd.Prime.COM>, nef@calmasd.Prime.COM (Nancy Fox) writes: > Mother Jones' latest issue has an article on the new > feminist pornography - porn for women, by women. > An interesting article. She discusses > a little, but not at any great length, the question > of whether porn can ever be feminist, and discusses > the issue of bondage in fantasy. Anyone read the > article and want to discuss it? I'd also like > to hear from anyone who has seen any of these videos. > She said most of the new videos were on the boring side, > with many women admitting that they skipped ahead to > the "good parts." The videos put out by On Our Backs > were described as being a pretty far out, or something > to that effect. Sorry if this subject has been > discussed here before. I'm just back to reading > after a long absence due to a release... Have not seen article or videos. Will, however, go and check them out as the notion of pornography by women for women fascinates me. I love explicitly sexual material, but so very little is available that is not directed at heterosexual men, and leafing through PLAYBOY does nothing for me. It doesn't suprise me that videos by ON OUR BACKS would be 'pretty far out' as lesbian women seem to have more quickly or easily defied the cultural perception that women don't (or shouldn't) like porn. Alas, I'm pretty much heterosexual, so most of this stuff doesn't really hit me on a gut (hmmm, is that the area of the anatomy I really mean?) level. I'll admit getting something out of COMING TO POWER (greatest pun title in the history of publishing) but mostly it was rather wishing I were gay so I could enjoy it more. What I'm really intrigued by are the just starting (or just being discovered) sources of female created porn directed at heterosexual women. I'm thinking, for instance, of CAUGHT LOOKING by the Feminist Anti-Censorship Taskforce (still in print, your local bookstore will order) where the authors used their favorite dirty pictures to illustrate their book of essays on the pornography question. Or there was Joanna Russ' description of underground pornographic fan magazines by female Star Trek fans in her book MAGIC MOMMAS, TREMBLING SISTERS, PURITANS AND PERVERTS (out of print, my library had it) which got me to start contacting all the women SF fans I know to see if anybody's on the mailing list. Anne Rice (of vampire book fame) has done some very nice female oriented porn under the pseudonyms Anne Rampling (EXIT TO EDEN, still in print) and A. N. Roquelaire (the 'Sleeping Beauty trilogy', two of them were THE AWAKENING OF SLEEPING BEAUTY and BEAUTY'S PUNISHMENT, can't remember the third). And I'm told by friends who read them that I should re-examine the 'supermarket' romance books, as there is a subgenre of them that has become explicitly sexual and is a very far cry from the 'one kiss in the moonlight' romances of my youth. Carole Ashmore