This article is great for many reasons:
I'm not going to say who's playing top or bottom in that statement, but feminism and porn have been like Crisco and condoms for decades, and feminist positions (ahem) on porn are diverse. They often boil down to the notions that porn is degrading to women, abusive, encourages rape and violence against women, and reinforces sexual domination, coercion and humiliation of women. ... Except for all the cool-headed women currently identifying as feminist and doing sex work and loving porn, like Young, Nina Hartley (nina.com), Carol Queen, Susie Bright (susiebright.blogs.com/), all the women behind Spread magazine, plus oodles more.
]]>...The whole notion that a girl can get off watching porn, be in it, make it, and view sex work as positive — and be feminist — remains confusing for many. Women like Young have their politics about women and sex down pat; meanwhile ever-increasing thousands of women watch and enjoy all kinds of porn for personal gratification. Not because their boyfriends read an article in Maxim that gave them 10 easy steps to convince her to watch "I've Never Done This Before No. 48." Because women get off on explicit sexual imagery, and there's not only data and studies to back that statement, but hoards of girls with vibrators in one hand and a mouse in the other voting with each click on RedTube.com or Fleshbot.com. The privacy of the Internet has changed how we women enjoy and consume our sex toys — and porn is one of those toys, thank you very much. And we totally know who we're exploiting when we watch gay male porn. Um, the gay male feminists, of course.
...Let's not forget: Most mainstream porn is generally racist and sexist; it's full of sex acts people don't actually do when they really get off, and crazy-unsafe behavior. It's supposed to be fantasy, but much of mainstream porn plays on viewer's assumptions that sex is bad and shameful — the male "raincoater" slinking into porn stores is actually, sadly, the target consumer for mainstream porn. The attitudes are prevalent, but just as dated as Jay Leno making fun of gay people.
Seeing these porno-geezers headed to die off like the dinosaurs and the DVD, the Feminist Porn Awards wanted to participate in the growing popularity of sex-positive, non-formula porn. ... But "sex-positive" and "feminist" are catchphrases that might make it seem like a shy, soft-focus film fest. Quite the opposite, ma'am: Take one look at edgy, hardcore winners like "Bondage Boob Tube," local dyke and trans flick "In Search of the Wild Kingdom" and mainstream winners like Vivid Video's "Jenna Jameson is the Masseuse" and Tristan Taormino's "Chemistry" (also Vivid Video), and it's a range of diversity in sex acts from the extreme to the whimsical, explicit and sublime.