Erika Lust tar kvinnors lust på allvar.

Jag sökte på lust och blogg på google. Nästan högst upp på listan fann jag Erika Lust. En svensk tjej som bor i Barcelona och som gör porrfilm för tjejer. Hon har också skrivit en bok om porr för kvinnor som är utgiven på fem språk. En av hennes filmer har fått ”Feminist porn awards”, ett pris som fram till för några timmar sedan var helt okänt för mig.

Jag kan inte annat än känna att hon tar ett bra initativ. 

Så här skriver hon om boken:

Should women watch porn? Traditionally, pornos are a genre we are made to hate. Should we really stick to that? Can we be feminist and still like porn, or are they mutually exclusive? Is porn perverted or can it help us to learn things about our sexuality? Is porn dirty and does it kill your sexual appetite or does it help waken the libido? Should we protest against porn and ban it or should we participate in this male-dominated phenomenon, to change it and adapt it to our tastes?

PORN FOR WOMEN is a guide to help us understand and enjoy adult entertainment, written by Erika Lust, a woman fed up of the same old masculine take on porn.

Och det här är hennes manifest.

Manifesto

For a new kind of explicit cinema. Intelligent, feminine and feminist.

Here we are, finally women have been able to change the face of porn. In the new adult film genre I want to see women deciding how we are represented: I want to see women being women, women like you and me, women with feelings, education, professions. Mothers, married, divorced, single, lovers, young, adult, thin, curvy, always enjoying their sexuality and the sexual situations represented in the films.

A woman’s sexuality is something often expressed very powerfully. Maybe that worries some men, and maybe some prefer to think that only slutty women, prostitutes and lap-dancers are sexually attractive and that other women are innocent beings. Few men like to consider the sexuality of their mothers, sisters or daughters. But we are all sexual beings, not just the Jemma Jamesons of the world.

I don’t plan on sitting pretty, waiting for the porn industry to react and re-evaluate their basic deep-rooted beliefs about feminine sexuality. If we don’t do it ourselves, they certainly won’t volunteer for us.

Have you noticed how our society tends to ignore porn, considering it something private that is to be kept hidden away, not interfering with other aspects of our lives? But don’t you also think that we really have to be careful, because porn isn’t just porn, it’s a discussion, a way to talk about sex. It’s a way of seeing and understanding what is masculine and what is feminine. The discussion, however, is 100% lopsided in favour of a masculine (and often sexist) point of view. There are no female voices even in the discussion; the same situation we have seen until recently in politics and private company management committees.

So, I believe that women have a right to enjoy adult cinema and I also believe we have to take responsibility for our participation in the content of this discussion. We have to be creators: script writers, producers, directors…

I have just recently become a mother and I would like to think that my daughter, when exposed to adult cinema in her adolescence, will receive positive messages about her sexuality, with feminine values and points of view represented. I do not want her sex education to be explained by the likes of Rocco, Nacho, Marc Dorcel, Private, Penthouse… I am not trying to impose any kind of feminist censorship on porn; these directors will undoubtedly continue to express their point of view of sexuality, which I accept and respect, I only want that it not be the only point of view expressed. I vote for a porn full of a diversity of opinions.

These days, whether we like it or not, we live in a “pornified” society. Porn has a huge presence on the internet, it has entered the mass media, it has come out of the closet it was once hidden away in. In this context, it is highly important that women are critical of the phenomenon. The values that are shown in porn must be continuously analysed and questioned.

During the explosion of the feminist movement in the 60s and 70s, sexist values, perpetuated by film and advertising, were criticised. Ladies, today we must do the same with adult cinema. We cannot ignore it, thinking that it is not important, that it is just a thing for men to bide their time in private. Because although that may have been the case, what they see and learn from porn affects us profoundly in our daily lives as women. Many ideas of feminine sexuality, in the absence or scarcity of other influences, come from porn.

I believe that if women participate in the discussion of pornography, we have an incredible opportunity to explain our sexuality, in an explicit and graphic way. What better way do we have to help men understand something, we all know, very often, they just don’t quite get?


Erika Lust