Filmmaker Erika Lust: I Want to Bring Equality to the Porn Industry

INTERVIEWED BY TILLY ROBERTS

Erika Lust is a multi-award-winning filmmaker and a prominent leader of the feminist pornography movement. Erika runs three online cinema sites: XConfessions, Lust Cinema and Else Cinema. Each film is produced ethically with high levels of respect for everyone involved in the process, with a team of creatives and actors who share her values and criticisms of mainstream pornography. By capturing the female gaze, she aims to create porn films that centre female desire in order to bring equality to the porn industry.

How are you transforming the stereotypes within porn?

I started my business twenty years ago because I was tired of porn focused on athletic performance, stereotypical beauty standards and emotionless storylines. Likewise, I wanted to prove that we can represent sex in which people of any gender are treated as equal sexual collaborators.

Sex performers are usually categorised on the free tube sites by their racial identity, age, body type, ability or demographic and are generally reduced to stereotypes. I want viewers to appreciate the film for the performance as opposed to the physical attributions of the performer. Similarly, I want performers to be able to exist outside the physical boundaries of their appearance, gender or skin colour.

We have a big crew with all the departments needed to create a cinematic quality film, and all sex scenes in our films are shot in freestyle mode – that’s what makes them more natural and relatable. I don’t want me or the guest directors to provide performers with a list of actions they have to perform (as per the usual procedure in many productions in the industry).

Whether we are working with experienced performers or newcomers, we get to know them well in advance through Zoom calls, or we meet them in person if we can. We always make sure they are 18+, have had their own sexual experiences already, are sex-positive and aligned with our values, and are 100% enthusiastic about being part of the project.

When you pay for your porn, what does it mean for the actors, the directors and the crew? How exactly does it work to change the possibilities of the medium?

When you pay for your porn, you are giving it value. You are supporting the people who do it, and you are sending the message that you want to watch porn that is made safely, with quality and diversity. As in many other fields, consumers are ultimately a part of the industry.

More money, more evenly distributed within the industry, will provide space for innovative new directors and allow production companies to focus on quality rather than simply having an economy of scale.

There are new varied companies producing responsibly, but they’re not as visible as the likes of Pornhub. How has social media affected the industry?

Social media has simultaneously opened new doors and created new barriers to change.

On the one hand, the stigma attached to people working in the industry is real. The porn industry is still heavily misunderstood and mistreated by society and media outlets. It’s a never-ending battle just to exist online and promote our businesses. Social media censorship is a huge problem. Other women+ in the industry and I continuously have non-explicit photos and hashtags removed, and accounts deleted or shadow banned.

On the other hand, the new wave of content subscription services such as OnlyFans allows adult performers to be more empowered than ever before. They can create content in the safety of their homes, with the people they want to work with, setting their own rules. Thanks to these platforms, many performers (especially women+) are less dependent on porn studios and feel more empowered to call out predatory behaviour from companies, directors or agents.

How have you tried to transform the stigma attached to the sex industry?

I follow an ethical production process, both in terms of what we produce and how we produce it. In simple terms, this means we care about the performers’ welfare. It is adult cinema where consent has been given for every part of the film from all parties involved. This means consent regarding the sexual acts being performed, but also the rate of pay they are receiving. Personal limits and boundaries are respected, and the performer can stop shooting at any moment if they feel uncomfortable.

Today, I am happy to see new ethically oriented, female-led adult productions rising within the industry and showing a whole new spectrum of sexualities while going beyond old-fashioned gender stereotypes, racism, and fetishisation perpetrated by a massive amount of ‘free’ porn.

There are more women and LGBTQ+ people in the industry now than ever before, showing their perspectives on sex and sexuality and standing proud next to their brilliant work. However, this is still an androcentric industry; we have a long way to go yet.

Yes, we do have a long way to go. Especially when it comes to sex education in schools and parents having conversations about porn at home. That’s where we all start looking for more information about sex.

Yes, young people are curious! And when they don’t have access to the age-appropriate sex education that they deserve, they are left to learn about sex through what they find online. That’s why, when it comes to the influence of ‘free’ online porn on young people’s perceptions and expectations of sex and relationships, I prefer to embrace the neutral perspective of porn literacy. Rather than promoting a ‘proporn’ or ‘anti-porn’ attitude, I feel it’s more urgent for adults to give the younger generation the tools to be critical and aware of what they’re watching.

Porn can confuse teens about how sex connects with sensuality and relationships. It can be damaging because it often displays sex completely separate from emotion. Most porn on the free tube sites doesn’t teach women how to communicate their needs and desires, and it doesn’t teach men to ask for consent. Plus, everyone tends to look very similar – slim women with big boobs, muscly men with big penises, and trans and nonbinary people being fetishised for their attributes.

This is what led me to create my non-profit project The Porn Conversation and the age-appropriate conversation guides featured in it, which aim to help families and educators to lead comprehensive sex ed conversations and curricula.

Porn and shame often go hand-in-hand, even as adults. What has the taboo nature of porn meant for the producers and consumers?

Porn often sidesteps scrutiny in public debate because we’re unwilling to talk about it in public, which reinforces the heavy stigma attached to it. Mainstream media and institutions are almost never willing to talk about porn or confront it in its real inner complexities, controversies and innovations. And when they do, they tend to talk about it as if it’s just one big, seedy thing. But just like any other big industry, there are different businesses doing different things within the porn industry. Alternatives do exist!

Porn mirrors society and our perception of sex, gender, women+ and non-conforming identities, so we should be conscious about the type of pornography we consume. If a person doesn’t label themselves sexist or homophobic, why should they consume sexist and homophobic, fetishising porn? We seek out good food and good TV shows – why should porn be any different?

We have accepted a cheap, narrow-minded, quick gratification version of porn for too long, and it’s time for it to change. We can take adult cinema back to the ‘70s when it was political, highly narrative, artistic – or all of those things together! Porn can open your mind about sexuality and help you to discover new desires and fantasies. It can help you discover your body and how to give pleasure to it and to others. It can also be useful for young people growing up with kinks and desires not shared by the people around them; it can show them that they are not alone and that their desires aren’t abnormal.

I watched The Principles of Pleasure recently. I could see this series revolutionising sex ed in schools. Do you think something like that could happen?

Pleasure and sex are still mainly seen in our society as something that we must protect our children from. Maybe that’s why proper sex education is still lacking pretty much everywhere.

We need instead to open the conversation about sex in the public debate. Being sex-positive is about cultivating an open, accepting and progressive attitude towards sex and sexuality while feeling good about your erotic self and proudly inhabiting your body. All of this can only have positive effects on people!

We, as parents and trusted adults for our children, have a responsibility to provide a space where they can feel that we can – and we will – talk about sex. Yes, there are parents who are having ‘The Talk’ at home and some schools and educators who are doing their best in providing sex ed (when it is even allowed). However, it’s usually focused on the dangers of sex and reproduction – remember the old story of the ‘birds and the bees’? – and it usually leaves out the topic of porn.

Our children deserve to be heard in their natural curiosity about sex. We need to open up the conversation with them about what equal and consenting sex is, just as much as to give them the tools to differentiate between the types of porn they can stumble upon online. ✦