I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but the Feminist Sexpert certainly has. Most of the porn films considered all-time classics are not precisely female friendly. And that is the understatement of the day, the month, the year, the millen…–that’s just a really big understatement!
Let’s take a look at the standing roster of motions pictures considered porn classics:
Behind the Green Door: She gets kidnapped.
Debbie Does Dallas: Teen girls sell their bodies to old, pervy, sleazy men.
Deep Throat: A woman discovers she can only achieve climax by giving bj’s. Really? On a more serious note, star Linda Lovelace lodged assault and abuse allegations against her husband/manager and others involved in the film.
Pretty Peaches: An innocent young woman sustains a head injury and loses her memory. While wandering around looking for help, she is raped repeatedly. This is a comedy.
Water Power: Rape. Torture. Murder. Mayhem. And it’s supposed to be hot.
The Devil and Miss Jones: She dies and goes to hell.
As actress Joan Van Ark said on the brilliant Diane English show Women of the House, on an episode that addressed the treatment of women in Hollywood films, “I’ve played a woman who was stalked, a woman who was raped, a woman who was kidnapped, car-jacked, high-jacked, and sky-jacked. And frankly, I mean, I’m tired!”
“But Feminist Sexpert!” You might be saying at this point. “Everybody knows that feminist porn didn’t exist before Candida Royalle directed her first film in 1985.”
Well there’s a reason that Royalle, who directed 15 femme porn classics before sadly passing away in 2015, is granted the lioness’ share of credit for the inception of the femme porn movement. And that reason is, she friggin’ rocked. From comedies like Stud Hunters to heartfelt romances like My Surrender (one of the few porns that makes me cry every time I watch it, and not out of terror or disgust–“Turn it off!”), this woman was a skillful director who made love stories out of sex stories–in addition to her role as a woman who supported and encouraged other women and minorities in the adult industry. Myself included. Yet to trace the true origins of feminist porn, we must make like the Hot Tub Time Machine peeps and journey back a full decade before the premiere of Candida Royalle’s debut film, Femme. We’re talking BC on the timeline–Before Candida!
In 1972, the first porn film made by and for women debuted on the underground film scene. Goldenrod, the story of a handsome Casanova who learns valuable lessons about how a treat a lady–all while satisfying as many women as humanly possible and then some. “Back in those days, there was a lot of talk about women getting into explicit films and making feminist porn. It was the first time the feminist movement had thought about this,” Webb’s ex-husband, filmmaker Charles Desantos, told The Rialto Report (https://www.therialtoreport.com/2020/11/15/charles-desantos/). “So we decided to make a film from a woman’s perspective, and she directed it and actually used her own name. It turned into quite a thing. It was shot in 16 mm, and it had a feminist angle to it. We called it ‘Goldenrod.’”
In an interview that Webb conducted with The San Francisco Examiner in 1973 (https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/RR-The_San_Francisco_Examiner_Sun__Dec_23__1973_.jpg), she described Goldenrod as a moral film that also happened to be arousing. And while lost for years, this one of a kind production is now available in the Dragon Art collection through Something Weird Video.
Ah, but what about lesbian porn? Well the fact is that lesbian sex acts have been recorded for film since the days of black and white stag film loops; yet they never were shot by virtue of the female gaze. This all changed in 1974, when indie filmmaker Barbara Hammer created a work of motion picture art called Dyketactics.
“Hammer’s breakthrough work, Dyketactics (1974), is an experimental film that features more than 100 shots in just over four minutes, with images superimposed on top of one another,” reported Art News. “Hammer often described the work as a depiction of lesbian sex from a lesbian point-of-view and positioned it as filmmaking about women devoid of the ever-present male gaze.” https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/barbara-hammer-dead-79-12157/ Into the ’80s came a smattering of films made by and for lesbians, with Tiger Rose Distributing releasing titles such as Where There’s Smoke and Fantasy Dancer, and Exotic in Nature; and Fatale Media coming up with gems like Suburban Dykes and BurLEZk (lesbian striptease).
“Fatale Media — the company that released the film in question — was born in 1984 with an explicitly defined mission to “reflect the feminist right for [women’s] control over our bodies, thereby promoting female sexual autonomy,” wrote Marcus Dowling in the article On “Suburban Dykes,” And The Advent of Sublimely Sexy Sexual Awareness. “When a suburban couple explore phone sex and BDSM via an escort service to spice up their sexual experience, that’s well within the scope and range of Fatale’s stated aims.” (https://marcuskdowling.medium.com/on-suburban-dykes-and-the-advent-of-sublimely-sexy-sexual-awareness-6017106c5e0a)
Swinging back over to the other side of the spectrum, we saw our first feminist male porn hunk in 1978. And no, don’t even think I’m going to say John Holmes. For while he was the first household name male porn star, his actions on and off the screen were anything but feminist. No, the gentleman of which I speak is Jesse Chacan, a stunningly gorgeous Native American actor who also reigned as Mr. Nude USA (Question: Do they still host such a competition? And if so, why oh why is the Feminist Sexpert not a judge?) Also notable as the first Native American actor to portray a Native American character in his films, Chacan is known in particular for his star turn in Deep Roots, a 1978 feature renowned for its tender love scenes and its generous shots of Chacan’s flawless body. Chacan’s image is featured prominently in the film’s cover art, and his name appears above the title–virtually unheard of for that time, or for this one for that matter.
This flick also holds the dubious distinction of being one of the few directed by a pretend woman; indeed, credited director Lisa Barr is actually Joseph Bardo. Oh well, this movie still rules; thanks to Jesse, and to Lisa/Joe!
The first video magazine for women was–of course!–Playgirl On the Air, a Playgirl Magazine video series that debuted in 1984. Featuring filmed centerfold shoots, interviews with celebrities such as Mark Harmon and Sybil Danning, and softcore sex scenes shot from a woman’s point of view, the series veers from the adorable (the volumes feature adult cartoons, and one includes a trailer for a filmed Tom Jones concert) to the chic–with a sexy music video displaying music and production values ahead of its time. And if you choose not to fast forward through the interviews to get to the centerfolds, you’ll hear some empowering messages from Sybil Danning about the importance of “sheroes” on the big screen.
The inaugural male stripper tape takes the form of the Chippendales: Tall Dark and Handsome, an entertaining party tape that shows the signature hunks of the Chippendales dance troupe to their very hottest effect. Within a framing story that finds a trio of fun-loving women taking in the show, we see several choreographed striptease routines and fantasy sequences.
A couple of cool trivia facts about this movie: It features Chippendales legend Michael Rapp (the one they always sent out to do talk shows), action star Deron Michael McBee, and XXX porn stud Colt Steele. Comic Maureen Murphy (a popular performer on the Johnny Carson show) and comedy star Judy Landers stand out among the gals. Another factoid: Just about every video store in the ’80s and ’90s featured this title in the adult section–because although it’s not remotely hardcore, the film was the only widely available sexy type tape for women at that time. Out of every single adult section, we generally got one friggin’ tape–and if it wasn’t this, it was the Sean Bean version of Lady Chatterley’s Lover.
The title of the first romance novel committed to adult film is somewhat up for debate. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, director/screenwriter Victoria Arnelle brought a series of filmed romances to the screen, complete with gorgeous covers that likened book jackets and extremely hot male leads. Oh, the women are cute too. And while Arnelle’s work is novel and interesting, with some original plotlines and dialogue, I’m sad to say that each of these titles features themes not at all at home in feminist erotica. We see heroines kidnapped, slapped, and sometimes forgiving of abusive lovers. Also, they break the girl code by messing with attached men–even their own sisters’! Vicky, WTF? Still, we must acknowledge the effort to produce a romantic feature for a female audience.
As far as true literary adaptions, I happily credit the amazing 1993 softcore feature Cabin Fever with being the first feminist romance story realised on film–and beautifully so. Based on an erotic story featured in Lonnie Barbach’s Erotic interludes, Cabin Fever is truly a thing of beauty–and oh so hot. Lonnie Barbach just may have been the original Feminist Sexpert, with her books lauded as having a positive impact on women’s sexual expression. Bringing her words and images to the screen was director Deborah Shames, the first female softcore director. This older woman/younger man love story is both tender and thrilling, sexy and sensitive, and features a gorgeous leading man whose character shines through with uncommon sensitivity.
My absolute, all time favorite softcore series has to be Love Scenes, a collection of four videos geared toward the visualized fulfillment of women’s sexual fantasies. Director Ron Lawson cast Playgirl models, male exotic dancers, and top tier male models alongside strong, glamorous actresses in a host of female-geared fantasies.
This series scored countless good reviews and AVN rewards, and remains pretty much unprecedented. Featured fantasies include a male model seducing a female photographer, a pool boy charming the lady of the house, a dancer ‘auditioning’ for a female director, etc. Each interlude is softly and tastefully shot, with lingering shots of the male body and lots of tender foreplay. Even cooler, the content of Love Scenes was determined by a female review panel.
And speaking of unprecedented–I’ll conclude this with a look at the introductory feature from the Godmother of Femme Porn: Ms. Candida Royalle herself.
Her 1985 debut feature was indeed titled Femme, and contained a series of vignettes capturing the essence of women’s sexual fantasies. A housewife dreams up an encounter with her favorite soap opera star, a woman makes it with two hunks in an art gallery, etc.
Both tasteful and tawdry, this is a beautiful film–and girl, it sure did start something!
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Featured Image: Candida Royalle from Femme Productions.
