#the part ‘I dream I chop / all the penises off- the ones that / keep coming through the walls’
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from The Carrying by Ada Limón
#the part ‘I dream I chop / all the penises off- the ones that / keep coming through the walls’#reminds me of the scenes in Repulsion (1965)#where hands come out of the walls in the apartment hallway to grope Catherine Deneuve’s character#my posts#poetry
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The night after, I dream I chop
all the penises off, the ones that
keep coming through the walls.
Tied in sweat-wet sheets, I wake
aching, how I’ve longed for touch
for so much of my bodied time.
In the shower later, I notice new
layers I’ve grown, softness love tosses
you after years of streetlights alone.
I will never harm you, your brilliant
skin I rub against in the night,
still, part of me is haunted—
a shadow baying inside me
who wants to snap her hind leg
back, buck the rider, follow
that fugitive call into oblivion.
-Ada Limón, Full Gallop, from The Carrying
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Okay guys buckle up because I forgot to update Serena’s adventures last week and this one’s game has been amazing too. It’s three pages in word worth of text, you’ve been warned.
Last week:
We got to the nearest town in our way north to a Baroness' lands. Royce the human warlock knows her and apparently has some kind of deal (and respect to a point) this woman. The plan is to go there so they can do their business, tell her about the giants and dragons we saw and then continuing our quest to recovering his and our cleric's lost years of youth.
We arrive, a guard from a prominent order greets us and points us to the two inns in town. After chatting a bit about how things are here, we go to the good inn. There, we find our new bard YAAASS. His name is Justin Keis. Read it again. Yes. It's a pun. I love him already. Justin was talking to the bartender and she was being racist, so Nayah the human paladin stood up for him, and then the rest of the party just came down to the woman. Justin is a tiefling, btw! So, we obviously decided she didn't deserve our money! We went to the bad inn instead xD It smelled bad, everything was sticky and the bartender was an asshole, but at least he was like that to everybody and not just the weirdly colored, horned ones. There, we find our other new companion. His name is Elarel and he's a sea elf? Or something like that? An elf but like... green xD
Somehow we end up telling the man about what happened, he runs outta the place and we're left there with our super awful stews while we hear how people are freaking out. Of course, the boss of the previous guard enters the inn shortly after and we tell him again about the giants in the sky. Bit of time passes, we go to the small market and learn about ships not being able to go fishing because of the pirates. They have to buy food from nearby towns and everyone is misserable. I bought and stiletto though B) and Molk the lizzardfolk bought a big fish just to use the bone. Uro, his caracal companion, had a feast xD Then Royce bought some new clothes for the visit to the Baroness and I can't remember what else.
Anyway, we then go the beach and of course it turned into an anime beach episode. But like, with nudity and obscenity. First of, we made a little fire and Justin started playing his lute. Alana the half-elf clerid took off her clothes and ran into the water after a bit of meditation. Royce took off his clothes, swam and then started running after Uro with no success. But just imagine a 60 year old man, naked, running after a fucking caracal in a beach xDDD Meanwhile Molk was enjying some scuba diving and seeing THINGS, but we don't know what. Nayah joined us later in the water and Alana used thunderwave to create huge waves! It was cool, Serena swam along with the big wave and then did the little mermaid with her hair, looking just like one. I'm very proud of that. I also used shape water to create penises and boobs in the air with water xDDD After that I ran out of the water and rolled over the sand until I reached Justin and joined him with my flute. It was all very chill then. Last thing we did was making our own stew with potatoes and fish, not very good but better than the inn's lol. Then went to said inn, drank a bit, saw Royce having a fight with a random dude and then basically going to bed!
THE NEXT DAY aka today's game:
We wake up, take our horses and head out of this town promising to our dear Nayah we'll come back to help with the pirates. We also heard there were some trouble with missing people and attacks in the road we had to take up north, so we tell her we'll investigate. Later that day we set camp and look around for clues on big animals or something that could be attacking travelers... turns out, a fucking undead demon thing shows up. I don't know the name of the creature, but it was like a skelleton dog with fire instead of meat or furr. He saw Nayah, so we had to fight. During the fight we got lucky and the thing didn't touch us. We could destroy it and see how the palading precisely got the HDYWDT and it was awesome, she sank her axe into the creature's skull, it broke in half and then the entire thing turned into ashes. From them, we found a medallion with the symbol of the Lord of the Hells or something like that. Royce wanted to keep it but Nayah talked him into not wearing the symbol of a forbidden and perverted faith that was based in hurting others. So, we decide to not tell this to anyone, unlike the giant-dragons thingy in the previous town, and maybe only tell the mayor/person in power in the next place. We agree to shut our mouths and go to sleep.
Next day, we take our things and horses and ride to the next town, a happier, richer place. Less inhabitants but many farming lands. A guard stops us to say hello and ask our business and we're told they only had problems with outlaws. And something about the mayor but I didn't really get what's the deal with that woman :/ Anyway, the guard kindly points us towards the two taverns in town and we go to the less expensive one. Still kinda expensive for our little money looool. There, Royce tries to pick a fight with another random man but the owner of the inn was there and threw a dagger to the table where they were almost getting into the fight. They stop, obviously, and we go talk to the woman. She was an adventurer too once, and she sees us as adventurers to be. The woman asks us what we want, we talk about drinks and rooms, and then Royce asks for rumors. Justin said he wanted to play in the little scenario so I told the woman we would perform the greatest show she's ever seen! So, while Royce and Alana kinda exchange rumors with the owner, I start thinking about what the hell I will do. Now, I'm very sorry for myself, Serena and you guys, because I was NOT paying attention to them talking. My anxiety went over the roof and all I could do was trying to plan a good show by myself. The thing is, Justin's player was trying to get wifi from a plaza outdoors because he doesn't have it nstalled in his new students' rooms yet! So we could only communicate during his turns very briefly and through text, that made it more difficult to share info and plan shit. WELL, I can only remember that at some point Nayah and Royce were talking about the Baroness and gods and being a good person?? Oh, and that this woman apparently may have deals with pirates, yes, that's why Nayah was kinda angry and wanted to really talk to the Baroness. If this woman has a lot of farming land, produces a lot of food, and then has deals with pirates to prevent other towns from fishing aka getting their own food and way of living... they'll depend or her and her product, thus making her more rich sinc they have to buy food from her lands.
That's all I can gather :/ I may ask in private another day...
After that, more people arrive to drink after the day’s work, including the mayor and some friends of the innkeeper!
When they all had their talk time, the DM gave us bards the chance to describe what we do. And here goes our performance, I'm very proud of it, I had ideas and the dice really blessed us tonight :__) First, Justin starts playing the lute from the bar where we were drinking. I follow him for a few steps and then rise my voice so I'm heard “Ladies, gentlemen, dear audience here in our beloved Chatty Troll (the tavern lol)! Tonight you'll be witnesses of a very peculiar performance from the hands of the most singular Justin Keis – give the man an applause!- and yours truly, Serena of Shalesteps!” /applauds to herself as well. The people were responding but not too interested yet. “Look closely, and don't miss a thing... WATCH THIS!”. I start tapping the scenario at the rythm of Justin's lute, clapping to encourage the audience to do te same. When I'm sure I have their attention I grab my two daggers and brand new stiletto, I play with them, throw them in the air, juggling while tapping the floor. Justin's music gets more intense, and so I conjure and illusion of an extra dagger right in the air. The tavern was IMPRESSED, people started cheering and clapping on their own. Justin made the music go more and more intense, and reaching the climax I put the blades away, put out my flute with some accrobatic moves and start playing with my companion. Then, I cast cloud of daggers and the audience GASPS, everyone surprised, applauding, going crazy for us! A kid tried to touch the daggers but I stepped in front of them and just started walking around the area to prevent any other curious hands that would probably be chopped off :) Justin decides to stop the intense music, so I puff away the daggers and let him do his more peaceful, quieter melody now. He starts playing something soft and beautiful, singing along, then I accompany the melody with my own flute. We play a bit more and when he signs me with his head, we both stop at the same time and bow.
EVERYONE WAS GOING CRAZY ABOUT IT. We had such good luck with the dice, dudes, some nat20s, some beautiful high rolls, we were LIT SHIT this evening. The people at the inn threw us money to the scenario, we got asked things, the innkeeper invited us to drinks and we could stay there for free, FREE! Yassss I'm so proud of us :__) This is a fucking dream, you guys.
The best part is, Serena saw two kids trying to play with knives and she went there and taught them things, just like when she was a little rascal of a girl and some circus guy taught her about throwing daggers ;__;
After that, Royce got into a fight, lost, we drank aaaaand end of the game! Most of us got drunk and woke up with a hangover, but that's a problem for next Tuesday. Aaaah I'm so hyped I can't sleep xD We had a BLAST! Bar fighting, performance, an undead demon dog thing from hell!
Best party ever, guys, I'm thrilled.
More next week! Sorry it's such a long read lol. Love you guys <3
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Actress Christabel Ekeh shows it all again in new photos
Christabel Ekeh is not backing down anytime soon in releasing nude photos just for some cheap attention.
In news photos on her Instagram page, the actress bares it all once again for free viewing.
Just some flowerlike pinkish and purple cloth covered those parts.
See photos below:
Leaked video: Christabel Ekeh and Jonny Bravo romancing
CelebritiesBuzz.co has chanced on a video of actress…
View On WordPress
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Filmmaker Believes Porn By Women Is ‘Necessary For An Equal Society’
Warning: This post contains nudity, erotic fiction and other forms of adult content.
XConfessions
A still from the erotic short film “Eat With … Me.”
“I had a crush on him from the moment I first saw him on television,” the anonymous Foodie1 writes in her short work of erotic fiction “Eat With … Me.” “I just couldn’t get enough of his arms, steadily chopping or softly kneading. I was jealous of the way he held a knife. I wanted to become the bread dough under his hands.”
Now imagine: A camera zooms in on a dimly lit dining room somewhere in Barcelona, where a woman in a red dress sits at an elaborately set table illuminated by candlelight. The chef, a bearded man in an apron, greets her in Spanish and proceeds to serve up a bounty of gourmet dishes roasted chicken, oysters and decadent puffs of an unidentified cream. She eats, slowly and luxuriously, using her hands when a fork won’t do. The chef assists, feeding her eagerly, letting his hand linger in her mouth. And then, to make a short story shorter, they have sex hungrily and playfully, like how you might make love to a gifted cook who had just tenderly prepared you a delectable, multi-course meal.
Foodie1’s fantasy was brought to life thanks to XConfessions, a crowdsourced erotic project founded by the Barcelona-based feminist adult filmmaker known as Erika Lust. Foodie1 was one of many internet users from around the world to submit a sexual fantasy scenario to the website. All of the submissions are published on XConfessions’ website, and every month, Lust selects two written confessions from the bunch to make into cinematic shorts. The resulting films are more “adult cinema” than “adult entertainment,” skimping neither on artistic integrity nor sex appeal.
XConfessions
Another still from “Eat With … Me.”
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Lust is determined to overhaul the landscape of adult film. She created XConfessions, she told The Huffington Post, to build a space for “real films with real sex” that offer viewers porn that’s original, artistic and hot without trite and tacky tropes like cheesy music, bad sofas and laughable moans.
Since starting the project in 2013, Lust has ushered the most private of pipe dreams onto the most public of platforms the internet. She oversees the entire selection and film production process, with the help of a 90-percent-female staff.
Born in 1977 as Erika Hallqvist, Lust grew up in Stockholm, Sweden, a city fabled to be what she described as a “feminist utopia.” Though sex wasn’t a topic discussed at home, Lust had an overwhelmingly productive sex education program at school where, separated by gender, students’ unbridled curiosity was met with openness and maturity.
“I learned everything at school,” she recalled. “Age-appropriate sex education at school tackled everything from petting to consent, respect and emotions. I was taught that sex can be more than physical; it can involve emotions and connection.”
To this day, that sex-positive sentiment inspires much of Lust’s vision the idea that sex is also a visceral exploration of bodily sensations.
Erika Lust
Feminist adult filmmaker Erika Lust pictured with an actress.
Lust has a hazy memory of buying her first dirty mag at a supermarket as a teenager seeking beer. Her first significant encounter with erotic content was seeing Jean-Jacques Annaud’s coming-of-age film “L’amant,” an adaptation of Marguerite Duras’ autobiography.
“It was really a revelation,” Lust recalled. “The protagonist becomes an adult through sex and an unconventional love story, and this is completely shown from her point of view. This girl is intelligent and adventurous, and she is not ashamed of her blossoming sexuality.”
It wasn’t just the complexity of the protagonist that intrigued Lust, but also the way cinematic artistry enhanced the sense of passion. This realization would go on to influence her own films, both those created through XConfessions and those not. Whether the parties include vampires, vikings, cheerleaders or aliens from alternate dimensions, Lust depicts their lovemaking with a careful eye for aesthetics.
XConfessions
A still from “Meanwhile in a Parallel Universe.”
One XConfessions short called “Parallel Dimensions” takes place in a pristine, otherworldly habitat, accentuated by candy-colored shapes to resemble some sort of erotic jungle gym in a sci-fi universe. In the short, two women eat Play-Doh sushi rolls off the body of a naked man who rests rigid as furniture. His crotch is covered by a frilly vagina-like overlay reminiscent of a Judy Chicago sculpture. The women proceed, together, to have sex with the human table, who clearly derives his pleasure from theirs. It’s inspired by fan fiction from an XConfessions user who goes by lovertoy.
“Lately I’ve been having this recurring fantasy, imagining that I was a piece of furniture … Something about the idea of being an object, used by my sexy owner, turns me on a lot … Secretly, she knows I can feel her, but she doesn’t care about my satisfaction. For her I am just there to serve, to please, in whichever way she desires … In a parallel universe, I would exist only as her table.”
Visually, the short is innovative and intoxicating. The sugary palette and fantastical environment are as sensually stimulating as the nude bodies on view, all of which comes together for a hedonistic experience that hits hard at the senses.
XConfessions
A still from “Meanwhilein a Parallel Universe.”
Adult cinema can and should employ cinematic values just as much as any other film; that is one of the foundational beliefs of Lust’s work.
The sentiment mirrors something filmmaker Anna Biller, director of “The Love Witch,” expressed in a recent interview with HuffPost. Discussing the importance of lush aesthetics to a pleasurable cinematic viewing experience pleasurable, of course, being the operative word Biller said that “film itself is kind of a sexual fantasy.”
“Cinema is a spell that is being cast over the audience. You want to keep them in a trance,” she continued. She argued that, especially for women, visual stimulation isn’t just sparked by breasts and butts, but by soft fabrics, sexy lingerie, a tasty snack and, sure, a good ass.
Another one of Lust’s missions is to prioritize female pleasure in front of the camera. But her attention to artistic detail ensures maximal gratification for the female viewer, as well a viewer who would likely not be compelled to climax on a busted couch in an otherwise empty room.
Biller goes on to describe “the female gaze” as a narcissistic gaze involving, in her words, “looking at other women in films and wanting to emulate those women.” But while that notion intrigues her, Lust’s preferred definition of the female gaze is more in line with that of “Transparent” creator Jill Soloway.
As Lust reiterated: “’What is the male gaze? It’s pretty much everything. Everything you have ever seen. It’s most TV shows; it’s all movies…’ On the contrary, then, the female gaze is simply everything you never saw before!”
XConfessions
A still from “His Was First in My Ass.”
What haven’t we seen before? Or, at least, what haven’t we seen enough?
The answer is a diverse range of bodies represented on-screen diverse in ethnicity, body type, age and gender. Sex that looks, well, like sex, with all the awkward fumbling, meandering foreplay and accidental body noises. Also, naturally, imagination and eccentricity the qualities that remind us why our sexual aspirations are called “fantasies,” after all.
In other words, mainstream porn needs more multiplicity. It’s this privileging of more-ness, of weirdness, of difference, that pries porn from its phallocentric rut. This was more or less the idea communicated by film theorist Linda Williams in her book Hard Core: Power, Pleasure, and the “Frenzy of the Visible,” one of the texts that first inspired Lust to pursue adult film.
“Hardcore pornography is not phallic because it shows penises,” Williams writes. ‘It is phallic because in its exhibition of penises it presumes to know, to possess an adequate expression of the truth of ‘sex’ as if sex were as unitary as the phallus presumes itself to be. While the physiology of sex is not likely to change, its gendered meanings can. In attacking the penis rather than the phallus, anti-pornography feminism evades the real sources of masculine power.”
However, porn isn’t, and has never been, just one thing. To imagine it is would be to treat the field of pornography as monolithically or phallocentrically as a bad porno. As porn professor Constance Penley previously told HuffPost: “I never talk about ‘Pornography,’ capital P. It’s always lowercase ‘pornographies.’ What I’ve come to understand as even ‘mainstream pornography’ is so complex and contradictory and rich and varied.”
XConfessions
A still from “I Wish I Was a Lesbian.”
For Lust, the quality of pornography took a turn for the worse with the advent of VHS tapes in the 1980s. Suddenly anyone with a camcorder could produce their very own porno. However, like with many manufactured goods, when pornography was industrialized and commercialized, quality suffered as a result.
“Thousands of men began shooting porn at the lowest price, seeing it as a business,” Lust said.
Fast forward a little to the advent of the internet, which disrupted the ways we made, dispersed and digested porn. While the VHS, Lust argues, resulted in a largely retrograde shift in cinematic quality, the internet had the reverse effect. The digital sphere provided less-seen couples, bodies and fantasies a place to call home.
“A big part of the porn industry is still making billions out of sexist, degrading and racist representations of ‘sex,’” Lust said. “However, there are new creators that are showing another discourse in new platforms. They don’t seek money exclusively, but aim to create adult cinema that has the power to liberate.”
Lust is doing her part to push the trajectory of porn toward this more radically experimental direction. What better way to amplify the pornographic topography by taking advantage of the internet’s expansiveness and crowdsourcing erotic fantasies, ensuring no two are alike?
XConfessions
A still from “Sadistic Trainer.”
Aside from her work on XConfessions, Lust recently released a callout for women filmmakers interested in stepping into erotic territory. She is offering a total budget of approximately $260,000 to produce 10 short films from the eyes and minds of women, preferably those with experience in film, though not in porn. She’d like to see more women in leading roles.
“My goal is [to support] more women in leading roles as directors, producers and scriptwriters in adult cinema,” Lust said. “I really think true control over pleasure in porn comes from getting to make active decisions about how it’s produced and presented. We need to make explicit films that are sex-positive, so young people and the coming generations can see sex in a light that is realistic and pleasurable and aren’t only exposed to one version of the story.”
Through her work on XConfessions and beyond, Lust is doing her part to bid a fond farewell to dull, tired and phallocentric porn.
“It is imperative that women tell their own story and show their perspective and views on sex and sexuality,” she said. “We are half of the world’s population. The female gaze is necessary for an equal society for the benefit of all genders and sexualities.”
XConfessions
A still from “Pansexuals.”
Source: http://allofbeer.com/filmmaker-believes-porn-by-women-is-necessary-for-an-equal-society/
from All of Beer https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2017/12/30/filmmaker-believes-porn-by-women-is-necessary-for-an-equal-society/
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Text
Filmmaker Believes Porn By Women Is ‘Necessary For An Equal Society’
Warning: This post contains nudity, erotic fiction and other forms of adult content.
XConfessions
A still from the erotic short film “Eat With … Me.”
“I had a crush on him from the moment I first saw him on television,” the anonymous Foodie1 writes in her short work of erotic fiction “Eat With … Me.” “I just couldn’t get enough of his arms, steadily chopping or softly kneading. I was jealous of the way he held a knife. I wanted to become the bread dough under his hands.”
Now imagine: A camera zooms in on a dimly lit dining room somewhere in Barcelona, where a woman in a red dress sits at an elaborately set table illuminated by candlelight. The chef, a bearded man in an apron, greets her in Spanish and proceeds to serve up a bounty of gourmet dishes roasted chicken, oysters and decadent puffs of an unidentified cream. She eats, slowly and luxuriously, using her hands when a fork won’t do. The chef assists, feeding her eagerly, letting his hand linger in her mouth. And then, to make a short story shorter, they have sex hungrily and playfully, like how you might make love to a gifted cook who had just tenderly prepared you a delectable, multi-course meal.
Foodie1’s fantasy was brought to life thanks to XConfessions, a crowdsourced erotic project founded by the Barcelona-based feminist adult filmmaker known as Erika Lust. Foodie1 was one of many internet users from around the world to submit a sexual fantasy scenario to the website. All of the submissions are published on XConfessions’ website, and every month, Lust selects two written confessions from the bunch to make into cinematic shorts. The resulting films are more “adult cinema” than “adult entertainment,” skimping neither on artistic integrity nor sex appeal.
XConfessions
Another still from “Eat With … Me.”
Close
SUBSCRIBE TO & FOLLOW CULTURE SHIFT
Every Friday, HuffPost’s Culture Shift newsletter helps you figure out which books you should read, art you should check out, movies you should watch and music should listen to. Learn more
Newsletter
1.1 M
600 K
460 K
Podcast
Add us
Lust is determined to overhaul the landscape of adult film. She created XConfessions, she told The Huffington Post, to build a space for “real films with real sex” that offer viewers porn that’s original, artistic and hot without trite and tacky tropes like cheesy music, bad sofas and laughable moans.
Since starting the project in 2013, Lust has ushered the most private of pipe dreams onto the most public of platforms the internet. She oversees the entire selection and film production process, with the help of a 90-percent-female staff.
Born in 1977 as Erika Hallqvist, Lust grew up in Stockholm, Sweden, a city fabled to be what she described as a “feminist utopia.” Though sex wasn’t a topic discussed at home, Lust had an overwhelmingly productive sex education program at school where, separated by gender, students’ unbridled curiosity was met with openness and maturity.
“I learned everything at school,” she recalled. “Age-appropriate sex education at school tackled everything from petting to consent, respect and emotions. I was taught that sex can be more than physical; it can involve emotions and connection.”
To this day, that sex-positive sentiment inspires much of Lust’s vision the idea that sex is also a visceral exploration of bodily sensations.
Erika Lust
Feminist adult filmmaker Erika Lust pictured with an actress.
Lust has a hazy memory of buying her first dirty mag at a supermarket as a teenager seeking beer. Her first significant encounter with erotic content was seeing Jean-Jacques Annaud’s coming-of-age film “L’amant,” an adaptation of Marguerite Duras’ autobiography.
“It was really a revelation,” Lust recalled. “The protagonist becomes an adult through sex and an unconventional love story, and this is completely shown from her point of view. This girl is intelligent and adventurous, and she is not ashamed of her blossoming sexuality.”
It wasn’t just the complexity of the protagonist that intrigued Lust, but also the way cinematic artistry enhanced the sense of passion. This realization would go on to influence her own films, both those created through XConfessions and those not. Whether the parties include vampires, vikings, cheerleaders or aliens from alternate dimensions, Lust depicts their lovemaking with a careful eye for aesthetics.
XConfessions
A still from “Meanwhile in a Parallel Universe.”
One XConfessions short called “Parallel Dimensions” takes place in a pristine, otherworldly habitat, accentuated by candy-colored shapes to resemble some sort of erotic jungle gym in a sci-fi universe. In the short, two women eat Play-Doh sushi rolls off the body of a naked man who rests rigid as furniture. His crotch is covered by a frilly vagina-like overlay reminiscent of a Judy Chicago sculpture. The women proceed, together, to have sex with the human table, who clearly derives his pleasure from theirs. It’s inspired by fan fiction from an XConfessions user who goes by lovertoy.
“Lately I’ve been having this recurring fantasy, imagining that I was a piece of furniture … Something about the idea of being an object, used by my sexy owner, turns me on a lot … Secretly, she knows I can feel her, but she doesn’t care about my satisfaction. For her I am just there to serve, to please, in whichever way she desires … In a parallel universe, I would exist only as her table.”
Visually, the short is innovative and intoxicating. The sugary palette and fantastical environment are as sensually stimulating as the nude bodies on view, all of which comes together for a hedonistic experience that hits hard at the senses.
XConfessions
A still from “Meanwhilein a Parallel Universe.”
Adult cinema can and should employ cinematic values just as much as any other film; that is one of the foundational beliefs of Lust’s work.
The sentiment mirrors something filmmaker Anna Biller, director of “The Love Witch,” expressed in a recent interview with HuffPost. Discussing the importance of lush aesthetics to a pleasurable cinematic viewing experience pleasurable, of course, being the operative word Biller said that “film itself is kind of a sexual fantasy.”
“Cinema is a spell that is being cast over the audience. You want to keep them in a trance,” she continued. She argued that, especially for women, visual stimulation isn’t just sparked by breasts and butts, but by soft fabrics, sexy lingerie, a tasty snack and, sure, a good ass.
Another one of Lust’s missions is to prioritize female pleasure in front of the camera. But her attention to artistic detail ensures maximal gratification for the female viewer, as well a viewer who would likely not be compelled to climax on a busted couch in an otherwise empty room.
Biller goes on to describe “the female gaze” as a narcissistic gaze involving, in her words, “looking at other women in films and wanting to emulate those women.” But while that notion intrigues her, Lust’s preferred definition of the female gaze is more in line with that of “Transparent” creator Jill Soloway.
As Lust reiterated: “’What is the male gaze? It’s pretty much everything. Everything you have ever seen. It’s most TV shows; it’s all movies…’ On the contrary, then, the female gaze is simply everything you never saw before!”
XConfessions
A still from “His Was First in My Ass.”
What haven’t we seen before? Or, at least, what haven’t we seen enough?
The answer is a diverse range of bodies represented on-screen diverse in ethnicity, body type, age and gender. Sex that looks, well, like sex, with all the awkward fumbling, meandering foreplay and accidental body noises. Also, naturally, imagination and eccentricity the qualities that remind us why our sexual aspirations are called “fantasies,” after all.
In other words, mainstream porn needs more multiplicity. It’s this privileging of more-ness, of weirdness, of difference, that pries porn from its phallocentric rut. This was more or less the idea communicated by film theorist Linda Williams in her book Hard Core: Power, Pleasure, and the “Frenzy of the Visible,” one of the texts that first inspired Lust to pursue adult film.
“Hardcore pornography is not phallic because it shows penises,” Williams writes. ‘It is phallic because in its exhibition of penises it presumes to know, to possess an adequate expression of the truth of ‘sex’ as if sex were as unitary as the phallus presumes itself to be. While the physiology of sex is not likely to change, its gendered meanings can. In attacking the penis rather than the phallus, anti-pornography feminism evades the real sources of masculine power.”
However, porn isn’t, and has never been, just one thing. To imagine it is would be to treat the field of pornography as monolithically or phallocentrically as a bad porno. As porn professor Constance Penley previously told HuffPost: “I never talk about ‘Pornography,’ capital P. It’s always lowercase ‘pornographies.’ What I’ve come to understand as even ‘mainstream pornography’ is so complex and contradictory and rich and varied.”
XConfessions
A still from “I Wish I Was a Lesbian.”
For Lust, the quality of pornography took a turn for the worse with the advent of VHS tapes in the 1980s. Suddenly anyone with a camcorder could produce their very own porno. However, like with many manufactured goods, when pornography was industrialized and commercialized, quality suffered as a result.
“Thousands of men began shooting porn at the lowest price, seeing it as a business,” Lust said.
Fast forward a little to the advent of the internet, which disrupted the ways we made, dispersed and digested porn. While the VHS, Lust argues, resulted in a largely retrograde shift in cinematic quality, the internet had the reverse effect. The digital sphere provided less-seen couples, bodies and fantasies a place to call home.
“A big part of the porn industry is still making billions out of sexist, degrading and racist representations of ‘sex,’” Lust said. “However, there are new creators that are showing another discourse in new platforms. They don’t seek money exclusively, but aim to create adult cinema that has the power to liberate.”
Lust is doing her part to push the trajectory of porn toward this more radically experimental direction. What better way to amplify the pornographic topography by taking advantage of the internet’s expansiveness and crowdsourcing erotic fantasies, ensuring no two are alike?
XConfessions
A still from “Sadistic Trainer.”
Aside from her work on XConfessions, Lust recently released a callout for women filmmakers interested in stepping into erotic territory. She is offering a total budget of approximately $260,000 to produce 10 short films from the eyes and minds of women, preferably those with experience in film, though not in porn. She’d like to see more women in leading roles.
“My goal is [to support] more women in leading roles as directors, producers and scriptwriters in adult cinema,” Lust said. “I really think true control over pleasure in porn comes from getting to make active decisions about how it’s produced and presented. We need to make explicit films that are sex-positive, so young people and the coming generations can see sex in a light that is realistic and pleasurable and aren’t only exposed to one version of the story.”
Through her work on XConfessions and beyond, Lust is doing her part to bid a fond farewell to dull, tired and phallocentric porn.
“It is imperative that women tell their own story and show their perspective and views on sex and sexuality,” she said. “We are half of the world’s population. The female gaze is necessary for an equal society for the benefit of all genders and sexualities.”
XConfessions
A still from “Pansexuals.”
from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/filmmaker-believes-porn-by-women-is-necessary-for-an-equal-society/ from All of Beer https://allofbeercom.tumblr.com/post/169126251202
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Filmmaker Believes Porn By Women Is ‘Necessary For An Equal Society’
Warning: This post contains nudity, erotic fiction and other forms of adult content.
XConfessions
A still from the erotic short film “Eat With … Me.”
“I had a crush on him from the moment I first saw him on television,” the anonymous Foodie1 writes in her short work of erotic fiction “Eat With … Me.” “I just couldn’t get enough of his arms, steadily chopping or softly kneading. I was jealous of the way he held a knife. I wanted to become the bread dough under his hands.”
Now imagine: A camera zooms in on a dimly lit dining room somewhere in Barcelona, where a woman in a red dress sits at an elaborately set table illuminated by candlelight. The chef, a bearded man in an apron, greets her in Spanish and proceeds to serve up a bounty of gourmet dishes roasted chicken, oysters and decadent puffs of an unidentified cream. She eats, slowly and luxuriously, using her hands when a fork won’t do. The chef assists, feeding her eagerly, letting his hand linger in her mouth. And then, to make a short story shorter, they have sex hungrily and playfully, like how you might make love to a gifted cook who had just tenderly prepared you a delectable, multi-course meal.
Foodie1’s fantasy was brought to life thanks to XConfessions, a crowdsourced erotic project founded by the Barcelona-based feminist adult filmmaker known as Erika Lust. Foodie1 was one of many internet users from around the world to submit a sexual fantasy scenario to the website. All of the submissions are published on XConfessions’ website, and every month, Lust selects two written confessions from the bunch to make into cinematic shorts. The resulting films are more “adult cinema” than “adult entertainment,” skimping neither on artistic integrity nor sex appeal.
XConfessions
Another still from “Eat With … Me.”
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Lust is determined to overhaul the landscape of adult film. She created XConfessions, she told The Huffington Post, to build a space for “real films with real sex” that offer viewers porn that’s original, artistic and hot without trite and tacky tropes like cheesy music, bad sofas and laughable moans.
Since starting the project in 2013, Lust has ushered the most private of pipe dreams onto the most public of platforms the internet. She oversees the entire selection and film production process, with the help of a 90-percent-female staff.
Born in 1977 as Erika Hallqvist, Lust grew up in Stockholm, Sweden, a city fabled to be what she described as a “feminist utopia.” Though sex wasn’t a topic discussed at home, Lust had an overwhelmingly productive sex education program at school where, separated by gender, students’ unbridled curiosity was met with openness and maturity.
“I learned everything at school,” she recalled. “Age-appropriate sex education at school tackled everything from petting to consent, respect and emotions. I was taught that sex can be more than physical; it can involve emotions and connection.”
To this day, that sex-positive sentiment inspires much of Lust’s vision the idea that sex is also a visceral exploration of bodily sensations.
Erika Lust
Feminist adult filmmaker Erika Lust pictured with an actress.
Lust has a hazy memory of buying her first dirty mag at a supermarket as a teenager seeking beer. Her first significant encounter with erotic content was seeing Jean-Jacques Annaud’s coming-of-age film “L’amant,” an adaptation of Marguerite Duras’ autobiography.
“It was really a revelation,” Lust recalled. “The protagonist becomes an adult through sex and an unconventional love story, and this is completely shown from her point of view. This girl is intelligent and adventurous, and she is not ashamed of her blossoming sexuality.”
It wasn’t just the complexity of the protagonist that intrigued Lust, but also the way cinematic artistry enhanced the sense of passion. This realization would go on to influence her own films, both those created through XConfessions and those not. Whether the parties include vampires, vikings, cheerleaders or aliens from alternate dimensions, Lust depicts their lovemaking with a careful eye for aesthetics.
XConfessions
A still from “Meanwhile in a Parallel Universe.”
One XConfessions short called “Parallel Dimensions” takes place in a pristine, otherworldly habitat, accentuated by candy-colored shapes to resemble some sort of erotic jungle gym in a sci-fi universe. In the short, two women eat Play-Doh sushi rolls off the body of a naked man who rests rigid as furniture. His crotch is covered by a frilly vagina-like overlay reminiscent of a Judy Chicago sculpture. The women proceed, together, to have sex with the human table, who clearly derives his pleasure from theirs. It’s inspired by fan fiction from an XConfessions user who goes by lovertoy.
“Lately I’ve been having this recurring fantasy, imagining that I was a piece of furniture … Something about the idea of being an object, used by my sexy owner, turns me on a lot … Secretly, she knows I can feel her, but she doesn’t care about my satisfaction. For her I am just there to serve, to please, in whichever way she desires … In a parallel universe, I would exist only as her table.”
Visually, the short is innovative and intoxicating. The sugary palette and fantastical environment are as sensually stimulating as the nude bodies on view, all of which comes together for a hedonistic experience that hits hard at the senses.
XConfessions
A still from “Meanwhilein a Parallel Universe.”
Adult cinema can and should employ cinematic values just as much as any other film; that is one of the foundational beliefs of Lust’s work.
The sentiment mirrors something filmmaker Anna Biller, director of “The Love Witch,” expressed in a recent interview with HuffPost. Discussing the importance of lush aesthetics to a pleasurable cinematic viewing experience pleasurable, of course, being the operative word Biller said that “film itself is kind of a sexual fantasy.”
“Cinema is a spell that is being cast over the audience. You want to keep them in a trance,” she continued. She argued that, especially for women, visual stimulation isn’t just sparked by breasts and butts, but by soft fabrics, sexy lingerie, a tasty snack and, sure, a good ass.
Another one of Lust’s missions is to prioritize female pleasure in front of the camera. But her attention to artistic detail ensures maximal gratification for the female viewer, as well a viewer who would likely not be compelled to climax on a busted couch in an otherwise empty room.
Biller goes on to describe “the female gaze” as a narcissistic gaze involving, in her words, “looking at other women in films and wanting to emulate those women.” But while that notion intrigues her, Lust’s preferred definition of the female gaze is more in line with that of “Transparent” creator Jill Soloway.
As Lust reiterated: “’What is the male gaze? It’s pretty much everything. Everything you have ever seen. It’s most TV shows; it’s all movies…’ On the contrary, then, the female gaze is simply everything you never saw before!”
XConfessions
A still from “His Was First in My Ass.”
What haven’t we seen before? Or, at least, what haven’t we seen enough?
The answer is a diverse range of bodies represented on-screen diverse in ethnicity, body type, age and gender. Sex that looks, well, like sex, with all the awkward fumbling, meandering foreplay and accidental body noises. Also, naturally, imagination and eccentricity the qualities that remind us why our sexual aspirations are called “fantasies,” after all.
In other words, mainstream porn needs more multiplicity. It’s this privileging of more-ness, of weirdness, of difference, that pries porn from its phallocentric rut. This was more or less the idea communicated by film theorist Linda Williams in her book Hard Core: Power, Pleasure, and the “Frenzy of the Visible,” one of the texts that first inspired Lust to pursue adult film.
“Hardcore pornography is not phallic because it shows penises,” Williams writes. ‘It is phallic because in its exhibition of penises it presumes to know, to possess an adequate expression of the truth of ‘sex’ as if sex were as unitary as the phallus presumes itself to be. While the physiology of sex is not likely to change, its gendered meanings can. In attacking the penis rather than the phallus, anti-pornography feminism evades the real sources of masculine power.”
However, porn isn’t, and has never been, just one thing. To imagine it is would be to treat the field of pornography as monolithically or phallocentrically as a bad porno. As porn professor Constance Penley previously told HuffPost: “I never talk about ‘Pornography,’ capital P. It’s always lowercase ‘pornographies.’ What I’ve come to understand as even ‘mainstream pornography’ is so complex and contradictory and rich and varied.”
XConfessions
A still from “I Wish I Was a Lesbian.”
For Lust, the quality of pornography took a turn for the worse with the advent of VHS tapes in the 1980s. Suddenly anyone with a camcorder could produce their very own porno. However, like with many manufactured goods, when pornography was industrialized and commercialized, quality suffered as a result.
“Thousands of men began shooting porn at the lowest price, seeing it as a business,” Lust said.
Fast forward a little to the advent of the internet, which disrupted the ways we made, dispersed and digested porn. While the VHS, Lust argues, resulted in a largely retrograde shift in cinematic quality, the internet had the reverse effect. The digital sphere provided less-seen couples, bodies and fantasies a place to call home.
“A big part of the porn industry is still making billions out of sexist, degrading and racist representations of ‘sex,’” Lust said. “However, there are new creators that are showing another discourse in new platforms. They don’t seek money exclusively, but aim to create adult cinema that has the power to liberate.”
Lust is doing her part to push the trajectory of porn toward this more radically experimental direction. What better way to amplify the pornographic topography by taking advantage of the internet’s expansiveness and crowdsourcing erotic fantasies, ensuring no two are alike?
XConfessions
A still from “Sadistic Trainer.”
Aside from her work on XConfessions, Lust recently released a callout for women filmmakers interested in stepping into erotic territory. She is offering a total budget of approximately $260,000 to produce 10 short films from the eyes and minds of women, preferably those with experience in film, though not in porn. She’d like to see more women in leading roles.
“My goal is [to support] more women in leading roles as directors, producers and scriptwriters in adult cinema,” Lust said. “I really think true control over pleasure in porn comes from getting to make active decisions about how it’s produced and presented. We need to make explicit films that are sex-positive, so young people and the coming generations can see sex in a light that is realistic and pleasurable and aren’t only exposed to one version of the story.”
Through her work on XConfessions and beyond, Lust is doing her part to bid a fond farewell to dull, tired and phallocentric porn.
“It is imperative that women tell their own story and show their perspective and views on sex and sexuality,” she said. “We are half of the world’s population. The female gaze is necessary for an equal society for the benefit of all genders and sexualities.”
XConfessions
A still from “Pansexuals.”
from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/filmmaker-believes-porn-by-women-is-necessary-for-an-equal-society/
0 notes