4 Female Adult Film Producers Talk Porn for Women

[NikkieSims]

By
Nikki Gloudeman,

4 Female Adult Film Producers Talk Porn for Women

Last month, I wrote a story lamenting the sorry lack of quality porn for women.

I am now here to tell you... I was wrong. Very wrong. Shamefully wrong. And I'm not too proud to admit it.

Within days of the post going up, I was inundated with emails and tweets gently telling me just how wrong I was, and from those who know best: women in the trenches of the adult film industry, working tirelessly to create good porn for other women like me.

And just like that, my frustrated lament became an earnest education.

In the mail, I received--much to the amusement of my partner--a box of porn DVDs. They were sent by Jacky St. James, one of those women on the frontlines of female-oriented adult film production.

I immediately curled up on the couch to watch a rom-com sex romp called The Friend Zone. And, well... it was good. Like, really good. It had legitimate production values. The acting ranged from just fine to truly impressive. The script was funnier than most mainstream rom-coms in theaters today (Hollywood producers, take note). And... what's this? Is that a sex scene involving people who actually seem to care about one another? Is that woman being respected as she's being pleasured? Is that a condom I see?

The experience was, in a word, a revelation, satisfying in every desired way. After The Friend Zone, I dove in to the erotica of FrolicMe, featuring gorgeously rendered shots of men and women in the throes of passion, including one video of a woman, bathed in warm lighting, pleasuring herself beside the window of her tranquil country home.

Maybe I'm the only woman in the world who was unaware content of such quality actually existed. Maybe I'm the only one who had spent many a frustrated nights on Pornhub, marveling at how far removed from woman-friendly something labeled "woman-friendly" could be.

But I'm going to guess I'm not alone; that other women, too, have clicked their way through a barrage of cheap, degrading, not-in-the-least-bit-arousing porn videos, feeling not only sexually unfulfilled, but frustrated by an industry's unconscionable inability to respect the sexual desires of women--not to mention men interested in sex with emotional resonance and actual passion.

It was an education I needed to share, so I reached out to four of the women who led me to this sexual awakening, and probed them on porn's problems and potential, their own sexual journeys, and the intersection of feminism and adult entertainment.

My illustrious panel of experts?

Owner and founder of Sssh.com, a porn-for-women site, who got her start in the industry back in the '90s and has been profiled by the likes of ABC's Nightline, CNBC, Salon, the BBC and TIME magazine.

Here's what they had to say.

What do you have to say to women (like me) who have a hard time finding high-quality, female-oriented adult films?

Rowntree: Don't give up--what you're looking for is out there, it's just hiding among an ocean of stuff that you may not want to see. What a lot of people call "female-friendly porn" is being made by a variety of remarkable women who make truly great erotic movies.

There may not be a lot of us, but we're passionate about what we do, and we're working hard every day to provide women with porn that does appeal to them.

Frolicme: It's difficult as quality erotica is still in the minority within the Internet; however, if you look hard it can be found. I very much hope that with my style, approach and desire to create a product women desire, I will gain the support, trust and endorsement of the media, who will help allow me to bring awareness to women and couples that an exciting and inspirational world of naughtiness is there for their pleasure and enjoyment. With a world of female-orientated magazines, websites and blogs there is no reason why it should remain so difficult for women to find beautiful erotica. We are not interested in free "tube" sites, we are not interested in hardcore overly graphic imagery, but I believe that many women do want the option to explore passionate, visually stimulating adult erotica. What is very exciting for myself is that with such a wealth of online publications, those who are inquisitive can explore their desires at the simple click of a link.

Lust: Don't despair as it is out there, and in good quality too! Yet... even some sites like Porn Hub that have "For Women" categories still feature poorly narrated films with a complete lack of imagination or sense of creativity. So keep searching and supporting the women (and some men) who are making the kind of movies we like--creative, inspiring, full of relatable characters and scenarios.

St. James: There is genuine, high-quality content there. Unfortunately, a lot of people are looking for high-quality content on tube sites or are being misinformed by companies touting their poor quality films as "high quality." First of all, you aren't usually going to find high quality content on a tube site, because tube sites are designed to provide masturbatory material that comes quickly and easily to the visitor. Nobody goes to a tube site to watch plot-driven porn. They're going to a tube site to get off--and quickly.

Why, and how, did you get into producing adult films?
Rowntree: I got into producing adult films in the mid-90s, but I didn't really start focusing on women as an audience until around 1999. The lack of porn on the market that seemed geared toward women had been bothering me for quite a while at that point, but all I ever heard was that there was no such thing as a market for women's porn. When I started up Sssh.com, everybody told me I was nuts, and that the site would fail. Here we are, 15 years later, still going strong.

Frolicme: It started with a blog initially. It was something I did for fun, a little escapism where I fused naughty stories, views and adventures with gorgeous images I loved--that I thought arousing and sexy--rather like my online magazine that you see on the site today. It was very visual, feminine and fun. It was full of images not vulgar or too inappropriately graphic, but definitely risqué, I admit that. Thereafter I asked myself, "Why weren't there films that had this sort of gorgeous imagery? Why were all the films, and here I say "porn" films, just showing more internal parts than I found pleasant?"

Rarely did the imagery ever look beautiful, sensual or erotic, so for me it was simple... I wanted to see the sort of imagery I was using in my blog to come alive and be brought to life with erotic stories, focused on fantasies that we can all quickly grasp and enjoy. Not complicated, just luscious morsels of arousing words offering lust and hot-blooded passion, something to keep us buzzing through our daily lives, make us twitch when we look and read them! I also wanted my films to feel real, real enough we could imagine being in it ourselves caught up in a passionate moment with someone. How we might envision our ultimate hot passionate moment to be, or how we would see our fantasy come to life.

Lust: I never actually planned to become a writer, director and producer of erotic films! But growing up in Sweden, a country that was no stranger to feminism, I was well aware of the issues between those who saw pornography as victimizing women and those who saw it as sexually liberating. While I was studying political science at the University of Lund in Sweden I realized there was a serious lack of female voices in the adult industry. There were only the porn stars in front of the screen, being used as the playthings of men with their big breasts and hairless vaginas screaming how much they love it all the time. I found it unrelatable, unimaginative and unattractive. So I decided I wanted to do something about it.

I moved to Barcelona in 2000 where I took classes in film directing, which is when I started to think about a serious career in professional filmmaking. I shot my first short, The Good Girl, in 2004 for my final year project. It shocked many, including my mother! But the online response was incredible. I released it online for free and within the first few months it had been downloaded two million times and won several awards at specialized film festivals. That was all I needed as proof that the world wanted something different than mainstream porn. That I had something different, something unique, something positive for women. So I started my own company.

Now over 10 years down the line, I've directed four feature length films, two shorts, written five books, four guides to the world of erotica, an erotic novel, and finally (my most cherished project to date!) launched XConfessions.

St. James: It's a funny story. I've been a consumer of pornography ever since I was 18 (that's over 20 years of porn consumption, mind you). I've never shied away from admitting to this fact and because of that, a lot of my male friends and I would share links to porn clips. One day my friend, who is a mainstream director of photography, sent me a link to a clip from The Wedding Day, a film by New Sensations. He was impressed with the overall production value, from the appearance of the performers, to the writing, direction and cinematography. I was equally impressed. I researched the company, hoping to find more high-quality productions and discovered they were running a writing contest for their Romance Series. They were looking for new writers to script romantic, adult features.

Being an avid writer and a lover of pornography, I figured I had nothing to lose. I reached out to one of the directors at New Sensations via Twitter (Eddie Powell) seeking advice on how to write a porn script. I was blown away by just how nice and normal and intelligent he was. Like most civilians, I had preconceived notions about porn directors. I thought he'd be just another sleazebag with an agenda. He was anything but. He gave me great advice. He said, "Don't write porn. Write a real story that has sex." That was the beginning of our relationship and the beginning of my porn career. After my first script was greenlit, Powell invited me to set to watch the production of it. I immediately fell in love with the work ethic and creativity behind everyone working for New Sensations. Shortly thereafter I quit my successful corporate job and began working in adult film full time. I now work as a full-time writer/director for New Sensations and Eddie Powell has become my creative collaborator and partner on every project I work on. I guess you could say this was all pre-destined... or maybe I just got really lucky.

What makes the adult content you produce unique? What's your mission with it?
Rowntree: Our mission is really pretty simple: We want to create movies that our customers want to see and enjoy watching. The only real difference between what I do and what producers of "typical" porn do is that I'm serving a different audience, and instead of assuming we know what they want to see, we ask them what they want to see.

That's what truly makes us unique, I think; we have spent so much time and effort gathering feedback and conducting surveys of our members that we have a lot of data on what they're interested in, and what they'd like to see. In other words, I know I'm making porn that women like--or that the women who are Sssh members like, at least--because I'm really basing what I create on their feedback.

It's also important to understand that while Sssh.com started out as a porn-for-women site, what we found is that a lot of couples also like what we do. So it's not just "porn for women"; our movies are porn for anybody who appreciates sex with real passion, where there's chemistry and connection between the performers, and in which people are respected. It just so happens that this combination appeals to a lot of women, and fits our ethos as a company, as well.

Good luck to all, and thanks for reading.