All posts tagged porn

[events] Courtney Trouble is coming to town; it’s time to talk about feminist porn!

I have been a massive Courtney Trouble fan for some time now, her riot grrrl attitude to making porn was refreshing and her body positivity and dedication to the representation of queer, trans*, fat and other marginalised people’s authentic sexualities in pornography is nothing short of inspiring. So, you can imagine my delight when Courtney Trouble agreed to come to Melbourne for two nights of special events!

I am so pleased to announce that Harlot Overdrive will be presenting both of these upcoming events:

Courtney Trouble Screening and Q&A

Photo Courtesy of Courtney Trouble

Courtney Trouble (US): Screening and Q&A

Courtney Trouble is a film-maker, adult performer, photographer, queer rights activist, DIY genius, and an award-winning feminist pornographer. For the first time ever she is coming to Australia for a series of special appearances and events. Harlot Overdrive is thrilled to present Melbourne with this very special event featuring a curated selection of Trouble’s film work, followed by an audience Q&A with the queer porn icon herself. Lively, informative and fun, this is one event you do not want to miss!

7pm, Wednesday 6 November
303 Sydney Road, Brunswick
$35/$30
Tickets on sale Thursday 5 September

About Courtney:

Courtney Trouble is the founder of TROUBLEfilms, IndiePornRevolution.Com, and QueerPorn.TV, as well of the director of 14 full-length films, including the Reel Queer Production line through Good Releasing and 3 films through thier own line at TROUBLEfilms. For current releases, please see TROUBLEfilms.Com

Queer Porn Icon Courtney Trouble has been producing, directing, and performing in Queer Porn since 2002, and is responsible for coining the term “Queer Porn” as a genre in the mainstream industry. Nominated for 7 AVN Awards, and winner of 5 Feminist Porn Awards, Courtney Trouble’s films speak to an extremely fluid, authentic, and hardcore version of graphic sexual imagery.

Courtney Trouble’s films, like Fuckstyles, Seven Minutes In Heaven: Coming Out!, Billy Castro Does The Mission, and the Roulette series, have become the new standard in queer porn.  They feature performers that run the gamut of fame, gender, and sexual orientation, such as Jiz Lee, Wolf Hudson, Dylan Ryan, Lorelei Lee, Syd Blakovich and Madison Young.

She has successfully mixed her lo-fi “do-it-yourself” indie-art aesthetic with an accessible, understandable, yet female-forward porn formula that the average porn consumer (whoever that is!) as well as the subversive, political, and inquisitive crowd can enjoy.

She started NoFauxxx.Com as a 19 year old photographer and web designer, with the purpose of creating an indie porn site that was authentic, empowering, and all-inclusive. She wanted it to break stereotypes in the adult industry, and act as a tool for ladies, queers, and artists, to explore the erotic and sexual side of creativity. She soon found herself as one of the founders of the queer porn movement, setting the stage for all that was to come..

~

Porn For The Rest of Us (L-R: Liandra Dahl, Ms. Naughty, Courtney Trouble, Gala Vanting)

Porn For The Rest of Us (L-R: Liandra Dahl, Ms. Naughty, Courtney Trouble, Gala Vanting)

Porn For The Rest Of Us: A Night With Courtney Trouble (TROUBLEFilms), Ms. Naughty (Bright Desire), Gala Vanting (Sensate Films) and Liandra Dahl.

“I think feminist porn is crucial” – Ellen Page, Actor.

We also think feminist porn is crucial, but what does that mean and how can we be ethical consumers of pornography? Harlot Overdrive is delighted to present this exciting panel featuring some of Australia’s best feminist pornographers, as well as queer porn icon and pioneer, Courtney Trouble (US). These incredible filmmakers and activists will discuss their experiences as feminists working in porn and what people can do to make more ethical decisions when buying and watching porn. There will also be the opportunity to ask the panel questions.

7pm, Thursday 7 November
303 Sydney Road, Brunswick
$45/$40
Tickets on sale Thursday 5 September

About the panellists:

Courtney Trouble (US) is a film-maker, adult performer, photographer, queer rights activist, DIY genius, and an award-winning feminist pornographer. Courtney is the founder of TROUBLEfilms, IndiePornRevolution.Com, and QueerPorn.TV, as well of the director of 14 full-length films, including the Reel Queer Production line through Good Releasing and 3 films through their own line at TROUBLEfilms.

Ms. Naughty is a feminist porn filmmaker and writer. She has been making porn for women online since 2000. Her erotic films have screened at several international film festivals including Cinekink and the Berlin Porn Film Festival. She has a chapter detailing her work in The Feminist Porn Book, edited by Tristan Taormino et al. Her fiction has featured in several editions of “Best Women’s Erotica”. She runs BrightDesire.com and blogs at MsNaughty.com/blog/.

Gala Vanting is a Melbourne-based sex worker, award-winning erotic film producer, educator, pleasure activist, and erotic imaginist. She draws from a diverse background in the sexuality field and brings a conscious queer feminist approach to her work, the core value of which is intimacy. To find out more about her work visit msgalavanting.com and sensatefilms.com.

Liandra Dahl is a Melbourne based porn peddling smut monger. She began as a performer on Fitzroy based websites run by Feck Pty Ltd in 2004 and was the original hostess of the website iFeelMyself.com in 2006 -2007. Liandra started her own performer/producer website LiandraDahl.com on 25th December 2010. She has also featured in the documentary films by Betty Dodson and Anna Brownfield and the erotic fiction films of directors Morgans Muse (AUS), Erika Lust (ES) and Jennifer Lyon Bell (NL).

~

You can see why I am pretty excited, right? Tickets are on sale Thursday 5 September, and there are discounts for concession holders and group bookings. More information about the venue coming soon.

xxLauren

ps. Have you noticed the hot new Harlot Overdrive banner? That’s just a taste of the exciting changes coming to this site. But more on that soon!

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by harlotoverdrive on August 25, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in events, feminism, film, pornography, sex, sex education
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Posted by harlotoverdrive on August 25, 2013

https://harlotoverdrive.wordpress.com/2013/08/25/events-courtney-trouble-is-coming-to-town-its-time-to-talk-about-feminist-porn/

Sex Ed Steps in the Right Direction in Victorian Schools

According to Susie O’Brien over at the Herald Sun, the Victorian Education Department (in Victoria, Australia, that is) is developing a program designed to teach adolescents and young teenagers the difference between porn sex and real life sex. The Respectful Relationships Curriculum comes about a decade too late, but better late than never, I suppose.

Teenage Girl With Media

Look Ma, this is where the porn lives now (iStockPhoto).

We’ve known for a while now that in lieu of comprehensive and frank sex education that kids just turn to porn to learn the ins and outs of it all (pun very intentional). We know that denying them access to education and/or contraception doesn’t stop them screwing each other. We know that when they are learning about sex in non educational-settings, the information is not coming with a handbook on how to engage with the material.

As any reader of this blog should know, I love pornography. There are fantastic film makers who create content that is fun to watch. There are some really amazing, inspiring and ethical pornographic films and sites out there, but that isn’t what most teens are watching. Teenagers are viewing and sharing clips from sites like Redtube and Xtube with little context to go with them. The sort of clips where very tired gender roles are overwhelmingly adhered to and the focus is almost exclusively geared towards his pleasure, not hers.

Cindy Gallop’s fantastic education project Make Love Not Porn is one of the first pro-porn educational sites for young people, and is a fantastic resource for the media-savvy generation of sexually active beings. It acknowledges that you can’t stop children from accessing pornography (even if you block it on your computer with some overpriced Internet Nannying software, you can be sure that they are seeing it on friend’s media devices or on your computer when you are not home because they know how to get around that software you place so much faith in), and doesn’t talk to them like they are idiots. Instead of infantilising these young consumers of adult media, it helps them gain critical thinking skills and teaches them a little more about mutually pleasurable sex. It is a fantastic resource and one every parent should have bookmarked.

Meanwhile, back in Australia, organisations like YEAH! do their bit with educating young people to go out into their communities and educate their peers. Which is fantastic, because kids have long gotten information on sex from their friends and classmates, so arming them with facts and teaching tools is a brilliant initiative. Really though, what I want to see is a country-wide, mandatory, pleasure-inclusive, sexual education curriculum.

According to O’ Brien, the focus of the Education Department’s new curriculum package for Year 8 and Year 9 students (13-15 year olds) is “consent, intimacy, power and respect in their personal relationships”. Fantastic. Those are four key components of healthy, mutually beneficial sexual relationships. Consent is so misunderstood that it is vital we are teaching kids what it is and how it works, but that needs to be going hand in hand with learning about the power differentials between partners and how to be respectful in our sexual interactions with people.

I’m sure it is only a matter or time before some Lovejoy-type starts wowsering about how this will no doubt turn all our children into sex-crazed fiends all on smack and destroying the church with their lusty sins or whatever it is they like to think happens, but to those of us with more considered and pragmatic views on youth sexuality, this seems like a hell of a step in the right direction.

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by harlotoverdrive on July 25, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in sex, sex education, youth
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Posted by harlotoverdrive on July 25, 2013

https://harlotoverdrive.wordpress.com/2013/07/25/sex-ed-steps-in-the-right-direction-in-victorian-schools/

[repost] [review] Man Trap (JoyBear Pictures)

Reposting the review I wrote of Man Trap from Joybear Pictures. First published 23 September, 2011.

I finally had a chance to view Man Trap, a feature-length pornographic film from JoyBear Pictures. JoyBear are a UK-based company who are building a name for themselves by making erotic films for ‘him and her’.


The film plays out like a documentary; ‘Man Trap’ is a service set up to catch out cheating husbands (groan), by luring them into sexual encounters with stunning women. The proprietor of Man Trap speaks ‘candidly’ with a journalist, and from this, the sex scenes are woven into the film.

The actors are conventionally attractive without seeming completely unrealistic (no fake boobs here), which I can only assume is a conscious decision to make this film more appealing to its female audience. There is also a smattering of ink and steel adorning the cast, (which I will readily admit to being a sucker for), but not so much that you could slot it into your ‘alt-porn’ folder.

Man Trap has a total of six scenes which, quantity-wise, is certainly value for money. Quality-wise is a different story. Don’t get me wrong – the camera work is lovely and the sets are just fine. The actors all seem very happy to be there and these are all Good Things. But, for me at least, this film is just a little bit.. boring.

There is a big focus on mutual oral pleasure and standard hetero penetrative sex, and not a roughly pulled handful of hair or spat-on face to be seen, which will be a massively welcome respite for some from the usual offerings of mainstream porn. There is some light toy use, a little in the water action (always nice) and a slightly questionable girl/girl scene (if this is for HER, why does this scene stil feel like it’s still rocking that male gaze? Can we do away with performative girl/girl and just see ladies fucking please?)

The sex scenes follow the standard ‘from one position to the next; repeat until orgasm’ style of fucking, and sadly, what Man Trap seems to lack is passion. It’s very *nice*, but I just don’t find it very hot; it is a little too polished, if you know what I mean.

What this film does do well is provide a nice, non-threatening option for ‘him and her’ to watch together, and I am sure there are plenty of women out there who would happily pick Man Trap over, say, Can He Score 8. I’m pleased that companies like JoyBear exist, because there is undoubtedly a market for this softer hardcore (and because porn needs more British accents), but I’m just not that market.

Big thanks go to JoyBear Pictures for providing me with a copy of Man Trap, and allowing me the chance to view and review it.

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by harlotoverdrive on December 13, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in film, pornography, review
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Posted by harlotoverdrive on December 13, 2012

https://harlotoverdrive.wordpress.com/2012/12/13/repost-review-man-trap-joybear-pictures/

Bright future in Bright Desire

Okay, that was a cheesy heading for this post, but do you know what isn’t cheesy? Bright Desire.

Bright Desire is the new porn website from Ms. Naughty, and it is ticking a lot of boxes for me. The layout is clean and super easy to navigate, without any auto-playing annoyances or confusing menus, and whilst I love Indie Porn Revolution‘s (formerly NoFauxxx) decision to not segregate the scenes by type, sometimes it is nice to think, “I want to watch a dude masturbating” or “I want to see a couple going at it” and be able to head straight to the area that is relevant to that interest. Bright Desire allows you to easily search for scenes of solo men, solo women or couples, as well as allowing you to search extended scenes, short films, extras or interviews and it does all of this without presuming your sexuality. No straight/gay distinctions are made on Bright Desire. Additionally, scenes can be found by searching the tags; which includes everything from ‘pegging’ to ‘shower’ to ‘laughter’. Incidentally, I especially love the laughter tag because seeing people laughing and joking around in scenes is joyful, and really leaves any pretension at the door. Aside from the unique content created for this site, hitting up the ‘under the bed’ section gives you a wealth of still and moving images collected by Ms Naughty over the past 12 years; hooray for bonus porn with your porn!

Kara & Devon

Kara & Devon

The unique content for this site is, so far, rather great and it shows a lot of promise. A good serving of real couples, real spaces and real pleasure. As much fun as high end fantasy porn can be, there is something really special about watching two people who care for each other (or two people who just met and are totally into exploring each other) just going for it on a bed, or in the shower, or, well, you get the idea. The playfulness of Aeryn (Naughty Nerdy) and her partner Theo is super endearing, and the post-scene shower scene with Kara and Devon has a superbly voyeuristic quality to it. However, where Bright Desire is really doing it for me is the solo masturbation scenes. Usually I’m not crazy into solo scenes, but I think I am being persuaded otherwise by the quality and eroticism of these spoken word fantasy-soundtracked masturbation sessions. Personal highlights include Adrianna Nicole’s ‘Phone Sex’ and Jes’s ‘Solo’.

Adrianna Nicole

Adrianna Nicole

You can also get some food for thought via the reviews and columns included on the site. Ms Naughty has been making feminist (hetero-leaning) pornography for a number of years, as well as blogging about sex and smut, and can be reguarly seen popping up in comments on mainstream media with insightful, intelligent things to say about pornography, censorship, art and sexuality. This is a lady who has some great stuff to say, and it has been enjoyable flicking through the collection of her writing included on Bright Desire. There is also a wealth of fiction writing, and whilst erotic fiction is not hugely my thing, I love that this site has both the written and visual components all in the one place.

Aeryn & Theo

Aeryn & Theo

I’m very enthusiastic about more ethical and feminist pornography pushing its way into the world, and totally recommend that you check out Brightdesire.com. There is a free tour you can take to help win you over, and once you sign up for a membership you get access to all the content in both standard and HD quality along with quick downloads for mobile. Perhaps you would also like to leave me a comment letting me know what you think?

xLauren

Edit: Please note that links in this post have been updated as I am now affiliated with Bright Desire. Please also note that this post was written and published prior to my affiliating with Bright Desire and remains an honest and objective review. Thanks to Ms Naughty for allowing me access to Bright Desire for the purposes of a review. If you have a film, website or product that you would like to see reviewed on Harlot Overdrive, please contact me at harlotoverdrive @ gmail.com

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by harlotoverdrive on December 11, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in pornography, review
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Posted by harlotoverdrive on December 11, 2012

https://harlotoverdrive.wordpress.com/2012/12/11/bright-future-in-bright-desire/