Erika Lust: on porn, visibility and the ethics of erotic content
Erika Lust: on porn, visibility and the ethics of erotic content
This interview was part of a back and forth with Producer, Director and ethical erotica activist and advocate, Erika Lust. I had the privilege of interviewing Erika back in 2021 to inform some research for a piece I was working on. I only ended up using a few lines from our conversation in the final edit, which was published on the Woman & Home site.
Since then, I’ve thought a lot about this interview, what Erika stands for and the state of the adult content and entertainment industry today. I found myself revisiting this interview and wondered why I hadn’t published it in its entirety. Erika makes so many pertinent points about pleasure, representation and the ethics of the way we interact with sex as entertainment and as an extension of our own identities, so I wanted to share our Q&A with you.
Erika is a creative person with a unique ability to communicate complex emotions through the union of bodies on screen. It’s hot, and it’s fascinating and at times, it’s tender and beautiful. I wondered whether a background in Political Sciences and languages might have been what gives Erika’s scripts and scenes such bristling pathos. And whether her talent for really seeing people might be what has won her several industry accolades and awards.
However you feel about porn, Erika is an impressive person, helming an empire that spans production, direction, casting, content, education, fundraising and activism. It was a pleasure to ask her about the purpose of her work, and why she chooses to do it.
What motivates you to do this kind of work? Why make adult films?
Erika: I decided to start making adult films almost 20 years ago because I wanted porn to change. I was tired of porn focused on athletic performance, stereotypical beauty standards and emotionless storylines. I wanted to prove that we can represent sex in which women, men, and any other gender identities are treated as equal sexual collaborators, and that we can use porn to portray credible stories and characters that don’t follow tired stereotypes and gender based power imbalance. I want to give space to diverse desires, genders, ethnicities, abilities, ages and ways to have sex without fetishising them. This allows the public to become receptive to the huge range of different sexualities that exist out there and need to be seen.
Why is being seen important?
Erika: The ideal spectator of mainstream porn is always assumed to be male, and the image of the woman is designed to flatter him. In male directed, heterosexual porn the female then becomes the object of the combined gaze of filmmaker, male performer, and male viewer. As for the women watching these male directed films, her experience is always secondary to the male viewer because she experiences the narrative by identification with the male gaze. Women are the driving force of the industry (most of the time you can’t see the man’s face, just his penis penetrating her!) and, at the same time, their bodies are represented as objects of a predatory gaze.
If you look closer, this not only happens in the porn industry; this affects other types of media and our society as a whole. Men and their (stereotyped) fantasies are used as standard and everything outside of this is labeled as ‘other’. In this way, if you don’t fit into a specific category on the tube sites, it means you experience privilege in society. That’s why we need a meaningful analysis of the way women, LGBTQ+, BIPOC, Asian people are represented and seen in our everyday life in society.
With my films at XConfessions, Lust Cinema, Else Cinema, and The Store by Erika Lust, I aim to smash the stigma that is attached to the female body and to show that female pleasure matters. Our bodies in society are hypersexualised while at the same time we’ve been told that we should be ashamed of being openly sexual and owning our sexuality without a man. In my films, I want to portray women that are aware of both their power and their boundaries, that are smart and sex-positive and are in touch with their erotic self without any shame.
The porn industry’s highest positions of power are still overwhelmingly dominated by white cisgender men. In order for porn to change, we need more women, queer, BIPOC, Asian people behind the cameras. We need them in positions of power in all aspects of the business - as producers, directors, and scriptwriters to bring their perspectives into the films. This allows them to re-write the script about their involvement (not only in sex but also in public life) and to do something different to the mass-produced stereotypical porn of the free tube sites. That’s why I have a mostly female and queer crew when I'm working on set and my offices are mostly female. The female gaze is so important to challenge the porn status quo, and to capture it, I need to have a predominantly female team.
Can you explain ethical and transparent erotic content to me? And how does it differ from content that is not transparent and ethical?
Erika: Making ethically produced adult films basically means that there’s an understanding of consent between everyone on an adult film’s set, including the whole crew that needs to be aware of the inherent complexities of sex work, even if our sets really look like any other non-explicit film set.
Ethical porn ensures that what you are watching was made with respect to performers' working conditions and rights, and with their previous consent to everything that happened on scene that day. It is our most important responsibility to ensure the mental, emotional, and physical health of all performers. My Talent Manager on set looks after them all day to make sure they are okay and have everything they need. I don't just ask performers to come on set with their best lingerie on and that's it. I don't want them to reproduce the “formula” that the industry has done for so long.
We encourage the sex talk starting from the casting process which is long and thorough where we make sure that the people involved are 18+, are enthusiastic about our philosophy, and happy with the story and the sex scenes they are about to perform. Before the shoot, the performers discuss about each other’s boundaries, likes and dislikes, and agree upon which safer sex methods they will use - condoms, dental dams, gloves etc. The sex talk is led once again on set right before the sex scene and I personally try to encourage communication between them throughout the sex scene too as I want to show that ongoing, affirmative consent should be an essential part of sex in our lives.
Making ethically produced adult films also means that everyone who is involved in making them is compensated and treated appropriately. There are many reasons why ethically produced adult content is accessible behind a paywall. Money is needed to pay performers, crew, post-production, and all freelance collaborators fairly. We cover the costs of STI tests for performers and Covid tests for everyone, accommodation (if they are flying to the shoot from a different city), flights, transport to and from the shoot, and healthy food on set for everyone. We are not just three guys with a camera and a list of sex performing acts for performers to follow. All sex scenes are shot in freestyle mode, meaning that performers can have the sex they want without feeling pressured to do anything that doesn’t make them feel comfortable.
Last but not least, I think that one of the most crucial differences between my indie porn and mainstream porn is that unlike many others, I’m very proud of showing my name and face through all my platforms and being transparent with the public about the values under which the films are made.
What are the benefits of watching porn created specifically for women? How do women benefit from watching it?
Erika: My porn at XConfessions, Lust Cinema, Else Cinema, and The Store by Erika Lust is often labeled in the media as “feminist porn”, which originally began as a way to reclaim a genre that has traditionally been seen exclusively as the purview of men, and to bring a different perspective on the way we represent sex. However, this doesn’t mean that feminist porn is suddenly porn “for women”. “Porn for women” in my opinion only reaffirms the stereotype that women don't enjoy mainstream porn because they aren’t as sexual as men. But actually, this is because women don't often feel truly represented by those kinds of movies! This also confirms how androcentric the industry is and how little we are used to caring about real female pleasure.
“Feminist porn” is not created specifically for women; just as much as feminism, it is not just a women’s concern. In my movies, both women and men are in charge of what they do sexually, they own their pleasure, and are not treated as objects nor sex machines. Porn made with feminist values is essentially about showing an authentic and equal representation of human sexuality with no gender stereotyping - which is ultimately harmful for both men and women.
“Feminist porn” in my opinion also means that women and queer people are behind the camera in leading roles as directors, producers, directors of photography. I want women and queer people directing and controlling the camera to show an alternative perspective on the way we represent sex to the public. This is how we create a sex positive space for all to reclaim their sexuality, pleasure and desires.
Why should women use your platforms and engage with your content? What are the effects of this for consumers, performers, the industry and society at large?
Erika: I believe that porn can be a powerful tool for women’s sexual expression and for people in general to get rid of taboos. This applies not only to porn, but to audio sex stories too which I recently launched on Else Cinema. Our sexual desire is something for us to enjoy, regardless of our gender, race, or sexual orientation. Both making and watching hot, realistic, and equal porn is not something to be ashamed of. It’s an act of sex-positive feminism.
Porn as a medium can be used in a positive or negative way as everything else. It can open your mind about sexuality, help you to discover new desires and fantasies, and to learn how to give pleasure to yourself and to others! We can create and watch porn where people can see themselves in those films, to see the sex they have, to be inspired, and become educated. We all need to be eager to accept sex as a wide, beautiful universe of sensuality and pleasure without judgement.
Apart from content, what deeply concerns me is the process with which films are made and distributed. You mentioned the consumers - that’s exactly what we should look at when discussing this. If we want ethically made porn to grow, we need consumers to bring ethics into how they consume the porn they watch. For most of them, as soon as they go online and find free porn, they turn their ethics off. But in reality, watching free porn is just like going into the supermarket, and leaving without paying for your shopping.
I explained above what “ethical” porn is all about - it’s about the production process and the values with which the films are produced and distributed. I started to change the porn industry from within, but now we need to understand that consumers’ choices are crucial to boost a change in how production works.
Our choices have an impact on society’s views and the environment, whether we’re talking about porn, diet, clothing, energy consumption, etc. Starting to care about how the porn we watch is made and who are the people who make it, means making a necessary step towards fighting stigma on sex workers and validate sex work as real work, fighting the piracy business model behind free porn sites and above all, encouraging a more open, honest, sex positive relationship with sex & porn. We really need to change for the better our perception of sex workers' work and lives and normalise sex work as real work in the public debate. I believe that this will lead to a more sex positive society as a whole.
Why are we ashamed about sex, desire and an interest in viewing erotic material? How might we all develop a healthier relationship with these things?
Erika: We still live in a predominantly sex-negative culture where we are taught to keep eroticism private and hidden and to not enjoy sex too much. Through a lack of comprehensive sex education in schools, women learn to fear their own sexuality from a young age while young men soon learn that their desire exists to conquer and possess as many women as possible. While we grow up ignoring that both the female and male desire for sex are healthy in their own right, we are devoid of the tools to interact sexually with each other respectfully.
We are inundated with inaccurate representations of sex and intimacy through media, ads, and porn. Porn is meant to be entertainment, but because of the lack of a proper sex education, it’s the only exposure a lot of people get.
Porn is a discourse on sex and gender that mirrors gender-based power dynamics still deeply rooted in our culture. We can create porn where the culture of consent is paramount, where there’s no simulation of coercion, pedophilia or abuse, where diversity is key and the films aim to show a wider spectrum of human identities.
In order to address all of these issues my partner and I started the non-profit website The Porn Conversation which offers tools for parents to talk to their children about sex and porn at home. Since porn is the first exposure to sex for many children it’s important to know how to talk to them about it in order to help them develop healthier attitudes towards sex and relationships. Ideally they will be able to discuss their feelings, communicate their sexual desires and have happier and healthier sexual relationships moving forward. However, not only children need sex education but adults too; that’s why I created The Lust Ed on my Lust Zine, which is free explicit and uncensored sex education for adults exploring sexual health, kinks, and erotic art.