Everyone who has ever watched a porn film—or even done so much as pick up a dog-eared copy of Penthouse—knows the archetypal lesbian fuck scene as envisioned by mainstream pornographers. Temporarily deprived of men, two chicks decide to go at each other: typically, they have skin fresh out of a tanning booth, brightly-colored nails that look like the manicurist gave more thought to self-defense than fisting, perfectly hemispherical tits that wouldn’t jiggle if they were fucking in the middle of a major earthquake, and hair that’s been teased and sprayed so much that it evokes a groupie of a heavy-metal band from the 1980s more than a dyke from the 21st century. During any pussy-eating that may occur, the eater keeps her mouth a discreet distance from the actual pussy, if not in another county entirely. Only the very tip of the tongue will actually come in contact with the eatee.
Properly speaking, this kind of scene isn't lesbian porn; it's girl-girl porn, created mainly by straight guys for other straight guys. If you want to see actual lesbian porn made by actual lesbians with lesbians in mind, the Good Vibrations Indie Erotic Film Festival has just the thing for you: head down to the San Francisco Women's Building on September 22 at 8 PM where Jackie Strano and Shar Rednour will be telling the history of lesbian porn from the 1970s to the early 2000s in Lesbo Retro: A Dyke Porn Retrospective.
There are few people better qualified to tell this story; Jackie and Shar have been a part of it for a long time. Through their company SIR Video, Jackie and Shar have produced educational and erotic videos since 1999. In 2000, they released Hard Love and How to Fuck in High Heels, a double-feature video that remains a classic to this day. When Hard Love/How to Fuck in High Heels was released, it became a phenomenon that spread first through the alt-sex scene and then finally into the mainstream porn scene: in 2001, the AVN awarded Hard Love/How to Fuck in High Heels "Best All-Girl Release."
"We wanted to see our desire and our sexuality onscreen and show what real dykes look like when they fuck," Jackie says. "We made our movies for ourselves and for our community first and obviously that authenticity resonated with a lot of people from many different communities."
The immediate predecessor to SIR Video was Fatale Media, founded by Nan Kinney in the mid-eighties, right smack dab in the middle of the feminist porn wars. Kinney, along with Deborah Sundahl, had helped to found the legendary women's porn magazine, On Our Backs, so in a way, she already had her hands dirty. "If you talk about 'true lesbian porn being produced,'" Jackie says, "Then definitely Fatale and then us." One of the things that you'll see in the movies by SIR and Fatale—and the other films excerpted on Wednesday's program—is butch women. Butch sexuality is virtually nonexistent in mainstream porn, and girl-girl porn especially strives to show off the feminine—the whole point of it as a genre is to turn the tits and ass up to eleven for the straight guys, not to butch it up.
But nevertheless, the influence of companies like Fatale and SIR Video has been felt even among mainstream viewers. When Kinney and Sundahl started On Our Backs, the idea of women making porn was a freakish one; even suggesting it would most likely get people staring at you as if you had sprouted a second head and a third arm. But nowadays, although queer porn remains a niche, it is an established niche. "The new buzz word is Queer Porn," Jackie says. "More gender fluid sexualities are represented with newer filmmakers and trans desire has exploded coming out of SF and Good Vibrations." Jackie mentions independent filmmakers like Courtney Trouble, Carlos Batts, Kimberly Kane, Nena Joiner, and Shine Louise Houston who have learned their lessons from lesbian pornographers. "What turns me on personally is intimacy and authenticity and connection, Jackie says. "Whether someone is hog tied or it's just a kissing scene, show me someone who is having a truly pleasurable experience and I am a very happy consumer and fan. It's great to have choices and showcase lots of flavors."
Jackie and Shar will be bringing as many of those flavors to the Women's Building for IXFF as they can. In addition to a comprehensive collection of smut, the evening will include burlesque by Oakland performer Simone de la Getto, storytelling, a Q&A session, and what Jackie will only describe as "bawdy and tawrdry fun with with some surprise special guests." Considering how much of this history that Good Vibrations has been a part of, it's only appropriate that IXFF will be taking the opportunity to take a look back at the roots of queer porn as well as where it's going.
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