Our columnist Margarita Tsomou takes us to an award ceremony in the queer feminist pornography scene in Berlin, and the porn film festival demonstrates that the language of sexual expression is multifaceted and the diversity in this area deserves its visibility.
In a theatre in Berlin, an open vagina is projected onto a 3 x 5 metre screen to demonstrate the insertion of a moon cup. Cheerful background music is playing as the camera pans to the actress’s upper body. In a humorous and motivated tone she states the benefits of the tampon alternative. The model in the sex education clip is Lina Bembe. She’s about to be awarded the “Oyster” – the film prize in the PorYes film awards – amid thunderous applause. Por – was? Yes, Por-Yes instead of PorNo. You might say the PorYes award is the Golden Bear of queer feminist pornography – and yes, there is such a thing: the award winners are high-quality porn films that “show diverse ways of expressing female and all-gender sexual lust, and where women play a significant role in the film production”. The idea of this award is to demonstrate that in addition to the conventional sexist representation of sexuality there are also porn productions that show a positive, non-discriminatory and respectful attitude to lust and the body.
AESTHETIC CONSCIOUS PORN
This year, the same as every autumn, the porn film festival was held for the 16th time in Berlin, showing a full programme of new porn film productions of all genres: gay and lesbian, BDSM, kink, experimental avant-garde eroticism and retrospective studies of historical porn filmmakers. This makes Berlin a kind of Mecca of the politically and aesthetically aware porn scene.It has also trickled through to the feminist mainstream that the alternative to misogynistic depictions of sexuality is not to ban porn – in other words it isn’t PorNo. By now, in Germany at least, positions that represent the sex-positive traditions of feminism have become established, and they seek alternative forms of portrayal – where sex involving affection and eroticism, kinkiness und queerness, female emancipation, empowerment and lust, takes centre stage. Feminisms of both the PorYes and the sex workers’ movements, which have been growing since the 70s in the USA and later in Germany too, stand in opposition to the conventional production of sex images and the characterisation experienced by our bodies. But they also criticise the hypocritical sexual morals that for a long time denied women the right to be sexual beings, and create spaces in which female sexuality can even be practised without shame.
BERLIN SUBCULTURE PAVES THE WAY
When I came to Berlin, these perspectives were a revelation. At the time I was involved in the preparation of the historical Post Porn Politics Symposium on the Volksbühne in Berlin. Back then the gay scene – which had already been maintaining its own porn production since the 80s – was uniting with “Third Wave” feminists and queers to revive this type of queer feminist activism and give it a new visibility. I had the honour of getting to know the interesting characters who were showing their work at the time: actress Susanne Sachsse, choreographer Antonia Baehr aka Werner Hirsch, filmmaker Bruce La Bruce. The legendary feminist sex worker Annie Sprinkle and Countersexual Manifesto theorist Paul B. Preciado.This year, after a period of lockdown, I’m relieved to spot the faces from the scene again. Most of them still have subculture status and something about them is different from the queer mainstream of the Berlin hipster scene. They are older and maybe not quite so hip. But these are the people who have written the narrative, who have taken the risk upon themselves to dedicate their ever-marginalised work to oppositional sexuality, and as a result maybe never achieved a steady income or a socially accepted career. But these same people have paved the way to ensure that future generations can now take for granted the right to call themselves non-binary.
“FRANKLY …”
On an alternating basis each week, our “Frankly ...” column series is written by Margarita Tsomou, Margarita Tsomou, Susi Bumms, Maximilian Buddenbohm and Sineb el Masrar. In “Frankly ... Berlin”, our columnists throw themselves into the hustle and bustle of the big city on our behalf, reports on life in Berlin and gathers together some everyday observations: on the underground, in the supermarket Frankly … Berlin, in a nightclub.
December 2021