We’ll admit it: we know very little about porn. In theory we know that there’s better porn out there than the crap our male hallmates used to watch in college with their doors “accidentally” left open. And we know that, as a professional obligation, we really should investigate this good porn more — especially given how many people write to us asking for advice about porn: what to watch, how to get over a partner’s porn habit, how to convince a partner that watching porn isn’t cheating, how to find ethically produced porn, etc. But we somehow never seem to get around it. Which is why we are beyond thrilled by the release of the excellent book Good Porn: A Woman’s Guide by Erika Lust. It’s our round tuit. Lust did the leg-work so we don’t have to. We chatted with the filmmaker, journalist, and cofounder of Lust Films…
EM & LO: You have a lot to say in your book about what exactly is wrong with male-produced porn. When and why did you decide to stop just critiquing and start actually producing yourself?
ERIKA LUST: My relationship with porn wasn’t quite love at first sight. But for me it seemed clear from the beginning that this does not lie in the nature of porn — it’s a matter of how it’s done. It just needed somebody to do it. But who? This bunch of guys that dominated the industry for decades, pestering us with the same sleazy sets, boring or hardly elaborated plots, bad make-up, terrible acting, and unrealistic or simply ridiculous sex scenes? Not really. They had their shot. We can simply complain about those guys, or we can get it on ourselves.
