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Animal Farm is the street name given to an underground pornographic film containing scenes of explicit bestiality that was smuggled into Great Britain in the late 1970s or early 1980s. Most of the films starred the Danish performer Bodil Joensen.
In the early 1980s, during the British home video boom, a videocassette of indeterminate origin began to circulate in underground circles that became known simply as Animal Farm. It contained a plotless series of extremely graphic scenes of zoophilia, including acts of intercourse and fellatio performed with pigs, horses and even chickens ("avisodomy"), as well as a scene in which a woman inserts live eels into her vagina. Animal Farm remains one of the most controversial videotapes ever to find its way to British shores. [1]
The material that constitutes the Animal Farm bootleg was apparently smuggled through British Customs in the Spring of 1981 by a tourist. It found its way under the counters of various Soho stockists and was eventually prosecuted following a series of police raids — but not before countless bootlegs had gone into circulation. It was discovered that the video actually comprised several short X-rated films from the Danish company Color Climax Corporation, which had been producing a steady stream of extreme pornography since the Danish government made all pornography legal in 1969. To keep up with the growing demand for video titles, Color Climax had taken to transferring their stocks of 8 mm and 16 mm animal films onto cassette, and it was these films — mostly starring Bodil Joensen — that composed the Animal Farm video, hence its generic title (which at no point appears on the screen) and shadowy origins. It is possible that some of the material was taken from Alex de Renzy's cash-in feature Animal Lover (1971), which actually managed a brief cinema run in San Francisco, and whose entire second half consists of the "distinctively amateurish, shaky, clumsily-shot lurid colour footage" familiar to anyone who has seen Animal Farm.
In April 2006, the UK station Channel 4 screened a 50-minute documentary, The Real Animal Farm, as part of their Dark Side of Porn season. Several interviewees, including David Kerekes (co-author of Killing for Culture and See No Evil), author Phil Tonge, feminist writer Germaine Greer and British pornographer Ben Dover, all confessed to having seen bootlegs of Animal Farm in the 1980s. Tonge described the owner of the copy he saw as an "evil, evil scumbag" and recalled how several "hard lads" either "left the room" or "vomited", Dover remarked that owning the bootleg was useful in games of one-upmanship, since nothing could top the on-screen depravity of Joensen and her co-stars, and the normally easy-going Kerekes was moved to remark that "there's only so much filth you can wallow in...and I think Animal Farm is pretty much at the bottom of the pit." Its impact on viewers was compared to that of hearing for the first time about the Kennedy assassination. [1]
The documentary also recounted the life of Bodil Joensen, a psychologically traumatised young woman whose brief notoriety as the 'Queen of Bestiality' was followed by a downward spiral of alcohol abuse and prostitution before her death of cirrhosis of the liver at the age of 40, and featured an interview with the Danish pornographer Ole Ege. The 1970 documentary A Summerday apparently formed at least some of the content of the Animal Farm bootleg, having been shown at the "Wet Dreams" pornography film festival beforehand. [1]
A shock site is a website that is intended to be offensive or disturbing to its viewers, though it can also contain elements of humor or evoke sexual arousal. Shock-oriented websites generally contain material that is pornographic, scatological, racist, antisemitic, sexist, graphically violent, insulting, vulgar, profane, or otherwise of some other provocative nature. Websites that are primarily fixated on real death and graphic violence are particularly referred to as gore sites. Some shock sites display a single picture, animation, video clip or small gallery, and are circulated via email or disguised in posts to discussion sites as a prank. Steven Jones distinguishes these sites from those that collect galleries where users search for shocking content, such as Rotten.com. Gallery sites can contain beheadings, execution, electrocution, suicide, murder, stoning, torching, police brutality, hangings, terrorism, cartel violence, drowning, vehicular accidents, war victims, rape, necrophilia, genital mutilation and other sexual crimes.
An X rating is a film rating that indicates that the film contains content that is considered to be suitable only for adults. Films with an X rating may have scenes of graphic violence or explicit sexual acts that may be disturbing or offensive to some viewers. The X rating is used in different ways by different countries, and it may have legal or commercial implications for the distribution and exhibition of such films. For example, some countries may ban or restrict the sale or rental of X-rated films, while others may allow them only in specific theaters or with special taxes. Some countries may also have different criteria or definitions for what constitutes an X-rated film, and some may consider the artistic merit of the film as a factor in classification. The X rating has been replaced or renamed by other ratings in some countries over time.
Pornographic films (pornos), erotic films, adult films, blue films, sex films, or 18+ films, are films that represent sexually explicit subject matter in order to arouse, fascinate, or satisfy the viewer. Pornographic films represent sexual fantasies and usually include erotically stimulating material such as nudity (softcore) and sexual intercourse (hardcore). A distinction is sometimes made between "erotic" and "pornographic" films on the basis that the latter category contains more explicit sexuality, and focuses more on arousal than storytelling; the distinction is highly subjective.
A facial is a sexual activity in which a man ejaculates semen onto the face of one or more sexual partners. A facial is a form of non-penetrative sex, though it is generally performed after some other means of sexual stimulation, such as vaginal sex, anal sex, oral sex, manual sex or masturbation. Facials are regularly portrayed in pornographic films and videos, often as a way to close a scene.
George Harrison Marks was an English glamour photographer and director of nudist, and later, pornographic films.
Mondo film is a subgenre of exploitative documentary films. Many mondo films are made in a way to resemble a pseudo-documentary and usually depicting sensational topics, scenes, or situations. Common traits of mondo films include portrayals of foreign cultures, an emphasis on taboo subjects such as death and sex, and staged sequences presented as genuine documentary footage. Over time, the films have placed increasing emphasis on footage of the dead and dying.
Ovidie is a French director, actress, producer, journalist, former porn actress and a writer. First known as a porn actress from 1999 to 2003, she has since directed pornographic films as well as documentaries and has written several books.
Marc Wallice is a former American pornographic actor. He performed in over 1,700 pornographic films and has directed as well. Wallice was inducted into both the AVN and XRCO Halls of Fame.
Sean Paul Lockhart, known by his stage name Brent Corrigan, is an American film actor and director, known for Milk (2008), Judas Kiss (2011), and Triple Crossed (2013).
Gregory Dark is an American film director, film producer, music video director, and screenwriter. Dark is an adult filmmaker who transitioned into directing Hollywood movies. He has also been credited as Alexander Hippolyte, Gregory Hippolyte, Gregory Brown, and as The Dark Brothers.
Pornography has been dominated by a few pan-European producers and distributors, the most notable of which is the Private Media Group that successfully claimed the position previously held by Color Climax Corporation in the early 1990s. Most European countries also have local pornography producers, from Portugal to Serbia, who face varying levels of competition with international producers. The legal status of pornography varies widely in Europe; its production and distribution are illegal in countries such as Ukraine, Belarus and Bulgaria, while Hungary has liberal pornography laws.
Eon McKai is an American director of alt porn-themed pornographic films. The name "Eon McKai" is a pseudonym and a tribute to punk singer Ian MacKaye. Ian MacKaye considers this "surreal", but has said that he does not lose sleep over the matter.
Color Climax Corporation ApS (CCC) is a defunct Danish pornography producer headquartered in Copenhagen. It was founded in 1967 by the Theander brothers and began with the publication of the porn magazine ColorClimax, despite pornography being illegal in Denmark until 1969. It was one of the leading producers of European pornography up until the 1990s. Since then, CCC has sold most of its assets to the Sansyl Group in the Netherlands. As of 2024, the website of CCC has been taken down over concerns related to its history of involvement in child pornography.
The term "Golden Age of Porn", or "porno chic", refers to a 15-year period (1969–1984) in commercial American pornography, in which sexually explicit films experienced positive attention from mainstream cinemas, movie critics, and the general public. This American period, which subsequently spread internationally, and that began before the legalization of pornography in Denmark on July 1, 1969, started on June 12, 1969, with the theatrical release of the film Blue Movie directed by Andy Warhol, and, somewhat later, with the release of the 1970 film Mona the Virgin Nymph produced by Bill Osco. These films were the first adult erotic films depicting explicit sex to receive wide theatrical release in the United States. Both influenced the making of films such as 1972's Deep Throat starring Linda Lovelace and directed by Gerard Damiano, Behind the Green Door starring Marilyn Chambers and directed by the Mitchell brothers, 1973's The Devil in Miss Jones also by Damiano, and 1976's The Opening of Misty Beethoven by Radley Metzger, the "crown jewel" of the Golden Age, according to award-winning author Toni Bentley. According to Andy Warhol, his Blue Movie film was a major influence in the making of Last Tango in Paris, an internationally controversial erotic drama film, starring Marlon Brando, and released in 1972, three years after Blue Movie was shown in theaters.
Zoophilia is a paraphilia in which a person experiences a sexual fixation on non-human animals. Bestiality instead refers to cross-species sexual activity between humans and non-human animals. Due to the lack of research on the subject, it is difficult to conclude how prevalent bestiality is. Zoophilia, however, was estimated in one study to be prevalent in 2% of the population in 2021.
Evil Angel is an American independent production company and distributor of pornographic films, founded and owned by John Stagliano.
Michelle Sinclair, known professionally as Belladonna, is an American former pornographic film and erotic actress, director, producer, and model. Since announcing her retirement from pornography in 2012, she has acted in several mainstream films, including Inherent Vice and The Ladies of the House.
Gay pornography is the representation of sexual activity between males. Its primary goal is sexual arousal in its audience. Softcore gay pornography also exists; which at one time constituted the genre, and may be produced as beefcake pornography directed toward heterosexual female, homosexual male, and bisexual audiences of any gender.
Bodil Bjarta Joensen was a Danish pornographic actress born in the village of Hundige, near Copenhagen. She ran a small entrepreneurial farm and animal husbandry business, and enjoyed celebrity status from her many pornographic films in which she engaged in sex acts with non-human animals.
King Cobra is a 2016 American biographical film about the life and early career of gay pornographic film actor Sean Paul Lockhart. It was directed by Justin Kelly and based on the book Cobra Killer: Gay Porn, Murder, and the Manhunt to Bring the Killers to Justice by Andrew E. Stoner and Peter A. Conway.