Annie M. Sprinkle is an American certified sexologist, performance artist, former sex worker, and advocate for sex work and health care. Sprinkle has worked as a prostitute, sex educator, feminist stripper, pornographic film actress, and sex film producer and director. In 1996, she became the first known porn star to get a doctoral degree, earning a PhD in human sexuality from the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality in San Francisco. Identifying as ecosexual, Sprinkle is best known for her self-help style of pornography, teaching individuals about pleasure, and for her conventional pornographic film Deep Inside Annie Sprinkle (1981). Through the production of feminist based pornographic content, include understanding of female genitalia and pornography based on women's desires, Sprinkle has contributed to feminist pornography and the larger social movement of feminism; she is also known for contributing to the rise of the post-porn movement and bisexual/lesbian pornography. Sprinkle, a bisexual woman and member of the LGBTQ+ community, married her long-time partner Beth Stephens in Canada on January 14, 2007.
Marie Louise Hartman, known professionally as Nina Hartley, is an American pornographic film actress and sex educator. By 2017 she had appeared in more than one thousand adult films. She has been described by Las Vegas Weekly as an "outspoken feminist" and "advocate for sexual freedom", and by CNBC as "a legend in the adult world".
Sibel Kekilli is a German actress. She gained public attention after starring in the 2004 film Head-On. She won two Lolas, the most prestigious German film award, for her performances in Head-On and When We Leave (2010). Beginning in 2011, she became more widely known for her role as Shae in the HBO series Game of Thrones.
Tristan Taormino is an American feminist author, columnist, sex educator, activist, editor, speaker, radio host, and pornographic film director. She is most recently known for her book Opening Up: A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships, which is often recommended as a starter guide to polyamory and non-monogamy.
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 had 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 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 a few years after Blue Movie was shown in theaters.
Erika Lust is a Swedish erotic film director, screenwriter and producer. Since the debut of her first indie erotic film The Good Girl in 2004, Lust has been cited as one of the current leading participants in the feminist pornography movement, asserting that an ethical production process sets her company apart from mainstream pornography sites. Lust has stated that she finds no issue in calling her films porn, since she expects viewers to be sexually aroused, unlike other directors of erotic films who make a distinction between their work and porn even when both types contain sexually explicit scenes. In addition to directing and producing a number of award-winning films, she has written several books.
Petra Joy is a German feminist film director, film producer, TV producer, distributor, author, and photographer. She lives in Brighton, England. Along with Candida Royalle, Annie Sprinkle, Maria Beatty, and others, she is one of the pioneers in producing pornography for women. Her genre is described as "art-core," meaning the focus is on sexuality from the female perspective, female pleasure, and creative, sensual play. Common themes in her erotic films include safe sex, men seen as sexual objects, female fantasies, and male bisexuality.
Madison Young is an American filmmaker, author, performance artist, feminist activist, and former adult film performer and award-winning erotic filmmaker. Young is a prominent figure in the feminist porn movement and is known for their work as a queer and kink-focused educator and an advocate of sex workers’ rights.
Feminist views on pornography range from total condemnation of the medium as an inherent form of violence against women to an embracing of some forms as a medium of feminist expression. This debate reflects larger concerns surrounding feminist views on sexuality, and is closely related to those on prostitution, BDSM, and other issues. Pornography has been one of the most divisive issues in feminism, particularly in Anglophone (English-speaking) countries. This division was exemplified in the feminist sex wars of the 1980s, which pitted anti-pornography activists against pro-pornography ones.
Manuela Kay is a German journalist, author and publisher.
The Feminist Porn Awards (FPAs) is an annual adult film awards ceremony that began in 2006, and was initially organized by the Good for Her adult store in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Until 2014, the ceremony was officially known as the Good for Her Feminist Porn Awards.
PorYes is an initiative of sex-positive feminists that advocates for feminist criteria in pornography and honors outstanding depictions of sexuality. Since 2009, the PorYes Award has been held every two years as a feminist European porn film prize in Berlin. The PorYes awards were created as a feminist counter-action to the Venus Awards, a Berlin-based mainstream porn festival.
Jiz Lee is an American pornographic performer, considered a major star of queer porn. Lee is an advocate for the ethical production and consumption of pornography and for the labor rights and sexual autonomy of adult entertainment performers.
Judy Minx is a French pornographic actress. She identifies as a sex worker, queer and as a feminist activist.
Feminist pornography is a genre of film developed by or for those within the sex-positive feminist movement. It was created for the purpose of promoting gender equality by portraying more bodily movements and sexual fantasies of women and members of the LGBT community.
Feminist views on sexuality widely vary. Many feminists, particularly radical feminists, are highly critical of what they see as sexual objectification and sexual exploitation in the media and society. Radical feminists are often opposed to the sex industry, including opposition to prostitution and pornography. Other feminists define themselves as sex-positive feminists and believe that a wide variety of expressions of female sexuality can be empowering to women when they are freely chosen. Some feminists support efforts to reform the sex industry to become less sexist, such as the feminist pornography movement.
Porn for women, women's porn or women's pornography is pornography aimed specifically at the female market, and often produced by women. It rejects the view that pornography is only for men, and seeks to make porn that women enjoy watching instead of what is being offered in male-centric mainstream pornography.
Amarna Miller is a Spanish YouTuber and former adult film actress, producer, director and writer.
Aische Pervers is a German pornographic actress, presenter, singer and actress.
Jasmin Hagendorfer is a Vienna-based contemporary artist, writer, filmmaker, curator, producer and festival organizer. She is one of the founders and creative director of the Porn Film Festival Vienna. From 2019 to 2022 she was the creative director of Transition International Queer & Minorities Film Festival. Her main artistic interest is in installation, sculpture and performance, and her work has been exhibited in Austria, Germany, Turkey, Serbia and Greece. As an artist she is concerned with social and political discourses and questions about gender identity with an emphasis on post-porn political works. Her studio is based in Stockerau near Vienna.
