Pandora Blake, who has been turning a lot of heads recently in the spanking porn community with her “fairtrade, sex positive, performer-driven and gender egalitarian” (and 2013 Feminist Porn Awards nominated) Dreams Of Spanking site, has written a magnificent manifesto against the pernicious feminist ideology that deems all porn to be exploitative and denies the agency of the people who make and perform in it. This is just a bit of it:

Making porn empowers me, creatively expresses my true self, and connects me positively with my sexuality. To say “porn never empowers” is to dismiss and deny my lived experience. Porn empowers me. I’m not just talking about the sexy patriarchal power of being desirable to men. I’m talking about my own personal power: the power to choose what I do with each day. The power to run my own business. The power to make creative choices, to make political choices. Making porn has empowered me to develop my dominant side, to connect with new facets of my sexual self. It has given me confidence; satisfaction; skills; courage in my convictions; creative, sexual and political fulfilment. Making porn gives me freedom in multiple areas of my life, and choosing to continue making it is one of the ways I exercise that freedom.

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In the age of the internet, anyone with a smartphone can shoot footage and sell it on clips4sale or AdultWork — and lots of performers do. So when a performer has a cute idea for a solo scene, shoots it at home on their phone, uploads it and starts receiving cheques in the mail, who exactly is exploiting them? The people sending them money? Do you feel exploited when you get paid for work you do?

In my work I am producer, director, writer, videographer, business owner. I am my own agent, webmistress and promoter. When I have the sexual experiences I want to have with my own lovers, and film it in my own home with my own camera, upload it with my own internet connection and receive money into my own bank account, who exactly is exploiting me?

But even if if I wasn’t running my own business, it would still be possible for me to work for porn productions that didn’t exploit me. Some do, others don’t. As in any other industry, part of a performer’s job is making choices about which clients and companies they want to work with.

What she said!

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