Where Oruba Watches Feminist Porn and the Like: Day #1: Open Invitation

The New Year has come. I only have one resolution. I want to switch up my porn viewing habits. Just for a month. Just to shake things up. It's bugging me that so much of what I stroke to is In-Your-Face degrading for the women involved. I resolve to evolve upwards and watch sex flicks that are different from so much of what is considered hardcore.

January 1st, I began watching sex positive porn, couples sex, classic flicks, feminist porn, etc.

This is a brand new world. Where to start?

The Good For Her Feminist Porn Awards have been celebrating feminist-friendly porn since 2006. I plucked out this daring mission statement from their website:

We believe the world is inundated with cheesy, cliche, degrading, and patronizing porn. But we also believe that erotic fantasy is powerful, and that women and marginalized communities deserve to put their dreams and desires on film, too. As feminists and sex-positive people, we want to showcase and honour those who are creating erotic media with a feminist sensibility.

In order to be considered a sex flick must pass the following criteria:

 1) A woman had a hand in the production, writing, direction, etc. of the work.
2) It depicts genuine female pleasure
3) It expands the boundaries of sexual representation on film and challenges stereotypes that are often found in mainstream porn.

Seems as good a place to start as any.

Beeline to Sexiest Straight Movie category. I'm not ready, I probably never will be ready for Most Tantalizing Trans Film.

This year's winner is An Open Invitation: A Real Swinger's Party in San Francisco. Works out; I've been meaning to see this for a while. Someone brought it up during my tour of the Armory this summer. Open Invitation is a plotty couples flick that ends in a sweltering orgy in the top floor of the SF's Armory¹.

Now,  I've been easing into plot-centric flicks since I got stoned and watched Sister Wives. Open Invitation does not disappoint. India Summer and James Deen are the Blooms, a pair of young professionals. To the world, they're the picture of a happy young couple, but the spark has gone from the bedroom. They meet the Angels who introduce them to a whole new brave world of swinging.

I kushed up and watched the whole flick. I think that's gonna be a thing for me.

I have to say, I was surprised to see this on the list of films lauded by feminists. Many of these porn stars are in the same films I'm distancing myself from this month. I've seen James Deen get downright rape-y  in some flicks, many of them from Kink.com. But whatevs; I watch.

Content-wise, Open Invitation, has many of the same porn tropes I thought I was gonna be leaving behind for the month of January. There are still facials. Quite a few actually.

But . . .

There's a lot of intimacy. Not just sex, but actual, (or metaphorical) closeness. The Blooms and the Angels seem like actual couples, not individuals who just met each other a few hours before.

There's no name calling. No one's called a bitch, or whore, or slut.

There's no intentional gagging. Slobber is kept at a minimum.


There's two black guys in this movie, 2/5 of the principal males, but Open Invitation is not marketed as a IR flick. None of the women demand to be fucked with "nigger cocks". Is it possible that Open Invitation does not see color?

And it was pleasure to stroke. A great flick to watch. I found myself drawn in. The artistry is simply gorgeous. You just had to stop sometimes and just take it in. Directer Ilana Rothman paints such vivid scenes, I found myself, partway wanting to watch her other films.

Good first flick. If they're all like this, I just might extend this for another month.

Remember, I'm taking a movie or website suggestions. Please leave them in the comments.

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1. I watch the film. I was there. I walked that floor. Touched that table. A masked stranger will get fucked here. I will watch it. I smell sex heavy in the air. I want nothing more, nothing more, than to be there then instead of here during this R rated daylight hour tour.)

Oruba Tours the Armory

There's a building in San Francisco. A great big building, with Presence and History. A place where sex happens. And when it happens it is filmed. There are often chains, whips, masks, displays of power and submission, weird machines probing. Wonderful things!

This building? The one and only Armory in the Mission District.

You're walking the sunniest streets in San Francisco. You're eating burritos, drinking Sol, avoiding the invading horde of smelly hipsters. You need something to do.

Oruba: I'm in town; What shall I do while I'm here?

The Delightful Alison Hart of Pornochromatic: Why not go tour the Armory? I can get you tickets.

And she did.

And I toured.

Behold:

The place was originally an actual armory for the national guard at the turn of the century, but has been laying abandoned for 30 years until Kink.com bought it in 2007. Under the leadership of Kink.com founder Peter Acworth, the massive 200,000 square foot building was transformed into a literal porn palace.

We learned all this right away from our lovely tour guide, the effervescent Ava, who rounded us up and walked us around the place.

The very top level is the lair for an Edwardian period reality show which is live streamed. Complete with custom furniture designed to double as stays for tied down slaves. Oh my! Prim, dressed up doms and subs bustled by us as they prepared for a tea party.

Then to the set of Ultimate Surrender. Side Note: I am the only person I know who's gone on the Official Armory Tour. But I know two people who been to live tapings of Ultimate Surrender and Naked Kombat. I roll with a special and exclusive crowd of perverts. Clearly.

Then to Kink University.

Then to the sets of Whipped Ass, Hogtied, and others.

Oh and the prop rooms. Oh the prop rooms!

We even ended up in a place that looked like a dungeon but was really an unfinished basement.

And before you know it it was over. And I shuffled out on to Valencia for a giant empanada and and some Chilean beer.

Random Bit #1: Some scenes from the Original Star Wars was shot at the Armory which, aside from being rad in its own right, meant the building was already zoned for film making. Lucky pornographers.

Random Bit #2: Apparently Kink.com is in the process of leasing out the Drill court in the hopes of turning it into a community center which will host among other things, a farmers market. You read that right. Only in San Francisco.

Thoughts: For the past few years, actually the better part of the last decade we have been hearing that the porn industry is in decline. The ubiquity of free porn pretty much means that people don't really pay for porn they way they used to. Despite the proliferation of websites, there aren't too many that are pure money makers. So how did Kink.com grow so damn fast in 10 years? So much so that they're can not only by the Armory in 2007 (admittedly, not a bad year in porn), but remain viable (I assume profitable) in the present.

Is because niche providers, fetish sites are the impervious to the trend affecting the industry as a whole? Please, discuss.

Random Bit #3: This is what 55 gallon drums of lube looks like. Don't ask how quickly they go through this.

Life is good. Thanks Alison, Ava, and the good folks at Kink.com.