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.)

Where Oruba Proposes To Start Watching Feminist Porn And The Like For The New Year

Since I crawled out of adolescence and matured into the man I am today, I've been remarkably ambivalent about porn. Remarkable because I can read Catherine Mackinnon and jerk off to bukkake in the same day. I'm particularly sensitive to the objectification of women. I treat my lovers and female friends as equals, as more than the objects of one's fantasies, as whole people. Yet a quick glance at my porn library will reveal hundreds of cummed on faces, gangbangs that look uncomfortably close to rape, women getting poked with an odd assortment of objects, women getting called horrific names while being spit on, women getting passed around, thrown like rag dolls, tossed aside like yesterday's trash. How am I OK with that?

Maybe I'm not. Or, maybe I am.

It's perhaps not immediately apparent, but this blog is an attempt to expose, if not work out, that ambivalence.

I like to think of myself as a person with a strong constitution and the ability to make his actions line up with his beliefs. I was the once Heavyweight champion of smoking, going at it with vigor and poise until I was convinced it would one day killed me. I've been cigarette-free for almost 5 years. I was once an inveterate, indiscriminate, and unapologetic carnivore. These days I only eat meat 6 months out of the year and locally produced at that.

2012 will soon be upon us. On the 1st of January, I will embark on a new project. I will be locking up my usual fare and doing something new. For the entire month of January I will be watching, stroking to, and critiquing my experiences with feminist porn, sex-positive porn, couples porn, artsy porn and any kind of sex flick a guy like me should be watching that doesn't conflict with my real world sensibilities.

Here's how you, dear reader, can help. If you know a site, movie, or starlet that falls into those categories, don't be afraid to suggest it.

The suggestions are already starting to pour in. The insanely delightful Sophie Delancey has recommended Camille Carlson of Art of the Blowjob and Lily Anne Bloom of Pornographic Love.

So yeah, that's where I'll be starting in about a month.