Mainstream porn, whether straight or queer, is pretty predictable. There are very few transgender people, the activities rarely vary, the bodies look the same (chiselled guys, skinny women), and there’s a lot of grim, forced moaning.
In early April, four days of events will celebrate and promote more inclusive and varied porn, beginning with Public.Provocative.Porn: The Year’s Best in Feminist Film, followed by the ninth annual Good for Her Feminist Porn Awards and the two-day Feminist Porn Conference.
Morgan Thorne is a former paramedic with a bachelor of arts in philosophy and anthropology. She’s also a professional dominatrix who creates and sells fetish videos on the internet. “I don’t fit the typical mould of the blonde-haired, blue-eyed beauty; I have a pink mohawk, tattoos, voluptuous body, and I’m five feet tall. And the models I work with don’t often fit that mould either,” she says. “I’ve worked with models who are genderqueer or trans, and not necessarily in the traditional ‘chick with a dick’ trope, which I know a lot of performers find really offensive.”
Thorne will give a talk at the Feminist Porn Conference called Creating Fetish Content for Fun and Profit, which provides advice on creating and selling non-mainstream porn. “There’s a lot of room for people who are heavier, really skinny — whatever — that don’t fit regular beauty standards, and however you look or identify, there’s room for you to celebrate who you are. And if you want to sexualize that and enjoy it, you can make money from it,” she says.
This four-day celebration of alternative porn runs Thurs, April 3–Sun, April 6. For more info, visit goodforher.com.