House Wifey has a headache. Her sink is broken. Drip drip drip goes the tap. Distraught and alone, she sips from the flask in her apron pocket and phones her banker hubby to ask for help. Unfortunately Hubby, who doesn’t seem to be around much, isn’t the fix-it type, either. “If you can’t do the job,” she tells him, “somebody else will have to.” Soon, the Plumber arrives decked out in green coveralls and smoking a cigarette. House Wifey leads the way to the sink. “Do you think you can fix it?” It’s not a problem; just a rusty pipe and leaky washer. The drip drip drip is soon taken care of. Now, House Wifey asks, can the Plumber fix her plumbing?
To find out what hijinks House Wifey and the Plumber get up to you’ll have to watch Pornograflics, the first offering from local porn company Dirty Pillows Inc, run by writer/director/producers Angela Phong, Dr Lau and Miss Bea (their porn-making aliases). An hour-long version was screened at this year’s Inside Out festival, and the full 90-minute version just launched.
Why did three indie filmmakers decide to use their talents to titillate? “Every time I’d watch porn I’d think to myself that I could do better,” says Lau. “I wanted something that would turn me on. That was the main reason why I got into porn.”
These days, the shelves of lesbian-made porn aren’t exactly bare. There’s stuff from SIR Video Productions (Hard Love, How To Fuck In High Heels and Sugar High Glitter City), Passionfruit Video (Home Cookin’ and Gallery Erotica), and the grande dame of them all, Fatale Media (Suburban Dykes and the more recent Take Her Down: Lesbian Erotic Oil Wrestling Party and Full Load: Scenes From Ssspread.com).
“There’s a lot more porn coming out already,” says Lau, “and there’s even more that’s going to come out that’s made by lesbians for lesbians.”
When Fatale Media released Private Pleasures and Shadows together in January 1985, it launched the dyke-made porn genre in North America. “My goal has always been to present alternative images of sexuality,” writes Nan Kinney, Fatale president and producer, on the Fatale website (Kinney also founded On Our Backs with then-partner Debi Sundahl and Susie Bright in 1984). “Sex is an important part of people’s lives, and women, and lesbians in particular, have always been portrayed in a very limited way in traditional pornography. I want people to have other images of themselves, a way to bust out of the ingrained images in mainstream porn.” Fatale also has an annual Real Lesbian Sex contest to encourage more women to create porn.
“There is a palpable difference when you watch something that has been made by women for other women,” says SIR’s Jackie Strano, who started the San Francisco-based company with partner Shar Rednour in 1998. “When was the last time you saw a femme top fisting a butch bottom onscreen? Or a beautiful black woman who isn’t a size six having an intense orgasm? Or an Asian dyke daddy giving her bi-racial femme one orgasm after another by fucking her with her strap-on?”
A cast of local extroverts star in Pornograflics’ five hardcore scenes. Most of the actors are established couples, which may explain why the filmmakers didn’t have to spend too much time coaching the sex. Besides House Wifey, viewers meet a frustrated femme who successfully convinces her partner that fussing over her is more exciting than fussing over a motorcycle (hey, the motorcycle can even be part of the fun). In another scene, a bad girl swiping books needs to be taught a lesson, which the store security guard is only too happy to provide. There’s also a scene in which two roomies drive each other nuts with nagging, making noise and not obeying the rules of the fridge. Get the two of them fightin’ on a bed, however, and they soon get along fine.
The scenes are explicit (you see exactly what that fingers, tongues and sex toys are up to), and if the screeching and ejaculation are any clue, everyone is having a good time.
“We wanted something that had many different stories, that would reflect our different approaches to filmmaking,” says Lau. “We wanted to get as many people turned on as possible.”
Production qualities are pretty fancy. They used three cameras on each shoot, used numerous cuts and added digital effects and lots of music. Both Lau and Phong studied film in university. When Lau’s ex-girlfriend, a friend of Phong’s, introduced them, their porn-making project got underway. The Dirty Pillows gang began preproduction last January and were shooting a year ago. They’re just beginning to seek distribution, but VHS copies will be available at Good For Her and through their website (www.dirtydirtypillows.com). A DVD is in the works.
Still, there’s lots of room on the video shelves for women who want to make their own masturbatory masterpieces. “We’re still a rarity,” says Phong, “which I find very sad, actually.”
Their advice for anyone who wants to make her own porn? Do it.
PORNOGRAFLICS.
$60. www.dirtypillows.com.
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