Cover for the not yet released “Women Love Porn” – find the other titles from this fabulous series in VoD and DVD here (hotmovies4her.com).
I’ve long been a fan of female UK porn director Anna Span. I love her fun Porn for women website. But what she did for the history of adult film classification and the validation of female sexual pleasure last week is absolute history and a major victory for all women. I was lucky to get an exclusive interview with Span before this hit the news — and a tip of the mouse goes to to Ms. Naughty for bringing it to my attention. Here’s a snip from In The U.K., Female Ejaculation Is Not Obscene – Violet Blue: Woman porn maker Anna Span challenged the British Board of Film Classification over a controversial sex act, and won:
If you don’t want to read about female orgasms with visual results, I suggest you grab your raincoat and move on.
However, if you want to read the latest news about a significant victory for the validation of female ejaculation, the gleeful normalizing of female pleasure in pornographic depictions, and one woman’s victory over the U.K.’s film ratings board for woman-made porn, then welcome in out of the downpour. Female ejaculation may be a topic that’s as valid, politically charged and debated as hotly as male circumcision — but now the BBFC says it’s real, it matters, and the squirt stays in the film.
This change is thanks to Britain’s first female, porn filmmaker, ten-year pioneer and pro-porn activist Anna Span (see also: annaspansdiary.com, NSFW.)
Span has been making explicit porn for several years that typically features hot young lads and ladies doing what comes naturally for her lens, with the females (and female fantasy, and female viewers) in the forefront of what she does. The lady is so serious about women’s desire she wrote two terrific DIY books for people who want to make their own porn.
Her latest project, “Women Love Porn” was not just more hot lady-lovin’ porn: it highlighted a few things to resolve so we girls can all move on and just enjoy porn already. Span tells me, “‘Women Love Porn’ is the result of a competition in which I advertised for female film makers to apply to produce and direct their own sex scene. I received over 100 submissions at the time. I chose the top five female porn directors, and they are the ones shown on this DVD. The winner, Katie Coxxx, went on to produce her first complete DVD called ‘Apocalypse Angels,’ also on my label. Women Love Porn is also the name of the label for all porn by women which we release, that aren’t directed by me. Plus, I think that (some) women do love porn very much!”
They do, indeed. According to Nielsen Net Ratings, one of every three porn viewers online is female. But “Women Love Porn” held a surprise for the British Board of Film Classification. The BBFC has historically banned films that show female ejaculation, claiming that the expert medical advice they solicited maintained there is no such thing as female ejaculation, and therefore any depiction of a woman’s ejaculation was pee porn. (…read more, sfgate.com)
Oh, and for my take-no-prisoners, girl-power, sex-positive guide to female ejaculation and the g-spot, please do check out my book:
Just in case it helps, every one of Anna’s films has at least an R18 certification, and the majority of her titles also have an edited 18 certification, the latter being sold in regular stores. R18 may only be sold from licensed sex shops, downloaded or, peculiarly, purchased outside of the UK via mail order. If anyone would like further information on the films, please feel free to email Anna’s production and distrobution company, Easy On The Eye @ ben@easyote.co.uk
Tim
Here’s an example of an Anna Span DVD on Amazon UK
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Southwark-Sugar/dp/B0014BPA90/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1255002319&sr=8-2
If you click on the boxcover art you’ll see the title is rated R, the BBFC equivent of the MPAA’s NC-17. This film has been edited from the original R-18 release, which in the UK can only be sold in government licensed sex shops.
Unless and until Span’s new work is cut so that it can get a BBFC R rating, it will have very limited distribution outlets.
This system gives these government licensed shops tremendous power over erotic filmmakers and audiences both. With no other outlets, the licensed sex shops can set the wholesale price and the retail price with virtually no competition.
Rest the rest at the gate and I’d like to make a couple of points about the difference between the BBFC and the MPAA
The BBFC system is mandatory. It’s run by the government. You can’t release film or DVD in the UK without submitting for a rating. Not so here in the US. Here in the US an filmmaker has the option to release a film without an MPAA rating. Most of the DVDs carried at retailers like Good Vibes or Blowfish are unrated.
The BBFC R rating is functionally equivalent to the MPAA’s NC-17. Both are “No one under 18 years of age allowed” ratings.
The Rating given by the BBFC to Anna Span’s film is R-18 is more restrictive than NC-17 rating. The BBFC R 18 rating restricts her DVD to licensed sex shops. No Amazon UK for R-18 DVDs. No feminist book stores R-18 DVDs. No theatrical screening, and that includes film festivals.
Again submitting a film to the BBFC system is required by the government. In fact, the stores that carry our film in the UK, all of them small women-run operations risk fine and or jail for offering our DVDs to the government, and it is illegal for them to sell R18 DVDs. If they decide to carry Anna Spam’s DVD, they risk going to jail for that too.
More at TheIntenttoArouse.com:
The MPAA Took My Baby Away!: Why exploitation filmmakers love to hate the Motion Picture Association of America.
http://www.theintenttoarouse.com/?p=84