Where Mainstream Media and Queer Culture Collide

As a queer feminist pornographer and artist who considers my craft and career to be much more than a day/night job but an extension of who I am, my politics and the movement that I am a part of, I was hugely offended by HBO's politics that descended upon Madison Young Productions.

In being a sex positive feminist pornographer I strive to create a positive environment for my crew and talent. I feel like much of that environment and communication was compromised between me and my crew by having a mainstream network in our space and commanding and overriding decisions that should have been left up to me and my crew if they were interested in documenting our sex positive productions and practices. But instead we were all stripped of our power, left feeling exploited, and disempowered by a mainstream entity.

As the director, I own this experience. I brought in my sex positive comrades. People that I believe in. People that I want on my team and who I greatly admire their work and wanted to see them gain visibility. People like creative genius and revolutionary Shine Louise Houston and Syd Blakovich and fellow filmmakers, alternative thinkers, and performers Kimberly Kane and Daniel. These people are part of my team, my community, my family. And for any of these sexual revolutionaries to experience exploitation is not something that I want to be a part of.

The scenes with between Daniel and I and Kimberly and I were powerful, connected, communicative, aggressive, genuine and sex positive. I feel like the interview that I did after the scenes was informative and strong. But all of the world that buzzed around us. The mainstream world trying to grasp and capture a inkling of our culture was compromised of something completely different and I think it had the strongest effect on our crew.

This has deeply effected me. I thought about other sex positive heroes and mentors of mine such as Carol Queen and Annie Sprinkle. How has Annie tackled 4 Real Sex episodes? How has she created so much education around art and sex, sex positivity and sex? How has she tackled the mainstream? Over tears and pasta I looked up and I asked Mr Mogul "What would Annie do?" He suggested that I call her. And I did. I love Annie. She is my adopted mother and I don't know what I would do with out her guidance and strength.

Annie said that we need to go through with this, but do it our way. Don't be afraid to say no. To stand up for ourselves. So simple but so intimidating it seems. We need to create dialogue.

We can't hide. And we can't be exploited. So we must stand up for who we are and what we believe in. Tonight we will be filming at Femina Potens at around 6:30pm ,our art reception. We must stand up for ourselves. I want to hear from our community. This gallery is your space. It is our space. It is an honest reflection of who we are uncensored and I won't have it any other way. I encourage you all to make your voices heard. Organize protests outside the gallery, crash the party, show up and be yourself, bring signs, wear buttons, start conversations and dialogue there about queer mainstream visibility and how we can destroy their exploitation. Today will be about our community in all its diversity, in all of its politics, in all of our opinions. We need to respect one another and open communication. Join me. Tonight Femina Potens 6:30, 2199 Market - Femina Potens was created as a soapbox for our culture and community. The world is listening. What do we stand for? What do we have to say?

Please pass this blog entry along to all community members.

Femina Potens will be organizing several dialogues around Queer Visibility in mainstream media and I will be posting those this weekend.