Interview: Erika Lust

To me, pornography is a medium like any other. It’s just explicit film, showing sex without hiding the reality. But it’s the creators who choose the values they show, whether it is chauvinistic or feminist porn.

I started to think about making a different kind of pornography when I was in my early 20s. There was a part of me that liked what I saw [in traditional pornography], and part of me that thought ,“What the hell is this?” So I wanted to make an explicit film that I would feel good about and that I would like, instead of feeling molested by it.

It’s so important that women make films in general, and pornography in particular, because 95 percent of the films made are by men as producer, director and scriptwriter. When you analyse what is really going on in films, the woman is almost never the protagonist, but usually a vehicle for the man to get his pleasure.

I try to make explicit films for people that like film. One thing I noticed in traditional porn was that it was very bad quality. I’m from an audio-visual generation, and to me, it all just seems ugly; the lighting, the music, the make-up, even the bed linen they use.

I’m not interested in the Barbie stereotypes…I try to make urban stories using natural people in real situations.

The script writing is the easy part. The hard work is when you have to find the actors and the location, then the preparation and the shooting. It’s all very technical—not one big sex party where we all have a lot of fun!

People are always fascinated by what I do. Maybe my parents would be happier if I was working in a big international organisation, but I’m not doing anything wrong, ugly or dirty. I’ve created a company that is working very well and getting a lot of respect with interesting products, so I think they are very proud of who I am and what I’ve managed to do. The porn world needs brilliant people with different values, aesthetics and professionalism.

I get a good response from men outside the industry, because the idea of masculinity has changed and a lot of men like what I do. Men within the industry are a different matter: they just can’t think beyond the body