LUST

A “performer-led” feminist porn producer exposes her life in front of and behind the camera.

In this eye-opening self-portrait, Swedish indie adult filmmaker Lust (Good Porn, 2010) intimately details her creative collaboration with adult star Kazumi on the creation and direction of the author’s first gangbang film, which went on to be award-nominated. Lust’s checklisted-production process is unique in that she proudly prioritizes open communication, “shared authorship,” and, most critically, women’s pleasure, desire, and agency in erotic cinema. Her directive to place women first in her company’s productions is an honorable and much-welcomed divergence from the standard, male-centric aesthetics of mainstream porn, and she shares the ups and downs of her two decade-long directing career with no regrets. Other sections detail the feminine struggle embedded within her family’s extended ancestry, alongside an account of the author’s girlhood and what it was like to be brought up by a mostly absent father and a sexually conservative mother. Her formidable evolution—from restless, misunderstood young woman exploring her sexuality and feminist mindset amid Barcelona’s subcultural nightlife to an award-winning producer and director of feminist porn—reads as an impressive and praiseworthy achievement. Unwilling to compromise with naysayers, she openly chastises swift and unfounded criticism and censorship initiatives aimed at the adult industry by those who’ve never watched porn nor had any kind of experiences with performers or productions. Throughout the book, Lust, who is married and has two children, touts her long-held activist persona with great pride, aggressively defending the decriminalization of sex work as well as promoting sex education and the shame-free consumption of pornographic material, believing in its potential to empower women, explore human sexuality, and discover “how we can find ourselves in the process.”

A keen, authoritative, and provocative hybrid of erotic discussion, memoir, and academic discourse.