“Porn is like chocolate and coffee: totally normal! And that’s why it needs to be produced ethically.” These are the simple, yet groundbreaking words that recently echoed through German living rooms, raising eyebrows and stirring a much-needed conversation.
Jan Böhmermann, Germany’s very own John Oliver if you will, dedicated a recent episode of his weekly late night satirical show ZDF Magazin Royale to the hot topic of porn. Outlining how tube site giants such as Pornhub have failed on various levels to meet certain ethical standards and to provide the public with diverse pornographic content, the show suggested the following solution: “Why not make a publicly funded porn to close the gap and show them how it’s done?”
While many viewers mistook this as a mere provocation, Böhmermann and his crew actually went ahead and did it: With the help of Berlin porntrepeneur Paulita Pappel, they produced Germany’s very first publicly funded porn, fully financed by broadcasting fees. “We’re making history with this,” Pappel commented on Twitter
(Film)making Waves!
The epic title of this filmic piece of history is FFMM Straight Queer Doggy BJ Oral Orgasm Squirting Royale (gebührenfinanziert). Restricted by the legal guidelines of national television, only a censored trailer made it onto the show proper and no direct link could be provided online. A title this long and specific, repeated twice v-e-r-y clearly during the episode by a winking Böhmermann, posed no challenge to anyone capable of using Google, though. Within just two days, there were over 300,000 online searches for the film.
When you copy paste the title into the search bar, you will arrive at the Lustery POV page and a 29-minute video (or, like, just click that hyperlink). It opens with the famous show host explaining that “Germany’s public service broadcasting is supposed to be a counterbalance to free market media and responsible for ensuring a diversity of content independent from commercial interests.” And why shouldn’t that apply to porn? No sooner said than done: What follows are 15 minutes of ethically produced, queer, feminist smut - paid for collectively by the German citizens. What a time to be alive
Any connoisseur will immediately recognize Pappel’s signature cinematography: the ambient lighting, the catchy electronic music, the split screen, the attention to detail, the constant challenging of the visual tropes of mainstream porn. “I want to offer a filmic experience that speaks to different senses by using more than just the standard straightforward sexual stimuli,” she explained of the process. Plus, the orange color scheme and the hexagon centerpiece that subtly play on the logos of the show add a splash of tongue-in-cheek.
The scene starts out with two people kissing and touching intensely before slowly developing into a powerful bisexual foursome. Starring performers Bishop Black, Lina Bembe, Holy Mother aka Mila Gold X, and Noir So, it features a diverse set of bodies and sexual practices.
We see stretch marks, body hair, belly fat, tattoos, black and brown skin that is not being fetishized as such. There’s lots of external clitoral stimulation, including the help of a wand vibrator, and an overall equality of sucking, fingering, and ejaculating that leaves zero room for hetero-patriarchal normativity. The G-spot and the P-spot have equal rights, clit and blow jobs get equal screen time, and every orgasm is just as important as the other one.
Less Pressure, More Pleasure
On the late night show, Pappel explains that the major advantage of publicly funded porn is that content decisions can be made independently of what will sell best. Free from commercial pressure, they could “focus on what feels best for the performers, instead of what looks best for consumers,” she said. This is particularly relevant with regard to showing safer sex, which is widely regarded as unattractive to porn audiences and believed to decrease sales on the mainstream market.
In this movie, however, there are condoms, gloves, lube, and dental dams everywhere. More than just educational tools, they also serve as visual elements. Especially the dental dams, when perceived from a kind of vulva POV shot with the tongue licking the screen through the latex. On top of that, they are used as a stimulation tool in and of itself through repeatedly rubbing it across the clit and labia. “We tried to cover a lot of safer sex possibilities in a sexy way,” Pappel says.
Unlike the false notion people tend to have of the label of ‘feminist porn,’ it’s not about portraying romantic vanilla sex. As Paulita Pappel has already proven in her gangbang series for Hardwerk Studios, feminist sex is not limited to certain practices. There is light choking, hair-pulling, spanking, gagging and more… “As long as it’s consensual, almost anything can be part of feminist porn,” claims Pappel.
And consent we do see plenty! On top of the various “is this good?” check-ins with each other or the loud “Síííííííí” moans, there is a lot of non-verbal consent through eye contact and smiles.
The whole scene is finished off by a moment of aftercare with post-orgasmic kissing, hugging, and holding, the exchange of thank-you’s and applause. Over the rare sight of a flaccid penis we read the closing credits that list every single member of the crew. The End.
“Obviously we couldn’t fit everything in one porn, it would be lovely to make this a 10-piece series,” says Pappel. Agreed! And yet, they managed to put a lot of things in there that were probably entirely new to the average German porn consumer. Sexual interaction between two male performers? That must have been an unexpected confrontation for a lot of straight men watching. Instead of creating public outrage, however, the response to the film has been overwhelmingly positive.
Apart from issues of ethical production and consumption, Germany’s first publicly funded porn raises the bigger question: What is thestate’s responsibility when it comes to porn? At a moment,,as German child protection regulators have blocked the likes of xhamster and are systematically banning porn from Twitter, this question could not be more timely.
Germans love watching porn for sure, but do they actually care about it and the people within it? If we want to make this industry and our relationship to porn better, there is only one way: We need to pay for porn, do better at sex ed, and end the stigma around both, porn consumption and sex work. Without a doubt, this project has been a step into the right direction. Here’s to more publicly funded porn and a brighter future.
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