Over the years, I’ve struggled to explain exactly what kind of videos and photos I make. They’re certainly for adults, they’re very erotic in nature erotic, but I’d definitely also consider them to be porn. A lot of people balk about this, which I find somewhat confusing, but not necessarily surprising. Porn gets a bad reputation, invoking ideas of violence and degradation… Not that either of those things are necessarily bad at all, but people often assume that it’s non-consentual, which is definitely not okay. More than that, people assume things about the way porn is made, which may be a little closer to the truth…
I tend to go on about the mainstream adult industry, my views on which will be pretty well-trod territory if you read my blog – and you should read my blog, so I’ll keep it relatively brief… The vast majority of porn is okay. Just okay. And that’s the porn that is well-funded and most well-promoted by big companies. It’s fine, it’s helping many people make a living, but it is very much in line with the status quo of what we expect the porn consuming public to want without any attempt to move beyond the confines that have been put in place.
This isn’t to say that there aren’t many inventive, risk-taking pornographers who make amazing porn. There certainly are, and you need look no further than the list of people and companies nominated for the Feminist Porn Awards for some very excellent examples. I’m even sure that there are passionate filmmakers and performers within the most mainstream side of the adult industry, I just feel like the median tends towards mediocrity, which manifests itself in a way that seems very impervious to aesthetics. I mean, the performers look fine, but it’s never done with beauty in mind.
What I’m getting at is that I love the idea of beautiful porn, which is what I’ve come to use as the terminology for what I do. But what does that mean exactly? The way I’ve conceptualized it, it stands for both aesthetic and ethical beauty. Okay, okay, Camille… But what does THAT mean?
Aesthetics are pretty obvious. First, it’s about the cinematography and photography through attention to detail. We focus on working to craft a beautifully composed and edited film or photo set, as rich and vibrant as possible. We play around with styles, with conceptual representations of our sex lives, with ways to play with the eye. It’s constantly evolving and we work just as much on the technical side as the creative side to find new ways to better represent what we do. We don’t want to stagnate, which is especially relevant when you’re just one couple filming just one kind of sex.
On the ethical front, well, that’s a little more complex of an issue. We see it as being truthful in all aspects of what we create. We try to portray genuine connection, which is captured when we are actually aroused and actually wanting to do a shoot. There’s no pressure to perform, just two people who want each other in that moment. It’s a fairly uncommon idea, but it is pervasive in a few kinds of porn and we think that it’s incredibly important, both for the audience and for ourselves.
We try, through blogging, advice columns, social media and even the erotica we include on the site, to indicate the larger relationship dynamics at play in what we do. I’m not a blowjob machine and I don’t drop to my knees for one-sided service on command. We have a relationship of much give and take and we’ve elected to focus on blowjobs because it’s a niche that makes us happy and it works for a lot of reasons.
There is a lot of talk about pleasure, both in terms of receiving pleasure and in terms of the pleasure of giving. Every discussion about the pleasure of giving comes with the firm caveat that this should never be a one-way street, nor should the idea of pleasure be universal. Different things feel good to different people and that’s how it should be. And, above all, our consent is always explicit, hopefully as evidenced by the genuine joy that spreads across my face as I’m giving the man I love a really sensual blowjob. If that isn’t beautiful, I don’t know what is.
[This post is a part of Fleshbot's Camille Crimson Week.]
