The Naked Feminist

Louisa Achille

Web: http://www.myspace.com/nakedfeminist

The Naked Feminist is a fascinating and informative exploration of the world of adult entertainment from the perspective of the many woman artists, performers and directors involved. It is great to see a film handle such a controversial yet significant subject in a professional, intelligent and yet at the same time amusing and entertaining manner.

I have always found it strange that some feminists argue that adult material is by its nature exploitative and that all sex shown on screen involves objectification. While it cannot be debated that there is a flood of material that is of low quality and of dubious value, even titles which are exploitative, misogynist and downright nasty, to use this content to argue against all adult material is like arguing that a bad novel invalidates all novels or a bad film invalidates the film industry as whole. Such generalizations are bad logic and are always ending being the basis for not only faulty judgement making but prejudice.

The central thesis of the Naked Feminist is that there is clearly a difference between individuals who may be exploited, and in any industry such events will always occur, and the empowered woman who takes charge of her own sexuality and makes her own career choices. This is an unusual documentary in that it really offers a counter balance to the extreme puritanism that is found hiding under the cloak of so many feminist debates on adult materials.

The Naked Feminist offers interviews with major figures including a good overview of the development of female operates adult video companies and adult material made by woman including Club 90. Club 90 developed primarily from a group of adult woman performers and from this nexus developed such ground breaking work as the sex performance art of Annie Sprinkle and the Femme products by Candida Royalle which are sex positive erotica for couples.

This is an intelligent documentary which offers a solid balance of interviews including insightful discussion with a wide range of adult performers, recent and older and various academic and commentators. Many of the interviews and commentaries are not only informative but fun as well.

There is an insightful discussion of the Madonna/Whore complex, where woman must be either a mother, pristine and pure or a whore and the way in which men can be studs but sexually active woman are automatically demonized as sluts.

The Naked Feminist is not a “gloss” job, it discusses honestly the misogyny of some aspects of the adult industry especially Gonzo films and the prevalence of lowest common denominator porn, but also argues that in a truly free society we must allow freedom of speech to control the market as long as no one is directly coerced or harmed. The Naked Feminist does give some coverage to “traditional” feminist critiques of pornography, but to be honest these were not especially convincing. While they argue they were not against “nudity” only exploitation, there was a sense these were people “out of time” arguing a very Victorian view of relationships without any real honest re-appraisal of the modern experience of human sexuality.

The Naked Feminist is a superior documentary offering a good overview of the adult movie industry from the perspective of the empowered female. I felt that one of the most sensible observations in the whole film was so simple yet so imperative “ the answer to bad pornography is good pornography! “.

The Naked Feminist argues, rightly so, that woman (indeed everyone male, female, gay, straight and whatever !) must reclaim their sexuality and if they do not like what they see depicted on film, they should make it themselves and in the Naked Feminist, we find that they have done just that !