The Naked Feminist

Director: Louisa Achille
Featuring: Veronica Hart, Nina Hartley, Christi Lake, Chloe Nicole, Candida Royalle, Annie Sprinkle, Ginger Lynn, Marilyn Chambers, Seymore Butts, Betty Dodson, Veronica Vega, Mischa Allen, Abby Ehmann, Kylie Ireland, Sharon Mitchell

Review by: Gram Ponante

Aussie filmmaker Louisa Achille did something wonderful and revolutionary with this movie: she was able to present anti-porn feminists in a way that didn't make them seem shrill while giving a podium to some of the adult industry's most levelheaded and articulate champions, particularly Veronica Hart, Nina Hartley, Betty Dodson, Carol Queen, Sharon Mitchell, Annie Sprinkle, Candida Royalle, and Kylie Ireland.

Despite the widening blur dividing porn from mainstream entertainment, docs about the adult industry tend to lionize one side while demonizing the other. Unfortunately, this does nothing to convince the choir of the other's point of view. "Naked Feminist," while clearly pro-porn, neither paints porn's detractors as ridiculous nor shies away from showing porn stars exhibiting doubt.

Shot in 2002 and 2003, "The Naked Feminist" makes the obligatory AVN convention trip to Las Vegas for interviews with Hartley, Julie Meadows, Ginger Lynn, and the one of a kind Chloe Nicole, tracks down Veronica Hart at her office at the late, lamented VCA Pictures (VCA and Adam & Eve seemed to have a lock on the porn talent and clips presented), and found Dodson, Sprinkle, and Queen elsewhere around the country.

Seymore Butts appears briefly, but the remainder of the dozens of interviews are with women, who discuss everything from how porn affects relationships to the notion of solidarity among female performers (the doc devotes a chapter to "Club 90," a support group for porn actresses). We also hear some scary stories (Sharon Mitchell's rape by a crazed fan, Veronica Hart's first scene, in which the director went too far), some unsurprising ones (Chloe was high in her first scene), and a standard issue Dodson heartwarmer, in which she explains to her electrician why his unsatisfied girlfriend left him.

Of all the quotes that illuminate the ambivalence of attitudes about porn, my favorite is Carol Queen's:

"The notion that a woman who revels in her sexuality is free and open to anyone is really the toxic heart of the slut role or epithet and it's the part that the conservative feminists - and we - agree is problematic and wrong and needs to be trained out of the culture," Queen says. "And the culture is reluctant to do that because that is what keeps the slut role dangerous."

"Naked Feminist" has not found wide distribution,so its debut this week on iTunes (rent it for $2.99) will be the best opportunity the hour-long movie has had to attract eyeballs since its release.

Since so much time has passed, however, the new-porn aspirations of interviewees have either already come to fruition and just as quickly become something else - How is Hart's feminism different from Joanna Angel's, which might itself be different from Sasha Grey's? - or faded altogether. Hart is no longer making porn movies, which is a shame (luckily, Candida Royalle is), Chloe is no longer in the business, Marilyn Chambers is dead, and Annabelle Chong's hope that the solo-woman Internet site as a ticket to financial security might have been true in 2003, but is not now.

That said, "Naked Feminist" provides generous dollops of all the women in the adult industry who have something to say about it (circa 2003) and the message is still a compelling one today.

· "The Naked Feminist" on iTunes (itunes.com)

From the moment she hit the pornscape—she sent Seymore Butts a tape of herself masturbating, and the rest was porn history—Shane was a breath of fresh air, both with Seymore and in her post-Butts career as owner and operator of Shane’s World. She always seemed like a girl you might meet, if you were really lucky.

She’s out of the business and settled down nowadays, but we like to think of her as the same girl, just doing her thing for one lucky guy. And we don’t grudge him the good fortune one bit. Happy Birthday, Shane!

(The picture of the tortoise is what you get when you try to find pictures of Shane via the Google Image search. His name is Seymore).

Bio data courtesy of the Internet Adult Film Database

· Internet Adult Film Database (www.iafd.com)
· Shane at IAFD.com (iafd.com)
· Buy Shane’s movies (gamelink.com)

Oh well. The event will be held at Hollywood's Henry Fonda Theatre, and event organizers promise that even Tom Joad would sport a choad.

· Sexopolis on MySpace (myspace.com)

We were asked specifically to look at this film, so we were looking forward to a study of how agriculture met the ass. As Seymore Butts is our nation's foremost ass documentarian, we thought this movie would be like Edward R. Murrow's "Harvest of Shame", except, you know, with asses.

We were wrong, of course, but it was still OK. Join us after the gap for more from Seymore Butts' sex farm. - GP

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The Ass Farmer

Studio: Seymore Butts
Director: Seymore Butts
Cast: Vanilla Skye, Honey DeJour, Veronica Jett, Veronica Rayne, Jordan Blue, Havana Ginger, Kelly Wells, Tom Byron, Herschel Savage

Review by: - GP

As if Herschel Savage doesn't have enough to deal with, someone shows up with a tail.

There's very few porn houses we know outside of the Playboy Mansion. Seymore Butts' is one of them. Located on the Valley side of the Sepulveda Blvd. hill, it was the setting for much of Showtime's "Family Business".

In The Ass Farmer most of the house is used, the camera being operated by Butts himself (he is retired from performing) in a manner both more familiar and less obtrusive than other directors who interact with their performers.

If this is accurate, Havana Ginger is about 11 feet tall.

In The Ass Farmer the house is host to several pairings and triplings, all ass-scented for both the male and female performers.

Butts' metier is the ass, so this group of newcomers and veterans spends a lot of time there. Butts is a 90's-era director, therefore we are not subjected to clinical studies of the nether area, but we are privy to several spontaneous burts of emotion from performers who might not normally get their asses catered to so comprehensively.

It's important to remember, though, that at no point in the movie do we see a farm. Why this movie wasn't called The Ass Housekeeper is beyond me.

Honey DeJour reflects on a job well done.

Notable scenes include a three-way between Herschel Savage, Veronica Jett, and Veronica Rayne and the finale between orthodontically fabulous Honey DeJour and Tom Byron. DeJour turns Byron inside out.

· Seymore Butts (seymorebutts.com)
· Buy "The Ass Farmer" (gamelink.com)

Previously: Photoplay Archive

Xfanz concludes its five-part "Born For Porn" series on family values Porn Valley-style with a profile of adult industry legend Lynn LeMay, who's found that even dealing with pervy fans can be a way of bonding with her progeny: "Sometimes people would come up to me and say, 'Can I touch [your breasts]?' ... And I'd say, 'Would you like to meet my daughter?' It's a whole new level of fun." But LeMay isn't the only one whose made porn a means of staying close with the ones you love: previous installments of the series featured a few clans you may have been aware of already (the wacky Glassers of Showtime's "Family Business" fame; porn pixie Sunny Lane and her manager parents) and at least one that we weren't, Missouri siblings and up-and-coming porn starlets Tommie and Tawni Ryden ("We always had a leg up on everyone else, ... We were never stupid about sex.") Next time someone stars crowing about how porn is destroying the basic unit of our society, we hope they keep these folks in mind and remember that when it comes to families, it takes all kinds.

· "Born For Porn" @ Xfanz: Seymore Butts, Sunny Lane, Tommie and Tawni Ryden, Ava and Mia Rose, Lynn LeMay (xfanz.com)

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See also:

· "I Love Ava & Mia" and Tommie Ryden in "Who's That Girl #3" (Adult DVD Empire)
· "Mia and Ava Rose in Double Trouble" (gramponante.com. 6/06)
· Order: "Family Business: The Complete First Season" and "Family Business: The Complete Second Season" (Amazon)

Previously: The Return of Lynn LeMay, Sunny Lane Gives You Her "Prime Time", Meet Ava Rose, Mainstream Crosssover Watch^TM: De'Bella Does "The Insider", "Family Business" on DVD, The Gibson Sisters, Meet Holly Randall, "Portrait of Sunrise", "Perfect Specimens 2", Meet The Love Twins, Shae and Rochelle