WITH NAN KINNEY
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SFR: Do you consider yourself a pornographer?
NK:
Oh definitely. Since we started. We get a lot of questions about the difference between pornography and erotica-for me it's very straightforward. It's pornography if it's explicit and it shows genitals. It's erotica if it doesn't show genitals. And we show explicit everything. That's pornography and that's what I do.
Thirty percent of your customer base…
Is guys, right. These are guys whose taste in porn is maybe a little more mature or developed and they're just kind of tired of seeing the same thing over and over again and they're happy to find something different. They appreciate it! We don't make our product with them in mind, but if they find it, then great.
Is porn production political work?
It has been political by default. We didn't want to define ourselves as political in the beginning although I think it was political in the end in terms of, it's OK to be a sexual being, it's OK for lesbians to have sex, you can be a feminist and like sex. That was kind of the argument when we first started. That was around Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon's time, so there was a lot of conflict in the lesbian community-not only around pornography, but even sex. They were almost not even having sex. It was all emotional and spiritual and 'we're friends.'
When you started the magazine On Our Backs feminists did not receive it well. But they came around-by the time you sold the magazine in 1990, only 5 percent of feminist bookstores didn't carry it.
It was a short-lived but very intense argument in the lesbian community that kind of burned itself out. It certainly wasn't around in the '70s when I first came out. In the '70s you could have any kind of sex you wanted! But there was that brief period in the late '70s and early '80s that were very influenced by the anti-porn movement and it really affected the lesbian community.
You left On Our Backs at the height of its popularity to make movies at Fatale. Why?
I guess after 10 years I felt like I had achieved what I wanted to achieve. I'd said what I wanted to say and I'd seen things change so much. It felt like the issue was kind of over. And then it was just a personal thing: I wanted to get more involved with the videos. I felt more satisfied and fulfilled with the end product. I've always enjoyed visual media more than print. I think it affects people more than the pictures they're reading. It's really visual, visceral.
Are you actively involved with the local queer community?
I've been so lazy. But I'm going to tell you something that's really interesting about Santa Fe: We don't hang a sign on our door, but we're very open about what we do. The only people I've felt any bigotry or prejudice from in this town are lesbians. They're still the old-style lesbians who don't think porn is a good thing. Most people are very nonchalant when we tell them what we do, but I think there are a lot of older lesbians here who are afraid of being associated with us. That we'll incriminate them in some way, make them bad lesbians. It's kind of strange. But the reason that we came here is because it's so open in Santa Fe, it's kind of a live-and-let-live atmosphere.
Was the move from San Francisco-a city with a booming sex industry-to Santa Fe jarring for you?
Well what do we have? We have Cheeks? And we have Au Boudoir. You've got to hand it to those gals. I think it fits in with Santa Fe. It's like Noah's Ark here: There are one or two of everything. So there's the one strip club and the one ladies adult store. I think it makes sense.
Do female porn viewers need plot more than males?
I think men like stories and plot just as much as women. I think people in general like a little story. I think porn has just been lazy because men are a little more at ease with their sexuality and comfortable looking at porn. Women have had to be educated. And it's also more expensive to make a plot; it takes more effort. The big difference between men and women, plot or no plot, is the women's attention to detail. They really watch it. They see beyond the sex.
Does Fatale have a governing ethos or aesthetic?
Number one, it's authentic sexuality that you're not going to see in mainstream adult [movies]. We started On Our Backs in 1984 and they were all the same mission: real lesbian sex and lesbians that want it. And the print was one form and the videos were another form and so it was like, mainstream porn is not showing this, it's not addressing it, it's not dealing with it.
Is that why you started the Real Lesbian Sex Contest?
I wanted to encourage young women filmmakers to think about doing pornography and I thought this would be a way. You don't have a lot of people who know how to do this. I'd just kind of like to support them, bring them up in the business, you know? There are always so few companies making authentic lesbian porn, so the contest is just a way to encourage them to get involved.
