I have a very complicated relationship with lesbian porn.  For starters, I wrote a 30-page senior thesis on it in college, and condensed that very paper for Shewired several years ago.  I made an amateur documentary about lesbian porn to accompany the thesis, and, now that I know how to produce an actual documentary, am going to remake it professionally starting this summer (first shoot in Paris with some French lesbians shall be exciting indeed).  

My beef with lesbian porn is essentially threefold: 

1) It is made BY men and FOR men (straight men, obviously).  This makes it amazingly inaccurate, exploitative, boring, and heteronormative.

2) Many, if not most, of the actresses are straight girls who don't have any idea what the fuck they're doing. This makes it (see #1)

3) Long.  Fingernails.  (see #1)

Anyway.  As a result of the young males of the world having near-constant Internet access, and combined with the fact that the vast majority of lesbian porn just absolutely sucks (but not in a good way), the entire lesbian community has become entirely fetishized by dudes who think that all we do is half-assedly lick each other and moan audibly while simultaneously scratching each other with our long fingernails (see #3).  Granted, it's been about 5 years since I did the intial research on lesbian porn (and by "research" I mean watching hours of the stuff to the point that my neighbors thought I was crazy), and I know that there are strides being made by queer filmmakers to ameliorate the dismal situation, but by and large, the mainstream stuff is still the same garbage that it always has been.  

Beyond the annoyance factor and the inability of any of this stuff to get me even the slightest bit turned on, the more insidious impact is that guys now seem to think that lesbians were put on earth for their amusement (and threesomes, and viewing pleasure, and "hey I mean none of you girls are ACTUALLY gay right?").  I think lesbian porn is the leading culprit in why not a single man I've ever encountered save maybe one or two has believed me right off the bat when I came out to him. (For more on femme invisibilty, check out my friend Jodi's film page). And it's also the leading culprit behind his immediate and highly invasive line of questioning that follows regarding my sex life.  

Why? Because in porn, the actresses usually bring a guy in with them in the end of the scene and fixate on him in a way that is decidedly NOT gay.  Because in porn you see the same girls in straight porn as gay porn and it blurs the lines.  Because porn reinforces over and over that women and their bodies are essentially neatly wrapped packages served up to men on a silver platter (and they come to expect this).  

Now look, I'm not one of those people who think we should ban porn because it's just so bad for the world.  But my God, I would LOVE to see some nicely produced, well-directed and well-shot lesbian porn that has actual lesbians in it with actual technique (and it would help if they were beautiful yet also natural a lá Ellen Page or Evan Rachel Wood).  Is that really so much to ask??  You guys, I got so irritated at one point that I almost decided I would direct it myself.  But then I remembered that I'm not a porn director.  But SOMEONE has to be! 

The most important negative impact that lesbian porn has is that it actively spreads homophobia towards lesbians.  This ranges from the incessant sex questions from guys who think it's totally fine to ask a complete stranger what she does with her girlfriend in bed to the so-called "corrective rapes" that occur in South Africa and all around the world in which men rape lesbians to "cure" us of our seemingly "temporary" condition.  

I'm sure that lesbian porn is part of the subconscious and psychological reason why Prop 8 passed in California! It took us six fucking years to undo that law and we are still battling everywhere for basic rights.  I know that I'm never going to be able to get anyone to stop making the mainstream porn, but guys if you are going to hypersexualize us for your spank banks, at least throw us a bone when it comes to human rights. 

And someone PLEASE make this meme from FCKH8 into a sticker!! Kthanks.