On Feb. 7, 2012, Caitlin Donohue posted an article on the San Francisco Bay Guardian’s website about queer porn at the AVN awards, the Oscars of the porn industry. The article even made the cover of the print edition, complete with a naked Courtney Trouble – owner of Trouble Films, QueerPorn.tv and NoFauxxx.com – paying homage to Madonna’s infamous hitchhiking nude image.
Via Courtney Trouble's Twitter Feed
Donahue’s portrayal of the work Trouble and her entourage did for the visibility of queer people by simply attending the AVN awards and walking the red carpet was spot on. I’m happy to see the article bring about even more attention to this realistic, feministic and often artistic genre of porn.
However, I was saddened by Donahue’s seeming disapproval of and apparent attack on Jincey Lumpkin, owner of Juicy Pink Box, a lesbian porn company.
Photo by Anja Köstler, Taken from Lumpkin's Facebook Page
While I have talked to both of them multiple times via email, I don’t know Jincey Lumpkin and I don’t know Courtney Trouble. What I do know is the extensive impact that both women – and their subsequent companies – have had on how the porn industry and its consumers view lesbian sex.
So why the attack on Lumpkin?
Donahue mocks Lumpkin’s preference to use the term “lesbian” instead of “dyke” or “queer”, accuses Lumpkin of having “scissoring” scenes, excluding fisting and using only cis-gendered people, hints that Lumpkin caters to the white male fantasy and stops just short of calling Lumpkin a sell-out for working with mainstream porn distributor Girlfriend Films. All of this is used to imply that Lumpkin and her porn are less alternative and therefore less laudable.
I highly disagree with this implication.
Comparing Lumpkin’s porn to Trouble’s porn is like comparing dildos to (cis) dicks: despite their apparent similarities, they’re two different beasts. While Trouble makes hardcore, often gritty, highly kinky porn, Lumpkin makes a softer, more cinematically focused product. Both use “real” lesbians, both use genderqueer and trans people and both are viewed by people in and out of the LGBT and queer community.
Which porn is better?
Whichever one gets you off.
Via Juicy Pink Box
Via QueerPorn.tv
I understand that Donahue may have been attempting to point out the differences between so-called “lesbian” and “queer” porn, but the manner in which she did it pitted one against the other and left the reader applauding Trouble and denouncing Lumpkin.
A scenario that, according to her comments on the article, left Lumpkin feeling misrepresented, hurt and ostracized.
Donahue had a chance to highlight the contributions two women have made to queer porn but instead she chose to embrace one and snub the other. When given an opportunity to redress the situation, she only blackballed Lumpkin further.
Donahue even ends her second article on the subject with “So let’s get back on the awesome train, shall we?” – a comment I find interesting considering she’s the one who first decided who did and did not belong on that awesome train to begin with.
As a journalist, I understand that Donahue has to judge the various people and things about which she writes, but I ask her – and all other reporters – to remember that it is possible to distinguish between two things without being hurtful, malicious and unkind.
In a time when being anti-gay is a legitimate political platform, we really can’t afford to attack someone in our own community for not being gay/queer enough, or even for being “mainstream”. I’m not saying I need everyone to hold hands, sing cumbayá and fuck, I just want us to stop purposely and consciously dividing our community.
