Queer is as hard to define as it is to ignore. – Courtney Trouble
Some NSFW images below – scroll carefully.
While St. Louis has been my home for the last 5 years, I will be spending the next 9 months in a small town in north-central Germany. Recently I had the good great immense fortune of getting to spend four days in Berlin and attending the Porn Film Festival held there annually.
Looking at the list of showings, I felt like a kid in a candy shop. I decided to go with a theme and to buy tickets for the three Courtney Trouble films and the Q&A session with her.
Even those who don’t recognize her name might know her website nofauxxx.com. She has been creating and publishing alternative, queer-focused porn since 2002, but started making movies just last year. Her two films Speakeasy and Roulette (the first one) won a Feminist Porn Award each.
I started out with Roulette Berlin and was able to get into the 10AM showing on Friday morning. The film started with Judy Minx getting slapped and fucked her way from orgasm to orgasm and back again. The next scene featured some of the most amazing power exchange I have ever seen. It involved restraining and percussive blows to the chest. Not my cup of tea sexually, and I wasn’t that turned on. At the same time, the energy that the actors were emanating was so intense that I was invested in the pleasure of the people I was watching, as I’ve never been before. When the scene ended, I had to go in my purse for a tissue to wipe my eyes. The guy next to me asked if he could have a tissue too, and I gave him one. After the film ended, he said ‘that was so touching, wasn’t it?’ I agreed.
I haven’t watched much porn before and have been hesistant to spend the money because the good stuff isn’t cheap. After viewing Courtney Trouble’s work (and the two other films I splurged on), I’ve decided that the purchase of quality pornography is money well spent. I picked up a couple of titles and hope that when I’m back in town, I’ll be in good stead to do some trading with friends.
The Q&A session with Courtney herself was as enlightening as her movies are hot. She showed short clips from a few of her films (including the murder mystery Bordello!), and talked about what was behind them, how they were made, what she liked about them. She told her story – how she wanted to see more kinds of bodies represented in porn transgendered bodies, fat bodies, etc. She saw how some alternative porn, like the Suicide Girls were leaving a whole lot of people and a whole lot of sex out.
One of my favorite parts was the Q&A. As she answered my question about location in her Roulette films (there’s a Roulette Dirty South and a Roulette Toronto as well), she said that she wanted to show that there were people having all kinds of hot sex all over and that you don’t have to live in San Fransisco to be proud of your body and the kind of sex you are having in your community. Could there be a Roulette St. Louis next? I hope so.
scene from 'Roulette Berlin'
In many ways, her films are about community. Courtney films with people she knows, so that there is a bond between the actors, and between the actors and Courtney herself. It’s a connection that the audience can feel. Watching her films is like one of those really playful, profound one-night stands. It doesn’t mean anything more, but it doesn’t have to, because it is so much already.
[images from www.courtneytrouble.com]