Intrigued by ‘female gaze erotica’?
Lust Cinema is a premium porn site specializing in ethical, sex-positive and feminist porn. Far from being ‘just for women’, the erotic content on this site is intelligently produced and eschews those damaging stereotypes of gender and sexuality. Instead, the focus is on beautifully crafted, cinematic films with high-quality production. Content has engaging and immersive narratives that are LGBTQ+ inclusive, devoid of reductive typecasting and with no traces of ‘prioritising male pleasure’.
In this review we’ll take a closer look at the premium porn streaming platform, Lust Cinema including a little bit of background on its founder, Erika Lust.
What is Lust Cinema?
Challenging the industry ‘standards’ of what is sexy when it comes to pornography, Lust Cinema is a premium porn streaming/download service dedicated to showcasing more sex-positive and inclusive adult content. Think of it like a Netflix of ethical porn.
Created by the award-winning feminist porn director Erika Lust, the site offers a diverse range of sex and body positive adult content.
The definition of feminist porn isn’t about creating porn for women but about creating porn that is free from transphobic, homophobic, racist and fetishized content. It’s about being inclusive and non-stereotypical and celebrating realism and diversity. Not only that but all of the erotic films being showcased have been made with fairness and equity at the heart of their production values.
In short, this is ethical and erotic porn.
Content on the site has been filmed specifically for, or been selected by, Lust Cinema and you can find more than 180 titles produced by studios like Joybear, New Sensations, Sex Art and Adam & Eve.
Categories
If you’ve never come across ethical porn before (no pun intended) then don’t go thinking that this is all about softcore, vanilla content. It’s not.
Lust Cinema has plenty of explicit action and lots of kinks and taboos are included. They just aren’t given the same kind of stereotyped treatment that you might have seen before.
Popular categories on Lust Cinema include:
- Group Sex
- BDSM
- Anal
- Bisexual
- Queer
- Threesomes
- Trans
There’s even some nice series to watch in the Taboo category which include step-family fantasies and sinful nuns.
Among the titles, there are several original (and award-winning) series filmed by Lust Films including the immensely popular mature title The Widow and the eye-opening BDSM series featuring Nina Hartley, Safe Word.
Most scenes on the site are accompanied by still photos taken during filming as well as a trailer. There are also some shoots that include interviews conducted with the performers and even Behind the Scenes video footage.
Directors
As well as Erika Lust herself, Lust Cinema also features the work of plenty of talented adult industry directors including many known for their work in feminist porn as well as ethical and sex-positive adult content.
Collaborators and friends of Lust Cinema include:
- Justin Santos/Joybear
- Jacky St James
- Holly Randall
- Madison Young
- James Avalon
- Kay Brandt
Performers
Performers for Lust Cinema are equally as diverse and range from women and men in their late 50s and early 60s to models in their 20s. You can find all sorts of body types represented here from stars sporting tattoos and piercings to fuller physique women and muscled men, petite ladies and skinny guys.
And, Lust Cinema showcases the talents of some big names and not just unheard of wannabe adult stars. Expect to find content featuring popular mainstream stars such as Riley Reid, Penny Pax and Aaliyah Love alongside more niche performers including fetish models, European actors and even some ageing legends. Most notably, Lust Cinema, features work starring the 1980s porn screen queen, Nina Hartley. Now in her early 60s she is still a stunning and sexy woman proving that there is no age limit when it comes to erotic performances.
Erika Lust: Feminist Pornography Pioneer?
Erika Lust (real name Erika Hallqvist) is a Swedish erotic film producer, writer and director who has been a part of the feminist porn movement since she started making adult content in 2004.
Studying Political Sciences at the University of Lund she specialized for her BA in human rights and feminism.
Lust moved to Barcelona in 2000, initially working for other production houses and eventually completing a course in film-making by attending night school.
Her first film, The Good Girl was released in 2004 and was available to download for free over the internet. Her movie was based on the run-of-the-mill ‘pizza delivery’ porn plot was filmed from a female perspective. At 21 minutes long, the film pokes fun at the traditional adult movie clichés and was hugely popular upon release reaching over two million downloads within the first month.
The film won several awards and, following this initial success, Lust founded her own film company (Lust Films) in 2005. Based in Spain, the studio creates short adult films and compilations that are first and foremost erotic in nature but that are also educational. In her work, she likes to challenge the traditional roles of gender in sexuality.
In 2014, Lust created the XConfessions website, a project where guests could leave anonymous admissions of a sexual nature. Each month, Lust has handpicked two stories and transformed these into adult films.
Though explicit in content, all of her films are produced ethically and to exceptionally high standards earning her a strong reputation in the industry. Her standing was therefore rocked in 2018 when a performer on one of Lust’s XConfessions films revealed in an interview that she had been coerced on set to perform outside of her boundaries.
The allegations were never proven but Lust Films responded to the controversy by creating two policy documents, the comprehensive ‘Performer’s Bill of Rights’ and ‘Guest Directors Guide to Working With Performer’s. Both polices have been widely copied and the content adopted as the ethical gold standard for adult content production.
How Much is Lust Cinema?
You can pick up a membership to Lust Cinema in one of three ways:
- Monthly – $34.95
- Quarterly – $69.95
- Annually – $139.95
You can also pick up a subscription to one of Erika Lust’s other premium channels (XConfessions) along with your subscription for an extra $2.95 per month.
Lust Cinema: We Say…
Though initially founded in 2010, the concept of ethical and feminist porn is a recent development in the adult industry. Maybe the appetite for, or understanding of, sex-positive and inclusive XXX content has finally reached a point when people are prepared to pay premium prices for it but why has it taken this long to happen?
The adult film industry has certainly suffered a lot of backlash in a post #MeToo world. There has been lots of criticism over the perceived exploitation of performers along with a general malaise over what some see as derivative and hackneyed porn output from the mainstream studios. What more and more audiences want to see is diversity in their porn. People want to see more realism instead of impossibly beautiful, toned and perfect stars. Yes, there is still a market for this but perhaps in an age where amateur content is so abundant, porn fans have come to realize there is beauty and eroticism in real-life.
But what Lust Cinema proves is that you don’t have to settle for grainy amateur footage to achieve this. Erica Lust, along with plenty of talented collaborators, have placed the emphasis on capturing real sex featuring performers who more accurately reflect the kinds of people watching…and without diminishing these demographics to stereotypes.
For far too long, porn has been produced by, and for, a very specific market (namely, straight white guys) and though the balance has been redressed by lots of studios, there is always space for one more challenger. And Lust Cinema does challenge this with intelligent and powerful storytelling that is as sexy as it is intriguing and as explicit as it is exciting.
By all means, sate your appetite with whatever kind of porn turns you on, we certainly celebrate freedom of choice, but don’t turn your back on this pioneering platform just because ‘feminine-gaze’ porn sounds weak. It isn’t. This is some of the most memorable and enjoyable high-quality porn you can find. Fappable? For sure plus you get to feel righteous after you watch it knowing that your membership is contributing to an ethical cause. Everyone’s a winner.
Featured images via Lust Cinema.