Chicks with Dicks!!: Lesbian Pornography

Heather Butler, in her piece "What Do You Call A Lesbian with Long Fingers? The Development of Lesbian and Dyke Pornography", outlines the characteristics of lesbian's depicted in mainstream pornography and how the depiction has changed through time and with the advent of Queer pornography. She carefully reviews "attempts to authenticate lesbian sexuality through representation, as well as to interpellate the potential lesbian viewer," which legitimate Queer identity on screen, and also as active consumers of porn (Heather Butler 167).

The main characteristic of lesbians as shown in mainstream porn is that the two or more women are prepping themselves for "real sex" with a man; "the 'lesbian,' as she is typically represented in heterosexual pornography, is most often used as a warm-up for sex between a man and a woman," (168). This trend started back in stag films where two girls are usually having a good time with themselves, and once it starts to get hot, the man enters. This theme is still present in mainstream porn today, a theme that denies lesbian identity entirely, and shows not a bisexual identity, but rather a "bi-curious", but not so serious, sexuality.

Queer pornographers, and a small handful of mainstream pornographers, have attempted then to change this pattern and represent a sincere lesbian identity, "to represent lesbianism as an actual choice, not contingent on heterosexuality and a lifestyle that remains discrete from the heterosexual imperative," (170). Indeed, a lesbian identity is not fully defined by what one does sexually, but is contingent on an actual Queer lifestyle.

One way that pornographers have sought to represent lesbians, is with the figure of the Butch Dyke. The Butch Dkye is visual evidence of Queer identity and lifestyle. In mainstream pornography, the Butch Dyke may be limited to her gender role, in terms of being the "top", more aggressive partner. However, in Queer porn, the Butch Dkye has enjoyed a more varied sexual role, one that challenges mainstream notions of gender behavior; "with the figure of the butch, the lesbian gains maximum visibility... the butch destabilizes any fixed notions of gender that we might have had concerning masculinity and femininity," (169).

To further play with our notions of gender roles, Queer pornographers have twisted around with the use and power of the phallus; "Lesbian pornography inherently uncloaks the impotence behind the phallus model and proposes alternatives to simply 'taking it' or 'faking it,'" (168). With the use of dildos and strap on, pleasure moves from the body with the phallus, to the body receiving it. In mainstream pornography, the man's pleasure is at focus, he is the one who can produce the "money shot", the visual evidence that sex has taken place, been pleasurable, and is finished. In Queer porn then, the woman's pleasure is at focus, something we hardly see otherwise. Quoting Jackie Strano, Butler writes that the dildo is "a pleasure tool, an extension of my energy, attached to my clit... it exists to make a woman come, to give her pleasure... and does not come out or come down until she says it does according to her orgasmic wax and wane, not mine as a man's basic physiology would dictate" (187).

Indeed, as we saw in the Queer porn, "Sugar High Glitter City", the strap on can be used in a variety of ways to pleasure both partners. The dildo is not just the object of pleasure for the one wearing it, but rather, the pleasure is dictated by the receiver.

I recommend this film for those of you interested in authentic representations of Queer woman sex. Gender roles are fluid, there is a varied representation of bodies as well as racial diversity, and of course, safe sex and communication.

Heather Butler, "What Do You Call a Lesbian With Long Fingers? The Development of Lesbian and Dyke Pornography," Porn Studies, Linda Williams, ed., Durham: Duke, 2004, 167-197.