How can you not cheer for Annie Sprinkle, for her unbridled enthusiasm and her joy of pleasure. Annie loves feeling good and she shares that whenever she can. Annie Sprinkle’s Herstory of Porn From Real to Reel directed by Annie Sprinkle and Scarlet Harlot, and based on the stage show directed by Emilio Cubeiro, begins, as it should, with popcorn popping, which is how Annie got her start, working at a porno movie theater selling popcorn—to the backdrop of ecstatic moans. It begins with the young Annie, who introduces herself as a porno starlet. It is 1973, and she is at the Pink Pussy Cat Cinema, where she is going to share her intimate film diaries, beginning with a clip of her first movie, Teenage Deviate. Herstory of Porn is divided into different phases of Annie’s career—1973, 1977, through 1997 when she explains that she’s 44 and might be getting too old for this work, that her body is changing, though she “finds older women really sexy.” But that’s getting ahead of Her story.
Annie explains at the outset why she is doing what she’s doing: “A lot of people haven’t seen other people’s genitals and I think that’s so important; genitals are so beautiful, aren’t they?” In one of the clips there’s a “pussy light” that goes on so you can see all the juicy details. The narratives in-between the clips are worth the price of the ticket. Subsequent narratives provide information about Annie: Having sex on camera is the easy part. It’s the acting that’s embarrassing. I only had one method acting class;” comments about the historical context, including a “lesson” about the first amendment and censorship; and, the fact that rape is the second most popular sexual fantasy—a fantasy that is probably embedded in our cultural psyche.
She explains how porno got chic—there was money and special effects—and mainstream movies and TV were copied. For example, Mash became Smash’d, a film in which Annie plays a kind nurse who gives her patients blow jobs while they’re sleeping.
By 1982, after making about 100 porno movies all written, produced and directed by men, Sprinkle decided she wanted to make her own porno movie. “Deep Inside Annie Sprinkle” became the second biggest grossing porno movie in 1982. And, the beginning of a whole new era: porno made by women. Wanting the film to be more interactive, throughout she talks directly into the camera, as she does in Herstory. “I was the one who became assertive – no one was manipulating me into sex. I was the one who wanted it.” She places herself in the audience, so that she participates as an observer of her own film. “Now, in this scene I wanted to show a real woman’s orgasm. A lot of people, including porn directors, didn’t think that women really had real orgasms. If they did, they weren’t important anyway.” So she shows her viewers, as well as porn directors, otherwise.
Two years later, Annie is experiencing the sacred act that sex is—a deep meditation—the intersection of the spirit with the flesh. In New Mexico, she meets Jamal, and writes and directs Rites of Passion, which is produced by Candida Royalle, under Femme Productions, Royalle’s company that is focused on making erotica for couples. The photography is breathtaking, and foreshadows Sprinkle’s later identification as an ecosexual.
With the AIDS crisis, Annie tried starting a group she called “Pornographers Promoting Safer Sex,” and although the hetero community didn’t rise to the occasion, thereafter all of her movies incorporated safer sex practices which were plainly evident. You could say that was the first manifestation of her political, feministic, and educational concerns that continue to this day. And, at the same time, she was identifying herself as an artist, and coming out as a lesbian, all of these changes shared through her work.
“Pornography”, Annie said, “is the mirror in which we can see our reflections: the same image may appear beautiful one day, and ugly the next; be liberating one year and offensive later. How wonderful to have the opportunity to take a look, to learn. …” She continued, “The answer to bad porn is not no porn, but to try and make better porn. No matter where we stand, pornography reflects us all.”
Watch Herstory of Porn.
