Three AVN Award Nominations!

I am proud to report that I have received three (three!!!!) AVN Award nominations this year! My thanks to the folks at AVN for considering my indie projects and making sure that my DVDs and websites got into their piles. I am forever grateful for their dedication to give smaller production companies consideration – these nominations may seem little to a big porn company, but to me – they mean a lot. My audience may be smaller than most, but knowing that my art is on track with a larger scheme of the adult industry makes me feel like I’m working towards a goal of normalizing, representing, and respectfully erotizing what may seem like a “fetish” or a minority in mainstream sexual ideals. I imagine a world where everyone “gets it” – and these nominations show that at least, the journalists and judges do. These nominations don’t fuel my work – but they strengthen my stand for sex positivity, justice, and the fight for great pornography for everyone!

Live Sex Show, you know, the film where Nina Hartley fists Jiz Lee? Yeah. That film, that i directed on a stage in front of a live, masturbating audience, won a nomination for Best Web Priemere – which is awesome, because not only was it first released on Indie Porn Revolution – but remember: It was broadcast live on the internet, streaming all the behind the scenes goodies, during the Masturbate-a-thon at which it was filmed! The movie also stars April Flores, Tina Horn, Jolene Parton, and me in an unscripted gangbang – so props must be given to the entire cast for making this web-driven film a major success. (Now, if only more retailers would carry the DVD in it’s fist-friendly entirety, but that’s a whole other fight!)

Indie Porn Revolution, the site that I called No Fauxxx (no fakes!) when it launched exactly ten years ago this month, got a grand nomination for Best Alternative Porn Site. FUCK YEAH! My 18 year old self was struggling so much with this idea that my body, in all of it’s fatness and queerness, wasn’t worth showing. After countless rejections from “alt porn” sites, I fought back by starting my own – a site where anyone of any gender, size, race, or subculture affiliations could revel in their own unique sexiness and define, or undefine, themselves. I never, ever thought that this all-inclusive, all-over-the-place porn format would become common-place, or even duplicated by anyone anywhere ever at all. Needless to say, porn has shifted – and now a site built on fighting stereotypes, body shaming, white-washing, and queer-bashing with gorgeous images moving and still of people who refuse to fake it – has truly started the revolution of it’s new name-sake. Recognized by AVN as one of the best Alt Porn sites is huge, because now indie porn IS alt porn. Feminist-made, art-driven, anti-oppression building, revolution-starting porn IS the new alternative porn. We are living it and loving it, and somehow I feel like a major goal has been reached. The fight has been acknowledged. And accepted.

The third nomination also went to the Best Alt Site category, and this one goes to QueerPornTube.Com – a site I started specifically for amateur submissions, queer community building, home made porn, and free accessible queer porn to people from all areas, ways of life, and financial statuses. I didn’t want queer porn to be something that only rich queers could access – I’ve always wanted it to have free elements. In the end, if queer people can’t see the porn – what’s the point? Queer Porn Tube was a platform for change. An open inviation to all people to join the queer porn movement by making thier own films, representing themselves, speaking for themselves, and enjoying everything else the movement has to offer them as a vouyer. I LOVE this project. It wouldn’t be what it is without Ella Quincy, the site’s manager and peace-keeper. Ella fearlessly watches every submission to make sure that it doesn’t violate any copywrite, piracy, or ethical standards. Thank you Ella, for making QueerPornTube the awesomely sexy social hub it’s become!

None of these nominations are nods that I would be able to appear on stage at the awards ceremony, so consider this blog my drafted acceptance speeches. In my heart I do of course hope something wins – nothing has yet in the four years running that I’ve been nominated – but either way, the nominations alone reward me with the sense that we as a community of ladies, artists, and queers – are being heard. It reminds me that there’s no better time than now to stick to my guns and keep going, keep making porn that rocks, keep speaking my mind, and keep taking risks – it’s risks that get the rewards. Or, awards. You know!

Thank you dearly,

Courtney Trouble