2019
Selected by BBC as part of their 100 inspiring and influential women from around the world for 2019

BBC 100 Women of 2019

Most Dizzling Docu-Porn - Tie Me Up! A Shibari Documentary

Best Kinky Short - Dirty Feet

Sexiest Sci-Fi - Touch Crimes

Most Tantalizing Trans Short - We Are The Fucking World

2018
Festival Internacional de Cine en Guadalajara Film Festival, Mexico

Premio Maguey - Premio Maguey Director

2016
Cinekink, New York (The Kinky Film Festival)

Best Narrative Short Films – An Appointment with my Master - XConfessions Vol. 5

Best Website & Best Short Film Series - XConfessions

Good For Her – Hottest Straight Vignette – XConfessions vol. 2

Erika Lust Films

Erika Lust is an acclaimed adult filmmaker creating sex-positive, indie adult cinema with sexually intelligent narratives, relatable characters and realistic hot sex. Her crowd-sourced project XConfessions turns the public’s anonymous fantasies into explicit and artistic short films, and her US-based studio LustCinema produces original series and feature length films for lovers of cinema and sex. 

In 2004 Erika made her first film The Good Girl, an alternative take on the "pizza delivery guy" cliché. Within two weeks it had received over two million downloads. It was then that she realised that there were other people looking for something different from their pornography too. 

Over the past fifteen years, the Erika Lust brand has gone from strength to strength. Erika has directed six adult feature films, over 150 short films, produced around 50 more, and has travelled the world spreading the Lust message. She has also written five books including Let’s Make A Porno and her acclaimed erotic novel La Canción de Nora (“Nora’s Song”). 

Erika’s philosophy for a new adult cinema is based on four main ideas: women’s pleasure matters; adult cinema can have cinematic values; we need more inclusivity of diverse body types, ages and ethnicities; and the production process must be ethical. She defends the importance of the female gaze and capturing this by having women behind the camera in all key positions.

In 2015, Erika gave her essential TEDx talk It’s Time for Porn to Change. Her story was also featured in the first episode of the Netflix documentary series Hot Girls Wanted: Turned On (“Women on Top”), directed by Rashida Jones. In 2019 Erika was named as one of the BBC 100 Women’s most influential women of the year and in the last year she has been featured in several major documentary series in the UK and Germany, with more expected to air in 2020.

Film & Video Directing

Feminism

Cinema

Errotic Filmmaking

Movie Producing

Filmmaking

Film & Television Producer

sex education

Erika's Blog

Erika Lust Media Portal

Porn Producer Erika Lust To Release A New Film Made Entirely In Lockdown

Interview: Erika Lust Tells Us How to Make the Perfect Adult Film

Masturbation Is the Only Winner of the Coronavirus Pandemic

Erika Lust’s xConfessions brings your porn fantasies to life

Why porn is a terrible form of sex education

How To Have Kinky Sex During Pregnancy, According To An Expert

How to talk to kids and teens about porn

The Problem With 'Porn for Women'

Woman-made porn: Why I'm making films that reflect real life sex

What Sex Is Really Like After 70, According to XConfessions' New Documentary

Why paying for porn makes you a better feminist

Erika Lust: The feminist adult film maker changing the face of porn

new-york-times-pornhub-visa-mastercard-the-debate

Filmmaker

  Yet another example of no one listening to sex workers  Pornhub just made major changes to how their platform works, including expanded moderation and new guidelines for content uploads. Now, only verified users can upload videos to the platform – a decision which meant the total number of videos hosted on Pornhub were more than quartered overnight from 13.4 million to 2.9 million – and users can no longer download videos from the site.

This comes after an expose on the New York Times, The Children of Pornhub, which investigated the number of rape videos being hosted on the site, including those of minors. The article, written by Nicholas Kristof, followed the lives of child sexual assault victims whose videos were uploaded onto the site.

The op-ed launched a huge debate within the adult industry over censorship & moderation. People, rightfully so, do not trust Kristof because of his ties to anti-porn organisations and his reputation when it comes to reporting on sex work. In the past he has been accused of conflating sex work with sex trafficking, using misleading statistics, and was instrumental in the shutting down of Backpage, a vital safeguarding tool for sex workers, calling it “the pillar of sex trafficking”. He also quoted Laila Mickelwait in the op-ed, who is an activist and director of Traffickinghub, a campaign launched by Exodus Cry which has anti-sex work, anti-LGBTQ and anti-abortion links (it’s founder reportedly compared abortion to the holocaust).

This week, two days after Pornhub announced their changes, Visa and Mastercard started an investigation and soon announced that their cards would no longer be accepted on the platform. This has left Pornhub with no way to process payments other than with cryptocurrencies.

It goes without saying that the decision from Visa & Mastercard has panicked adult content creators who make their living from paid content on Pornhub. Because let’s be clear, Mastercard & Visa’s decision will not hurt Pornhub, who always have and always will continue to make money off of stolen content, this decision hurts sex workers – the people that Pornhub has never cared for.

Adult performers, producers and directors have spent years speaking out about the exploitation within Pornhub and the tube site business model, yet no one has listened.

MindGeek, the parent company of Pornhub, dominates online porn. It has completely demolished the industry and drained money out of the industry by stealing performers’ work and giving it away for free, and by monopolising the industry. MindGeek is an aggressive tech company through and through, it does not care about porn or adult content creators, it cares about traffic and advertising. It also owns production companies which means performers who may want to speak out about the system ultimately can’t for fear of being black listed from the production companies and therefore having less work and even less money.

"Adult performers have spent years speaking out about the exploitation within Pornhub and the tube site business model, yet no one has listened"  Pornhub does not care about performers and it’s clear that Kristof doesn’t either, but it wasn’t until the New York Times covered this issue that Pornhub did something. I wonder why?

If properly implemented by Pornhub, their new regulations could have had a significant impact on illegal and stolen content, which would be a win for adult performers who have no choice but to use the platform. But with the new ban from Mastercard & Visa, they could now be in an even worse position than before.

This is yet another example, just like SESTA/FOSTA, that shows that when it comes to making changes to the adult industry we must speak to sex workers & have their involvement in policy. Pornhub, Mastercard, & Visa, do not care about the issue of rape videos or of pirated material, these are policies that were brought in under pressure to “do something” out of fear of negative publicity.

We know that Pornhub does not care about the content it hosts, the people it hurts or the lives it ruins – they have shown us this time and again. Just last year they demonstrated this with the Girls do Porn case. Despite 22 women coming forward to sue Girls Do Porn for uploading explicit videos of them to Pornhub without their consent, Pornhub refused to remove the videos from the platform, even promoting them, until Girls do Porn were finally charged with sex trafficking.

Now is not a time to protect Pornhub, it’s time to protect and support the people who will actually be harmed by this. We must remember who have been talking about this for years whilst no one has listened; sex workers.

Please go and find performers and indie producers that you want to support and pay them for their work. Whether it’s on Only Fans or through their personal websites, pay & support sex workers & adult content creators.


New York Times, Pornhub, Visa & Mastercard: The Debate

maintaining-intimacy-in-your-relationship-while-in-covid-quarantine-

 Whether you’re social distancing, in quarantine, or in lock down like I am here in Barcelona, I have been thinking about how we can all keep  up our intimate relationships with ourselves and our partners during this time.  It’s important for us to  try to find joy and satisfaction in our daily routines (indoors). So I have put together an intimacy guide to help us all get through this period – whether you’re single, a couple living together or part of a couple living apart there should be something to help you. For the couples living together  I can assure you that Netflix & Chill will get boring pretty quickly, so work your way through this list and keep the intimacy spark alive while you’re both stuck indoors.  1. Take a shower together and have some good, clean fun in the bathroom.  2. Cuddle through it. We’re all for social distancing but if you live with your partner, now is not the time to stop cuddling.  3. Sleep in different beds. Sometimes its good to have time apart and a good night’s sleep in separate beds. It can make it even more special when you do actually share a bed together.  4. Give each other  massages with some natural oils.  5. Watch some adult movies together and maybe act out some of the moves after.   For couples living apart  I know it must be tough if you’re living apart and you can’t see each other due to quarantine, but thanks to technology there are lots of ways you can remain intimate with your partner, no matter the distance.  1. Send nudes! Need I say more? And while you’re at it you can send some intimate texts telling your partner exactly what you’d like to be doing if you were together.  2. Video call and enjoy being in each other’s company.  4. Write a list of all the intimate things you want to try together after quarantine.  5. Do the test to find out your love languages and learn about each other’s. 6. Ask each other the infamous 36 questions that lead to love. 7. Send each other love letters (via email if you can’t post!)   For single (or self-partnered) people  Now is the perfect time to fall even more in love with yourself…  1. Please, repeat after me: Don’t text your ex! Now is not the time to overthink your beak-ups and send a message to your ex.  2. Explore your body and re-discover your pleasures. Touch new parts of your body and find new erogenous zones.  3. Write a  bucket list of all of the things you want to try alone. 4. Have a date night with yourself. Cook yourself a nice meal, listen to music, drink wine, massage your feet and write a list of all of the things that you love about yourself!  

Maintaining intimacy in your relationship while in COVID quarantine 

This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences. It’s time for porn to change #changeporn

Erika Lust is an independent erotic filmmaker and author based in Barcelona. She graduated from Lund University in 1999 with a degree in Political Sciences, and founded Erika Lust Films in 2005. A staunch feminist dissatisfied with the portrayal of women in mainstream adult industry, Erika is committed to infusing intimacy, modernity and beauty into her explicit films.

About TEDx, x = independently organized event In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)

It's time for porn to change | Erika Lust | TEDxVienna

Watch this video to learn more about my work and how I went from Political Science graduate to award winning adult film director. From the book that made me question everything to my first adult film; this is my introduction.

Who is Erika Lust?

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