Dirty Diaries is, I think, a fairly decent attempt at making an alternative, non-commercial, feminist porn film. It was funded with money from the Swedish government and consists of 12 short scenes all directed by different women and filmed with a mobile phone camera. According to the website Dirty Diaries is based around a manifesto which, among other things, condemns "sick beauty ideals" and calls on us to "smash capitalism and patriarchy". The aim is to "create an alternative to the mainstream porn industry by making sexy films we like". It's good to see this sort of radical rhetoric and I think that a lot of the 'feminist porn' that has been made up to now has failed to come up with something truly different from what we can see in today's commercial porn.
After watching Dirty Diaries it truly isn't like any of the other porn films I've seen before. It bears no resemblance to the fake, exploitative, sexist rubbish of the mainstream porn industry and all the actors are clearly enjoying it and doing it for their own pleasure. The scenes are pretty varied but, unfortunately, also mixed in terms of their erotic appeal. Quite a lot of the film resembles a weird art project and some of the scenes don't even feature any sex at all. But at the same time there's more than enough good scenes to make Dirty Diaries worth watching.
There's a description of all the scenes in the wikipedia page on the film but I particularly liked the first one 'Skin' which features a heterosexual couple whose bodies are covered in nylon gradually breaking out of their excess 'skin' before having some really beautiful and intimate sex together. My other top three scenes are probably "Night Time", a heterosexual scene which very much has the quality of a home-made amateur video, 'Phone F**k', which features two woman having phone sex mixed with some clips of the times they'd had together, and 'Authority' which features rough lesbian sex in an abandoned building in Berlin.
Despite its flaws I'd really recommend Dirty Diaries to anyone looking for something radically different from the repetitive and boring fare of the mainstream porn industry and which tries to deepen and enhance our understanding of human sexuality. The film is accessible to people turned off by mainstream porn and you can watch it in the knowledge that no one was exploited or abused in its production. I hope Mia Engberg, Elin Magnusson and the other women behind Dirty Diaries decide to make some more porn in future as their perspective is truly needed in a world where the capitalist porn industry has been allowed so much influence over our sexualities and gender identities.
After watching Dirty Diaries it truly isn't like any of the other porn films I've seen before. It bears no resemblance to the fake, exploitative, sexist rubbish of the mainstream porn industry and all the actors are clearly enjoying it and doing it for their own pleasure. The scenes are pretty varied but, unfortunately, also mixed in terms of their erotic appeal. Quite a lot of the film resembles a weird art project and some of the scenes don't even feature any sex at all. But at the same time there's more than enough good scenes to make Dirty Diaries worth watching.
There's a description of all the scenes in the wikipedia page on the film but I particularly liked the first one 'Skin' which features a heterosexual couple whose bodies are covered in nylon gradually breaking out of their excess 'skin' before having some really beautiful and intimate sex together. My other top three scenes are probably "Night Time", a heterosexual scene which very much has the quality of a home-made amateur video, 'Phone F**k', which features two woman having phone sex mixed with some clips of the times they'd had together, and 'Authority' which features rough lesbian sex in an abandoned building in Berlin.
Despite its flaws I'd really recommend Dirty Diaries to anyone looking for something radically different from the repetitive and boring fare of the mainstream porn industry and which tries to deepen and enhance our understanding of human sexuality. The film is accessible to people turned off by mainstream porn and you can watch it in the knowledge that no one was exploited or abused in its production. I hope Mia Engberg, Elin Magnusson and the other women behind Dirty Diaries decide to make some more porn in future as their perspective is truly needed in a world where the capitalist porn industry has been allowed so much influence over our sexualities and gender identities.