There is probably not a reader of this magazine who hasn’t at least sampled porn at some point in their adult lives. While statistics regarding porn consumption are tough to come by (due to a combination of unreliable self-reporting in surveys, and the fact that many repositories of statistical information regarding porn are hosted and selected by anti-pornography organizations), we do know that the porn business tops out at more than $50-billion in revenue annually, making it a bigger business than the video games industry and the NFL combined. And yet, there’s something rotten in the state of San Fernando.

Even a cursory glance at pornography will show that many of the crucial elements of healthy sex are absent from the sex-entertainment we consume: enthusiastic consent, open communication, diverse body types, and sometimes even basic safe-sex practices like the use of condoms are nowhere in sight.

It is an absence keenly felt in many queer circles. While options have certainly improved for gay male porn consumers, gender queer, transgender, and lesbian people (notwithstanding the glut of lesbian porn aimed at straight men) have far less to choose from. Kiyl Keys, Koko Carlson and Kristina Laban, co-organizers of Edmonton’s SMUTfest, aim to improve that situation, starting right in their own backyard.

"We were talking about some things in our community that we were lacking – representation in porn being one of those things," Keys said. "And by representation I mean the bodies and the sex acts that we find pleasurable and exciting and awesome." This was the central idea that eventually snowballed, growing to become the core of SMUTfest – a home-brewed queer pornography festival that is honest, inclusive, and based on an explicitly feminist ethos that aims to circumvent a lot of the problems inherent in mainstream porn.

To those unfamiliar with feminist critique, this might seem a bit counterintuitive. Gay porn, for instance, involves no women on camera by definition, and few, if any, behind the scenes.

"Feminist porn is not necessarily strictly women," Keys says. "It also includes all genders. Feminist porn, as I see it, is not just a genre, but a movement as well. It’s in place to challenge stigma and shame that exists around sex, sexuality, and bodies, and it aims to smash systems of oppression that foster those stigmas – not recreating them in the production or distribution of the films." Volumes could be, and have been, written about the standards of appearance and body type in all genres of porn. Wouldn’t we all benefit from seeing people who actually represent us?

"Having a feminist ethic as you approach this type of work includes things like: having enthusiastic consent from all participants; having a space where open and safe conversation can happen around compensation for work done," Keys went on to say. By email, co-organizer Koko Carlson offered her perspective: "Feminist porn, to me, is about treating the workers and performers well; showing agency and consent on film [or in] media."

"In addition to issues of consent and wellbeing, the diversity of people, ages, sizes, colour, gender, ability, and sexual desires [is paramount]," Carlson continues. "What I would like to see propagate in porn, in general, is diversity. Most of porn is very segregated, or if there is a racially diverse cast, there is fetishization and objectifying of the [people of colour]. Most porn with fat women is super dehumanizing, and fat men are never in porn unless they made a joke... It is still very thin, cisgender, and white. [I would like to see] the sex industry as a whole, to get rid of the... belief that some forms of sex work are better than others – more respectable. That doesn’t help a single one of us in the long run."

To the average porn consumer, principled pornography may feel like an alien concept. However, we live in a world in which people – adult and youth alike – often form their sense of sexual normalcy via the Internet; pornography first and sources like school-taught sex-ed second. Even in Canada, where we’ve largely escaped the scourge of "abstinence-only" and other shame-based methods of sexual education, the fact that sex ought to be enthusiastic, pleasurable, and consensual is often glossed over in favour of brute biological descriptions.

A feminist critique argues that concepts like consent, diversity, enthusiasm, and wellbeing can be, and must be, sexy. And to those who practice them, boy howdy are they ever. Thus, the SMUTfest call for submissions went out inviting Edmontonians, and Canadians at large, to be the porn they want to see in the world.

"Really we wanted to make this an event that was an outlet for our community to get involved," says Keys. "A space that was really safe and empowering for folks in our community... to express and celebrate sex and sexuality and what that means to them."

Similar to other amateur porn festivals, SMUTfest’s organizers have embraced the ephemeral nature of this particular art form. Keys stated, unequivocally, that; "any artwork, films, or photos that are submitted to the festival will be returned to the people who create it. A big piece of creating feminist pornography is that ethical and consensual component. ... We’re not distributing any of the films, unless everyone [involved with the film] willingly consent[s] to distributing what it is that they create. There will be no chance of it ending up on the Internet."

The organizers have achievable goals in mind for the first SMUTfest, aiming for about 100 attendees to take in the afternoon’s worth of photo, video, short story, and other art exhibits. But for future iterations of the festival, the sky’s the limit.

"We’re dreaming big," Keys says.

Laban sums up the goals of the project with enthusiasm: "Even more submissions, more local entertainment, and for the turnout to always be huge, year after year! Once people check out SMUTfest the first time, I hope they spread the word and pass it on to people they know far and wide, not just for people in Edmonton, but for all the queers that can make it!"

Carlson says that they "would love for SMUTfest to be a yearly event! I am hoping people see the value in putting queer sexuality in the public and continue to contribute."

"One of the big goals of this festival," Keys concludes, "is to really take sex and pornography out of the shadows of guilt and shame, where it lives, and bring it into the daylight. Acknowledge that sex is something that is totally natural and awesome for a lot of people, and watching or making pornography, or being involved with sex work in any way, isn’t a terrible, horrifying thing that people should be ashamed of."