Another look at porn

The Post Porn Modernist
By Annie Sprinkle
Athenaeum Theatre, Melbourne
Reviewed By Kim Linden

Annie Sprinkle provides a thought-provoking look at pornography and new age erotica through the eyes of a woman who has made it BIG in the porn industry. The show is part of the Melbourne Comedy Festival.

Sprinkle goes through various aspects of her experiences as a porn queen and sex worker, to her transformation as new age lesbian and Tantric erotica queen.

With her fake moans and shrills, you get the idea Sprinkle is taking the piss out of the porn shoot scenario. But she isn't. She boasts that out of the 3000 or so guys that she has had sex with, she experienced violent situations only about 100 times — a good statistic, she says, considering the average rate of violence against women.

Sprinkle has been involved in progressive campaigns, including campaigns for the rights of sex workers, freedom of sexuality and safe sex. It's a shame that the show lacks the truth about the porn industry's effects on women — not just the hell that a lot of sex workers go through in their "job", but also the impact of porn on women.

Instead the show falls into the trap of being a not-so-cheap ($25) titillation for porn discerners night, with Sprinkle telling the audience that any woman can get rich in the porn industry. The reality is that most women do not get rich. There's a lot of money to be made in the sex industry, but it's the owners who rake in huge amounts out of outright exploitation of women's bodies.

For all it lacks, the Post Porn Modernist show is, if not challenging, interesting.

From GLW issue 227