Speaker 1: And that's why I never read the comment. I just
want to like, I'm not even going to look amazing tonight.
I love what you're wearing. Oh my god, we're all
I have an angry clown. That is life. But that's
a hard like unless it's like an NBA team or.
Speaker 2: Something like WHOA, hello, everybody. Welcome back to Holly Randall Unfiltered.
So today's guest grew up inside a community that called
itself sexually Liberated, and later learned it was a sex cult.
That experience shaped how she understands consent, power and the
damage caused when people are taught about sex without education
or accountability. She's now an erotic filmmaker, sex educator, and
the founder of a feminist production company built around autonomy
and the female gates. We're going to talk about porn literacy,
sex education, and what happens when society leaves people to
learn about intimacy from the internet alone. This is inco Winter.
Speaker 3: Hi.
Speaker 2: I'm glad that we could finally make this happen. I
know it's been a long time in the making, totally.
Should we start from the beginning? Sure, you want to
tell me your story because it's it it's one hell story.
Speaker 3: Sorry, and now I have to accept a but I mean, yeah,
I grew up in a cult. I ended up there
at four years old. My father had left. My mother
thought it was like a temporary situation, and then you know,
it became not temporary. In the beginning, it sort of
was sold as this like liberated socialist experiment, and I think,
like in the very beginning there was something socialist about
it in the sense that like there wasn't any common
there was only common property, there was no private property.
Everybody owned all the clothes, all the things together, and
so one of the I don't know what came first,
but you know, the whole free sexuality was really tied
in with like not owning any property, because relationships were
seen as like property of people. But I mean, ultimately,
the leader of Automune, I think he built this to
live out his own desires and just sort of how
he wanted to live life and how he wanted people
to behave around him for him, and so it was
basically I mean, he did refer to it as his
like living art. So I mean, clearly he was very
deliberate about shaping something in sort of his image.
Speaker 1: I guess right, And so I.
Speaker 3: Guess one of the main I think sort of. I mean,
so there's different kinds of trauma that happened to us
as children. One being separated from our parents. So you know,
obviously the attachment trauma, no secure attachment, no figure that
was there for us to take care for us to
if there was anything that we needed to can I
ask like how your mom?
Speaker 2: Did your mom know anyone at this commune? Like how
did she even come across it?
Speaker 3: So she personally came across it through somebody who was there,
like like a man that she met and sort of
fell in love with. But one of the ways that they,
I guess really made did marketing is they did theater
in colleges around Europe. So they would have these like
performance art pieces in college theaters and so kind of
like college students would be enticed into joining right the commune,
which at that time, you know, this is the seventies,
so everybody's trying to be more liberated and like move
away from like the repressiveness of the nineteen fifties, and
so there's there's you know, if you look at it,
there's a lot of like oh yeah, this may sense
for the time, right right, And also, like you know,
in the beginning, it didn't look like a cult, and
I think a lot of people did join because they
wanted sort of this. I mean, you know, people go
to Burning Man, and I think that's the feeling that
people had joining the cult, except that then you know,
if Burning Man is a permanent camp, I don't know,
it might be a cult.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: So you're four, yeah, and you're being raised by strangers.
Speaker 3: Yes, I had substitute parents, but because attachment was considered
bad also for children, like I was separated from those
as well, like when I grew too attached, and that
was true for everybody, like everybody was separated from their
parents and then sort of separated from their other parents.
Speaker 2: You're gonna get a lot of this from me because
I have a child, and like the thought of like
my daughter going through this like makes my skin role.
Speaker 3: And this is like hard to hear for a lot
of people that I think for parents it's.
Speaker 1: Yeah harder, yeah, yeah, turned out.
Speaker 3: Okay, I did a lot of therapy, been in therapy
for the past like thirty years.
Speaker 1: What I can't even imagine.
Speaker 2: Okay, so when you become too attached to anyone, you
get moved to another substitute parent, and.
Speaker 3: Then there's times where you just don't have a substitute parent,
so you just sort of exist in this space of
I don't know, you had I mean, what do you
call them, like people like that, not like teachers, but
you know, teachers that are around for the free time part,
not social workers, but you know, like you know, people
that are sort of like hurting the whole group of children.
Speaker 1: And so like nannies almost I don't know, like let's
call it a kindergartener, right, Okay, I'm not.
Speaker 3: It's like you know, but yeah, like people that were
responsible for looking after the you know, we were separated
in age groups, so our age group had people that
looked after them during the day because you know, you
have to do keep children from i don't.
Speaker 2: Know, swallowing things, eating rats, and also like entertaining.
Speaker 3: And I think like the thing that's sort of like
interesting because with you know, okay, we talked about the attachment.
One of the I guess I don't even want to
say positive, but like, you know, like it was an
artist cult really, and I think there wasn't religion, but
art was religion. But so one of the things that
I did grow up with was a lot of creativity
and play, and like filmmaking started really early, and I
feel like I'm sure that that impacted, you know, my
creativity and my expression and my you know, the fact
that I wanted to do well. I didn't really want
to become a filmmaker, but accidentally did and.
Speaker 1: Then it worked out right, right, right.
Speaker 3: But yeah, so that's a lot of the things we
did as children was artsy stuff. And then so in
the beginning, everything was like everybody's equal, and then a
hierarchy was established, so Otomil was number one and his
wife number two, and then like whatever three hundred and
fifty seven.
Speaker 1: Was that intentional, did you?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, that was like that was sort of like,
you know, from the oh we're all equal. Now it's
like I'm the authoritarian leader and I'm number one, and
I'm to be honest, I haven't really asked anybody like
how did you just accept that from one day to
the other, that's your child?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So, but then so also for us children, that
was also established too. So for us children instead of
like being all sort of these like kids that play
with each other and whatever. We are all in a
hierarchy with each other. So whoever is above me can
tell me what to do, and whoever is below me,
I can tell them what to do, and I'm always right.
So there's no real like interaction of friendship. I mean
at least like so for I became like the adaptive child,
and so I was usually higher in the hierarchy because
I did what people told me to do, and so
I feel like being in that position really didn't allow
you to have friends because you were just trying to
like be in the system. I know from people that
were lower in the hierarchy, they had a little bit
more room for friendships because they were like, I don't
give a fuck. But obviously they were punished then for
you know, yea being bad or whatever.
Speaker 4: Yeah, what kind of punishments do they They didn't, okay,
So the most obvious punishment is to be in the
lower in the hierarchy, So you didn't behave right and
you're like lowered in the hierarchy.
Speaker 3: And sometimes these things happened like in a group. So
there was something called palava. So the hierarchy was made
in groups, but sometimes in front of all the grown ups.
So there's like two hundred like grown up sitting and
you're like being punished in the middle and you're coming
lower in the hierarchy. So it's like definitely very emotionally
like stressful, which is why I behaved well. So I
never in this situation.
Speaker 1: To basically like publicly shamed.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And then like the other thing that I'm still not
entirely clear, but clear the purpose. There was something called
in German, it's called bill and SWNDA, which kind of
translates to educational something. And so sometimes for punishment, you
would be in this group of people, like it's kind
of like the tension. You would get detention, but you
would do stuff like learning how to mint socks or
just like random things that somebody thought of that day
that I don't know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's almost like writing like like lines, like doing
what we call it standards.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and when we.
Speaker 2: Were kids, you had to write on a chalk for
like a hundred times like I will not be bad.
Speaker 3: Exactly it was. And then like one time this thing
was developed. It was called the black mark, and I
know one like somebody actually drew us like black head,
and so it's almost like the opposite of the star.
The star is like when you're we didn't get stars,
but like that, when you're bad, you get like the
black mark. So that was also the thing.
Speaker 2: Is it wild for you to like tell people this
story now and hear it coming out of your own mouth.
Speaker 3: I'm like, I'm like myself, I'm just like I think
some of the times my laughter is just like I'm
so cringed.
Speaker 1: I don't even know how else to Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because it's it's because I mean, at the time,
it must have felt. I mean, I don't know if
normal is the right word. Normality's relative, right, Like whatever
we grew up with is what we eat, is what's
normal to us. And then like, now that you've had
the therapy, now that you live in the real world
and you're telling people this story, it must be hard
to hear it coming from yourself because and.
Speaker 3: Sometimes I think also it's like I'm cringing, and then
sometimes I feel like the stuff is really heavy. So
I feel like my laughter is also like making it
okay for other people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're it, yeah, yeah, I mean that's how we
deal with a lot of painful things is through laughter, right, Yeah,
don't worry I am not taking your laughter for you
thinking it's actually funny because it's like crazy.
Speaker 3: So yeah, like abandonment by parents, hierarchy, so you know,
all the regulation between relationships, and then sort of the
sexualization of children. So the called itself was sort of
they called it free sexuality, which I think back in
the day that was you know, the thing free love exactly,
but in this case, like free love was like you
had to sleep with everybody, you know, like this is
at it was like communicating how sex was supposed to
be had. So sex was mandated. So there's just nothing
like free about it, even though that was sort of
the the name for it, you know, which obviously took
me a while to figure out that like the irony
of the labeling. But so I think I haven't even
read or not in a long time, like all these
like there's sort of manifestos that Auto wrote that sort
of like sum our books, and some are these schemas
where you sort of have like this is how a
child should grow up and this is important and these
values are important, and so like part of that was
like sexual expression where you kind of like that's sort
of not a child. It doesn't because belong in this category,
right right, you know, yeah, And so I think there
was like different kind of sexualization for different age groups. Obviously,
Like in the end, Ottomile got arrested for sex with minors,
so he started having sex with girls that were sort
of like twelve. You know. There was also some younger
there incidents and its own like thing, but like, so
that happened, and then the same so the sort of
the first night, the right to the first night thing.
Speaker 2: You know, yes, from I don't you remember from Brave Heart,
oh Mortem, Knock Torn or.
Speaker 3: Something like that, and so like he would do that
and then his like wife would do that with the boys,
so you know, and then at some point, like it
was decided that the these that age group teenagers or
whatever you would call this age group is then integrated
in the grown up sexuality, which you know is also
just the legal yeah, but I mean in his mind
it just was like, oh, even like when he was
when he was arrested and in his trials, he's like, oh, yeah,
but some African tribes it's normal there, and you know,
therefore it should be normal and you know, just bullshit
stuff obviously, and then like for us younger like I think,
first of all, we were just exposed to sexuality in
a way that we really like wasn't age appropriate at all,
like seeing things and then sort of also being I
guess like at a younger age, you're you're indoctrinated, not
through like penetrative like naked sex, but through like you know,
touch and other things that sort of you know, like
like like acting sex.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's playing like playing doctor.
Speaker 3: No, more like touching. Okay, kissing, but like under the
guided by grown ups.
Speaker 2: Okay, oh wow, you know yeah okay, so yeah, okay, okay,
So he would have he or his wife deputing on
the gender would be the first like sexual experience and
sound how old are these kids?
Speaker 1: Like twelve?
Speaker 3: Yeah, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, so like fourteen or you know.
Speaker 1: There wasn't like it wasn't like a specific age. It
wasn't like you turn this age.
Speaker 3: I mean I think it was like no, no, no, It
wasn't like whenever it was like ready, yeah, it was
more like, oh yeah, we can reference. Did we just
read something about I think Trump supposedly looking at girls
and estimating how their ripeness is or something sounds like
something something I just read I think with the epscene
files it was more like that.
Speaker 1: It was like she exactly like okay, like I've I've
decided that this.
Speaker 2: Yes, you look, you look right, you look ready for me,
like I'm wow, So did that happen to you?
Speaker 3: I was twelve when it ended, so I escaped this
wow thing.
Speaker 2: Yes, that must But did you know that that was
coming and was for you?
Speaker 3: You know, it's so weird because I didn't know that
I was coming. At some point, I did hear somebody
older tell me that she had sex with automule. And
the problem in that sort of like closed system is
now it it's also prestigious, right, So there was even
some grown up women.
Speaker 1: That were jealous of girls.
Speaker 3: Having sex without a muir because it gave them like prestige, right,
and so like it's just so this very convoluted thing,
which is also why I think for some at that time,
like as somebody that age, how would you know that
this is wrong?
Speaker 1: Right of course?
Speaker 3: And also you're battling this, you know obviously like you
don't like it, and there's different reactions from different people,
but also like now you're being seen as like more important,
like you know, it's a lot of stuff going on
at the same time. That's getting really like complicated emotions.
Speaker 2: Like, okay, so, like the Commune is assigning value to
you because you've had this sexual experience with this man
at a very inappropriate age, with a man significantly older
than you.
Speaker 1: Ork how old was he at this time?
Speaker 3: So it was like when when the Commune started, he
was already twenty years older than everybody, So I would say,
like he was maybe in his forties while everybody was
sort of in their twenties, and so then you know,
just forties, fifties, whatever, Wow, older.
Speaker 2: Yeah, man, So okay, so when the whole thing came
crashing down, Yeah, what was that experience?
Speaker 1: Like, like, was it raided by the police, like he
was arrested.
Speaker 3: I don't know what the context specifically was. I remember
walking into like a kitchen and somebody being like like
saying that he was arrested in me just being shocked
and being just like why and obviously like brainwashed, right, So,
like I don't know that anything that happened was wrong.
I mean I don't at this point don't really know
what happened specifically anyway, But I'm just kind of like,
you know, I know, I'd known that there was like
negative articles in the press, but obviously i'd been told that,
you know, those are like wrong, like negative articles, they're
just trying to hurt us, and we're so great, So
you know, I believe this. I'm twelve years old, and
so I'm just sort of like my world just ended,
like I don't know, like I thought I would live
there forever and be part of the system, and now
I'm just like, I don't even know. So that was
definitely a very surreal like experience of everything that you
knew is no longer.
Speaker 1: Right, you know, So then what happened to you?
Speaker 3: So I then moved. My mother lived in Berlin. I
moved to Berlin, and I actually went to a boarding school.
There was sort of this liberal arts boarding school on
an island in a lake in Berlin, because Berlin has
lakes and islands. Uh huh there's a boarding school in
one of them. Wow, I know. And like in the
beginning it was kind of like I didn't like, you know,
like not being with my mom. But in the end,
I'm like, I think that was a really really good
experience for me, and also in a way I think
less shocking, like because it was sort of this you know,
there was nature, it was an island, it was art.
I think it was a little bit less shocking than
if I had just lived in a city and like
taken the train to school every day with like people
that sort of are not you know. I feel like
the people that went to that boarding school were just
sort of more in line with you know, where I it's.
Speaker 1: The values that like I was supposed to have.
Speaker 2: The good ones say yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean because obviously,
like it sounds like a terrible experience and I can't
even imagine. But I mean there's no denying that there
was great like art and creativity there and yeah, yeah,
at least that in itself.
Speaker 3: And it's like, as I'm talking, like I'm kind of
like just thinking, for like people that are listening, you know,
the conclusion that is being made about people in porn
is like they all had trauma and that's why. And
I'm just like, oh my god, people are going to
listen and be like, ah, yeah, now she's another victim
by making porn because she was a victim, so anyway,
we'll have to address that.
Speaker 1: But yeah, that's well, I mean the thing that I
always say is.
Speaker 2: And I've had so many people on who have had
very normal quote unquote childhoods. I had a very normal
even though my parents worked imporn. I just write super
normal childhood. And I don't have any trauma from my background.
I'm so like, and the older I've gotten and the
more people I've spoken to, like, I realized how fortunate
I am for that. But I think that, like everybody
has trauma in their lives, like completely many people, I
completely in my genre, every industry. But like you're not
going to interview a dentist and be like, oh, you
got a dentistry because you had trauma in your life, right.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? Like it doesn't come up.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it doesn't come up even though they you know.
And also, like if you think about women, you know,
what is it one in three women experience of sode
of sexual traumas. I mean obviously, yes, you'll throw a
stone and you will hit five.
Speaker 1: This is true.
Speaker 2: So I mean, did your mother have any idea what
was going on until after what that happened, and you
feel about that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, we only recently kind of had like this really
deep conversation. I think she's sort of really definitely had
like guilt to deal with, and only recently I think
the depths of all of it, you know, came up
and it was really hard for her to hear. Yeah,
there are definitely tears and things.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but do you think that she's come to forgive herself.
Speaker 3: I think so. I think that like the last two
years or three years, so funny story twenty twenty two.
Summer of twenty twenty two, there was like, so there's
this legal entity that still exists that sort of anyway,
everybody in there is basically somebody who's been the cult.
In the property that used to be the cult, like
is still owned by people that were in the colt.
Speaker 2: That are not a cult, but now they're like a
different char it's called a corporation.
Speaker 3: But anyway, long story short, there was a bunch of artwork,
not just stuff that Ottomil created, but Ottomil was part
of this thing called Vienna Actionism, so he was actually
a famous artist along with these other people that sort
of Austria looks to it as this like post war
like you know, anyway, it's it's very precious to Austrian people.
But anyway, so there was like this artwork that still
was owned by this let's call it legal entity that
was sold that gave like it made like ten million euros,
and we our generation. I'm not really sure who started it,
but people were like, we should have this as reparations.
And so starting from twenty twenty two summer, me and
a handful of other people like in the name of
like everybody our age started to work on this reparation
and talking to Lawy's it was like a whole thing.
I can't even really go into it because it was
really like exhausting and traumatizing in so many tears, and
because now you know, we have to talk to the
people who were in the cult, and some of them
are super supportive and are like, yeah, what happened is crazy,
and you know, and some people are like, oh, what
was it really that bad? So anyway, it was, you know,
But I think that for me that was sort of
the time where I was like, I'm setting up to
these people and I hadn't really like talked to my
mom yet, and I was like, Okay, like I need
to have this conversation. And so we really did a
lot of work and we went to therapy together, and
I feel like it's like done so much, and I, yeah,
I feel like I really can't ask for more from
my mom at this point.
Speaker 2: So how do you contextualize that experience today without letting
it define you? I mean, I know you've had a
lot of therapy, but yeah, you know, there's obviously I think,
you know, like sort of the abandment and stuff that
sort of shows up in relationships still that you know,
I'm still working on.
Speaker 3: But I think, you know, the interesting thing is, you know,
when I started making porn for women, like I made
it out of like I actually had an abortion, I
lost my sex drive. I was looking at things, I
was like, I can't find anything. Nothing is there that
like turns me on. Like I felt like there wasn't
anything that's like, you know, central and sort of like
visually stunning and just you know, kind of like speaks
to me. And that's really why I started making porn,
you know, long story short. And in the beginning, I
was like, Okay, I'm doing this in spite of my childhood.
And now I feel like, you know, the fact that
I'm making like feminist porn, I'm putting like, you know,
women's pleasure first, I'm doing scenarios that you know, like
let's say a man is washing the dishes and that
could lead to sex, you know, like which is you know,
something that like for the malegates would probably not be
that interesting.
Speaker 1: Have you seen those books porn for women?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 1: Oh you have it? Oh, I should get that for you.
It's all hot men doing housework. Yeah, I need literally exactly.
So that's what it is.
Speaker 3: That's not all that I'm doing. But I'm just a
really good example of like something that wouldn't be made for.
Speaker 1: The mail games.
Speaker 3: Right right, I'm doing this and I was like, okay,
there's nothing there. I want to do this for myself.
And I'm like, okay, I'm doing this in spite of
like what happened to me. And more and more I'm realizing, well,
society that we live in is not that different from
the cult that I grew up. The cult that I
grew up was some sort of like extreme form of
that and the pagiarchy, and you know, like legislating house
sex is supposed to be had. But we are currently
also as a society living in a cult where we
are being legislated, especially women, of like how we should
behave abortion and this and that so many things. You know,
age verification is part of the whole thing. And so
I feel like my making feminist porn for me is
kind of my form of social activism. And it's also
kind of like a way of like liberating that you know,
experience where I felt like I was, you know, in
a way made to be like to shut up and
to not have a voice about anything that pertained to myself.
Obviously also sexuality, but much more than that. And so
I feel like, in a way, making feminist porn is
me also processing my childhood and society at large.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's a really good take on it. So
you I mean, you talk about porn literacy, obviously, what
does that mean to you? And because there's gonna be
a lot of people that are gonna hear that term
and they're gonna be like, they're gonna have no idea
what we're talking about.
Speaker 3: Like, porn literacy means understanding what porn is, what the
purposes of porn, what the different kinds of are of porn,
and mainly that porn is a fantasy. And you know,
I have taken it upon myself to create more like
real life sex that is like you know more. When
I talk to talent, I asked them to do like
at home sex versus like performative sex. But a lot
of porn is performance because it's a fantasy that is
fulfilling something you know other than real life. You know,
it's movies or things that you know not necessarily happen
in real life. But yeah, porn literacy is like it
is the only way that we can create context for
porn and understand porn and the purpose of porn and
watch it with knowledge about what we're seeing. Because I
think that the lack of porn literacy is that, you know,
the lack of sex education, which sort of goes hand
in hand with porn literacy, because if you if people
understood what sex is supposed to look like between two
consenting adults, and that by that, I don't mean like
what is specifically done, but like that consent is to
be asked. That you know, people are different from each other, people,
different people like different things. If you have that knowledge
and then and then you know porn is a fantasy,
then you can watch porn and not get your values
from porn and not use porn as an education because
you know it's not real. But the risk of sort
of like porn influencing people's ideas of sex is only
because they don't know what to measure it against. Yeah,
and that's because they're not educated and so like one
of the things. And that's what I you know, ask
David lay about is you know, like, are there any
studies that sort of show sort of the influence of
porn on people, And he was saying that it's basically
good studies have shown that people that do not know
that porn isn't real that mostly come from conservative households
that don't have a lot of sex education or that
don't have grown ups that they can sort of talk
to about sex. Those are the people that are being
influenced by stereotypes in porn because they don't know that
it's not real.
Speaker 2: What are some of the most common misconceptions about sex
or bodies that you see stemming from porn without context.
Speaker 3: I think that some porn still has, you know, questionable
gender roles. I think that some positions or things are
not always pleasurable to the people that are performing.
Speaker 2: Them, like pile driver, Yeah, I mean, like you know,
and wild positions there like yeah, or like.
Speaker 3: Oh, let's have this two women at sex and then
she orgasms, you know, like probably not did she have
any sort of sensation during that time? We don't actually know,
you know, but she pretended.
Speaker 1: That there was because it's an acting.
Speaker 3: So I think sort of like what women need to
actually experience pleasure is just sort of not to be
learned from porn because it's a performance. And that doesn't
mean that some porn doesn't show that. And obviously the
porn that I do like is very you know, but
also mainstream porn some there's a lot of people like
women that experience real orgasms, but you know, statistically speaking,
how many times when when is it happening? What is
totally fake? Like don't the viewer doesn't know? What?
Speaker 2: Do you wish that people were taught about sex before
they encountered porn.
Speaker 3: I mean mainly that it's a fantasy, and also that
everything that's happening in porn, like I legit porn with
like the the real studios that make porn is negotiated
ahead of time. Talent was talking about this, so if
there's a random thing that's happening, the talent both had
agreed to it ahead of time. So choking doesn't randomly happen.
It happened because somebody said, yes, I'm okay with that.
And so you can't watch porn and be like, oh,
this is what women like and this is okay to
just do. It's like, no, I have to talk to
my partner and find out if she likes that. And
I feel like, obviously, you know, make love not porn.
I haven't seen the educational part on there in a
long time, but she used to have that there, sort
of like, oh, in porn, men come on women's faces
a lot. I would say, most women don't like that
most of the time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it gets in our hair and they're going to
wash it in your eyes, gets in your eyes. I
don't know if you've ever had come in your eyes,
but it's the worst feeling.
Speaker 1: I have not but it's terrible coming. Let me just
tell you it hurts a lot.
Speaker 3: I've seen it in people's eyes by accident and it
was not good.
Speaker 1: But anyway, so there's just like.
Speaker 3: A lot of things you know like that that you
know it's it's it's made to show a fantasy that
somebody gets off on versus, oh, this is something that's
probably pleasurable at home.
Speaker 2: Let's step back a little bit and talk about your
entry into actually making a directing point, because I know
you were styling before, and we were talking about funny
story earlier that actually you had been to my place.
Speaker 1: You'd met my mom before on a.
Speaker 2: Deadpool commercial that was shot at at our ranch. But
then obviously from there on you take a different path.
Speaker 1: So how did that happen?
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I feel like I've kind of continued doing
some word work here and there because you know, like
we're all hustling. Yeah, and apparently the point that I
create is very niche. I wish it wasn't, but it's niche,
so you know, yeah, you guys should all watch it
so that it's less less nache.
Speaker 2: And actually, even if you're I was just talking with
Jade Venus about this earlier because I was asking her
if she had any interest in directing. And even when
you're directing for like the big companies, which I've done,
like you still don't get paid that much now, directors
are really not paid that much. And I think it
would be surprise people to hear.
Speaker 3: No, no, I agree, this industry is not as lucrative
for most people. Yeah, as you think oh, it was
in the eighties when it was just all like and
the internet was there, and you know you could upload
it picture pixeled image and make like a lot of
fun anyway. Yeah, But so basically I was working as
a costume designer and I just like sort of, you know,
as I was looking for porn and not finding anything,
this why is there anything? Blah blah. This question just
sort of was there. And then like one day I
saw this GQ Spain video that was like, you know
when fifty Shades of Gray came out and made sort
of like BDSM a little bit more mainstream.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah exactly.
Speaker 3: And so there was this like like it wasn't even
a bds M video, It's just like a very high
fashionateditorial video that had like a lot of leather shot
in slow motion. And I was like, Oh, that's what
I want porn to look like. And then I was like, oh,
I can make porn look like this because I know
the right people to do that. And then I made
this teaser with just like crew that I knew from
you know, being in this world, and I sent it
because we had shot at Kelly Collins location for another
feature film for a low budget feature film. So somehow
it got to her and that's when she was still
at Penthouse, and so she invited me and she wanted
to do like something together, which didn't work out because
you know, then Pentos went bankrupt and all these things happened.
But I was like my first sort of like talking
to somebody, And at that point I had wanted to
make basically softcore porn like movies, sex scene, just like elongated,
like pretty, but I hadn't thought of making explicit porn yet.
And so she was like, well, you know, if we
like work together, there'd be a soft version and a
hard version. Would you be okay with that?
Speaker 1: And I was just like okay.
Speaker 3: And I remember like walking out of that and calling
my DP like cinematographer and being like I just agreed
to this, and then like asking women and being like, well,
I'm making porn for women, Like what do you think
And they're like, oh, well, if it's shot, well we
want to see that. And I was like, well, the
whole point of re making porn is to shoot it. Well,
so like I guess explicit it is, yeah, And I
mean I guess the funnier story of like in the beginning,
I didn't even think I would be directing. And I
had this like female cinematographer who was a director that
I wanted to shoot this teaser and she was no
longer available, and she like connected me with another cinematographer
and then I was like, but who's gonna direct it?
And she's like you, and I was like okay. And
that's really how I started directing.
Speaker 1: For almost like a happy action because I.
Speaker 3: Just kind of said okay, and then I said okay again.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I feel like Ernie. Do you remember
was it Jim Powers?
Speaker 2: It said that he started directing because he showed up
to a set and the director was so high that
he couldn't do the job, so he stepped in. Yeah,
so completely different person shoots the polar opposite.
Speaker 1: Of what you do. But it sounds like you guys
almost like fell into it for like for the same reasons,
which is kind of funny. Okay, So what was the
first like porn that you ever shot?
Speaker 3: The first time? Like I was trying to shoot porn.
But he didn't know anybody in this industry. I didn't
know any like performers or anything. And I always knew
that I wanted sex education to be part of what
I was doing, and so I was like, okay, sex
education videos do That's easy when a later's actors, you know,
like you know, you find a couple of people, you
make this film like it's not a big deal. And
so I made that and it was like the first
thing that I've ever made is called Justges and it's
like a spoof commercial for semen, kind of like that
dead Pool thing that we did back then that was
like a viagraa inspired dead Pool thing. And then submitted
it to Dance Average Film Festival Hump and got in
and then like I went to Portland and I was
part of this Facebook group back in the day when
you could say, you know, post naked photos on Facebook,
I mean in a private group. I it was like
the you did in private groups. We had a whole
Facebook group where like everybody was posting naked photos of
themselves and it was like these burning men, like you know, exhibitionists,
like polyamorous people. And so I went to Portland and
I met some of the people in the group and
I was like, you know, I had this educational film
and hump, but I was telling them what I actually
wanted to do, and so one of them was like,
I would shoot porn with you. And then she's like,
I'll be in La in January and my partner's there
and his girlfriend's there, and I was like, okay, let's
shoot for Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1: So the first.
Speaker 3: Films that, the first five films that I made were
just like with real couples.
Speaker 1: Oh wow. So they had never like really done porn themselves.
Speaker 3: Nobody had done porn before. I mean, obviously they were
used to I feel like being they'd never been in
front of a camera, and I feel like for a
lot a lot of them that was kind of a
lot their dream. But they've just been like definitely in
like situations where publicly and you know, like group things
and things where they observing was part of the thing, right.
But so, yeah, they hadn't done porn. I hadn't done porn.
Speaker 1: But I actually really really really liked that.
Speaker 3: That's how it started because I feel like I went
with the couples like connection and chemistry and all of that,
and I feel like it empowered me to then ask
the non performance from performers, because I was starting out
with couples that didn't perform they were just intimate with
each other and we were just observing, and so I
feel like that really worked out well for what I
was trying to do.
Speaker 2: Anyway, when people hear the phrase feminist porn, what do
they usually misunderstand? Because I feel like that phrase gets
thrown around. So does feminism too. Oh, Like the word
feminism itself can be completely different things to different people,
and I feel like it's almost lost its impact.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think I think some of the people
have like an issue with it. I think that feminism
means like man hating, right, and that like feminist porn
is probably like porn in which men are punished or something.
I mean that could be aborn, you.
Speaker 1: Know, yeah, I mean just I mean, like.
Speaker 3: You know, porn is like as involve totally or there
could be beds m where the male is the submissive,
you know, but like that's punishing men is in feminism,
Like feminism is about.
Speaker 1: Equality equal rights.
Speaker 3: So that means women need more rights because they have less.
They don't need more rights because they have equal and
they want more rights than men. And the reason that
we're still like need feminism in this world is because
we don't have equal rights. You know, you can see
that state by state women have different rights, men have
the same rights in all states. So therefore we can
know for a fact that women's rights are not equal,
and that's why we still need feminism. And so for me,
feminist porn just means showing scenarios that women would enjoy,
that men can also enjoy, but that not all men
are going to like seek out where you're sort of like,
you know, there's some things where you're like, oh, yeah,
most men are going to be into this, and then
there's some things like as we talked about the chores
porn for women, whereas like, yeah, any woman that I've
ever spoken to finds that hot if the man does
something around the house, is we consider that foreplay? Now
that's like literally part of the conversation of foreplay. It's
just something that's sort of like, yeah, it shows a
part of sexuality that is from a feel of perspective
that hasn't been shown before in male centric porn. So
in a way, even here it's more like equalizing versus
like we're punishing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, so when you think about making a scene,
right and you think about making it from the female gaze,
like what are some things that might make that scene
specifically different than like what we would call mainstream porn.
Speaker 3: It's more like I make all the scenes that I make,
I create with the female talent, So that means that
some of the things could also mimic like poort that
we're used to because that specific woman is into that
specific thing. And I remember, actually, Galrichi in your podcast
that clip where she's like, but what if we want
to be degraded? Right, And I'm like, yeah, if you
want to be degraded, you should totally be degraded because
you want that. But applying that to women that don't
enjoy that just doesn't work, you know. So I feel like,
in a way, most of the scenes that I make
aren't specifically like anything other than what that specific female
talent is into. And some things again talking about the
you know what, there's a couple of scenarios that I'm like, anyway,
the dishwashing comes to mind, the easiest that are just
sort of like, Okay, we just know that wouldn't be
a thing in sort of male centric porn, But it
doesn't necessarily have to look different. It's more like it
feels different because it was authentic and like I also
ask all of the female talent who they want to
be paired with, so that there's already chemistry and connection
that doesn't have to be performed, but it's like authentically there.
And if there is sort of like BDSM or something
happening where like there's sort of like pain or whatever
submission involved, I will make it very clear that this
particular talent wanted that. So either some sort of conversation
in the beginning or like something that is like, oh, yeah,
she wants this, and yes she agreed to that. I
can't just randomly do that. I need to ask.
Speaker 2: First, so you show like the full autonomy yeah the
female Yeah yeah. Is there any like common thread that
you find is in all of your work or what
you would consider feminists born? Because a lot of what
people consider to be like what is what do women want?
The way I should put it better is that like
they're more inclined to want like a storyline like.
Speaker 1: A why are we here? Why are we doing this?
Speaker 2: As it opposed to men tempt sometimes be and again
like not everybody you know, like there's.
Speaker 3: Right, like it's it's not even like it doesn't have
to be a whole story that doesn't have to a
lot of my scenes don't have dialogue. But when I
also like I use the word storyline, But in the end,
it's context. There needs to be context for sex, and
I do think that most women want context, even if
the context is that they're being degraded. You know, like
it doesn't have to be romantic. You know, this sort
of idea that that porn for women is more romantic
can be true for people, but it doesn't have to.
I think that a lot of women enjoy being submissive
and BDSM. I think that's really a big part of
like female sexuality for many. So yeah, it's more like
context that isn't randomly because they happened to be in
the same room, now they have sex because because the pizza,
Yeah pizza, Like I showed up at the door, and
so now there's a man and a woman, and because
there's a man and a woman, that automatically leads to sex.
Speaker 2: Right, Like, Yeah, you also work as a sex educator
and counselor what patterns do you see that directly trace
back to poor sex education?
Speaker 3: I think that a lot of like the lack of empowerment,
and to be honest, I think that like both men
and women, you know, need better education. I think that
that obviously, our society kind of like gives men a
little bit more autonomy and agency in what sex they.
Speaker 1: Sort of are allowed to have or is sort of like.
Speaker 3: Legitimized, and so I think that also for a lot
of men, it's easier to orgasm just from penetration. So
I think the lack of sex education is sort of
like we're not teaching about you know, communication and consent,
but also not about pleasure. So a lot of people
are out there not sure how to find that. And
also sort of if you buy into this, penis and
vagina sex needs to happen, and that's how orgasm happens,
being not having the agency to ask to use a
vibrator in addition to that, right, like it doesn't have
to be we're not doing penis and vagina sex, but
what can we add that there is an orgasm for
the female as well, And all of that is part
of sex education, is like you know, pleasure education or
like stuff like I had somebody who was like, Okay,
the guy wasn't using a condom, he didn't have a condom,
blah blah, and I was like, what if you buy condoms?
She's like, I am allowed to do that? And I'm like, yes,
you are allowed to have condoms on you and the
man that the man uses it if he didn't bring one.
Speaker 1: Wow, yes, living in that world. Yeah, but that is
this world. This is that world. It's crazy. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we just are in this like really like very
selected world where we're all like sort of have agency
and we're asking for things and so we kind of
forget that a lot of people don't live this way.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: No, that's absolutely true. What gives you hope about where sexuality,
media and education are headed.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think that conversation is happening more. I
think that a lot of talent is taking it upon
themselves to do more sort of like speaking up. I
was actually just contacted by the uth University of something
in Ireland who is doing a study on porn literacy.
So like that gives me hope, and I think overall,
I am really really really happy that you know, like
OnlyFans on these platforms exist for talent to monetize their
own content, because that makes them less dependent on accepting
scenes that they're not interested in doing and kind of
creating their own like like having autonomy of what they're filming,
and so I feel like that also gives me hope
for the entire industry because hopefully, at some point, if
studios are not needed the way, then they have to
kind of like be more okay, this is talent is
no longer accepting certain things.
Speaker 2: So I mean, I have to say, like, just from
experience of having been in the industry so long and
seeing how things have changed changed and being around it's
well before the only revolution, like there's been a dramatic
shift in the way that the studios treat talent.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, genetic yeah yeah, yeah yeah, and there's always
like a room for improvement, of.
Speaker 2: Course, So I mean, I definitely, you know, there were
times that I was admonished or even lost work because
I refuse to push talent to do things that the
studios wanted me to do. The talent like demonstrated they
were uncomfortable with such things and I was not going
to make them do that, and I would, you know,
I just would. They're like, well, you're not getting us
what we want, and you know, we're not going to
hire you anymore, and that this is what they're being
paid to do. And that kind of thing. And yeah,
and now it's like, you know, I mean especially obviously
depends on the studio, but you know.
Speaker 3: And on the director, Like all studios like really have
different directors, so within the studio there.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, but I will say, like, you know, I
mean when I was still directing, towards the end of
my directing, I was only directed for what is now ALU.
But they were very adamant, like after you know, COVID
and they went through this whole like kind of house
cleaning of like directors and like completely changed the way
that they like structured things. And they were very, you know,
strongly supportive of making sure that every talent was comfortable
with what we were doing and that if there was
something they didn't like, that we would change the script.
And I remember like I would call Rachel was the
one who was my boss, and I would call her
and I'd be like, hey, this person like doesn't want
to do this or can't do this or something, and
she would be like that's fine, like we won't do it,
and she'd be like, make sure they understand that this
does not mean we're not going to hire them, Yeah, exactly,
Like please make sure that they understand that like they're
not compromising their position with us, and that that is
one to eighty from like what I had experienced previously.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I mean I actually work as an intimacy
coordinator for Door Cells, So for Dozel, it's definitely this thing.
It's like, you know, there's a list of things, you say,
anything that you don't want, and then that's not happening
here at the end, Like there's no discussion. You know,
if you don't want to do it, you don't do it,
and that's it. Obviously. I think you know, we're in
a world where you know, sex happens on screen, so
there's sort of like, okay, the expectation that maybe there's
kissing and penetration where sort.
Speaker 1: Of like you know, that's versally things.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but like anything beyond that is sort of like
you know, up to the person, you know, but like yeah,
there's like there's a minimum that. It's just funny because
like I talk to people that do intimacy coordination in
like mainstream film, and I'm like, it's a totally different expectation,
Like obviously you kind of have to negotiate kissing, whereas
like you know, when you show up to a porn
set to have sex, you're kind of assuming you're going
to kiss somebody.
Speaker 2: Though I have had talent tell me that they will.
I've heard that too because they have a boyfriend. And
then and that's too intimate.
Speaker 3: Yes, And I've heard that ys, and then that's okay too,
and then that yeah, it's okay, you know, yeah, one
hundred percent. But I still definitely know that, Like I
know some you know, creators that do very well on
OnlyFans and whatnot, and they are saying to me, like,
there's certain directors of studies I don't work with because
I don't like how they do things, and then they
have the power to do that, and somebody who's sort
of not at that point, they still have to kind
of you know. So I really am really loving that
sort of yeah side of it.
Speaker 2: If someone is watching this and hasn't seen any of
your films.
Speaker 1: Where should they go?
Speaker 2: What's the one scene, what's the one movie that they
should definitely check out?
Speaker 3: Well, so four playfilms dot com is where you find
all my scenes. And I'm like, I have a hard
time sort of saying this or that because I feel
like they're all so different you know, I have sort
of like like like soft romantic things, some more like
BDSM heavy things, Like I directed something that's now on
my website as Shurt Manner. That's the sort of bridgitt
and inspired porn that I'm obviously like, really loving. I
still love the first scene that I ever shot, and
it's like in this, in this shower. It's a very
simple scene, but it just has all of this sort
of censuality that I wanted to, you know, do. But
then like you know, there's a scene where a guy
dressed in sort of like a wolf's costume is chasing
his wife through the forest in like a antler costume
and sort of like a primal fantasy that I also
think is really hot, so.
Speaker 1: So hard, it's all over the place. Yeah, okay, all
my children.
Speaker 3: From all.
Speaker 1: What gives you.
Speaker 2: Hope for the future of adult I know we're facing
down a lot of yeah, difficult things at the moment,
but there is there a light at the end of
the tunnel. Do you see progress being made?
Speaker 3: It's so hard because I feel like I feel like
within our industry we're making progress, but then I feel
like legislation wise, we're going five steps back. So It's like,
it's kind of hard to be hopeful when you're not
sure if your entire business is actually going to survive.
Speaker 2: You know, so, and you, I mean, I'm sure you're
dealing with the same problem that I am, because you
have your own website where now I mean, I've had
to install age verification on my website and I have
to pay for everybody who verifies their age.
Speaker 3: So I am trying to figure this out, and I
don't know how, but there is a there's a sort
of a do it yourself script that you have to
install that you can install, but then.
Speaker 1: It's like free.
Speaker 3: So I'm working on that. Hopefully I can make that work.
I also know that Free Speech Coalition just came out
with an age verification tool that is very, very inexpensive.
I don't know how inexpensive, but aliceson just told me
about this, okay during expis Okay, so people are trying
to make that more accessible. But yeah, so a lot
of programming to in order to do all these things.
Speaker 1: And we could get into the age verification thing. That's
a whole We've covered it quite a few times on
this podcast. You can definitely find I'll say.
Speaker 3: One thing that sort of connects all of this regulation
age verification to the cult. And I think that regulation
is obviously like, you know, there's age g verification, but
there's also then these books aren't allowed. You're not allowed
to know about sex, Like really, that's what's going on, right,
Like you're not allowed to know about gender stuff. You're
not allowed to know about like LGBTQ stuff. You're only
allowed to know about these few things that I give you,
and then the parent is supposed to be in control
of what that is, right, And I think the preventing
the education puts children in a position that makes them
really vulnerable, and it makes it like in the cult
that I grew up in, where the leader and the
grown ups could tell me what was okay and wasn't okay,
and I had to believe them. It makes it just
so much easier for predators to have access to children
if you don't allow them to be educated about sex,
about boundaries, about autonomy. And I feel like that it's
very suspicious that the people that are doing this kind
of legislations are often to be found out to have,
you know, histories of things that they're legislating against. And
now you're finding out that that's what they're doing uncovering,
and yeah, I think it's harmful. I think it's dangerous
and we need to examine what the real reason is
because it's not to protect children. It is to make
children more vulnerable to predators. That's what's happening, and it's
not okay.
Speaker 1: We're talking about like sex education.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the lack of sex education, the forbidding of books
about sex, the taking out of like anything that is
you know, calling like you know, Project twenty twenty fives,
like calling for librarians to be arrested. Basic right. That's
telling me you don't want your children to have access
to information because you want them to you want to
control them. And that sounds like the cult that I
grew up in. So like, I'm seeing that happening in
our society now and it's dangerous.
Speaker 2: I agree with you so much on that, And I'm
like really big on like sex, you know, And I'm
in those early days of trying to navie navigate sex
education with my daughter age appropriate education because she's five,
but she's old enough to start answering questions.
Speaker 3: And that sort of brings the whole thing back to
you know, pone literacy and sort of age verification where
you're like, you, I don't want your children to know anything,
and then you want to make it illegal for anybody
to watch porn instead of just educating them about what,
you know, everything is and then they can make informed
decisions at the appropriate age. But in the end, I
feel like people are just outsourcing their own misery. Like
you're not having good sex, you're miserable, you want to
do stuff you don't want other people to do the
thing that you're not allowing yourself, so now everybody else
needs to be miserable. That's really what I believe is
that they're outsourcing their misery onto everybody.
Speaker 2: I mean, ultimately, like I definitely understand, and you know,
as a mother, like I don't want and there's again
to be clear, there's no one in the porn industry
that wants children to watch porn, but you can't, like
you know, take these extreme measures against that and take
away education at the same time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it does. That's insane.
Speaker 3: Well, it doesn't mean that we don't want age verification
to happen, but it should be in a way that
isn't sort of like prohibitive.
Speaker 5: Yes, you know, also there is parental controls. Can we
just use that could please all parents prevent their children
from watching porn on devices.
Speaker 1: The way that it's already possible.
Speaker 3: Right, we're not using any of the technology available, and
we're not making parents responsible for the education or the
sort of like how they want their children to interact
with the sort of material at all.
Speaker 2: It also like like we're not going to get into age.
But also like I mean, I think that you know
a lot of people can agree with me, Like if
there could be a way that we could make this
happen at a device level, like said, sixteen year old phone,
do you have to your age of your device in
order to unlock everything?
Speaker 3: Then then you know, and then it's sort of like,
you know, it's not like porn and like because obviously
now we're trying to do edge of verification for social media,
and I'm also not against that as a concept, right,
all of the age of verification ideas, like I agree with,
but let's do it in a way that that adults
don't have to put their ID into the internet. Let's
have like whatever wallets things somewhere on the device it
knows the age, and then anything that is, you know,
needs to be accessed. That is like porn or social
media or I don't know, there's probably other stuff that I.
Speaker 1: Mean that's age.
Speaker 2: If you created an aide and across the board age
verification gate that encompassed everything everything like you said, social media,
but also I mean guns, gambling, gambling, like all this
extreme violent material. There's so many buying alcohol, there's so
many other things. If those were all in this age gating,
that would be different because people would not be so
afraid of like, oh, okay, I have to show my
D to be over the HD eighteen to be able
to unlock this area of the Internet, because I could
be wanting to buy a gun, I could be wanting
to gamble like all these other things. So I feel
okay with that. It's it's the giving an ID to
like an unknown entity, specifically for accessing porn, which so
many people are so ashamed to admit that they want
to watch.
Speaker 1: And word, are you going to end up on some
porn lists?
Speaker 3: You know? The whole what was the Madison whatever, the yes,
the cheating website, the cheating website, but then suddenly it
was hacked and then there was a list of people
are cheating now obviously we're worried that now there's going
to be actual people Ashley Madison, there's like, you know,
we're there's going to be a list of like people
watching porn. Like I feel like this country obviously having lists,
you know back in the day with communism, like the
lists and then judging people for the things that they're
doing in their own private home, you.
Speaker 1: Know, absolutely. Okay, Well, so I get ourselves and.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for coming on. I'm so glad
that we finally get to make this happen. Can you
let everybody know where they can find you online?
Speaker 1: Please?
Speaker 3: It's www dot four playfilms dot com.
Speaker 1: And it's four play f O R E.
Speaker 2: It is actually without the E, but I oh right
because it's four play.
Speaker 1: Like place four.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a play on awards. But I do own
both domains, so you're misspelling it.
Speaker 1: You will still good.
Speaker 3: And as long as you do not spell the number four,
that's not that's not what we're doing here.
Speaker 2: So f O R P l A Y f I
L M SKY. I mean I went to school, I
not spell. And then what about Instagram?
Speaker 3: Yeah, at four playfilms, like on every single channel.
Speaker 2: Perfect okay, and you guys of course can find me
on Instagram and on x at Holly Randall. Go to
Holly links dot com to access to all of my platforms.
And of course we're going to do a little Patreon
Q and A with INCA with the questions that you
guys sent in, So we'll do that in a separate
little segment we have a couple here. And then of
course I want to give a big shout out and
thank you again to my sponsors strip Chat.
Speaker 1: You guys are amazing.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for supporting the podcast and helping
me grow this year. This is going to be it's
gonna be a great year. I think this is going
to be the last interview in this studio as I'm
moving to a bigger and better one.
Speaker 1: Dumb hole literally there.
Speaker 2: But I'm excited because I'm gonna you know what I'm
excited about. I'm excited to have depth, to not have
my chairs up against the wall so I can do
a back Light twenty twenty six is bringing a backlight
to Holler Randal and filtered.
Speaker 3: Fancy, fancy fancy. It's all about lighting.
Speaker 1: It's all about lighting. I did the best I could
in this little space, but we're gonna we're gonna bring
it up a notch for you guys. Thank you guys
so much for watching. The next episode will actually.
Speaker 2: Be filmed at Strip Chat House, so that will be
in a whole new environment that's gonna be a lot
of fun. To make sure that you guys stay tuned
for that and I'll see you there.
Speaker 1: Have a great one.