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The irony is that Span has fought for the right to show authentic representations of the female experience in an industry famed for its fakery – horribly apt for a culture where female sexuality has been increasingly “pornified”, and where sexualities that don’t fit this model are swamped and sidelined. Authenticity is less important than acceptability, and what has become increasingly acceptable in the rise of raunch culture are exhibitionist sexualities. With the vogue for burlesque, lap-dancing and pole-dancing, not to mention the glut of memoirs from sex workers and strippers, the meaning of the word “sexuality”, when applied to women, has become so corrupted it’s practically a fancy way of saying “sexiness”.
The adult industry needs to acknowledge female desire – the satisfaction of it, not merely demonstrations of it for the satisfaction of male desire – and Span’s positioning of women as consumers rather than product is radically different. But have general understandings of female sexuality become so distorted that it’s possible for censors to reject authenticity in pornography on the grounds it must be bogus? Many complain that teenage lads gain their sexual knowledge from pornography. It’s troubling when the BBFC seems to learn the same way.
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