Onscreen, a man suggests a threesome to his wife. “Typical male fantasy,” she tells him, to chuckles from the audience. The crowd know this won’t be a mainstream pornography-style threesome: there will be no overly-made up women fawning male adoration while eyeing up the camera in some drunken sapphic stupor. If a film is being screened at Cinekink, billed as “the kinky film festival”, it’s because it challenges those norms. Eventually, the threesome becomes a twosome, excluding the man who becomes somewhat redundant. The camera fades to black while remaining focused on the wife’s pleasure; the crowd, majority of whom are women, cheer.  Now in its eleventh year, the Cinekink festival is well established in the sex-positive and kink communities, both in New York City, where the main event takes place, and also in other cities across America, where the films are screened in an annual roadshow. Each day, hundreds of people show up to enjoy a mix of features, documentaries, shorts and art films, both explicit and not.  It’s no surprise that women audience members attend the festival in high numbers: at least 50% of the filmmakers whose work is being screened are women, according to co-founder and festival director Lisa Vandever, though she estimates that only 15-20% of mainstream porn is made by women.  But Cinekink actively celebrates women’s work, both in front of and behind the camera. The male directors featured, too, are trying to offer an alternative to the sexist portrayal of sex onscreen. I was pleased to note NSFW, a film featuring a heterosexual relationship which not only focused on the male body more than on the female one, but also offered a lingering view of a real erection. Its director Ryan Balas said he makes active choices to show penises in his films because he thinks “it’s important that we’re not afraid of the erection”. Having the time to enjoy the male character in Balas’s film felt like a minor revolution: finally, women viewers are being treated as consumers of porn.  It’s inspiring that the general consensus and objective of the festival is to challenge the mainstream: many of the films on the line-up are either made by or feature gay, lesbian and bi people, queer/non-binary/trans* people, women and men of colour, people with disabilities, and those from a less privileged (read: did not spend $150,000 going to film school) background. There’s a certain egalitarian atmosphere, and cast and crew mix with audience members with none of the superficiality of mainstream film. This is, in part, due to the low-budget nature of independent cinema, but I’d also argue that there is a relaxed atmosphere because the very nature of making these films about sex is based on consent, intimacy and ethical working practices.  The reaction to mainstream films such as Nymphomaniac and Blue is the Warmest Colour suggest that sex onscreen is still seen as somewhat taboo - ironically for America, which has a multi-billion dollar porn industry. But the films screened at Cinekink have real sex as an integral part of the narrative, and while most of the films are not created (as porn is) to arouse per se, there’s no outrage about sex here. It’s treated as just another subject matter, in the same way that death, work, divorce and relationships are.  There is obviously a keen interest in many film fans for sexual content, whether explicit or not, or independent, or big budget. The existence of festivals like Cinekink helps to balance out the sexism and racism of both Hollywood and the mainstream porn industry, and continues to offer America a true sexy alternative.  Cinekink goes on tour in mid-April; cities visited will include Portland, Seattle, Oakland, Chicago, DC, Las Vegas and others. See cinekink.com for more info.
The self-proclaimed ‘kinky film festival’, which is touring the US, offers an alternative to the often sexist world of mainstream sexual content by focusing on female directors and desire