Feminist Porn Film Fest ‘Bean Flicks’ Hits Birmingham, England

Birmingham, England, will be the perhaps unlikely setting in Friday for a full evening of porn screened at a local movie theater—but not just any porn. The “Bean Flicks” film festival will the first feminist porn film festival in England’s second-largest city, about 100 miles west of London.“Hopefully we have a little something in there for everyone,” festival organizer  Dr. Keeley Abbott, a sex researcher at Birmingham City University, told the U.K. edition of The Huffington Post. â€œThis isn’t just porn created by women for women, but also about ethical production standards, consent and fair payment for performers.”But before the evening’s program of seven count ‘em seven “feminist, queer and kink-positive porn shorts from independent filmmakers,” according to an article on the Birmingham City University website, attendees will get a panel discussion featuring filmmaker and activist Kayza Rose, “Femdom” video producer Itziar Bilbao Urrutia—creator of the Urban Chick Supremacy Cell fetish site—sex educator Gill Leno, and feminist writer and scholar Lucy Neville, author of the newly published book Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys: Women and Gay Male Pornography.Abbott says that with online searches seeking “porn for women” quickly rising, her intention is to direct women toward porn that gives them an entirely different perception of how to enjoy the genre.“That is what we are trying to do here; give women that access and celebrate it,” the festival organizer told HuffPo UK. “We want women to go home and not feel guilty about watching porn, but also not to watch the same porn they always have.”But is Birmingham the ideal place for this project? As Huffington Post writer Sophie Gallagher described, the organizers—who also operate a “pop-up” sexual health shop called VQ, or Vagina Quotient—are “hoping to challenge our stereotypical British awkwardness and aversion to talking about desire in public. And they’re inviting you to bring everyone and anyone—including your parents.”“I would also argue that feminist porn is simply sexier than mainstream porn, as it’s a genre with immense creativity and diversity,” Abbott said. “We are just demystifying these issues in a safe space. It is going to be a fun and silly atmosphere, but we want to make sure we are very much promoting where women can get good porn.”The full program for the Bean Flicks event can be downloaded at this link. Photo via Bean Flicks Facebook Page