Pioneering Lesbian Filmmaker Deborah Sundahl Passes Away

LOS ANGELES—Deborah Sundahl, the founder of Fatale Video and co-founder of the groundbreaking explicit lesbian magazine, On Our Backs, passed away on June 13. According to the email shared by her son, Aaron, Deborah died after a rare form of cancer which was recently diagnosed. Deborah, along with her business partner, Nan Kinney, created explicit lesbian videos under the name of Blush Entertainment and Fatale Video. Starting in 1992 with the films Clips and Suburban Dykes, the groundbreaking videos differentiated from the typical girl/girl videos produced at the time and featured the more realistic roles of butch/femme in their characters. Often, the women were self-identified lesbians in real life and felt their work contributed to the acceptance of lesbian women and their sex positive lives. Under the name Fanny Fatale, she, along with Myrna Elana, founded On Our Backs magazine in 1984, which published through 2006, although Deborah and her business partners sold the company in 1996. Joined over the years by prolific author Susie Bright, photographer Honey Lee Cotrell and may others, On Our Backs pioneered lesbian sex-positive feminism and defined the movement in the mid-80s through the mid-90s by publishing explicit photos and erotica. In 1992, Deborah released her first educational video, How to Female Ejaculate, which, after describing the anatomical breakdown of how female ejaculation happens, then explicitly demonstrated it. As the first educational video on the topic, she also subsequently published several books female ejaculation and taught the subject in in person workshops around the world and online throughout her career. A GoFundMe site has been set up by her son to help continue her work. PinkLabel.TV on Wednesday announced it was partnering with Frameline LGBTQ Film Festival to present a double-feature commemorating Sundahl with the films Suburban Dykes and Safe is Desire.  The double feature, which will be hosted by Bay Area filmmaker/producer Shine Louise Houston, will begin at 10 p.m. today at Roxie Theater in San Francisco. For tickets, click here. Fatale Media director Nan Kinney remarked, "In the early 1980s in San Francisco, Debi Sundahl and I co-founded and published On Our Backs Magazine, and produced and directed Fatale Videos. “Called ‘Entertainment for The Adventurous Lesbian,’ the magazine and videos presented the first authentic lesbian porn made for the lesbian audience. It was feminist porn and indie porn before those genres existed. Debi was dedicated to empowering women through their sexuality. Based on her comprehensive book and explicit videos about female ejaculation and the G-spot, she created and taught workshops all over the world. Debi was a trailblazer and renowned sex educator. Sadly, our dear friend and colleague passed away last week, and she will be missed by those touched by her work." Sundahl's work exploring lesbian sexuality, female ejaculation, and orgasm are archived on PinkLabel.TV in collections by Fatale Media and Deborah Sundahl. More information about Frameline's screening can be found at Frameline.org.