Feature: Courtney Trouble of NoFauxxx

NoFauxxx pride themselves on being “the longest running queer porn site on the web” (Although a cursory check on the registration date of the clearly queer oriented BadPuppy shows it’s been successfully online since 1995. -Ed) Trouble, the site’s creator, began the site back in 2003 taking photos of herself and her friends and posting them online. NoFauxxx quickly caught on within the alt/queer community as something atypical, diverse, and freakishly outrageous. Fast forward to 2009, NoFauxxx 2.0 has evolved into a social networking porn site with a new site design and both a free and member’s community with many free features. The member’s area features over 139 photosets and 20 videos highlighting queer stars Jiz Lee, Dylan Ryan, Madison Young, Lorelei Lee, Kimberly Kane, Audacia Ray, and Trouble herself. You’ll see lots of diverse alt/queer gender-bending fuckery between boys, girls and transfolk, sporting Mohawks, tattoos, piercings, and strap-ons.

Coinciding with the launch of the new website, Trouble has also been hard at work behind the scenes filming her first full-length alt porn which has been two years in the making. NoFauxxx Roulette (2009) will feature “steaming hot sex scenes that support the existence of the queer sex underground, with authentic and sexually diverse vignettes that uphold feminist and queer political beliefs.”

I remember when your site first launched and what struck me about it (besides the alternative/gender inclusive/queer content) was the name: No “Fauxxx”. Obviously this is a reference to the “fake” quality of mainstream porn. What is your take on mainstream and your Modus operandi, or what you hope to accomplish with NoFauxxx?

I’m not trying to say everything else is fake, but I am trying to say that everything on the site is authentic. There’s really a personality behind the photos, and it’s not just in a model bio or a message board presence. I actually make it a goal to post content that looks personal. I use real settings, real outfits, real couples. I’ve shot porn stars like Lorelei Lee, but the difference between my photos and some other work that she’s done (even though it’s all wonderful!) — I got the chance to take intimate photographs of her in her bedroom, in her favorite outfit, surrounded by the books that have inspired her most in her life. That’s what I’m going for really, an intimacy that could never be read as fake, posed, unreal, or contrived.

How has NF evolved over the years? What have been your challenges and accomplishments? How has this project allowed you to evolve/transform as a sexual individual, an artist, a pornographer? Where do you hope it will lead?

First of all, my photography has gotten waaaay better, and I’ve really learned how to make films over the years. If you see the videos on the site now, you can see how the quality really goes up a small notch in each vignette, and it’s taken a long time to get to the kind of quality you’ll find in Roulette. In a sense, the community has really expanded around me, so where there was once nothing but NoFauxxx, there’s now a whole community surrounding NoFauxxx. I’ve become more interested in making it high art, and I’ve really realized that the site lies somewhere in between “Queer Porn” and “Alt Porn.” — living in between a gay and straight space is hard to navigate, but that’s really where I hope it will lead.

You maintain in your mission statement that NoFauxxx “is the longest running queer porn site on the web”. There are many “girl-girl” and “gay” porn websites on the internet that probably use the same claim. How do you see NoFauxxx as distinct from them in relation to queer/gender politics?

“Girl Girl” is a contrived notion of queerness. I spoke with a company owner who boasts “true lesbians” in his business, and he had the audacity to say to me, “We make sure they’re a little bit bisexual.” And, while bisexuality is certainly a queer notion and bi girls count – the thought of this guy’s testing mechanisms for “real lesbianism” seems a little weak. I think that regardless of whether these “girl/girl” models actually like girls or not, the film is produced by men, with the intention of selling to men who like to watch lesbians.

I think you can be “queer” and be anywhere in the sexuality spectrum, as long as you feel like your sexual identity is somewhere outside the box, and perhaps you just don’t do things the way the world would expect you to as a gay, lesbian, straight, or bisexual.

The word “queer” in relation to “lesbian” and “gay” is an even more unifying word than “GLBT,” because you don’t have to explain your sexuality any further than that unless you feel like it. I think it’s a term used by younger people, certainly people who have transgendered folks in their scenes perhaps because of the complication of calling yourself “lesbian” or “straight” when you date people of varying genders. I believe “queer” also has a very punk rock element to it – we’re more deviant, we’re more dangerous, we’re more exciting, than just being plain old gay or kinky.

Women watch all kinds of porn. But women who identify as lesbians, from my experience at least, find most “girl/girl” porn to be extremely fake. It’s like whoever directed it has absolutely no idea how women fuck each other. Many alt porn sites have the same exact problem when it comes to shooting two girls together. Also, when I was doing girl/girl shows in a peepshow, it translated to men’s ideas of how women fuck in real life – meaning that men are believing this junk. I think that porn has the power to educate people, and that can be enlightening as well as damaging. How many things have you seen in porn where you have thought, “Well, that’s just not right!” Good porn will show you how it’d done right – but porn that was carelessly produced can teach it’s audience that our clits are in the backs of our throats, that lesbians love to show off for men, that all women can take 5 cocks in their asses all at once…. you get the picture.

I think that my site is one of those sites that show the world how people *really* fuck. I’m shooting raw, undirected, unscripted sex – I’m asking my models to show us how it’s really done. I think the end result is hotter both to queer audiences, and straight audiences, when the real is authentic and the chemistry is high.

Why is it important for you to deconstruct typical stereotypes in porn? Do you believe that art (as a vehicle for cultural critique) has the power to effect social change?

When was the last time you had to pick between BBW sex, MILF sex, Gay sex, Public sex, or Black-Dick-Zilla sex in your real, non-porn, you’re-actually-about-to-get-laid sex life? Real sexuality just isn’t thrown into boxes like that, and certainly, the people we are, and the people we’re attracted to, can’t all fit ourselves into those boxes. I think the over-niching of porn is rude to the performers, and I’d prefer that things were set up a little more like mine. I can’t separate my website into “Girls” and “Boys” because there’s some foxes on the site who wouldn’t know which side to pick. I think it’s important to break down gender, race, size, fetish, and orientation stereotypes to create a pornographic world were fat girls can be pin ups, skinny hipster boys can fuck their own asses, and black men can be nice, and not raping somebody’s daughter… Know what I mean? The stereotypes placed on minorities in the porn world is horrible, and I wouldn’t want to work in porn at all if I had to go by those rules.

You mention that NF’s goal is to “uphold queer political beliefs” and “sex-positive theories”. How does porn accomplish this?

Sex positivity has a lot to do with being open with yourself and other’s sexual idiosyncrasies. In that sense, a sex positive porn would be honest and true to the performer and producers sexuality, without creating a stigma or stereotype about the sex being performed. And to me, upholding queer political beliefs in porn means practicing safer sex, showing communication/consent/safewords as a normal part of queer sex, and respecting people’s bodies, gender identities, pronouns, and sexual preferences.

Do you believe that by making sex-positive, gender-queer, diverse sexualities more accessible via the internet, it has changed the way people view typical stereotypes of beauty/sex/gender? Have you seen these views evolve over the years since you first launched NF?

I think it serves as a place where college-aged queers could go and see that they don’t have to be “this or that” to fit into a LGBT system, or the world in general. Also, maybe this would be a question to ask the readers here – has stumbling across my site made you see beauty/sex/gender differently? Over the years that I’ve been doing NoFauxxx, there have been more FTMs [female-to-males] making porn and performing, and many people have started their own queer porn sites.

Much of the content on NF is taken by either yourself or your friends. How has DIY culture changed the porn industry, or has it? Mainstream keeps pumping out the same generic stuff and people still buy it. How can DIY complete with such an overwhelming commercial machine?

Mainstream porn can and always will pump out the same boring shit, but offering up more indie options will undoubtedly bring in our own audience. Once people see DIY porn, watching mainstream porn becomes a different experience–when you can see the different between real and fake.

I would like to talk about your new film: NoFauxxx Roulette. What was the experience like of creating such an ambitious project? What challenges did you face? What did you learn?

Well first off, I have absolutely no formal training in film or editing, so taking this project on was pretty much like enrolling in film school, except I had no teachers. I made plenty of mistakes and had to start over many times. In the end, I think teaching myself how to shoot and edit made Roulette a very unique film – i just don’t do things like everyone else.

I started filming Roulette in early 2007 with no budget. It’s taken me two years to complete, and I still owe money! The budget by far has been the biggest challenge – to keep updating the site and film this movie takes a lot of funds that I just didn’t have. Luckily I’ve been able to just make the movie, and hopefully it will work out in the end. The film is now available for pre-order at: http://www.courtneytrouble.com

There are many women who have become the makers rather than the muses in the porn industry. This is radically different form the 60s and 70s, within the feminist anti-porn movement. How have feminist ideologies changed to support the ability for women to become manufacturers of porn rather than passive pawns of male desire?

2nd wave feminists are our mothers and grandmothers – and naturally – this general of feminists have rebelled. Annie Sprinkle, Nina Hartley, Candida Royalle… these people broke the molds that allowed women to create porn, and watch it more freely, than before.

Do you consider yourself a 3rd wave feminist?

Revolution Girl Style Now!!!!

What artists, pornographers, icons (past and/or present) have inspired you? Who are your mentors?

I love classic photography–Man Ray, Helmut Newton, Robert Mapplethorpe, and current photographers like Nan Goldin, Ellen Von Unwerth, Dave LaChappelle. Jackie Strano and Shar Rednoir’s movies inspired me when I was younger, and now Jackie is someone I go to for film advice on a weekly basis.