Paulita Pappel is a sex-positive, feminist pornographer. She is the founder of lustery.com(NSFW), a platform dedicated to the sex lives of real life, loving couples from around the world. She also co-organizes and curates the Pornfilmfestival Berlin.

Pappel has worked as a film producer, performer and director. Lately, her main interest lies in what she calls documentary porn, a porn genre that documents the sexual lives of real people. This was the reason for creating Lustery, as a platform and community that focuses on genuine passion and enjoyment and aims to provide a realistic depiction of what actually happens in people’s bedrooms. I met with her to chat on producing porn, censorship after SESTA/FOSTA, the experession "porn for women" and a lot more.

Vanina Why do you do porn?

Paulita I started doing porn because I was fascinated by it. And I was fascinated by it because I've always been a slut. Growing up as a woman in Spain, which is a very catholic, fascist country I didn't feel very comfortable with my sexuality. I was running away from it, but also trying to find a way to be able to express myself sexually. So it was, at the beginning a personal quest to find oneself and understand who I am. Then politics played a role in it because I thought it was important to show a diverse representation of bodies, sexualities, genders, desires. These two goals were my starting point. Personally and politically.

Vanina Okay, you've used different types of platforms. The most recent one being Lustery. So can we talk maybe a bit more about that? How did you get there?

One of Lustery's couples

Paulita I started as a performer. Putting myself in front of a camera felt like the right thing to do. And I started in a very DIY queer context. So it was a lot about capturing our reality, which we did not see represented in mainstream media, generally. It had a documentary factor to it. And I was very lucky and very privileged - I could always choose the companies, and the people to work with. I kind of stumbled upon the whole girl-next-door porn, just because I fit that profile, for good or bad. And then, I worked a lot in what you would call amateur porn. And my interest developed from there. I was working with a lot of people who were doing this for the first time and it was not so much about creating a fictional script (which I think is great, and I love that kind of porn and watch it). But my interest was more about capturing what is already there. And I think as soon as you put a camera in front of someone, you're always going to have a performance.

Vanina I mean, oftentimes during sex, we perform, even if there is no camera …

Paulita Exactly. Every time I have a one night stand, I'm performing. And then I think especially people who socialize as women, we also have this more ingrained in our socialization.

I was wondering how I can capture the genuine interaction, the sexual attraction between two people. And if you have two people who have an ongoing sexual relationship with each other, they do this in their private lives, and you let them take control of what you are doing, so you give them a camera and you just tell them to do whatever you want and record it and have a good time. I thought that was the closest way that you can come to capture that interaction.

I like to call it documentary porn because I'm really just trying to document and capture this real communication, intimacy, and sexual chemistry that already exists between two people.

Vanina It seems like, maybe, this is happening on a global level - we have "Make love not porn" - which is a social sex platform - existing couples sending their videos. I hope we see more of that.

Paulita Absolutely. A lot of people ask me, "Why do couples do this? Is it for the money?" And surely money is one reason, but most of the couples I am in contact with, for them is part of their exploration.

And I think people are so repressed, living in sexually negative communities, that they're trying to find an easier way to deal with their sexuality and share it. I think it is an international trend, it is necessary.

Vanina Why do we see porn as good porn and bad porn?

Paulita I think this is a very important topic because there is a huge tendency in many societies to see porn as something inherently bad or wrong. I come from a feminist upbringing and I believed that pornography and, any type of sex work was a way to exploit and abuse women. I've come a long way from there, and I've understood why I thought so.

And I think actually when you start analyzing it and looking into it, the reason why we are seeing porn as wrong is because we are afraid of sex. I think one very important underlying base that exists within this fear of porn is the idea of female sexuality. Because if you think porn is always exploitative of women, basically what you are saying is that women don't ever have sex just for fun or for money, but women are always having sex for security, love, family, or whatever other conservative values of your choosing.

This is the idea that we have ingrained in our heads. And I think we should liberate ourselves from that and start accepting that women should have self-determined free sexuality, whatever that looks like. If it's marrying and being monogamous with another person, great. If it's super kinky gang bang bukkake, great. Everything should be available to us as long as it's consensual.

I think the more we are getting towards mainstream porn the more the discourse that porn is being bad is appearing. And then newer and more indie porn, like, for example, the stuff I'm doing or producing than that's okay, that's better, that's good porn. Which is not true. I think if we say that, what we're doing is we're just perpetuating and reinforcing this idea of sex per se being actually somehow generally bad.

And also, we are missing so many important voices from the mainstream industry. I mean, there are so many amazing women in the industry, and their voices are so valid and so relevant, and we're just silencing them, and stigmatizing them all the ways possible.

And the third really important thing I think, you know, porn is such an easy target to blame. Like this idea that all bad sexual biases and sexism and violence against women is because of porn. Well, if it would be that easy.

The real problem, I think, is lack of education. Lack of proper resources from the institutions, from our states, from our families. People can't talk to each other about sex and that is a problem.

Parents with their kids, partners with their sexual partners - there are no public spaces to discuss openly and properly, inclusively, sex. This is the problem. And I think if we keep saying porn is bad. And dangerous for our children. I don't think kids should see anything. That's not what I'm saying, of course not. But there are already measures in place to try to give kids or young people the appropriate content for their age.

I would love to use the porn that I'm doing as a resource for sexual education for teenagers. I think porn has a great potential of being a resource for that. And this is what we should be talking about. How do we use this? And how do we educate and give people resources.

Vanina On the term female porn, or porn for women - what do you think about this term?

Paulita I think it is very problematic. I see where it is coming from, and I see the good intentions behind it.

But it is assuming that women are a homogeneous group of people with common sexual interests and these interests are mostly romantic, well-lit, soft porn. Which is ridiculous. It is just perpetuating, again, this conservative idea of what the group’s (women - which is like half of the people on this planet) preferences are. So I definitely have a problem with this.

Again, I don't want to demonize anything and I see where it's coming from. And if that's an entryway for some people to approach it, that’s ok. If it is a way to make it accessible for people who would have a very strong, negative notion about it. And that is okay. There is a moment and a place, I think, for talking about that. Again, just to make it accessible to some people.

But the reality is women are watching porn. They are watching different kinds of porn. But in the process of simply reproducing cliches, nobody is doing their fact-checking.

Vanina We can't really avoid the question on censorship, especially nowadays with all site crackdowns, the censorship on Tumblr, SESTA/FOSTA in the US, the age verification in the UK. What is your comment on the most recent events and how do you see the future in terms of censorship?

Paulita It is a very difficult moment and a lot of things can happen. I think that's why it's so important to raise our voices and make people aware of the issues that are not concerning just the porn industry, but the whole world and society as a whole. As an adult company, you are already facing problems - starting with very basic things that any other company will have no issues with. As an adult company, you have problems with your bank, you can’t use PayPal. Or you get shadowbanned from social media or your account gets deleted.

Lustery's promo photo

There's still Twitter, which ... I don't know how long it's gonna be, especially after SESTA/FOSTA. There used to be Reddit (Reddit banned their subreddits where sex workers used to advertise after SESTA/FOSTA). I'm guessing new platforms are going to arise, and I'm hoping that we will find new ways.

Vanina Which brings to the next question. How do you convince people to start paying for porn again?

Paulita Very important question. It's crucial. It's crucial that people start paying for porn. First, there's the ethical aspect. If you are a consumer, it's just good to know what you are paying for. Again, I'm not saying there's good or bad porn. I'm saying, whatever you like, support it, because then the people doing it will be able to keep doing that. Right? But apart from the ethics, when you're paying for porn, you're also paying for quality. If you just go out there to search for free porn, you're gonna have to be searching for it and surely people are very specialized and finding what they want. It's just like, it is harder to find the porn that you want. We feel like ethical production is worth for the consumer, not just because of morality and ethics, but also from a personal gain point of view. You are going to get a better product.

Vanina I also think that actually removing the stigma that people connect to it, to watching porn, is very important. Because people would be happier to pay for something they are not ashamed of.

Porn Film festival

Paulita Absolutely. I think that's so important. People consume porn and feel ashamed of it. So of course, you're not going to spend money on something you feel ashamed of.

Vanina How would you define ethical porn?

Paulita A very general definition would be that there needs to be transparency. Clear communication and negotiation of everything in advance. Clear contracts, fair payment. Safe working environment. From a porn perspective, it would be, providing all performers with whatever they need for the specific scene they're doing. Before, during, and after. So before, clear transparency negotiation. During, safe working conditions. After, keeping true to the contracts. Keeping track of the content and whatever the performer agreed to, staying true to it and fair to it. It's simple. This idea that most of the mainstream porn companies out there don't do this is bullshit. It is just ridiculous to think that a huge industry like this, wouldn't have proper contracting.

Vanina Ok, let's finish on that note - what can you tell us about the Porn Film Festival, maybe?

Paulita For me, the experience working the Porn Film Festival Berlin is a little bit of my highlight of the year.

We try to create a space where there is a different way of dealing with sexuality. Just talking openly about it. Having a dialogue with audiences, with the filmmakers, with the performers, with everyone.

Porn Film festival

And I think it is so fascinating. For me, it is a liberating experience, to sit in the cinema with a hundred other people and watch porn together and laugh together and be turned on together. If you don't feel comfortable, you can just walk out, but I think for many people, it is like a very interesting experience that I would recommend and encourage everyone to join us in October.

Feature photo by Lukas Papierak Photos from the Porn Film Festival by Virginia De