Our Exclusive Interview With Feminist Porn Director, Star, and Blogger Lucie Blush

Still in its relative infancy, at least when compared to the rest of the porn world, Feminist Porn is not unlike the Wild West, with a lot of new territory left unexplored. Amongst feminist porn performers and directors, Lucie Blush is at the forefront of creating interesting, honest, and authentic content that connects with people from all walks of life. Born in France, but living and working in Barcelona, Lucie creates content for her site Lucie Makes Porn which speaks to her and for her, and in turn touches and stimulates people around the globe. I recently chatted with Lucie about her start in the industry, her claim that she's not a "sexpert," and her decision to put her first sexual encounter with a woman on film. 

Tucker Bankshot: When did you first become aware of the adult industry, and did that coincide with you realizing it was something you wanted to do for a living, or were those two separate moments?

Lucie Blush: Very separate moments. I watched my first porn film when I was maybe seventeen or eighteen, I think it was Debbie Does Dallas (both laugh), and I don't know, I think I wasn't very interested in porn, I didn't like it much. Then a few years later when I got to Barcelona, I started working with Erika Lust as a web designer and that's how I discovered the world of feminist, alternative, ethical porn. And that kind of stuck in my head, you know?

TB: Debbie Does Dallas stuck in your head, or the work that you did with Erika?

LB: (Laughing) No, no. Well, that did stick in my head, but not for a good reason (both laugh). When I started working with Erika, I discovered what other kinds of porn you could do, and even though I stopped working with her, it stayed with me, and I kept thinking about feminism in porn and sex in general, and that's how I started the site myself. 

TB: Growing up in France and now living and working in Barcelona, are you aware of how sexually repressed we can be here in the States?

LB: (Laughing) I don't think so. I know Americans have this idea that Europeans are liberal and very open. I don't know if we are, but I haven't been to the States so I don't know.

TB: Yeah, I think obviously there is a portion of this country that is forward thinking and sexually liberated, but it's still dominated by this puritanical attitude that came over in the 17th century and hasn't really left. 

LB: Well, I guess I can see that on the internet, you know? Anytime there's a nipple here or a nipple there...

TB: Yeah, everyone goes insane. I guess it's just funny that, as an American, I hear France and Spain and I think, well there's two sexually liberated countries, and I wonder if you have that same conception about us, that we're more puritanical?

LB: Yeah, definitely. From the media and from what I can see. But here you can really feel that it's liberated, especially in Barcelona, lots of gay people on the street and everything, it's very normal, very liberal. France I feel is a little bit more puritanical, but they do love porn.

TB: Oh yeah, I believe they're one of the only places in the world where there are still actual porn theaters. 

LB: Yeah.

TB: Because lord knows there's none in the United States anymore. 

LB: (Laughing) No?

TB: No. So, was there a specific moment or series of moments that prompted you to create your own content? 

LB: Yeah, a personal breakup that left me very depressed, but also very curious about how to make sex better in a relationship, and how to make it last. That's how I created the site, and the objective of the site is to group all of the videos online, erotic, original, artistic stuff, but I still wasn't finding exactly what I wanted. I didn't find anything that really scratched my itch (both laugh). So I thought I could do something, you know, I didn't have any experience in video or anything like that, but let's try it!

TB: On your website, you say that you’re not a “sexpert” but rather someone that you hope will stimulate yourself and others. Wouldn’t the fact that people seem to enjoy and have validated your content qualify you as a sexpert?

LB: No, no, because sometimes you see pornographers or sex bloggers and they want to teach you how to have good sex. I can't teach that to anyone. My films are just my own fantasies, the way I feel, the way I've evolved in my sexuality, but I can't really give expert advice to people on how to, you know, reach your g-spot in three seconds (both laugh). It's not this kind of thing, I'm a regular girl, I don't know everything about sex but I want to explore it and share it with people. 

TB: Alright, well that's fair. This is related to something you posted on Twitter, but do you really get contacted by people claiming that they want to be in one of your films because they love sex?

LB: Oh yeah (both laugh). 

TB: How do you deal with that? Is it best to just ignore it?

LB: At first I used to reply, and when they're nice, I'll reply still, but (laughing) everybody loves sex and porn is a job. It's tough, it's difficult, so think about it before you decide to do it, or before you send me dick pics (both laugh)... which does happen.

TB: With your documentary Naked, what made you decide to film your first time having sex with a woman? 

LB: Well, what I look for when I shoot a film is that it feels very authentic and very real. But it's not always perfect because actors and stress and there's other people around, so I thought that the only way to give people something very real was to offer one of my personal moments, and my first time. That's the only way, you can't really fake that, you know? So I kind of wanted to share that with everybody and kind of see myself through that.

TB: Yeah, it's great I watched it last night, it's really fantastic.

LB: (Laughs) Yeah? I wasn't as nervous as I thought I would be. I think I was nervous at first, and you can kind of see that in the film that it's very relaxed and very casual. 

TB: Oh definitely. Did you consider your content to be “Feminist Porn” prior to winning an award for Honorable Site at The Feminist Porn Awards, and if so, how would you define feminist porn?

LB: Definitely, I think feminist porn can have a lot of shapes, but it's feminist as long as it respects a few core values. Treat the actors right, pay them right, make sure they're having fun and aren't being forced to do anything, and also in terms of the audience, provide things that are not cliched or too biased in terms of gender. So it's offering something that is complete fantasy or complete fiction, but it can still be very authentic as long as it provides an equal depiction of the sexes, and both partners or multiple partners still enjoy the sex. That's what it's all about. 

TB: What is your opinion of popular works of fiction like Fifty Shades of Grey that are clearly masquerading as empowering when they’re actually quite the opposite?

LB: Yeah, I think we can criticize Fifty Shades of Grey all we want, and it could have been a million times better. But still it's good to have BDSM being talked about in the mainstream media for once, you know? So people can actually see that it's not something that's only in dungeons with leather and scary people, or that only weird people do it. It's something that we can all do, so I hope that maybe it's the first step and hopefully a lot of other works are going to be better in the future and give a more realistic view of what it's like. 

TB: Okay, that's very pragmatic of you, I can appreciate that. 

LB: (Laughing) I am pragmatic (both laugh). 

TB: Porn is known for tackling taboo subject matter. What’s a taboo you would like to tackle in your own work?

LB: I would really love to do something about anal sex and men. There's this big taboo about anal sex in general, but especially for men because it's seen as being effeminate or gay if you have anal sex with your girlfriend. So I kind of want to talk about that, the whole pegging thing is intriguing to me, but it's hard to find actors that will do that, at least in Spain. 

TB: Is there anyone you haven’t worked with yet that you’re dying to work with?

LB: Oh yeah, obviously. Everybody (both laugh). I would have loved to work with Liandra Dahl, but she quit the porn world. Jiz Lee, Zahra Stardust, pretty much everybody I met in Toronto for the Feminist Porn Awards, and of course Stoya and James Deen are my porn idols (laughing). 

TB: I actually interviewed Jiz Lee and Lorelei Lee as well, and I think that some of the misconceptions about people that do porn not being intellectuals. It's still viewed as a last resort thing, it's sort of viewed as this thing that people resort to, and I think that there are people such as yourself and others that I mention who have made a conscious decision to say, yes we're educated people and yes, this is what we want to do with our lives.

LB: Exactly. 

TB: So I hope that misconception starts to go away.

LB: Me too (both laugh).

TB: So my last question is just if there's anything else you’d like your fans to know or perhaps anyone discovering you for the first time?

LB: I'm shooting a new film in a week and a half and it's gonna be... kinky (both laugh). So I don't know, I hope people will like it better than Fifty Shades of Grey, we'll see (both laugh). So yeah, what you see is what you get.