Page 54 - AVN June 2015

We shot on a lot of
roof tops because
we didn’t have
much of a budget
for locations back
then and it gave
Burning Angel this
real ‘Brooklyn’ feel.
—Joanna Angel
“I ended up getting in with the
Eulenspeigel Society,” Vandever
says, “the oldest and largest BDSM
organization in the county. I fell into
running their film series, and we
expanded that into the film festival.
I really loved doing it. [But soon] my
own interests were evolving, and I
also was feeling an ownership and
wanted more control. I came up with
the thought of CineKink and it took off
from there. It started out with a much
smaller festival—Thursday through
Sunday—and ever since expanded to
nearly a week and filmmakers coming in
from all over to support their works.”
The audiences at the CineKink
consist of women, men and couples of
all ages, mostly dressed in casual urban-
hip. As I attend showings throughout
the weekend, I watch creative, fun,
artistic, sometimes disturbing, and
bravely original adult content on a big
screen in the company of an open-
minded, curious and good-humored
audience. Thinking back to the
stereotypical rain-coated male audience
so often associated with New York’s
adult theaters of the 1970s and ’80s, all
I can think is Look how far we’ve come.
“You can share these movies online,”
CineKink founder Lisa Vandever tells
me, “but bringing together people in
a common space … that is a different
experience. I tend to emphasize that
because the image people have in their
head is that raincoat guy, the creepy
guy. [But here] there are women and
[people of] all ages.”
While the CineKink Festival stirs
up the Bowery, twenty blocks uptown
New York’s Museum of Sex is hosting three concurrent exhibitions in its home not far from the Empire State Building:
Funland—Pleasures and Perils of the Erotic Fairground, The Eve of Porn—Linda Lovelace and The Sex Lives of Animals, and Spotlight on
the Permanent Collection. Founded in 2002, the museum features exhibit galleries, a bar and café, and a gift shop stocked
with books, sex toys, and gifts.
Speaking with Museum of Sex Curator Sarah Forbes by phone before my visit, she tells me, “Our mission is to present
and preserve the history surrounding sex and sexuality. We hope the exhibitions we create will contribute to the larger
discourse. So that mission goes to being a part of a very multi-disciplinary conversation. All of our exhibitions start from art,
history, and science. It’s a mixture of everything because the subject of sex is really a subject of everything. And so as the
museum’s curator, we’re preserving collections that other institutions would not. These are the artifacts that unfortunately
just don’t get saved with time … We’re just constantly changing and reinventing ourselves. It’s a very exciting institution to
be a part of.”
As I browse the exhibits, I learn about Linda Lovelace’s complex relationship with both the adult film industry and the
feminist movement through photographs, films, and artifacts. I’m guided through a sex-themed funhouse. I learn about
the strange and fascinating non-procreative sex that exists in the animal kingdom. And I explore the permanent collection,
featuring an etching by Picasso, artwork by Keith Haring, Victorian “Fancy Books” and other artifacts both disturbing and
compelling. All of it is presented in a non-critical light.
“We are presenting not necessarily an opinion,” Forbes told me. “We present all this information on various subjects, and
then we ask people to learn from that and then think about it on their own and create their own opinions.”
I ask Sarah Forbes if there is a “sexual community” in today’s New York. She replies, “I think it’s more beneficial to not
think of it as one community, but to think about all of the communities that touch upon this topic. I go to all of the art
shows, and it’s [about] reaching out and having conversations, [asking] ‘Are you making anything that has to do with sex
or gender?’ Those are the most interesting conversations that happen. Or dealing with somebody who’s working in the
field of technology: ‘How do you think about sex and technology?’ So they’re not necessarily identifying themselves as a sex
community, but they’re absolutely dealing with the subject and themes, and the creation of things that represent these ideas.
“It’s creating this conversation,” Forbes adds, “and bringing divergent voices together that maybe don’t even realize that
these amazing collaborations are possible. And so in all of the exhibitions I create, I try to mine all these different places.
And its not always the places you would most obviously associate with sex.”
Cindy Gallop, founder of New York-based MakeLoveNotPorn.com, shares similar views about the collaborative potential
of today’s New York City. “Pro-sex, pro-porn, pro-knowing the difference” is her company’s motto, and speaking with
Gallop by phone is an inspiring experience in itself. Bold ideas and philosophies spill into her conversation at a frenetic pace.
“I absolutely adore New York City,” says British-born Gallop, “I moved here seventeen years ago to start up the US office
of the advertising agency I used to work for, and very soon after I found my spiritual home. I’m never going back to London.
I’m here for life. So I am a New Yorker through and through.”
“Where you come from and where you ground yourself inevitably has an impact on any industry. That’s the reason I
began [asking]: what if the porn industry was centered in New York City? I just thought there would be a whole different
character. There would be a whole different approach to innovation and disruption and creativity.”
FEATURE
Burning Bright A Nate Smith photo of the Burning
Angel crew in 2011 at the AVN Adult Entertainment
Expo. From left, Skin Diamond, Draven Star, Joanna
Angel, Jiz Lee, Asphyxia Noir, Sparky Sin Claire, Kleio
Valentien and Violet Monroe.
54 | AVN.com | 6.15