Filmmaker Erika Lust is a pioneer of adult entertainment.
Her movies are artistic masterpieces that emphasize important values around sex & sexuality such as consent, mutual pleasure, and boundaries.
We talked to the iconic artist Erika Lust about her personal and professional journey in the adult industry and her hopes for a sexually liberated future.
Giada Armani: How do you come up with and realize your stories? Do you recognize a pattern in your creative process?
Erika Lust: Yeah, of course.
For me, my creative process doesn’t have a fixed starting point. It’s always there.
It never really stops.
I get inspired by so many different things, images that are popping up, sometimes from music, certain smells, food, stories told by friends, or books I’m reading at the moment.
References and ideas come from all over the place.
And what I’ve been working on a lot the last year, on the project of X-Confessions is to kind of gather the stories of other people.
You know, people who anonymously are sending in their stories, their fantasies, their confessions, things that they find sexy or kinky or that are turning them on.
And I go through those stories, I read them, and the ones I like the most, the ones that tickle something in me – those are the ones I turn into short films.
So, the anonymous confessions by these people play a huge part in the crowdsourced project of X- Confessions by Erika Lust.
But then when I have a confession laying in front of me, I must figure out, what I’m going to do with it.
What kind of film am I going to do?
That is the moment where I can match those stories with other ideas and other inspirations that I have.
You know I am that kind of person, when I am scrolling through Instagram and I see something that inspires me or I think is interesting, I create a folder and have a look at it whenever I can pick out some new ideas.
Giada: Coincidentally, I visited my gynecologist two weeks ago, he is around 60 and has been doing his job for years and years.
And I have told him about this amazing person, called Erika Lust.
Then out of nowhere, he asked me, what kind of people write porn or act out porn?
Erika: That’s something interesting!
To be honest, all kinds of people do!
Looking at our subscribers and followers, it’s a very varied group of people from all over the world.
We have an audience in Finland, Brazil, Australia, the UK, Berlin, and many more.
Furthermore, it’s pretty 50/50 when it comes to women and men.
If we look at social media, our female audience tends to expand, we do have a higher following of women.
But looking at our subscribers on the platform online, we also see many couples who are joining in together to watch films.
And I have to admit, that I have received so many beautiful emails from people telling me how the films have helped them start conversations about sex and their life.
With the background of having watched the films, they have been able to communicate things with their partners that they have never talked about before.
That is one of the aspects making me very, very proud to be a conversation starter, because it is so necessary to talk.
We need to communicate more about sex.
We need to talk about it.
And we need to get better at explaining what we fancy or what we are into and who we are.
Giada: Why is talking about sex so important?
being a publisher of erotic literature, I had many people tell me that sex is a private matter and shouldn’t be discussed publically. What is the connection between sex and society?
Erika: Well, many people still think that their kinks or their sexuality is perverse or darkish and should be hidden.
But I think that when we realize the power of sharing, like watching a film and realizing that it’s talking about characters who have similar attractions that you have, it can help you free your mind and feel more comfortable in your own sexuality.
I also think it can be very helpful to watch porn if you do it in a way where you are respecting the media, where you’re respecting the process, where you care about the people who are involved, who are working in this world of porn.
You know, for me, as a producer, director, and owner of a production company, one of our team’s core values is and always has been labor rights.
It’s how we care about everyone who is involved in this process.
Nevertheless, one of the most important messages is that you, out there as a consumer of pornography, should remember that you are part of this industry as well.
With your time, your clicks, and what you choose to watch you are voting for the kind of porn you would like to watch in the future.
Giada: Which people have inspired you the most on your way and helped you become the artist that you are today?
Erika Lust: Wow, that is a difficult question.
There definitely are filmmakers who have inspired me on my journey, but there are also other people around me who have inspired me and who have supported me and helped me push myself to become the person I am today.
One of them is my husband, Pablo, who always believed in me.
He helped me with what I lacked in masculinity to dare to thrive in this world.
But there are many filmmakers whose work I am crazy about.
For example, Joey Soloway, the creator of Transparent and I Love Dick, a series about female sexuality, are both available on Amazon Prime I think.
Lately, I’ve been loving Michaela Coel’s I May Destroy You.
I think it’s absolutely fabulous and it really shows how everything changes when new perspectives are coming in.
Then there is Kimberly Peirce, who made this movie called Boys Don’t Cry.
It’s a couple of years old now, I think it got created at the beginning of the 2000s, but that movie had a great impact on me.
When I was a young girl, The Lover by Marguerite Duras, was one of my favorites, now it’s an oldie, almost vintage.
It’s a long, long list, there are many creators whose work I love and who have inspired me.
Giada: How does Erika Lust’s ideal future look like?
Erika Lust: What I actually wish for in the future is to spend the Christmas holidays with my family.
But on the work level, I wish to be able to continue the work that I am doing right now.
I want to continue creating wonderful films with more complexity and interesting stories.
Additionally, I wish for people to generally start valuing porn.
I want people to pay for their porn and to understand that if they want better content, they need to be a part of this.
It’s not good enough to go onto the internet, at night and watch this misogynistic and racist, I’m not even going to call them films because they really aren’t, these are just video clips.
Especially for men.
I wish for them to start understanding that it has its price on society and all kind of visions of sexuality.
For the younger generation, for my daughters, I wish for them to grow up in a world where sexuality is more respected.
I want them to have authentic encounters with other people, respect them, and understand them from a female point of view.
Giada: You coming from Sweden, establishing a huge network all over the world, and now living in Spain – is there such a thing as the most open country? At least here in Europe?
Erika: I actually believe that there aren’t that many differences anymore when you are living in a big city, like Buenos Aires, Berlin, or Sydney.
I feel like the world is so globalized.
We are listening to the same music, we eat the same food, we are watching the same Netflix shows.
But then again, we have to remember that when we are talking about this kind of globalized vision, it will always be amongst an elitist kind of group of people.
Sometimes I feel like the world is changing.
We are becoming much more understanding.
We are starting to see women in important positions and people are starting to accept people on the spectrum, on the LGBTQI+ scale et cetera.
Maybe that’s my vision because I do live in an elitist bubble but I feel like we need to push ourselves not to stop the fight.
We can’t think that we are already done, that the world is a feminist and inclusive world for everyone.
Honestly, the world is still the patriarchal world I grew up in.
Less than when I was born in 77’, but still it is and that’s the sad reality.
