Salon on Lizzy Borden
At Salon, Janelle Brown profiles and interviews extreme porn director Lizzy Borden, whose movies push the limits of sexual violence and degradation. Brown repeatedly voices her distaste for Borden's work throughout the article.
In fact, Borden's films are so repugnant and evil that it's difficult to justify their existence, let alone comprehend why anyone -- especially a woman -- would want to make this kind of garbage in the first place. But Borden talks about her work with pride and a kind of twisted logic. She considers herself a moralist, an artist, a realist and a provocateur (though perhaps not in such grand vocabulary). In an industry that treats women like second-rate citizens, that considers them useful only as long as their breasts are perky and their orifices exploitable, Borden sees a route to power and respect in out-boying the boys. Furthermore, she believes she's just giving audiences the same kind of violence and vileness they've come to expect from their other entertainment outlets, like the World Wrestling Federation, "Jackass" and Eminem. And thanks to her own abusive childhood, Borden is just screwed up enough to believe this rationalization.
The whip-smart Nick Urfé has already written a long, eloquent rejoinder defending Borden and the value of exploring and depicting transgressive sexual fantasies.
