Tristan Taormino

Posted online at http://www.puckerup.com/media_kit/osu_update

February 7, 2011

Contact: Tristan Taormino (asktristan@gmail.com)

Three weeks ago, Tristan Taormino’s keynote for Oregon State University’s Modern Sex Conference was cancelled by administrators, who cited her involvement in pornography as the reason (complete background at http://www.puckerup.com/media_kit/osu_press_release). Response from local and national media, bloggers and sex educators, and on social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook was extensive, and the University received hundreds of emails and calls criticizing its decision to un-invite Taormino.

In response, OSU students organized to raise funds from student activity dollars, and they have succeeded: Taormino will give her original talk, “Claiming Your Sexual Power,” on Tuesday, February 15 at 7:00 pm in LaSells Stewart Center at Oregon State University. Her talk is presented by The OSU Memorial Union and open to all students, staff, faculty, and community members. The presentation will be held the night before the Modern Sex Conference. “I am thrilled at the outpouring of support and honored that the students worked so hard to bring me to campus. I want to thank Memorial Union President Craig Bidiman, his advisors, and the ASOSU for all their help,” says Taormino.

After Taormino was first uninvited from the OSU Modern Sex Conference, she was contacted by a professor at the University of Oregon who was interested in having her appear on campus. On Wednesday, February 16, she will give her talk “My Life As a Feminist Pornographer,” at the University of Oregon. She will talk about her definition of feminist porn, what she hopes to accomplish with her films, and the challenges she faces in her career in the adult industry and in her professional career as a sex educator. She will address the recent controversy at OSU and why she believes a feminist is the most “dangerous” kind of pornographer. Her talk is sponsored by The Center for the Study of Women in Society; Robert D. Clark Honors College; Departments of Women’s and Gender Studies, Sociology, Comparative Literature, and Cinema Studies; Oregon Humanities Center; The Women’s Center; LBGTQ Alliance; and The Sexual Wellness Advocacy Team. Professor Jennifer Burns Levin, who organized the event, says, “Tristan’s involvement with pornography made OSU administrators uncomfortable, but I think they missed the point. Tristan’s sex-positive, woman- and queer-friendly work in an industry known for its exploitation of women addresses exactly the kind of labor issues we should be discussing on college campuses. And preemptively withdrawing funds from a provocative speaker in a time of legislative budget cuts sets a bad precedent, in my view, for others speaking on controversial topics. So we’re very happy to have her at University of Oregon. It should be an energized and popular lecture!”

For more information about these events as well as her two appearances at She Bop sexuality boutique on February 13 and 14 in Portland, see http://www.puckerup.com/tristan_on_tour/.

January 19, 2011

Contact:
Tristan Taormino
tristan@puckerup.com

Award-winning author, columnist, sex educator, and filmmaker Tristan Taormino was set to be the keynote speaker at Oregon State University’s Modern Sex conference, scheduled for February 15-16, 2011. Yesterday, she was uninvited by a university representative, who cited her resume and website as the reason.

On October 28, 2010, organizers of the OSU Modern Sex conference booked Taormino to give the keynote talk; they confirmed the date and agreed to fees, and Tristan’s management received a first draft of the contract on November 1. That contract was incomplete and sent back to OSU for revisions. As with many negotiations, the contract was pending as all the paperwork got done, but in late December, OSU again confirmed Tristan’s appearance and conference organizers told her manager to purchase airline tickets, for which OSU would reimburse her.

On Tuesday, January 18, 2011, Steven Leider, Director of the Office of LGBT Outreach and Services contacted Colten Tognazzini, Tristan Taormino’s manager, to say that the conference had come up short on funding. Tognazzini told him that since the travel was booked and the time reserved, they could work with whatever budget they did have. Leider said that would not be possible: “We have to cancel Ms. Taormino’s appearance due to a lack of funding. It has been decided that OSU cannot pay Ms. Taormino with general fee dollars, because of the content of her resume and website.” At OSU, ‘general fee dollars’ include taxpayer dollars given to the University by the Oregon State Legislature to defray various costs. They differ from ‘student activity dollars,’ which are part of every student’s tuition and help fund student groups and activities.

Taormino’s resume includes her seven books on sex and relationships, the 18 anthologies she has edited, numerous television appearances from CNN to The Discovery Channel, and her award-winning adult films. She was a columnist for The Village Voice for nearly ten years and has given more than 75 lectures at top colleges and universities including Yale, Princeton, Cornell, Brown, NYU and Columbia. Her website, puckerup.com , includes sex education information, advice, and information about the films she directs for Vivid Entertainment, one of the largest adult companies in the country.

“In my ten years of booking Tristan at colleges and universities, of course there has been some controversy. But I have never had a university cancel like this last minute,” says Colten Tognazzini, Taormino’s manager. “It’s not unusual for contract negotiations to drag on. Once they confirmed we should book her travel, I felt comfortable the event was a done deal. I continued to work with them in good faith that a signed contract would be forthcoming. I believe that the conference organizers’ hands are tied, and this decision came from much higher up. They have cancelled with less than a month’s notice during Tristan’s busiest season. She gave up other opportunities to go to Oregon. Without a signed contract, we may have no recourse, and were told we will not be reimbursed for her travel.”

Tognazzini spoke to a source at OSU who speculated that the University feared that when it went before the legislature in regards to future funding, legislators would use OSU’s funding of a “pornographer” on campus as ammunition to further cut budgets. This source, who wishes to remain anonymous, told Tognazzini, “I think they’re uninviting Tristan because they don’t want to have to defend her appearance to conservative legislators.”

“I’m extremely disappointed that OSU has decided to cancel my appearance. I’ve been protested before, but never uninvited. I have never misrepresented who I am or what I do. I am proud of all the work I do, including the sex education films and feminist pornography I make,” says Taormino. “The talk I planned to give at this conference, titled “Claiming Your Sexual Power” has nothing to do with porn, but the porn is such an easy target for anti-sex conservatives and censors. I find it ironic that one of the missions of the conference is to understand diverse perspectives of sexuality. Apparently, my perspective—one of educating and empowering people around their sexuality—isn’t welcome at OSU.”

If OSU students and others still want to hear Taormino speak, she will be teaching two workshops at She Bop in Portland on February 13 and 14. “She Bop supports a healthy perspective on sex and sexuality and we are proud to have Tristan Taormino present two years in a row at our shop in Portland. Tristan is a leading educator paving the way for others to help break down the stigma around sex in this country. It is part of our mission as a female friendly adult shop to support sexual empowerment and growth,” say co-owners Jeneen Doumitt and Evy Cowan.

***

Note from Tristan:

Don’t Let the Anti-Sex Conservatives Win!

If you support free speech and my mission of sexual empowerment, please voice your opinion about OSU’s decision to cancel my appearance at the last minute (and not reimburse me for travel expenses) to the following people. I would really appreciate your support —Tristan

Larry Roper
Vice Provost for Student Affairs
632 Kerr Administration Building
Corvallis, OR 97331-2154
541-737-3626 (phone)
541-737-3033 (fax)
email: larry.roper@oregonstate.edu

Dr. Mamta Motwani Accapadi
Dean of Student Life
A200 Kerr Administration Building
Corvallis, OR 97331-2133
541-737-8748 (phone)
541-737-9160 (fax)
email: deanofstudents@oregonstate.edu
twitter: @deanmamta

Dr. Edward J. Ray
President
600 Kerr Administration Building
Corvallis, OR 97331-2128
541-737-4133 (phone)
541-737-3033 (fax)
email: pres.office@oregonstate.edu

rough sex 2b 213x300 Tristan Taorminos Rough Sex 2

Directed by Tristan Taormino

Starring Claire Adams, Chayse Evans, April Flores, Sinnamon Love, Adrianna Nicole, Dylan Ryan, Bobbi Starr, Madison Young, Mark Davis, James Deen, Shane Diesel, Richard Mann, Nathan Menace, and Orpheus Black.

The second installment of the AVN Award nominated series from award winning author and filmmaker Tristan Taormino. The scenes are based entirely on the real fantasies of female performers, which run the gamut from dominance to submission. Through deeply personal interviews, you’ll discover their definitions of rough sex, why they love it, how they establish trust with their partners, and what they need to feel safe to play on the edge. With scenes that are part documentary and part erotic vignette, Rough Sex dares to challenge conventional wisdom about the fantasy lives of women.

They create the scenes. They choose their partners. They control what happens. Mistress Claire takes her pet April on an unforgettable ride. Bobbi tastes total submission at the back of her throat. Ponygirl Madison gets trained. Chayse and Mark double team slave Adrianna. Madison bakes a cake for her Mistress with interesting results. Sinnamon serves her Master (and his friends) at a poker game. Each woman shares her most intimate desires, tests her own boundaries, and rides the seductive line between pleasure and pain. Witness female sexuality at its most extreme: raw, rough, and real.

With food fetish play, facesitting, strap-on sex, pony play, flogging, training, clothespins, forced orgasms, spreader bars, bondage, wrestling, slapping, spanking, dominance and submission, service, punishment, knife play, hot wax, and faceslapping, Rough Sex 2 is a lot kinkier than Rough Sex 1. It explores some of the most alluring and taboo elements of BDSM.

Purchase: http://www.puckerup.com/?cPath=&products_id=513&tpid=8

rough sex Tristan Taorminos Rough Sex

Tristan Taormino’s Rough Sex (2009)
Studio: Vivid
Director: Tristan Taormino
Cast: Adrianna Nicole, Christian XXX, Daniel Wylde, Derrick Pierce, Francesca Le, Julius Ceazher, Marco Banderas, Marie Luv, Mark Davis, Sasha Grey, Satine Phoenix

Tristan Taormino’s Rough Sex is brutally sexy!  It has a very cool and simple premise: five hot vixens dream up their best “rough sex” fantasies and get to live them out on camera with their most desired stud porn hunks.  The idea itself is a wet dream come true, and when these sassy (or submissive) sex kittens team up with guys who like to play rough, the sparks begin to fly.

If you are into naughty role playing and hardcore, rough sex, this film is for you. They don’t fool around and there is plenty of face slapping, humiliation, degradation, whacking and general “man”-handling action going down. The sex is pretty rough and the fantasies are fairly common role-play scenarios that many women have. There are three fem-submissive scenes about being forced or taken like Adrianna Nicole’s intruder alert, Marie Luv’s punishment and Satine Phoenix’s stranded damsel meets dominant stranger.  Then, there are the divas that turn the tables on their fuck obsessions such as Francesca Lee’s femdomme supremacy and Sasha Grey’s switch play.  Each scene features a prelude interview of the female cast member as she talks about what’s hot and what’s not, and why “rough sex” makes her wet.

Scene 1- Adrianna and Marco

rs11 200x300 Tristan Taorminos Rough Sex

Adrianna longs for fantasy rape by an intruder who breaks into her apartment. Just as she gets out of the shower, Marco steals up behind her, grabs her, and then clasps a hand over her mouth warning her not to scream.  Adrianna’s eyes go wide with fear and this scene looks like it is going to be really hot.  He slaps her around a bit, chokes her, and then drags her into the bedroom like a dog on a leash.  After that, the scene kind-of looses it raw edge and the intensity in those first few seconds is really never captured again.  Sure, it’s rough, but there is something lacking, like my connection with the performers.  While they both seem genuine, I never really get into it and I find myself critiquing it rather than enjoying the scene for what it is.

Scene 2- Satine and Derrick

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Whoa!  This scene is perhaps the best in the film.  So fucking hot, it sizzles and the chemistry between Satine and Derrick is tangible. Not to mention that Derrick is to die for (bald, alt and tattooed, with a rock-hard body) and Satine is a sultry little minx. Satine’s fantasy is getting stranded on a lost desert road, where she meets a “kindly stranger” who offers to stay with her until someone comes for her vehicle.  The sun is hot, the sand is dusty, they are sweating and flirting, and then things turn a bit dangerous.  Derrick realizes no-one is coming for a while and he can have his way with her.  There is a lot of foreplay which becomes increasingly rougher as he realizes, hey, she likes it.  He starts pushing her around, groping her roughly, pulling her hair and smacking her face and tits and you can tell that Satine is getting so turned on and juicy before he ever starts fucking her.  I can’t tell you how many times I watched this scene and came.  Definitely jilling off material! Rough sex, lots of unique positions on the vintage jeep, and crowned by a choking messy forced blowjob.  These two rock the screen with a riveting performance.

rs 1 201x300 Tristan Taorminos Rough Sex

Scene 3 – Francesca and Christian

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Christian is a magnificent brute of a man (again bald and sexy) and Francesca is a hot busty milf.  She’s a bit fed up with her husband ignoring her all the time, being the perfect housewife and all, and thinks it’s time for a little pay-back. And, pay-back’s a BITCH in stilettos and corset, with a nasty attitude and the will to dominate her much larger opponent. I like my brutes dominant and my bitches submissive, so for me this scene didn’t hold a lot of sexual pizzazz.  Although, Christian is adorable and so submissive for such a big boy it was interesting seeing him dominated.  Still, all the while she was crushing her tits and ass in his face, slapping him around, and spitting cum in his mouth (yuk!), I was wishing he’d grab her and give her a few smacks of her own.  I guess for me there was a problem with the believability factor.  I just didn’t believe she could dominate him in real life, and didn’t like the way she shrieked orders at him and brutalized him, when he was being such a good boy.  Not that I don’t think that he can be dominated, as he seemed to like it.  She just came across as a bit shrill and lacked authenticity. Still, I’m sure this is a fantasy that would appeal to many women and men who would find it hot.

Scene 4 – Marie and Julius

rs12 300x200 Tristan Taorminos Rough Sex

Marie wants to be punished for fucking around and treated like the slut she is.  The fantasy sounded great and I was all for it.  But, then the action starts happening, and there’s not much cussin’ and a fightin’ goin’ on here, and I’m like “Whoa, wait a minute?”  Why isn’t he calling her nasty names and treating her like a little tramp, whore, slut, which she obviously wants and deserves? Man, give me ten minutes with her and I’ll have her crying and begging for more.  Again, like the first scene there was no build-up, no sizzle, and it didn’t seem very rough to me, but maybe my finger pressed the fast forward button by mistake and I missed all the good stuff.  Nope. Don’t think so.  Weak scene, but too bad as it had potential.

Scene 5 – Sasha and Daniel

rs5 1 300x168 Tristan Taorminos Rough Sex

Okay, did I say that scene 2 was the best scene?  Maybe I lied.  To tell the truth, this scene is so hot that it rivals scene 2, and they both win best scene in my book.  Smokin’ Sasha wants to play switch in a power play scenario and who does she pick?—my all-time favorite male porn star, Daniel.  Daniel is known for his rough play style in many alt porn films, as much as for his playfulness.  Sasha picked him because she thought he would let her slap him around, which he does and seems to like it too.  They talk about what they’d like to do and Sasha defines her only limit—No tit slapping.  So, the pair get it on and right from the beginning it’s a power struggle but Daniel takes over and does his nasty choking and slapping number on her.  The scene has a series of peaks as it continually builds momentum, switching back and forth, while they get lost in the passion of each moment.  And, then, Daniel forgets and slaps Sasha’s tits, immediately cringing like dog about to be punished.  Sasha pins him on the pool table and Daniel starts apologizing profusely, and then they are snickering and laughing and back into the hot rough sex play.  This scene was not only hot but so much fun.  You can tell they are both getting off on it and are enjoying the ambiguity of working together for the first time.

rs5 201x300 Tristan Taorminos Rough Sex

Tristan Taormino’s Rough Sex is overall a great porn if you like rough sex and some serious role-playing power exchange fantasies.  It is worth it just for scene 2 and 5 alone.  I applaud Tristan for giving the women in the film the chance to design their own scenarios and define what is rough and sexy to them.  The production quality is pretty good in most places although the sound was off a bit sometimes and some of the camera work looked a bit shaky.  The extras includes a Choking and Safety snippet with Penny Flame who teaches the proper way to choke to avoid injury which I thought was a very good idea, as no doubt a bunch of novices will see this film and want to start practicing without a clue.

Check out Tristan Taormino’s Rough Sex at Babeland, where you can find many other films by Tristan and other cool women porn directors.

Viviane also posted the trailer to Rough Sex here.