Working Blew: A Interview With Camille Crimson

We find ourselves here at Neckties terribly concerned, perhaps overly so, with all things art and porn. It is high time I point you to a website which by its very premise, combines both.

The heavenly Camille Crimson is an Artist as well as a Muse. The Author and Object of Desire. All of which she does with her mouth. Oh, the things she does with her mouth!

This is sex footage that goes well with a soundtrack by Sarah McLachlan and Enya without being utterly self-aware of your ridiculous situation. Truly Divine.

I’ve had the pleasure of small interview exchange with Ms. Crimson. Please, read. Then, when you’re done, treat yourself to a subscription, for The Art of Blowjob has the full endorsement of yours truly. 

Interview

First, congratulations on your nomination. How does it feel to have your craft recognized by the folks behind the Feminist Porn Awards?

It feels amazing.  We actually won last year, so being nominated again this year is a wonderful acknowledgement of how far we've come with creating new content and finding new ways to improve the site and finding ways to add even more quality to what we do.  As a feminist doing porn that is very off the beaten path but also porn which portrays a stereotypically male-focused sex act, being acknowledged as actively feminist is a wonderful thing.

I've only recently discovered Feminist Porn. Can you tell me what Feminist Porn is? What does it mean to you? How would you respond to those who say that porn is anathema to feminism? 

I think Feminist Porn is anything that is made with women's empowerment in mind.  Whether it's a woman-owned company, whether it's woman-directed, whether it's specifically about female pleasure or if it's porn which serves to promote equality and respect in general, those are all aspects that could foster feminism in porn.

What is your aim? What do you hope to achieve?

I want to make beautiful porn that is also hot.  Something for women, men and couples.  Something educational without being preachy, romantic without being cheesy...  Basically something that shows aspirational yet accessible sexuality.

You’re from Quebec. As an American, I am ignorant of any place north of Boston. Is there a Canadian porn scene? How would you describe the porn culture in the Great White North?

The porn scene in Montreal is actually exploding right now.  There has always been a fair amount of content development and webcam studios, but Manwin (AKA Pornhub, Youporn, Xtube, Brazzers, Playboy.com, Playboy TV, Twisty's, Digital Playground, etc...) is all located here and they've slowly but surely bought up a huge chunk of the industry.  People are taking note of the city as it becomes more mainstream on the administrative side, but the smaller companies making their own porn are still as diverse as ever.

It is an understatement to say that you’re incredibly good at what you do. You’re absolutely sensational to watch. Tell me, your skill with fellatio, is it the result of hard work and training or is it natural talent?

I guess it's a mix of the two, but more than anything, it's about being passionate about it and devoted to my boyfriend.  Knowing lots of tricks is great, but it's not much without the motivation behind it.  That doesn't have to be love, but for me it is.  As long as there's some fire, the rest can be added.

Shameless plugs and self-promotion. Please, plug away. Websites, movies, appearances.

Our DVD with Hustler is about to go live.  Keep checking my blog (http://www.camillecrimson.com) for more information!  I also will be taking over as guest editor for Fleshbot for the week of May 21st, so be sure to mark that down on your calendars!

Final question, Are you happy?

I'm incredibly happy.  I never thought that my life could be as awesome as it has turned out to be, but I'm sure glad it is.

Questions About Calco Boycs

Who is Calco Boycs? I'm sure anyone with the time for exploration and the patience for decryption can find out. He's on Twitter after all. A tightly written—though with a hint of English-As-A-Second-Language—portrait on Blogspot provides:

Calco Boycs is a swiss born descend from an illustrious french huguenot family with celtic roots. He was educated at Paris-Sorbonne and the Zurich University of the Arts and worked long years as commercial photographer and graphic designer.Bored from fame and success he decided to make a clean sweep. Two years ago he quit his job and left his hometown from one day to another to start anew. Since then he lives under a pseudonym in a remote mountain valley in Provence, France near the Mount Ventoux. Not even his best friends know the exact address.

Yeah. Still an enigma.

A better question is What is Calco Boycs? Simply, he makes stunning porn art. Like these:

Which leads you to ask, Why? Who knows? But I, for one, am grateful.

A question for myself: How did you get into Calco Boycs?

I don't know. His site magically appeared on my bookmarks a few days ago. I don't know how it got there. Should I be alarmed?

Last question: Does Calco Boycs think porn is art?

Clearly, yes.

Peruse Calco Boycs' porn art for yourself here.

Kimberly Kane Shoots Her Friends In The Face

Faith Leon, shot in 2009

Her friends happen to be porn stars.

Our favorite Porn Art Theorist has started a tumbler where her photography can be seen.

My Review: "Good Shit!"

Bobbi Starr is smoking

Check it out.

Porn Star Screen Tests

When I think of porn and art these days, I find myself thinking of Billy Watson. Mostly, because the man does things like this:

You might say, "What's the point?" or "OK, so he's copying Warhol, but with porn stars. Whatever." or "Why would I spend 3 minutes not watching Ginger Lynn fuck? Why should I spend 3 minutes not watching her do anything?" or "Violet Monroe creeps me out with the staring."

I remember watching Dali's screen test years ago. Dali, more than any other artist besides — well, Warhol — was known as much for his persona as his art. As time ticked, you watch as he got bored, ansty, unsure. And by the time it wrapped you saw, for a flash, the mask drop. Here was an old man. Talented, eccentric, but a real person, not a persona. Not Dali^TM. And it hit me. The point of it all: a moment of realness on film.

When you think about it, almost nothing we see on television is real. Certainly not Reality TV. The news, more often than not, has to fit in some pre-conceived narrative. Everyone, whether they are conscious of it, raises a mask when a camera is pointed at them.

I remember reading somewhere, probably in a David Foster Wallace essay, that porn stars should be respected more than any "legitimate" actor, because what they portray is true emotion, whether it's pleasure, pain or vulnerability. And what is more private and you than the way you look when you have an orgasm?

Now, to be sure, porn stars have personas (I'm looking at you, Sasha Grey), and not every orgasm is real (far from it), but you can concede that these women — often girls in their early twenties — by just being naked on camera for literally the world to see are revealing more of their real selves than most of us ever would.

Who could be a more natural subject for a screen test than a porn starlet?

And what else could it be that art does than reveal reality?

Porn Star Portraits #1

This is Carlos Atanes.

He makes wonderfully strange films.

Lately, He's been making wonderfully strange drawings of our favorite porn stars. I like them. You should too.

Do yourself a favor. Check out his take on the Kafka classic, The Metamorphosis. It features far less naked people, but it's still a treat to the eyes.

Where Oruba Ruminates Some More On Porn, Art And Tying Chicks Up

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Kimberly Kane: Porn is My Art

Is Porn art?

I've think about this much more than I should. Sometimes I think no; Sometimes I think maybe. Other times I think that maybe I should be spending my time more constructively.

Don Drummand's masterful trombone declares that music is his occupation.

Adult starlet Kimberly Kane looks coolly into the lens of a camera and declares, with the confidence of Duchamp pointing at a urinal: Porn is my art.

The witty Billy Watson, a pornographer whose porn-adjacent work goes places I enjoy, like into conversations with intelligent, with-it, porn women who aren't Nina Hartley (she isn't the only one), takes my view: Once you jack to it, it isn't art.

Kane disagrees of course. And I disagree with her. Or at least her reasoning. Even if teenage boys can jack to anything (I offer myself as proof), the Author's intention plays a large role in its self-definition. If you have, say, Michael Ninn (I'm going back here) who intends for his work to be more than a jack piece, then yes, it's art. But your run-of-the-mill gonzo producer is churning out a product. So no, no art there.

Though I disagree with Ms. Kane, I have seen a few of her scenes, and her Artist Declaration is right on: Porn absolutely is her art.

On Porno Art

I watch a lot of porn. Duh, right?

As such, after while, I, being the special guy that I am, notice patterns, fixtures, recurrences. Things like the pervasive potted plant in the corner or the inexplicably ubiquitous folding room partition in the background. Things like black guys keeping their shoes on (I haven't figured that one out yet).

What I notice most is the abundance of art in porn movies. You see it everywhere, and all kinds: good, bad...mostly bad. If the scene isn't outside, in a motel room, or on a fabricated set, you'll probably see something hanging on the wall.

Several questions arise:

1. Have there been any recognizable pieces featured? I'm not talking about The Nightwatch, certainly, but something from a hot artist from the last 5-10 years or so.

2. Does having your art pop up in a sex flick increase or lower its value? I'm guessing if early deaths and bizarre lifestyles are a career-maker, porn appearance can't be that detrimental.

3. Somewhat, related to the first question. The houses a lot of these movies are shot in pretty much look interchangeable. Has anyone seen a painting and gone, "Oh, that's _________'s place"?

4. Am I the only one who notices shit like this?

5. Why?

I guess the most logical (and least fun) explanation is that many non-motel room, non-fake set sex flicks are shot in pretty swanky digs in and around Porn Valley. A surefire way for the arriviste to gain respectability is through collecting art. I'm assuming, of course, Old Money don't let their houses out for porn shoots, but I could be wrong.

A collage construct from a random sampling of my collection:

I am a geek for documentaries and books about the lives of various works of art. I like knowing how it got from A to B, what happens from the time it's created and the time it gets to its present home. If the story begins with an impoverished, unappreciated artist who sells his prized painting to make rent, and then proceeds to how it was hidden from the Nazis by Resistance members in a dank cave for four years, and ends with the painting now a national treasure hung in the Louvre, then you've got my attention the whole time (no mean feat).

Thinking of Porno Art I let my mind wander.

What if there were an artist. He isn't a hot new thing but he is talented. He isn't known in the big art circles, but he does fairly well in Southern California. His work isn't selling for more than $1000, but he's moves quite a few paintings out of his studio. Maybe he has friends in the porn industry, or maybe it's a fluke of fate, but many of his paintings end up in homes in San Fernando Valley.

Suppose he dies at a young age before his career could take off. Maybe his death is especially tragic or unusual, maybe a renown art critic stumbles across one of his pieces by accident (I'm thinking at a garage sale he almost didn't go to). Could be anything that does it, but soon after his death his profile starts picking up.

Five, ten years go by and this guy becomes hot. Paintings that originally sold for $500 now go for $20,000 easy. Many find that by selling that painting from behind the couch they once thought worthless, they could finance several movies, or buy a new car. His works start moving out of Porn Valley and find their way into the hands of prominent dealers and private collectors all across the US, Japan, Russia, Europe.

Another ten years go buy and this guy's paintings start to appear in museums. Women are shocked to learn, when liquidating their husband's assets for the divorce proceedings, that the ugly painting that's been hiding in storage for all these years in now worth $800,000.

Seventy-five years go by and the artist is a major figure in Western Art. His paintings are in the Met, and the National Gallery, and the Guggenheim. The latest auction offering was a frenzied affair with his most celebrated piece going for $1.2 billion (not that outrageous if you consider inflation). Unknown in his own time, the artist is now considered a pioneer and creator of his own Movement.

And in the classroom of an art school, a professor is starting a three day lecture on this man's life and work. He's giving the Life of a Masterpiece Spiel for a painting that is now priceless.

And it goes something like this: "...was featured in Tinker with My Stinker 2 and Interracial Hole Stretchers 4..."

Is Porn Art?

A few days ago, in a conversation with my good friend Lyndsey, a question surfaced: Can porn be art?

My answer, at the time not as articulate as the argument you have before you, was basically thus: When porn becomes art, it is no longer porn.

My answer was the result of a recent encounter with a definition of pornography that made a whole lot of sense. According to David Wong, pornography is anything you lose interest in after you climax. In one sense this is a definition as vague as Justice Potter Stewart's “I know it when I see it.” But in another sense it it perfectly describes my, and perhaps your, relationship to porn. Most importantly, it underlines its patently utilitarian nature.

Now, I am a man who very much wants porn to be art. As a fifteen year old I gravitated toward those movies with plots and elaborate sets and big budgets and loads of clever, though often butchered, dialogue. I harbored a wish to write fresh, original screenplays for sex flicks that could stand on their own without the sex. I liked the idea of erotic films that weren't simply about sex so much that it took me a long time to admit that I wouldn't like them so much without the sex.

I was enamored by the works of Michael Ninn. But lets face it, Latex and Shock aren't Chinatown or Apocalypse Now. Yes, they're pretty but you'll be hard press to find anyone who'll pop them into a DVD player for any reason other than getting off. I can tell you, as much as I praise the man, I've never watched a Michael Ninn movie straight through. For me, it's skip to my favorite scene. Get my rocks off. Take a nap.

Oscar Wilde said, “All art is utterly useless.” It stands and exists only for itself. Porn, by definition exists to tend to our prurient interests. It has a purpose, some many say a noble one. But until it ceases to serve that purpose it cannot be declared art.

Thousands of years from from now, our civilization will go the way of the Egyptians and the Maya. Our ways of life will be analyzed by people far different from us. I envision them being the epitome of sexual liberation. Their utter lack of repression will mean that the idea of pornography and the pleasure derived from it being verboten will be alien to these people. And these people will excavate the ruins of 21st century civilization and find porn by the boatloads and will be puzzled by it. They will lack the frame of reference to appreciate it for what it is: a masturbation tool. They will wonder, was this part of 21st century religion? Was this art?

A few thousand years ago, before pipes brought water into homes, before wine was corked in bottles, water and wine were ported in jars and vases. And people painted these jars and vases because that's what we human do. No one, not a single one of these vase painters, beamed with pride knowing that their “masterpiece” will be on display at the British Museum. They were just painting a water jug. The same way that guy from the graphics department designs a box cover for the latest Cougar DVD.