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$pread Magazine - Issue 5.1
Getting in Trrouble: The Founder of NoFauxxx Doesn't Fake It
Interview by Catherine Plato
Since 2003, Courtney Trrouble has been breaking the mold, even by Alt Porn standards, with her queer indie site NoFauxxx.com. While many of the other Alt Porn sites on the net feature your stereotypical modelesque women, only with some ink on their skin, the NoFauxxx foxes cover the complete gamut of size, race, orientation, and most notably, gender: as the site says, the identity of many NoFauxxx models falls somewhere in between male and female.
This year, Trrouble made her directorial debut with Roulette, a series of seven porno vignettes including an all-queer gang bang in a lesbian dive bar, two punk rock boys going at it on a rooftop, and the director herself masturbating on camera. The film recently earned a Feminist Porn Award for the Most Deliciously Diverse Cast, as well as a distribution deal with feminist sex shop Good Vibrations. This summer, watch out for Trrouble's next film, Nostalgia, inspired by controversial classic porn scenes, but with her signature queer and feminist edge.
Tell me how NoFauxxx.com came about.
By 2003 I had been working as a phone sex operator full time for a few years and was feeling a burnout associated with being men's fantasies all day. I thought that working on my own fantasies and my own body as a source of fantasy would be a great way to work through those emotions. The photos of my friends and myself ended up being the first incarnation of NoFauxxx.Com.
Was it your intention to cast diversely, or did it just work out that way? It seems like most of your performers come to you rather than you seeking them out.
When I started NoFauxxx.Com, one of my main goals was to create an all-inclusive community, where anyone would feel comfortable expressing their desires through film. In 2003, and still today, the larger indie porn sites were getting a lot of criticism about the lack of diversity, and although I haven't sought out people of specific races, sizes, or genders to "round things out" - I find that insulting, actually - I think just saying out loud, NoFauxxx is an all-inclusive website, come one, come all was enough to make my site feel like a cozy place to live. And you're right, mainly; a lot of my performers come to me. I'm actually quite shy and have a hard time walking up to people and saying, "hey, wanna be in my low-budget porno?"
Do the actors and models you work with identify as sex workers? It seems like your work serves such a specific audience, approximately the same people who are creating it. It seems more like an artistic subculture than porn designed for consumption. Do you think that making porn out of the excitement of creating something, as opposed to collecting a big paycheck, changes how the collaborators view themselves, maybe artists as opposed to workers?
That would be a performer-specific situation. Some of the people I work with are in fact sex workers, and whether it's a big paycheck or a DIY-style trade for prints, posing for me is just a small aspect of their job. Then there are those folks I've worked with that consider themselves exhibitionists or sex activists, posing nude for fun or to be a part of a positive sexual community. However, I think there's always crossover, as many sex workers commit Art with every gig, and many hedonists get paid to be their hot exhibitionist selves.
I also have to argue that the audience is much different than people would expect. There's definitely porn consumers out there watching and paying to see my work, but I think these are the same people who choose indie records over mainstream singles, or go to indie movie houses instead of blockbusters. They're still porno-tricks, they're just more supportive of smaller companies and maybe a little less niched-out than most porn consumers.
Do you have any intention for your site and video to get more mainstream attention, or is keeping it within a small community essential to maintaining the integrity of your intention?
It can get as much mainstream attention as it wants, but if I keep my work and myself within my community, the integrity will remain. I think that inviting mainstream media into my work would be a huge mistake, so you wont ever be seeing any big time corporate connections or collaborations. The thought of my style of porno going commercial makes me a little sick. Takes the fun and purpose out of it.
Can you give us a hint of what we can look forward to Nostalgia?
One of my favorite scenes of all times is the scene in Behind the Green Door where Marilyn Chambers is brought out in front of an audience and devoured by cloaked women until a man comes out to penetrate her. But, I've heard comments against this scene because of the costuming of the man - he's black, and costumed in "savage gear," like bones and such. I still think the scene is powerful despite the obvious racist undertones - so I redid it with women, and made the "man," queer porn star Jiz Lee, more of a mythical creature than a savage. There's also a shot at the end of this scene where Jiz Lee and Selina Raven both squirt all over the ingenue. I think it's important to say that I kept the kidnapping storyline intact, as feminist desire leaves room for these kinds of dark fantasies and is worth recognizing from our point of view instead of relying on un-feminist sources for our dark desires.
I also re-did the scene from Deep Throat where Linda Lovelace steps into the doctor's office, and after a few tests, discovers that her clitoris is in her throat. I wanted to do this scene because it is hands down one of the most famous porn scenes of all time, and because I really wanted to showcase the queer blowjob. There's a lot of attention paid in porn to "how lesbians fuck," but I've seen nothing concerning the fact that many queer folk love gender play, sucking strap-on cocks, and getting rough and dirty. I cast Madison Young, Syd Blakovich, and Jiz Lee, who are three porn stars as well as real-life lovers. The chemistry is about as high-voltage as you can get on film and we even did a POV of a double-blowjob. I think that queering this sex act in a public realm is important, and also to use POV, a highly man-centric genre where it's all shot from the "male gaze," in a feminist way was new and exciting.
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