I am lying on one end of a massage table, naked from the waist down. My head is nestled gently on the shoulder of Wendy Delorme – Wendy is a French porn artist and star of Much More Pussy! Feminist Sluts in the Queer X Show. She wears red lipstick and smells like musky perfume.

We’re in a light-filled dance studio in Neukölln, Berlin, surrounded by 30 people standing in a circle. The sold-out workshop is part of the annual Berlin Porn Film Festival. We have limited audience numbers to maintain some sense of intimacy over the four hours, while we engage in live fisting and squirting demonstrations.

Our workshop collaborators are BDSM practitioner Gala Vanting and performance artist Sadie Lune. Gala and Sadie are known as ‘pleasure activists’, for their interdisciplinary blending of sex work, art, education and activism.

We are four queer, femme porn performers hailing from Australia, the US, France and Germany. Despite our geographical distance, this group feels like a close-knit, nourishing whore family, with shared history and many common experiences.

Although I’d met Wendy for the first time that morning, there is a familiarity and ease between us, and a feeling that we are about to embark on something special together.

To help facilitate the workshop, Gala has prepared a montage of squirting porn films, and sourced anatomical drawings that illustrate the urethral sponge. Meanwhile, Sadie – who is known for stage performances in which she invites audience members to view her cervix through a speculum – looks after the participants, finding yoga mats for people to sit on, fielding questions, and introducing the workshop with a group breathing exercise.

This is the third live sex education workshop I’ve facilitated, and this one is pitched to ‘Those with cunts and people who fuck them’.

The first live squirting demo I ever saw was facilitated by Gala Vanting and sexologist Cyndi Darnell at Sex Camp, here in Australia in 2012. Among an audience of more than 100 people in a high-ceilinged hall, I stood on my tip-toes, peering over shoulders and straining to see the beautiful, fine sprays of liquid shooting up from Gala’s cunt. I had only just learned to ejaculate myself, and I was mesmerised and a little in love.

Two years later, in the lead-up to the Feminist Porn Awards in Toronto, Canada, queer porn star Courtney Trouble invited me to be the fistee in a ‘Fisting for Beginners’ workshop. The workshop was limited to 20 participants, and presented in the cosy upstairs of a women-friendly sex-toy store.

Courtney was already somewhat familiar with my cunt, as we had previously performed together for my film Femme Facial. Our squirting demo was impromptu, and so effective that Courtney nicknamed the front row of the audience ‘the splash zone’. 

Because of their interactive nature, live sex demonstrations provide a unique form of sex education. Facilitators and participants alike are responsible for creating the atmosphere of the space through shared energies, set intentions and open hearts.

There are things to learn from live sex that you simply cannot learn from any textbook. The workshop is a rare moment, and an opportunity for sensory, holistic and educative experiences.

When asked to reflect on the value of sex workshops, Sadie says:

“Eye contact, reading a body, shifting touch style or position, a feedback loop between the bodies-sounds-responses of partners, and the subtle, slippery art of the mid-sex check-in, are all things that talking or reading don’t often provide.”

During a workshop in Amsterdam with Gala back in 2014, we provided participants with lube, gloves and towels, and invited them to play among the dark nooks and vinyl slings.

This particular workshop, dubbed ‘Get a Handjob’, was funded by the city’s official LGBTIQ Pride celebrations.

Being fisted in front of a mass of strangers can be a little daunting. It involves inviting people in to witness and share a temporary but meaningful intimacy.

We all have different boundaries for what we are willing to share with members of the public. In a workshop in France, Wendy once invited members of the audience to come up and fist her on stage. Since then, this particular workshop has developed an almost mythical quality, and I am still in awe of Wendy’s capacity to open her body up to strangers and offer them such an incredible gift. 

During sex workshops, we aim to demonstrate the deep pleasures and possibilities of practices like fisting, without reifying them.

Berlin Porn Film Festival 2015 Workshop

Fisting is awesome, but we don’t want to represent it as the epitome of sexual transgression. G-spot ejaculation is fabulous, there is no doubt, but it is not extraordinary, nor abject, nor exotic.

As porn performers, we know this all too well: despite the monetary premium placed on these activities because of their relative social taboos, they are really just ordinary bodily functions.

Importantly, these functions are not performances that should be demanded or expected of our bodies, whether by a partner, a producer or an audience.

As femmes, we’ve all heard the line before: “I’m going to make you squirt.” But squirting is not something that someone else does to you; it’s something your body does, that you own, that belongs to you. There is no prescriptive recipe to teach how to fist, or how to squirt, and nor should there be.

Workshops take some preparation. Before facilitating, I make sure I’m hydrated to maximise the quantity I can squirt. I take probiotics to minimise the chance of thrush, and abstain from sex for a brief period to ensure I’m not swollen or sensitive.

I have been practising at home with an EPI-NO – a pelvic floor trainer used to prepare the perineum for stretching, and minimise risk of vaginal tears. The device was a gift from a fellow stripper after she used it to prepare for the birth of her baby.

Zahra Stardust. Image: Ash

Like all sexual encounters, we never know what our bodies will be up for on the day. Since her last workshop, Wendy has given birth to twins. Meanwhile, I am holding some emotional trauma in my cunt, and am a little nervous I won’t even be able to take a fist.

We decide to present this lack of certainty not as a limitation, but rather as an opportunity to discuss why we deliberately avoid goal orientation – this is a process-oriented workshop.

This is one of the hallmarks of queer and feminist approaches to porn: a focus on the process, not just the product. We are less interested in the spectacle of shooting liquid, and more invested in getting familiar with our own bodies.

As anyone with a vagina will know, our relationships to them shift throughout our lifetime. They can be affected by hormones, scar tissue, childbirth, menopause, medication and trauma.

Each of these elements can alter vaginal elasticity, lubrication and capacity.

We decide to meet our cunts where they are at, and expect no more from them than they are willing to provide in the moment.

We talk about preparation: placing cotton wool under long fingernails inside a glove to avoid abrasions; removing nail polish to reduce risk of bacterial vaginosis; finding hypo-allergenic lube for sensitive skin, and glycerine-free lube to reduce the risk of thrush.

I have had recurrent urinary tract infections since I was a child, so right before the demo I make a deliberate point of excusing myself to duck to the toilet and empty my bladder.

In the end, our performance anxiety is short-lived. The four of us are seasoned show ponies – we take pleasure in the wonder of our bodies, and I am comfortable enough with a fist inside me to take questions about warm-up, crowning and technique.

During the demonstration, I take pride in standing up, rotating, and even walking backwards, dragging my fister along on their knees as a means to demonstrate the strength of vaginal muscles and suction.

At this point, people are circling the table for different vantage points and asking questions:

“How does that feel for you?”

“How do you know when to enter?”

“Can you actually feel the cervix with your knuckles?”

This interactivity is one of the most dynamic and compelling parts of the workshop. As Sadie reflects:

“Audiences benefit from the gift of witnessing genital and body responses in full light, which quite a few folks have never done in their personal lives. If something happens in the demo that the workshop participants don’t understand, they can ask questions from both or all parties in real time.”

This is markedly different from the curated performances we have each done on film, and yet this skill-set of body awareness and frank communication is one that we have each learnt from our careers in sex work.

Gala, Sadie, Wendy and I are by no means alone in our investment in community-led, peer-delivered sex education. When working in porn, you develop a high level of sexual health knowledge on set that can be shared in community settings.

All around the world, porn stars are contributing to responsible sexual education, holding sex workshops that focus on pleasure, emotional safety and clear communication; creating public resources on sex and consent; speaking out against sexual assault; and role-modelling the negotiation of risk in behind-the-scenes clips.

It is common nowadays for producers to showcase this. After filming Tangled Heart Strings, producer Madison Young released footage of performers H and Siouxsie Q candidly discussing how they like to orgasm, their preferred pace and pressure of penetration, and the effects of anti-depressant medication on libido.

This practice of documenting the explicit negotiation of consent, and frank discussions of various pharmaceutical or psychological impacts on our sexualities, has become a relatively common feminist intervention in pornography.

After her public disclosure about experiencing sexual assault on set in 2014, US porn star Stoya published an article titled ‘If You Don’t Want To, Say No: A Porn Star’s Guide to Sexual Consent’ in the New Statesman.

The article discusses the importance of safe words to signal that you want the activity to stop, that it’s okay to retract consent at any time, and that you don’t ever have to defend or explain your choice to say no.

Stoya’s coming out about sexual assault led to important international conversations about pressure, coercion and non-consensual sex, and particularly the ‘rape-ability’ of sex workers. 

Here in Australia, porn stars have also assisted young people in developing the media literacy skills to deconstruct and analyse film.

In 2015, Australian documentarian Helen Betty Corday (formerly performer Liandra Dahl) worked with Fitzroy High School in Melbourne to host five community forums. In one forum titled ‘Pornography and Teenagers: Developing Porn Literacy’, porn performers shared their experiences of working in porn, alongside sexologists, family planning representatives and psychologists.

The value of porn stars sharing their stories is that when people are faced with a real-time, multifaceted human, it becomes difficult to define us only by our on-screen personas. When porn stars have a platform from which to speak candidly, audiences become more invested in our health, wellbeing and occupational safety.

When audiences learn about the labour processes involved in creating on-screen sex (scripting, planning, negotiating), it becomes harder to read those performative sexual acts as natural or prescriptive.

In 2016, Helen and Gala starred in Clare Watson’s sold-out piece, Gonzo, at the Malthouse Theatre in Melbourne, which featured four teenagers in conversation with porn stars. Based on peer-led focus groups with boys aged 12 to 18 years, the play depicted teenagers as conscious and critical consumers, and explored the educative potential in engaging with performers to make sense of online pornography.

In a conversational and improvised scene with Gala and Helen, the teens asked questions about the artistic aspects of porn, how they maintain romantic relationships, and the labour conditions on set.

The boys cared about the women involved, how they were referred to, and whether they were having a good time. They wanted to know if the filmed activities were consensual, and they even paid attention to whether the performers were using lube.

Pornography, of course, is not an adequate substitute for good, comprehensive sex education, nor should porn stars bear all responsibility for population-level sex education.

However, in the absence of a national sex education curriculum, pornography inevitably assumes a pseudo-educative role by default.

Before our Berlin workshop, when we tried to find appropriate anatomical drawings to demonstrate how G-spot ejaculation works, in the end the most useful diagrams didn’t come from any medical textbook. They were lifted from books and resources produced by women pornographers, sexologists and sex educators, such as Deborah Sundahl, Tristan Taormino and Cyndi Darnell.

Meanwhile, Gala’s curation of porn highlights showcased a wide variety of fisting and squirting techniques among people of diverse genders, showing that not everyone with a G-spot is female, and that there is no ‘normal’ bodily manifestation of pleasure.

Porn and diagrams aside, the ritualistic aspect is what feels most unique to live demonstration. After our workshop, Gala describes the event as “one of the most moving and reverent atmospheres I have witnessed”.

As well as seeing our technical skills, audience members can hear our breath, watch us check in, and hold space for us in close proximity.

Marije Janssen, one participant who screens porn film festivals over in the Netherlands, tells us afterwards:

“So many people think of fisting as something aggressive, something the receiver almost has to endure, in a way. But to really see, right in front of you, the care, intensity and intimacy is a huge eye-opener.”

Meanwhile, Sara Svärtan Persson, a workshop participant who attended while nursing her newborn baby, said she had never experienced anything like it. “The atmosphere was very welcoming and open. It felt safe, as well as intimate.”

There is something special about inviting strangers to witness this kind of intimacy. We have done the theoretical and practical groundwork so the space feels generous, trusting and safe.

As porn stars, representations of our sexual selves are widely accessible, and our lives are often treated as a kind of public utility.

Because of this widespread cultural entitlement to our bodies, carving out space for intimacy, even within this modestly sized workshop, feels like a crucial act of self-care.

As Gala lies down for the squirting section, I stand at the top of the massage table and put my hands on her chest. From here, I can touch her hair, hold her hand, or just be close.

We have spoken in advance about the importance for Gala of having her whore family around her when she performs in a public space. As her porn sisters, we are her good energy, her safety net, and a protective bubble around her, and that bonding moment of trust between us feels truly special.

For a moment, the audience is quiet and Sadie is at work. We hear Gala’s breath and, in time, the sound of her ejaculate falling on the sheet.

Afterwards, participants ask about the smell, taste and consistency.

“I invite you to come and sniff my squirt,” smiles Gala.

As Wendy and I begin to pack up our materials, a queue of participants forms, leaning in to sniff Gala’s wet patch. This is a learning experience that won’t be found in any textbook.

Zahra Stardust is completing a PhD on pornography at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. She has chapters in books such as Orienting Feminisms: Activism, Media and Cultural Representations (Palgrave, 2017), DIY Porn Handbook: A How-To Guide to Documenting Our Own Sexual Revolution (Greenery Press, 2016), and Queer Sex Work (Routledge, 2015). She has been published in journals such as Porn Studies, Research for Sex Work and World Journal of AIDS, and written articles for The Conversation, Overland, Runway and Hustler.

This article originally appeared in Archer Mgazine #9. SUBSCRIBE TO ARCHER MAGAZINE