Female Porn Directors

When it comes to porn, it’s worth seeking out the work of female porn directors.

Not every female porn director is making porn for women or female gaze porn. And it may be a bit much to assume that a woman behind the camera can speak to all women’s experiences. Even so, there are a lot of women making porn and they’re all bringing their unique perspectives to it. Some are happily calling their work “porn for women” or “feminist porn”; others just want to make films about sex without labels. All are trailblazers in an industry that has long been male-dominated.

Recommended Directors

Below is a list of female porn directors whose work we recommend. Many of those listed have made self-described porn for women; all of them make great porn.

Ms. Naughty (aka Louise Lush) has been making and curating porn online since 2000. In 2009 she made her first erotic short film which won the Petra Joy Award for first time porn filmmakers. Since then she’s shot over 100 porn scenes and made dozens of award winning erotic short films. She’s worked with many real-life couples, along with indie porn performers. Her work appears at BrightDesire.com, which won a Feminist Porn Award in 2015.

Jennifer Lyon Bell is an Amsterdam-based feminist porn director. Her explicit films are carefully constructed with great dialogue and intense performer chemistry to ensure each sex scene feels authentic and believable. Her films are cinematic and emotionally engaging. Her feature Silver Shoes won Movie of the Year at the 2014 Feminist Porn Awards. Her work appears at Blue Artichoke Films.

Shine Louise Houston quit her job at a San Francisco adult store to make her own queer porn films in 2005. After success with her first film The Crash Pad, she directed several more features before moving online, creating the hugely successful Crash Pad Series site. She then launched Pink Label TV, a curated collection of independent, feminist and alternative porn films. She’s also the founder of the San Francisco PornFilmFestival. Her feature films and some scenes are at Pink Label TV.

Angie Rowntree has run women’s porn site Sssh for over two decades. The site features her erotic films and writing. Her work has a focus on emotional connection and exploring relationships and fantasies. Gone, released in 2015, was a semi-finalist at the prestigious Swedish International Film Festival. Her work appears at Sssh.com.

Paulita Pappel was a curator of the Berlin PornFilmFestival before moving into making her own porn. She has since worked at amateur couples site Lustery and pursued her passion for hardcore female-focused gangbang films at Hardwerk Films.

Anna Richards previously worked in marketing before founding her site FrolicMe in 2015. She felt that mainstream porn wasn’t catering to her needs which prompted her to create the site. She makes films of beautiful people having sex in beautiful locations, with a focus on consent and female pleasure. You’ll find all her work at FrolicMe.

Erika Lust is a Spanish film director who has become one of the best known feminist pornographers. She made her first explicit film, The Good Girl, in 2004 and made it available as a Creative Commons item. It’s popularity launched her career. She made several feature films including Cabaret Desire which won Best Film at the Feminist Porn Awards in 2012. In 2016 she launched Lust Cinema and has since gone on to helm hundreds of scenes. Her work is cinematic, diverse and often female-focused. You’ll find all her films at XConfessions.

Anoushka is a French erotic film director who began her career in 2014 alongside Ovidie. She has directed four features and a number of shorts. Her work is narrative in nature with lots of realistic sex. Her films have explored queerness, sex and disability, fertility treatments and trans identity. You’ll find her work at Pink Label TV.

Urvashi made her name in erotic photography, founding Urvashi’s Eye studio in 2005. Ten years later she teamed up with collaborator Kama to create Spark Erotic Films. Urvashi’s work is cinematic and features a lot of good-looking performers. See her films at Pink Label TV.

Irina Vega is a Spanish filmmaker, writer and podcaster who has been producing and directing adult content since 2007. Irina set out to make porn that she herself wanted to see and that reflected a different aesthetic to mainstream porn. She set up the site AltPorn4U which features a variety of alternative work with several other directors. Her films feature both straight and queer performers and there’s also sex ed videos. You’ll find her work at Pink Label TV.

Inka Winter is a Los-Angeles-based filmmaker who has previously worked as a costume designer in the Hollywood film industry. Keen to make her own porn, she enlisted colleagues from the mainstream industry to help her achieve her vision. Inka’s films are well-made productions that she describes as erotica by women, for women. You’ll find her films at Pink Label TV.

Bea Bleu is a queer filmmaker, based in Berlin. Her films feature straight and queer couples and her films all have a “message” or a point they’re trying to make. Bea describes herself as a “porn activist”. You can find her films at Pink Label TV.

Poppy Sanchez is a Berlin-based filmmaker who has directed several films for Erika Lust’s XConfessions site. She’s also made a collection of sex education films called Sex School which you can find on Pink Label TV.

Jacky St. James got her start in 2010 by winning a competition to find new porn writers. Since then she has written and directed hundreds of high-end porn films for companies like New Sensations and Bellesa. Her films won Sexiest Straight Movie at the Feminist Porn Awards in 2014 and 2015. Her films are often big-budget, plot-based productions with good looking performers.

More Female Porn Directors

There’s currently too many female porn directors to create a really comprehensive list. Also, the growth of OnlyFans and other performer-driven sites means that the line between “performer” and “director” has become blurry. Now anyone can make a porn film with their phone and put it on the internet. There’s actually a lot of very talented women out there making great porn and it’s difficult to narrow things down.

For a larger collection of female porn directors and directors who identify as feminist and make porn, check out Feminist Porn Directors: A Handy List at FeministPorn.org. This is a huge list of directors both past and present and they’re all making very different kinds of porn. Worth checking out.

---