Dear Sasha: I was hoping you could steer my girlfriend and me in the right direction. We've decided to purchase a porn movie or two. In terms of the actors and actresses, we both felt that we would identify more with people of colour, and we also both have a heightened interest in purchasing lesbian porn - at least more so than straight stuff. Besides those two elements, we would both like to see stuff that isn't violent, and also doesn't follow a sexist and racist story line or theme.

We naturally love sex, and both are turned on by watching it, but we are in no way turned on by what we found: black hoes and street hookers, college drop-outs going wild, a look at what goes on in illegal Indian brothels, and poor East Asian women being taken advantage of by wealthy (and ugly as sin) white businessmen. Do you know of any porn that is good? Porn that doesn't cut down on the sex, but that does cut down on the peripheral imagery that perpetuates highly unequal, sexist and racist gender roles? My last thought is, "What would bell hooks recommend?" » C

Dear C,
Probably that you not seek sex advice from a mouthpiece for the white supremacist capitalist patriarchy.

No seriously, even though hooks seems to be taking a more… persuasive approach to her criticism, no doubt she would find flaws in everything I offer you. hooks' quote, "Mass media and the mass public have shown a willingness to embrace women acting like patriarchal men while they eschew feminist attempts to transform male and female roles," illustrates perfectly why you might have a hard time finding any porn of which she wouldn't have some involved critical opinion. While there is no mistaking the feminist agenda behind lesbian porn, there are still a lot of sex acts that feature what hooks might interpret as male domination roles.

Still, I will recommend you look at videos produced by Fatale (www.fatalemedia.com ). There are women of colour in many of their videos, and male presence is strictly trans. Safe Is Desire is about a multiracial dyke couple who go to a sex club for the first time, Afterschool Special (which won Fatale's Real Lesbian Sex contest last year and fits your no college drop-outs rule) is about an after-school orgy, and Take Her Down is a lesbian oil wrestling video with a Hispanic lead. Venez Tels Quels carries Fatale films, along with titles from S.I.R. Video (www.sirvideo.com). Sugar High Glitter City is one that comes recommended, and you may also like Hard Love and How to Fuck in High Heels, which are two films on one tape.

My own preference in porn does run to the extremely hardcore, and I find it challenging to match my taste with my politics. A few videos that do it for me are Tristan Taormino's The Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex for Women, one and two. Taormino doesn't scrimp on the hardcore (and safe) fucking, gorgeous male and female cast, and sex-positive message.

Dear Sasha: Are vaginas inherited? In other words, does my vagina look like my mother's and sister's vaginas? I've been told that penis size is inherited, but did I get my wee clamshell cunt from mom? We're not one of those naked families, and I cannot see bringing this up, even after she's had a few Bristol Creams and gets a bit earthy. » Venus de Mealo

Dear Venus,
It looks like genital shape and size are inherited from both parents. I know your dad probably doesn't have a vagina but no doubt his mom did, so you may not have the exact same one as your mom, but qualities from both sides. But as usual, anything to do with genetics is loaded with possibility, and in this case, even more so, given our very conservative interpretation of gender. When you look at the list of possibilities both for the internal and external genitals (the varying degrees of intersexuality, Klinefelter syndrome, Turner Syndrome, true Hermaphroditism, Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome - to name just a few), you begin to realize that gender exists, not as a dichotomy, but on a continuum.

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