For those of us familiar with the more old-school, second-wave feminist days of Gloria Steinem, Andrea Dworkin and her ilk, those two words together may sound like a contradiction in terms. After all, it was the feminist movement, back in the 70s, that was trying to get the pornography industry shut down, claiming that it pornography of all kinds is inherently misogynistic in nature.

Yet nowadays, an increasing number of porn actors, producers, writers, sex-toy sellers and sex workers are proclaiming that, quite to the contrary, they do what they in the name of feminism, not in spite of it. More and more DVDs are being sold as “feminist” porn and more and more women-and-feminism based sex shops are opening.

One of the biggest names currently in the feminist porn movie industry is filmmaker Tristan Taormino. Ms. Taormino began her rise to success with movies which focused on - get this - anal intercourse, and women’s enjoyment thereof. To many feminists who consider the act of anal sex to be necessarily degrading and painful for the women who have to endure it, this hardly seemed to make sense.

Another hard-hitting figure in feminist porn is actress Nina Hartley, whose films are famous and mainstream enough to be found even on the sleaziest of adult film shelves. Yet Nina is an avowed feminist, and many of her videos are educational products devoted to teaching couples (and other configurations of sex-havers) all about the best ways to have intimacy, pleasure, and emotionally-fulfilling sex.

Looking for feminist sex toy sellers? Try The Smitten Kitten, a Minneapolis-based store that’s devoted to raising feminist awareness while selling only safe, non-chemical toys and fighting the industry standard of selling toys made of dangerous, toxic materials.

Browsing through the Kitten’s DVD collection, or that on the website of feminist sex site blowfish.com, you’ll find even more producers and performers who consider their work feminist in nature.

Yet the question still remains: how is all of this feminist? Isn’t it just, as many detractors have accused, apologist catering to male desires, using sex to sell feminism and, in so doing, selling the movement out?

I don’t think so. Personally, I couldn’t be happier about the state of the feminist movement when I see open, full and empowered celebration of female sexuality as a part of it. Whatever validity there has been to feminist criticism of porn in the past, there needs to be a distinction made between the misogynist problems in porn and the idea that porn, itself, is a problem simply because it’s porn. Feminist porn is solving exactly that problem by giving women new porn and a new place in porn, and in so doing, changing the way porn portrays human sexuality.

Screw the Madonna/Whore complex: these women offer sex and social education in the same package, and the world of porn will never be the same.

(NOTICE: I cannot link to the websites of the feminists and organizations I refer to in this article, so I encourage anyone who’s interested to check them out through Google!)