FEMINIST AND PROMOTER OF LESBIANS. So much for Clegg and the Liberal Democrats
clean cut image?
Anna Arrowsmith (born 1972), who works under the pseudonym Anna Span,
became Britain's first female porn film director in 1997.
She is also a public speaker on sex, pornography, and feminism
The daughter of Finance Director Clive Thompson, she was born and raised in Kent.
A graduate of the Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in Fine Art
(Film & Video), her films are female friendly based on her ideas first outlined
in her 1997 dissertation 'Towards a New Pornography' but also sell to men too.
Career
She had her first film aired in 1999 on UK porn channel Television X and has made over
250 scenes to date. Although some women have directed scenes of sexual education
for such films as The Lovers' Guide, Anna was the first UK woman to direct films with
a clear pornographic intent. There were American women such as Candida Royalle who
started filming porn in the 80's, however.
Her films focus on women enjoying sex including lesbian sex and heterosexual sex,
with some bisexual sex. Other themes include sex toys, everyday objects (such as a
chocolate bar or orange) being used as sex aids, threesomes, group sex and gang bangs.
Role playing and fantasy are also common. Sometimes a character from one of her films
appears in another. There is a big emphasis on reality both in script and actor
performances. In her films she includes a much higher than average percentage of
shots which look at the men, which she has termed 'female point of view' shots.
Anna Span was the 2007/8 and 2008/9 Best Director at the UK Adult Film & TV Awards,
where she also won four other awards for her DVD "Hug a Hoodie". She won Best British
Film Brand at The UK's trade awards - the ETO Awards in 2008. In 2007 she won
'Indie Porn Pioneer' at The International Emma Feminist Porn Awards, in Toronto.
Her film Be My Toy Boy is nominated for best Film at the 2009 ETO Awards.
Since 1998 she has run her own production company, Easy on the Eye productions,
which also releases work of other female porn directors that she has trained.
These films are being released under the brand 'Women Love Porn' in August 2009.
She is the author of Erotic Home Video now called Shoot your Own Adult Home Movies,
a manual on how to shoot one's own home porn films which has sold around 23,000
copies to date.
Since June 2009 Anna has run a unique sex toy site called www.annaspansextoys.com
in which each sex toy has its own 'fake DIY infomercial' made for it, which is
the first time sex toys have been sold using individual humorous adverts.
UK men's magazine Arena called her 'Britain's hottest porn director'.
In September 2007, she was the focus of a TV documentary entitled "Sex Films For Girls",
made by Five, which captured her views on pornography and her film approach and
featured on-set filming during the making of a film. Her father also appeared
in the documentary, expressing a negative view of pornography but a very supportive
view of his daughter, nevertheless.
Span identifies sexually as bisexual. and has said, "I'm bi and looking at two
women together turns me on."
Anna regularly tours the world giving talks about pornography and feminism.
In 2008/9 she spoke at Glasgow University, St Andrews University, National
University of Ireland, Galway (University College Galway(UCG)), Sunderland
University as well as at film festivals in Amsterdam, Canada and Norway.She
has also participated in past years in University College Dublin's (NUI,Dublin)
Literary & Historical Society's "The Porn Debates".
Anna has been a regular columnist of The Daily Sport newspaper every Thursday
(talking about the humour and frustrations of her job) and Scarlet (Britain's
best selling women's sex magazine).
Anna has been an active member of Feminists Against Censorship since the late 90s.
In September 09 Anna won an important battle against censorship from the British
Board of Film Classification. The DVD Women Love Porn was passed with a scene which
clearly shows female ejaculation in it, when previous submissions failed to be
passed uncut. Anna argued that the view the BBFC held - that the liquid was
urine and therefore the film fell foul of the Obscene Publications Act - was untrue
and sexist, as male ejaculate is allowed at R18 certificate. The film passed uncut
when the BBFC took legal advice in the face of considerable scientific evidence
that the model ejaculated, supplied by Anna Span. Since this release, the OPA is
now used differently with respect to female ejaculation although the BBFC refuse
still to admit its existence, even though the film was passed uncut and they
have not suggested what the liquid is, if it isn't either ejaculate or urine.
United Kingdom general election, 2010
Nick Clegg: "She cares passionately about her area."
Arrowsmith has been selected as the Liberal Democrat candidate for Gravesham in
Kent to fight the 2010 general election. The seat is currently held by Conservative
Adam Holloway.
She explained her move into politics in The Observer Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg
said Arrowsmith's previous profession was "not exactly my cup of tea", and she was
certainly no "cardboard cut-out Westminster politician". But he said it was important
that "people like her" who care about their local areas put themselves forward.
Arrowsmith lives with her husband in Groombridge near Tunbridge Wells.
SOURCE
Lib Dem porn plans slammed by mums
Nick Clegg defends former porn director standing for Lib Dems
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