Nina is the founder of the porn site Ersties. She shows authentic productions on the platform – and can imagine bringing specially produced films to schools.
Nina is a porn camerawoman and co-founder of the porn site Ersties. Nina
Almost everyone has looked at one, but hardly anyone talks about it: porn. Despite increasing openness towards sexual diversity in our society, the topic remains taboo for many. The majority of productions so far have been visually aimed at the main male target group. For many people, the films have little to do with real sex life.
Nina, who doesn’t want her entire name published, wants to show that there are other options. She shot her first porn in a friend’s room out of curiosity and “pure enthusiasm”. The spontaneous shoot gave rise to a business model: she co-founded the porn site Ersties. There are only women behind the camera.
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“We make ethical porn,” says the 39-year-old. For them, this means equal treatment of the actors, fair pay, diversity, trust and well-being on set. This should be guaranteed by an all-female, ten-person core team.
Then you get the wrong idea about how your sex life works
This aspect is particularly important for Nina in the production of her own films. Classic porn is often filmed from the perspective of the “male gaze”. The style that has prevailed in many productions distorts reality through stereotypes and supposed male sexual fantasies – that’s how Nina sees it. “I thought, it can’t be right, that everything looks so staged and unnatural. Then you get the wrong idea about what your sex life is like or what you actually do in the bedroom,” says the founder.
So instead of the male gaze, Ersties is about the female gaze. The actors are allowed to decide what happens before filming and on set. To do this, discussions are held with them about preferences and boundaries and a questionnaire is filled out in advance. In a weekly casting meeting, the Ersties team discusses which people they will invite to film.
Some of the actresses are active in the industry full-time, others film as a hobby, as Nina says. Compared to the rest of the industry, Ersties pay good salaries. The founder does not want to give exact figures. The information cannot therefore be verified by Gründerszene.
Ethical porn as a trend
Ersties isn’t the only porn site to take a different approach to production in recent years. The startup Cheex by German founder Denise Kratzenberg and the amateur porn site Lustery by producer Paulita Pappel also market themselves as porn sites that are supposed to be about real and authentic sex. According to Nina, Ersties’ documentary film style sets it apart from other platforms. “We already give a red line about what we would like, but it doesn’t have to be that way. The most important thing for us is to capture the fun the models have.”
The founder still occasionally visits classic porn sites like Pornhub – even if the platform has been criticized in the past for spreading illegal content and exploiting sex workers. Nina says she looks for the latest trends from the major porn providers.
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From the dirty corner to the classroom?
For Nina, the next step from ethical porn is the path to sex education. According to the founder, who also has a daughter, films produced specifically for educational purposes should be shown in schools. Children and young people have easy access to pornography through the Internet anyway. “I am of the opinion that you should then find something that corresponds to reality and does not depict unnatural positions.”
The most important thing for us is to capture the fun of the models
According to the founder, the best videos on Ersties are those that feature a solo woman or two women. “We also have a few shoots where we shot with a husband and wife. We got mixed reactions to this.” Some users see Ersties as a purely lesbian platform, while others are happy about diversification.
In addition to sexual content, the platform also features pre- or post-conversations with the actors. There are also special productions such as the Sex Academy. In the five-part series, a male applicant is supposed to be transformed “into the best lover of all time”. If you want to watch the videos, you have to pay money, unlike many large providers. Membership costs 25 euros per month. Anyone who takes out an annual subscription pays eight euros per month.
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