Lizzy Borden: We don’t shoot “all the lovey-dovey stuff that there’s not a big market for” (explicit language)

Lizzy Borden, born Janet Romano, runs Extreme Associates with her husband Rob Black. This porn production company lives up to its name with films like “Forced Entry”, which, according to Salon is “the story of a serial killer and his gang who rape and murder a series of women–an 18-year-old virgin, a pregnant woman, etc.–before being caught and lynched by an angry mob. The actresses in the film are slapped, spit and urinated upon, and violated in every orifice, while sobbing and screaming and begging for mercy.”

Salon continues…

Her stepfather was an abusive alcoholic, [Borden] says, who beat her mother viciously and regularly. Her mother stayed at home to raise Lizzy and her three half-siblings, and took out her own frustrations, says Lizzy, by beating her with her fists and assorted sharp objects…

The idea that women don’t make good directors is a commonly held belief in the porn industry, [Borden] says, because women “shoot all the soft stuff, all the lovey-dovey stuff that there’s not a big market for. In the video stores, that’s not what you go see: You want to see hardcore ass-fucking, DP [double-penetration], cum, piss, shit, whatever you can.”

Borden…began to see herself as a kind of female challenge to the male-dominated industry: “I said: ‘…I can be a man!’…”

I can vaguely understand the argument that Eminem’s “Kim”, in which we hear a woman being raped and murdered, is no more socially acceptable than “Forced Entry”, in which we see it. Except “Forced Entry”, of course, is also a porno flick intended to sexually arouse us…

Read the complete article in Salon (2002).

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In 2001, Borden gave an interview to PBS for its documentary, “American Porn”. Her answers follow the interviewer’s questions…

So what is this scene going to have in it that’s controversial?

A girl being kidnapped, being forced to have sex against her will, being degraded. Being called “a cunt, a whore, a slut, a piece of shit.” Then being butchered at the end, and spit on. She’s being degraded…

And when the feminists and liberals say you’re degrading your friend the actress here and you’re degrading women by portraying them this way, what do you say?

They’re degrading, no matter what. Everyone gets degraded. I mean, even if she was a secretary in the office, she’s going to get some kind of harassment, whether sexual or verbal–you know? So this is normal. Women get degraded every day, and so do men.

And is this fun for you? I’m trying to get a sense–

I have fun. Like, if I didn’t like it, I wouldn’t do it. Like, when I start getting bored is when I start to come up with crazy ideas. I don’t shoot the lovey-dovey porno that you watch all the time. This is for people who watch porno all the time, and they’re sick of the husband and the wife making love with candles…

And where does this come from inside of you?…

When I was a child, my step-father was an alcoholic. So I think I had deep issues, and this is kind of therapeutic for me, to take my aggression out on other people. So in a way, I’m exploiting people, taking all my inner demons and aggression on them. But it’s good for me. So I guess that’s all that matters…

Is she going to take a beating, a real beating?

Yeah. She’s really going to get hit. She likes it. It’s good. Sometimes, it makes you more horny when you’re getting hit. It makes you more, like, more tingly down in your genital area. You should try it. You should hit your wife a little bit…

Would you consider yourself a feminist?

No. I’m not for a woman’s rights. I am old school, where I think, when I have my baby I’m going to be home taking care of it. I’m just making a life for myself and happy, making good money. I used to be exploited when I did movies. So if someone’s going to do it, I might as well…

Read the complete interview.

See the transcript from the documentary.

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See also our review of Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture.