DIY Porn Handbook: A How-To Guide to Documenting Our Own Sexual Revolution Paperback – August 1, 2016

When I was offered a chance to read this book, I could not pass it up for a few reasons. 1.) Madison helped me indirectly helped me come to terms with my sexuality and 2.) as a struggling writer, I am always looking for new ideas on how to get my own work out there.DIY picks up where Daddy ended in a way, throughout the previous novel Ms. Young talked about her adventures in the world of pornography and being free to be oneself. The book was always optimistic and invited the reader to further explore their own ideas about sexuality and romance. DIY offers steps on realizing ones artistic dreams and goals, as both a guide and hints more into the psyche of one of the most fascinating women I've come across in my cyber life.DIY acts almost as a companion and somewhat antithesis to Marlo Johnson's "Create Now". Where "Create Now" focused more on the steps of the mind to prepare to create, "DIY" brings in the reality of the steps and preparing of creating one's own art.While the book focuses on Porn (since duh, it is in the title), I found that the various chapters can be applied to any art form from writing, to drawing to anything you can think of.The book is a very comprehensive checklist on how to prepare yourself to let yourself be out there, and let your art (and in extension your soul) be out there, to get discovered and hopefully help some one else out there to come out of the shell society forced around them, and to allow them to become a realized adult.I highly recommend this book to any and all inspiring artists.

Let’s start here: this is not a book that tells you how to make a sex tape with your partner and an iPhone. You’re on your own for that, I’m afraid. Think bigger. Think Kubrick in bondage gear. Better yet, think actress, artist, director, and author, Madison Young, giving you the benefit of her years of experience creating and distributing non-mainstream erotic films.Young reminds us that “do it yourself” (DIY) porn is the rightful heir of the riot grrl hack of pop culture in the 1990s. Today, DIY porn asks a similar question about cultural representation: “If the porn you see doesn’t speak to you, excite you, or feature people who look like you or do the sexual things you and your partners do, why not make porn that does?” Yes, that can be political. (If art is political, seizing the camera is revolution.) But DIY porn can also mean something as simple as making the porn YOU want to see, no matter whether that looks like your life or a Martian orgy in a Costco.The book weaves in parts of Young’s story with her creative philosophy and the history of DIY porn. But foremost, this book is a very detailed and well-thought out “how to guide” for making your own erotic movie or short. Young takes you through the entire process, from brainstorming story concepts to writing scripts, where to film and how to film, editing, sound, etc., without overlooking such important things as financing, permitting, marketing, and distribution.Actually, if you follow Young’s expert advice, maybe you CAN shoot your first porno with an iPhone. Where’s that “can do” spirit? Seize the camera and the day. To the festivals!

The porn revolution is not only long overdue, it may as well start inside your very own erotic living room. This is the essence of Madison Young's book "DIYPorn Handbook : A How-To Guide to Documenting Our Own Sexual Revolution". Ever dreamed of creating your own porn? This book provides you with a lot of knowledge for every aspect of independent porn production: building your own creative community, creating a budget, preproduction, productions flow, paperwork, legalities and obscenity laws (written from a US-American perspective), the actual shooting process, post production, distribution and finally marketing and promotion.The author Madison Young is a well known contributor to the world of alternate "indie-porn", she has gained her fans and followers as an outspoken feminist, artist, founder and artistic director of the famous non-profit Femina Potens Art Gallery, she is an educator, pornographer (both in front of and behind the camera), author, body and sex positive queer activist. As part of her activism she has been teaching DIYPorn workshops for long and this book has grown from there. The teaching experience definitely shows when it comes to structure, clear language and engaging the reader into the thought process, or more precisely: instigating a thought process inside the reader. From time to time she will ask you to stop reading, to grab pen and paper and to reflect upon topics such as: What is it that turns you on? What would your desire tell you about your wants and would you be surprised? Should porn always be arousing? Or could porn follow the tradition of performance art and expand into documenting erotic happenings that again make you as the viewer either think, wank or both? Or is that not at all what porn is about, do you see brain and porn as antagonisms? Does humour have a place in porn?These sometimes provocative questions are a great way to kick-start your own creative flow while at the same time diving deeper and deeper into the process of DIYPorn production. You will learn how to create porn, and as an essential bonus you will learn something about yourself and your very own, personal sexuality.But the author not only wants us to learn the basic facts of DIYPorn, but rather to find our own artistic mission and expression. To become part of a growing number of people who want to free sex and sexual expression from the shame many impose upon it. Therefore it is fitting that she opens the book with her "DIY Porn Manifesto", which alone is very well worth a read. It is a call for action, not to wait until someone else gives us a voice, but to speak up and to get going. If you want to see more queer porn, DIY. If you miss non-stereotyped bodies, DIY. If you are hoping for representation of people with different abilities, DIY. Don't wait for change, be the change.But to me one of the most passionate and moving moments in this book is a short text where Madison documents a talk she had with her mother about her work as a feminist pornographic artist. It is this piece especially that you can draw a lot of power from and find your very own strategy to counter widespread predefined misconceptions of porn as a genre and the stigmatisation of the people involved.Madison has also invited some friends and colleagues to provide her with additional information and essays that she spread thematically throughout the book. These add another layer of real life experiences, specialist knowledge and credibility. As to the name-dropping, you will find essays by some people you might already know and admire, such as Zahra Stardust, Jiz Lee, Maria Llopis, but also some medical advice on disability-inclusive DIY porn by a sexologist and some candid talk upon business models from a tax pro.Also worth a mention are those sometimes hilariously funny example story drafts Madison included (put some humour into porn!), as well as a list of her production tool kit essentials, budgeting examples of some real life contracts.And while it might be targeted explicitly towards film makers, the best compliment for Madison's work I can think of is: You need not necessarily be a film maker to be inspired by this book, her passion does translate to many other art-forms as well. Just keep an open mind. But this is one basic requirement for creativity anyway.Even for the noncreative people among us, the “DIYPorn Handbook” can be a rewarding read, no matter if you are a porn novice or a seasoned porn connoisseur. As a novice you gain a lot of background knowledge that will help you navigate through that vast jumble of bad porn you will undoubtedly encounter. You will find yourself encouraged to think consciously about what you want to see and will find a lot of indications which can help you recognise not only which kind of porn will stimulate you, but also how to find and recognise porn that matters and that has been ethically produced, and why that matters. And if you already do know your way around the porn universe, do know how to find the porn you really enjoy, you will be enriched by all the background information from "behind the scenes". I am sure that even for "just a consumer", this book will turn your previous views of porn and what it does for you around. It will widen your horizon and ignite your love for porn as an art form. Chances are, this book will change your porn viewing habits as they will become more varied and sophisticated in comparison to your habits before reading this book. You won't be fooled again by the narrow boundaries of mainstream porn.At one place Madison writes that none of us "orgams the same way as another [and] no two people enjoy touch in exactly the same way". I would like to leave you with this. You are about to enter a field of boundless possibilities.

With the increasing ease of creating adult video, the "DIY PORN Handbook" is a crucial resource. It's rare to find all this info (wide-ranging from fantasy to logistics) in one easy-to-understand book. For this reason, I recommend it as the best resource to-date for any new filmmaker looking for a comprehensive overview before diving in.Full disclosure: I have performed in Madison's films, and my article (on content shares and trades) has been reprinted with permission in this book.

Bought for my naughty minded younger brother. 2 stars as he's not made anything yet ;) I'll change review dependent on his creations...