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Let’s Talk About Sex: An Interview With Filmmaker Katherine Linton

In six half-hour episodes, here! TV’s miniseries Lesbian Sex and Sexuality takes viewers on an eye-opening – and sexy – tour of the state of lesbian sex today. “The research wasn’t bad,” said executive producer Katherine Linton with a laugh. She recently spoke to AfterEllen.com about making the series, which is available on DVD this week.

The first episode, “Porn Today: Pushing the Limits,” talks to envelope-pushing producers Shine Houston (Pink & White Productions) and Dana Dane (Erocktavision). “For Your Pleasure: Erotic Dancers” goes behind the scenes with burlesque performers. “The Evolution of Erotica” examines the development of lesbian erotica in print and video.

“Fulfilling Fantasy” features interviews with photographer Phyllis Christopher, the pin-up girls of the I Heart Brooklyn Girls calendar, and a hilarious “audition” from comedian Julie Goldman to be the host of the series. “Relationships Outside the Box” delves into the lives of women in polyamorous relationships as well as those involved in BDSM. “Selling Sex to the Mainstream” focuses on lesbians who work in the mainstream adult film industry, including Skye Blue of Platinum Blue Productions.

Filmmaker Katherine Linton, who was a long-time host and producer on the PBS gay news magazine In the Life, also produced The Evolution Will Be Televised, the inaugural program for Logo, AfterEllen.com’s parent company, and the critically acclaimed documentary Follow My Voice: With the Music of Hedwig. She talked with AfterEllen.com about the most surprising thing she learned in making the series, what she’s working on next, and why polyamory’s not for her.

AfterEllen.com: Tell me why you made Lesbian Sex and Sexuality.

Katherine Linton: I’d met with Meredith [Kadlec, vice president of original programming at here!] about some other ideas, and she said, “You know, I’ve never seen anything done well on lesbian sex.” And I said, “Me neither.” So we both got really chatter, chatter, chatter about it, and then she said, “Could you work up something about that?” So I just wrote a proposal for the series, came up with all the topics, and we went from there. So it was really – you know, wow, it hadn’t really been done.

I’ve said this over and over, and that’s partly because there’s really not been a venue for it to air on TV. So here! is a venue. They can do that. I mean, they have HBO standards, but Logo couldn’t do Lesbian Sex and Sexuality.

AE: Right. Have you ever seen the HBO series Real Sex?

KL: Yes, I know that HBO has done stuff. I’ve only seen a couple of them, so I haven’t seen anything that they’ve done on … lesbian sex. But I think the difference – I guess I shouldn’t say anything because I don’t really know the series that well, but I think it’s more about titillation, and that wasn’t our intent.

AE: Right.

KL: We wanted to make it hot and make people blush, but we also wanted people to walk away learning something, you know, and [to] see these as really bold, empowered women. We tried to contextualize things.

AE: So in making this series and meeting all these people and watching all that porn, what did you learn about lesbian sexuality that most surprised you?

KL: Wow, that the girls are busy [laughs] doing a lot more things than I had imagined. I mean … I’m 40. I’m in the clubs all the time seeing everything, but I just think that more and more – and it’s a generational thing – I think that the younger generation is much more overt and open about talking about sexuality.

I think that for so long we were – I mean not just as women but as lesbians – sort of marginalized from talking about our sexuality or anyone talking about our desires, etc. … I think that had an effect on generations previous to me and to even probably trickling down to mine.

I think that I was most surprised at how incredibly bold – I mean the Shine Houston girls, boy, their conversations would floor anybody. [Laughs.] What they would talk about in terms of sex was like, wow, you know, over lunch. … Also I had never considered or given any thought to polyamory. I didn’t know much about it.

AE: In one episode you talked to photographer Phyllis Christopher, who spoke about how in the ’90s in San Francisco there was this big explosion in terms of being very open and adventurous about lesbian sexuality. I think that Shine’s stuff comes out of that, to a certain extent. Do you feel like that kind of openness to polyamory, all of the BDSM stuff — do you think that that has expanded to more mainstream lesbian sexuality? I didn’t really see you talk to too many Midwestern lesbians.

KL: No, and that was because of the budget. Really, I had to go to New York, San Francisco and L.A., and primarily San Francisco and New York. You get more bang for your buck.

No, we didn’t talk to Midwestern lesbians, so I don’t know what the girls are doing in the great swath of our country that should be focused on as well. But … I’m not an expert, so I don’t know. I think that because there’s more images and there’s more discussion about it that maybe more people are open to it, but I wouldn’t think — and polyamory, I think, is much bigger in the straight community.

It was actually a very small portion that I could find that was lesbian. Like there’s no lesbian-only polyamory conferences, I don’t think. That would be a really dramatic conference, could you imagine?

AE: Yeah, I would stay away from it!

KL: Yeah … talk about dyke drama. Whoa. The thing with polyamory is [that] I have to go into it saying, “This works for them” and “I take you at your word,” because of course, it’s your life. But Meredith and I watched it, and she goes, “Hell no! If my girlfriend comes home and she wants this, hell no!” And was like, “I’m with you, sister.” It’s bad enough with one woman.

So there were things that were sort of funny to us, like, “Whoa, it’s amazing that they can make this work, and God love ’em.” It just expands people’s understanding of sexuality, that not everybody has the same desires.

AE: Where do you think that the most innovative or unique representations of lesbian sexuality are found these days? Where do you think the edge is now?

KL: You mean in media or just in general?

AE: I guess in both.

KL: I would say in general obviously it’s San Francisco still. … It’s certainly not as visible in New York. … So in terms of edge I would say San Francisco. It’s always probably come from San Francisco originally, you know, anything that sort of pushes the envelope — some from New York.

In terms of the media, I just think it can be found all over because of the web, but it’s still just in the web as far as I can tell. … I just think that access to media that’s not mainstream is where you’re going to find that edge.

AE: I wanted to ask you a little bit about your career. You’ve been making films for a long time, but what got you started in making gay films?

KL: Well, I auditioned for and was hired as co-host for In the Life in 1993, and then [laughs] sort of didn’t like all the makeup I was wearing. I wanted to be involved behind the scenes, and then … one of the producers quit, and suddenly I was producing the show.

I had to learn everything there was to learn on the fly, so I saw how powerful television was suddenly. You know, we would get ratings back and suddenly realize that 500,000 people saw the show in this area. I mean the numbers — well, I had come from theater — were suddenly shocking. I thought, that’s amazing, that you could reach so many people.

And at that time there was nothing else on TV like it, and here we were doing this gay and lesbian news magazine. So I really saw how much it impacted people, and I guess I’ve always been committed, from then on, to our visibility and believe that my way is the media. Other people have their roots, but this is what I know. So I’ve been really lucky, actually, to be able to do it as long as I have. So that’s how I got my start. And I hosted [In the Life] and produced it for a long time.

AE: When did you found your company, Linton Media? It’s a separate thing, right?

KL: Yeah. 2004. I founded it actually when I got the launch for Logo. It was called The Evolution Will Be Televised. It was the first thing that aired, so that was a huge, huge project — 90 minutes on the media and the movement — so it was sort of my gay opus. I got to put all that I had ever learned at In the Life [into it], and I did this thing for VH1, AIDS: A Pop Culture History, so it sort of felt like everything coming together in one doc, so that was pure joy to do.

That was like a seven-month project. I didn’t want a production company. I was like, “OK, I’m going to dissolve after this, OK everybody? I don’t want this.” But somehow I’ve kept it going.

ML: Did you shoot that Julie Goldman host interview segment from Lesbian Sex and Sexuality in your offices? I saw you in the background.

KL: Yes [laughs]. Yeah, yeah, yeah, my one tiny little cameo. That was hysterical because obviously I was really working, and these deliverymen would come by, and she’s walking around in her underwear. The whole thing was so funny. … And it was all Chinese lawyers on this floor, so they never know what they hell we’re doing. But they’ll walk by the thing, and we’re like, “Hey, did you get that lesbian sex blah blah?”

Just the things that come out of people’s mouths, they don’t even think about the Chinese lawyers that are walking by. Oh my God, these people must be like, “What is that sick porn company?” And then there’s Julie Goldman running around in her underwear. It was very funny.

AE: Did you actually think that you would use her as a host for the series or was it always a hilarious segment kind of thing?

KL: That was actually Tracy [Izatt], the producer of that particular episode … that was her idea. I was like, “Um, I’m not sure if this is going to work.” It was tricky, but it was funny. It was like this could either work or not work.

AE: It was kind of nice actually to have that in the middle.

KL: Yeah, I thought that it was an interesting little break for the series.

AE: What would you like to do more of in the future?

KL: I’m doing a film on the founder of Operation Rescue, Randall Terry, and I’m knee-deep in abortion and fundamentalism. [Laughs.]

AE: I read that you were doing that. What brought you to that one?

KL: I was doing a piece on religion and pop culture for VH1, and I met him [at a conference and he] said, “You should interview me.” I said, “Why, who are you?” And he goes, “I’m Randall Terry; do you know who I am?”

And I say, “You’re the founder of Operation Rescue.” … He said, “Oh, do you want to have breakfast?” and I was like, “Sure, I’d love to, Randall,” so he ended up following me around this conference, and I couldn’t understand it. … I mean, clearly I’m the dykiest one here; what’s his issue? And he sent me his Operation Rescue tapes and his CDs, because he sings, and he said, “You can use anything.”

So a year and a half later, I just wrote him a letter and said: “I’d love to do a film with you, but here’s who I am. I’m a liberal lesbian who doesn’t believe in what you believe in.” And he agreed to do it, so … we’re going down in the trenches, me and Randall. [Laughs.]

AE: It sounds like it’d actually be a really interesting thing to do because of those differing viewpoints.

KL: Yeah. … I’m not going to change Randall’s opinions — they’re fundamentalists — but the fact of the matter is, he did have to come to New York, go to gay bars, sing a duet with me at the Duplex, so if nothing else I can just totally kill the guy by YouTube. [Laughs.] … It’s about can we really talk to each other, but it’s more about my trying to understand what a fundamentalist is. He’s sort of toothless now, but all of his speak is the same.

AE: Right. What else are you working on?

KL: I’ve always wanted to do something on homeless gay teens. … I’ve written a pitch and nobody seems to want homeless gay kids. I’ll tell you that’s one thing that I would like to do because that’s a population that’s invisible, and there are just so many of them.

There’s a lot that I’d like to do, but nobody wants to buy because it’s not entertaining enough, or it’s not sexy enough. We are still talking to here! [Networks]. We were supposed to do a series on faith, on gays and God, which is another huge issue for me, the effect of religion on us. It got bumped to the side temporarily because of how well Lesbian Sex did, and we’re hopefully about to possibly get a round two of Lesbian Sex.

AE: Oh, really?

KL: Yeah. Sex trumps God every time.

AE: That’s too bad. Too bad for God.

KL: Too bad for God, but good for the lesbian sex people.

AE: What do you think you’re going to put in the second series? Any ideas yet?

KL: We’ve been meeting and talking about it. I think one of the things is to think more personal stories or vérité. We know that we want to go to Dinah Shore.

AE: That’s a whole different series in itself.

KL: We feel like we’ve done porn, you know. It doesn’t have to be these separate issues; maybe we can follow different stories. We know we possibly want to weave in interviews with, let’s say Guin Turner and Kate Clinton, and we’d like to hear their perspectives. It’s sort of like a snapshot of lesbian sex and sexuality today, you know, and get people’s thoughts about their own sexual desires.

That’s the only thing that’s sort of stuck on the wall at this point. But [we want it] to be different from the first one. And it doesn’t have to be just sex, sex, sex, but sexuality, which is not just the act of sex, so we don’t have to lean so heavily on that.

AE: Well that sounds really interesting. I look forward to hearing about it when that happens.

KL: Yes, me too. [Laughs.] Do you have any ideas? Feel free! Send them my way. Spread the word. Tell the lesbians to start calling.

AE: I think you should send a camera operator to the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival.

KL: We’re doing a series for Logo so our series producer … got as close as you could get to getting access, but then was denied. You can’t get a camera in the Michigan Womyn’s Festival to save your life.

AE: I know, it’s rough. You’d have to operate entirely on batteries and sneak in.

KL: Yeah, you’d have to have a camera that looks like a dildo, or I don’t know what, but you could not show that you have a camera in that place. I would love to do that, are you kidding! Who wouldn’t want to film Michigan Womyn’s Festival, but nope, no can do.

AE: Yeah, that’s too bad. That would be really good.

KL: I know. It’d be really good. I know.

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