Erika Lust

Lust shot her first film, the explicit short The Good Girl, in 2004. It was released for free on the internet and downloaded over 2 million times in the first month.[13] The film was shown at the Barcelona International Erotic Film Festival the next year and won her a Ninfa Award.[14]

In 2005, after this initial success, she founded her video production company Lust Films.[11] The company has produced erotic short films and compilations steadily from then on. Five Hot Stories For Her, an anthology of five vignettes including The Good Girl, won the Barcelona International Erotic Film Festival's 2007 Best Spanish Screenplay award,[15] the Venus Berlin Fair's 2007 Eroticline Award for Best Adult Film for Women,[16] and the 2008 Feminist Porn Award for Movie of the Year.[17] Since then she has been a regular on the adult cinema festival circuit, and in 2020 one of her films came to the cinema on a regular basis for the first time.[18]

Lust's films are characterized by carefully cast actors and high standards of production in adult film. Lust believes explicit film can be an educational tool besides being pleasurable and can help us better understand our sexuality, to live more freely and naturally. She hopes to influence viewers' conceptions of gender roles in sexuality.[19] She considers pornography to be the "most important discourse on gender and sexuality".[11]

In 2010, Lust opened an online erotic cinema called Lust Cinema, exhibiting her own films and those of other authors of the new wave of explicit films.[11] She started the first crowdsourced project in the history of adult cinema in 2013, calling it XConfessions.[11] It has become her main source of work in the years thereafter.[7] She has also written several books on eroticism and sexuality;[20] her first book Good Porn was published in 2009 by Seal Press.[21] Lust runs an online store offering her books and films, as well as sex toys and other erotic wares.[22] In February 2016, her company had about 15 employees.[7]

In December 2014, Lust hosted a TED-talk at TEDxVienna.[23] In the talk, entitled "It's Time For Porn To Change", Lust urges people to question the modern state of porn, its messages and role as a sexual educator. The TED talk launched the start of her campaign #changeporn, an online campaign intended to challenge and change the porn norm. As of September 2020, the talk has been watched nearly one million times on YouTube.[23]

In 2019 Erika was named as one of the BBC's 100 Most Influential Women of the Year. She was also invited to deliver a keynote speech at the 2019 Berlin International Film Festival as part of the Berlinale Talents titled "Reinventing Porn: Erika's Ethics".

In 2020, her Lust Cinema Original movie "The Intern" won the XBIZ Europa Award for Best Acting and received two further nominations for Feature Movie of the Year and Best Sex Scene in a Feature Movie. Her film Super Femmes won the XBIZ Europa Award for Best Lesbian Sex Scene and was the first time in the history of XBIZ Europa Awards where a BBW or trans performer were nominated in a non-genre specific category. Erika Lust Films was also nominated for Global Studio Brand of the Year, and her online streaming platform XConfessions was nominated for Erotic Site of the Year.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world in early 2020 and societies went into lockdown, Lust proclaimed May "Masturbation Month", encouraging people to safely stay at home and enjoy themselves with special offerings, announcing on 30 April 2020 on Instagram: 'I've created a one-month calendar full of free sex ed guides, video tutorials, articles and music & film recommendations to keep you busy. Also, stay tuned - this month there will be @xconfessions and @lust.cinema giveaways and surprises to help make your solo sex sessions more interesting.⁠'[22]

Lust and other directors are currently producing short pornographic films based on crowd-sourced stories on XConfessions.[24] Viewers can leave anonymous confessions on the project's website. Each month, Lust handpicks two stories and turn them into cinematic short films.[25][7] As of December 2020, she has published 25 volumes of XConfessions shorts.[26]

XConfessions has been presented at the Berlin Porn Festival 2014.[27][28] In 2015, a theatrical cut of XConfessions was screened along with a talk by Lust at the Raindance Film Festival in London and at the Chicago International Film Festival.[29][30] In February 2016, Lust held two sold-out screenings of the XConfessions Theatrical Cut at Babylon in Berlin,[6][7] and won Best Narrative Short at the CineKink Awards New York for BDSM short film An Appointment with My Master.[8]

In 2019, Lust launched a new online studio Lust Cinema to challenge the current standards of the porn industry by creating and promoting adult films and series of medium, high quality storytelling that portray a realistic representation of human sexuality and sex with cinematic quality. The video streaming service includes an extensive selection of adult cinema from production companies all around the world in addition to Lust Cinema Originals. Lust's Original film The Intern on Lust Cinema won the XBIZ Europa award for Best Acting (Lena Anderson) and was nominated for Best Sex Scene in a Feature Movie (Lena Anderson and Michael Vegas) in 2020.

Formerly known as Erotic Films, Lust launched Else Cinema in 2020 to provide something beyond explicit adult cinema. Also known as the Erika Lust Soft Edition, Else Cinema is the first video on demand platform offering more sensual movies for those looking for a softer experience.

Lust created The Store by Erika Lust for consumers to access an extensive library of adult films without needing a subscription. With the most extensive collection of adult erotic movies, The Store screens and selects movies to license according to Lust's ethical standards and aims to license from other film producers that are known for working in a respectful and inclusive way.

After recognising porn had become de facto sex education for kids and young adults, Lust created the non-profit The Porn Conversation to offer tools for parents and educators to provide education and conversations to kids and teens regarding sex and porn. The Porn Conversation provides educational tools and resources specifically designed for different age groups. It also gives parents direct connections to ambassadors who are educators, therapists and coaches.

In 2020 Lust launched a new online magazine, Lust Zine, where she and guest writers cover topics related to sex ed, sexuality, kink, fetish, and more, uncensored. The magazine also includes a free explicit sex education video series, The Lust Ed, which invites sex workers and educators to give an explicit demonstration on a variety on sex, pleasure, kinks & sexual health.

• 2008: Barcelona Sex Project
• 2010: Life Love Lust
• 2011: Cabaret Desire
• 2019: The Intern-A Summer of Lust

• 2007: Five Hot Stories For Her incl. Something about Nadia
• 2013: XConfessions vol. 1
• 2014: XConfessions vol. 2 incl. The Art of Spanking
• 2014: XConfessions vol. 3
• 2015: XConfessions vol. 4
• 2015: XConfessions vol. 5 incl. An Appointment with my Master
• 2016: XConfessions vol. 6
• 2016: XConfessions vol. 7
• 2016: XConfessions vol. 8
• 2017: XConfessions vol. 9
• 2017: XConfessions vol. 10
• 2017: XConfessions vol. 11
• 2017: XConfessions vol. 12
• 2018: XConfessions vol. 13
• 2018: XConfessions vol. 14
• 2018: XConfessions vol. 15
• 2018: XConfessions vol. 16
• 2019: XConfessions vol. 17
• 2019: XConfessions vol. 18
• 2019: XConfessions vol. 19
• 2019: XConfessions vol. 20
• 2020: XConfessions vol. 21
• 2020: XConfessions vol. 22
• 2020: XConfessions vol. 23
• 2020: XConfessions vol. 24
• 2020: XConfessions vol. 25

• 2004: The Good Girl
• 2009: Handcuffs
• 2010: Love Me Like You Hate Me (made with Venus O'Hara)
• 2011: Room 33 (sequel to Handcuffs)

• 2019: The Intern on Lust Cinema

• 2020: Safe Word on Lust Cinema