Gonzo porn is a bit bouncing-balls-in-the-face for many viewers, and it used to be rather embarrassing to take Pound My Gaping Ass 3 to the counter in the shop, so many turned to semi-mainstream, art-house alternatives.

The art-house alternatives weren’t necessarily up to much, though.

You either got softcore and weird art-house (e.g. Jamon Jamon, where the male protagonist wishes that the female lead’s tits tasted of ham and eggs), softcore and hot art-house (e.g. Desert Hearts, which is pretty dated now, but if you can look past the bad hair was fairly sexy for the time) or softcore and dick-wilting art-house (e.g. The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and her Lover, which was a turn-off for anyone not turned on by shit-eating and cannibalism).

But however it came, it was always softcore.

Two things have changed the world of art-house pornography: broadband internet and increasingly liberal film censors.

Mainstream art-house movies started appearing with explicit, non-simulated sex scenes. The first was the orgy in The Idiots, in 1998, though the real trend-setter was French film Romance, which was actually slightly sexy, and so a rare entry in the art-house world.

Rare because although the scripting, production values, acting ability, lighting and editing give the potential for art-house porn to be mind-blowingly good, it is usually ruined by the art-house desire to be… well… arty.

See, in art-house, the sex has to be justified, in order to persuade the film classification boards and the actors that this is art, not pornography. Why there has to be a clear distinction, I don’t know, but it does mean that art-house films featuring actually “hardcore” intercourse tend to be dismally unarousing. Films like 9 Songs and Ken Park make sex part of a depressing exploration of characters and issues, while Shortbus director John Cameron Mitchell actually said he intended to “de-eroticize” sex by featuring non-simulated sex in his movie.

Although the distinction between art-house and porn is blurring, it is only what can physically appear on-screen that changes. The intent in art-house – to avoid arousal – sadly remains.

So – on to broadband. Broadband revolutionised pornography, making some companies very rich indeed and giving them a distribution network for all kinds of niche content, including arthouse-style porn.

A number of porn producers have taken up the challenge, including Cinema Erotique [NSFW], who make porn films with art-house pretensions, including adapting classic French author Guy de Maupassant’s short story The Signal. According to the blurb, all of their films have original scripts and specifically composed musical scores. They’re also, sadly, a bit average, for two reasons: their actors are a fairly unconvincing, and their lighting director is awful (if indeed they have one at all). Still, they’re a valiant effort.

More impressive are the efforts of Pink & White Productions, whose crowning glory must be Champion [NSFW], which is described as “an indie lesbian film that happens to include a lot of explicit sex”.

The trailer [NSFW] suggests that this is probably the pinnacle of art-house pornography, at least for now, as it has an actual story [NSFW], genuine chemistry between actors, reasonable acting and decent lighting.

Plus real kickboxing lesbians in explicit sex scenes. Yay!