Inside Erika Lust’s 20-Year Reign: The Queen of a New Porn Era
- Amanda Sandström Beijer
- 2d
- 3 min read
Twenty years is a long time to do anything — let alone make porn good. But Erika Lust didn’t just make it good. She made it ethical, cinematic, empowering, emotionally intelligent, and frankly… hot as hell.
Before she became a 25-million-dollar business powerhouse, before she produced 430 films (yes, one a month for two decades), before the New York Times started calling her an “art-house pornography behemoth,” Erika was simply a political science student in Lund, Sweden, reading Linda Williams’ Hard Core and realizing something most porn consumers secretly knew:
Porn was boring.
Male-gaze heavy.
Predictable.
Unimaginative.
And honestly? A little dead inside.
So she decided to fix it. With a camera, a mission, and the kind of bravery you only get when you actually believe sex deserves beauty.
The Birth of a Revolution (and a Million Better Orgasms)
Picture early-2000s Barcelona:
A young Swedish cinephile with a stubborn feminist streak. A new city. A small apartment. Big ideas.
By 2004 Erika was shooting her first short — a tiny film that quietly cracked open the adult world and whispered: pleasure can look like this.
It was tender, consensual-focused, realistic, playful, and completely free from the tired tropes middle-aged straight men had been recycling since 1973.
She remembers watching mainstream porn and feeling irritated at the lack of female-centered pleasure, the cookie-cutter bodies, the cardboard characters.
As she puts it:
“I identified major issues within the adult cinema industry very early on… I wanted to do my part in changing the rules of porn from within.”
And so she did.
2006–2013: The Era of Feminist Porn’s Wild Growth
By 2006, she had launched her first website and blog — basically an early proto-Tumblr for sex-positive intellectuals. She filmed independently, wrote deeply, and slowly built a global community willing to admit that yes, porn could be feminist, and yes, that actually makes it sexier.
Then came 2013.The earthquake year.
The birth of XConfessions — the project that changed everything.
People anonymously submit their fantasies. Erika turns them into cinema.Not clips.Cinema.
Artistic lighting, real relationships, chemistry, storylines, sensuality — and sex that feels lived, not staged.
It became her signature.Her empire.Her love letter to the erotic interior worlds of real people.
World Recognition: From TED Talks to Netflix to Cara Delevingne Asking Questions
The world noticed.
TEDx 2015: “It’s Time for Porn to Change” became essential viewing for anyone curious about the future of adult entertainment.
Netflix: She was featured in Hot Girls Wanted: Turned On and Principles of Pleasure.
BBC: Named one of the 100 most influential women of 2019.
NYT, Paper, Huck: All called her a visionary, a trailblazer, a force.
Cara Delevingne’s Planet Sex (BBC Three/Hulu): Erika became the go-to voice on what porn could be.
Meanwhile, she kept creating:
19 XConfessions films in 2023 alone, plus 30+ series chapters, and collaborations with 85 guest directors.
If mainstream porn is a factory, Erika Lust is an art house studio — but with global reach.
2025: The Empire Turns 20
Now, with two decades behind her, Erika is reflective, proud, and nowhere near done.
“To celebrate 20 years in business is simply unbelievable… This was never about simply making movies, it was about creating change.”
Her vision now stretches even further:
More subscribers
More diverse casting
More ethical practices
Possibly a remake of the first porn movie ever made
And — deliciously — a global campaign to bring porn back to theaters
Yes.
Cinemas.
Popcorn, velvet seats, and adult cinema with actual artistry.
Imagine going on a date to see an Erika Lust premiere.
It feels illegal in the best way.
As Erika puts it:
“I may have been doing this for 20 years already, but I am just getting started.”
Why Erika Lust Matters (Now More Than Ever)
Porn today is at a crossroads:
AI uncertainty.Generational shifts.
Demands for consent, realism, diversity.The death of the old “male gaze only” model.
And right at that pivot point stands Erika Lust — camera in hand, subscription base booming, and a vision that gets sharper (and sexier) every year.
Gen Z wants ethical, beautiful, thoughtful porn.Erika’s been making that since before TikTok existed.
As she says:
“The future of our industry is in our hands… there’s never been more exciting opportunities.”
Twenty years down.
A revolution started.
Thousands of fantasies turned into visual poetry.Millions of orgasms improved.
And the Godmother of Ethical Porn is still only warming up.