The rigid strictures of a stern religious upbringing often form the basis for cathartic rebellion. I was a very religious, almost fanatical jehovah s Witness, and that s very hard when you are young and entering your teenage years, admits Kim Holland. I was only 17 when I married my Jehovah s Witness husband, and I did it mainly for him because being married meant we could then have sex. I really liked his mother, and that was also a strong reason to marry him as she was like a real mother to me, my own mother having died when I was very young.
Despite this unhealthy situation, it took the death of her father for Kim to rebel in earnest against the Jehovah s Witness religion.
I thought I did everything for that God and now he d taken my second parent, she recalls. What was also important was that the religion itself didn t let me mourn his death properly, their attitude being that I should work harder for Jehovah. My husband didn t support me either, and I felt very, very lonely.
Disillusioned with the Jehovah s Witnesses and lacking compassion from those nearest to her, Kim met her current partner, Ruud, six months after her father s death.
Some months later, Kim broached the state of their relationship with her Jehovah s Witness husband, telling him she didn t like him anymore, that it wouldn t work out . She officially began seeing Ruud.
With Ruud, I had my first orgasm and I had it in my parents house, where I was born. That was significant for a new beginning. For about six months we were doing it everytime we could. I got to like sex, at last! she smiles contentedly.
With Ruud, however, Kim was to become interested in a whole new world, one which the tolerant nature of Dutch society made readily available to whomever was interested.
Ruud had this German porn movie which was really kinky, she explains, and I was very shocked! It had fists going in all the way! I remember I stayed awake in bed all night thinking about it. Wow, it was heavy! Yet, somehow, I had a little kick from it, not when watching it, but when thinking about it afterwards. So, we hired many porn movies and I can say that I never felt that a girl really liked it in the films. I m not saying that they disliked it, just that they didn t seem to cum and didn t really seem to enjoy it. It was I who then suggested to Ruud that we take a camera and make movies of our own.
Ruud himself was hardly shocked. Having had an interest in pornography from the age of 14 he had his own thoughts on the power of porn. Many men, if not most men, don t find the girl with whom they can really do the things they would like, he philosophises. In that context, pornography has a real social standing because it relieves that frustration. Even if a man cannot do what a man s got to do, then he must see what he wants to see.
As one in their views on the matter, four years ago they took a simple video-8 camera to a forest and made a very amateurish production. Progressing eventually to digital equipment, they ve now made 17 films with titles like Forest, 1 & 2, The Islands and Solo.
We only sell them to collectors, they re really voyeuristic movies, says Ruud. I felt then, and still do, that the person who looks at the films doesn t want to see razor-sharp editing. He just wants to see the hour in which the sex is happening. He doesn t want to see just a minute from that hour in which lots of different camera angles and editing tricks are used. He wants to be there. To see what s happening. Our one camera is his view. It puts him there.
We are in a different world, says Ruud, taking in the bigger picture, because we are following our feelings about what should happen in pornography, which is that men and women should be the same, equal. We like to work with people who think differently, because most people who work in the sex business just think about money.
It must also be good for our sex life, adds Kim, good for our relationship. n