By Fernanda Liberti
Fuck for Forest is a non-profit environmental organisation founded in Norway in 2004. Their aim is to promote both sexual liberation and the preservation of nature by hosting a porn website where the money goes to saving the world’s rainforests.
By buying endangered land in places such Peru, Mexico, Brazil, Costa Rica and Slovakia, they preserve it by either creating eco villages or working with the natives of the area. Their ideology is that we were born naked and through a sexual act, so why should we be ashamed of being sexual beings? One of the main reasons people go online is for porn, so why not use it to help support a good cause?
The concept is interesting not only for its unorthodox method of raising charitable money, but also from the porn perspective of the idea. Most porn videos are known for creating unrealistic expectations of sexuality and the human body. However Fuck for Forest’s website promotes a natural expression of the human desire through a more homemade-style of video, which makes it different from most porn websites.
I heard about Fuck for Forest when I was 16 and at the time the idea sounded very bizarre but it aroused my curiosity. Four years later I saw myself on their doorstep to take pictures for my foundation project at the London College of Communication (LCC). As I left the cold streets of Friedrichshain and entered the warm Fuck for Forest flat, I felt as if I had been transported to a 1970s acid trip. Posters, plants and bras hung from dried tree trucks, pornographic images, nudist manifestos and coloured lighting stood out in the apartment, but not as much as the people in it. My contact in the organisation was a childhood friend who had been living with them for a few months, this gave me unlimited access to not only the organisation but also to the lives and routines of people involved in it.
[pullquote align=”right”]We were born naked and through a sexual act, so why should we be ashamed of being sexual beings?[/pullquote]I arrived on a Tuesday and a live show was being organised for the night. Subscribers from the website have access to the live erotic show on Skype. Leading up to the show, the flat became full of people from all over the world. Some were residents or visitors who either came along to learn more about the project or to participate in the show. The theme for the show was the Ukrainian revolution, where in this version the soldiers stopped ghting after the arrival of the Pussy Goddess. It was a mixture of politics, sex, colours, dildos, laughter and love, everything that Fuck for Forest is about.
The flat works as a communal setting where some people live permanently, paying discounted rent for helping to manage the website and creating content. A few travellers who are willing to make videos or contribute to the organisation in some way, stay there for free. The project is quite simple in its nature, whoever wants to participate can do in two ways: by either paying a subscription for access to the website or by sending their own videos and content for the website catalogue.
My time with Fuck for Forest was one of the most interesting weeks of my life, I experienced a live porn show, communal dinners, naked yoga, a free entry to Berlin’s biggest sex club and a first hand experience inside one of the world’s most exotic organisations. The most interesting part was not the organisation or the sex, but the lives and personalities of all those people involved. To experience a lifestyle completely different from my own influenced not only my work but also the way in which I see the world and sexuality. Fuck for Forest taught me not to feel ashamed and to embrace our bodies and desires.
Image by Fernanda Liberti