Vertigo — Artistic sex film Honey Pot under fire in the Netherlands

29 October 2021. By Vertigo.

Controversy has erupted in the Netherlands over Honey Pot, a project by the art association Keeping It Real Art Critics (Kirak) about a sex date between a left-wing student, Jini van Rooijen, and a right-wing philosopher, Sid Lukkassen.

Honey Pot is an initiative by Van Rooijen, who called on right-wing men to have sex with her while being filmed. Her intention was to ‘overcome polarisation through porn’.

Lukkassen accepted her proposal but called it quits halfway through the shoot, at a point when he was half-naked and the date seemed to be fizzling out. The philosopher demanded that the footage not be shown.

Nevertheless, Honey Pot premiered on 27 October, drawing criticism from the right. According to those critics, Lukkassen had been deceived and the fact that he is autistic had been exploited. From the left, meanwhile, came the argument that Lukkassen knew what he was doing.

The philosopher himself calls his participation in Honey Pot an ‘impulsive act’. ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have done it, but I still think it is valuable to open myself up to people with other political views,’ he writes on the right-wing blog De Dagelijkse Standaard.

‘I find it bizarre that Kirac is releasing the film without my consent,’ he adds. ‘At the same time, I can see how counterproductive it is to argue with them about it.’

Kate Sinha of Kirac has defended the decision to show Honey Pot. ‘The moment Sid says he no longer gives permission for the film to be shown is also the moment Jini rejects him,’ she says. ‘Our impulse then is to hold Sid to his original reason for taking part in this project: he felt he was going to experience something interesting with Jini. He should have the sense of honour to see the whole thing through with us.’

‘That is his responsibility as a philosopher: if you begin an investigation and something happens other than what you had hoped for beforehand, you shouldn’t say: “I don’t want to do this any more, I quit,”’ she continues. ‘You have to keep going. If Sid cannot do that himself at that moment, we will hold him to his calling as a philosopher.’

Honey Pot director Stefan Ruitenbeek has also spoken in the film’s defence. ‘You may regret it afterwards, but you cannot withdraw your consent,’ he says. ‘That isn’t how it works.’

‘Sid wanted to go to bed with Jini on camera, and I think he would have been very happy with the film if he had given Jini a good fuck, but that didn’t happen,’ he continues. ‘That is part of life too.’

Van Rooijen, who appeared in Honey Pot to promote her OnlyFans page, calls Lukkassen’s attitude ‘pathetic’. ‘He came to us of his own accord; he took part of his own accord,’ she says. ‘Sid Lukkassen is tough: after all, he himself says that women should be distributed among men.’

Several other parties besides Lukkassen oppose the release of Honey Pot. Kirac had previously been accused of glorifying sexual violence, and the feminist organisation Wonda Collective and the Revolutionair Verbond launched a petition to stop the film being released. It was to no avail, however. Honey Pot will soon be available on Kirac’s website, Vimeo and YouTube.

Source: De Morgen.