A hipster in a bowtie sips cognac on his vintage couch, some stylish deer head mounts peering from the wall behind him. Three young women with good manicures and tattoos devour eggs Benedict and gazpacho for brunch, pounding back "local wine" in an airy loft. A couple straight out of a J. Crew catalogue lounges on a luxury yacht, mimicking scenes from Titanic, albeit naked.

These are not the usual set-ups in a skin flick: there's nary a casting couch, plumber or pizza boy in sight. This is the pornography of Erika Lust, a Swedish political science major who decided to fine tune porn by making some herself.

The raspy-voiced, Converse-wearing pornographer and author of Good Porn: A Woman's Guide has spoken out over the years about shooting scenes that appeal to women. Currently, the filmmaker is making crowdsourced porn: the aforementioned scenes come from her Xconfessions project, which sees people anonymously e-mailing in their fantasies. These the Barcelona-based director builds into scripts and then shoots as high-production-value short films; to date Lust has shot 45 sexually explicit crowdsourced movies. After a screening this week at Toronto's Royal Cinema as part of the Good For Her Feminist Porn Awards, one audience member was struck by the remarkable display of "real boobs, real hair and real orgasms."

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Now, as a mother of two, Lust is also hoping to spark more discussion about how younger women and men internalize what they stumble upon online. Troubled by increasingly violent depictions in mainstream pornography, Lust is advocating for porn literacy taught as part of sexual health education in schools, so youth can think more critically about what they're seeing online, before they have sex themselves.

The Globe spoke with Lust about these concerns, her quest for "more cinematic films about sex" and why she finds the feminist porn label limiting – people assume the genre only appeals to women, but 60 per cent of the members on her website are men.

How did you decide to crowdsource porn plots from the public?

When I started to make films I had so many people approaching me with their ideas. There were many stories about sexuality that I never had seen on screen: when you let people speak, their sexuality is more surprising than conventional. But what I find most amazing is how well people write.

With the onslaught of online porn, it's heartening to know that people can still manufacture their own fantasies. What effect do you think mainstream porn has on the viewer?

We have this common idea of sexuality from pornography. That's where we get to see sex. Where else do you get to see sex? Most of us have sex in our bedroom with the door closed. It's a secret world.

Some people are able to separate what's happening on screen and what's happening in real life. These are people who've had sexual experiences in life – adult people. But what happens when you've never had sex before? You believe what you see is how it's actually done.

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We need to start speaking about porn to young people. When you've never had sex, looking at porn can make you feel terribly insecure about yourself. You don't look like these people and you have no clue how to do what they are doing. You're like, "Maybe I'm just not made for having sex."

Critics of mainstream porn argue that it's increasingly linking sex with aggression and shifting expectations in real world sex. Even the pornographers and porn stars I've interviewed will stress that using porn as sex ed is like watching a Hollywood action blockbuster, and treating the car chase sequence as a driving lesson.

All of this is about critical thinking. We need to communicate to younger generations that everything you see on screen is not okay. It's okay to protest and say, "I don't like it" and turn it off. Who wants to feel bad about themselves? The whole idea with porn is feeling good about yourself.

You've remarked that gender equality is being reached on many fronts, save for in porn, where women are increasingly degraded.

The industry has been in a crisis, business-wise. It was a strong industry with VHS-production; people were paying for movies. Then came the Internet and changed everything. Producers got nervous and some began making porn more and more extreme, hoping to get the audience back.

At the same time, consumers are becoming more aware. It started with food. You go to the supermarket and buy eggs: you want to know where they came from, if the hens were standing in a factory to make those eggs or if they were free to go wherever they wanted in the countryside. You prefer the countryside eggs, right? Not only because you like the idea of it but also because you like the taste better.

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We are getting to a place where people are starting to consider their porn this way: Who made this film? Were they responsible? Did they pay their actors? Did they make sure the actors had their health tests?

Are men interested in ethics when they look at porn?

Yes. Men also want something different. They also want to see movies where women aren't pressed up against the wall and smacked.

Isn't the "feminist porn" label a turnoff though?

These labels aren't helpful. People ask if there are only women in feminist porn. No. Also, there are many components involved in feminist porn beyond female pleasure. It's about telling interesting stories with interesting characters. I want it to happen in an interesting context in a great location. I want to know why they are in that situation, who they are, why they like each other. Show sex as sex is.

"The sex can stay dirty, but the values have to be clean," you've said. What are those values?

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It's basic: respecting people and making sure they are having a good time. Working with people who feel comfortable being in front of the camera and who aren't there because they're in a horrible situation with money so they're putting their body on the table.

Fundamentally, how are you rethinking pornography?

Porn is important and influential. This discourse is about sexuality, and I want to participate. My approach is having women involved in the whole process. My sound technician is a woman. My assistant director is a woman. My line producer is a woman. That really helps with the end result – our vision, we are looking for different things. The important thing is we're starting to take part in this genre.

Sweden's always been at the vanguard of sex ed. You guys don't just harp on the dangers; you get into sexual agency and pleasure. How does this figure into your worldview?

I have the advantage of having had a sex education that also spoke of the positive sides of sexuality. That's not really happening in most sex education, which is so technical, instead of teaching how you can better enjoy your body, your partner and your self. I was interviewed about the impact of pornography as part of a series of short documentaries made for high school kids in Sweden. They show them in class and discuss it. I didn't show any explicit images but we did speak about porn.

You have two daughters, age 4 and 7. Do they know what you do for a living?

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They know that I'm a filmmaker. They know that people in my movies many times are naked and that they kiss. They've seen naked statues and they've seen paintings in museums. They went with me to a Helmut Newton exhibition.

You've said you don't want them eating junk food, basing their body image on supermodels in fashion magazines, or learning sex from porn.

Eventually, they should be able to watch something that they find sexy and beautiful and nice and interesting.

This interview has been condensed and edited.