The Cyber-Dyke Network is the one-and-a-half year-old brainchild of Zille and Alexi Defeu, a Northern California lesbian couple who were looking for quality, hardcore lesbian porn and couldn't find it, so decided to make their own. They got their start with their own site, Darkplay, which features the couple and their friends and chronicles their kinky exploits. From there, they launched the Cyber-Dyke Network, teaming with similarly-minded site owners to pool resources and knowledge and provide consumers with a panoply of edgy, kinky lesbian porn.
AVN Online got the latest on the company from Zille, for whom Cyber-Dyke is a full-time endeavor (Alexi has another job in massage therapy and fitness instruction).
Asked about the inspiration behind Darkplay, Zille laments that despite many years of searching, she hadn't found porn that truly spoke to her. "We started DarkPlay because there was nothing we liked, porn-wise, on the Internet. Not because we didn't like porn. But because there was nothing we could find that was actually attractive to look at, and nothing that was smart. It seemed like whoever made the porn was assuming that the people viewing it were all mindless drooling automatons with the mentalities of five-year-olds. And that was just the stuff for guys. The stuff for women was just as bad, if not worse. There, the presupposition was that women liked 'erotica' and not down-n-dirty porn. The erotica available on the Web was either just written stuff, or bland vanilla art pics."
So they took matters into their own hands, documenting their own sex life and interests - primarily BDSM and fetish photography, often with a gothic twist. Darkplay often features special guests, usually friends of the couple's such as Jane Duvall of Jane's Guide, or other Cyber-Dyke site owners, who join them for specially-themed sets, as well as elaborate and entertaining (one being a Beauty and the Beast roleplay with Alexi as The Beast and Zille as Beauty). They also provide written commentary to go along with the sets, giving background information on the behind-the-scenes of the shoot and their sex lives.
The Defeus seem in no rush to hurry along the site's growth, content to let it grow organically; they add sites when people contact them or approach those whose ideas are in sync with their vision. In order to be considered, sites must update at least once per month; be unique, attractive and have original, exclusive content; and be easy to navigate. Members pay a monthly fee, with a discount for staying part of the network ($20 for the first month, $17 for the next, and $15 for every month thereafter) and have access to all the sites, which include the piss play site Leaky Girls, Shaved Dyke, anal sex site Posteriority, and the written erotica site StoryMistress, among others.
While all the content is created by women and largely aimed at them, Zille is clear that they are equal opportunity porn content providers, with their general membership consisting of 65 percent men, 35 percent women (although several sites such as Darkplay, StoryMistress and SapphosGirls have equal or greater numbers of female members). "In creating content for women - not the fluffy soft-core kind, but real hardcore content - we accidentally created the perfect content for men. There is no intruding male in the images - only women. If you want to see a woman take a big cock, you can see that, but your own masculinity is not threatened by it because you know it is just silicone or rubber, not some other guy. Our male fans are very satisfied by our sites and excited about what we are doing."
That being said, the duo is extremely eager to sign up more female customers. As Zille puts it, "I really, really want more women to sign up! Not only because it would help my company. It makes me feel really good when I see a woman's name on the sign-up info - because that means they are not afraid to spend a little money on themselves and their sexuality."
Though one might expect the realistic lesbian content (as opposed to the popular and more typical "girl-girl" scenarios) to have cost them business, Zille demurs. "I think what hurts us financially is that what we do is beautiful; it is 'thinkers' porn.' There are many customers out there who are not ready for it. They are used to ugly sites, to porn that doesn't make you think about - or perhaps even admit to yourself - your desires. I think we may be a bit ahead of our time, and the real money from what we are doing is many years down the road."
The Network has proved a boon not only to the Defeus, but to the individual site owners, who are given access to a wider audience for their work. StoryMistress editor Lori Selke was asked to join by Zille, who she met while working at the lesbian porn magazine On Our Backs. Selke, who is also the editor of the erotic fiction anthologies Tough Girls and Literotica, welcomes the sense of community and extra traffic gained by being part of the network. "I think I have a much wider audience as a result of the Cyber-Dyke Network; there's no way I would have tried to make this site work on its own. The Cyber-Dyke Network is what makes StoryMistress possible. Plus, I love having a community of Webmistresses to socialize with and trade tips and resources. It's so nice to be able to check out other Cyber-Dyke sites and see what's up, get ideas, and provide encouragement."
Aeden McKenna, who runs Cyber-Dyke sites Sappho's Girls, Faerie Fantasies, and Grrl Tools, concurs. "The one thing I'd like known about Cyber-Dyke is that there is absolute dedication and love that goes into each and every one of the sites. This isn't just a side project for us or something we work on occasionally, these sites are borne from intense effort, communication, and respect between the Webmistresses, models, and photographers. We attempt to take a different approach to adult sites and a brand new approach to how lesbian sexuality is depicted on the Web."
Because each site is extremely specific, the combination of all the sites allows the Network to cater to many specific fetishes and do a superior job with each, using people with a real lust for their subject matter, whether it's Lena Ramon's upcoming FistMistress site dedicating to fisting or Mistress Tatiana's endeavors into rope bondage. Each site is extremely personal and individualistic, providing a peek into a person's singular fetish, and expressing a real passion for the topic covered. Posteriority.net, a site dedicated to anal sex, asks the question, "What is it about a woman's ass that makes you melt into a puddle of lust?," and proceeds to answer it with numerous videos exploring all kinds of anal sex, with women doing themselves and each other in the ass with fingers, vibrators, and dildos, in imaginative positions.
Cyber-Dyke has recently launched the Angelfish Network, described by Zille as a "less-slutty younger sister of Cyber-Dyke." Angelfish, run by McKenna (who also hosts the Angelfish-affiliated site Pervgrrl.org, is a free site offering information, photos and networking opportunities for lesbians, and aims to get women talking about sex in a safe, accessible environment while also providing educational resources.
To keep both members and nonmembers informed, Cyber-Dyke offers a free newsletter with site updates and news. On the Cyber-Dyke wishlist are more vanilla sites and a site featuring mature lesbians. Zille is enthusiastic about these prospects, but also notes the collaborative nature of the Network means that she's constantly in search of willing models. "I would love to get those projects rolling, but we need to find more non-kinky dykes who would like to do a site, and some older lesbians who are not afraid of getting nekkid for the camera."
Because Cyber-Dyke is such a homegrown operation, they don't feel obligated to know exactly where they are headed at all times. Zille sounds optimistic about the future and the possibilities available to them. "Maybe someone I've never heard of yet will have some great proposal that changes things entirely. That's the joy of doing Cyber-Dyke: We don't know what we are doing, so we have no idea of our limits. That means we can do things other people don't think are possible - yet."
Rachel Kramer Bussel is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley and has studied at New York University School of Law. She has served on the boards of NOW-NYC and Lesbian Sex Mafia. Her writing has been published in The San Francisco Chronicle, BUST, Curve, Diva, Playgirl, On Our Backs, Citysearch, Oxygen.com, Libida, MSN.com, and elsewhere. Learn more at www.rachelkramerbussel.com.
